The Third Part of Chapter 17: Three Families, Three Christmases

André, who had moved to Toronto at the start of September, had been feeling antipathetic toward his mother; he anticipated bad blood in his future, and could not understand the viciousness of the custody battle she had waged; he would miss all of his friends, and as a protest, all meals in the household were eaten in stony silence. He liked to escape the dreariness of home, and was in the Eaton Centre that day with one of his new friends, Quentin. He pointed someone out to André.

“Do you see that woman?”

“The one walking, there?

“Yes, the pregnant one.”

“She looks rather distraught.”

“I think she would have been pretty were she smiling,”

“And had kept her hair orderly.”

The woman, an attractive brunette, looked at them, evidently having overheard.

“I prefer that people not make snap judgments.”

“Sorry ma’am; you just looked sad, that’s all.”

The woman stopped. “In that case then, you’re right; I’m a widow.” She then hurried off into the Eaton Centre, apparently to do some last minute Christmas shopping.

Good luck with that, thought André. It’s crowded like hell in there.

“What’s your brother Mike doing?”

“I don’t know, he’s in Montréal or something visiting his girlfriend; then he’ll be going to dad’s place in Buckingham,” replied André.

His brother was not a particularly nice person, especially when he was around; he was always bossy, and it puzzled him as to why he had so much difficulty finding a job.

“Divorced parents suck; my mom’s always insisting I call my dad ‘Maurice’ when I’m with her, as if that will deny his parenthood in some way. I don’t know why they split custody,” said André. He didn’t like his mother, Rose, that much either; she was always asking how Maurice treated him, and not in a kind way; she was much too obsessive, and endlessly sought to prove herself as a better parent.

The two went into the mall and headed toward the food court.

“Hey, look at that woman,” said Quentin.

“You mean the old one?”

The object of their attention noticed them. “It’s rude to point,” she said, and hurried past them in a huff.

“She doesn’t know how to dress for her age,” said André. She had been wearing jeans too tight for her, producing a muffin bulge in the waist, her blazer was inappropriately large, and he didn’t think much of the bright pink overcoat she was carrying in one arm.


Suzanne had just exited the Eaton Centre and entered Dundas Station, having finished her shopping, which given her jobless situation, consisted mostly of window-shopping, and she put on her pink overcoat, which was not really necessary considering that she would not be going outside until she reached Old Mill. Suzanne had only purchased some chocolates, and considering she could have done that in a small corner store much closer to home, the main purpose of her trip downtown was people-watching; she had seen the usual fashionable young crowd that spent large amounts of money in stylish stores, among other shoppers, but she had also seen an unhappy-looking pregnant woman, who she found quite pretty. There were also those two noisy youths she had passed on the way out; they were garishly dressed, looking somewhat like her two grandchildren, and rude, considering they had pointed at her and whispered. Someone really ought to tell them off, she thought; she did so, and in her opinion, nobody else was doing so at home. She went through the fare gate, watched the grey train pull into the station with its reassuring screech of wheels upon track, and boarded. Suzanne hoped for a cheerful Christmas, when she could forget her marital troubles, her son Melvin could forget the still-weak sales numbers at his dealership, and her son-in-law Myron could put off worry about his waistline, while Belinda had no worries at all, as was her fantasy.


It was Christmas morning, and like Suzanne, this was Margaret’s favourite time of the year; she was at the kitchen table with some coffee and a muffin; nobody else in the house was awake yet, and she and Hyram would be exchanging presents soon after breakfast. She was reading a story about polling written by Andrew Chadwick Heron in the previous day’s Globe and Mail:

Polls show Bruce Meach with a narrow lead over Cameron Duff ahead of the elections this January 17. While they are currently tied in leadership numbers, with 40% of respondents saying each would make a good leader, Meach is slightly ahead, which Mark Gainly, a pollster of the research and polling agency Treiserd-Wiss, has attributed to the attack ads which ran up until Christmas portraying Duff to be an ineffective leader causing divisiveness within his own party. The abovementioned survey is accurate to within three percentage points nineteen times out of twenty. Meach said yesterday, “The polls say I’m up, and I believe the momentum is on my side; not until the president of France says I’m a pig will I lose this election.” Meach went on to outline a new spending program aimed at improving urban transit infrastructure. “Under our governance, the government of Canada will spend one billion dollars per year over the next five years on rail transit projects in cities such as Ottawa, Quebec, Winnipeg, Kitchener, and Hamilton. We are confident that these projects will enhance mobility among city-dwellers, and help build the Canada that we need to be competitive in the future.”

He also reflected on how his government had reined the deficit in. “It was very remarkable that we managed to do it so quickly; after last year, it was very tough to get control of spending, but we did it, and we did it because we had a plan. This is the kind of leadership that Canada needs, and this is the kind of leadership that Canada will get.”

Cameron Duff, also on the campaign trail, announced new programs for the forest industry and the oil industry aimed at key constituency groups. Turn to page 4 for the story.

Margaret, with a history in the publishing business, knew Heron as a reporter, while not especially kind to his subjects, always left them feeling better; this was a relatively new strategy for Heron; in his younger days he had been more predatory, waiting for some important personage to slip up before he would pounce. She perused the other headlines, which were about an election in Lebanon, European Union negotiations with Russia, and the most remarkable performance of the stock market over the previous year. What will Clarissa have to say about the stock market, wondered Margaret; she was very interested to know why they had been rising so sharply. Her thoughts then turned to what the day would be like; Clarissa had been visiting friends the previous evening, and would arrive in the early afternoon, which meant she had to pick her up from Union Station, while Jacob and his family were to arrive at two. She must prepare the turkey, and of course the bread, which was by family custom tarragon rolls, had to be baked. There was so much to do! Luckily, the presents had been all wrapped the previous evening, the cheese was in the fridge, and Mary would be bringing the desserts. She put her coffee mug in the dishwasher and got the turkey, which had been thawing for two nights, out of the fridge.

Hyram had just woken up, and was warmly anticipating seeing all of his children that afternoon: Jacob and his wife Alice, Mary and her husband Andrew, and Clarissa, who had arrived on Christmas Eve, was pregnant, he noted happily. He hoped for Clarissa’s sake that she had stopped mourning over James’s death. While it was true that James and he had not been particularly close, Clarissa and James were close, and he simply wished to see his daughter truly happy.

Hyram had a light breakfast consisting of coffee, a piece of toast with some jam, and several oranges. After breakfast, he joined Margaret in the den, where Christmas presents would later be exchanged. He had gotten Margaret, who said she was contented and didn’t really need anything, a novel that looked interesting; they still loved each other deeply, but had stopped spending enormous amounts of money on each other long ago, each having fulfilled their material desires.

“Vanity Fair? Thank you, dear,” she said when she opened her gift; she had given him a pair of silver cufflinks, and he expressed similar appreciation. “I’ve been meaning to get this for a while, but I can never seem to find it,” she said. “Twaddle and Twankfors specialises in Canadian novels, so I don’t think we’ll be printing this any time soon,”

“I thought you had power,” said Hyram.

“Being a board member of a publishing house isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, honey; they’re always strained for money,”

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