The Third Part of Chapter 14: Halloween and After

Eunice went down the street to visit Clarissa in the early evening of the following day, the sun having just set, and Eunice having just garnished a steak, which was in the oven. Her behaviour last night was perhaps the most notable aspect of her party, in that she was absent from the fun and jokes, which was unlike her. Eunice walked up the front steps, which were strewn with a few withered leaves, and knocked on the door.

“Coming,” said a voice from inside the house. It was Clarissa, but her voice was flat and quiet, unlike her previous self. She opened the door and it appeared to Eunice that she was much worse for wear.

“Hi Clarissa, I’m so sorry you couldn’t come to the party last night.”

“Sorry; I was exhausted. That seems to be happening a lot these days.”

Eunice looked around the front hallway and the living room; the carpet had not been vacuumed lately––she estimated not since James’s funeral––and the cushions on the couch, which were normally arranged carefully and symmetrically, were now in disarray: one was on the coffee table, the other on the ottoman. This disarray also extended to her bookcases, from which several books were missing, and could alternately be seen on the coffee table, the couch, and the floor near the fireplace.

“Yes, that was sort of what I wanted to talk to you about; are you feeling okay? You don’t look your usual self,” by which she meant the side of herself that she had presented a few weeks previously.

“I’ll admit that I’m still feeling drained, although I don’t know why; I’m not as busy as I was before, so that can’t be it,”

“I know, I remember in university you were involved in all sorts of clubs, the student union, and you had a job; I quite frankly didn’t know how you managed all that and still did well,”

Clarissa half-smiled at the transparent attempt at flattery, but showed none of her teeth, and her eyes retained that tired expression.

“I think work is just wearing me out,”

“I think it’s that your husband died; you know that just as well as I do, dear. I don’t know how it relates to you becoming tired, but it must be affecting you in all sorts of terrible ways, and, well, we’re worried, you know; both Mario and I...well, we pray for you at night.”

Eunice noticed some framed photos sitting on top of a small shelf in the living room. They were of Clarissa and James, and looked like they were honeymoon pictures, as she could see plainly that the pictures were taken in Newfoundland. Next to the photos, in a vase, stood a wilted carnation. This gave the arrangement the appearance of a small memorial for James that had been set up some time ago, and neglected since.

They then walked into the kitchen, in which Eunice could see the previous night’s unwashed dishes in the sink, and the potted oregano and rosemary plants were starting to wither.

“Oh dear, Clarie, you seem to have been despondent this past little while; when I was in here in September, everything was spotlessly clean!”

“I’m too busy for that right now; I have dinner going.” She gestured to the stove, on which Eunice saw a chicken breast frying with some sweet peppers and mushrooms, while the pasta was on the counter, and a pot of water was coming to boil.

“Now Jimmy’s dead, I feel as if I don’t have any choices or direction: I must continue marching into the unknown, but I don’t feel as if I’m getting anywhere,”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when Jim was alive and with me, the whole world seemed more alive and more wholesome. Now that he’s dead, I see death everywhere: there’s road kill on the street outside, bird carcasses, and withered gardens,”

“It is autumn, you know; of course things are decaying.”

“Well, I’m sorry that he was a pill-popper and had to die,” said Eunice; she had heard this fact from Belinda after the funeral; the Millers’ medicine cabinet, however, remained private.

“Where did you hear that he was a pill-popper?”

“Belinda,”

“That’s not true; the only pills in there are Tylenol, which I need for headaches, but Jim was very healthy until–”

Eunice took advantage of her sudden pause. “Really? I wonder why Belinda told me that,”

“It’s probably just her trying to sound all-knowing or something. If she said that, she’s really stupid; I mean, what can you hope to gain by spreading lies?” That rhetorical question went unanswered, and Clarissa continued. “I don’t know when I will get choice back; maybe when my baby is born, I’ll be happier,” she gestured to her slightly enlarged stomach.

Sensing that the conversation was leading nowhere, Eunice said, “I see; I had better get dinner going too. Mario said he wanted steak, and I left him to fry some onions and mushrooms.”


On returning home, Eunice checked on her steak. “It ought to be ready at seven,” she said to herself.

“How’s Clarissa?”

“Her house is a mess, which is sort of a reflection of her present state; she’s not happy,
which she never explicitly told me but anyone can pick up on that. She’s also tired.”

“From what, something at work, or something that happened last night?”

“I think it’s tiredness in general.”

“She said that?”

“Yes and her house also told me that.”

“I’m getting very hungry now,” said Mario, who wanted to take his mind off of something so sad, and food was his main distraction when something was troubling him; Eunice’s description of Clarissa’s behaviour sounded vaguely like the symptoms of depression, which was really troubling. On the one hand, he felt that he wanted to help Clarissa in some way, but on the other hand, he wasn’t sure exactly how.

His propensity to eat as a method of distraction was fortunately absent in his other characteristics such as his waistline; he was genetically blessed that way. He turned back to the mushroom and onion garnish he was making.

“What about mashed potatoes?”

“Oh yes, I need to make them,” and with that, Eunice started peeling the potatoes.

Forty-five minutes later, they were eating, and Mario was talking about work.

“We have lots of turkeys in stock,” he said.

“It’s that time of year again; turkey-roasting time,”

“Have you heard from Kate?” Kate was short for Katelin; Eunice referred to her mother by that affectionate diminutive.

“No, not yet, though I think she’ll call on Friday,” said Eunice.

“How’s her liver?”

“The doctors are saying that she will need a transplant at some point,” said Eunice. “Poor mom
would simply not keep away from the bottle in her youth, and now she’s paying the price,”

“Speaking of liver, would you like some tomorrow night? We have quite a number of cow livers in stock, and there are also a couple packages of chicken livers,”

“Perhaps; liver would be a nice dinner,”

“Good; I’ll bring some home tomorrow,” said Mario.

November, after having a cold start, with a hard frost on the night of the first, was pleasant during the first half of the month, and then grew colder. Snow could be seen first on the escarpment in the distance to the north, as whitening at the top of the hills, which appeared blue in the distance during the summer, and grey in the fall and late winter.

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The Second Part of Chapter 14: Halloween and After

Unfortunately, not only Christine had heard Mario’s compliment; Eunice, who was at that moment standing at the other end of the room, bloody cocktail in hand, and she clearly heard her husband over the hubbub. She rolled her eyes. Must just be one of those things, she thought.

“This is a nice party; I really like the blood cocktail,” he said, holding up a glass of red cocktail, which was really gin with cherry punch.

“Thanks. I mixed it an hour ago.”

Christine turned to Eunice and said, “Hey Eunice, do you know where Clarissa is? She’s a neighbour, is she not?”

Rick added, “I remember her tabletop dance from last Halloween; she’s quite fun when she wants to be; it was too bad her husband was a pill-popper.” Rick had not gleaned the information in the last comment from first-hand experience; rather, he had heard it repeated from Christine and Laura; he had not thought to ask why the contents of James’s medicine cabinet had become so widely known, but after his death, the details of his life, real and imagined were pored over without discrimination, but with enthusiasm, by all of his friends and those who considered themselves friends. Christine, Rick and Eunice weren’t alone in noting Clarissa’s absence; Belinda was also loudly pondering the reasons.

“I mean, how long should we expect a broken heart to last?” pondered she, which Eunice thought was insensitive. As usual, she had a glass with something alcoholic in her hand, which in this case was green and looked like a lime and vodka cocktail, and she was talking to whoever would listen to her, in this case Christine, who seemed to be nodding and interjecting more out of politeness than genuine interest.

“I don’t know, Bel, a loss like that is pretty hard to recover from; I wouldn’t be surprised if the mourning period continues for a while,”

“Maybe we should phone her up, and invite her over; she could do with a drink or two,”

“She’s pregnant, Belinda,”

“Oh, yeah. Anyways, she should be enjoying herself. I’ll call her,” said she, taking her cell phone out of her bra (there was no other place to put it, as the slutty witch costume Eunice had lent her had no pockets). Great, thought Eunice. Drunk dialling: here we have one of the inherent risks of intoxication, although not the most harmful.

“Hi Clarissa, it’s Belinda. Why aren’t you having fun at Eunice’s party? It’s quite happening; it’ll cheer you up,”

Belinda heard Clarissa reply, “Oh, that’s all right, I don’t have a costume.”

“I don’t think that’s all right; we’ve seen you moping around when you come home from work. You’re not yourself; you’re not the woman I knew for so long. I don’t care that you don’t have a costume. Throw some makeup on; you can be a call girl or something. Or, you know what, Eunice has a whole closet full of costumes, you can wear one of hers. That’s what I’m doing; I’m dressed up as a witch,”

Rick, who was facing her, with a beer in hand, thought that she certainly wasn’t dressing
up.

“I’m just too tired right now; I just got off of a grating day at work,”

Belinda suspected this reason at once. “That’s not a good reason for missing a Halloween party that you’ve been invited to, there’s no good reason. You get off busy days at work all the time. Isn’t that the way it is in the public sector these days?”

“Yes, well––”

“Well, come over here. I miss you,” said Belinda.

“Okay,” said Clarissa, rather unconvincingly.

“Bye, Clarie,” said Belinda, and hung up. Does she want to be sad and lonely? Belinda pondered this question as she sipped her cocktail and chatted to the person next to her about whatever, which meant that Cora, who had a much kinder ear for gossip than others, engaged her.

“You know that actor who’s sleeping with the Prime Minister’s wife? He’ll be in a TV show in the fall,” she said.

“I heard it’s such a soap opera; the Prime Minister’s affairs, I mean, not that TV show.”

“Yeah, it’s Pointe. You know, that cops drama in Montréal.”

