She never abandons him. She never …”
I cut him off. “Sorry I bothered you,” I said, and I slammed down the receiver. I was still shaking with anger when the phone rang. When I picked up the receiver and heard Keith Harris’s voice, it seemed as if providence was taking a hand in the sorry mess of my life.
“Are you okay, Jo?” he asked. “You sound a little down.”
“Nothing a few kind words won’t fix.”
“My pleasure,” he said. “Now, listen. I have news.”
As Keith gave me an account of the latest episode in his fortunate life, I felt my pulse slow and my spirits rise. The tenant who had sublet his father’s Regina apartment was moving out at the end of September, and Keith saw the freeing up of the apartment as significant. “Everything’s working out just the way it’s supposed to,” he said. “Part of a larger cosmic plan.” As I hung up, I decided that maybe it was time to step aside and let the universe unfold as it should. The rhythms of everyday life pushed us ahead. I talked to Mieka and Greg every night and we e-mailed each other every day. Their news was as miraculous as it was commonplace. Madeleine was eating and growing and discovering. When I told them about the attack on Hilda, I tried to minimize her injuries, but as my daughter continued to press me about coming up to Saskatoon again, I was forced to tell her the truth. Mieka had always loved Hilda, and the anxiety in her voice when she asked for details saddened me. Those first days with Madeleine should have been a time of cloudless joy, but it seemed that days of cloudless joy were in short supply that September.
I taught Taylor how to send messages to Madeleine on e-mail, and she and Jesse got an A for their project on owls. Even these accomplishments weren’t enough to offset my daughter’s awareness that all was not right in her world. My daily reports on Hilda’s progress appeared to reassure her, but Taylor continued to be perplexed about Alex and Eli’s absence from our lives. My explanation that Alex and I had just decided to spend some time apart didn’t satisfy her. It didn’t satisfy me either, but as unsatisfactory as the story was, I didn’t have a better one. Alex didn’t call, and after a few days I stopped expecting him to. As the third week of school started, Anita Greyeyes, the woman who would have been Eli’s teacher, phoned to ask me what arrangements had been made about Eli’s schooling. I gave her Alex’s work and home numbers and told her that she should deal with him directly. Another link had been severed.
My professional life was moving into high gear. My classes were taking shape, the inevitable academic committee meetings had begun, and Jill and I had started to mull over topics that might work on our first political panel of the new season.
I visited Hilda at least once every day, and here the news was good. Even my untutored eye could discern cause for hope. Increasingly, as I read to her or as we listened to the radio together, she became restless, as if she were wearying of her long sleep. Even her stillness seemed closer to healthy consciousness. Nathan Wolfe was encouraged too. Hilda’s numbers on the Glasgow Coma Scale were rising, and Nathan and I fussed over each incremental gain like new parents. Despite our hovering and hoping, when the breakthrough finally came it had the force of a surprise.
It was on a Friday afternoon, thirteen days after Hilda had been assaulted. I’d come to the hospital just after lunch. My morning had been busy, and Hilda’s room was warm. From the moment I started to read, I could feel my eyelids grow heavy. After five minutes, I closed my book, turned up the radio, leaned back in my chair, and gave myself over to the considerable pleasures of Henry Purcell. When I woke up, “Rejoice in the Lord Alway” had been replaced by the news, and, for once, there was news worth noting.
Boys playing along the shoreline of Wascana Lake had discovered the marble-based scales that had been used to bludgeon Justine Blackwell to death. The scales, which had been presented to Justine with such fanfare at the dinner were half-buried in the gumbo of the lake bed. It was a case of sic transit gloria mundi, but it was also a