Gail Bowen - The Endless Knot

“It’s not just Margot, it’s everything. I just wonder if we’re moving too fast.”

“You think that hasn’t occurred to me. Jo, ask anybody – ask Margot, for crissake – I’ve never been known to rush into commitments. There was never any reason. I had everything I needed: my job and my law partners, and then last summer when Chris drove his car into the lake and everything at Falconer Shreve turned to shit, I felt like somebody had dropped a piano on me. When I was finally able to focus, there you were. And despite everything, even losing Chris, I knew that the best part of my life had just begun.”

Zack had been sitting across from me at the table. He moved his chair so he was beside me. “And now it seems you’re finished with me,” he said. He was pale and the shadows of exhaustion under his eyes were deep.

But it wasn’t pity that drew me to him. The words formed themselves. “Whatever happens, I’ll never be finished with you,” I said.

He slumped with relief. “And I’ll never be finished with you,” he said. “Not ever. Come here. Let me unzip you.” I stood and turned so he could undo my dress. I let it fall to the floor. I was still wearing my bra and the black slip with the lilies Zack liked.

He kissed the small of my back. “I think we’re ready to get married,” Zack said.

I turned to face him. “So do I,” I said.

He drew me to him. “Thank God for that,” he said. “Thank God for that.”

CHAPTER

9

My first thought when I awoke the next morning was that Zack and I were, in the parlance of a gentler time, betrothed. My second thought was that we had forty-five minutes to shower, dress, and get to the airport if we were going to catch the 6:00 a.m. flight that would get us back to Regina in time for the trial.

It was going to be a big day. Kathryn Morrissey was testifying. The filmmaker Jean Renoir once said that the trouble with life is that everyone has his reasons, and Kathryn, articulate, attractive, and intelligent, would be a force to be reckoned with as she explained hers. Even Garth Severight wouldn’t be able to blunt her effectiveness on the stand. Since Too Much Hope had been published, Kathryn had given a hundred interviews placing her actions in a context that suggested she was acting in the finest traditions of the third estate. She was going to be a thorny problem for the defence, but as the propellers revved for the flight home and Zack snapped open his computer, his focus was not on the Crown prosecutor’s appealing victim but on real estate.

“I found us a house,” he said. “I must have looked at fifty listings, and I knew you wouldn’t like any of them, but this one is different.”

“Can I see it?”

Zack slid his laptop over to me. I glanced at the screen. “I know that house,” I said. “I’ve walked by it a thousand, thousand times.”

The statement was not hyperbole. I had lived in my house for more than thirty years, and this house was on my route when I ran in the morning. In a neighbourhood of two- and three-storey houses where people tended to visit, it was an oddity – a sprawling, well-tended, one-storey ranch house that never showed signs that human beings lived inside. No toys, bikes, basketball hoops, seasonal wreaths, or holiday lights – just stone gargoyles on either side of the front door and discrete but tasteful landscaping that did not draw attention to itself. It was a quiet house that looked over the same creek my house backed onto.

“Ever been inside?” Zack said.

“No.”

“Well, click onto the virtual tour. That’ll give you an idea. Incidentally, if you don’t like it, I’m going to suck gas.”

“But I shouldn’t feel any pressure,” I said.

“Nah, of course not.” His tone was light, but as I gazed at the pictures his eyes never left my face.

Zack had no cause for concern. The house was a winner. The rooms were spacious, the windows were large, and the hardwood floors seemed splashed with sun. The kitchen was strictly 1960s, but it had generous counter space, hickory cupboards, and a walk-in pantry. The bedroom Zack and I would use opened onto a deck that looked out on the creek. There was also, mirabile dictu , an indoor swimming pool. “I think we just got Taylor’s vote,” I said.

“How about your vote?” Zack said.

I took his hand. “It’s a great house,” I said. “But this is a big step for me. I’ve lived in my place since Mieka was born.”

“If you don’t want to move, we can get your house retrofitted.”

“It’s a two-storey house. Zack. We’d have to put one of those gizmos on the stairs so you could get up to the second floor. You’d hate that.”

“I could live with it. I want to be with you, Jo. I can put up with whatever it takes. I’m not going to fuck around about something as insignificant as having to use a gizmo.”

I met his gaze. “You’d really put up with that just to please me?”

“Sure. We’re not kids. We don’t know how much time we have.” His look was searching. “So what do you think?”

I rubbed his hand. “I think we should make an offer on the new house,” I said.

Zack was meeting Sam at the office before court, so on the way back from the airport he dropped me at my house. Whether I’d been absent for ten minutes or ten days, Willie was ecstatic to see me. Like Zack, he believed in going for what he wanted. In Willie’s case, it was his leash. I snapped it on, changed into my runners, and headed for the door. When I opened it, Ethan Thorpe was facing me.

We both jumped. Ethan blushed and stared at his feet. “You must think I’m a stalker or something. I just didn’t want to miss Taylor.”

“But you did miss her,” I said. “I was in Saskatoon last night, so Taylor stayed with a friend.”

“A friend,” he repeated miserably.

“You can see her at school,” I said.

“I wasn’t planning to go to school,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s going to be a bad day,” he said. He fingered the pentangle that hung from the piece of hemp around his neck. “Sometimes, it’s just easier to stay away.”

“Ethan, why do you wear that pentangle?”

“The same reason Gawain did – to remind me that I should have courage and seek the truth.” He flushed. “I get the message,” he said. “I should be more like Gawain.”

“You could give it a try.”

When Ethan left, he was headed in the direction of school, but he was a boy who could change direction easily. He wasn’t mine, but I felt the kinship an adult who has been solitary as a child feels for the lonely, and I found myself hoping that wherever he was going, he would make it.

I checked my watch and realized that if I was going to make it to court by nine o’clock, Willie and I would have to truncate our run. Instead of setting out for the lake, I led Willie through the backyard towards the levee that the city had built on both sides of the creek to protect us from floods during spring runoff. Indigenous bushes had been planted on the banks and now, after an early snow, the few leaves that clung to the branches had a spare Japanese beauty. Willie and I crossed the bridge that linked my neighbourhood, Old Lakeview, with the Crescents, the neighbourhood of the house where Zack and my daughter and I might now live.

I walked along the levee until I came to the spot where it met the yard of my new house. The levee’s uneven turf was not favoured by joggers, so Willie and I were able to sit on a rock in the pale morning sunshine and reflect in peace on the changes that were about to overtake our lives.

I had told Zack that the indoor swimming pool would win Taylor’s vote, but it was the new house’s proximity to the creek that won mine. My life and the lives of my husband and children had been inextricably linked to it. When Ian had come back from a rancorous night in the legislature – too much emotion and too much Scotch, we had walked along the bank of the creek until his head was clear enough for sleep. In the year after he died, I’d walked the creek alone – remembering, and trying not to remember.