MARY RUTH

She doesn’t think of herself as a snoop or busybody. She just enjoys keeping an interested eye on the comings and goings in her neighbourhood. It’s really that simple.

Some women are enthusiastic about euchre, others about crocheting warming blankets for the newborns at City General. But Mary Ruth is obsessively committed to knowing as much as possible about the lives of any neighbour she finds interesting.

In good weather, when not much is happening in the neighbourhood, Mary Ruth sits on her favourite bench alongside the main walking path in Citadel Park. It’s always a pleasant few hours imagining the private lives of the walkers and joggers. The Park is excellent practice for her main passion in life – being profoundly interested in her neighbours.

In fairness, Mary Ruth hasn’t always been so fascinated by other people. Keeping the house in order and tending to the back garden had taken up much of her time in years past. And of course, there was volunteering at the General every Tuesday and Thursday morning. But after the sudden death of her precious Arthur five years ago this past April, Mary Ruth let most of the household chores and volunteering slide quite a bit.

She’d never been much of a TV fan but she’d patiently sit with Arthur just to keep him company while he followed the seasonal sports. As for spending more time on the computer, she barely knew how to turn on Arthur’s machine, so these days it just sits there gathering dust on his desk. Besides, if Mary Ruth feels an urgent need to communicate with someone, she’d either phone them or better still, handwrite and post them a letter. 

Mary Ruth has never been one for the social niceties of idle chit-chat about silly things that no one really cares about. So she has few friends who are interested in hearing about her new life without Arthur.

Immediately after his death, she had lots of idle time on her hands. So Mary Ruth took up casual watching of the many comings and goings on the street in front of her house.

At first, it was just a relaxing hour here and there sipping herbal tea, watching what was going on with the neighbours. But casual watching gradually became many hours each and every day. Often Mary Ruth would watch well into the night. After Arthur died, she had little need for sleep so it became her habit to cat nap here and there throughout the day or night. It surprised Mary Ruth that she could sleep so little yet still have so much energy to devote to her new passion.

What had started out as an innocent curiosity about her neighbours was fast becoming her obsession. Mary Ruth preferred to think of it as her new hobby.

In the beginning, Mary Ruth sat in Arthur’s leather recliner which she turned toward the large window in the front room. It wasn’t too long before she realized there was a better view from the upstairs bedroom. So she paid a well-mannered neighbourhood boy to carry the chair upstairs and place it in front of the window. To her delight, Mary Ruth discovered that sheer white lace curtains were perfect for looking out but not to be seen doing it. And her line of sight was excellent - on the left, fully both sides of the street, all the way to the Millers ten houses down; on the right, to Khan’s Variety directly across from Saint Jude’s RC church at the corner of Franklin and River.

Now that she had so much time devoted to watching, Mary Ruth realized there were many interesting things to keep track of. She furiously scribbled almost illegible but detailed observations into one of Arthur’s many empty spiral notebooks she’d found piled on the top shelf of the closet in his office.

Within two months, she’d completely filled several books with random comments about many of her neighbours. She even made detailed notes on interesting strangers who passed by. For example, there was the elderly couple who were always pulled along by a scruffy-looking dog with a twisted front leg. Or the well-dressed older woman who, on the third Monday of each month except December, left unwanted religious pamphlets in everyone’s mailboxes.

Mary Ruth had always worked best with structure and order in her life. Her first notebooks were just too disorganized to make possible a quick lookup of some interesting detail about any of her more interesting neighbours.

There was Jennifer Williams - a separated single mother with a wandering toddler named Violet. They lived down at number 36. Or the elderly Mr Stahl with the beautifully carved wooden cane. Every weekday afternoon, rain or shine, promptly at 2:30 pm, he would shuffle unsteadily to Kahn’s Variety, passing back in front of Mary Ruth’s upstairs window at exactly 3:05 pm. Or the Davis kid up at 104. He cut classes almost every Monday. He returned home after his parents left for work, always with the same mousy-looking girl hanging limply on his arm. This raging hormonal tryst happened so frequently that Mary Ruth came to seriously doubt there was anything limp once the teenagers were behind a locked front door. Of course, and she often reminded herself of this fact, today’s youth have absolutely no moral compass to guide them, so why should she be shocked at their secretive, lusty behaviour?

Mary Ruth started using highlighter pens and bright sticky tabs for tracking those few neighbours who, for one reason or another, were of particular interest. Soon the tab system didn’t work because Mary Ruth was exuberantly adding many pages of handwritten information far too quickly. Her beloved Arthur’s spiral notebooks were filled rapidly. Necessary and efficient referencing and fact-checking, both very important necessities to Mary Ruth’s record-keeping, became almost impossible.

Finally, Mary Ruth hit on an efficient system. She devoted a single notebook or a series of the same-coloured, sequentially dated notebooks to each neighbour she was watching. For example, last Tuesday evening Jennifer was sitting on her porch with a handsome young man. They were drinking and smoking.

Mary Ruth decided that it was fair trade tea from northern India and most likely a joint of marijuana. Mary Ruth wrote the details in Jennifer’s notebook. She also checked earlier notes to see if this man had been with Jennifer before. 

Once she realized just how often eager young men visited on a regular basis, Mary Ruth set aside several back pages of Jennifer’s notebook. She marked this section with a bright yellow sticky labelled ‘Male Friends’. Mary Ruth entered the date and time of each visit, a detailed physical description of the visitor and very important to her, some quickly scribbled speculations about the possible motives the young man might possibly have for visiting Jennifer.

After about five or six months of documenting facts and her speculations about the basic comings and goings of the neighbours, Mary Ruth realized her notebook-keeping hobby just wasn’t as much fun as when she first started. Something more was needed. So she added two important items to her watching and documenting routine.

First, she bought lightweight, sixteen power Bushnell binoculars from Arthur’s friend Tim at Arnell’s Digital Photo and Copy Shop on Rye Street. Mary Ruth could easily hold the binoculars without tiring. The binoculars were capable of remarkably detailed long-distance magnification, so now Mary Ruth could literally get up-close and personal with anyone she chose to focus on. And best of all, she could do it secretly from behind the bedroom sheers which didn’t hamper her vision.

Next, Mary Ruth started writing longer, more enthusiastic notations of her imaginative speculations about the thoughts, interests, motivations, passions and secrets for each of her chosen neighbours. There was just so much to write about that Mary Ruth barely had time to prepare and eat nutritious meals during the day. Her weight fell away but Mary Ruth still took down all the mirrors in her home. The few she couldn’t remove, she papered over with old newspaper and masking tape from Arthur’s supply cupboard. Mary Ruth decided she could stand to lose a few extra pounds. While her Arthur had never come right out and said it to her face, she just knew he preferred her to look as she did in high school when they first met.

