“Thank you. It would mean a lot to me … to us. You can bring someone if you like. It would be nice to meet who you have in your life.”
“Thanks, but I’ll probably come alone.” The silence lengthened. “Take care, Fran,” he said before hanging up the phone. He stood for a long while afterward without moving, his eyes fixed on the frosted window pane.
He’d failed her in so many ways over the course of their marriage. She’d wanted to travel and see all the exotic places she’d read about in the novels she inhaled like fresh air. She’d minored in art history at university and spent many Sunday afternoons visiting Ottawa’s museums and art galleries, returning with pamphlets, maps, and dreams of foreign lands. He’d used his job as an excuse for not taking her the places she’d wanted to see and convinced himself that her increasing silence about distant places was a sign she’d lost interest in going. He’d allowed his work to colour his personal life, rationalizing his neglect by falsely believing that Frances had accepted the routine of their lives. Those days, he’d been overwhelmed with the toll of long work hours and the weight of murder cases. He’d wanted nothing but to be home with her on his time off. Home where they were safe from the ugliness of the world. He knew too late that he should have tried harder. They should have bloody well gone to Europe. He could have taken her dancing before she went looking for another partner.
He turned and crossed the floor to take his coat from the hook on the wall. He flicked off the lights and started down the hall on his way out to the parking garage. A few uniforms were around but most were on patrol or home with their families.
When he crossed the Pretoria Bridge and stopped at a red light across the street from the Royal Oak, he looked at his face in the rear view mirror and grimaced at his appearance. He’d aged a lifetime since Frances’s first call.
A woman in a short white coat and frizzy hair stood at the corner turning tricks. Three men spilled out of the pub and walked past her without a second look. Hopefully they were going home to their wives or partners and ending their evening of drinking. The light turned green and Rouleau pressed on the gas pedal harder than he’d meant to.
He didn’t want to see Frances married to someone else or to raise a glass at her reception, but it wasn’t about him anymore. God knew he’d made enough wrong moves while they were together. He would do what it took not to add to them now.
22
Wednesday, December 28, 10:00 a.m.
Susan slept in as she had every morning since Clinton went back to the base, happy that he was miles away. She’d stopped feeling bad about wishing he’d never come home. Sometimes the thought of never seeing him again was what kept her going. The trick was to keep him from finding out.
As she made her way downstairs to the kitchen, she mused on how her life had turned into a cliché: older wife, living in a loveless marriage with an abusive military husband. How had she allowed her life to turn out so horribly wrong and why couldn’t she stir herself to get out of it?
She sat at the dining-room table in front of the bay window to eat her toast and yogourt. Her interest in food still hadn’t returned, but she was forcing herself to eat to get her strength back. She had to be at full power when Clinton returned home for New Year’s Eve. He revelled in any sign of weakness.
She looked out the window toward the back of the property. The sun should have been well up by now, but the sky was grey with clouds that blocked the light. Gloomy. The world was in tune with her weary thoughts. The first snowflakes drifted past the glass as she watched. She smiled at this reminder that beauty was waiting to show itself when least expected.
The sparkling white flakes spurred her into action. She’d wait to have her tea until she’d returned from her morning walk. Normally she would have called on Pauline to walk with her down to the river on the well-worn pedestrian path, but Pauline had refused any offers of exercise lately. Susan understood this need for solitude and wouldn’t press. A part of her welcomed the break from her friend’s self-absorbed view of the world. Pauline was all about Pauline, and while Susan accepted her secondary role in their friendship, sometimes she was happy for a reprieve.
She took her dishes into the kitchen. Maybe she should think bigger than a walk. She’d put off skiing since Tom died and her body was getting sluggish. She had more than enough time to go farther afield across the border into Quebec to her favourite trail. A change of scene in the big outdoors was just what the doctor ordered. First a shower and a start on the housework, and then she could enjoy the afternoon outdoors without thinking about the chores she had let slide. She’d drink her tea when she was drying her hair and would bring a thermos with her on the excursion.
It was just past one o’clock when she loaded her cross country skis into the back of her Mazda van. She climbed in and backed out of the driveway, aiming toward downtown. The snow was light and wouldn’t be an issue on the woodland trail. She crossed the MacDonald-Cartier Bridge into Quebec and continued west on the road that ran parallel to the Ottawa River until she reached the Gatineau Parkway. The parkway wound north into the Gatineau Hills and the preserved parkland. Already, the tightness in her chest was loosening. She joined in with “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” on the radio, a silly song that always made her smile.
She pulled off on a side road that she knew about from previous visits and travelled a few kilometres to a parking lot sheltered deep in the woods where she unloaded her skis and poles. A car and van were there ahead of her. New ski tracks disappeared down the trail into the forest. The wind was ruffling the tops of the conifer trees back and forth and soughing like a cello. One of her favourite things was to lie in bed before falling asleep and listen to the wind howl around the house. Today’s wind gave her the same feeling of comfort.
She strapped on her skis and started down the path. Her plan was to ski for a half hour or so before stopping to eat the apple she’d brought. She’d find a spot to hang the suet ball she’d grabbed from the pantry for the birds and then return to the car. She’d make it home in plenty of time for Clinton’s six o’clock call.
She passed two women who were skiing back to the parking lot half a kilometre in. She stepped off the path to let them pass and they called a greeting. Another fifteen minutes and she met a young man and his dog, a husky that bounded ahead through the deeper snow. They were also on their way back to the parking lot. The man wished her a good journey before disappearing around the bend in the trail.
She skied another hour once her arms and legs found their familiar rhythm. She realized how much she’d missed the outdoors and this sport. Fatigue seemed a thing of the past, but she knew that she mustn’t overdo it. She found a shelter of pine trees and ventured off the path to sit on a fallen log where she could comfortably eat her apple and drink some sugared tea. It was a peaceful spot with animal tracks crisscrossing into the woods and birds playing in the branches overhead. The trees cocooned her from the wind and cast dark shadows across the snow. She threw the apple core onto the path for a deer to find, then skied over to a tree with drooping branches. It took her a few minutes to fasten the suet ball to a lower limb. She moved back onto the trail and stood silently for a while, watching the birds land on the bough to eat from her offering.
She hadn’t realized how tired the exercise had made her until she started the long trip back. A headache was throbbing just behind her eyes, reminding her that her energy reserves were still depleted. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been quite so ambitious when setting out on the trail. She’d ski back slowly and not overexert herself, even if it meant having to listen to Clinton rant about missing his call.
It took almost two hours of repeatedly skiing a short distance and stopping to rest before she finally broke into the clearing. The woods had darkened as the sun had begun to set, and her van was a welcome sight. It was the only vehicle left in the parking lot and dusted with snow that would only take a moment to clean off. She was surprised to see tire tracks close to her car and partially covered boot prints that didn’t look like hers. Somebody else had come and gone while she was skiing in the woods.
She