who live alone.”
Belle nodded, taking another bar. It was only three o’clock, not that close to dinner. “Radio said that a task force is already on the job. Maybe there will be a break this week.”
“Everyone’s talking. Even my cousin Bea is concerned for her female workers.”
Bumble Bea Bakeries. The venerable family business downtown had been a legendary source of luscious breads and pastries. Hélène had said that Bea’s grandfather named it for her.
“I have some news about her that might concern you,” Hélène said with a mischievous grin that brought out her dimples.
For Belle, good news came in colourful pieces of paper bearing the pictures of prime ministers. Fall was a slack time for realtors, especially in cottage country. Such a cheat to enjoy the property during the fleeting summer then opt to sell in the fall, except what buyer wanted to freeze in an uninsulated camp with no water until the following May? Didn’t Bea live in her grandfather’s home on John Street overlooking Lake Ramsey? The city’s first luxury homes had been erected there early in the last century by upper management at the mines. Now it was an enclave of doctors, lawyers and other professionals with six-figure incomes. “Am I going to owe you? I’m five dinners behind.”
Hélène stirred her coffee with leisure, pulling out the moment like saltwater taffy, gauging Belle’s cash-register eyes. “Bea wants to sell the property and move to a smaller home, maybe in the Kingsmount area.”
Sell. The musical ride. She took a sharp breath. “That deal could be worth a million or more, depending on the lakefront. A thousand a foot on serviced lots.”
Hélène shrugged. “They used to own acres, but her father tore down the old coach house and sold parcels on either side in the Sixties to finance the bakery’s expansion.”
One dismaying thought entered Belle’s mind. “How old is the place?”
“Cayuga House dates from the twenties, eh?” Ed said as Hélène nodded. “Brass plate by the door like it was owned by some English lord.”
Belle was already calculating her commission. Every sale counted for the smallest realty in town. “If the house is that old, a new owner might demolish it. Time, roofing and plumbing march on. I’ll bet that the heating system needs an overhaul, too. There’s a dinner at Verdicchio’s in your future if I ace this.” She named the most expensive restaurant in town. The bill could qualify as a tax deduction.
“I don’t think you’ve ever met her. Bea is such a dear, and what she’s gone through.” Hélène’s face lost its customary sunshine and turned sombre.
“Health problems? Or please don’t tell me the bakery’s going belly up. Their sweet rolls are better than yours, and you wouldn’t deny it.”
“I gave Bea the recipe.” Hélène recounted how seven years ago, her much younger cousin had lost her husband Michael Bustamante and six-year-old daughter in an accident on Lake Ramsey. “Bea saw it all from her garden. July 1st holiday, it was. Mike was canoeing with the girl, life jackets of course, when a drunk driving a speedboat blasted into them. Mike died instantly of head injuries. Dear little Molly . . .” She stopped, gulping back a sob.
Ed patted her back with his walrus paws and turned to Belle. “Couldn’t get her to stop crying for a week.”
“The propeller. Her injuries were traumatic.” Reaching for a tissue, Hélène continued. Left to raise her five-year-old son, Michael Junior, Bea had married Dave Malanuk a year ago, a fundraiser for local charities. He’d adopted the boy, but left him his birth father’s name.
Belle hardly knew what to say except to make compassionate female noises. Some families were magnets for tragedy; others skated free and complained about hangnails.
“Malanuk. I know that name. Didn’t he organize the Run for the Cure?” With a memory of her co-worker Miriam’s breast-cancer scare, Belle had jogged five miles and collected two hundred dollars from her neighbours.
Hélène nodded, wiping her soft grey eyes. “He’s a wonderful guy. Just what she needed to restart her life.”
“Sounds like a solid man.” Belle couldn’t imagine the challenges of a single parent. “Kids need a father.”
“It’s been bumpy. Micro loved—”
“Micro?” Belle leaned forward as if she’d misheard.
Hélène blew her nose and managed a smile. “Michael Junior. Kids and their nicknames. Computers or something. Anyway, he loved his father and won’t accept a replacement. Problems spilled over his last year in elementary school. A bullying situation.”
Engrossed in the sports section of the paper since Hélène had calmed down, Ed finally joined in. “Some rotten kid stole his lunch. Micro was just standing up for himself. Nothing wrong with a good shove.”
Ed reached for a fifth bar and received a tap on the hand from his vigilant wife. “I remember our sons at twelve, don’t you, Ed? Always testing limits.” He grunted, and she continued. “And shamefully enough, for some ignorant people, there is his ethnic origin.” Belle guessed from the context that she used “ignorant” in the sense of “rude,” a Northern trademark.
“Bustamante? Sounds Italian, like your side of the family, or is it Hispanic?”
Hélène gave a bittersweet sigh. “No one ever said Bea didn’t know her own mind. When she was thirty, still unmarried, pouring her life into the business, she took a singles’ cruise and met Mike in Kingston, Jamaica. Love conquered all. It was a fairy-tale marriage. He was a fine doctor. Once he’d qualified in Ontario, he set up an office in Onaping, where they’d been without a general practitioner for years.”
“She must have been a brave woman.” In large metropolitan areas, interracial marriages were common, but not in the North, where people of African or Caribbean descent had been as rare as roses in May. Hélène had spoken of the benighted days in which a mixed marriage involved a Catholic and a Protestant.
“Bea was an only child, so she had her father wrapped around her pinkie, and his word was law with the relatives.” She began to chuckle, poking Ed. “Except for Great-Great-Aunt Mafalda. Eighty-eight. Five feet of firecrackers. Pounded up to the main table at the wedding. ‘Have to see this darkie for myself,’ she said, waving her cane. Mike just gave a bow and tamed her like an old pussycat.”
“A darkie. You have to be joking. Shades of Stephen Foster,” Belle said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
Ed added, “We had the family over for fishing this summer. Dave pulled out all the stops. Took Micro to Ramakko’s for new tackle and gear. Didn’t he land a big pike off the rock wall. He’s a quiet lad, but a good boy. Give them time. They’ll get over this.”
TWO
September 1st struck the coup de grâce for Northern gardeners, a dust of frost at -2°C that morning. Carrying a steaming coffee and dressed in her long green terrycloth robe, Belle walked out onto the huge deck which wrapped the front and side of her storey-and-a-half cedar home. She stared down over her garden, site of the old cottage. The carrots and beets were snug and the broccoli impervious, but this was game over for the tomatoes. She’d pulled in several pounds on the vine
