Part 5 (1/2)
The sister, phoning her extant brother, scoffed. ”That woman made Alan go to the States. And he crashed.” Post hoc ergo propter hoc, for her, had sundered the link earlier corroded by dislike. ”Void,” she tested, ”invalid.”
He looked towards the mountains. Rain came across the water.
Also, Joyce noted, the couple hadn't been happy for some time before his death. Alan had mentioned divorce, to them though not to their mother, then still alive barely. So wasn't the sister-in-law only technically a widow?
”If there'd been children,” she argued, ”it'd be different. Children change everything.”
Olivia's email proposed a get-together for lunch? drinks?? dinner??? Wherever you like, I don't know Vancouver any more!!! A smiling emoticon.
”Where'd she find my email address? Yours, for that matter?”
The brother shrugged. If Joyce would only shut up, he could brush Sadie and make his tea.
”Ronald, why can't you talk like a normal human? We'll discuss Olivia tonight.” Snap.
Quiet.
Sadie gazed at him, her plumy tail just moving. As he reached to a drawer, she jumped onto the appointed stool. First he brushed her coa.r.s.e outer coat. Good-but soon impatience showed. Amused, he started on her silky under-fur. Sadie squirmed with pleasure. When she'd had enough she bounced down, drank, got into her crate, twirled round and went to sleep. The Sheltie-Pom is not available.
While the smoky leaves brewed, Ronald imagined Alan's death, as he'd done for months after the event. The fantasy had blurred. His brother's habit of speeding, though, was hard fact. He'd got tickets, made their mother cry.
Ronald himself didn't feel like a widower, but then he'd never felt much like a husband. Or had he? Louisa. A short marriage, ended decades ago by her death. Louisa.
The timer sounded. Ronald drank, looking out at the silver Pacific, at mountain peaks swathed in cloud. Soft weather, yet every year people drowned here, or they slid off cliffs and died. They never learn was said, illogically, for it couldn't be the same victims every time.
Olivia still sent a card every Christmas. Elves, glitter. Ronald supposed that the university's card he mailed to her was in comparison somewhat austere.
N.
”NO, I'LL CUT THE PIZZA,” JOYCE SAID. ”Cla.s.sic first-born, super-responsible. Help Mum. Calm down Dad. Take care of my little brother.” She sawed through to the cardboard.
”When did you take care of me?”
”Alan. You could always cope, Ronnie. You had a childhood. I didn't. Then Stanley's father came along, and Stanley was born. Hah!”
The two were chewing before Joyce's silent TV, where one well-dressed man shook his fist at another. The text read Elder abuse rampant, no govt accountability.
Ronald pulled the hard rim off his slice, as inedible. ”But you and Harris were together a long time before Stanley was born.”
”Don't remind me. Thirteen years. Harris was as much trouble as any kid, too.” She glanced at the TV. ”G.o.d, who'd go into social work?”
”I didn't see a lot of Harris. University, grad school, I was busy.”
”You didn't miss much.”
The door to Stanley's room was closed. No light showed.
”Will he want some?”
”Stanley does like pepperoni. Uncle Ronnie's here!” shouted Joyce, pus.h.i.+ng aside much of the remaining pizza. Her voice cracked. ”His father wouldn't have asked that. He'd just eat it all. Stanley!”
A plastic cuplet in the pizza box brimmed with a creamy substance. Hopeful, Ronald dipped his crust into it.
”They never send enough of that,” Joyce said. ”When our son clearly needed professional help, Harris wouldn't discuss it. Let alone budget for it. Or take him to his appointments.”
Stanley peeped out at the food. ”Is there some other uncle I don't know about, Mum?” Bearish, he shuffled forward.
Ronald, who'd not had a sighting in some time, noted his nephew's belly and drooped posture. At twenty-one, the kid looked forty. When did he shave last? Stanley's bedroom door stood ajar. On the Xbox, monstrous black-browed men all girt in white had at each other with swords.
Joyce got to her feet. The comfy chair, another channel, fresh coffee?
”No, Mum.” He licked out the cuplet of dipping sauce. ”I mean, Uncle Alan died, right?” His plate laden, her son disappeared.
Ronald fetched another beer for his sister. ”Joyce, there has to be better pizza than this on Commercial Drive. Next month let's try somewhere else.”
”You know, my benefits don't nearly cover his therapy. Where the h.e.l.l is our so-called union? Social workers never fight for themselves.”
”Is therapy helping him, do you think?”
She slammed the bottle down. ”You think Stanley's a loser! That he's lazy and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g me around to avoid school or work. You're wrong,” Joyce croaked. ”You don't know anything about depression. Stanley was devastated by Alan's death.” She headed to the bathroom.
Ronald calculated. When Alan and the then sister-in-law left Vancouver for his job at an eastern university, Stanley had been four.
On the TV, a woman wept by a house with For Sale and Happy Day Daycare signs outside. The crawler read 2 Tots Shaken, In ICU.
A knock at the door. Joyce went, crossly. A vague female muttering sounded.
”Not again! You never learn, do you?”
Footsteps went down the hall.
Ronald watched a silent commercial for Febreze and one for Dove.
Joyce came back. ”She can't figure out the dryer. Twenty times I've told her, shown her. Why haven't you finished your pizza?”
”What about Olivia?”
His sister frowned. ”You still haven't decided?”
Fetching her laptop, she found the email, hit Reply, and typed so fast the words vanished almost before Ronald read them.
Unfortunately I'll be out of town at a convention. Enjoy your visit. Joyce.
”Easy peasy!”
Seconds later their sister-in-law, if she was that, responded.
Exciting! Where are you off to?
Sister and brother gasped.