In the First Early Days of My Death (11 page)

“Why did you move to Canada?” she asked.

“My mother grew up here, in Winnipeg. She met my dad in Hawaii when she took a vacation there. So then, when she left him…” He shrugged.

So, he was a child of a broken home, too. They had something in common. A bond.

“Have you ever been to Golden?” she asked. She tried to tell him how the light hit the mountains there, but she couldn't get the words right. She sounded dumb, and Alika was growing distracted, bored with her.

Evelyn felt that old, panicky flutter in her chest, that feeling that she might crack in two. She had to get his attention, make him see her again. So she told him the story of her brother, Mark, and he listened. He was sympathetic, placing one of his large, warm hands over hers, sending a tingle through the veins of her arm into her heart. But afterwards he never called her. He didn't come back to the store for a whole week.

Evelyn knew the name of his gym from the membership card in his wallet, and she strolled up and down the sidewalk in front of it, trying to look casual, stopping for coffee in the restaurant across the road, watching the gym door through the window. When Alika came out, she ran right into him. What a surprise, he said. Of course they just had to go for coffee.

As she sat across from him in the restaurant, trying to force another coffee into her stomach, Evelyn realized Alika wasn't interested in what she was saying. When he said goodbye so easily it almost broke her heart, he made no promise to call. But she remembered where he worked, where he shopped, his home address. He had invited her to all these places by leaving his wallet on her counter.

Evelyn got up from the couch and retrieved her phone from the kitchen. Then she snuggled back under her quilt and dialled Alika's number. She'd been calling him several times a day, since she learned that Wendy was in the hospital, but she was never able to reach him. Tonight it was the same. Wendy's voice on the answering machine. Evelyn hung up. She laid the phone on her belly and closed her eyes, losing herself again in the memory of the happiest days of her life.

One evening, a year ago last spring, Alika and Evelyn ran into each other for the sixth time. Or was it the fifth? Evelyn counted. No. It was the sixth time, and Alika had taken her to a lounge for drinks. And that night he'd taken her home. To his house. She never wanted to leave.

All last June and July, she went to his house every Friday night and spent the weekend, working at making him fall in love with her, at making his house her home. She left her toothbrush, a comb, articles of clothing. She was only waiting for the word from Alika and she'd give up her apartment. She bought a new mat for his bathroom floor and stocked his shelves with her own favourite brand of shampoo. She dug up his garden, even planted those doomed roses.

The roses were cursed. It was because of the roses that Alika met Wendy.

Sure, everyone was thinking about me, but no one believed in me anymore. It was unfair.

Evelyn could sense my presence, and I made sure to haunt her as often as I could. It was lonely, though. It seemed unfair that the only person who believed in me was my own murderer. I mean, something had happened to me, at last. Something momentous. All my life I'd been of little consequence, a nobody, a person whose very birth was accidental, a person shifted from family to family at the merest whim of circumstance. And here I was, outrageously wronged, at the very centre of a tragic drama, and nobody even knew about it.

I tried to tell Felix about it, to convince him to give up on questioning Alika, that Alika didn't know anything, and that he should question Evelyn again. But he couldn't hear me. I don't think he believed in the afterlife. He didn't seem to have any religion at all except for the bibliomancy he practised. Every morning he tossed coins on a table top and consulted the
I Ching
, though he didn't seem to find any answers in there about my murder. But I could tell he wasn't giving up. He spent a lot of time in his office leafing through the file that held the unfinished story of my death. He'd sigh and rub his head with his hands. He had that look people get when they know there's something they've missed, something that's nagging at them. So I tried to be patient. I was sure he'd figure it out soon, provide some sense of closure to this thing, and Evelyn would be punished. Then I'd finally be able to — well, I wasn't sure what I'd be able to do.

Louise had lost two thousand dollars in the past week, even though she'd played every day. The household account was dangerously low, especially since the mayor had bought himself a handsome new tailor-made pin-striped suit with wide lapels that made him look like a Hollywood gangster.

She needed Bradley Byrnes, but she hadn't been able to reach him for days. So today, though she'd just come from a late afternoon tea at the Chamber of Commerce, and wasn't disguised in the least, she'd taken a chance and come up to his consulting firm.

She waited in the lobby of his building until his receptionist left for the day, and then she took the elevator to the nineteenth floor. He was furious when she walked into his inner office.

“What are you doing here?” He locked the door behind her.

“Why don't you return my calls?”

