The Endless Knot (27 page)

We were a family who found comfort in settling into the old grooves, but that year, for many reasons, the old grooves were no longer a comfortable fit. Mieka and Greg were still together, but they’d come to Regina at the end of November to tell us they were going to give their girls the best Christmas possible, then separate in the New Year. I was heartsick, but I was powerless to change the situation and so I focused on getting us through holidays.

It wasn’t easy. Greg had been at the centre of our festivities for thirteen years. He was the one who made the eggnog, led the carol singing, and shook the sleigh bells outside the window to tell us all that Santa was on his way. Knowing that this would be the last time he would be a part of our traditions would be painful for us all.

Taylor, too, was a concern. When I first broached the subject of moving, she was reluctant. The Regina Avenue house was the only home she could remember, but since the morning of her birthday the bad memories had crowded out the good. When she told me she no longer felt safe at the old house, I realized that Christmas there would be, at best, a mixed experience for her. Finally, there was Zack. He was, as Taylor memorably put it, my big sparkly top banana, but he had played no role in the years of Christmases we had celebrated on Regina Avenue.

It was time to start over, and so we went to the lake. Our decision was a good one. Zack’s partners and their families came out for the holidays too. The weather was cold and bright, and the snow was carol-perfect: deep and crisp and even. We skied, skated, tobogganed, ate too much, and went to bed early. We bought the last tree from a lot in Fort Qu’Appelle. The tree, of uncertain parentage, was frozen solid, and when it thawed, we discovered serious flaws. We strung it with lights that we paid far too much for, turned its bad side to the wall, and decorated it with paper snow-flakes and marshmallows. We all agreed it was the most beautiful tree ever.

Given the circumstances, it was a good Christmas, and there was an unexpected gift. Over the holidays, Pantera found the owner with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Pete and he had tried to make a go of it, but Pantera was too gregarious to spend days cheering up ailing animals at the clinic and too rambunctious to be left alone. Pantera did, however, love Zack, tolerate Taylor and me, and get along surprisingly well with Willie. And so, Zack and I left the lake to begin our life as a family with our daughter, her two cats, and our two dogs.

After Zack and I had announced our engagement, there had been no shortage of suggestions about the kind of wedding Zack and I should have. Angus was persuasive about the delights of a destination wedding – preferably somewhere he and Leah could surf and toss around a Frisbee. The idea of getting married on a beach with the waves splashing against the shore was appealing, but travel was difficult for Zack, so Bali was out. Taylor loved the idea of a formal wedding. When we cleaned out the basement, she unearthed the picture of the wedding gown I’d drawn for
Katy Keene
comics and showed it to Zack. He was fulsome in his praise. He was particularly fond of the way the doves nestling on Katy’s breasts reached towards one another to exchange a beaky kiss over her cleavage. But in the end we decided on something less elaborate.

When we told James that we wanted the quietest of weddings, he pointed out that in the Anglican Church, couples can marry during the ordinary morning service. The provision is an old one, a leftover from the days when flushed, apple-cheeked lads and lasses donned their Sunday best, stepped forth during the service to be married, and went back to picking hops or hoeing turnips the next day. The simplicity of the service appealed to us both, and so Zack and I were married during the Cathedral’s 10:30 Eucharist.

Not many people attend church on New Year’s Day. In addition to our family and Zack’s partners and their families, there were fewer than thirty congregants. The worshippers were evenly split between smartly dressed ladies from the seniors’ home next door and street people who wanted a place of warmth on a cold day. Mieka and Zack’s partner, Blake Falconer, were our witnesses. I carried a spray of white orchids and Zack had a boutonniere of marigolds.

Not surprisingly, the sermon was about beginnings, and James was pensive as he discussed the fact that Zack and I had chosen this first day of the New Year to begin our marriage. He quoted a Kierkegaard scholar who wrote that human existence requires real passion as well as thought, and James said that he was certain two people as passionate and thoughtful as we were could make a fine life together. He ended his sermon by saying that in a world in which the one certain thing is that we live in absolute uncertainty, celebrating the beginning of a new marriage on the first day of a new year demanded a leap of faith. Then he looked directly at Zack and me. “Leaping into uncertainty is terrifying,” he said, “but I saw your faces when you joined hands to take your vows. You two will land on solid ground. Just remember not to let go of each other.”

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GAIL BOWEN’s first Joanne Kilbourn mystery,
Deadly Appearances
(1990), was nominated for the W.H. Smith/Books in Canada Best First Novel Award. It was followed by
Murder at the Mendel
(1991),
The Wandering Soul Murders
(1992),
A Colder Kind of Death
(1994) (which won an Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel),
A Killing Spring
(1996),
Verdict in Blood
(1998),
Burying Ariel
(2000),
The Glass Coffin
(2002),
The Last Good Day
(2004),
The Endless Knot
(2006),
The Brutal Heart
(2008), and
The Nesting Dolls
(2010). In 2008
Reader’s Digest
named Bowen Canada’s Best Mystery Novelist; in 2009 she received the Derrick Murdoch Award from the Crime Writers of Canada. Bowen has also written plays that have been produced across Canada and on CBC Radio. Now retired from teaching at First Nations University of Canada, Gail Bowen lives in Regina. Please visit the author at
www.gailbowen.com
.