Tell Anna She's Safe (26 page)

*

JULY FIRST ARRIVED. SHE HAD
never made much of Canada Day. She certainly wasn't keen on fireworks. But Tim was excited about the celebrations, and his excitement was contagious. They planned to go to Parliament Hill that evening, to watch the display. During the day, the festive atmosphere permeating the city infected them both. They had a peaceful day of kind words and affectionate hugs; she even let Tim take her off to bed for an hour in the afternoon. She dozed contentedly in his arms afterward. It was worth being reminded that they did fit, sexually. More than with any other lover, even if he didn't kiss as well as Curtis.

When dusk came, she packed up a blanket and extra jackets for both of them. “I guess I should drive, shouldn't I?”

Tim nodded.

But she found herself wishing he could handle driving at night. On the way to the city centre, he did nothing but criticize: she wasn't watching carefully enough, she was following too closely, she wasn't quick enough off the mark when the light turned green. She reigned in her retorts, needing all her concentration to navigate through the traffic around the Hill. “Just find me a parking spot.”

There were no available street spots. The expensive lot they finally found was miles away, and the cars were squeezed in so tight she was afraid she was going to scratch her car. It didn't help to have Tim yelling at her to watch out every time she turned the wheel.

The crowds on the Hill were suffocating. The exhaust fumes from all the cars that had driven into the downtown core seemed to hang in the air. They found a place to sit, but barely had space to spread out the blanket.

“Why didn't we come earlier?” asked Tim. “You shoulda known it was gonna be this crowded.”

“I didn't know,” she retorted. “I never come here.”

The music from the performers was hundreds of decibels too loud. The fireworks sounded like rifle shots. She couldn't relax. Every time another firecracker went whistling up into the air, she grabbed Tim's arm, waiting for the explosion. She wished she'd brought her earplugs; she could have enjoyed the displays without the sound. Without the noise they were spectacular. She could feel her tension affecting Tim, making him tense too. Why hadn't they just stayed home and watched it on
TV
?

Finally the show was over. She pushed the panic away as people pushed at her, everyone wanting to get off the Hill at once.

She wanted a frozen yogurt, something to soothe her insides, but they couldn't find one on Bank Street. She was voluble in her complaints. It seemed unjust that after all she had just suffered she couldn't get a simple soothing snack.

And then Tim disappeared. She was walking down the street with him one minute, and the next he was gone. She stopped in her tracks, letting the crowd stream by her, her eyes searching frantically. But he was gone. As if he'd just walked away from her. Maybe he had. There was nothing to do but keep walking to the parking lot and go home. He'd call from a pay phone eventually.

There were no messages on the answering machine. She opened up the bag of popcorn she'd bought at the 7-11 on her way home and sat down on the couch to wait. She had devoured half the bag before the phone rang.

Tim's voice yelled in her ear. She held the receiver a foot away and could still hear him. This time, he said, he was really going to the police station. He was fed up. All she did was complain—about the crowds, and the firecracker noise, and the traffic fumes, and not getting her precious frozen yogurt. And not being able to take constructive criticism about her driving.

She did her own share of yelling. His “constructive criticism” had been back-seat driving. She didn't need his criticism.

“Some of your own medicine,” he shot back.

When he was finally done, forty-five minutes later, she got back in the car to bring him home.

18.

T
HE IMAGE OF LUCY'S PINK
teeth haunted me. It had been a hot spring, Quinn had said, and she hadn't been buried. But as disturbing as they were, the pink teeth were also oddly reassuring. Drowning had not been ruled out as a possibility. Maybe there
was
some truth to my visions. Even though they felt unreal now. I decided I would concentrate on finding out what had happened to Lucy
before
she'd gone missing. There were concrete answers out there somewhere.

Marc called as soon as he got back from the Dumoine. I could hear the excitement, the
rush
, of the river in his voice. These trips always energized him. I had been selfish to begrudge him. Except it had been all he
ever
wanted to do and talk about. I wasn't entirely to blame. Now he wanted to get together for dinner. But I was ready for him. Or rather, I
wasn't
ready for him. Curtis's words about taking the time to gain some emotional distance had hit a nerve. And Quinn, in his inimitable way, had been recommending distance too. The hug I'd given Marc before he'd left had shown me I needed it.

I felt his rush deflate when I told him. “We can still share the dogs, but I just don't think it's a good idea to spend time together right now. I need some time.
We
need some time. To adjust.”

I prepared myself for protests, or even silence, but to my surprise I got agreement. He admitted the hug had confused him, he had thought about me all week. I felt a pang of warmth for him, for this new openness. Why did closeness always come when you were on your way out? I had a sudden feeling that Lucy had probably felt the same way with Curtis. He'd said that as soon as he'd committed, she'd dumped him for Tim. But maybe as soon as he'd committed he'd stopped trying.
Until
she'd dumped him for Tim. And by then it would have been too late.