“I've been busy.” Now that the door was locked, he relaxed a bit. He pecked her on the cheek, caressed her hips. “I was going to call you tomorrow.”

“Uh huh,” said Louise. “Well, I can't wait until tomorrow. I'm in — I'm a little short this month.”

“I can fix that,” he said. He smiled as he drew his cheque book from his pocket and began to write. “But you remember what we talked about? Last week? I haven't seen any action on that front.”

“I know. I talked to him.”

“Well, he hasn't done anything. The injunction's still standing. Every day that goes by is money down the drain. And our investors are getting nervous. If they start pulling out — ”

“I know, I know.” Louise reached for the cheque, but Byrnes held it up above her head. With his other hand, he drew an envelope from his inside pocket.

“It's a simple matter to fix,” he said. “A few words in the right places. Give this to your husband, and you'll have nothing to worry about.”

Louise took the cheque and the envelope and stuffed them in her straw purse. Nothing to worry about? What the hell did he mean? She placed her hand on the doorknob, planning to flounce out without so much as a kiss goodbye.

But Byrnes grabbed her, hard, by the wrist.

“Not that way,” he said. “Take the freight elevator and leave through the loading zone at the back. For God's sake, if anyone sees us together now we're screwed.”

As she minced down the alley in her new silk sandals, dodging broken glass and garbage, Louise was fuming. She'd thought she was finished with this damned casino business. She'd thought it was over and done with and Byrnes was in her debt for good. But now he wanted more.

Back at home, she locked herself in her bedroom and opened the envelope. Newspaper clippings. Louise read the first article, something about a trial ten years ago, a trial presided over by the same judge who was in charge of the injunction against demolishing the Walker Theatre. He had given a suspended sentence to a stockbroker accused of embezzling. There were nine articles altogether, spanning twelve years, and in each one the same judge had let somebody off for something.

She hoped Bradley Byrnes knew what he was doing.

The garden was overgrown and past all hope now, Noni thought. Only Wendy knew the peculiarities of each plant, each one's special needs. Noni wasn't even sure she knew the difference between a dillweed and a carrot top. It was the first of September, and soon the plants would go to seed, ruining the garden, wasting it. Then Noni would have to phone someone from the yellow pages to come and dig the garden under, but she didn't want to think about that. That was too final. She dipped her spoon into her bowl and tried to eat some of Rosa's pea soup. Maybe she could tempt Alika, who was sitting in front of his own soup, watching it grow cold. But her throat wouldn't open.

Soon it would be time to drive to the hospital again, where they conducted a vigil that filled Noni with dread. Because Wendy wasn't at the hospital. Wendy was lost, and Noni didn't want to look at the body she'd left behind. It lay there, apparently complete, content to rest in its bed almost casually, as though nothing were wrong. Alika spent hours looking at it, and Rosa often talked to it, but Noni hated it. Noni wanted Wendy back, and she often had to leave the building to cry in the parking lot.

Alika did not cry. He didn't even speak of the catastrophe. But Noni noticed that everything slipped through his fingers these days — teacups, pepper shakers, pencils, keys. He had broken most of the wine glasses in the house. Rosa brought him home-made casseroles and fresh salads, but he barely touched them. He was losing weight, growing pale. The scars on his face stood out more prominently than ever.

The doctor had explained several times now, in patient detail, that Wendy might never wake up. The respirator was keeping her lungs and heart functioning. Feeding tubes had been attached to nourish the body, but Wendy's coma, he said, was the deepest he'd ever seen. The possibility of brain damage was high. He suggested gently that the feeding tubes could be removed, if the family decided it was for the best.

“No,” Alika said.

It hadn't rained once since the night I died, and the garden was beginning to shrivel. The only plants thriving were the weeds. I was worried about the vegetables. They were ninety percent water, after all, didn't Alika know that?

No, I reminded myself, he didn't.

I thought he would miss all the chores I'd performed on a daily basis, but he didn't seem to notice. He didn't seem to care about the things I'd left undone. Did he think that the house would tidy itself? That his drawers would fill up with clean socks of their own accord? Objects lay about the house just as I'd left them. The spoons I was going to clean, more tarnished than ever. The open tin of polish. He hadn't even put the cap back on. He didn't sleep in our bed anymore. Upstairs, the bed remained unmade, the pillow lying carelessly tossed aside since the morning I'd found that stocking. On the dresser, my music box was still open, the way I'd left it, all my personal items jumbled about in plain view.