Not thinking about the why of it, Mary Ruth enjoyed writing vividly imagined lives for her few chosen neighbours. Each of these unique worlds was based on very little fact but a whole lot of wildly creative fantasy. Mary Ruth, as a silent observer and documenter, began to live more and more within each of these imagined worlds. She had absolutely no second thoughts or moral ambiguity about doing so. Afterall, being an observer and documenter was a perfectly enjoyable and reasonable pastime. No one was being hurt or inconvenienced by her secret fantasies so there was nothing to be concerned about. Besides, since she no longer needed to dedicate most of her daily life to pleasing dear Arthur, she had been blessed with a limitless opportunity to secretly enter into the lives of the chosen few.

One day, Mary Ruth made an important decision. She would focus almost exclusively on the four most interesting individuals on her street. Narrowing down the subjects of her watching would allow her to devote more time to properly document their lives. She could now become more intensely familiar with each of her chosen neighbours. The promise of such intimacy was very appealing to Mary Ruth.

First, was Jennifer - the separated mother of Violet. She was an obvious choice. This young woman had a lifestyle so unlike anything that Mary Ruth herself had ever experienced. Mary Ruth could only marvel at the freedoms and societal norm-busting that Jennifer represented – both in fact and in Mary Ruth’s rich fantasy world. Dope smoking and maybe some low-level dealing given the number of visitors Jennifer had at all hours of the night and day was an attractive activity.

Jennifer’s sexual promiscuity - in Mary Ruth’s world, that was the only word for it – evidenced by the several young, beautiful men who arrived, stayed a night or two then mysteriously disappeared, only to return some months later apparently eager as ever to enjoy the young woman’s company. Mary Ruth speculated that Jennifer supported her lifestyle not only with welfare cheques and reasonable income from dealing dope but also because the young men were probably willing to pay for her time.

Natural beauty and grace - two traits that a younger Mary Ruth could never claim to possess.

A free-range parenting style - often seemed to put the active toddler Violet at risk of falling from the porch steps or being run-down by a passing car. Never having any kids of her own to practice on, Mary Ruth’s intellectually favoured command and control style of parenting was being stretched beyond reasonable belief by Jennifer’s exceedingly laissez-faire approach to Violet’s upbringing and safety.

Next - Ray and Audrey, the married couple directly across the street. Ray was a salesman at Stafford’s Used Auto And Truck Sales in West City. Even though he had been one of Arthur’s closest friends, Mary Ruth disliked Raymond.

Just three weeks before he died, Arthur abruptly traded their perfectly fine ten-year-old Buick for a low mileage bright red truck. Mary Ruth had no interest in cars or trucks but she could read the badging on the truck’s side as well as the next person – Dodge Ram 1500. Arthur told her the truck would be perfect for hauling clutter from their basement to the landfill. He’d also been thinking about getting a fishing boat and trailer so the Ram would do just fine for that rig too. While she had no proof, Mary Ruth suspected Ray profited twice from selling Arthur that useless truck – he got the commission on the truck and another on the sale of Arthur’s Buick.

Mary Ruth believed Ray was long on nice words but very short on ethics. In her world, car salesmen were all cut from the same morally inferior cloth.

To soften tension caused by the sudden purchase of his truck, Arthur encouraged Mary Ruth to drive the Ram 1500 a few times. She had to admit it had more power than the Buick and so many fancy do-dads she just couldn’t count them all. But eventually, she got comfortable taking the truck around town. Since Arthur died, she took it out more often. Otherwise, the truck usually sat in the garage at the end of their side drive.

But it was Audrey that Mary Ruth was most interested in. An attractive, well put together, confident woman in her mid-fifties, Audrey, to Mary Ruth’s way of thinking, was an outrageous flirt. Mary Ruth had been keeping a close eye on Audrey and Arthur since she caught them shamelessly pawing at each other in the garage during the annual neighbourhood street festival on the July long weekend back in 1998.

With her soaring imagination, Mary Ruth had effortlessly created a slowly collapsing relationship between Audrey and her slimeball husband. She truly believed that marriage would end with Raymond’s surprising demise under highly suspicious circumstances. Of course, his timely death would leave Audrey totally free to put some of her flirtatious moves on Kent, the wealthy but lonely widower who lived in the neat, two-storey, green trimmed semi next to Khan’s.

Mary Ruth’s final choice for special attention was Selina – an impossibly beautiful, slim athletic girl of eighteen with long, raven-coloured hair and a smile that would surely melt the most hardened of hearts.

In real-life, Mary Ruth had watched Selina grow up. Her parents, Luis and Sofia, had moved onto the street when Selina was just learning to walk. Over the years, Mary Ruth quietly but deliberately inserted herself into Selina’s life, always stopping to chat with the child, giving her a few quarters every now and then for an iced Slurpy from Khan’s.

Sofia and Mary Ruth became friends. Sofia invited Mary Ruth to all of Selina’s school concerts. In 2006, Mary Ruth had been an honoured guest at the child’s first Communion of the Holy Sacrament in a beautiful service at St. Jude’s. In fact, a photo of a smiling seven-year-old Selina in a white lace communion dress and wrist-length gloves still held a special place on top of the upright Heintzman in Mary Ruth’s front room.

Somewhere in those early years, Selina became Mary Ruth’s imaginary daughter. Of course, Mary Ruth would never admit such a silly belief to anyone. It was her closely held secret.

As Selina entered her teen years, she appeared less willing to stop and chat with Mary Ruth. Whenever she saw Selina leave the house and start down the street, Mary Ruth would hurry out to the front garden, pretending to fuss over her pink Queen Elizabeth roses. She anticipated being able to intercept Selina as the teenager swept by talking and laughing on her phone. But it never happened. Selina had no interest in Mary Ruth or her prize-winning roses.

Mary Ruth came to believe that her precious Selina was just too preoccupied with friends to care anything at all about Mary Ruth’s life. So Mary Ruth returned to watching, imagining and documenting the young woman’s activities from behind the upstairs window. Mary Ruth filled many notebooks devoted only to Selina’s real or imagined social life.

Three months ago, while sitting in the Park, Mary Ruth was surprised to see Selina enter through the Memorial Gate.

Walking beside her, far too close for Mary Ruth’s liking, was a tall, athletic-looking man. His clean-shaven head glistened in the late afternoon sun. On the upper arm closest to Mary Ruth, was a large tattoo in the shape of three barbed wire strands so popular these days with young people. Beneath cutoff jeans, his right leg - knee to ankle - was completely enclosed in a more intricate, highly colourful tattoo. Sitting at some distance from the man, Mary Ruth could not be certain of the exact details. After several moments, she decided it must be an open-mouthed cobra, long fangs dripping bright poison, the scaled body coiled completely around the calf muscle. Mary Ruth involuntarily shivered. She hated snakes. She also had no love of tattoos of any kind.

