Three
Reece
“Mom?” I said, my voice no more than a whisper.
“Yes. Can you do it? Can you check on him? You’re closer than I am, unless you’re not at home.”
Her voice was breezy, chipper even.
“Mom, where are you?”
“It’s Friday,” she said. “You know what I do on Fridays.”
I had no fucking clue what she did on Fridays, and even if I did, it wasn’t likely I would remember it in my current state
of mind. When I said nothing, she reminded me.
“It’s my arts lunch. I’ve told you about that. It’s—”
“It doesn’t matter. Where—”
“All of us on the Yorkton Hill Arts Council? We meet for lunch every other Friday?”
“Is that where you are now?”
“I just stepped away from the table, yes. I wanted to ask your father to check my datebook.”
“Your datebook.” Mom was old-school. She wrote appointments and important dates down, on paper, with a pen. She didn’t keep
anything like that in her phone.
“It’s in the drawer in the kitchen. He knows where.
I wanted him to look ahead to early August. A group of us were talking about going to that inn on Fogo Island.
In Newfoundland? But I can’t remember if that’s when Sheila’s daughter is getting married.
I thought he could check, but he must have muted his phone.
I tell him over and over again not to do that.
He mutes it overnight and then forgets to unmute it when he gets up in the morning.
I don’t know how many times I’ve reminded him about this but he doesn’t listen. ”
I wondered why she didn’t just try the house. My parents had resisted giving up their landline, thinking it would be essential
should some apocalyptic event occur.
But then she said, “I tried the house phone too. You’d think he’d have heard that.”
“Which restaurant?” I said.
“What?”
“What restaurant are you at?”
“Benjamin’s.”
“Stay there. I’ll come get you.”
“Why would you—” She cut herself off, then asked, “Has something happened?”
“Just stay there.”
“Go by the house first and check on your father.”
“I’m at the house.”
A pause at the other end. “Why didn’t you say so? Tell him to check his phone. He’ll see the texts I sent.” There was an edge
in her voice that was verging on panic.
“I’ll come get you.”
“Reece!” she said sharply. “Tell me what’s going on.”
What was I supposed to say? Dad killed some strange woman in bed and then shot himself.
And then I thought, maybe she wasn’t some strange woman. She might be someone I knew, would recognize, but from the back, with hair color pretty much the same
as my mother’s and matted with blood, I’d jumped to a conclusion that didn’t seem like much of a jump at the time. It was
also very possible that, even if I didn’t know who the woman was, my mother did.
“If something’s happened to your father, tell me.”
“Yes, there’s been . . . an incident,” I said.
“Put him on.”
“I can’t.”
I could hear an intake of breath. “Oh my god,” she said.
“I can be there in just a few minutes.” There was a short whoop from the street, as though someone had accidentally hit a police siren for half a second.
“What was that?”
“Mom—”
“Was that a police car? A fire engine? Has there been a fire at the house?”
“There hasn’t been a fire.”
She went quiet for a moment, as though working up to a question. I wasn’t surprised when it came, straight out.
“Reece, is your father dead?”
“Mom,” I said evenly, “let me come and get you.”
Another extended silence so lengthy I thought maybe I’d lost the signal. Finally, she said, “I’ll be out front,” and ended
the call.
I put the phone back into my pocket and turned to look at the house. The front door open, that one uniformed cop stationed
there, Detective McCabe somewhere inside. Should I tell her about the call? That my mother was not the woman in that bed,
that I’d just spoken with her?
That would prompt a dozen questions, and while I attempted to answer them, my mother would be standing out in front of Benjamin’s.
It made more sense to get her first, bring her back, and let McCabe ask whatever she wanted of the two of us.
I headed for my car. There was a cruiser half blocking the end of the driveway, so as I was opening the door of my aging BMW,
I called out to the officer behind the wheel, “Can you back up so I can get out?”
“McCabe give you the okay?” he asked.
I nodded.
The cop keyed the ignition and backed up far enough that I could squeeze past. Once I was on the street, I put the car in drive and was on my way after that same cop raised the yellow tape to let me pass.
My car was too old for Bluetooth so I took the phone back out of my pocket and with one hand on the wheel and one eye on the
road ahead, I brought up my wife’s number, tapped the screen, and held the phone to my ear. I knew there was a chance it would
go to voicemail. Diana was at work in the Yorkton Hill municipal offices, where she was probably sending out tickets to people
whose vehicles were caught on camera running red lights. A leading source of revenue for the town.
Her cell rang twice.
“Hey,” Diana said. “’Sup?”
“I dropped by Dad’s and . . . Jesus, I hardly know where to begin.”
“What’s happened?”
“There was no answer at the door, so I went in, and . . . he’s dead.”
“Oh, honey, god no! A heart attack?”
“No.” I almost said I wish.
“An accident?”
She was probably remembering an incident a few years ago, when Dad slipped getting out of the tub and threw out his back.
“Nothing like that,” I said. “The circumstances are . . . they’re complicated. Mom wasn’t home. She’s at some lunch.”
“This is horrible, I’m so sorry. What can I do?”
“I don’t know. I think . . . I guess I’m in shock. On a whole bunch of levels.”
“You want me to go pick her up?”
“No, I’m going for her now. Can you get Gage from school?”
Our fourteen-year-old son would be devastated by the news.
His relationship with his grandfather was a close one, closer than with his grandmother.