“Henry, this guy I work with, is a real fan. He says he likes the intense action and the plotlines. It seems to be the only thing that keeps him somewhat relaxed; otherwise he’s quite harried, and seems to stress out about work, his family, his dog, his family, the kids not doing well in school, and family, of course. They have quite the overactive home life. Talk about soap opera,”

She inquired, “Really? What kind of soap opera?” She scavenged for interesting tidbits and factoids just as much as she spread it around. She then saw an attractive man and tried to catch his eye. This man was Zachary, and he pretended not to notice; when she was drunk, she tended to forget people’s availability status, but one could hardly blame her in this particular case: Zachary and Christine had started dating only a week previously, after four attempts by Eunice to get them together.

“There seems to be an ongoing fight with his wife about her credit card, for one; she tried to get a new one, and some loan officer on the phone from wherever said it could not be approved. I hear it around the water cooler all the time, and then there’s the fact that they’ve fallen into a sort of rut in terms of their daily routine; he was complaining that he always ate the same thing, but I think it’s just his fault for not knowing how to cook. He never learned, you see; he lived off Kraft Dinner and frozen pizzas in his university days.”

“Fascinating,” said Belinda between sips of her cocktail. “That’s such an interesting image of his character. I bet he was coddled as a child; you know the kind: they were never taught how to cook, they didn’t do their own laundry, their mom made their bed, and you know, for cooking, I think it would be better if he were taught cooking. It makes him into a kind of man-child, only with kids,”

“He did have a rather extended youth; he only moved out of home when he was thirty-two.”

The conversation went on in this fashion for about five minutes, where they discussed (Cora told Belinda) various things about Henry: his hair, his clothing, his lunch, which was three pieces of herring as he was trying to lose weight, and his behaviour at meetings, which Cora found bombastic, and Belinda could only agree. It was quite remarkable that they could turn someone as boring as rice into a rather scintillating figure, thought Cora. After tiring of the minutiae of Henry’s life and character, the conversation turned to something else: Mario, the host of the party.

“I heard from Eunice they’re trying to get pregnant.”

Mario overheard. “Oh, yes,” he confirmed, and then went into unnecessary details.

“Really? Um, I think that’s just a bit too much information,” said Cora, and she tried to edge away from Mario, who was standing in the kitchen, out to the porch, where there was some light snow falling; gossip isn’t really gossip unless the subject is not overhearing. Belinda had finished her cocktail and fetched a beer, and continued: “I think they were inspired by Jim and Clarissa,” said she. “It’s never too early,”

“What about you?”

“Oh, I tried once with some guy, then I met Kale, and after a few years I found I didn’t really like him, so there was the divorce, and now, there’s this guy on whom I’ve got a crush; his name’s Kevin, but I don’t know about him. There’s also someone from my mom’s work. She works at Home Depot in Toronto, you see, and there’s this particularly handsome young man who I saw carrying some plywood under one arm when I last went to visit her at work three weeks ago.” Then Belinda just thought of something; “Hey, Eunice,” she called, walking inside and impolitely abandoning the conversation with Cora, who was rather miffed, “I called Clarissa at least fifteen minutes ago, and she lives just down the street. What’s keeping her?”

“It’s probably James’s death, though I don’t like how it’s been dragging on like this,” said Eunice, glad that she wasn’t the only one with Clarissa on her mind, “I’ll give her a call myself.”

She went to the telephone and dialled Clarissa’s number. The phone rang four times, and then it went to the message tone. “No answer,” said she. “Maybe she’s asleep; I don’t think we should disturb her,”

That was the last time that night that Eunice attempted to contact Clarissa; subsequent attempts would not have ended in success, she guessed: if Clarissa were asleep, she would remain asleep until morning. This instance, however, marked the time when Eunice started to be worried about Clarissa; she had attended last year’s Halloween party, when she had masqueraded as Marie Antoinette, the theme of that Halloween party being villains and villainesses. James, being their neighbour, and like them childless, was also invited to that party, but by a stroke of misfortune, he had the flu.

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The First Part of Chapter 14: Halloween and After

Eunice was hosting a Halloween party for herself and all of her friends who did not have the blessing of children; she had invited almost everyone she could think of, and was planning for quite a packed night, which it was: her friends, husband’s friends, and neighbours showed up. Eunice was dressed as Frankenstein’s wife, but Mario did not complete the costume, as he disliked face paint. Therefore, he dressed as batman.

“Isn’t a mask more uncomfortable than face paint?” She asked, in reaction to what he had chosen.

“But face paint feels icky,” he said.

“Very well, I’ll just hope that someone else comes as Frankenstein.”

She noted the appearances of the guests, as they arrived: Christine was a female vampire; Belinda had borrowed Eunice’s slutty witch costume that she had decided against wearing, Peter, the comedian, came in a mask, disguised as the Prime Minister, while her friend Rana from Kingston was in a goblin costume. She was disappointed that Clarissa had not shown up yet; it was 8:30, and she couldn’t possibly be at work as she had seen her on the bus on the way home; she had even seen her open the door, so she could only be home. She gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed she would show up fashionably late, although that wasn’t her style. She also occupied herself with Clarissa––indeed, who wasn’t thinking of her, who was still in mourning over the loss of her husband.

Peter was introducing himself to Mario: “Hi, my name’s Pete,”

“You mean Peter Charles Ku, the comedian? The one who satirises politicians?”

Peter, amazed at having been recognised beneath a mask, was quick on his feet. “No, not that one,” Mario looked disappointed.

“Actually, I do satirise politicians. Have you heard there might be an imminent election call? The opposition is all geared up for a Christmas campaign,”

“Really? Well, I wouldn’t know; I don’t follow politics.”

“The opposition say Meach has spent too long in power. He’s grown corrupt, and has forgotten his principles.”

“Is that them saying that or you?”

“Well, both; either way, it provides fodder for me. Have you heard the one about him, the French President, and the walrus? Well, the French president is very fat, he has a big moustache, and everybody calls him ‘walrus’ behind his back, but nobody does so to his face. Meach and his Foreign Minister, Alain-Bertrand Glengarry, both made the same mistake of referring to him that way. The look on the poor guy’s face was priceless! Then he went on the news kvetching about it to anybody who would listen. None of them took him seriously, and he moped all around Europe.

“Then there’s what the Bloc leader, Valence, said about seal hunters. Unfortunately, it wasn’t seal hunting season, which is April, and then it got picked up by all the networks, and not everybody understands French; and you know what the French word for ‘seal’ is, right?

“Let’s not forget Question Period; it’s brilliant; half of my material comes from Question
Period,”

“There was that good one on Friday that I can remember,”

“Ah, yes: ‘Don’t you have any new ideas?’

“‘Don’t you?’ It reminds me of Agnes MacPhail, not that I was alive then, of course,”

Mario laughed; he had remembered watching the CBC piece on CNN misinterpreting “seal” in French, leaving many Americans thinking he was cursing his constituents. At that moment, Rana noticed Peter, and said, “Are you Peter Charles Ku?”

“Who?”

“Don’t kid around; I recognise you from your show on CTV.”

“Fine, whatever,” and then Peter turned to talk to Rana, who was still agog at seeing a
comedian at a friend’s house.

“Really, I’m not that well known; my show comes on at midnight,” he protested.

Mario, not wishing to bother Peter––he was a polite host––turned to another of his guests, Christine: “Nice vampire costume, it’s very seductive.”

“Thanks, my boyfriend and I have a Dracula theme going on. I’m supposed to be Dracula’s wife. Oh, Vlad!” she called her boyfriend, whose actual name was Zachary. He came over, and greeted Mario; they knew each other through Eunice, and Zachary was friendly with Mario from their dinners together.

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The Fifth Part of Chapter 13: We Will Remember

Mario’s work was busy, and considering work was a grocery store, Eunice tasked him with purchasing the Halloween candy and cocktail mixes; it was convenient in this way, and Mario did most of the grocery shopping; she simply purchased milk and eggs on occasion when they were out. That he worked at Food Basics, known for its cheap food, provided the additional advantage of a cheap grocery bill.

Unlike Eunice, however, Mario had left the purchase of a costume to the last minute; there was no planning weeks in advance about what he was about to wear; he simply went to Value Village and picked a costume off the rack.


Ryan and Patricia left the funeral home and chose to walk down McLeod Street with Clarissa and her parents, while Clarissa’s brother, sister and their spouses left for their homes in Mississauga and Kitchener.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Ryan,” said Margaret.

“I think the sorrow should be left for the living; I’m so sorry, Clarie,” said Hyram.

“Thank you for coming to this sad chapter of our lives,” said Patricia. “I still can’t believe it was a heart attack; one shouldn’t get them that young.”

“I know; the only other person younger than me who had a heart attack was some writer we published five years ago; that got a load of free publicity for us, not that we wanted it of course,”

The rest of the walk to Clarissa’s house, which took ten minutes, passed in silence from the five of them. When they entered the brick house on McLeod Street, they could see that Clarissa had set up a sort of shrine on top of a small shelf, complete with fresh flowers. It seemed to Patricia that nothing else had been touched since October 15th, the day James collapsed in the front hallway and died. She noted a few things about the living room: there was a novel, Agatha Christie’s Third Girl, on the coffee table.

“Good night, Clarissa,” said Ryan. “We had better head home and cook dinner, now,”

Margaret thought that it was a very nice house, but was tactful and said nothing about it; such would imply that she was covetous of the house, which would leave an extremely bad impression with the Millers, so she looked around in silence.

“Well, we had better get going too, if we want to get home at any sort of reasonable time; I think we’ll have dinner on the highway somewhere,”

“Let’s take the Seven home,” said Hyram. “There are no bridges that way,”

“Hyram thinks the Highway 401 bridges annoying by their endless repetition; he finds them monotonous, I believe,”

“Yeah; once you’ve seen one bridge on that highway, you’ve seen them all,”


When the elder Millers arrived home, Patricia said to Ryan, “I think we should put the honeymoon photos of James and Clarissa in frames, like we did with the wedding photos, and take them off the mantel,” she glanced at the pictures in question, and James’s smiling face nearly made her cry again. However, she forgot about this soon after she said that, and started thinking about dinner; while memories were important, having dinner was paramount.