For the sake of the notes in Selina’s file, she decided to call him Tattoo Man.

Tattoo Man was quite a bit older than Selina. Certainly not a high school senior. His face was darkly stubbled, the upper body covered in a clean but well-worn red basketball jersey. A chain necklace glittered golden in the sun. Mary Ruth had never been a fan of men wearing jewellery of any kind. Except for the wedding band, she had strictly forbidden any frivolous adornment on her late husband.

Mary Ruth couldn’t believe that her precious Selina would even consider being in the company of such a questionable character. Tattoos all over, shaved head, flashy jewellery and several days worth of beard immediately sealed his fate with Mary Ruth.

Tattoo Man was openly smoking a joint. Mary Ruth knew it from observing Jennifer and her male friends. He passed it frequently to Selina who would laugh, take a long drag then blow a blue-white cloud of smoke into the man’s face as she passed it back.

Mary Ruth decided that Tattoo Man was most certainly not the young beau her beautiful Selina deserved. She also knew that Sofia and Luis would never approve of this boorish, pot smoking, tattooed, unshaven hooligan. In fact – and Mary Ruth was even more certain on this point – Selina’s parents likely did not even know about their daughter’s close involvement with this unsavoury creature.

Turning left onto Lakeside Trail, Selina and Tattoo Man moved leisurely off toward the boating pond. Selina stopped abruptly, embraced and deeply kissed the man - a little too passionately for such a public place or so it seemed to Mary Ruth. And then that evil man had the nerve to deliberately slide his right hand up under Selina’s denim half-jacket, beneath the white cropped tank top. Mary Ruth knew with absolute certainty that Tattoo Man was fondling Selina’s breasts. Shifting slightly while pushing down his hand, Selina playfully grabbed at Tattoo Man’s ass before leading him further along the tree-lined pathway.

Once Selina and that horrid man were out of sight, Mary Ruth pulled a small black notepad and red click pen from her purse. That entire distressing scene was definitely going into Selina’s current notebook. Given her rising feeling of outrage, Mary Ruth didn’t trust her memory well enough to recall the exact details later so she wrote them down right then while still sitting on the park bench.  

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Watching Selina being so publicly intimate with Tattoo Man threw Mary Ruth completely off her daily routine of documenting observations and writing her fantastical speculations about Jennifer, Ray and Audrey.

Mary Ruth reasoned that Jennifer would always be Jennifer and didn’t need close monitoring for the moment. Ray didn’t look well these days so, in Mary Ruth’s mind, he would likely die at any moment. And regardless of what Mary Ruth might say or do to thwart her intentions, Audrey was determined to have joyous sexual congress with the terribly lonely, unsuspecting Kent.

Mary Ruth’s immediate future plans were now clear. Selina must receive her total attention and vigilance to ensure her safety from Tattoo Man. Mary Ruth hoped that Selina would come to her senses and kick that awful man out of her life forever. It was at critical moments like this that Mary Ruth wished her dear Arthur was still with her to offer his wise counsel. Since his death, she had taken to talking quietly to his presence which she believed to be always nearby. Mary Ruth took comfort in a firm belief that when really needed, her Arthur would tell her or give her a sign about the best way to intervene in order to protect Selina. 

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The following Tuesday afternoon, Mary Ruth was taking a leisurely tour around the block. Since she had temporarily re-focused her watching and documentation activities onto Selina, there was not as much note taking to occupy the days and evenings. So she often strolled about the neighbourhood, forcing herself to chat with strangers or shopkeepers, always on the hunt for the odd bits and pieces she could enter into a new scribbler she simply called ‘The Neighbourhood’.

Sofia was coming out of Khan’s Variety. After a warm greeting, she invited Mary Ruth over for some tea on the front porch. It had been awhile since the two women had actually met in person, so there was lots of news to share.

Mary Ruth deliberately kept her news light and certainly did not share anything related to her hobby. She talked about missing Arthur, how she’d taken to driving his truck around the city and sometimes out onto the busy twelve-lane expressway that passes through the north-east edge. Mary Ruth said that while she had come to enjoy the deep growl and powerful surge of the engine, it was mostly the faint, lingering smell of Arthur’s cigars inside the truck that made the driving pleasurable. It gave her some comfort, she said, even though she had strongly disapproved of him smoking, especially those awful cigars.

Sofia smiled, agreeing that fortunately, Luis had given up smoking his favourite Italian Toscanos when his elder brother Christos died horribly of lung cancer after many years of smoking. Comfortable in their shared belief about the evils of smoking, the two friends sipped their tea in silence.

Mary Ruth asked after Selina, remarking that in recent days she hadn’t seen Selina out and about the neighbourhood. With tears in her eyes, Sofia reported that ten days ago, while Selina was going to meet a friend at a café, she had tripped on uneven pavement and fallen heavily into the roadway. Unfortunately, the fall broke Selina’s right wrist and heavily bruised her face, neck, shoulder and arm. While the injuries would heal with time, Sofia expressed worry that now her daughter was refusing to leave the house, claiming she was too embarrassed to be seen in public with noticeable facial bruising and the ugly cast on her lower arm. Brushing away tears, Sofia sighed, silently shaking her head at her daughter’s extreme reaction to the accident.

Instantly, Mary Ruth’s protective instincts kicked in. She sincerely expressed her best wishes for Selina’s full and quick recovery. If Selina needed a ride to the doctor’s office at any time, Mary Ruth offered to drive her. But while the right words and sentiments were being spoken, her thoughts were racing, her heart seemed to skip beats and her breathing became noticeably raspy. She hoped that Sofia did not notice her physical reaction to the news of Selina’s accident.

It was no accident. Mary Ruth was certain of it.

Tattoo Man, looking as he did and being as rude and aggressive as Mary Ruth had come to believe he was, had surely been the cause of Selina’s injuries. Of course, Selina would make up a fake story to tell her parents. She had to tell them something in order to cover up the secret relationship with Tattoo Man and her abuse at his hands. Something had triggered Tattoo Man’s anger toward Selina and most assuredly she had been badly beaten because of it.

Mary Ruth’s mind was rapidly connecting assorted snippets of information from her earlier fanciful speculations about this dreadful man. There was absolutely no doubt whatsoever that her beautiful Selina had been almost murdered by this hateful man. And just about as bad, Mary Ruth had failed to act sooner on her intuition -  those worried feelings that had first been triggered back in the Park.

