That evening I sat through a stiff dinner with my father and grandmother, both of them drinking their meal while I pushed lasagna noodles around on my plate. I felt like a failure, like my grandfather had finally asked something of me after a lifetime of giving, and I’d come up short.
When we were done eating, I cleaned the dishes as my father escaped out the back door. Then my phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s Dr. Wheelbarrow.”
“Oh, hello. Can you give me a second?”
I ran up the stairs to my grandfather’s bedroom and closed the door behind me. Even though my grandmother was nearly deaf, some instinct told me she shouldn’t overhear whatever it was the good doctor had chosen to call me about.
“I’m back,” I said.
“I really shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Telling you this. He’s entitled to his privacy.”
“But he wanted me to know.”
“That’s the conclusion I’ve come to as well.”
“So, there was something?”
“Yes, though not what you think.”
“What was it?”
“He had some tests a couple months back. He had a blood clot in his lung. It wasn’t operable. It was only a matter of time before he died.”
My stomach fell away. Is this what my grandfather meant? How could it be?
“I’m sure I’m not the first person to say this to you, my dear,” the doctor continued, “but I think your grandfather was having a laugh, sending you that card. You see, he did know he was dying, and you know how he liked his little jokes.”
“Yes, I see. Thank you.”
I ended the call and threw the phone down next to me on the bed. I pulled the card out again. Looked at the misshapen 6 that kept it from being delivered to me on my birthday, two weeks before he died. What would I have thought if I’d received it on my actual birthday, as planned? I’d have laughed it off, called him, and told him that he only wished his life was so interesting.
I looked at the books again on my grandfather’s bedside table. All that detective fiction, including one by his favorite, Agatha Christie, about Poirot’s last case. If memory served, Poirot murdered someone and then killed himself because he knew he was dying, and couldn’t think of another way of stopping the killer. I remembered how one of the first books my grandfather had given me as a teenager was another Christie classic, A Murder Is Announced, where an upcoming murder was advertised in the local paper.
My grandfather was dying. As the doctor had said, he liked his little jokes.
I picked up my phone and dialed a number.
“Hey, Jane?” I said to my neighbor when she answered. “That card you gave me the other day, the one whose address was misdirected — you sure someone didn’t give that to you?”
She hesitated, then laughed. “He said you’d figure it out!”
“Who said?”
“Your grandfather. What a sweet old man. He came to me about a month ago and asked me to hold onto that until I’d heard he died. Then to give it to you, and pretend it had been sitting in my mail for a few weeks. Said how much he liked puzzling out mysteries with you and he wanted to leave you one last one. Did I do something wrong? He said you’d find it fun.”
I closed my eyes. “No, it’s fine. Fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“He left you something else too.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, hold on.” I heard the phone click down, followed by rustling. “Here it is. You want me to open it?”
“Sure, why not.”
An envelope ripped. “It says: Dearest girl, bravo. You’ll forgive your old granddad, now, won’t you? Love always, Grandpa.”
I thanked her as the tears started to roll.
Maybe now, I thought. Maybe now I can move on.
IV
Motive
“You actually thought someone killed Grandpa?” my brother said the next night huddled under one of the funeral umbrellas, sharing a cigarette. We were outside Grumman #78, an upscale taco place in a downscale location on Rue de Courcelle just below Westmount. My mouth tasted like margarita salt and stale tobacco. I passed my brother the butt.
“You don’t think it could happen?”
“Not really. I mean, why?”
“Money, obviously,” I said. “Grandpa’s loaded.”
My brother looked amused. He’d suggested we get dinner in order to escape from the hotel room, which was bad code for escaping from his wife and kids. Perhaps this attitude explained why I remained childless myself.
“So who were you thinking had done it?” he asked. “Couldn’t be Grandma. She inherits everything either way, and it’s not like she didn’t already have everything she wanted.”
“What about Dad?” I asked. I hadn’t let myself get this far in my thinking, not before I knew it was all a joke. I’d wanted to make sure he was actually murdered first. Because if he was, the list of suspects was nasty, brutish, and short.
“But he’s going to inherit too, isn’t he?” my brother said. “When Grandma dies?”
“Knowing her, that might take awhile. Besides, Dad has debts.” I passed on my turn at the cigarette. “I think he might owe a lot of money, in fact.”
“To who?”
“He’s been gambling again, and maybe doing drugs.”
“Please. Our dad?”
My brother always saw the bright side of things. He moved away when he was nineteen, before he’d ever taken the time to figure out where our dad disappeared to at night or why our school fees were never paid on time. My brother had also not walked into a seedy bar and seen our dad hunched over his stool, yet still in full command of every regular’s name in the place. My brother hadn’t had the embarrassing experience of his new partner already knowing his father, because he’d been cleaning up dad’s puke for years in the after-hours place where he ended his evenings.
“You don’t live here. You don’t know,” I told him. “And with Grandpa out of the way, he could control the money through Grandma. She doesn’t have a head for that sort of stuff, always left it to Grandpa.”
“This is all just theoretical, right?”
“Of course. Don’t worry about it.”
My brother threw the cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out with his toe. “Business has been slow recently, hasn’t it? Grandpa wanted to give you one last project. That’s all.”
“He did.”
“One last project,” my brother repeated as he opened the door. “That sounds like him.”
I followed him inside and my nostrils filled with the smell of fresh fish tacos. I could already taste my next margarita.
V
A Deep Corner of a Dark Bar
After dinner, my brother walked me up de Courcelle. We stopped outside the Bar de Courcelle, our hands shoved in our pockets, warming them against the night. It was about five minutes from raining, and the air felt wet.
“You going in?” he asked.
“Probably.”
“You think that’s a good idea?”
“Probably not.”
“All righty then. You need me to come with?”
“Better off alone.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Say hi to Sam for me.”
I faked a laugh and pulled the door open.
The Bar de Courcelle was home to twenty-something hipsters and music I couldn’t identify. But my ex, Sam, worked behind the bar, and tonight I couldn’t resist my desire for company.