Over dinner, Ryan wanted to get his mind off sad thoughts, so he talked about work. “Helena Perari’s supposed to be visiting our studio on Monday. I have an hour-long interview with her,”

“That should be interesting,”

“She has a huge morality complex,” said Ryan.

“Virtually the whole country knows,”

This much was true, as Ryan remembered: the last time she visited, she vented about the American President’s broken promises, relentlessly ranting about lies, endless untruths and assorted falsehoods. Such a moralistic and unkind disposition was not likely to result in returned calls, and thus Ryan assumed that her veneer of journalistic professionalism was kept up very well and carefully; she simply felt safe to drop those pretences in front of other journalists; there was only one infamous incident when her mask was broken. That was in 2006 in an interview with the President of the Canadian Auto Workers Union that turned out, after ten minutes, to be disastrous.

“We’ll be talking about her journalistic career; she’s planning a memoir,”

“One in which she’ll air all of her dirty laundry, I expect,”

“I’m guessing there’s a pretty big part of herself; I feel there’s just so much she doesn’t make public, and she has a very public persona. The mask of politeness she puts on for interviews is very well known; she thinks it’s a dishonesty; she told me as much,”

“I’ll bet that’s eating her up,”

“She told me a lot of other things on Friday,”The remainder of dinner was spent discussing Helena Perari, who had a reputation as a feared pundit, demanding honesty. She was also known for hard, though polite interviews, and scathing columns.

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The Fourth Part of Chapter 13: We Will Remember

The wake was a plodding, dull affair; an air of gloom hung over the room, reflecting the cold drizzle that fell outside, and the first frost the previous night. Inside the room, to reflect further on the gloom without, it was quiet, and Belinda and Eunice were talking to each other in hushed voices.

“She’s keeping the baby? Good on her. More power to the woman, I say,” said Belinda, glass of wine in hand.

“I do not like the notion of single motherhood in this situation. She’s not escaping from an abuser, you know.”

“I guess that’s true. Hey, do you think she’ll go looking for other men?”

“Belinda! This is the funeral, and Clarissa’s in mourning! You could show a little respect.”

“Oops, sorry, must be the wine,”

“You have only had one sip,”

“What can I say? I’m a cheap drunk.”

“I wonder what it was. The reverend didn’t say.”

“I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s an overdose on some sort of drugs. What do you think, sir?”

“Sir” was a man named Alberto, and he informed her as much. Alberto knew James from his previous job as Scotiabank, and arranged to come to the funeral when Jonathan told him the bad news; he, like everyone else, had initially reacted with shock.

“I don’t know, but I believe one of the Ten Commandments says ‘thou shalt not bear false witness.’”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that gossip is evil,”

“We’re not gossiping; we’re speculating. What that commandment says is that telling someone that you heard such-and-such from a friend of a friend is evil. And we’re not doing that. Why is it any of your business anyways?”

Alberto thought, what a bitch.

Eunice thought that Belinda was funny when she was tipsy, but this was making her feel uncomfortable.

“You know what, Belinda? I think you are getting rather…”

“What? You know, I heard from Jacqueline’s friend Cindy that Laura said that she heard from James’s boss Maurice that he was fired, and was shook up about it. She said he was a regular pill-popper. See, I wasn’t just speculating about the drugs,” As Belinda had little actual information to go on, the preceding statement was a flight into conjecture and fancy; Laura did not, in fact know Maurice, but Eunice knew little enough about her, aside from where she lived, that she did not catch this. Belinda was indifferent about the story’s veracity, because it made a good story, and it was in all probability better than the mundane truth that he was laid off, and not addicted to painkillers.

“That is definitely gossip, and I shall pretend not to hear you,”

“Good. I’ll pretend we didn’t just meet, Alberto,” responded Belinda.

How does one remain so bitchy this far into life, wondered Alberto. She looks to be at least forty-four. She’s probably divorced; what man would want to spend all of his days with that? Furthermore, what she said seemed puzzling; during his years of work at Scotiabank, he had never known James to be a pill-popper, although he knew several other people who were, given that the job carried some degree of stress, which had been exacerbated by the financial crisis and credit crunch two years previously. Perhaps James had become a pill-popper after having worked for Maurice for a while.

He seems standoffish, thought Belinda. He’s probably an accountant, or does something else boring with his life. Maybe he collects stamps. That David Vanetti, on the other hand, was quite the man. Tall, handsome, dark, a beautiful smile, he was all she could ask for in a man. Too bad she was drunk when they were last together at his garden party; it was also too bad that he was married. Stop that, Bela, she thought. Think of single men, like…Kevin! Now there’s a man to get into bed with.

“Maybe Clarissa would like some wine,”

“She’s pregnant, Belinda. She isn’t supposed to drink.”

“Oh, right.”

Occasional slips like this are okay, thought Eunice, although she was definitely not pleased with the direction of the conversation. She projected this into the future, and pictured a major falling-out between several of her friends. Mario dislikes her anyways, and Laura and Clarissa were none too pleased when she showed up at the Vanetti’s garden party in June and made an ass of herself by stepping into the peonies, their baby Jason’s fingers and the cat’s tail with her stilettos as she stumbled around the yard, drunk on too many spritzers, all the while making lewd gestures at Mr. Vanetti before she left. She was funny, yes, but at the same time, it was not altogether surprising that she had divorced Kale. Having known James since he had moved onto their street five years ago, she had never thought that he would die so young, or for a cause that she would have thought to beset older people; she hadn’t heard of anybody else who had died of heart problems who were younger than fifty, and this meme about pill-popping was just hearsay from people like Belinda; she didn’t personally know anybody who had died of a heart problem other than a few of her mother’s friends, and they were in their seventies and eighties. No doubt, this was a very strange death for being a heart attack, for normally, when someone in dies in their thirties, it was a car crash, or some other accident; it was still a horrible way to die, though. Did she not know him to the extent that she was completely in the dark about his eating habits? This must be his cause of death, she thought.

She also considered it a rather awkward thing to be discussing, but she was wondering whether Clarissa still wanted to go to her Halloween party. She wanted to go as a slutty witch herself, but was now reconsidering that; she was considering giving the witch costume to Belinda, who she was sure, would appreciate it.

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The Third Part of Chapter 13: We Will Remember

In a lounge, behind closed doors, Clarissa, her parents and James’s parents were discussing Ryan’s least favourite topic: inheritances.

“We signed a prenuptial, detailing that should one of us die, the other would inherit all of their possessions,” said Clarissa, showing the aforementioned agreement.

How I hate this, Ryan thought. This at least is going much more smoothly than Katie’s divorce settlement. In that case, there had been no prenuptial signed, and the ex-lovers were arguing over every last small detail, as half of the possessions would go to Katherine, and the other half to Mike. They had several immense fights: the house first and foremost, and then there was the car, and the flat-screen television, purchased back when such things were expensive and flashy items of opulence, rather than a fixture of every third living room; thus, Katherine and Mike both regarded the television with a kind of attachment that they should have reserved for each other, as was noted by Katherine, her parents, and his parents during the whole messy process. The car was another major headache; a BMW purchased for its glamour value rather than practicality, Mike had wanted to sell it, because for him, one car was like any other. Katherine, on the other hand, wanted to keep it, and due to all the bad blood, there was quite a feud between them. Mike ended up selling the car; it was quite fortunate that all this was behind them. There would certainly not be a repeat: the prenuptial agreement was brief––only 250 words––clear and ironclad: Clarissa would be getting the house, and various other things. That it was brief made it a nice agreement, thought he. He was quite glad that she had promised to continue to maintain her friendship with Patricia and himself, which was after all very easy to do considering they only lived a few blocks apart.

“It says you’ll be inheriting the house,” said Katherine. “Jim didn’t pay off his mortgage completely; it was only about half-paid when he died,” She had reviewed the details of James’s finances just before reading the agreement, and was wondering about the issue.

“The bank says the mortgage needs to be paid, and I agreed to continue paying the mortgage on the house; it’s a very nice house,” she said.

Margaret thought: a fine mess he left my daughter in; in February, she was a happy civil servant, and now she’s a pregnant widow assuming someone else’s debt. There was not much to do, though; she needed a place to live, the bank needed its money, hence her decision to continue paying the mortgage, which was like a financial memento to James’s memory in this way.

“Well, I think the agreement is quite clear, and of course this would stand for a will, so there’s not that much to discuss,” said Ryan.

“Agreed,” said Patricia and Margaret, while Hyram nodded, half-distractedly, as he wished to return to Toronto. Thus, the discussion was over in four minutes, and there was no need for a lawyer.

I much prefer something like this to that divorce settlement between Kate and that piece of meat, thought Patricia. Why hadn’t she agreed to a prenuptial like Jim and Clarissa?


Katherine, who was driving home, considered Clarissa with a degree of jealousy; the marriage had ended when the two of them were still in love, rather than in a messy divorce, like her own. This was due to her mistakes as much as to Mike; they talked little after the wedding for a married couple, and intimacy was missing in bed. If only she had signed a prenuptial; if only she had met another man; if only they had continued to love one another, then maybe they would still be together. She then tried to banish the regretful thoughts from her mind, first because she would rather not be reminded of her past and secondly because she needed to concentrate on the road in front of her. She wouldn’t be attending the wake; she had work to attend to, she thought, though she was deluding herself: her job of teaching science was easy, and at this moment, there was relatively little after-hours work. Her thoughts again turned to James, this time when he was studying at the University of Western Ontario, when he had been more distant than before, but still amicable enough and more like the James who had just died.

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The Second Part of Chapter 13: We Will Remember

The service ended, and James’s family and friends went into another room at the funeral home, where a luncheon with some wine was waiting, serving as the wake; it was one of the features offered by the funeral home.

At the wake, Jonathan and Iris, who had been married for ten years with two children who they left with Jonathan’s sister, were discussing Clarissa while drinking wine.

Jonathan said, “At the service, she would not stop crying; how could she, after all? Her husband, the love of her life, had died, after all.”