Selina appeared unexpectedly in the porch doorway from the front hall. Mary Ruth, startled to see her, immediately jumped up to embrace and comfort this frail-looking young woman. Selina was pale, the purple-yellow bruises on her face a striking reminder of the violent trauma she had been through.

“Miss Sullivan …I …” Selina barely managed the words before she was pulled tightly into the bosom of Mary Ruth.

Certain that she could not be seen by Sofia, Mary Ruth whispered into Selina’s ear – “Oh, my darling child, I will make that man pay dearly for what he did to you. I promise.”

Instantly, Selina jerked away from Mary Ruth as if she again had been struck, her mouth open, eyes wide and wild. “Oh, um … No, Miss Sullivan, I don’t …”

But Mary Ruth was already gone, walking with long, purposeful strides back to her house. Sofia looked up briefly at her daughter in the doorway - mouth wide open, left hand frantically pulling at her hair. Then over to the empty chair where Mary Ruth had been sitting. What had just happened? Sofia began to cry.

Mary Ruth stopped in her front hall and tried to collect herself. Settled, she went to the kitchen and made some tea. She went up to the front bedroom and flipped through recent notes until she found the record of Selina and Tattoo Man’s actions in the Park. In that very moment, the man had sparked something very alarming within Mary Ruth. That evening she had written several pages on what she imagined Tattoo Man’s personality and motivations to be. In light of Selina being attacked, much of what she had written now made perfect sense.

Acting on a hunch after seeing Selina in the Park that day with Tattoo Man, Mary Ruth had taken Arthur’s truck to the library and read up on the psychology of men who abuse women. What she learned caused her to be very frightened for the safety of her beloved Selina. On further reflection, she decided it was best to remain vigilant, recording as much of Selina’s daily routines as she could. She trusted that Selina’s maturity and ample common sense would take over. Whatever was happening with Tattoo Man, Selina would end it quickly.

Now it was clear from Selina’s injuries that Mary Ruth had made a serious miscalculation about the young woman’s ability to see Tattoo Man for what he really was. And for choosing not to act on her apprehension about Tattoo Man, her dear, sweet Selina had been almost killed. So now it was up to Mary Ruth to correct this situation in some appropriate manner. But she had no idea what that would be.

She would ask dear Arthur for his guidance. He never failed her in such matters.

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Late Wednesday evening, Mary Ruth was in her usual place behind the sheers in the upstairs front bedroom.

As was her habit, she was on watch for any unusual activity on the street that she could record in her notebooks. But her mind was only on Selina. Mary Ruth worried that the young woman might never heal properly in both body and spirit. While she had written extensively about Tattoo Man in her speculative passages, with a growing sense of desperation Mary Ruth realized she didn’t know his real name, where he lived, where he worked or where he hung out when he wasn’t with Selina.

Down in front of Jennifer’s place, a slight shift in the dark shadows drew Mary Ruth’s attention. Odd, she thought. Jennifer and her current male visitor were already inside after an evening spent smoking and talking on the front porch. All the house lights were off. There – it was a dark form moving slowly along the opposite side of the street toward Mary Ruth’s window.

Quickly, she put the Bushnells on the moving shadow, adjusting the fine focus. A person in dark clothing, moving ahead a few steps, stopping and looking toward each house in turn. Mary Ruth realized this person was checking house numbers. House by house. Edging slowly along the darkened street, not wishing to draw the attention of still awake neighbours. She sharpened the focus a touch more.

A sudden gasp. “My heavens, it’s Tattoo Man.” She’d recognize that face anywhere. He was on her very street, now almost directly in front of her driveway. Step. Pause. Step again. Yes, now that he was closer, she was certain it was him. He moved slowly off to her right, stopping beneath the old oak beside the driveway into Selina’s house.

Using the zoom knob on her binoculars, Mary Ruth pulled in tight on the man’s face. Tattoo Man was looking up at the second floor, staring at Selina’s bedroom window. Something pale white suddenly appeared behind the top sash. Mary Ruth shifted the lens just in time to see Selina’s face looking down at the tree. Mary Ruth was certain she saw a quick flash of recognition. Selina’s mouth fell open, then closed. “She’s scared to death of him” Mary Ruth whispered. “And with good reason.”

Just as quickly as it had appeared, the face disappeared. A white blind came down behind the window glass.

Tattoo Man waited for twenty-seven minutes. Mary Ruth timed him so she could be precise in her notes. He moved off toward the RC church then turned the corner, walking south on River.

It was at that exact moment that Mary Ruth realized Arthur had just given her a sign. “Thank you, my darling”, she whispered.

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The man walked slowly along River, smoking and texting on his phone. The soft white glare from the screen under lit his face creating a ghoulish Halloween effect. He was smiling, maybe even talking to himself.

The Green River bridge split the community into East and West City. It was a long span of crumbling concrete stub walls embedded with rusty, black metal railings, roughly patched asphalt on the roadbed and 1950-era light standards spaced evenly along both sides of the narrow bridge deck. Six to each side, only two actually working, casting pale yellow cones of light.

Nearing the middle of the bridge, in a long stretch of darkness between two faint splashes of light, the man looked up from his phone, twisting slightly to glance behind. The deep growl of an engine approaching from the rear had broken his concentration. It was late, the bridge was deserted so the man was curious.

The truck bucked up over the low curb, launching briefly into the air, then came down hard onto the walkway just in time to smash into the man. The truck was moving very fast. The vehicle slid slightly sideways in response to the crushing impact of the man’s body on the shattering left side headlight, bumper and grill. The fenders and door panels scraped heavily along the wall for several yards causing a bright, brief shower of yellow-white sparks within a high-pitched screech of stressed metal. The driver’s side mirror snapped off and skidded alongside the truck for a short distance. The machine jerked sharply right back into the empty lane of the bridge. The truck straightened and skidded to a stop.

The driver side window rolled down. A face appeared, looking at the exact spot where the man had just been standing. On the bridge walkway, the crushed screen of a cell phone flickered twice then faded slowly to black. Just beyond, a sneaker - lace still tightly tied - lay on its side amidst shards of broken plastic, headlight glass, bent pieces of chrome and ragged bits of bloody clothing.

The impact had lifted the man upwards with explosive force, his clothing ripping partially off. Airborne, the nearly naked body had struck the top edge of the bridge railing. Then, as if in slow motion, it pin-wheeled crazily down into the fast current of the Green River.

The face smiled then slowly disappeared as the window closed. The idling engine roared back to full power. The truck sped away, tires squealing on the pavement, disappearing into the protective darkness of West City.

