past ten, in strange and painful circumstances, but he was a professional, a conscientious journalist who was the pride of his … mother?
“My son, Romain. Our son. Summer of ’62.”
Len’s cheeks burned. This young man who seemed to have no connection to me, my son? My heart beating, I was too stunned to speak, too shaken to know whether I should even speak. Gail? What did you just say?
She gave Len a relieved look, and her face softened with a glow of serene resignation that the dying have when all of life’s files are finally closed. You see, Len. It’s done, it’s done.
What was I supposed to say to that? Wonderful! Or, Come here, my boy!
Embarrassed, Len looked at his watch, then went through his pockets and pulled his wallet out, from which appeared a card, his business card. He handed it to me, hands shaking. He had to leave and make his way to the Yes camp’s headquarters before the speeches, before the results. He went to Gail, took both her hands and kissed her on her forehead, the sort of kiss that people who love each other give. He seemed to know, somehow, that she wouldn’t be there anymore when he was done with his article. He was overflowing with emotion, tears in his eyes, the way he took Jack in his arms and, finally, the way he shook my hand, saying that he’d like to see me again, for lunch, maybe, but not now because he was so busy and he had to return to Calgary, but maybe in a few weeks. He’d come to L.A. if I wanted him to. And that was that. He took his raincoat, put his briefcase under his arm, and walked out.
I took my head in my hands. Why had she hidden this from me for all these years? Yes, why, Gail?
The strange vitality that had filled her was gone. Sudden pain contorted her face. Worried, Jack pressed a button that alerted a young nurse. Another dose of morphine, and the lines in Gail’s face were soothed.
On the television, talking heads babbled away. Then, shouts of joy from one side of the question — the game was over.
Through the window, day would come soon, autumn light would illuminate the city. Montreal, a battleground, its streets filled with election signs like so many abandoned flags.
A weary feeling overtook me — the love of my youth had died, and I was the father of a complete stranger.
6
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot, Romain. Are you okay?”
“Yes, Ann.”
“Are you coming home today?”
“No. Tell Matt and Dick they can do what they want.”
“What they want? You’re joking, right? Are you sure you’re okay? Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t be alone. I know you. Why don’t you come back to L.A. this afternoon?”
“I need to … understand.”
“What?”
“To rest.… Jack and I, well, we kept a vigil for Gail, all night.”
“Oh, Romain! It must have been terrible.”
“Give me a day or two, okay?”
“A day or two? But … why? I’m worried Romain, worried for you.”
“Don’t be. It’s just shock, is all. I’ll call you back, okay?”
She sighed. “Okay, but please, take care of yourself.…”
“I love you, Ann.”
And, of course, I said nothing about Len.
I was exhausted. After five hours of agitated sleep in a motel just outside of Montreal, I drove some six hundred kilometres, stopping only to get gas, fill up on coffee, and swallow a hamburger — which meant I now had a stomach ache. With nausea in the back of my throat, my hands shaking on the wheel, I scanned the cone of light at the edge of my Jeep’s headlights, but I could barely distinguish the various Métis Beach properties, in front of which vegetation had grown even denser over time. I sought the silhouette of the grand hotels that had filled the summers of my childhood; fire had probably got the best of them. After all, they were old wood structures that even then weren’t considered particularly safe. And, suddenly, I was overtaken by a clear memory of the Métis Lodge fire of 1957, with flames as a high as towers, panic at the idea it might spread to surrounding buildings, infernal heat that melted the tires of surrounding cars. I was twelve when I’d watched the terrifying spectacle, shuddering at the frightening vulnerability that consumed me for days, the brutal understanding that everything held on to the thinnest of nothings.
Had Gail’s house been there? The Egans’ shingled home, with its white shutters, right next to Kirk on the Hill, the Presbyterian church of Petit-Métis; it was a true curiosity with its steeple built beside the church itself, right on the ground. No, I couldn’t see a thing. The fog was too dense, reflecting my headlights back at me — a fog to split your soul in two.
My thoughts wandered to yesterday morning with Ann, as we inched forward through Laurel Canyon, where you couldn’t see past your nose because of the smog. It was as if an eternity had passed since, but fast-forwarded — Jack’s phone call, Gail gone, and I, the father of a thirty-two-year-old.
What would Ann say to all this?
In the past two or three years, her hints had become more and more insistent: “A child, Romain. Why not?” And each time, I had to remind her of the promise we’d made before moving in together. “It isn’t for me, Ann. Not at my age.” I was forty-three then, and she was only twenty-eight, a very young woman who didn’t yet think about these things seriously. Jokingly yet with underlying seriousness, her dark braids framing her pretty face, she’d said, “I don’t have that narcissistic ambition to reproduce, if that’s what you want to know.” And I asked her whether she was sincere or making fun of me. “I’m serious, Romain. Too many people have babies for the wrong reasons. And what about the child? He becomes a chain that ties them together for life, and they end up hating each other.”
I shuddered when she said that, then understood that her parents’ divorce had affected her far more than she let on. But she was thirty-five now, almost thirty-six; she knew that it would soon no longer be a choice, but an actual impossibility, and that impossibility gave her the feeling that she’d be losing something she’d regret forever, something essential. Sometimes I feared that her desire for children would break us apart. I tried not to think about it too much.
As the Jeep cut through the thick fog, the absurdity of the situation became clearer. What was I doing here? What was I looking for, exactly? Unrecognizable places, as full of life as a cemetery, with villas readied for winter, windows shuttered.
There, on the right, wasn’t that the house of that old madman, Clifford Wiggs?
In my memories, it was the most impressive mansion in Métis Beach, despite the fact that Clifford Wiggs wasn’t the richest among them. William Tees, Art and Geoff’s father, was that man, with his Phantom V, the same car as the Queen of England, as shiny as church silver, a car we salivated over, enthralled when its driver had it washed and waxed at Jeff Loiseau’s. The Tees’ home was on the cliff, immense with its smaller cottages for guests, but far more discreet than Clifford Wiggs’ place with
