Chapter Twenty #2
I’m so fixated on location, I’m woefully unprepared when he comes rocketing through the kitchen door that evening.
Carlos has been showing me how to caramelize onions, and I nearly drop the spoon at the sight of Sid.
His usually neat hair is askew from a mix of wind and rain, his muscular chest heaving with each quick, agitated breath.
“Carlos, get out of here,” he barks.
“What?” Carlos turns around, rightly confused. “We’re making dinner.”
“It can wait. Tom Sullivan’s here.”
“Shit!” I tamp down the stove. “Why?”
“Wants to check in. He came to my booth downtown to ask about you. And since you’re his sanctuary case, legally he’s allowed to show up if he thinks there’s a problem.”
“And does he think there’s a problem?”
Sid flaps his arms weakly. “I don’t know. When he asked if he could come by, I didn’t dare say no.”
“Why not?”
“Because the judiciary sent him our marriage certificate. He knows.”
“Oh, shit. Carlos, get out of here.” My hands are shaking as I towel them off. “How long until—”
“Maybe a minute? He’s right behind me,” says Sid. “James is stalling him.”
There isn’t time to change clothes or do anything else that might help make a good impression, so instead, I freeze while Sid gives Carlos a definitive nudge out the door.
I was already wishing that Sid and I were speaking before, but now it feels infinitely more urgent.
We’ve got to put on a show to convince this man that we’re wildly in love, and Sid knows Tom better than I do.
He should be giving me direction, but the way I crashed out over TNS means he’s in no state of mind to take the lead on anything.
How’s he to know I won’t flip out if he tries to touch me again? This is all on me.
“We should greet him together. Show a united front.” I take his hand, which is clammy to the touch.
Whether it’s from rain or nerves, I can’t guess.
My own pulse thrums as I touch him for the first time since our wedding day.
But even though I’m trembling, I have no desire to pull away, savouring the rough touch of his fingers interlocking with mine.
“Come on. Let’s go save James from Tom.”
Once we get outside, it’s clearly the other way around. James is talking a mile a minute about some girl while Tom limps down our drive, scowling more with each second.
“Hi, Mr. Sullivan!” I call out, willing myself to sound confident.
“Ms. Hollins. Or is it Mrs. Charles now?”
He’s got my papers. He knows damn well which it is. But I’ve got to sound open and unthreatened. “April didn’t want to change hers, and we figured I should probably match her.”
“Hmmm.” Tom stops to catch his breath, and I feel strangely guilty he has to walk so far before he can sit down. He looks like he’s in pain. Then again, he wouldn’t have had to walk anywhere at all if he hadn’t decided to haunt us today.
“How is your sister doing?” Tom takes another shaky step forward.
“Fine.”
“I saw she’s registered at high school. Is she enjoying it?”
“Sure.”
“Something beyond a single word answer would paint a fuller picture. But we can discuss that once we’re inside.”
“Wonderful seeing you, Mr. Sullivan!” James calls from behind us. “If you see Amy, give her a shout from me!”
“Insufferable blowhard,” Tom grumbles, looking toward Sid. “Why you still choose to live anywhere near him is the real mystery. Though… not the one I’ve come to discuss.”
With that, he pushes open the door to the kitchen and we’re hit by the smell of onions. While Tom takes a seat and opens his briefcase, I check to make sure nothing is burning, certain he’ll take the first sign of smoke as another indication I’m an uncultured barbarian.
“If you could take a seat, Ms. Hollins?”
“Coming.”
I slide into the seat next to Sid, who has said absolutely nothing since Tom’s arrival.
At least he has the presence of mind to put an arm around my shoulders.
Tom watches the gesture carefully, not giving much away.
Do we look convincing, or performative? And if he determines it’s the latter…
what exactly will he do? Sid told me that it’s hard to prove marriages are falsified, but if there’s anyone with the legal means to do it, it’s Tom.
“If I may make an observation,” he says. “You seem more settled, Ms. Hollins.”
“Oh… thank you?” By that, he probably means that I haven’t yelled at him yet.
“Dinner on the hob and a new husband? Positively domestic.”
“Carlos is teaching me how to cook.”
“That’s good. No, I mean it. There’s no need to make that face. You clearly don’t trust me, but you’re more at ease among these people. Considering where we started, I would call that progress.”
I don’t know what to make of this little speech. He isn’t wrong. I don’t trust him, which is why I’m certain all these compliments are steps in a carefully placed trap.
