They had met while each was in their final year of university back east. Peter was six years older, having interrupted his studies to travel and bum around quite a bit: Mexico and the Mediterranean, then Thailand, one winter at a resort in the Rockies as a breakfast cook, skiing every afternoon. By contrast, Karen was intently focused on a teaching career and had job prospects even prior to graduation. They first met at an opening in a small gallery exhibiting the work of a painter who was a mutual acquaintance. For Peter the artist was an occasional drinking companion turned rival in the course of that night. Karen, it seemed, was a more special guest. Peter recalled the moment hearing her laughter behind him, a throaty, playful laugh that made his head turn. That was Montreal, c’est la vie. Later they shared a pot of mussels steamed with Pernod in a café on rue Saint-Denis.
Then Toronto. Karen’s first job was in a suburban school north of the city, near her hometown where her parents still lived. Peter never hit it off with the prospective in-laws, a well-established family that made him feel like a drifter and gold digger. For three years in Ontario he worked as a tutor and did a few stints cooking in fine but ill-fated restaurants, now with an English degree. When Karen raised the idea of moving west, Peter leaped at it, and within a week purchased a van to transport their belongings — a faded green Econoline. It had gotten them across the country, the Prairies, Kicking Horse Pass, and for him more or less back home. Big, clean rivers and sagebrush on the side hills. Now it seemed the beautiful middle of nowhere.
“What about the cat?” he asked suddenly that fateful Sunday morning after several minutes of reflective silence. Karen still sat at the breakfast table, Anais rubbing against her legs. He had rescued the tabby from the SPCA as a birthday present for Karen.
“I was hoping she could stay with you for now,” she said with her first hint of emotion.
Peter scowled, unreasonably pissed off by the suggestion. “Where?” he asked, on the offensive now, raising his arms wildly. “What about the house? You know I can’t pay the goddamn mortgage alone. Am I supposed to advertise for roommates or what?”
Karen had her head down and was stroking the cat’s back with her hand. “I’ll contribute my share for the time being, of course. Perhaps we’ll have to sell the house, and I’m very sorry if it means disrupting you. I don’t think we should get into all this at the moment. Peter, this means a big adjustment for both of us. I’m sorry to take you by surprise like this —”
He cut her off with an angry wave, turning to the window to escape meeting her eyes. Fact was, though he had grown very fond of their place, all things considered he didn’t really care about the house. Even bankruptcy seemed a minor inconvenience in the wake of her news that morning.
Peter stood with his arms crossed, staring out the window. Despite the sudden instability of his life, fresh snow brought to mind the possibility of skiing that day. He guessed the temperature to be about minus five to minus ten degrees Celsius, calling for blue wax, possibly green. For a moment this thought steadied his mind, gave him something tangible to consider: smoothing out wax along the base of the skis with the heel of his hand. Then he realized that Karen wouldn’t accompany him skiing that day, and possibly never again. She had such aptitude and grace on skis, a naturally long stride and an eagerness for this same sport that Peter loved so much. He imagined her skiing, cutting a telemark turn on a slope of virgin powder, and he began to cry. The large snowflakes continued to fall, each one like a particle of his own hope, and soon his heart would be empty.
chapter six
A fusillade of unforeseen work hits Peter the next morning. Recently, a probation officer went off on maternity leave, and as yet they have no auxiliary to fill her position. Now the summer holiday rotation has begun, sometimes leaving the office short-staffed. Greg Milchem picks this day to call in sick. From the minute he steps in the door, Peter is taking phone calls from the police, social services, then some irate ex-girlfriend of an offender trying to track the man down for child support payments.
“I’m acquainted with him, yes. I’m afraid I can’t give you his address. Or his phone number. I hear you, I tend to agree, but what you’re asking for is confidential information. As a matter of fact, I can’t even confirm that he’s reporting to this office. That’s your assumption... That’s one way to put it. Let me give you the number for Maintenance Enforcement.”
The counter bell rings repeatedly throughout the morning — clients to rebook, some three days or a week late, some half-drunk at 10:00 a.m. In between these varied tasks Peter attempts to update a few of his own ninety-odd files. This week’s bail intakes are still in the admin basket, out of sight and out of mind for the moment, well down the priority list. Noon takes him by surprise, and he flees out the back door.
He fights the urge to smoke for all three blocks to the 7-Eleven, where he buys a pack. Then he goes to Frieda’s Deli, ostensibly German, but which employs a Punjabi woman in the kitchen who makes terrific samosas. Afterward he makes his way along the sidewalk with another smoke, sucking a mint. Despite the ever-present haze and amber-tinted light, the town doesn’t look so bad, even has a dusty charm.
When he arrives back at the office, shortly after one, Todd Nolin stands there scowling in the waiting room. Catching sight of him, Peter recalls that he hasn’t yet made any arrangements about Nolin’s personal effects.
“Todd is here to pick up his things,” Tammy sings out. She’s on a first-name basis with the jock, it seems, because as it turns out they attended the same high school in years gone by.
“Yeah,” he snaps, “so where’s my stuff?”
Peter stalls his reply, checking his mail slot, swallowing his mint before he turns to the front counter. “Hello, Mr. Nolin. I did speak with Ms. Faro the other day. She was still quite shaken from the events of the past weekend. Once we discussed the conditions of your order and so forth, it didn’t seem the right time to ask her to gather your belongings. If you see what I mean…”
“No, I don’t!” He jerks his big jaw sideways, an odd spasm of frustration, ill-concealed rage. It’s very easy to picture him out on the ice, dropping his gloves, circling an opponent. “I need my clothes and all my shoes, and you said you’d have them here this afternoon.”
“Tell you what,” Peter says, “I’ll call her again, once I get back to my desk, and see if I can pick up your things this afternoon. If that works out, I can save you the trip back here. I’ll drop the stuff off at your workplace if you like.”
“Yeah, sure,” Nolin snarls, backing toward the exit, “with everybody at the store watching. No thanks. Just get it here and call me.”
Peter finds the Nolin file-in-progress in the secretary’s pending work basket, awaiting information entry for the Corrections Data System. He takes it back to his desk and drops it on top of the pile. Sometimes that’s all it is — a heap of work waiting to be done. It’s easier not to dwell on the fact that each file bears a name and concerns someone in crisis — victims, offenders, families falling apart. The circumstances of new files, which he receives via fax in the form of a narrative, have become all too familiar: a relationship on the rocks, man gets drunk, argument ensues, he shoves her, she shoves him, he slaps her, holds her against the wall, the bed. Someone calls the police. And Peter deals with the aftermath, does the paperwork, and makes the phone calls.
After three rings, he expects to leave another message, ready to note with his pen in the file’s running record: “303-7131 message to call re TN’s clothing, etc.”
“Hello.”
“Yes, Ms. Faro?” He jots the date in the margin column. “Peter Ellis calling from the probation office. We spoke the other day briefly. And I stopped by your place yesterday, in fact, to deliver a copy of the undertaking with Mr. Nolin’s conditions of bail. But your neighbour, the landlady, discouraged that idea. And she was right. I shouldn’t have come by unannounced.”
“Yes,