Chapter 2

I gave a final check to every entry point in the house before heading out. Pausing at the interior door to the garage, I locked it behind me and took a slow, shallow breath. I dreaded being in here. I would have left the car on the street if the day’s forecast hadn’t called for hail.

Standing inside the dimness of the garage I watched my forearms pebble into gooseflesh. A rough patch of concrete just in front of my feet was a slightly lighter colour than the rest. This is where my father had died. To get to the car, I would have to step over his shade.

When Violet and I had heard of his death three weeks ago we’d shared our mutual suspicion that it had been suicide. Our father had battled depression and alcoholism his entire life, a war that had been passed on to Violet. The carbon monoxide that remained in the garage when the police had discovered his body had been strong enough to make one of the officers deathly ill.

The autopsy had revealed the truth. Our father had dropped due to a complete blockage of the left anterior descending artery: what cardiac doctors called the Widowmaker. We’d been told he’d probably had only a minute or two of consciousness after his heart attack. It looked like he had tried to make it back to the interior door of the house after starting the car. I’d often wondered, in the weeks since, what he might have thought, lying on the cold concrete slab, feeling the life drain from him, as he heard the exhaust purr away, filling his lungs with gas.

I shook the creepy feeling from my shoulders, pressed the remote to open the outer sliding door, and stepped over the chemically scrubbed concrete patch, slipping into the driver’s seat of the BMW.

I drove slowly down the quiet, oak-lined lane, keeping an eye out for Ted’s truck, my mind flicking through ridiculous fantasies of finding him somewhere and hurting him. The heavier traffic of Granville St. finally forced me to put away my thoughts and concentrate on the road.

It was a magnificent day. The shower had left the smell of spring thick in the air, warm and earthy through the open window, mingling with the scent of dogwood, dahlias and roses from the meticulously maintained gardens of the neighbourhood.

I drove north, passing out of Shaughnessy Heights. Thick, tall dark green hedges replaced oaks as the houses grew smaller. Another kilometre, and the hedgerows disappeared, coffee shops, galleries, and designer stores springing up in their place.

The view opened as Granville rose to a bridge, revealing downtown Vancouver bathed in shafts of crystalline light that had broken between the clouds. I exited right, circling under the bridge to park outside the Granville market.

I’d been a freelance travel and food writer for five years. The experience had utterly removed any desire to become a chef – too much stress, too many long hours – but had left me with the ability to make a decent meal.

The market was already filling with people leaving work early to buy food for the evening. I moved quickly under the market’s framing of green bridge girders, picking up two dozen fresh sea scallops before jogging to the right, thrusting my hands into a steel pail to bring out a pound of nutty brown cremini mushrooms. I stopped at a stall run by Old Colony Mennonites: big, broad men in denim overalls and cowboy hats, gnarled, thick-knuckled hands hanging by their sides. They had purple-red shallots and garlic; a bakery provided a day-old baguette on sale.

Standing in line at a gourmet chocolate stall, I texted Violet. Her reply was immediate; all was fine at home.

A few other items and I was done. Pleased with myself, I headed back to the car. The sea air was already heavy with the smell of another incoming rainstorm.

Back home I pulled the car tight against the garage wall, deliberately parking over the body-sized patch on the floor. I didn’t see any boxes of clothes.

Violet hadn’t moved from the couch, other than to wrap herself in the blanket. I couldn’t really begrudge her that. She’d had a hell of a day.

My sister often gave people the impression that her beauty made her lazy or entitled, but it was a mistake to underestimate her. Given direction, Violet worked harder than anyone I knew: she just had very little self-motivation. She’d been that way since she was a girl. Paradoxically, the same quality made her a good actress. The audition process might leave her physically ill with anxiety, but when she had a role she worked harder than anyone else, doing more research and preparation than the minor parts she was given usually demanded or deserved. Directors loved her: she always knew her mark, always had her lines, always brought half a dozen different reads to every scene. But she didn’t have the fire, ambition and pluck that separated the merely good from the great. Her crippling fear of professional failure, nurtured since childhood by the impossible expectations of a domineering mother, held her back every time.

“Hey.” She looked up as I entered. “Find everything you needed?”

“Yep.” I looked at the credits scrolling up the screen. “Good movie?”

“Not her best work.”

“You took off the compress.”

“It’s really a lot better.”

So was she. Her cycle of self-flagellation would inevitably return, but she seemed to be through the first emotional go-round already. That was a good sign. She smiled as I kissed the top of her head, nuzzling my nose into her dark hair. “Turn that off. Come talk to me while I’m cooking.”

“Okay.” She followed me into the kitchen, taking a seat at the wide island. I tore off a paper towel and began patting dry the thick, fat scallops on the butcher’s block. Violet’s eyes grew wider. “Oh, yum.” She rested her elbows on the black granite of the island and placed her chin in her hands, happily watching me work.

“Have you thought about moving up your appointment with your therapist?” She went every week; her last visit had been a few days ago.

She shook her head. “I feel okay for now.”

“Good.” Violet had recently weaned herself off the pills she’d taken for depression and anxiety since she was a teenager. I had been concerned that her breakup might trigger another depressive episode, but she appeared to be doing better than I expected, at least for now.

Drawing a chef’s knife from the rack, I washed and quartered the mushrooms, then turned to peeling and chopping the shallots and garlic.

“Oh.” I’d forgotten the sherry. “Could you fetch me the Sandeman? I think I saw it in there.” I nodded in the direction of the pantry.

“Sure.” Slipping off the stool, Violet walked barefoot across the tile. Through the open pantry door I watched her reach for the bottle, tank top riding up to reveal her tiny waist, calf muscles coming into relief as she rose on her toes. “Here.” Her hip pressed against my side for a moment as she slid the dark bottle onto the granite.

“Thanks.” She smiled and resumed her place on the other side of the island, watching me intently.