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Laurie Channer
Text © 2008 by Laurie Channer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, digital, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.
Cover art/design: Vasiliki Lenis / Emma Dolan
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Darkstar Fiction
An imprint of Napoleon & Company
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Printed in Canada
12 11 10 09 08 5 4 3 2 1
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Channer, Laurie, date-Godblog / Laurie Channer.
eBook digital ISBN: 978-1-894917-93-3
I. Title.
PS8605.H3563G62 2008 C813′.6 C2008-905618-3
For Evelyn Channer,
mother and nurse,
who knows nothing about computers,
but everything about work.
One
Heathen’s cellphone died on the bus trip halfway from Whistler to Vancouver, just as she tried frantically to get information from the Vancouver Police. Mohammed gave her his, but fresher batteries still couldn’t break through the big blue information firewall. She could only assume that Dag would have been taken to the nearest hospital. When the shuttle bus arrived in downtown Vancouver, Harry, the driver, didn’t know which way to send her. Luckily, the doorman at the Wedgewood Hotel pointed her to St. Paul’s Hospital, four blocks away. He even offered a courtesy cab to get her there now that the police cordon had pulled back from the coffee shop, and traffic had begun to move through the city’s core again. Without a thought, Heathen blew off both the cab and Mohammed, who stepped off the bus right behind her, and sprinted the four blocks.
At St. Paul’s, after a couple of false starts in the ER, she got directions to the ICU just as Mohammed caught up. Without a word, he joined her in the elevator.
At ICU on the third floor, Heathen asked about Dag at the desk. A tall, Asian, uniformed cop interrupted a conversation he was having with one of the doctors. His nametag said “Tse”. “Who are you?” he asked. “Family?”
“Friend,” Heathen said. “Heather Dundonald. Friends,” she corrected herself, remembering Mohammed. “We used to work with him in Whistler.”
“Are you related to Grace Dundonald?” the cop asked.
“She’s my niece, Dag’s roommate,” Heathen said, her stomach suddenly bottoming out. “Why?” She hadn’t heard that anything horrible had happened to Grace.
“You’re the one she was e-mailing the pictures to?” he asked. Heathen nodded. “I think she could use you in there,” the cop said, pointing not toward the ICU ward, but to the families’ lounge.
It wasn’t a big room, and it was made even smaller by the considerable presence of Stewart Dundonald. Big and broad, even sitting on the couch next to Grace, his ex-bobsledder frame towered over her. Grace looked shrunken in on herself. She sobbed inconsolably, head down almost to her lap, her long, red curls tumbled over her face like a curtain.
“Oh my god, how bad is it?” Heathen said.
“Critical,” Stewart said. “They just told us. Now, I want to get Grace out of here and back home, but she—”
Oh god, oh god. Grace sobbed harder. Heathen sank down on the arm of the couch next to her, and Grace shifted over to lean on her. “Jesus.”
“I want my daughter away from all this trouble,” Stewart said. “She’s only eighteen, for chrissakes. She doesn’t need to be a part of it. Look how all this stress has upset her. We’re putting a lawsuit on those cops.” He made to put his arm around Grace, but she shrank away, huddling closer to Heathen, still unable to compose herself enough to talk. But Heathen got the message.
“Give her a minute, will you, Stewie?” Noble as his intentions were, he just didn’t get it. It was Stewart who was upsetting Grace the most. Heathen had also noticed that Grace had a white-knuckle grip on a cell phone that was clutched protectively to her chest. It wasn’t her camera phone, which would have been the same as Heathen’s, but a different one. She leaned down to Grace’s shaking curls. “Tell me about the phone, Gracie-Grace.”
Grace showed it to her. Last dialed, it read on the screen. With a 204 area code number. Manitoba. Redial? it prompted.
“His mom,” she managed to whisper. “I said I’d tell her.”
“We have to take care of you now,” Stewart said. “There are authorities to deal with that kind of thing. You’ve no responsibility for that boy.”
Heathen’s own tears were stinging her eyes now. Poor kid. Poor kids. She stood up, shaky with her own feelings. “Stewie, I need you to come with me,” she said to her brother. He had a bunch of years on her and ran his own sporting goods business, but he could still be extra-thick on the emotional side. “Grace will be okay for a minute.” Grace would probably be more than okay without her smothering father intruding.
Stewart followed her out into the corridor, standing where he could still see Grace through the open door. Heathen very deliberately pulled the door to, just enough to block that view, and saw that Grace was already pulling herself together some.
“What’s this about?” Stewart said.
Heathen faced him. “Stop what you’re doing.” “What are you talking about? I’m trying to help my daughter.”
“Look, Stewie,” she said, taking a deep breath. If it cost her all the at-cost ski gear she got from him, it still needed to be said. “She loves ‘that boy’. His name is Dag, and first off, you should use it, because he means a lot to her. You and I probably don’t even know how much.” Heathen’s voice cracked on a sob in her throat. “She’s spent this whole godawful day being there for him—you can’t just whisk her back to Calgary or wherever because she’s your little girl. Grace put herself in this, and she does have a responsibility to see it through. Good for her that she recognizes it. You want to help her, help her with that.”
Officer Tse came over. “We’re still going to need