“I offered Sid my congratulations earlier today,” he continues. “I suppose I should extend them to you as well.”
“Thank you.”
“Pardon a sentimental old man’s prying, but what about him won you over so quickly?”
“Well…”
“Tom, I’m not sure my wife feels comfortable discussing that kind of thing with you,” Sid says, his tone stern. “And it’s not really within the scope of questions an immigration officer is supposed to ask.”
“Under normal circumstances, I would agree with you. The judiciary sent me a record of your marriage last week. My first thought was… well, surprise, to be sure. She injured you within seconds of meeting you, Sid. That doesn’t suggest marital stability.
However, you volunteered so gallantly to rescue her from the very reasonable consequences of her actions, the thought did cross my mind that you were smitten with her. Love at first sight. Or rock.”
Tom says that as if the whole idea is abhorrent. I almost want to reassure him Sid isn’t that kind of idiot. Unfortunately, we’re in a way better position if he thinks we did fall foolishly in love within seconds.
“It was something like that,” says Sid awkwardly.
“Yeah.” I should build on this narrative. We’re lucky Tom is handing us an easy explanation. “Like Anne and Gilbert.”
“What?” says Sid, turning to me.
“Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe,” I say, “from Anne of Green Gables. She breaks a slate over his head and then he’s totally obsessed with her. You haven’t read it?”
“Not yet.”
“Oh, it’s my favourite! I’ll lend it to you. Although Anne and Gilbert don’t get together until one of the sequels.” I only kept the first one, but April and I did find a house that had the whole series, once. Now I wish I’d held onto the rest.
“I’m sure the library can help you there. Canadian classics, after all,” says Tom, his mouth twitching. “What interesting things you still have to discover about each other.”
“Love isn’t a list of facts. We know how we feel—” Sid starts, but Tom cuts in.
“Please. Save your performance for a more interested party. Like I said, I want nothing more than to leave well enough alone. My favourite cases are the ones I never have to think about, and you had both been silent since her arrival. No new incidences of violence, which was encouraging. I thought—hoped—that maybe Ms. Hollins was wonderfully integrated, and you were safely in love, and my nagging doubts were nothing but the ramblings of a paranoid mind. And then…” He reaches into his bag and tosses another file onto the table. “This arrived on my desk.”
The papers don’t have my name, but April’s.
From the header, it’s apparent they came from the hospital.
They include all the details of not only her illness and treatment plan, but also her billing information.
I’m not sure what to make of it. I mean, why wouldn’t Tom know all of this? He’s in charge of our immigration case.
But Sid is furious. “What the hell is the hospital doing, sending this to you?”
Tom shrugs. “My office does have the right to obtain information like this. I can ask for it if I suspect immigration fraud. However, I did not request this file. When I asked Doctor Tremblay why he’d sent it over, he hastily apologized for the clerical error but offered no explanation for how that error happened. ”
“Holy shit. So you’re saying it was a privacy breach?”
“So it would seem. The point is, someone suspects you only married to secure medical insurance.”
“You don’t have to say someone. We all know it’s that shitbag doctor,” says Sid.
“He did tell me about the incident with the slingshot,” says Tom. “He seems to be rather… invested in this case.”
“Did you tell him to mind his damn business?”
“I told him that if something like this happened again, I would have to recommend Council investigate the security of private documents at the hospital,” says Tom.
“I’m not sure he took me seriously. We only have two physicians on the island who trained at pre-Quake universities.
Doctor Levy keeps talking about retiring and if she does, that leaves us with Doctor Tremblay.
I believe he considers himself indispensable. ”
I don’t know what to do with this news. Sid was angry with the doctor before, when I told him he suggested I could surrender April to the government.
Between these papers and telling Tom about the slingshot, we’ve now got a pattern.
Mild-mannered as he is, every step of the way, Doctor Tremblay has been undermining me.
“Why would he do this?” I finally ask. “He’s been so good to April. Why would he try to ruin things for us?”
“Ms. Hollins, I try not to speculate on the inner hearts of other people. I put my trust in facts and figures. They paint a less biased picture,” says Tom.
“Most people, including Doctor Tremblay, agree that we should extend sanctuary services and citizenship to all children who come to our shores. But, in private settings, I have heard him express admiration for Wayne Donlon.”
“You can’t be serious,” says Sid.
“Who is—” I start.