Marc and I came up with an amicable agreement for sharing the dogs while minimizing our own contact. But when I got off the phone I felt flat rather than relieved. It was necessary, I told myself. With Steve Quinn too. It would be good for me to have time away from both of them. And there were other people to call.

Curtis was a rare male who liked to talk on the phone. He enjoyed talking, period. I could see why Lucy had been attracted to him. Much more than I could see why she'd been attracted to Tim. Tonight I asked Curtis about his attraction to
her
. I leaned back on the futon couch, enjoying the sound of his voice in my ear. It was ten o'clock. We often called each other late in the evening and talked long into the night on our one-track topic.

“We were very compatible,” he was saying. “We were both vegetarians. We both loved the country. And downtown. We loved riding our bikes around. We both loved jazz. We loved to dance. To fuck. To talk and debate. No subject was taboo. You knew her—she had the quickest mind of just about any woman I've ever known. It was the negative dovetail that got in the way.”

“The what dovetail?”

“The negative dovetail. We fit together in a way that reinforced all the negative stuff we each had inside.”

“Oh, you mean bringing out the worst in each other.”

“Yeah,” said Curtis. “That too.” He paused. Then, “She was fuckin' crazy.”

“What were you doing with her then?”

Another pause. “I was attracted to the woman.”

“Is that all?”

“She was smart. She could make you believe black was white and up was down. She was in fuckin' denial.” He was scornful. And full of admiration. In spite of himself, it seemed. “What can I say? She turned my crank.”

“Sooo,” I drew out the word, hesitating. But I could feel Curtis waiting for me to speak. He liked me to challenge him. In this, too, he was a rare male. He didn't often change his mind, but at least he listened. I could see how this might have driven Lucy crazy. Someone listens, you think maybe they'll get your point, give one over to you. I had a feeling Curtis had rarely given one over to Lucy. He'd never given one over to me in all the weeks we'd been calling each other or getting together. But he let me talk.

“What were you going to say?” he prompted now. He was enjoying this. I could hear it in his voice.

“Well, just that you've given me compelling reasons why you got involved with Lucy. You made a choice. You can't blame her for that.” Our argument about victims was ongoing.

“I agree there's no point in blaming anyone,” he said. “I agree everyone is responsible for their actions. But I won't agree no one is a victim. I could drive down there and throw you across the room and you couldn't do anything about it, because I'm stronger than you.”

“Yes, but you wouldn't,” I said calmly. I was used to this violent example by now. It no longer shocked or worried me. I wasn't sure how I knew. But there was a certainty inside me that he was just blustering,
theorizing
, as disturbing as it was. “Anyway, you and your victims,” I added. “You sound just like the minister at the memorial service.”

“Why? Because you thought you were at a service for a woman who'd died of breast cancer?” I could hear the amusement in his voice.

I grimaced. “That and her assumption that Lucy had been a helpless victim. I didn't know Lucy very well, but she didn't come across to me as a victim of violence.”

Curtis gave a laugh that had no humour in it. “Lucy was not a victim of violence. You're right about that. But there was violence. I think she was
born
with it. She surrounded herself in it.”

I felt a kind of excitement rising in me. Had I been right that yelling and fighting had been a normal part of her interaction with people? But
why?

“Lucy wasn't a victim of violence,” he repeated. He made the most of his sentences. He would have made a good stage actor. He paused to make sure I was listening. Then he let fly the zinger: “She was the perpetrator.”

*

THE FIRST PERSON SHE EVER
hit was her mother. She hadn't meant to. It was six o'clock. Her father was in the sunroom with his paper. Her mother was in the kitchen. Anna was in her room, her stuffed animals arranged on the bed as if on a boat.

She ran downstairs to the kitchen. She wanted to help. She wanted to make her favourite
süti
—cookies—the ones that were actually two stuck together with jam.

“I want to make
legényfogó
,” she said to her mother's back.

It didn't come out right. She'd meant to ask nicely, not demand.

Her mother's back remained turned to her. “I'm making your father's dinner.”

She ran up to the counter. She almost touched her mother's skirt. She looked up with a big grin on her face. Playful. “Not mine too?”

No response.

“Not mine? Not Anna's?”

There was a sigh from her mother. She wasn't supposed to sigh. She was supposed to laugh, to get the joke.

“Mine too,” she insisted. “You're making my dinner, too. Right? And Anna's. Right?”

It was a joke. She wanted her mother to laugh. And it was true. She wanted her mother to say yes!

Still no response. Her frustration escalated. “You're making my dinner too! And Anna's. And yours. We're all eating!”

