Elena found herself reaching out and gently touching some of the photos as she leafed through: his ninth birthday party, a school photo from when he was twelve, throwing a Frisbee in a park for a red-setter, Odette with one arm around him at a woodland picnic table, a family group photo from a Florida holiday with Georges as a teenager against a marina backdrop… his twenty-first with some college friends spraying him with a shaken champagne bottle. She’d just felt numb, stripped of any emotion with the shock news, but in that moment the tears started to come — though she quickly wiped and sniffed them back, embarrassed. It wasn’t only from all those lost years coming home stronger with the sight and feel of something tangible, a face to finally put to him — but the sudden realization that this now might be as close as she’d ever get to him.
It was all too much for her to bear at one point with Claude and Odette looking on concernedly and Lorena by that time back from playing in the garden to join them, and she got up and went over to the back window, looking out. She’d managed to control from bursting into sobs, but still her eyes were welling strongly and she was having trouble biting it back. The land sloped away at the back and there was a partial view of the lake two hundred yards away between the trees. Claude Donatiens left her alone for a moment before coming alongside to join her.
‘We used to bring Georges to the park by the lake to play when he was younger, and it became something of a dream for us to one day live in this area. We managed to grab one of the last plots going with a lake view.’ Claude was a builder and, reading between the lines, there had been a few ups and downs through the years, their previous homes hadn’t been quite as salubrious — though Claude was eager to point out that they had been comfortable, in good neighbourhoods, Georges’ schooling had been excellent, and he’d been well-provided and cared-for and always loved. But business had been good these past six or seven years, partly thanks to some money from Georges and his financial savvy, Claude conceded. ‘And so we finally built our dream home.’
Elena had the sense in that moment that Claude had somehow displeased Georges, or maybe it was just the awkwardness of their roles muddling: Georges suddenly grown-up, adult and organized, the hot-shot financier, and Claude then the errant dependant. It wasn’t in anything said directly, more in-between the lines or the timing of when Claude fell silent or quickly changed the subject. But perhaps, having spent a lifetime of shadow-dancing around the truth in her own life, that was where she saw everything now: in between the lines and in the silences.
Then came, inevitably, the even more awkward topic of just how Georges went from successful banker to involvement with a crime family. She never asked directly, but Claude seemed eager to make clear that Georges wasn’t in the least criminally inclined. ‘He had a good position, was very solid with Banque du Quebec before joining the Lacailles. That’s why I find this now so hard to take, let alone understand.’ He pointed accusingly to the TV, which had been off since she arrived. ‘He always said that the only reason he’d joined them was because they’d moved away from crime. And it was a challenge. He was very strict about things like that… strong principles. The only problem he ever hinted at was the two Lacaille brothers not always seeing eye to eye — but he said he worked only for Jean-Paul, who he insisted was clean as a whistle and equally as principled. Maybe it will all turn out to be nothing.’ Again he was back to trying to make light of it, lessen the blow that after a lifetime parted from her son, she might now never get to see him.
She shook her head, her eyes welling. Never to be seen again…
The express elevator was still falling, an abyss of dark despair sucking her inexorably down since she’d left the Donatiens. She’d skirted dangerously around the edges at moments during her door-call vigil and at St Marguerite’s — but now the depths of that despair, the gut-wrenching emptiness she felt inside, was total. And after her battles of the past days, her diet of pills and whisky, her lack of sleep and her nerves almost constantly on a tight-rope — she felt completely drained, no reserves left to claw her way back up again.
Besides, it was all over… never to be seen again. What could she do? Claude Donatiens said he’d phone later when he’d spoken to the police — but what was the point of deluding herself by still clinging to hope? From what little she knew, the whole point of witness protection was to keep the subjects away from family and friends — because that was the first place criminals tried to track them.
Never to be seen again…
She gripped tight at the steering wheel and tensed her jaw against it, but still she was falling, the dark edges of the abyss washing in. Traffic was heavier now approaching the centre of Montreal and she had to concentrate. But her eyes were welling faster than she could blink them clear or dab away the tears with the back of one hand… and through her blurred, pastel-wash vision a car appeared out of nowhere and verged across her, or had she swung over slightly as she wiped at her tears? The car’s horn blared, and she braked and swung the wheel away… then suddenly a squeal of tyres and two sharp beeps from the other side, one after the other — and she realized that she’d cut in on something on the inside.
‘Elena… watch out!’ Lorena hit the stop button on her walkman, looking concernedly over her shoulder. ‘There’s a…’
Oh God. Oh God. Elena was shaking uncontrollably, still falling, a kaleidoscope blur of cars and road and buildings, tilting, slipping sideways; she thought for a second she was going to black-out right there with the traffic streaming all around her. She slowed, waiting for the car on her inside to pass — its driver fired her a last stony look — then she pulled across and took the first turn on the left, stopping twenty yards in.
She gave into the abyss totally in that moment, sank down into its darkness as if it were a feather-down duvet. The near accident had jolted away her tears; all that remained was her shaking and a tight, aching knot in her stomach, the only sensation left amongst the overwhelming emptiness she felt.
Last night struggling to get back to sleep after her dreams, she’d vowed silently to her father to find Georges to make good on how she’d betrayed his memory all these years — thinking in that moment how she’d never felt closer to her father, and how oddly ironic it was that finally now, after all this time, they’d found some common ground — and already she’d struck out. Pathetic, really; almost as pathetic as the sham that had been her life so far.
‘Are you okay, Elena?’
And now Lorena’s voice heavy with concern to remind her that in a couple of hours she’d phone Gordon and then let her down too. Another failure.
‘It’s okay… I just need a minute. I’ll be fine.’ A minute? She probably needed twice as long in therapy than even poor young Lorena to sort out the mess of her mind. But only after she’d slept for a week to shake off this tiredness sapping every last ounce of energy; that was her first promise to herself.
She stayed head down, eyes shut a moment more, listening to the steady fall of her own breathing against the ebb and flow of city traffic, as if like a metronome rhythm that might tell her when it was alright to start driving again.
She was slow in shaking off her dark mood, finally lifting her head — but the urgency in Lorena’s muttered ‘Ele!.. and her suddenly aware of a figure by the car, made her look up sharper: brown uniform, one hand by the holster, the other reaching out.
The RCMP officer tapped at her window, signalling her to wind it down. Though suddenly she no longer felt afraid, but strangely relieved that it was finally all over. She could get the sleep she needed, and she wouldn’t have to break any bad news to Lorena: they’d both been victims.