They shared an interest in anything automotive, and Dad had often taken Gage with him to classic car rallies, dealerships to see newly released models, drag races, monster truck shows.
I’d never had that same level of enthusiasm, maybe because when I was a kid, Dad was away so much, he didn’t take the time to indoctrinate me in his passion.
But when Gage came along, whenever Dad came over, he’d tell Gage to check his coat pocket for a surprise, which was invariably some toy car.
It would be hard enough for Gage to lose someone this special. But trying to explain how Grampa had died was going to be particularly
difficult. I had no idea how I was going to come to terms with it myself.
“There is no school today,” Diana said.
I’d forgotten. This was a so-called PD day, one of two or three throughout the school year when teachers were in “professional
development” sessions designed to make them better at their jobs. It was also why we’d given him slack after he’d stayed out
late the night before, since Thursday was not a school night this week. He’d promised to be home by midnight, but when he
woke us with a text after eleven asking if he could have an extra hour, we relented. There were days when we worried we were
being too lenient, days when we worried we were too strict. It was hard finding a balance.
“I don’t know where he is,” Diana continued. “Probably with Joey, or at Bashir’s playing Minecraft or Fortnite or god knows what.”
“Call him, tell him to come home, tell him there’s been . . . an incident, with his grandfather. Details to come. And whatever
you do, don’t bring him to my parents’ house.”
“How bad is it?”
I steeled myself to deliver the news. “It looks like Dad was having an affair and he and . . . this other woman, whoever she
is . . . were upstairs and he shot her and then he shot himself.”
Diana’s gasp was audible. I could picture her at her desk, sitting there, her mouth open, trying to take in all that was packaged
into those few words. If I had ever, in my life, delivered more stunning news to anyone, I couldn’t think what it would have
been.
“Okay,” she said. Diana had always been one to put aside overt reactions and start dealing with the facts. “I’ll head home,
try to find Gage.” She paused, then asked, “What about Holden?”
It was my turn to go quiet. After a few seconds, I said, “Leave him with me. I’ll try to reach him.”
“And just when he’s been running on an even keel,” Diana said. Yorkton Hill was right on Lake Ontario, and sailing was big here. Diana’s family had owned a sailboat—nothing special, barely a twenty-footer—when she was a kid, so the even keel expression came naturally to her.
“So far as we know,” I said. Holden had been out of rehab—I’d lost count how many times—for a few months and seemed to be
doing okay these days. But I hadn’t talked to him in two or three weeks, and a lot could happen in that time. With Holden,
a lot could happen in twenty-four hours.
“Once I’ve got Mom, I’ll track him down. Maybe she’ll be the one who wants to break it to him, once she knows the details, but I don’t know. She’s gonna be a mess.”
“So she has no idea—”
“Only that something’s happened to Dad. But I think she’s guessed it. She asked me if Dad was dead and I wouldn’t give her
a straight answer.”
“You don’t know who the woman is?” She quickly added, “Was?”
I shook my head, even though Diana couldn’t see me. “At first . . . I thought it was Mom, until she phoned me.”
“My god, what a clusterfuck.”
That was the understatement of the year.
“I’m so sorry,” Diana said. “I’m just . . . I can’t believe it.”
“Yeah, ditto. I’m almost at the restaurant, gotta go. Love you.”
“Love you,” she said, ending the call.
I dropped the phone in one of the cupholders between the seats. I’d made good time getting across town. Benjamin’s, a waterside
restaurant with beautiful views of the lake, was now only a couple of blocks away.
When I got there I stopped out front in a No Parking zone and hit the flashers. I’d expected Mom to be waiting, but I couldn’t
see her out front. I jumped out of the car and ran inside, stopping just inside the door, scanning the room for her. Had she
decided to hit the ladies’ room first?
There was a young woman standing at reception. “Hello. Do you have a reservation?” she asked.
“I’m picking up someone,” I said. “My mother. She’s here with some others from the arts council?”
“Oh, yes, they’re just finishing up.” She pointed. “They have that table over there? By the window?”
I looked, spotted four women, two still seated, two getting to their feet and collecting their purses. My mother was not among
them.
“Did you see a woman standing here in the last five minutes, like she was waiting for someone? Catherine Chartwell?”
The woman recognized the name. “Oh, Mrs. Chartwell. I did see her when she came in, but I’ve been away from my post here for
a few minutes.”
I made way through the tables until I’d reached the women. I recognized one or two of them, but did not know any names.
“Hi,” I said urgently. “I’m Reece Chartwell, Catherine’s son?”
They all smiled as one, their gleaming teeth reminding me of four Cheshire cats. “Oh, we’ve heard so much about you,” said
the woman closest to me. “So nice to finally meet. So sorry about you getting, what do they call it? Downsized?”
Mom had clearly been filling them in on my job situation. Nice to know I’d been fodder for conversation.
“Have you seen her? I’m her ride.”
Another one of the women spoke up. “She left, must have been five, ten minutes ago?” She looked at her lunch partners, who
nodded a confirmation.
“Thanks,” I said, turned and went back outside. No sign of her.
I got in the car, grabbed my phone from the cupholder, entered her number, put the phone to my ear. Her cell rang. And rang.
And rang. Finally, voicemail.
“Hello. You’ve reached Catherine Chartwell. I can’t take your call right now but please do leave a message after the beep.”
I waited, then said, “I’m here. Where are you?”
Christ.