“Rudy? I haven’t seen you in ages.”
The Scottish accent is a surprise. He’d forgotten it, along with other quirky things about Mrs. Fraser that used to captivate him in a confusingly sexual way when he was a kid—the fiery hair, the makeup, the pretty clothes. Though he understood her relationship to Clare, it was always difficult to imagine Isobel Fraser as a mother.
He pulls his right hand from his pocket and waves. “Hi, Mrs. Fraser. It’s been a few years at least.”The Mrs. Fraser sounds ridiculous; she can’t be more than forty-five. But she doesn’t correct him.
At the edge of the road he stops, while she, on her side, does the same. A sensible position, Rudy thinks. With Morgan Hill Road between them, it’s easier to avoid the urn, not to mention the fact that in almost twenty years of living across the street from each other, he and his neighbour have almost never spoken.
“Is your family together for Christmas?” she says.
He’s forgotten about Christmas. “Oh. Yeah. My sister and her family are here, and my aunt’s out for her visit.”
He wonders if she has any idea where his aunt is visiting from—if she even knows where the place is. Renée didn’t, though she tried to hide it. But Mrs. Fraser, he sees, is smiling and nodding in a way that seems entirely genuine.
“Oh, that’s lovely. I must say, I always envied your aunt every time she went back home. I’ve dreamed of going to that part of the world ever since I was a girl.”
“Really?”
“Oh, aye. I think it would be marvellous. The lovely beaches, the temples ...”
Touristy stuff, he thinks, but still. It seems to him suddenly preposterous that Mrs. Fraser has never been inside his house, never had a cup of tea with his aunt. He takes a small step forward.
“You should go sometime.”
“I should, shouldn’t I. Well, maybe when things here are a bit more settled.” She shifts the urn in her arms.
Grateful for the opening, Rudy clears his throat. “I was really sorry to hear about your husband. Is everything all ... I mean, is there anything ...”
She shakes her head. “Thank you, pet. It was a terrible shock, but we’re managing quite well. It just takes time, doesn’t it.”
Pet, he repeats to himself, nodding. She’s speaking to him as if for all these years the Vantwests and the Frasers have been regular neigh-bours. He glances back at his own house. Through the living room window he can make out his brother, tossing Zoë up in the air. Adam’s build is slender, but he’s a swimmer, lean and strong.
“I shouldn’t keep you,” Mrs. Fraser says. “I heard Mary calling you in.”
“Yeah. I should probably go.”
“Well, it was lovely chatting with you, Rudy.”
“You too.”
“You’re still living in Toronto?”
“For a while anyway. I’ve got a teaching job in North York.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful! Well, best of luck with it.”
“Thanks.”
He wonders if he should wish her a Merry Christmas, but a final glance at the urn dismisses the idea. He waves again then turns and retraces his steps through the snow and up the concrete stairs to the front door. With his hand on the latch he looks back to see Mrs. Fraser disappear behind her own door. His eyes travel to the upstairs windows of the Fraser house, and there, in the middle window, he catches Clare Fraser’s pale, pretty face, turning away from him then vanishing altogether. Odd duck, he thinks. And yet he watches a few seconds longer to see if she’ll return. He wants her to—wants her to come back and just be there. But she doesn’t. One last time he meets the vacant stare of the house across the street, then he goes inside.
Christmas lunch is almost ready. The counter is crowded with Aunty’s special dishes, and the air is heavy with the competing smells of curry spices and turkey. While Aunty and Susie fuss over last-minute details, Dad and Mark drink arrack and talk hockey. Down on the floor, Zoë struggles with the lid of an empty Tupperware container. Adam is rummaging through a drawer; Jim Reeves is still singing. Rudy hovers in the archway between the kitchen and the living room, staring out the front window. In all the noise and confusion of his own house, it seems suddenly impossible that across the street Mrs. Fraser has just disposed of her husband’s ashes. But she did. He was there. He could even say that, in a way, he was part of it.
“Found them!” Adam suddenly calls out. “Christmas oven mitts! I told you they were in here, Aunty.”
“Very good, son. Now take the turkey out before it dries up.”
Adam pulls on the mitts—ridiculous, ruffled things with reindeer on them—opens the oven door with a flourish, and slides out the rack on which the turkey pan sits. The bird is greeted with noisy enthusiasm. Adam lifts the pan and stands with it while Aunty Mary clears a patch of counter space and the others shuffle aside. Then, from the archway, Rudy sees Zoë race toward the oven on hands and knees. He guesses what she’s going to do, but he’s a kitchen’s length away from her. His father is closest.
“Dad!” he shouts. “Get Zoë!”
Alec looks down, and as the baby’s arms stretch upward, her eyes fixed on the oven rack, he calls to her.
“Zoë! Don’t touch!”
Zoë’s hands grasp the rack, and the kitchen is shaken by her scream. She topples over and strikes her head on the linoleum. Rudy winces.
Susie cries, “Oh my God!” and shoves past Aunty Mary to get to her wailing daughter. She gathers Zoë in her arms and struggles to open the child’s clenched hands—calmly at first, but as Zoë’s screams become more and more desperate, she snaps. “Dada, what were you thinking? She can’t hear! She’s—Oh God, never mind. Mark! Do something, for God’s sake. Don’t just stand there!”
Mark flounders. Aunty says, “Butter” and goes to the fridge.
Rudy is staring at the far kitchen door, through which his father has just disappeared, silently, unnoticed by the others. Startled back by his aunt’s suggestion, he calls “No!” and heads for the sink. But his brother is way ahead of him. Throwing off the reindeer mitts, Adam crouches next to Susie with a bowl of water, into which he plunges the baby’s hands. Zoë’s screams taper off to sobs.
“Somebody get the bag of peas out of the freezer,” Adam says. “She’s getting a bump on her head.”
Mark gets the peas and drops to his daughter’s level, nudging Adam out of the way. Adam doesn’t seem to mind. He offers to search for some first aid spray in the bathroom.
“Thanks, Addy,” Susie calls after him. “And turn off the damn music, would you? It’s driving me crazy.”
Rudy steps aside to let his brother pass. Dad, he notices, hasn’t reappeared. He knows where he is, of course, and as the commotion in the kitchen dies down he goes there, ambivalently.
From the trophy room, a shaft of lamplight cuts across the dim hallway. The small room is the place that houses Alec Vantwest’s past—the cricket trophies and English literature classics from his days at Trinity College Kandy, the old black and white photos taken at Grandpa’s tea estate, even a wooden tea chest, once used to ship family belongings from Colombo to Montreal. A puzzling room, Rudy thinks, given his father’s aversion to the past, but on the other hand everything in the room is neatly shelved or framed, kept in its place, and it’s possible to imagine that this