First Publication: ‘Mary Ruth’ appeared in the Canadian online magazine CommuterLit in two parts – February 21 and 22, 2018.

The Backstory: Where I write my stories, I can look out onto the street in front of our house and see much of the comings and goings of my neighbours. As a result, I’m familiar with many small details of family and neighbourhood life. One day, I asked myself – what if a person with a lot of time on their hands, became obsessively interested in the real and imagined lives of their neighbours? Thus the character of Mary Ruth was born.

Legal Rights. ‘Mary Ruth’ is the intellectual property of the author, Don Herald. No part of this story may be reproduced in any format without the written permission of the author.

MY FATHER'S SON

   

I might as well start at the end.

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I check my watch. Twenty after nine. It’s not too late.

I grab my cell off the counter and open the address book. I scroll down, find who I’m looking for and press ‘call’.

I wait.

I’m hardly breathing. My chest feels as if a steel strap is being slowly tightened around it.

An automated voice asks me to leave a message. I’m surprised because I expected a live person to answer.

“Hey, it’s me.”

Not the most original way to start but at least I’ve made the call.

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I should tell you that on the afternoon of my sixth birthday, Hugh left us.

The story goes he told Mom he was going to pick up a new bike for me at Credit River Cycle on the Lakeshore just across from the Greyhound terminal. We never saw him again. Being so close to buses leaving for Toronto every half hour, that’s probably why he made up the bullshit excuse for buying me a bike. Ever since, Mom’s always claimed she’d no idea why he left, where he was now or what he was doing.

I never believed her.

We lived in a small wartime house at the end of High Street very near the sprawling cement plant property.  It was one of those houses that if you passed it a thousand times, you’d never remember it. Mom worked at the plant but I never really knew what she did there.

When I was a kid, letters would arrive with cool looking Canadian stamps. The stamps always had interesting animals on them. Mom and I’d discuss the animals and she’d tell me all she knew about each of them. What she didn’t know, we’d head out to the library on the weekend to read up on the moose, beaver or the polar bear.

Those letters always had no sender address. Her name and our address were scrawled across the front with a black Sharpie as if the hand was a bit unsteady. A letter always arrived just before her birthday. Every year like clockwork until she died. Then the letters stopped.

For a couple of days after she got a letter, I’d hear her crying in the middle of the night. I’d get out of bed and slip quietly into her room.

“Mom? You ok? Heard you crying. Mom?”

“Just the pillows, dear” she’d tell me. “I think I must be allergic to these damn things. Jarrod dear, remind me to put them out with the garbage next Thursday.”

Of course, I’d always remind her just like she asked. As far as I recall, in all our years together, none of the pillows ever made it to the curb on garbage day.

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As a kid, those letters coming just before her birthday made me curious. Looking back at it now, I think maybe part of the reason I wanted her to tell me about the animals on the stamps was my hope she’d forget herself and tell me who sent them. But Mom, she was way too smart to let it slip so easily.

When I was about ten, I decided those letters must be from my Dad. Of course, I had no proof. But as a ten-year-old, I didn’t need any. I convinced myself she must have all those letters stashed somewhere in our house. So when she was out, I’d search the place from top to bottom.

I’d start with her room – going through the dresser drawers, then the closet and finally under her bed. A couple of times I remember struggling to lift up the heavy mattress just to see if she might’ve hidden them there. But I never found anything. Not even in the other rooms.

So naturally, I figured she had to be keeping them in her locker at work. But I had no way of checking that out. I remember coming up with all kinds of elaborately imagined schemes to sneak into the plant, find her locker and using the key I’d stolen from her keyring, I’d open it up. And there they’d be just waiting for me to read and find out about my Dad and his new life. I imagined them being all tied up in a bundle with an old black shoelace from one of my Dad’s work boots, the ones that Mom still kept in our front hall cupboard even after all those years.

But let me stop here for a bit and tell you about November 21^st last year.

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We’d been living together for almost a year, ever since I graduated from Seneca College. The job market being what it is, Mom suggested I move back in with her until I found a good paying job in the aviation industry. That way, I’d save money, she’d have company and someone to help with the outdoor chores, especially in the winter.

If I’m being honest, I’d have to say that it wasn’t the best of arrangements even though I loved Mom dearly. Fortunately, hard words between us never hung around too long. She was good at peace-making. I was good at being a pain-in-the-ass. Fortunately, we were both good at ignoring the sticky parts of our relationship.

A big sticky part was my Dad. Even as an adult, I still had lots of questions about him. Whenever I said we’d have to talk about all of this, she’d offer up something like ‘No need for that now, son. Plenty of time to chat about such things.’

Well, time ran out.

Mom hadn’t been feeling well for a couple of months. She’d never been one to put much trust in doctors and hospitals. So, the night I had to almost drag her kicking and screaming to the ER, she was quite snarky with the nurses and even worse with the young doctor who eventually examined her.

“I’m afraid Miss Leonard I’m going to have to keep you here for a few days. We need to run some tests to get to the bottom of your cough and why you’re tired all the time.” The doctor said it softly but there was no mistaking the ‘this is the way it’s going to be’ tone of her voice. To my surprise, Mom immediately dropped the snark and became all cooperation.

After the doctor left, Mom tried to offer up some reassurance.

“It’s ok, Jarrod. Nothing to worry about. I’m sure it’s a touch of the flu. Probably settled into my lungs. A few days in here getting pumped full of antibiotics and I’ll be right as rain. You go on home now. Get some rest. I’ll be here tomorrow morning having my breakfast when you come back. I promise.”

Next morning I arrived about breakfast time. Mom was there alright. But she was dying.

The nurse said my Mom took a bad turn shortly before 3. The nurse-in-charge left me a message to call her but I didn’t get it. I’d left my phone in the car when I got back home. Nothing I could do about that but I still felt terrible. I should’ve been there for her right from the get-go.

Two days later, Mom died just before noon. I was holding her hand. The left one with the plain gold band I’d never seen off her finger. Her last moments started when she suddenly squeezed my fingers really hard. Faint whispers, as if speaking from a great distance. I leaned close, my ear brushing her dry lips, a sour breath warming my cheek.

“… love you. My heart is … my, my dear heart … love only me.”

Mom paused. Drew a deep breath.

“Forgive me … I … I should never have said … our promise …”

Mom coughed. Several raspy-wet gasps, a shivery sigh.

The green-lit monitors began to beep in quick shrill bursts. She was gone. Of course, I’d seen this sort of thing on tv but being part of it first-hand, and it’s my Mom on the gurney, well that’s something else entirely.

An hour or two later after all the necessary paperwork was completed, I stumbled out into the windswept parking lot. I carried a large clear plastic bag with the clothes all folded neatly, her favourite Nikes on top.

