Chapter 1

I was dragged up out of a deep, satisfying, exhaustion-induced sleep by the insistent ringing of the bedside phone.

"Shit, can't they let me sleep through just one night?"

My wife, Diane, just groaned beside me, and tried to go back to sleep. These at-all-hours of the night calls from work were really getting to be a drag on her, too.

I reached for the phone, automatically noting the time on the bedside clock. If it was a call-out to work, that would be the start time on my time sheet. It was just after 1:00 AM. This was the first night in over a week I had managed to get to bed for much-needed sleep at a decent hour. Besides my regular workday, I was on-call for emergencies, and now they were disturbing me at night, unusual for this time of year. I don't wake up well at the best of times, so I was just a little grouchy. Thank God the work season was almost over.

"Hello? Listen is it that --"

The voice on the other end cut me off.

"Hello, Dave?" Not waiting for my reply, "Bob, Bob Scott here."

I had already recognized the voice of my old friend, but that was his standard way of starting a phone conversation. He'd done it since I first met him when we were fifteen.

"Jeezus, Bob! Doncha know what time it is? It's —"

"Oh, sorry! I completely forgot the time difference. I'll call back in the morning"

Bob lives in Vancouver. They are three hours behind Ontario.

"No you won't."

You never brush Bob off. If he didn't tell me now, he never would.

"I'll be at work, but it must be really important for YOU to forget time differences, so c'mon, let's hear it. Did Margaret finally kick you out?"

Bob has one of the most brilliant minds I've ever known. Ordinarily, at any time of the day, you pick a spot anywhere in the world, and he can tell you the local time almost instantly. So it must be something BIG to cause this kind of mental lapse.

"Margaret and I split up over a year ago."

"Oh, sorry to hear that."

Well, if his marriage breakup over a year ago wasn't important enough to call me then, I wondered just what was so important he would call me now at this ungodly hour. Bob and I are old friends since high school, but after his family moved out suddenly to Toronto, and then as suddenly out West, we'd hardly ever spoke. Maybe the occasional letter or phone call at Christmas. Once, a few years back, he and his wife, Margaret dropped in for a short visit while they were back here on business. That was how I met her. Up 'til then, I didn't even know he was married.

"Nah, it's something else. Mom passed away Tuesday."

"What? Oh God, Bob, I'm really sorry to hear that"

Dolly Scott had been like a second mother to me during the couple of years Bob and I hung out together in school. She was Dutch, marrying Bob Scott Sr. after the War. When she came to Canada with her new husband, her whole family followed, and settled in Ontario. Then another light went on in my head.

"But Bob, this is Thursday. Did it hit you that hard you only recovered to call me now?"

Actually it was the wee small hours of Friday morning here, but it was still Thursday in Vancouver. At least I remembered the time difference.

"No. I was prepared for it — we all were. Mom's been very ill for the past year. We knew she was going. We were all with her at the end and were able to say goodbye. It wasn't sudden. She was staying with me at the end. It was expected. It was peaceful. I grieved last year when we first learned she was dying. The last couple weeks, she was just a shell, waiting for the body to stop. I think she was already gone."

I knew Bob wasn't an overtly emotional person. He was close to his mother, but not overly demonstrative. In typical Bob fashion, he had worked it through and was over his grief quickly.

"So why the late night call?"

"Well, I need a really big favour..."

"And that would be... ?"

"I need you to be me for a couple days."

"What? What're you smokin' Son? Are you in some kinda trouble?"

"Only with my family, if you won't do this for me."

Now why on God's green earth would Bob and his whole family want me to be him for a couple days?

"'Sides you don't hafta really be me, just sorta my proxy."

"Oh. Explain"

"Well, like I said. Mom passed away on Tuesday. The funeral is not until Saturday."

" Jeez, I dunno if I can get time off work and make a plane out there in time, Bob."

"Sorry again, old chap." The old Bob is talking now. "The funeral is back there. I can't get away from work. We already had a small memorial service here, and now my job won't let me have any more bereavement time. Neither one of my brothers can make it either. Iain had to fly back to the States today. Like me, he only had enough time off his job for the service yesterday. And Sandy's snowbound in Tuktayuktuk. Nothing's flying out of there for at least three more days, because of a blizzard. Shit, he couldn't even get here for the service yesterday. At least he was able to get here to see Mom a couple weeks or so back, just before she really started slipping away.

"That means none of her sons will be represented at the funeral. My sisters are some pissed. So, to keep peace in the family, they accepted when I suggested you as my proxy, remembering how close we all were when we lived back there. Will you do it? Things are moving quickly. I had to call you just as soon as the family agreed. That's why I took a chance calling you so late."

The bugger hadn't forgotten the time difference after all! He needed his friend, and he needed him NOW. I felt much better.

"So where IS the funeral?"

