“Maureen,” he said.
“Mm?” She looked at him expectantly, leaning against the kitchen counter, folding one arm across her ribcage, resting her other elbow on her forearm.
“What’s eating Hal?”
She sighed, obviously disappointed with the choice of topic. “Damned if I know. He hardly talks to me anymore. He’s been in an absolutely shitty mood for weeks and it’s getting tiresome. If he’s having a belated mid-life crisis, I wish he’d get it the fuck — pardon me — over with. Buy a Porsche or have an affair with his secretary. As long as his life insurance is paid up,” she added with a grin. “I don’t think his heart could stand either experience.” She drank some wine. “I’m joking, of course. About the Porsche, anyway. Too expensive. His secretary’s not. Expensive, that is.”
Earlier, while Hal had been preparing the gas barbecue, Shoe had asked him why he hadn’t been at the airport, was everything all right. Hal had shrugged and said, “Something came up at work. My boss’s quarterly rah-rah session. He likes to spring them on us. Sorry about that.”
Hal was four years older than Shoe, and he looked every day of his fifty-four years. His hair was a lustreless iron-grey, still thick but lying flat and limp on his skull, and his complexion was sallow and waxy. He’d put on a few more pounds since Shoe had last seen him; it did not sit well on his heavy frame. His thick, dark-rimmed glasses kept slipping to the end of his nose.
“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” Shoe asked.
“What? Oh, that. Waste of time, if Rae’s already talked to you.” He stooped to open the valve of the propane tank, then stood, breathing heavily. He pushed his glasses back up his nose.
“She told me you thought Mum and Dad should move into a retirement home.”
“Well, they aren’t getting any younger, are they?”
“None of us are. How do they feel about it?” Shoe asked.
“I haven’t said anything to them yet. Rae, of course, won’t hear of it. But they’re getting too old to live on their own. Mum’s arthritis is getting worse. And what if one of them gets sick or has another accident?”
“They seem to be managing all right.”
“Damnit, it’s bad enough that Rae gives me a hard time about this, don’t you start. You haven’t seen them since Christmas before last. When was the last time you even spoke to them?”
“I try to call them at least once a week,” Shoe said. It could be a frustrating experience. His father’s hearing aids frequently fed back through the phone, and as often as not his mother called him “Hal.” She’d never been able to keep her sons’ names straight; his father usually just called them both “son.”
“Okay, I’m sorry,” Hal said grudgingly. “But put yourself in my place. You’re on the other side of the country and Rae’s too goddamn busy being the family’s social conscience, I’m the one who has to look after them.”
“Isn’t that why Rae moved in here with them?” Shoe asked. “To keep an eye on them?”
“Right,” Hal said sourly. “And how long do you think it will be before she takes off to march in support of aboriginal land claims or chain herself to some ugly old building protesting the loss of our architectural heritage. You know she participated in the Gay Pride Parade this year? Jesus, you don’t think she’s a lesbian, do you?”
Shoe decided a change of topic was in order.
“How’s Maureen?” he asked. “She’s fine,” Hal replied. “She’s got this silly idea about starting her own landscaping business.”
“Why silly?” Shoe had worked for a landscaping company for a few months when he’d first washed ashore in Vancouver. It had been a satisfying although not especially lucrative experience.
“She was an office manager for a lighting supply company,” Hal said. “What does she know about running her own business?”
It seemed to Shoe that that made her as qualified to operate her own business as anyone was. He kept the thought to himself.
“How about you?” Hal asked. “Are you keeping out of trouble?”
“Trying to,” Shoe replied.
“That’ll be a change. Are you enjoying retirement?”
“Such as it is.”
“And, ah, Muriel?”
“Busy.”
“You’re still together, though, right?”
“After a fashion.”
“What does that mean?”
“We just don’t see much of each other these days,” he said.
“Mm,” Hal replied. “Tell me about it.”
Shoe was relieved that Hal didn’t pursue the subject of Shoe and Muriel Yee’s relationship. “What’s up with you, Hal? Two years ago you were talking about retiring at fifty-five.” Hal would turn fifty-five in October.
“I’ve made VP since then,” Hal replied. “I can’t afford to retire.” He laughed at his own joke, a little hollowly, Shoe thought. “I’m up for what my boss calls the ‘Oscar,’ the super-size bonus he gives out every year, basically to rub it in the noses of everyone who doesn’t get it. I was thinking about using it to buy an RV and do some travelling, but … ” He shrugged.
“I thought you disliked travelling.”
“On business,” Hal said. “By plane, especially, and staying in hotels. But last year and the year before Maureen and I rented an RV for a month during the summer. We were hoping to do it again this summer, but, well, it didn’t work out. There’s some beautiful country out there and we’d like to see some of it before it’s all paved over. Y’know, I’ve never seen the Rocky Mountains except from thirty thousand feet in the air. Anyway, it was just an idea,” he’d added.
“You’ve had worse ones,” Shoe had said.
“Eh?” Hal had replied. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, Hal,” Shoe had said. “Relax.”
Maureen stood away from the kitchen counter with a thrust of her hips, picked up the wine bottle, and beckoned him with it to follow her down the stairs to the back door and out into the yard. The evening was warm, but the humidity had gone down. The sound of crickets and cicadas and tree frogs was an appropriate accompaniment to the easy jazz drifting from speakers Maureen had propped in the basement window. The music was occasionally overwhelmed by the squeals and shouts of the kids playing in the pool in the backyard of the house three doors down, next to the house that had once belonged to Marvin Cartwright.
Shoe’s parents sat in lawn chairs at the top of the slope while Hal tended the barbecue. He turned marinated chicken breasts, spicy Italian sausages, and butterfly pork chops, the barbecue tongs in one hand, a beer in the other. He drained the bottle and set it down with the two other empties on the ground next to the barbecue.
“So where’s mine?” he said to Shoe, eyeing the beer in Shoe’s hand.
“Take this one,” Shoe said, handing the bottle to his brother.
Maureen frowned at her husband, said to Shoe, “I’ll get you another one.”
“Don’t bother,” he said.
“We’re almost done here,” Hal said, moving the food to the back of the grill. “Where the hell’s Rae got to?”
“She had some errands to run,” Shoe said. “She said she’d be back in plenty of time for dinner.”
“I’m here,” Rachel