In the right pocket of my bomber was her gold ring which I squeezed in my fist. One of the nurses had used some petroleum jelly to slide it off the bent finger. But even with the jelly, it took some effort. I’d stood there all numb, watching the whole removing-the-ring procedure. Out in the parking lot, my head cleared somewhat and the ring thing felt like quite a disrespectful act on my Mom’s body.

I went home to our empty house.

Mom’s will was simple because she had uncomplicated tastes. Her estate was modest so I got everything. Unknown to me until the will was read by a lawyer, she’d set aside enough money to cover the mortgage payments for a year while I got myself organized. She was always good at forward planning stuff like that.

Mom’s death rocked my world pretty badly. After the funeral, I hid out in our house, drank way too much, punched holes in some of the walls, cried a lot and ignored the many phone calls and emails. It wasn’t pretty – let’s just leave it at that.

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As a single parent, Mom always did the best she could for me. But in my early teens, I was a hell-raiser. I’m sure all my carrying on caused her a lot of silent grief and far too many sleepless nights.

In those days I was running with Ricky Evans and his crew. We called ourselves the Lake Street Boys because most of us lived along that street several over from my own. Ricky had done some custody time when he was twelve. He bragged it was for hot wiring and joy riding in one of the repair trucks he’d stolen from the cement plant parking lot. Some of us in the gang believed he’d really done nothing more than break into old man Preston’s place over on High Street and steal a radio, a small tv that was easy for a kid to carry and an almost full bag of Oreo cookies. I was never able to figure out the reason Ricky had taken the cookies.

But Ricky, being as mean as he was, none of us ever had the guts to call him out, so we just went along on everything. We stole ice cream and frozen pizzas from Lobello’s, tapes and cd’s from Jamieson’s, spare change and cigarettes from unlocked cars we happened to find in neighbourhood driveways or parked downtown along the Lakeshore down by the harbour.

One night, Ricky set off a car alarm while he was trying to jimmy a locked glove box. A cruiser arrived quickly and the cop chased the first kid he saw into the backyard of the house next door. That kid was me.

The cop was huge. Must’ve been at least six-five. He brought me home in the back seat of his cruiser instead of going to the station where I was becoming an all too familiar face, a wannabe gang-banger with a bad attitude.

When Mom opened our front door, the cop roughly pushed me through then stepped in himself. He filled the doorway but Mom didn’t seem to mind.

“Beth, I’d really do your best to get him some professional help. He’s heading down the wrong path real fast. If this keeps up, Jarrod’ll end up at Sprucedale. Believe me, Beth, no good’ll come of it.”

Mom thanked him for his interest, promising she’d do what she could.

“Ben, I’m on a thin budget here. Money’s tight. But I’ll do my best.”

Apparently, she and the cop knew each other.

Ben gave me the eye. You know, one of those hard, no-nonsense looks that always make you squirm and want to look away but you can’t. Cops are pros at doing that kind of cold stare.

“Look Beth. I’m good friends with the guy who runs the Boys and Girls Club down at the Y. I’ll speak to him tomorrow about your boy.”

He nodded at me, faking total disinterest, standing just behind my Mom. This time there was no hard stare. Just a soft, encouraging kind of half smile.

“His name’s Al Tunney. I’m sure he’ll be in touch right away. It’s a good program he runs. Oh, and Beth – just so you know, there’s no cost to you if Al takes your boy.”

The next afternoon, Al spoke to Mom. Soon, I was going to Boys and Girls Club every day after school. During the summer, Ben and Al arranged for me to go to Camp North Star up near Parry Sound. That routine went on for the rest of my high school years.

It’s fair to say that was the turning point for me. Not to put too fine a point on it but all the skills I’d put into being part of Ricky’s crew, I put to positive use in the Club. In time, I became a senior leader in the after-school program and then Head Counsellor at their summer camp.

After high school, I got accepted into the Flight Training program at Seneca College. When I graduated last year, my Mom and I invited Al and Ben as our special guests. I think they were as proud as Mom at what I’d been able to make of my life so far.

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I never gave up the idea that Hugh was still alive and sending the letter every year to Mom.

Now I was a college graduate, I wondered what he’d think of all this. I remember that a couple of days after graduation, I asked Mom if she ever wrote to Hugh – you know, telling him what I was doing, what kind of a person I was becoming – you know, all the important stuff about my life since he left us.

“What makes you think I’m in touch with your Dad?”

“Well, for starters, the letter you get every year before your birthday. They’re from him aren’t they?”

My question caught her off guard. She went back to slowly chopping up carrots on the counter, then she looked up.

“No, Jarrod. Those letters are not from your Dad.”

Just for an instant, I wondered why she needed to lie to me.

Mom looked me straight in the eyes, just so there’d be no mistaking the intent of her next words.

“Your Dad’s lost to me. To you too. He’d a lot of issues back then. That man sure did. For some reason, he decided we’d no longer be in his life. So he walked away. I’ve never heard from him again.” She paused, looking me square in the eyes like she usually did when trying to punctuate a point.

“Jarrod, honey, I swear to you that’s the honest truth.” She stopped for a breath, obviously weighing her next words.

“I think it best, Jarrod, if you just leave it be.”

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In spite of Mom’s wishes about my Dad, I’d decided a long time ago to hunt for him. He was a mystery that I just couldn’t leave alone.

With Mom gone, I cranked my search into high gear.

He was all I had left now that Mom had died. Admittedly, the prospects of finding him after all these years weren’t great. But the challenge of it along with the idea of actually finding Hugh and having a conversation about our lives - well, it drove me hard. I just had to find him. Talk to him. Period.

An online search of birth registration records provided some information. My mother was Elizabeth Emily Hubbard and my father was Hugh Bruce Leonard. At the time of my birth, both had been residents of Clarkson, a small Ontario town just west of Toronto. A Google search yielded many hits to my ‘Hugh Leonard in Clarkson Ontario’ query. The Facebook identifier list for his name went on for a couple of pages. Since I didn’t know where he lived now, I couldn’t even use a geotag to narrow down the search field. With both sets of grandparents gone, there were few options left for me to pursue.

I remembered that over the years, Mom had kept in occasional touch with some of her high school chums. I decided to see what they could tell me. I called a couple of them but they appeared reluctant to share any information about Hugh.

Anita, Mom’s best friend, sensed my frustration at being stonewalled. She did admit to knowing Hugh and my mother in high school. But most interesting, she said “Your mother paid me a visit about two months after Hugh disappeared. She asked me to promise that if in the future, you ever approached me about Hugh, I should deny that I knew Hugh or anything about their relationship.”