"Remember that small town near the old summer cottage? Well, the Aunts (you remember Tante Pie and Tante Jo, Mom's spinster sisters?), when they retired, they sold the house in Toronto. Instead of moving to the cottage like Opa wanted, they sold it too, and bought a house in town.

"They're burying Mom in the cemetery there, with the rest of her family. It's in her will; they've taken charge, and are insisting that we do it their way. You know how tough and stubborn those two old school teachers can be."

Yes, I remembered those aunts, and I understood about burying Dolly in that cemetery. Her parents were there. They had wanted to be close to the cottage they loved, and bought a family plot big enough for them and all five children. The youngest was actually the first 'resident'. Kit was killed in a car accident just before Bob and his folks moved away. I had never met their son. I had been to that funeral, too. One of the last times I saw the Scotts, and the last time I saw them all together. It was the last time I ever saw Dolly's family.

"Well, OK. I remember how stubborn they can be. I'll do it, but it's a five hour drive from here. I can't drive down there, do the whole day of funeral, wake, and then drive back home the same day. I'll hafta stay over. Is there a motel or something nearby I can get a room at? It's been years. I don't remember any hotels or motels in that small place."

"I checked the Net. They have a new motel right in town, now. I've already got you booked into the Riverview, for two nights. Tomorrow and Saturday. I figured you'd have to go down tomorrow afternoon to be there fore the wake at the funeral home tomorrow night, and Saturday will be so busy, it'll be too late to drive back to your place then. Don't worry about paying, it's on us. I booked it over the Net on my credit card. Unless you want to eat out, you'll be eating with the Aunts. They're expecting you."

Again, typical Bob. Don't wait — just organize and do. Not a bad defense mechanism, I guess.

"OK. Thanks. I could've paid my own way. What would you have done if I'd said no? Never mind. You knew I'd say 'Yes' because you also know I can't refuse a favour to a friend in need. Right?" I chuckled. "You said without me as your proxy, none of the sons would be represented. Are the girls gonna make it then?"

"Riekie's tied up at the hospital with one of her projects. Something about some medical study she's doing being near completion. She was out to be with us near the end, and was here for the service, but now she can't spare any more time or the study could be ruined. Can't blow off the tax payers' grant money, ya know."

I said earlier that Bob was brilliant, but he doesn't hold a candle to his oldest sister Riekie. She's got a couple medical degrees, and does some pretty high-end medical research at the university hospital in Winnipeg. She's also beautiful, knock-'em-dead gorgeous. At least she was the last I saw her seventeen years ago when she was studying at U of T. Unless one of her experiments went horribly wrong, I imagine she still is. Now in her late thirties, she'd be a little past her prime, but I bet she was still a knock out. Athletic, she'd always looked after herself. Brains and beauty in the same package. A nerd's wet dream. Of course, she married a doctor. They had twins, and were doing very well. I was hoping to see her. I felt a pang of regret for things long past and an old deep pain.

"My dad's flying down with the coffin."

No surprise there. Even though they were separated, he and Dolly had still been friends. They just couldn't stand to live together any more. Once the kids were all on their own, the split up amicably. The last I had heard Dolly was living between Calgary and Vancouver, moving back and forth between Bob and Carol. Their dad moved out to some hippy-type place somewhere in the Queen Charlotte Islands.

"And Carol to represent the girls."

"Oh."

My stomach lurched.

Bob continued on without interruption. He knew, too.

"OK, Dave, I know you want to get back to sleep. Anything else you need to know?"

"Yeah, where do the Aunts live exactly? What time is the funeral, and what's their phone number?"

He gave me the address and phone number, and told me to contact them in the morning about the funeral arrangements. He wasn't sure himself. He didn't think they had been completed yet, but the Aunts would know by the time I called them in the morning. I jotted down what he told me on the pad by the phone. We finished our business, said a few pleasantries, and hung up.

I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. The wife, who had lain quietly while I talked to Bob, spoke up.

"Was that Bob Scott? Jeez, you haven't heard from him in almost two years. What was so big he had to call you in the middle of the night? He knows the time difference better than anyone."

"You heard, eh? I thought you'd gone back to sleep. His Mom died. He wants me to be 'him', or rather, his proxy, at the funeral. They re having it back here. None of the sons can make it, so the family asked if I'd step in for Bob. I said OK, 'cause what are friends for? He didn't really forget the time difference. Things are moving quickly, and he couldn't wait until morning."

"Oh. I never met her. I'm sorry for Bob and his family. From the stories you tell, I know she meant a lot to you, too. So... you're representing Bob and his brothers, then?"

"Yeah."

"So who's representing his sisters? Is she coming?"

"Yes, she's coming. Riekie can't make it either, so it's just her. And their Dad."

The 'she' my wife referred to, and which I did too, falling into her way of speaking to keep the peace, was Bob's sister Carol. Carol was my first girl friend. It had been special, very, very special. I'm not sure I ever really got over it. I often wondered how she felt.