"Were you surprised I wasn't nominated for an Academy Award?"
"As it turned out, what surprised me was what you meant to my mother and my father," I said. "That's what surprised me."
"It surprised us three as well," she said.
"Yeah, it surprised them both off a bridge."
There was a long silence.
"I'll try and connect your call now, Wyatt," she said.
In about ten minutes Reese Mac Isaac called back and said, "I let it ring thirty times or more, but your Cornelia Tell didn't pick up. Shall I try again later?"
"Maybe tomorrow," I said.
"I'm not supposed to use the switchboard for personal business," she said, "but I'm in my same house, 60 Robie. Just for your information."
"Goodbye, switchboard operator," I said.
"Did you ever know that old Paulson Lessard got a public notice and was fined for disturbing the peace?"
"I'm not on speaking terms with Mr. Lessard," I said.
"Nobody is, since he's dead and buried, Wyatt," she said.
"He pawned off my mother's radios."
"That was unkind."
"It was out-and-out theft."
"Him receiving a fine and citation, it's a small piece of news, I know. I mean, we've been through a war, haven't we? It's a small, small piece of news, but what happened was, when you moved out of town, you apparently had arranged for Paulson Lessard to look after your house. You gave him a key."
"That's true."
"Well, one Sunday night he had all of Katherine's radios blasting music at top volume. More noise than if a ghost walked through a zoo. You see, I'd only just come back from New York and was asleep when it happened. I woke up and looked through my kitchen window, but I didn't see anyone in your house. A neighbor from across the street called the police. I went out on my porch. The neighbor was standing on your front lawn. I wasn't on speaking terms with her. Nobody was on speaking terms with me, really. Except news paper reporters, and what they printed was unspeakable, all sorts of trash about me and Katherine, me and Joe. I was even offered tabloid money to tell my true story, so to speak."
"The harlot's true story," I said.
"Yes, harlot that I was," she said. "Anyway, a police car arrived and two officers knocked on your door. By this time, maybe ten or a dozen neighbors were on your lawn. I was looking out my kitchen window again. An officer stood on your porch and shined his flashlight in through your dining room window, and that's when I caught a glimpse of Mr. Lessard standing on your dining room table, naked as a jaybird. Not a lovely sight. And he was waving a spatula over his head like he was conducting an orchestra."
"What happened then?"
"They opened the front door and walked in and had a sit-down with Paulson Lessard," Reese said. "He'd wrapped the tablecloth around himself. In the end, he was charged only with disturbing the peace."
"I guess that didn't improve the reputation of my house any," I said.
"I'll say this for him, though," Reese said, "he watered the plants. He kept the lawn clipped and the snow off your driveway. He was old, but he got up on a ladder and washed windows."
"He pawned my mother's radios," I said. "But I got them back."
"From the pawnshop?" Reese said.
"That's right."
"Oh, my, you had to purchase your own heirlooms."
"That's one way to look at it."
"Wyatt, my shift is four to midnight, seven days a week, though Sundays I might shut down the switchboard at ten. Management allows me that. So if you want to avoid me, and why wouldn't you, don't ask me to connect a call during those hours, okay?"
"I might have to move hotels," I said.
"That would work, too," she said.
I heard the switchboard's electric buzz-buzz-buzz in the background — Reese had to connect a call but didn't put me on hold. She just rang off.
When I thought about it, it didn't seem all that big a coincidence, Reese Mac Isaac working in the same hotel where I rented a room. Being a switchboard operator had been Reese's one steady employment. Most of the hotels in Halifax had switchboards. If I could change hotels so often, why not Reese? That's how I saw it.
But you know what, Marlais? Unless Lenore Teachout had been on the third-party line at the Homestead, pen and paper in hand, and later provided me with transcripts, it's otherwise impossible for me to remember all of the conversations — dozens — that I had with Reese Mac Isaac over the next six or seven months.
I can assure you, however, that for a long time we never spoke face-to-face. If we saw each other in the lobby, we allowed for only the slightest acknowledgment. Hello, a half-smile, sometimes not even that. A few days would go by, no conversation, then we might talk for upward of an hour, depending on whether other people in the hotel required Reese's services. But there was one conversation I definitely want to tell you about, and here goes.
Simply put, I was sick and tired of not knowing — not knowing and not knowing — very much about the day my parents jumped from those bridges. So one night at about ten P.M. I said, "Reese, did you speak with my mother or my father on the morning before they died?"
I suppose it's to her credit that Reese didn't hesitate to answer. I was grateful for that. "Not that morning, no," she said. "The night before, I did speak with Katherine, but not with Joe. I was going to spend time with Joe the next night, but there wasn't a next night."
"No, there wasn't," I said.
"Wyatt, do you want to know what Katherine and I spoke about?"
"It would allow me to stop tormenting myself wondering."
"Well, Katherine was in a philosophical way. We talked about the impossibility of life. No, that's not quite it. More to the point, we talked about the impossibility of us." Reese stopped, seeming to collect herself. Then: "I'm just going to say this, all right, Wyatt?"
"Just say it."
"The impossibility of us having a love. A love for each other. I mean physical, Wyatt. And I mean all other aspects, too. Oh, how we could talk with each other. Especially about theater and movies, I suppose. But about most anything, really. We spoke about — forgive me — her marriage. Your father seldom spoke about the marriage. Then again, he didn't cry wolf, either. If he did say something, he'd already given it some thought. About the thing itself, and if he should tell me. And he never once — not once — directed a harsh word toward Katherine. Joseph was discreet like that.
"As I said, Katherine was in a philosophical mood that night. We spoke about the impossibility of a person fitting a secret life within the life they already have. Wanting desperately to hang on to that secret life, because it's the life that touches you the deepest. Believe me, Wyatt, she suffered real anguish, because her secret life touched her deepest. This can't be easy to hear, but you asked."
"Of course, you had two secret lives, didn't you, Reese," I said.
"Yes, and they had the same address, didn't they," Reese said. "Right next door."
"Three times as lonely, I bet."
"It wasn't mathematics, Wyatt."
"Did you talk a long time with my mother that night?"
"Through two pots of tea and some other things to drink," Reese said. "It was Joe's night to have his typewriter shop open late. So we talked and talked, Katherine and I. It's common wisdom, but a rare actual experience in life, that if you find someone you can truly talk with, you can love that person. We declared certain things to each other. No promises were made, but anguished declarations were stated. And what tears me apart every night of my life is that I'm convinced late that night Katherine confessed everything to Joseph. She was so much at wits' end. What's more, I'm equally convinced that Joseph then confessed everything to Katherine.
"They were two good people in a terrible situation." Reese cried a little, then said, "Sorry."