Almost as an afterthought, Anita added, “She told me she’d spoken to all her other high school friends and got them to swear the same promise too.”

I was shocked. Why had my mother deliberately gone about shutting down her friends? What was she trying to hide that she’d go to such extreme lengths?

Anita volunteered if she thought of anything that might prove useful, she’d get in touch. But I could tell from her tone on the phone that the chances of hearing from her again were very slim indeed.

But a few days later, Anita called to say that she’d been thinking about my search for information about Hugh.

“There’s a cop in town, I think he’s a Detective now. He’d know more about your Mom and Hugh. The three of them were classmates through all the years at Port Credit High. Ben Middleton. You know him?”

“Yeah, I do. He’s the guy who helped me get set up with Al Tunney at the Y back in the days when I was hanging with Ricky Evans. He was a friend of Mom. I don’t know him well at all, but it’s a really good suggestion. Thanks, Anita for getting back to me.”

Next morning, I went down to the police station across from City Hall and invited Ben out for coffee. I told him I had some questions about my mother and Hugh. He seemed happy to come so we walked down the street to Café Au Lait.

“Yeah, we were friends. Hugh, well he was the major high school jock. That one, he partied hard. Whatever he did, whatever trouble he got into, he was untouchable. That guy had golden horseshoes up his ass.” Ben laughed at the memory.

“Your mother … well, she had eyes only for him.” Another smile.

“It was impossible for any of us to compete with his bigger-than-life personality. Every guy in the upper grades at Port Credit dreamed of getting at least one date with your mother.” Ben pauses. “I know I sure did.” He laughs again and sips his latte, looking at me over the rim of the mug.

But he was lost in his memories.

“Heaven knows I tried the hardest of anyone. I think I just wore her down.”

“A few months after graduation, your Mom finally agreed to meet for a Coke and some chips down at Lookout Park above the harbour.” Ben looks at me. “We just clicked with each other. It was amazing how much we had in common.”

He sips again from his mug, then the eyes I remember from that time he brought me home in the cruiser, those eyes captured me, holding me steady.

“Jarrod? You believe in love at first sight?”

“Ah, can’t say I’ve ever thought about it, Ben.”

“Well, that’s what it was for me with your mother. Love at first sight. Damn, that was something. You know what was best of all?” He pauses but isn’t really wanting me to answer. “I knew she was feeling something too.”

“But she was big time involved with Hugh, so me asking her to dump him, well that just wasn’t in the cards.” He looks down into his mug, swirling the coffee around a couple of times.

“But still … back then we were close. We didn’t broadcast it but we’d meet and talk about life, about what we wanted to do with our lives. Stuff like that.”

Ben was deep in his memories now - the Café, me, the world outside the window, none of it existed for him.

“After Hugh left you and Beth, over the years I’d drop in from time to time, just to check on her. It was tough being a single Mom back then, raising you and still working long hours at the plant. But you know what? We never ever once talked about Hugh – why he left, where he was – that sort of thing. Beth wouldn’t allow it.”

“When you started hanging out with Ricky, I made sure I kept close tabs on you. I knew more about what you and the gang were up to than I ever told your Mom. She had enough on her plate. I didn’t need to add to her worries.”

Ben looked at me. Tears were pooling in the corners of his eyes. That’s when I realized he was taking Mom’s death just as hard as me. I wanted to reach out, touch his hand, share the experience with him. But before I could manage it, he spoke again.

“Want to know something funny about your Mom, Jarrod? Well not funny really. More like odd. One day, it was a couple of years ago now, out of the blue, Beth texted me. Asked if we could meet at Outlook Park near the old maple. Our favourite bench there is long gone, been replaced by a kids’ wading pool or something.”

“Anyway, Beth asked me to promise that if you ever asked about her and Hugh, I wouldn’t say anything.”

“I asked her why. I still remember her exact words – ‘What’s past is past, Ben. Besides, it’s a silly waste of time to talk about what can’t be changed.’”

“Yeah, that sounds like Mom,” I said. Ben was on a jog down memory lane and he didn’t need me interrupting.

“As you know, your Mom can be a very persuasive lady. Even more so back then. So I promised. Twice as it turned out.” He chuckled at the memory, then sipped a mouthful from his mug.

“’Scout’s honour?’ she said. It was a silly request but I held up my hand in a Boy Scout salute. Yeah, I said, Scout’s honour.’”

“’You ever Pinky Promise?’ She smiled, holding up her small pinky finger. ‘Go ahead. Wrap your right pinky around mine. Make it tight.’ I did what she asked but I was smiling.”

“’This is serious, Ben. No smiling. You might break a Scout’s promise, but you never break a Pinky Promise. It’s sacred.’”

“I remember that Pinky Promise as if it was yesterday.” Ben emptied his mug in a long swallow. It seemed to me he made it longer than necessary just to give time to compose himself.

Without thinking it through, I decided to take a big risk.

“Ben?” The use of his name seemed to yank him back to us sitting in the Café.

“Could you do me a huge favour?”

The eyebrows raised slightly, he was waiting.

“This is probably an incredibly big ask but could you look up Hugh Leonard on the police computer? CPIC, I think it’s called. Perhaps a search will turn up something helpful to me.”

It was as if I’d punched him in the chest. Ben slammed back into his chair. He looked at me with that same stare I got from him when I was that gangbanger giving him attitude from the back seat of his cruiser.

In that instant, I knew I’d crossed a line with him.

“For Christ’s sake, Jarrod! No. Fucking no. That’s the stupidest thing you could ever ask me to do. No one messes with CPIC for personal stuff. I could get my ass fired for doing it.”

“Jesus, Jarrod.” Ben was seriously pissed. Those dark eyes never left my face. Customers at nearby tables appeared startled by the huge cop’s loud, angry words. He didn’t seem to care.

Abruptly, Ben pushed back his chair, stood straight up and leaned over. Now he towered above me, looking straight down.

“Thanks for the coffee, kid. See you ‘round.” It was a growl.

Not my name. Just ‘kid’.

He’d put me in my place and it hurt like hell.

Ben stalked out of the Café. He bumped noisily into some customers in chairs but didn’t stop to apologize.

I just sat there feeling like crap about what I’d asked him to do.

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The next morning, Anita called.

“I’ve been thinking about what I promised your mother. We need to talk. There’s something you need to know. Come by this evening about 830. My kids are out with friends, Tony’s doing bingo night for Kiwanis. We can talk uninterrupted.”

We settled in across from each other at the kitchen table. Anita wasted no time in getting to the point.