“Of what, do you recall?”

“I believe it was heart trouble. Apparently, James had fatty build-up in his carotids, and he died of a heart attack.”

“He hadn’t told her, either. That’s why it came as such a shock.”

“Do you think it’s in bad taste to be serving buttery pastries at his funeral, accompanied by salted herring, considering the way he died?”

“I don’t think so; it’s not like we’re at great risk of ending it now; I think his case was one of incredibly bad luck,”

“I still didn’t want to eat much; it makes me reconsider potato chips,”

Iris said, “Does that mean I get the whole bag you purchased last week?”

“You’re welcome to it,”

“She looked a mess,”

“Poor Andrea.”

“Her name is Clarissa,”

“Right.”

“Indeed,”

“…Uh, what do you mean?”

“Well, we have known James for five years, and you can’t remember his wife’s name?”

“We’ve only seen her once or twice,”

Iris reminded her husband: “They had us over for dinner, remember? Right when they returned from their honeymoon,”

“I remember that. They were so beautiful together. They were finishing each other’s sentences, and we had the most engaging conversation about China’s role in the latest round of the WTO negotiations. I never knew anyone who could make the Doha Round or China’s monetary policy so interesting.”

“I nearly nodded off when they were debating the minutiae of the… what was it? The Yuan. Only an economist would find that engaging.”

“I’m an economist, you know,”

“It also seems a rather…boring and wimpy way to go.”

“Not necessarily. My father died when he was blowing his nose. He breathed in to hard, inhaled and choked on a tissue. You know what happened to my cousin Larry? He was walking in a forest, an old rotten birch snag collapsed at that moment, and the trunk hit his skull. There’s no really good way to go, but my grandfather heard a really good joke one day, and laughed so hard that he choked; he was dead in ten minutes, but he was eighty-seven, and that was 1985. It’s become something of a family legend.”

“Your father was seventy-eight, though, and what happened to Larry was sheer bad luck. James, on the other hand, was thirty-three, and the household was dual income.”

“Not at that time it wasn’t. Forgive me; my name is Maurice. I had laid James off on the day of his death. I can’t help feeling at least a little uncomfortable. What can you do during a poor economy?”

“Tell me about it. My friend’s aunt, Suzanne, had to take a pay cut to keep her job at Home Depot; I guess people aren’t making as many renovations as they used to,”

“Clarissa said that he died when she told him she was pregnant.”

“Fortune can be such a bitch sometimes.”

“Jon!”

“I know, I know. My son Mike had a tough time getting into the job market during the recession
last year. It’s tough; you need a foot in the door, and young people don’t usually have that, they have all this competition from laid-off older workers, and people were just not hiring.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Maurice. How do you feel about losing an employee?”

“Rather uncomfortable at the moment; I admit I laid him off, in consideration of the economy,”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. What does your company do?”

“Economic consulting. Last year in particular was an interesting time for business; there was so much stress, a lot of complicated assignments and projects, and fifteen of our customers went out of business. We’re just trying to recover that market now, and create new opportunities. So much of the recession has been about structural change; the manufacturing sector is shrinking, while others, such as the service sector, retail, education and all that, are growing, which creates some trouble with employment. I think I relied a bit much on the business of manufacturers, such as car part makers like that car seat upholsterer, Inxton Incorporated; had they stayed in business, I think our firm may have been able to turn a profit this year. It’s a funny thing, incidentally; their bankruptcy freed up a timeslot at a banquet hall at the perfect time for the bereaved and the deceased to wed.”

“Interesting,”

“Anyways, Inxton left a large hole in our customer base; with corporate clients, the base is small to begin with, and their going out of business forced us to cut staff; I hated doing it, I delayed it by nearly two months, and it was so tough doing it; the axe man is one description I would prefer not to use for myself, but right now, it seems all too fitting.”

Laura was standing near the three discussing the economy, which to her only added to the glum atmosphere; it wasn’t that economists meant badly, but it was simply so unimaginative to represent everything with graphs and then not helpfully explain them. The unhappy atmosphere––maybe it had something to do with the light––did nothing to improve what she was eating, which was a profiterole; for one who died of a heart attack, it seemed at least a bit lacking in taste to be serving something so rich and loaded with trans-fats at his funeral. She only realised this after she had eaten most of the pastry, and the thought turned her perception of the taste of the whipped cream filling from one of intense pleasure to something plain and mushy in her mouth.

Kevin, who was sitting in an armchair at the other end of the room, near a north-facing window, looked outside at the drizzle. Like everyone else, he was feeling sad; he, like everyone else, was in mourning; this event really ought not to have happened, and the mourners all looked, appropriately enough, unhappy. For himself, he would have preferred to spend the Saturday at the gym rather than at the funeral home, but it was nice catching up with Henrietta, who was talking to Cindy, who only showed perfunctory interest.

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The First Part of Chapter 13: We Will Remember

The funeral, arranged quickly by Clarissa, Ryan and Patricia, occurred on the Saturday after his death, and it was very well attended by his former colleagues, neighbours, and friends; his entire social circle joined in on the mourning of the loss, and the parking lot of the funeral home on McLeod street was crowded that day; cars spilled onto McLeod Street on the south and Gladstone Street on the north. Clarissa, being James’s widow, delivered her eulogy. “When I met James, he was a happy man, and we quickly fell in love. He touched me in a way that no other man, save my father, did. The relationship progressed very quickly; just two months after we met, I moved in with him, and by June, we were engaged. I cannot emphasize enough the depth of the bond we shared, our love for each other, our friendship, or what James meant to me when he lived, over the past eight months. He showed me warmth, caring, and excitement during that time.” She turned and faced the casket. “James, I will always love you.” At this point, Clarissa choked up and sat down in the front pew, crying.

After her eulogy, Patricia, who sat opposite Clarissa, rose and delivered her speech. “When Jimmy was a little boy, he was curious; a bit too curious, if you ask me. I,” she Paused, stammering. “I will attempt to keep this brief. Ryan and I watched Jimmy grow, and were proud of our son’s achievements; his marks in high school, his degrees in economics, all of that; through the whole process, his inquiring mind would not be quenched. I shall always remember Jimmy as my little boy, even after his horrible, tragic and unfortunate death,” and then she sat down, and left much unsaid, as suited the occasion. After that, Ryan rose, gave a few brief remarks after his wife’s fashion, and then sat down again, after which the reverend took over.
Ryan was sitting beside Patricia, both of whom were silently weeping. We have no son, thought Ryan. He should be burying me! His thoughts turned to James’s childhood, captured in a moment but not encapsulated entirely by a framed picture on the coffin. The picture showed an eight-year old James playing in a sandbox with Katherine, who sat on Patricia’s left side. How full of meaning was his life then, thought he. He remembered James back then as a rambunctious child, always pestering their dog or Kathy, running around the house, and trying weird experiments seeing what happens to things when they were set on fire. That particular habit caused him much consternation generally, and particularly when he did it with a necktie. It had been early-onset heart disease, which came as quite a shock to him, Patricia, and Clarissa. Ryan had just gone in for his annual, and he had high blood pressure and the doctor had told him that cholesterol was a concern, as was salt. His mind was elsewhere as the reverend delivered the homily, which had now turned to best wishes from all of his friends, and had dwelt substantially on the depth of the tragedy of young death. Clarissa had told him that when she called Maurice to inform him of James’s death just an hour before, Maurice responded that James had been laid off on the same day; these events were undoubtedly connected, and Ryan could not help bearing at least some ill feeling toward Maurice, who was also at the funeral, and seated near the back of the crowded chapel. Ryan attempted to console himself by thinking of others who were in a similar situation of having to bury a child: people in war zones, military parents, but nobody came to mind who was about to bury a child who had died of a heart condition usually thought to afflict older people. He didn’t think James had any particularly unhealthy habits, either.

He was rather fond of poutine, thought Maurice. He ate that nearly every morning, and it was surprising that he had managed to keep the weight off. One the one hand, I’d ask how it’s done, not getting fat, that is, but on the other hand, he’s dead. I must make a note to avoid that in my diet, or at least avoid eating only that. I don’t think I ever saw him eat anything else, and his servings were always of a moderate size. What does his wife feed him? He wondered idly, and recalled the rich butter cream cake at the wedding. That cake might be a clue; one simply doesn’t eat that sort of rich food all the time without repercussions.

Courtney was sitting beside Maurice. She had no ill feelings from last Friday; it was the economy, after all, and nothing personal. Being at James’s funeral was sad for her, first of all, but also weird; this sort of thing should be happening when she would be an octogenarian, not now. She had noted on the numerous lunches they had together the volume of poutine he consumed; it seemed he ate nothing else. It seemed to her that he had become quite a connoisseur, which in retrospect should have been a red flag. What had triggered the heart attack, though? She knew from the timing that the layoff had something to do with it. Maybe he had received some particularly shocking news? Were they about to lose their house? Marital troubles aren’t too likely, she thought; Clarissa attended a work function just in September, they were just married for two months last Friday, and she had seen them passionately kissing when they thought they were alone.

Katherine’s thoughts were not on James as he was recently, but James as a child. As a child, he liked playing soccer and any other kind of sport that he could, and would often get her to join him with the boys. She enjoyed those carefree times of endless running in sunny field near their childhood home in Guelph. This was not to say that she had always reciprocated this playful attitude; she, being a year younger than her brother, was going through a stuck-up and bitchy phase at around the same time as his like of sports peaked, which was in grade nine; his like of sports quickly dropped off after that. Looking back on this period made her realise how much she missed James, and that particular phase in his development. His interest in sports had ended when he was bullied in gym class in grade nine, and after that, he abandoned exercise and did not look back. Hence, by the time he graduated university, he was slightly overweight, and his waistline grew incrementally each year until he died just a few days previously. She wondered how he would have turned out had he sustained his like of sports; he would have been a bit more healthy, and probably still alive; on the other hand, he wouldn’t have become as intellectual, she thought as she reflected on the athletic men she knew who somehow didn’t measure up in terms of education and brainpower.