Her mother turned and stared down at her.

She waited. She held her breath. She had yelled, so now her mother was supposed to get mad. She was supposed to smack her. That's what happened in other people's houses.

But not in her house. Her mother just kept staring. As if she wasn't there. Or as if her mother wasn't there.

Her mother was supposed to be there. She reached out to touch her. She wanted to make sure her mother was really there. She was so anxious, her hand extended faster than she intended. And in a fist. Right in her mother's stomach. Hard.

There was a soft thud. A groan from her mother. An expulsion of air. Her mother's hand gripping her own stomach. And then the air was suddenly charged with tension, fear, excitement. The kitchen door was swinging with it; her father was in the room.

This was it. He was going to come over and wallop her for sure. And she'd be able to kick and punch and yell. And then it would be over. And everyone would feel better.

But her father just stood in the doorway. Newspaper folded in one hand.

“What is going on, Susan?”

Everything was in slow motion. The way she turned her head to look up at her mother. The way she had to wait—fear, hope, fear, hope—for her response. The way her mother removed her hand from her stomach and took in a long breath.

“It's alright, Michael. Lucy just wanted to help.”

Disbelief. Disappointment. Rage. “I did not! I did not!”

She threw herself down on the floor, where she could kick and punch and yell. If only the floor would fight back. If only she would feel better after.

When she was spent, tear-stained, bruised, she found herself alone on the kitchen floor. Everything was still. Even the kitchen door had stopped swinging.

The floor was hard. She pressed herself against it. She wanted it to yield. When it didn't, she picked herself up and took her bruised bones up to her room. She threw herself face down on the bed. The bed yielded only a little.

She couldn't believe she had punched her mother. That no one had punched her back. She thought about her fist sinking into her mother's stomach. It had been softer than she'd expected. Her fist had gone in deeper than she'd expected.

It was the first physical contact she could remember ever having with her mother. She replayed it over and over in her mind. She slowed it down. She made it gentle.

She put her hand on her own bare tummy and pretended it was her mother's tummy. Her mother's stomach got even softer. It pulled her fist in gently, surrounded it with softness. It loosened her fingers and made them relax, so there was no more fist. There were just her fingers caressing her tummy.

It felt good to have her hand on her tummy. She pretended her hand was her mother's hand. Stroking. Comforting.

And then the hand slipped farther down her tummy, to the place where things started to tingle. And even farther down, to the place that created the warmth and the tingling. She crawled under the covers and pulled them up around her chin, and stroked herself to sleep.

*

QUINN'S FINGERS STROKED ME AWAKE.
They knew their instrument. They played it delicately, eliciting a yearning song of sensation from every nerve ending. Warmth spread from my groin to my whole body. And then I was burning up.

I opened my eyes and found myself in my own bed. Alone. Soaked in sweat. There were no sensitive fingers on my groin. Not even my own. The heat was from the duvet I must have pulled over me sometime in the night. It was still night. Four a.m.

I got up, exchanging my damp
T
-shirt for a dry one. It wasn't the first time I wished I had the nerve just to go down to the river on a hot night and jump in. This August was a hotter one than usual, even the nights. A shower would have to do. A
cold
one.

The face in the dream had been Quinn's, but the touch … I had to admit, the touch had been Marc's. I put the dream out of my mind and returned my thoughts to my conversation with Curtis.

I had never experienced the kind of anger and frustration he had described. Thank God. I thought back to the few times I had been the target of Lucy's wrath. It wasn't anything to take personally. It warranted sympathy—for the little girl inside Lucy who was only looking for a sign, any sign—a slap was as good as a hug—that she was loved. But over the years, all anger had brought was disaster. Unfulfilled relationships. Physical and verbal abuse heaped on her head. The stripping away of her money, her dignity. Regret, possibly, that she'd ever left Curtis. A slow road to hell. Was that all there had been to the last year of her life? All the evidence pointed to it. All the evidence, at least, that I'd gathered so far.

It was, I decided, as I cooled my frustrated flesh under the shower, time to call Trish.

*

SHE WAS READING OVER AN
ad he'd put together to advertise his handyman business. It was full of spelling errors. She had a red pen in her hand. Circling them, she felt like her father. Exacting. Relentless. But she couldn't help herself.

Tim was looking over her shoulder. “Give me a fucking break! I can't do this right, I can't do that right. You're a fucking nit-picking bitch. Curtis should get a prize for putting up with you for so long.”

She was on her feet, coming at him with her fists. How dare he call her a bitch. How dare he bring Curtis into this.

Tim knocked her fists away from him as if they were flies. She stumbled and he grabbed her hair and pulled her back to her feet. Flung her back into the kitchen chair.