Gail Bowen - The Endless Knot

He shook his head. “Those three are never a person short, Jo.” He lowered himself onto the ottoman that faced my chair.

“In a few hours there’ll be 250 kilometres between Charlie and you,” I said.

“True, but Charlie will continue to be a presence in our lives. Did you know that Pete’s moving in with him?”

“Nobody told me,” I said.

“Apparently, they’ve been considering it for a while. Mieka said Charlie and Pete were concerned that sharing a house might put a strain on their friendship. I can’t imagine anything coming between the three of them, but I guess it was a valid concern. Anyway, now that he’s got his clinic, Pete’s short of money, and Charlie never misses a chance to burrow in.” There was a bitterness in Greg’s voice that I hadn’t heard before.

“Greg, the trial will be over in a month. Why don’t you leave the girls with me? You and Mieka could go some place warm and rediscover the magic?”

“What if the magic is gone?”

I smiled at him. “Then you’ll have to find something else to get you through the next forty years.”

The Big Comfy Couch was coming to a close. As she always did, Loonette, the clown, was discovering that in the course of her adventures, she had made a mess.

“Madeleine, here comes our favourite part,” I said.

Madeleine nodded vigorously. “The Ten Second Tidy.”

The four of us watched in silence as Loonette, with the jerky moves of a character in an old-time movie, found a place for everything in the commodious contours of the big comfy couch. When she was done, Loonette and Molly Dolly curled up under their purple silk cover. Harmony had returned to Clown Town.

“Think I could find a couch big enough to swallow Charlie?” Greg said. Then he shook his head in disgust. “Sorry, Jo. I’m becoming a self-pitying asshole.” He walked over, turned off the TV, and scooped up his daughters. As they squealed, he played Falstaff. “All right, my scullions, my rampallions, my fustilarians. Time to get dressed, and if I hear a word of complaint, I’ll tickle your catastrophe.”

Greg and I met the canoeists at the dock. I sent Charlie and Pete up to strip the beds; then Mieka and Greg bundled their daughters into their life jackets and took them for a ride in their favourite red canoe.

I was standing on the dock, watching my daughter and her family vanish around the point, when Taylor and Isobel came down and announced they were going to make certain the Inukshuks they had built this summer were winter-worthy. Each of the Inukshuk had a sight hole in the middle. By peering through it, lost travellers could get their bearings and be guided along the route to the next Inukshuk. As a service to those who would be wandering the shore without a global positioning system in the coming winter, Isobel and Taylor planned to verify the accuracy of the sight holes.

I went with them. There was one particular Inukshuk I needed to visit. As we started around the horseshoe, the wind came up, and the girls and I pulled up the hoods of our jackets and jammed our hands in our pockets. All summer the girls had made it clear that Project Inukshuk was theirs, so that morning I stood aside as they went about their work: packing dirt around a rock that rested on unstable ground; adjusting a flat stone that wasn’t placed correctly; checking the view from a sight hole. When they’d finished their work on the Inukshuk at the tip of the west arm, I stayed behind. Without question or comment, the girls went ahead. They knew I wanted to be alone.

The sight hole on this particular Inukshuk pointed towards an old cottonwood tree across the water at the edge of Lake View cemetery. A man I had cared about deeply had been buried there the previous summer. Alex Kequahtooway had been born a few kilometres away on Standing Buffalo Reserve. He had lived with honour, and my life and the lives of my children had been enriched by knowing him. As I watched the graceful branches of the cottonwood move in the wind, and breathed in autumn’s pungent scent of decay and promise, I remembered him and said a prayer that this good man had found peace.

The electric blue PT Cruiser was still in Zack’s driveway when I came back. Sam’s dream team was still hard at it, so I went over to Mieka’s. Greg had already packed and loaded their car, and he and Pete and Charlie had taken the girls down to the Point store for a final ice cream cone. Unencumbered, Mieka and I set about the bittersweet preparation for our last meal together at the lake.

The menu required no forethought and less effort: turkey leftovers and Mieka’s sweet-potato soup, a recipe born of necessity and, in my opinion, fit for the gods. After the soup was simmering and the plates and cutlery were set out for a buffet, I turned to my daughter. “What do you want to do with the rest of the morning?”

Mieka glanced around, spotted a football, and picked it up. “Want to toss around the football?”

“I could stand to burn a few calories,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Outside, Mieka bounced on her toes a few times, then raised her arms towards the sun. “Great day,” she said.

“It is a great day,” I said. “And it’s good to see you smiling.”

“Fake it until you make it,” she said. “And I’m going to make it, Mum. Greg’s right. The business has a great future. We have a great future.”

“And it’s the future you want,” I said.

“It’s the future I have,” she said. “It’s just that every so often ‘I have immortal longings in me.’ ”

I squeezed her arm. “You don’t often quote Shakespeare.”

Mieka’s eyes widened. “That is Shakespeare, isn’t it? Lately, I’ve been wishing I’d paid more attention in English class. Ms. Boucher, my Grade 11 teacher, drilled us in those speeches. But I haven’t a clue where that line about immortal longings comes from.”

“ Antony and Cleopatra . Cleopatra says it just before she commits suicide.”

“Ms. Boucher tried to talk about context, but there were no extra marks, so I dozed.” Mieka’s tone was wistful, but she shrugged off the memory. “Too late now, I guess. Might as well forget about Shakespeare and just throw the ball around.”

And we did. The rest of the family came home and within minutes our mum-and-daughter moment evolved into a game of shirts and skins. Charlie made certain he was on Mieka’s team. For sheer mindless pleasure, few things beat throwing a football around in the cool autumn air, and when the door to Zack’s cottage opened, I called time and beckoned to Zack and his company to join us.

Zack introduced his associates. The man, tall and muscular with the curly hair and sculpted mouth of a Michelangelo angel, was Sean Barton. The woman, a sprite with blonde hair cut boy-short, a snub nose, and clever assessing eyes, was Arden Korchinski. Both were wearing jeans and College of Law sweatshirts.

Charlie took control of the situation. “Why don’t you guys join us.”

Sean was clearly eager, but he was also polite. “Are you sure?” he said. “We don’t want to wreck your game.”

“My game is wrecking me,” I said. “I’ve had enough. Besides, my granddaughters appear to need some supervision. You take over for me. Arden can play on Charlie’s team.” I glanced at Zack. “In or out?”

“In,” he said. “And I’ll play on your old team.”

“You really think it takes you and Sean to replace me,” I said.

“No one could replace you,” Zack said.

I kissed the top of his head. “Go get ’em, tiger.”

As he always did, Zack played hard, giving no quarter and expecting none. Arden and Sean were both natural athletes, lithe, quick, and aggressive. Huddled with my granddaughters in an old Hudson’s Bay blanket singing nonsense songs and cheering on whoever happened to have the ball was, in my opinion, the perfect way to end the weekend.