Patricia, while she was crying, was reminiscing silently about James’s life: little James who would run around, playing tag with his sister, the gregarious, teenaged James whose favourite activities of the time consisted of eating potato chips and going to parties, who then turned bookish during his university days while having a parade of girlfriends; his whole life seemed so right, so wholesome, and it seemed unjust that he should have to die so young, at just thirty-three, without seeing any children, and without burying his parents first. I shouldn’t have to be doing this, she thought; I shouldn’t be grieving for my son; would that our places had switched, and the day postponed by twenty years or so, she thought; there I was thinking my kids would be around forever, foolishly. She then looked out the window at the bruised grey sky; it had been threatening rain for the past two days, but had not delivered, and the air was getting chilly, as all the pleasant smells of summer, of the flowers, the fruit, died and gave way to the sweet scent of decaying maple leaves.

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The Third Part of Chapter 12: Out

Meanwhile, Eunice could not take the stress of knowing something important was going on, and not knowing what exactly it was; it was most disconcerting to her to be in the dark about one of her friends.

“I’m going over,” she said.

“What?” Mario was thinking of the preparations that he had to make for Steve, who would be sleeping on the pullout couch in the guest bedroom.

“I’m going to see James and Clarissa,” said Eunice, this time more emphatically.

“Something’s going on over there, and I simply must see what it is.”

Eunice stepped out the door just in time to see an ambulance zoom down the street and stop at Clarissa’s house. Now she knew something was afoot; one doesn’t dial 9-1-1 for just a scrape, and Clarissa and James did not strike her as obsessive-compulsive, hypochondriacs, or particularly weak. No, she thought; they are sturdy, sensible people, neither of whom would call an ambulance unless there was something seriously wrong. She then saw paramedics get out of the ambulance and run into Clarissa’s door. She could see the figure of Clarissa stepping out, and she could see even from fifty metres away that she was crying. The paramedics were carrying a body out of the house and examining it; it must be James! This thought was chilling, even though she had quite clearly heard Clarissa’s scream. She was now close enough to hear conversation:

“I’m sorry ma’am, there’s nothing we can do for him; your husband is dead.”

“Dead!” This came as a pitiful wail from Clarissa, and sent shock waves through Eunice’s body. This Clarissa looked nothing like the Clarissa who had moved in with James in May or the Clarissa she had known in university, because that Clarissa was always smiling widely, and lit up any room she entered when she smiled. James’s death was evidently taking its instant toll on her. The tear-streaks seemed to age her by ten years or more, and her hair, which was shiny and always carefully combed and styled, suddenly looked dishevelled, as if she had been running her hand through it very vigorously, as she was now doing.

“Do you need any other assistance, ma’am?”

Although this was a simple question, Eunice could see that Clarissa was having difficulty answering; she paused and stammered, which was unusual for the normally forthright and decisive Clarissa that she had known since university.

“…No…I do not think that I shall need any help.” This was a simple enough sentence, but still took Clarissa ten seconds to say.

“Well then, goodbye madam. We are very sorry about your husband’s death; it seems to have been a heart attack, which is very unusual for a thirty-three year old.” This provoked a fresh wave of sobbing from Clarissa; this matter-of-fact, yet almost cruel statement of what was a particularly acute case of bad luck was causing her anguish.

The news of James’s death came as a shock to Eunice and as the paramedics left in the
ambulance with James’s body, presumably to deliver it to a morgue, she approached Clarissa.

“Eunice” was the mechanical greeting that replaced the more cheerful “hi”.

“Clarissa, what happened?”

“He died.”

“Well, I could hear the paramedics, so I know that. What happened before that?”

Clarissa stammered before answering. “He had just arrived home, and I told him I was pregnant. I had decided to surprise him, you see. And then he…” at this point, she broke into tears.

Eunice finished her sentence: “…He had a heart attack. I heard the paramedics,”

Eunice, like Clarissa, was feeling devastated herself; she had known James since he had moved onto the street, after all, which was longer than Clarissa had known him, for she had heard Mario tell her that James told him that he and Clarissa had met at work in February. She was also much slower to tear up than Clarissa was, but they were already gathering in her eyes, and she blinked as a single tear fell down her cheek, in empathy with Clarissa as much as in mourning of the sudden and unexpected loss. Ever the practical woman––Mario had called her almost cruelly practical––she said, “I think we are going to have to make funeral arrangements,”

This was a mistake to say, thought Eunice, as she observed Clarissa dissolving into fresh tears. She nodded, though. There was a stiff breeze blowing, and Eunice, who was getting cold, bade Clarissa good-bye until the next day, and went home. Once home, she confronted her dinner, which had cooled off.

“Well?” said Mario.

“James died of a heart attack,” said Eunice.

Mario thought, what a concise, matter-of-fact statement, from somebody so taken with shallow gossip, to devote only six words to something so profoundly tragic. He was so shocked that he hardly knew what to think.

“A heart attack? At his age? Really?”

“I’m just as shocked as you are, dear,” said Eunice. She sat down on the couch in their living room, and cried over the loss of a close friend, and for Clarissa, for whom the loss could only be more painful. By now, she will have called her parents, and wondered how the parents––his and hers––were coping with the death. The death would unquestionably have repercussions with Patricia and Ryan; Eunice thought of them as sweet, aging people, who did not deserve such tragedy in their lives.

Mario had no idea how to deal with mourning; when his grandparents died, it wasn’t an issue, as they were old; there was the memorial, and then he went on with life, and they were of another generation; it was that generation’s duty to mourn, if at all. This on the other hand, was the death of a young person, apparently in good health, to all appearances. James was a friend, and now there was a void in his life. There was also the touchy issue of how to approach the subject with Clarissa; mourning needed to be a communal activity, for misery festers in solitude; for that reason, they decided to have Clarissa over for dinner that weekend.


The dinner on the Saturday passed in a subdued atmosphere, the loudest noise was the clinking of forks against plates, and it was not surprising that Steve excused himself from the table and went to watch television, such was the atmosphere of the house, and Eunice could only imagine how Clarissa was coping.


On Monday, Yvon, not normally a sensitive man, still noticed a dramatic change in Clarissa’s behaviour, which he first witnessed that morning, when he came to her cubicle to ask a question. Normally when he did this she would regard him imperiously, give him the eye if he said something along the lines of “How’s it goin’, blondie,” which he often did, even though she was a brunette, but when he entered on Monday, she registered hardly any reaction.

“Clarissa, I’m surprised; normally, you behave coldly to me, but now I’m hardly getting any reaction,”

“Yeah, what’s your question,” she acknowledged, without adding the usual “and make it quick.”

“The Minister has a question that he anticipates will come up; it’s about the self-employed fishermen’s subsidies,”

“I saw the email you sent me. I’ll get on it,” she said.

“I’m missing the barbed retorts,”

“I’m missing the spark in my life,”

Yvon thought that this was a rare slip for Clarissa.

“So, I take it something must have happened; I may be an economist, but I’m not completely emotionally dead inside,”

“I’m also an economist,”

“Well, what happened?”

“It’s my husband,”

“What happened? Surely he didn’t die?”

“Actually, that is what happened,” said Clarissa.

“Oh dear, I’m so sorry,” even for a sardonic person such as Yvon, there were sacred cows; the death of one’s beloved was one, and Yvon felt sorry for his co-worker, regardless of how often she ignored him, which she did adeptly; she would simply smile, or roll her eyes, or say, “good morning Yvon,” when he made one of his smart-ass jibes; there would be no such smart-ass behaviour today, or during that week, which was set aside for mourning, at least for Clarissa.

“But he looks so young in that photo on the desk; was it a car crash?”

“Sadly, no; if it were, I would have somebody to blame; it was a heart attack,”

“At his age? He looked like he was in his thirties!”

“He was; everyone’s shocked,”

Yvon thought, but didn’t say aloud in a rare moment of tact, that Clarissa could have done better than by marrying some dud.

“Well, me, I’m very sorry,”

“Thank you for your condolences,”

Yvon walked quickly away from her cubicle into his own, not wanting to deal further with a sad story; listening, as he had to, to his mother griping about her cottage friends at Lake Temiscamingue was bad enough, and still worse to hear her complain about himself, his brother and sister about how they never visit; Yvon said he would visit her more often, but her house smelled too strongly of cats.

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The Second Part of Chapter 12: Out

Eunice and Mario were sitting down to a particularly delicious dinner of seafood crepes with a salad on the side. Eunice had taken a bite when she heard a scream. “What was that?” she said, startled.

“You mean who was that,”

“It sounded like it came from the Millers’,” said Eunice.

“I had better see what’s up,” said Mario. With that, he rose and went to the window. Clarissa and James lived four houses down the street, and their front door was visible over the junipers that grew in the front. A glance revealed that the door was open, and he could see the figure of Clarissa, who was talking on her cell phone. He saw her put her phone away, and kneel down near a mass on their floor. That was all he could see. He then returned to the table.

“Something’s going on at the Millers,” said Mario.

“I’ll call them to see what’s going on,” said Eunice.

“Can’t that wait?” interjected Mario. He disapproved of Eunice’s gossipy streak; if Clarissa had something to tell them, she would surely call. They were about to enjoy a nice dinner anyways, and eating dinner while it was still hot was more important than something going on at the neighbours’. He took a line of passive resistance to gossip, usually nodding and saying “uh-huh” before he turned away or tried to steer the conversation elsewhere.

Thinking about Clarissa and James was making Eunice antsy; she viewed herself as one who needed to be up on the latest events and in the know. As a result, she played with her food more than she normally did, and enjoyed it less; she would have normally savoured every bite of her creation, from the texture and taste of the crepe right down to the creamy filling with crab, lobster and scallops. She finished her dinner in five minutes and strode over to the phone.

“I’m sure she’ll call us,” said Mario as Eunice dialled the Millers’ number.

She listened, and frowned when she got a busy signal.

