your arcade, so shut the crap up and leave us alone.” William then glanced at me: “I’m turning into Father,” he said.
“Turning? You’re already there.”
The twins had invaded the kitchen and spotted the remains. “Any more Jell-O left?”
“No.”
“I hate coming here.”
“Thank you, Chase. Have some pudding.”
“We can’t eat dairy.”
I looked at William. “Since when?”
“It’s from Nancy’s side of the family,” he said.
“Have some crackers, boys. They’re in the second drawer from the top.”
They looked, saw it was only saltines and slammed the drawer shut. “Hunter, let’s watch TV.” Chase was always the leader.
Within moments, they’d colonized my couch and barnacled themselves onto a pro wrestling event. The noise was cheap and booming, but at least it shut them up.
“You didn’t have to come visit, William. I’m fine. It’s just wisdom teeth.”
“Mother said you looked pretty bad. And pretty depressed, too.”
“She did?”
“It smells like an ashtray in here.”
“I smoke sometimes. And Leslie came for a visit.”
“That would explain it. Let’s open those godawful curtains. Where’d you find them—a Greek bingo hall?”
The curtains came with the place. They were mustard yellow, with orange-and-gold brocade, and I suspect the contractor’s wife chose them.
“William, stop. I know how dreary it is, okay?” Was my place really that depressing? On the carpet I saw two small, faint ovals from where I over-cleaned bits of the carpet—a slice of pizza that landed the wrong way, and a Sharpie pen I dropped while wrapping Christmas presents.
“Nancy couldn’t make it. She sends her wishes,” my brother said.
“Send her mine as well.” This was a joke, as William’s wife, Nancy, and I don’t tolerate each other. I told her once at Thanksgiving that she wore too much perfume. Her riposte was that my hair looked like a toupée, and our relationship never recovered. This kind of rift only ever widens.
A squawk came from the couch. Chase had pushed a button on the remote that somehow obliterated the TV’s ability to receive a cable signal, and white noise blared at full volume, setting my remaining teeth on edge. The boys argued over whose fault it was, and then screamed about how to fix it, finally deigning to ask me. I pretended not to know, in hopes it might speed their departure. William manually turned off the TV, and swatted each of the boys on the back of the head. “We’re in someone else’s house, you little jerks.” The boys began to sniffle, but then William said, “Nice try, you little crybabies. Tears may work on your mother, but don’t try that on me, okay?” He turned to me. “Jesus, Lizzie, do you have any Scotch or something?”
“Baileys. From Christmas.”
“Why not?”
Chase asked, “What’s Baileys?”
“Something you’re not getting,” his father replied.
The boys went quiet, too quiet. The room’s air felt warm and bloated, just waiting for a lightning bolt—which I then delivered. I said, “Did your father ever tell you that I once found a dead body?”
Their eyes bulged. “What?” They looked to William for confirmation.
“Yes, she did.”
“Where? When?”
“Lizzie, it was in, what, grade six?”
“Five. I was the same age as you two are now.”
“How?”
William said, “If you two would just shut up, maybe we’ll find out.”
I handed my brother his Baileys. “I was walking on the railway tracks.”
“Where?”
“Out by Horseshoe Bay.”
Hunter asked, “By yourself?”
Chase looked at me and said, “Aunt Lizzie, do you have friends?”
I said, “Yes, thank you, Chase. In any event, it was summer, and I was picking blackberries—by myself. I rounded a corner and I saw a shirt in the fireweed on an embankment. People huck all sorts of things from trains—mostly juice boxes and pop cans—so I didn’t pay it too much attention. But as I walked closer, I saw some more colour there—a shirt and then shoes. And then I realized it was a man.”
That much was true. It was indeed a man, but I only gave the boys my PG-13 version of the event. They were the same age I had been when it happened, but somehow Chase and Hunter seemed younger than their years. Look at me—here I am being biased against them in the same way people were against me throughout the dead body episode.
Here’s what happened: It was August and I’d been quite happy to be by myself for the entire afternoon, taking several buses out to Horseshoe Bay, having a quick cheeseburger at a concession stand near the ferry terminal, and then hiking up steep hills and piles of blasted rock to the PGE rail line. I was wearing a blue-and-white gingham dress, which I hated, but it kept me cool, and a day’s walk on the rails would kill it with oils and chemicals and dirt, so I could live with it for one more day. You might ask, what was a twelve-year-old girl doing alone in a semi-remote place near a big city? Simple answer: it was the seventies. Past a certain age, children just did their thing, with little concern shown by their parents for what, where, when or with whom. Chase and Hunter probably have chips embedded in their tailbones linked up to a Microsoft death-satellite that informs William and Nancy where they are at all times. But back then?
“Mom, is it okay if I hitchhike to the biker bar?”
“Sure, dear.”
It was a baking July day, all scents were amplified, and I smelled something quite awful. Actually, I immediately guessed that the odour was that of a partially decomposed body. Knowledge of this smell must be innate. As I approached it, I was almost happy; I liked to think a short lifetime of detective novels, TV shows and secret visions had prepared me for this moment. A crime to solve. Clues to locate.
I’d never seen a dead body before. Kids at school had seen car crashes, which made me jealous, but this? This was murder, and a grisly one at that. The man’s body had been severed at the waist, the two halves positioned at a right angle. The corpse’s lower half was wearing a floral print skirt and knee-high boots, and the top half was wearing a plaid lumberjack shirt. The face was untouched, a quite handsome man’s face, grey at this point, in spite of thick makeup: flaking foundation, mascara and one false eyelash, still attached. Flies buzzed all around. I wondered
