The Fields of Grief. Giles Blunt
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Next morning, Kelly came into the kitchen in her running gear – black leggings, mauve sweatshirt with a tiny elephant stitched on it – and grabbed an orange off the counter. Catherine bought those oranges, Cardinal thought. Did you buy half a dozen oranges when you were about to kill yourself?
He poured his daughter a coffee. ‘You want some oatmeal?’
‘Maybe when I come back. Don’t want to lug any extra weight around. God, you look exhausted, Dad.’
‘You should talk.’ Kelly’s eyes looked puffy and red. ‘Are you managing to sleep at all?’
‘Not much. I seem to wake up every half hour,’ she said, dropping bits of orange peel into the green bin. ‘I never realized how physical the emotions are. I wake up and my calves are locked up, and I feel like a wreck, even though I haven’t done anything. I just can’t believe she’s gone. I mean, if she came in that front door right now I don’t even think I’d be surprised.’
‘I found this,’ Cardinal said. He held out a photograph he’d discovered buried in an album crammed with loose pictures, a black-and-white portrait of Catherine, aged about eighteen, looking very moody and artistic in a black turtleneck and silver hoop earrings.
Kelly burst into tears, and Cardinal was taken by surprise. Perhaps in an effort to ease his own grief, his daughter had been comparatively restrained, but now she wailed like a little girl. He rested a hand on her shoulder as she cried herself out.
‘Wow,’ she said, coming back from washing her face. ‘I guess I needed that.’
‘That’s how she looked when we met,’ Cardinal said. ‘I just thought she was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. The kind of person you’re only supposed to meet in movies.’
‘Was she always that intense?’
‘No, not at all. She made fun of herself all the time.’
‘Why don’t you come running with me?’ Kelly said suddenly. ‘It’ll make us feel better.’
‘Oh, I don’t know …’
‘Come on. You still run, don’t you?’
‘Not as often as I used to …’
‘Come on, Dad. You’ll feel better. We both will.’
Madonna Road was just off Highway 69, so they had to run along the shoulder for half a kilometre or so and then make a left on to Water Road, which skirted the edge of Trout Lake. The day was brilliant and clear, the air with a sharp autumn tang.
‘Wow, smell the leaves,’ Kelly said. ‘Those hills have every colour except blue.’
Kelly was not by nature a perky young woman; she was making an effort to cheer Cardinal up, and he was touched by it. He was indeed aware of the beauty of the day, but as they ran through the suburb, their steps seemed to beat in time with the words Catherine’s dead, Catherine’s dead. Cardinal felt the contradictory sensations of being both hollowed out and yet extremely heavy – as if his heart had been replaced by a ball of lead. Catherine breathed this frosty air too.
‘When do you have to be back in New York?’ he asked Kelly.
‘Well, I told them I was gonna take two weeks.’
‘Oh, you don’t have to stay that long, you know. I’m sure you need to get back.’
‘It’s fine, Dad. I want to stay.’
‘How about today? You have any plans?’
‘I was thinking about calling Kim Delaney, but I don’t know. You remember Kim?’
Cardinal recalled a big strapping blonde girl – angry at the world and very political. She and Kelly had been inseparable in their last years of high school.
‘I would have thought Kim would have ventured out into the big bad world by now.’
‘Yeah, so would I.’
‘You sound mournful.’ Cardinal accidentally brushed against a recycling bin. A Jack Russell bounced up and down on the other side of the fence, yapping elaborate canine threats.
‘Well, we were best friends for a while, but now I’m not even sure if I should call her,’ Kelly said. ‘Kim was the smartest girl at Algonquin High – way smarter than me – head of the debating club, delegate at the junior UN, editor of the yearbook. And now it’s like she wants to be Queen of Suburbia.’
‘Not everyone wants to move to New York.’
‘I know that. But Kim’s twenty-seven and she’s already got three kids, and she owns two – two! – SUVs.’
Cardinal pointed at a driveway they were just passing: one Grand Cherokee, one Wagoneer.
‘All she can talk about is sports. Honestly, I think Kim’s life revolves around curling and hockey and ringette. I’m surprised she isn’t into bowling yet.’
‘Priorities change when you have kids.’
‘Well, I never want kids if it means you have to check your mind at the door. Kim hasn’t read a newspaper in years. All she watches on TV is Survivor and Canadian Idol and hockey. Hockey! She hated sports when we were in school. Honestly, I thought Kim and I would be friends forever, but now I’m thinking maybe I won’t call.’
‘Well, here’s an idea. You feel like making a quick trip down to Toronto?’
Kelly looked over at him. There was a fine film of sweat on her upper lip and her cheeks were flushed. ‘You’re going to Toronto? What brought this on?’
‘Something cooking at the Forensic Centre. I want to deal with it in person.’
‘This is to do with Mom?’
‘Yeah.’
For a few moments there was just the sound of their breathing – Cardinal’s breathing, anyway. Kelly didn’t seem to be having any trouble. Water Road ended in a turning circle. The two of them slowed and ran in place for a few moments. Beyond the red-brick bungalows, with their neat lawns and rows of stout yard-waste bags, the lake was deep indigo.
‘Dad,’ Kelly said, ‘Mom killed herself. She killed herself and it hurts like hell, but the truth is she was manic depressive, she was in and out of hospitals for a long time, and it’s really, ultimately, not so surprising that she wanted out.’ She touched his arm. ‘You know it wasn’t about you.’
‘Are you gonna come?’
‘Boy, you don’t mess around when you set your mind on something, do you?’ She gave it a second. ‘All right, I’ll come. But just to keep you company on the drive.’
Cardinal pointed to a path that looped away through the trees. ‘Let’s go back the scenic way.’
All the way south down Highway 11, Cardinal could not think of anything but Catherine. Although think was not the word. He felt her absence in the beauty of the hills. He felt her hovering above the highway; it had always been the road that took Cardinal away from or back to Catherine. But she had not been there this time to wave goodbye, would not be there when he came back.
Kelly fiddled with the radio dial.
‘Hey, put it back,’ Cardinal said. ‘That was the Beatles!’
‘Ugh. I can’t stand the Beatles.’
‘How can anyone hate the Beatles? That’s like hating sunshine. It’s like hating ice cream.’
‘It’s just their early stuff I can’t stand. They sound