“Fine, I can wait a few moments,”

“I told you, she will call us if there is anything going on; we’re quite close, after all.”

Eunice drummed her fingers on the kitchen counter, and then picked up the casserole dish. She removed the remaining crepes, put them in a Tupperware bin, which she then put in the fridge; Steve, who was from Sudbury, would be visiting for the weekend, and he liked crepes as much as they did. She then did the washing, with her mind always on Clarissa and James. It was interesting to hear Steve talk, especially about the nickel mine where he worked; on the other hand, she was not so much interested in hearing him gripe about his neighbour, a woman named Juliana, which was what he did the last time he visited, in January; gossip lost its appeal when the subject is one whom she did not know.


The phone rang at Ryan’s house, and he picked it up. Clarissa was again at the other end of the line. This time, however, she was in hysterics.

“He’s… dead!” the words came out in stutters.

“Who’s dead?

“James!”

“James…how? He’s perfectly healthy, he can’t be dead!”

“I called the ambulance two minutes ago; I didn’t think he was dead either.”

“What happened, though?”

“He arrived home, and I told him the good news. He then went into shock; it might be a heart condition, I don’t know.”

“Ryan, who is that you’re talking to?” inquired Patricia.

“It’s Clarissa. Jimmy’s dead.”

“My Jimmy… no! It can’t be. He must be alive, he must!”

Patricia went to kitchen and picked up the other phone. “What happened?” she asked sharply, in something of a panic.

“Oh, Patricia, I’m so sorry. He went into shock when I told him I was pregnant. I don’t know what to think right now. He was only thirty-three; I can hardly believe this is happening.”

They heard Clarissa choking back a sob. “It’s just such a horrible way to go. We were supposed to raise a kid together. Would you know of any conditions he might have had that could have led to this?”

“No, not at all. It’s such a tragedy, and we’re all in the dark.”

Was it murder? Surely not, he thought, in dismissal of the absurdity of such a notion; they loved each other deeply, which he could see from the way they would look into each other’s eyes. A woman who loves their husband that much doesn’t just kill him. Did someone else kill him? If that were the case, Clarissa would have told, and they would not be so much in the dark. Was it illness? No, then Clarissa would have had some sort of warning. Could it be a heart condition, as Clarissa said? Now, there’s a possibility; it is known that the first sign of chronic heart disease is death: “it doesn’t make you ill, it just kills you”. On the other hand, heart disease did not run in the family, at least not that he knew of.

Patricia was both in hysterics and grasping at straws; what could explain it? It could not have been anything fishy, and it did not sound like there was any violence involved; if that were not the case, Clarissa would not have called so quickly were she the killer, and she would have said so were it someone else. Little Jimmy, oh poor, dear little Jimmy must have been ill with something. What was it, though? She needed answers! The notion of her grief, powerlessness and ignorance of all circumstances was as much as she could bear.

“Clarissa, were there any warning signs?”

“No; he was fine yesterday. I told him that I was pregnant just as he got home. He was shocked, and then he collapsed.”

This was even more mysterious; there were definitely no prior signs.

“Well, it is very devastating to hear this, Clarissa dear, but thank you for telling us,” said Patricia.

“It just happened three minutes ago,” said Clarissa.

“Well, good-bye then, and we will have to look into funeral arrangements.”

“Wait a minute. You said you were pregnant?”

“I’m keeping the baby. The death of my husband does not change things,” responded Clarissa, sniffing.

“I have wanted a baby, and I will raise one without James, as I shall have to do now. Good-bye, Ryan and Pat,”

“Good-bye, Clarissa.”

Patricia hung up the phone in the kitchen and wept. It was even more devastating for her than for Clarissa, she thought; she had raised him, while Clarissa knew him for less than a year. Now he’s been felled by I-don’t-know-what, leaving a pregnant widow and grieving parents.
Ryan joined Patricia in the kitchen. His cheeks were tear-stained. “Why us, Ryan?”

“Questions like that sometimes don’t have answers, darling. It might be God’s plan,”

Ryan felt a mixture of grief and frustration. Patricia felt the same.

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The First Part of Chapter 12: Out

James arrived home at 6:35, hoping for a good dinner, or anything to get his mind off how to find a new job. There were no savings in the bank account; after the wedding, honeymoon, and mortgage, they were all out; at least there was no debt other than the mortgage. Clarissa, beaming, greeted him as he stepped through the doorway.

“Hi honey, guess what?”

“You roasted a duck for dinner?”

“No, I just made a casserole. I’m pregnant!”

The news hit James like a shock wave. How were they going to pay for this? He was fired! “What?” he gasped.

He then clutched at his chest and collapsed in the front hall. He saw lights flashing in his eyes, his vision was going blurry, he could no longer see the living room, and the outline of the chandelier was becoming fuzzier and then was a ball of light; he was also losing feeling at the extremities. It seemed like an eternity, although it was less than a second later, that he had a sudden flashback of himself chasing his sister around the backyard when they were living in Guelph, and then him again, skipping gym class while eating a chocolate bar, potato chips and fries, which he had liberally topped with salt, a common scene from his high school years. What had he read about salt in the past year? He simultaneously recalled Maurice’s voice congratulating him when he was hired at Valoix Consulting. Then he remembered the wedding, with the botched, though still tasty wedding cake; he loved the rich, buttery smell of that cake, and butter cream was his favourite cake for years, and then it hit him: the date written on the wedding cake in icing was October 15th, today’s date. He was finding it hard to breathe; his sight went entirely, then his smell, all very quickly; he could hear his wife’s screaming only as a distant echo. He could hear her faintly crying “James, James!” The floor felt indistinct, neither hot nor cold, and then he felt nothing of the floor, or the air, at all. All the while––really less than two seconds, he was fighting to regain control over his body, which was in a state of mutiny over his mind, which was also in chaos. He lost consciousness. He was a shell; he was no more; he was dead.

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Inspirations for my writing

One of the subplots is inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and several characters have names based on names from this play.

The main plot resembles, in character, a Thomas Hardy novel in terms of plot development, but not backdrop: Hardy emphasised the flora, the fauna, and sometimes the night sky in his novels, while I emphasise the weather.

For the nucleus of the story, around which I wrote the plot and various characters, I took as an inspiration a six word story that Ernest Hemingway supposedly wrote: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” I also composed other stories of the same length, and for the basic framework of the plot, I strung them together. I actually consider that story, supposedly by Hemingway, to be the kernel around which the novel developed.

Links

Shakespeare's Macbeth

Works by Thomas Hardy (on Wikisource)

Article on Ernest Hemingway and his apocryphal story, with numerous others.

The Third Part of Chapter 11: Spreading Ripples

At five on that same evening, the phone rang, and Ryan picked it up.

“Hello Ryan,”

It was Clarissa. “Hello Clarissa. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Really? My son got you pregnant? I’m so glad for you. Did you tell James yet?”

“No, he’s working late tonight.”

“How far are you into your term?”

“About seven weeks.”

“That’s excellent; I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear the news when he gets home.”

Ryan told Patricia, and she happily ruminated. “Finally, we’ll have a grandchild; I so dearly want a grandchild!”

“Me too, honey,”

“We can have him or her over for Canada Day, and next Halloween will be so joyous,” she said, and continued rhapsodising about Clarissa’s pregnancy and praising her son’s happy marriage until dinner.

James meanwhile was in Maurice’s office.

“The company isn’t doing too well; sales are down, you know. You know it’s very difficult for me to tell you that we’re going to have to…how shall I put this?”

“You’re laying me off?”

“Yes. We’re very sorry to let you go.” Maurice still felt uncomfortable about being the one responsible for the bad news, which was why he used “we’re” rather than “I’m”.

“Is this permanent?”

“Yes, unfortunately. You know, we also had to let Arlene, Fred and Riley go last week. We need to consolidate.”

“I understand,” said James, his voice faltering a bit.

“Please don’t make a scene in my office. It was hard enough watching Courtney when I did this. You have until the end of the day at six, and before you get too discouraged, you were a real asset to us over these past five years; you have a great future ahead of you, so just remember to keep a happy face.”

“Perhaps I should have been expecting this,”

“Yes, it’s very tough; anyways, you may always use me as a reference in your future job-seeking, and I’m sure others at the office would also be very glad to be references. You have their phone numbers, I presume?”

James went back to his office; the same thing had happened to Karim and Courtney earlier in the morning. Karim took it well enough, he thought; Courtney, on the other hand, was bawling as she left Maurice’s office for her own to gather her files. How shall I break the news to Clarissa, he pondered; we must delay our plans for a baby for now, as I think my unemployment will last a while. The situation put him to mind something a journalist said to him: a conscripted soldier said to his king, “why me?” The king responded, “Because”. There did not have to be a particularly good reason; after all, there was no good reason that the economy was not doing that well; the recession had been hard, like all others, on the labour force, and the economy was taking a while to recover. He also felt powerless, rather like that proverbial soldier; he was a lamb, offered at the altar of economic efficiency, or some other sacred and enshrined concept so worshipped by business managers the world over. He had spent years studying this, and it still seemed to him an arcane and twisted subject, with its own logic. He then remembered one of the reasons cited: Inxton Car Seats; in the fateful meeting, the name had struck a bell with James, and now he knew why: it was their cancelled shareholders meeting that had freed up time at the convention centre for the wedding reception; now he regarded that event not as a blessing, but as a curse; perhaps he would remember it for a while for something seeming other than what it really was, a sign of impending hardship rather than luck and convenience.

Courtney had left the office earlier in the day, and she was taking the bus home to Chelsea. The scene she had made in the office had been cathartic for her, but her unemployment left her feeling powerless; it was like she was treading water, and she had no idea of her next move. Then she resolved herself; she was twenty-six, and would not take this lying down; she was youthful, she was energetic, and now she had experience working for Maurice. Many employers would want someone like me, she thought. With the money she had, she had about six months worth of savings built up on which she could live, and then there were the Employment Insurance payments for which she was eligible; now, the problem was, where should she submit her résumé? With all of this on her mind, she ignored the greenery that was moving past her, something she did not normally do: the leaves on the trees, regardless of the colour, always soothed her when there was nothing overly burdensome on her mind, as was the case at that moment. At any rate, she thought, she would have good contacts with Maurice and James.

