boat drawings. I miss him already. I close the spare room door, fish around in the liquor cabinet for some brandy, and sit down in my chair. Coronation Street is on TV, but I can’t concentrate. I reach for my glass of brandy and shuffle down the hall, holding on to the wall for support. I set my glass on the nightstand, crawl into bed with my clothes still on, and dab at my eyes with a tissue.
The morning light is suffused through thick layers of cloud. The charcoal grey matches my mood. My head aches. I don’t feel like walking, but I know Charles will be waiting. I put on my coat and go downstairs. Charles offers me his arm, but I shrug it away. He starts whistling, then stops, the tune lost to the wind. I clutch my umbrella. As we round the corner to the beach park I look up and sigh.
The third circle of stones is a vision of colour in the rain-darkened dirt. Charles and I walk towards it, gazing with curiosity at beach rocks painted primary-school blue. The rocks encircle a Tupperware spaghetti container full of crayon drawings, two Tonka trucks, and a tiny ceramic handprint labeled NOAH, AGE 5. I recognize the perfect rounded letters of a grade-one teacher. I think of what it was like to be a young parent and realize the boy’s mother and father wouldn’t have been able to lift stone after stone, place the memory of their son in the middle, leave it behind. Charles studies the child’s cheaply laminated photo, which will eventually fade in the sun and melt in the rain. Noah had big ears, messy, overlong hair, and a missing incisor. His skin looked orange in the way that school portraits make all children look like carrots.
I clear the catch in my throat with a gentle cough and sit down on the park bench. Dampness seeps through my coat and to my skin, chilling all the way to my bones. Charles seems nonplussed. Undignified with toys and bright, sloppy splotches of glitter glue, the circle appears as though made by NOAH, AGE 5. I think of the drawings and paintings that lined the halls of James Cook Elementary School from September to June. How their removal for cleaning at the end of the school year always felt like an incomprehensible loss.
“I give the Tonka trucks two months before someone steals them.” Charles bangs his cane on the cedar-chip path. He yanks on the brim of his cap, zips and re-zips his navy windbreaker. He has lost weight from our walks and his overlarge navy-blue slacks ride so low now they hang over the laces of his black leather running shoes. I watch an odd expression cross Charles’s face. For a fleeting moment I think he looks like an old, stubborn kid in school uniform. With white, thinning hair.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe they’ll leave them,” I say.
Charles turns away and dabs his nose vigorously with a handkerchief. He stares at the beach. I shiver and wait. He surveys the blue circle again, frowning. We walk back to the condo in silence. In the elevator, Charles stares up at the LCD light, waiting for it to reach the third floor. His expression is serious and businesslike. After years of negotiating insurance claims, whatever he’s thinking is impenetrable.
“What would you like to drink today, Charles?” I open my door with a jangle of keys. “Coffee? Tea?”
“Thank you, but I have some business to attend to, Hélène. Charles takes his own keys from his pocket. I search for a kind, sad apology in his eyes, but I can’t see it. Or maybe I refuse to. I regret the fact Charles has something of importance to do that doesn’t involve me. Worse than anything, Charles is shifting the new routine back to what it was before.
I unlock my door and try to will my hands to stop shaking. When I finally wriggle out of my coat, I gasp. The wet spot from sitting on the bench is still visible. Soiled like a small child’s jacket. Like one of my students. Charles must have seen it. I struggle to hang my coat on the hook then stand alone in the dim entryway, hanging my head, too. I fumble toward the kitchen, my legs cold and lurching. The closed spare room door emphasizes the distance. I think of how I used to walk down long school hallways with children, counting their steps in French. The words were always exotic enough to take their minds off upsetting things. Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept. I count my own steps to the kitchen. I look at the plate of freshly baked, Saran-wrapped cheese biscuits, but I can’t eat them by myself. They’re for sharing. I throw them in the trash. I pour myself a full crystal glass of sherry. I shuffle to the living room and turn on the television, but can’t settle, even nestled in the warm pocket of my big chair with a crocheted afghan over my knees. Yesterday’s conversations feel like spent luxuries. I miss my grandson. The emboldening effect of his company has already evaporated. “Charles is my neighbour,” I whisper into my empty sherry glass. “Only a neighbour.”
I sigh and struggle out of my chair. I don’t like anything unpredictable. I’ve had enough of that for several lifetimes. I look around. At least dust is a constant. I begin cleaning the stove. That always uses up a great deal of time. Then I wave the yellow feather duster around the living room. I water the three houseplants crowding the windowsill. I organize my liquor cabinets, lining the bottles up and turning the labels out. My guest bar is the lower shelf of a large antique china cabinet, but I keep very special bottles in a former safe in the master bedroom, behind a large, gaudy macramé frog I bought at a craft bazaar years ago. I’ve always admired his gaping, hungry mouth. It makes more sense to me than hanging a dream catcher.
There’s a soft knock at the door. I return the frog to its place on the wall and step out into the hall to see Annette striding in, holding up two bottles of ice wine. When my son and Annette divorced, a week after Nikky graduated from high school, I insisted Annette keep her condo key.
“Hiya.” Annette smiles as she hands me the bottles. “Thought I’d bring you something new to try. Hope you like it.”
“I always do enjoy it, dear.” I carry the bottles carefully to the dining room. “You’re so good to me.” Though Annette visits infrequently and often arrives unannounced, her generosity with gifts reminds me of old friends from Montreal.
“Well, you’re so easy to please. Little bottle here, another there, and voilà you’re happy.” Annette peers around the living room “Where’s that son of mine? Still sleeping?” She pushes the spare room door open. “Oh, he’s not even here.”
“Nikky had to go back to Vancouver last night, dear.” I need to sit down.
“What? I didn’t even get to see him!” Annette stares past me. “That little stinker.”
“He’s six feet two inches now. We measured.” I sit and wait for an emotional outburst. Tears. Instead, my daughter-in-law opens and shuts the drawers in the sideboard until she finds the well-used corkscrew.
“Oh well, more for us, then.” Annette pulls the cork from the ice wine and pours two glasses. I wish she’d chosen the crystal, instead of the everyday ones from the kitchen. She’s always been efficient but informal. Her wedding gown was nothing more than a white cotton sundress with a neatly pressed, but cheap, blue ribbon tied in a bow around her waist. And Geoff wore jeans, claiming they were dressy because they were black. I would have given them the money for proper clothes — lovely ones — but Annette never asked. She sits down heavily now and picks dog hairs off her sweatshirt. Then she unpins her liquor store cashier’s nametag and shoves it into her pocket, fussing with change and keys.
“Guess I’m not important.” She finally looks up. “Doesn’t need Mom anymore. That’s no surprise. What was it? A painting? A stroke of creative lightning? Nik told me he was looking forward to this break.”
“His girlfriend called.”
“Oh, his girlfriend. That’s young love for ya.” Annette takes another sip. I wait for her to smile. She drums her fingers on the table. “Maybe she’s breaking up with him. I mean, things can’t be going well if he had to absolutely leave in such a hurry.”
“Oh dear,