Maurice thought that on the one hand, they were becoming slimmer, and everybody will work smarter. Wait a minute; that is simply useless business jargon that is such a clear indicator of a paucity of creativity. The real reason always runs: we are losing money (which is the case) and we must make some very painful cuts. It is true, after all; sales are down, just as I told James, Courtney and Karim. On the other hand, there is the risk that we will be run dry; that was the fate of Isis Incorporated. Those people continued to cut their staff, and they were left with just the president and his son, and then nobody. A warning then, he resolved: that cannot happen here! It happened with the automakers, it happened with that bank; we must avoid corporate anorexia; his layoff must be the last! Speaking of which, where should we be looking for expansion opportunities? Le Chateau? Brogue? Research in Motion? How about OpenText? They all seemed like decent prospects.

James took the bus home as always, but while he usually napped on the bus for while, today he went through his options, agitated; it was clear that he had to find a new job; otherwise, he would be unable to look Clarissa in the eye. It was also clear that he would need to take a new job soon, but it escaped him where he could look. Always consider the government: they hire many economists, he told himself. If not, he could simply work in a store somewhere. His new unemployed status also made him much more apprehensive at starting a family; that would have to wait until he was certain of employment.

“Hi, can I sit here? Thanks,” said a lady when she boarded the bus.

“Of course,” said James as the woman sat beside him; in contrast to himself, the woman was humming happily to herself.

“Glum?”

“Yeah,” said James, not wishing to draw attention to his emotions, which would invite questions as to the reasons, which would lead to an uncomfortable explanation of his unemployment.

“That’s too bad. I’m Linette, by the way. I work at Cognos.”

“Good company,”

“Mostly,” she said. “There’s this one woman I don’t like; she’s kind of obnoxious. Thank goodness she’s not my boss. I think she’s in line for the chopping block; she made fun of a client’s accent yesterday,”

“Bad idea. I’m with Valoix consulting,” said James, careful to omit the word “work.”

“They’re in the building down the street, aren’t they?”

“Yes,”

The conversation was becoming increasingly uncomfortable, and the rest of the ride passed in an awkward silence.

He got off at Somerset to do some grocery shopping at Hartman’s, firstly because they needed groceries, and secondly because he wanted to take his mind off worries. He left the store with some vegetables, milk, and potato chips, on which he snacked as he made the remainder of the trip home.

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The Second Part of Chapter 11: Spreading Ripples

James and Clarissa spent the evening discussing plans for Halloween.

“I’ve been wanting to go out as Groucho Marx for quite a while,”

“I’ve been looking for something suggestive; I saw quite a selection of dirty nurse costumes at the costume store,”

“What costume store was this? Do you mean Aren’t We Naughty? Well, I don’t have any problem with you dressing––if it can be called that––like that before, well, you know. For a Halloween party––”

“Oh, don’t worry about the Halloween party. Eunice said yesterday that she was going as a witch.”

“That’s not overtly sexual,”

“You didn’t see the costume. It was very tight; I didn’t see her wearing it, but it looked like that, given the size of the dress and the size of her body. It has fishnet stockings, and was ripped in all the right places.”

“You’re making my Groucho Marx idea sound boring,”

“If that’s the case, then let me make clear to you that I have no issue whatsoever with you dressing like Tarzan, or even more sparingly, if not for Halloween.”

“Like Tarzan? With my body?”

“I don’t care about the type of body you have; I married you for your personality,” she replied, kissing him. His hand caressed her back, and then travelled downwards, with her hand guiding his.

“If I dress like Tarzan, will you dress like Jane?” They had scenes like this quite often, thought James as he recalled their encounter in Margaret’s house, which had begun with a similar conversation about clothing that had ended quite well for the both of them. They were doing this almost nightly, despite the fact that the previous night, this had resulted in the destruction of a lamp, and Clarissa had had the misfortune to knock a cactus from its perch on the windowsill while she was wearing a blindfold.

“I hear that one of my friends simply puts on the mask of a different politician every year; I call him a geek for it. This year, he said he was going out as Bruce Meach, with tomato juice spattered all over himself, of course. He also said something about a crown,”

“I just thought: would you like me as a banshee?”

“I wouldn’t mind in the least,”

On Thursday, the scene was much different; James was eating a bag of chips when he found he could not finish them off. It was not just that, it was also that they were his favourite kind: sour cream and onion. For some reason, he found the chips too salty, and this had never occurred before. Perhaps it was a premonition of something, he thought. In an attempt to banish these thoughts from his mind, he turned to something much more reassuring, of which he felt much surer: his work. Maurice had a meeting with Jonathan, and was most impressed. It was true that they had lost some manufacturing businesses; a faucet company, Omega, had went under, a Bank in the States that had previously been expanding into Canada found it was too loaded with unredeemable debts, the car seat maker had gone in August, and just yesterday, a maker of industrial lasers had downsized and viewed economic consulting as a frivolity, among others, but there was still comfort in the large pile of work waiting for him on his desk tomorrow. He then considered the company’s books: he had passed them over since May, but surely, they must be doing all right, what with five new clients. He then heard Clarissa re-enter from her short trip to the convenience store for milk.

“Hi Clarie,”

“Hi Jimmy,”

Clarissa crossed over to the kitchen with two bags; one contained the milk, and the other contained an assortment of other stuff that he could not see; there seemed to be two grocery bags, one inside the other. It being a tiring day for James, he went to sleep at ten, which was early for him.


That same evening, Margaret was wondering when her daughter would phone; that speculation ended the next day. “Hi mom,” said Clarissa, sounding bright and chipper to Margaret over the phone.

“Hello dear, you sound very happy today. What’s the occasion?”

“I’m pregnant!”

“He got you pregnant?” the disdain in Margaret’s voice was evident. James seemed like such a cold fish to her, she thought. How is he going to raise a child? He also seems far too nice; she and Hyram didn’t raise Clarissa that way, she thought. Although there might be some room for joy, she did not communicate that to her daughter by way of the tone of her voice, which instead sent a message of disapproval.

“Mother! You’re making it sound like pregnancy in wedlock is disreputable,”

“Oh, sorry. But really? With him? When?”

“Two months ago. It happened about a week before the wedding,”

“Weren’t you at our place that weekend?”

“Yes, and what do you mean, ‘with him’? He’s my husband, and procreation is the most ancient and time-honoured purpose of marriage.”

“Don’t you think it’s rather early to be starting a family with this man?”

“I know you have your own opinions, but look: I have my income, he has his, and we shall have ample money to raise a child, and really, I don’t see any point in waiting; it’s inevitable in the end,”

“Well, I’m glad, I guess; it’s your decision, as you said. But please make sure you don’t drink anything, eat lots of good food, not that fatty stuff James likes that only masquerades as food, and get plenty of sleep at night. I want a healthy second grandchild!”

“When did you guess that about Jim’s eating habits? I don’t think I mentioned to you what he eats,”

“I have eyes, you know, and I saw several trays piled with deep-fried objects––I will not honour them with the label ‘food’––at the wedding, and James was grazing on them well into the night, do you remember?” She had actually heard this from Eunice.

“All right; thank you for impressing the point upon me,”

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The First Part of Chapter 11: Spreading Ripples

James spent Wednesday morning at work trying to fill in the hole left by Inxton Car Seats; he felt rather guilty about letting the file slip through his fingers; while their bankruptcy had freed up the convention space for his wedding, he was still suffering the repercussions; Maurice had said they needed to cut costs somehow, and would no longer be filling the water cooler, and would be selling their parking allotment in their office building; it was purchased by an entrepreneur looking to turn it into bike storage, which many people in the office thought was a good idea; James and Colleen had both praised him, in person and when he wasn’t around, for taking initiative, and wondered whether he had any other plans; Colleen had promised to be a loyal customer. He then spent an extended lunch hour perusing the stock listings in the business sections of The Globe and Mail while eating a bag of potato chips. The fall effect had set in, by which stocks typically do poorly in September and October, and thus he had seen plenty of down days in the markets; he was beginning to rue the investment choice he had made in January, betting that a silver mine in Bolivia would be doing well; such was not the case, and he was regretting that decision to the tune of two thousand dollars; that was his only major stock purchase in the year, he noted with consternation. Gambling at points pays off, and playing the stock market in such a fashion was gambling; there was the issue of first movers, for instance, making innovation and staking mineral claims essentially a horse race, with investors turning into gamblers betting on the winner. When it fails to pay off, James found, there were serious issues concerning what the hell he was doing playing around with his money. When one did well, on the other hand, there would be congratulations all around. Patricia was the one who normally said this, but she was now taking the pressure off concerning some of his poorer investing choices, and was focussing her attention on Katherine, quietly pressuring her to find a boyfriend.

“Something on your mind, Jim?” It was Karim, who was working with Colleen on the marketing strategy while juggling two accounts.

“Just the news,”

“It always is,”

He then read the editorials, and he could see a prominent piece by Helena Perari, doing what she did best: the commentary was a stern lecture to Mopps Sousa about keeping promises to the army. “When one says you are not going to spend more than a year on a mission, you live up to your word; never make a promise you cannot keep,” he read; the article then went into the ramifications of making promises one would not keep, and finished with a righteous bout of proselytising on the lies politicians say to get elected. “It unquestionably diminishes the value of public participation in government, and does nothing to help the good name of democracy,” she finished. James thought Sousa’s tendency to give grandiloquent and overlong speeches about various subjects unrelated to the army mildly entertaining; the one for which Perari had been chiding him saw him talk about posterity, and James had the impression that Mopps Sousa was ignorant of the meaning of posterity.

James was home early, due to him having finished most of his work, and with all clients reasonably happy, he decided to stop for the day. Thus, he was home at four thirty, as opposed to the normal six thirty. He part read a chapter from The Wealth of Nations (It was the one on taxation), and, most remarkably, managed to stay awake without having his eyes drift all over the page or putting the book down and getting preoccupied with something else. At five, he busied himself with dinner, which that night was to be mussels and sauce, served over rice. That James was cooking meant that the rice had a quarter teaspoon of salt in it, as did the sauce. This being mussels, it was ready within half an hour, and he ate then, but alone, and salted his food, as was his habit; Clarissa didn’t arrive home until much later, and the dinner he had served onto a plate for her was cold.

“You didn’t say you’d be home so late,” said James as Clarissa entered. It was seven, and she was normally home before six.

“Sorry, I just had this meeting that dragged on and on endlessly, and some person from Finance or wherever was droning about the account of something or other. It must have been the Union’s pension plan, that’s it. Anyways, they’re looking into investments; I can’t see why they don’t just buy stocks at random. All of us know that luck and random chance are just as good models for stock market behaviour as the most sophisticated modelling instruments,”

“Ah yes, the market as giant casino model; it’s my favourite one, though not one that the stock analysts take kindly to; it implies their job is pointless,”

“Yeah, thank goodness Vilia slumped over and the guy who called the meeting decided it was time to end it. Yvon then made an off-colour comment about my ass. ‘It’s growing rather large,’ he said. I retorted with a remark about his caboose, and then he asked me how much turkey I had on Saturday,”

“There was someone like that when I worked at Scotiabank; he would always be womanising, he was a real chauvinist, and would make all sorts of smart-Alec remarks about the women,”

“What happened to him?”

“Management shipped him off to Peru to manage branch operations there.”

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The Fifth Part of Chapter 10: Thanksgiving

Upon arriving home, they deposited their bags in the bedroom and went to Ryan and Patricia’s house for Thanksgiving, which had a much more intimate atmosphere than Margaret’s house, for three reasons: their house was smaller and cosier, their house was older and had a century’s worth of accumulated character, and lastly, there were no children in the family. Ryan and Patricia both wanted that last aspect changed, but so far were luckless: Katherine, after her divorce, had decided that she didn’t particularly want children, and Clarissa and James didn’t have any children as of yet.

Ryan and Patricia, unlike Margaret and Hyram, were much warmer in attitude to their children; Patricia was particularly doting, and looked fondly at James as he helped himself to extra gravy. “How were Margaret and Hyram?”

“They were all right, but they’re a bit fussy. Well, Margaret in particular was fussy. Their house was almost absurdly clean; it looked something like a museum,”

“Mom and dad can always find something about which to complain; she criticised Jimmy’s waistline, and I can’t see anything wrong with it,”

“Mike was kind of like that, except he wasn’t too fussy in his complaining; it was simply that anything I did was open to criticism. Hence the divorce,”

Patricia made a face at this; she would have preferred Katherine to be more prudent in her choice of men, and she, for one, saw through all of Mike’s façades after only a week of knowing him, whereas it had taken Katie five years to get the divorce, and she simply didn’t see what, if anything, this had to do with her decision against children. “So, are you seeing anyone interesting, Katie dear?” she asked. To be fair, the question was loaded, and Katherine was in no hurry to answer, or solve it.

“No, singlehood appeals to me. I can do whatever I want, and there’s nobody to criticise it.”

“Oh, I think it’s all a question of finding the right person; that’s the way it was with Patty and I. We met in university, and we decided we loved each other. It’s been forty years now.”

The remainder of the dinner passed amicably, and James and Clarissa talked about what was going on at their respective offices.

“So, a lot of people are nervous about layoffs, and corporate-speak isn’t helping. You know, when someone says ‘work smarter, not harder’, ‘we need to consolidate’, ‘rationalise the staff’, and all that. Our office isn’t like that, thank goodness; Maurice doesn’t go so much for the corporate doublespeak: he simply goes right out and says what’s what.”

Ryan, upon hearing the phrases repeated, recalled the Dilbert comics that ridiculed them so well. At eight, after dinner and apple pie, it was time to leave.

“Thank you for the dinner, Ryan,”

“Thank you, dad,”

“It was very nice to see all three of you again. Good luck with raising a family,” said Patricia; she really wanted to see grandchildren; so did Ryan, but he kept his sentiments to himself.

Upon arriving home, James asked, “So, what do you think? Should we get busy and start a family?”

Clarissa laughed at this; “we’ll see,” she said.

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The Fourth Part of Chapter 10: Thanksgiving

From there, the conversation switched to matters that are more domestic, and Alice said, “So sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry, Alice; boys will be boys,” said Hyram. Margaret, on the other hand, glowered at Sean, and he pointedly avoided her withering gaze; despite being only two, he had already learned to avoid his grandmother’s wrath.

“I hope this phase in his development will be over soon,” she said. “Watching him in August was no picnic, let me tell you; he would jump out of bed at six or some ungodly hour, and run around the house without any clothes on. He would only let me catch him after he had had his fun, and then he would fight me in trying to get his clothes on, saying he wanted mommy. He played with his Brussels sprouts; he stuck his carrots up his nose, and liked to play catch with me with the peas. There was that one time when he ran down the road after I had tried to give him a bath. He was screaming, “Save me from the monster!” at the top of his lungs, and this was, unhappily, after I had taken his clothes off. I’m glad it’s you taking care of him and not me, Jacob.”

Alice smiled a little, while Sean was pulling faces at nobody in particular. Margaret had repeated the story about him running away from his bath many times in Jacob’s presence, and this was easy to do given that they lived in Mississauga, not at all far from Willowdale. This repetition was an implicit criticism of the younger Varrettes’ parenting style, without her saying straight out that she thought Alice and Jacob were raising her grandchild poorly.

Margaret, in an attempt to change the subject, said, “it’s very interesting how some people’s predictions about certain individuals can be taken to heart; Time Magazine detailed the President’s life, and how all along people were predicting he would be great, and look where he is now. I remember a similar thing happening to Bruce Meach; it was in 2001 that Mark Gainly tapped him as a man to watch, and he said Meach would be Prime Minister one day. You know, that’s Mark Gainly, who’s a pollster now, and quite a good one, I might add. Of course, Andrea Colm was none too pleased about that: she pointedly said that only one person could be Prime Minister of the country at any one time, and that was that,”

“Mom, I find it amazing that you remember who wrote that article in the Globe and Mail; that was nine years ago!”

“Well, Clarie, I have a good memory for that sort of thing.”

James gave Clarissa a look that said, “What do you want to do tonight?” in a suggestive manner. They would be staying over in the room Clarissa slept in as a kid, and he wanted to get down to business; the simple thought of it made him lusty. Margaret paid no attention, fortunately; she was eating her scalloped potatoes sautéed in milk, which were particularly delicious.

Clarissa asked Mary, “How’s teaching?”

“I have three classes, one of which is quiet and seems to be made up of all the good kids, though the other two are quite boisterous; all it takes is a couple of rabble-rousers, and then the whole class becomes…well, exciting, shall we say,”

It was at this point that James had zoned out completely; perhaps it was the turkey, but he found that he was tuning out. Food had a way of doing that, and at this point, the volume dropped down, and the only thing audible was the clinking of metal cutlery against the plates. James reached for the salt and sprinkled it liberally on the remaining turkey and scalloped potatoes, and made eye contact with nobody until the plate was empty.

After dinner, James, Clarissa, Alice and Jacob were resting in the downstairs living room, working off the meal. Sean on the other hand had different ideas.

“Daddy, read me a story.” He commanded, waving Hop on Pop in front of Jacob’s face.

“You didn’t teach him please?”

“Uncle James is right, Sean. Say 'please'.”

Sean pouted.

“Sean, we want you to be good.”

“Peese,”

“Close enough, I guess.”

Sean climbed into his father’s lap, and handed him the story; they finished the book in ten minutes, longer than usual because he had kept pointing to the various characters and said things like “what’s dat?” or “why is dat guy’s nose so funny?” For him, bed-time reading was a competitive sport; whoever fell asleep first was the loser in his eyes, and by this measure, Sean was about to beat his father.

Having won over his father, he advanced on his mother.

“Mommy,”

“All right Sean, but promise me you’ll fall asleep,” so you won’t bother me anymore, she thought. It was lucky for her that she had brought along more Seuss than simply Hop on Pop, and she reached into the bag and pulled out The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.

“I promise, mommy. Why I no had to say peese?”

“Uh...”

“Peese?”

James smiled; he’s finally learning his manners, he thought. This would be much easier than getting him to fall asleep after Hop on Pop; The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins was a much longer story.

“Why does the king look so much like the one from the oobweck?”

“It’s the same king,” said Alice. She started the story, and sure enough, Sean eventually fell asleep; at that moment, Alice was reading aloud. “The executioner leaned across the chopping block and flipped off Bartholomew’s hat,” looked down, and when she saw that Sean was asleep, stopped reading.

“Now we’re assured of a quiet drive home,” she said.


Clarissa and James left Margaret’s house on Sunday morning, satisfied overall with seeing Clarissa’s family. Margaret, on the other hand, was not happy; James had seemed able to find fault with various things: her over-fussiness, the dryness of her turkey, and the unimaginative, bland salad they had that dinner, to say nothing of what she had talked about. What was there wrong with politics as a dinner table discussion?

James had not seen what Margaret’s problem was: he wasn't alone in dishing out gratuitous criticism; she dwelled rather significantly on his pudgy midriff, and he thought she was overly fastidious. Hyram had a waist similar to this, but he was in his sixties, as opposed to James’s relatively youthful thirty-three. For the way back home, they walked to the subway station and rode it to Union station, which cheered James up; he was no longer grumpy about having been criticised for his waistline, and anyways, what was wrong with a few extra pounds? At Union Station, they had only to wait fifteen minutes before the train that they boarded left. James pulled out a novel he had been reading (Robertson Davies’ Leaven of Malice), and passed the rest of the journey with it.

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