“Quite a few years ago – I think you were in grade six, maybe it was seven – anyways Beth turned up here one day. She said you’d begun prowling around the house looking for some letters. Anything really that would tell you about your Dad. You were hell bent curious, she said. So far, she’d been successful in hiding some things but it was only a matter of time before you found everything. So Beth asked if I’d keep something until she wanted it back. I said that’d be no problem.”

Anita reached out, cupping my hand with hers.

“Jarrod, your mother did give me something back then. I’ve been thinking about it the past few days. I decided you should have it.”

Anita left, returning with a small cardboard box which she placed on the table between us. It was an old Campbell’s Soup box. It had been sealed with many strips of packing tape. Some pieces had dried out over the years and were peeling off. The box was also tightly cross-tied with that rough twine that’s always been popular with gardeners.

“I’ve no idea what’s in here, Jarrod. But from how your Mom talked at the time, I think it’s probably photos. Maybe even some high school yearbooks or mementoes of her time with Hugh. Whatever’s in there, she didn’t want you to have it when you were a kid. But you know what? She’s never mentioned it to me since. I think Beth forgot I had it.”

“My mother never forgot anything. Even an elephant had nothing on her.” We both laughed.

“Yeah, you’re right. She left it here on purpose, that’s for sure.”

 “She’s gone now, so I don’t see any point in hanging on to it anymore.”

Anita tapped the top of the small box.

“Maybe it’ll help. Maybe it won’t. Jarrod, whatever way it goes you should have it.”

She pushed the box across the table.

Mission completed, Anita stood up. Our meeting was over.

As we were in the front hall, she rested a hand on my shoulder.

“I think your Mom would understand. About me breaking our promise, I mean.” Pointing at the box in my arms, she said, “I hope you find what you’re looking for Jarrod. God knows there are far too many secrets in all our lives these days.”

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Anita was right about the photos.

There were lots of faded Kodak colour snaps of Mom in her childhood days. In keeping with the times, most of the pictures were deliberately posed. There were a few of her as a teenager. These images were full of energy, living life large and to the max. It felt good to see her like this.

Fortunate for me, Mom was into writing stuff on the back of each picture – who’s in it, where and when it was taken.

There were quite a few of her and Hugh. High school sweethearts. At the usual dances; one at the senior prom. Athletic award nights. High school graduation. Hugh in all his various varsity uniforms – football, track and basketball. Always smiling like a movie star, looking like he had the world by its tail, always with my hot looking mother on his arm.

There were a couple of pictures taken in their first apartment. From what I could see, it was a dump. There was only one photo of me and them. In black and white, it was another of those purposely posed shots – both Hugh and Mom all serious faced, baby me holding a chew toy happily waving it at the camera. On the back, my mother had written it short and sweet – ‘Us and Jarrod. Age 10 mos. Clarkson Road. Apt 3’.

Looking at that picture, I realized just how young my parents were when they got married. And just how quickly afterwards I must have arrived on the scene.

For the first time, I began to wonder if Mom might have been pregnant with me. This might explain why they’d got married just out of high school. In those days, if you were unmarried and pregnant, well that’s how it was taken care of more often than not.

That photo had no date. Just my age. So I tried to do the math. It worked out pretty close. The odds of her being pregnant when she married Hugh looked pretty good.

But here’s another very interesting thing about what was in that Campbell’s Soup box.

There were seven photos of Mom with another guy. In various places – picnics on the grass, sitting on a front porch somewhere with a black and brown Cocker Spaniel at her knee, standing on an empty beach with large waves rolling in behind. My favourite was Mom and this guy sitting on a bench, arms draped easily around each other, laughing into the camera. Obviously, they’d talked someone into taking their picture together.

Each of the seven photos had no handwritten notes on the back – no names, no dates, no locations. This was so unlike Mom. Was it deliberate? I had no way of knowing.

The guy looked vaguely familiar. I got a magnifying glass from the junk drawer in the kitchen and examined his features more closely. It didn’t take me too long to figure out who he was.

Ben Middleton.

These photos had to have been taken when they were secretly seeing each other in the summer right after high school graduation. The summer Ben had told me about at the Café. Ben and Beth. They sure looked happy. And quite remarkably, their friendly relationship had apparently lasted right up to the day she died.

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The diary is thick, faux leather bound. It looks like its seen a lot of use. Faint stains on front and back covers, probably from skin oils. A bright yellow graphite pencil with a well-used soft gum eraser is still tucked in along the cracked spine of the journal. On the cover, embossed in faint imitation gold leaf, are the initials ‘E.E.H.’ – Emily Elizabeth Hubbard.

It’s my mother’s diary. I just found it at the bottom of the soup box hidden under a large autographed poster of the Beatles.

Like all diaries of that vintage, there’s a small, fake brass hasp lock that theoretically keeps the pages secure from prying eyes.

A flat end screwdriver from the junk drawer makes short work of the lock.

Inside, the writing is in my mother’s distinctive, tightly-spaced cursive style. The first page is dated. September - her final year at Port Credit. The last few pages aren’t dated except for the very last entry. A quick read suggests it’s the end of the first year of Mom’s marriage to Hugh.

Most of her diary entries are dated. Some are short; others go on for a page or two. Stuff is sometimes glued to pages – dried flowers, concert tickets or something she’s torn out of a magazine. Small, hand-drawn pencil or crayon sketches are often squeezed into the margins. Sometimes they take up a full two pages. Each one has intricate detail. Some must have taken hours to finish. I get a distinct impression of sadness in these sketches. But then I wonder if I may be reading too much into it.

Each page is numbered. There are one hundred twenty-three pages.

I brew some fresh coffee and bring a full thermos along with my big white porcelain mug to the side table. I sit down in my Mom’s favourite reading chair. Her life as a teenager and a young married woman begins to flow from the pages. Her life encircles me like a blanket.

It’s obvious that in those early months, she was head over heels in love with the guy. Some of their early sexual activity is described - intimate details far more than an adult son should ever know or want to know about his mother.

As the weeks and months pass, I notice a subtle change in the tone and texture of the phrasing my mother uses, her choice of words seems deliberate, more cautious. She writes of Hugh’s drinking. His growing anger and jealousy about the guys at school trying to hit on her – all of this gets mentioned more often.

I’m starting to get uncomfortable with the slowly darkening tone of her life as reported within the first sixty or so pages.

Ben starts appearing right after high school graduation. Just as he told me at the Café, their secret friendship blossoms slowly. Now the excitement returns to my mother’s words. The margins are full of her colourful sketches. There’s some full-page drawings of a harbour with boats at anchor, a gnarled old tree with a wooden bench underneath its branches. All of it is bursting with colour.

Sometimes, Mom writes about how it was becoming more difficult for her to hide her growing relationship with Ben. I get the impression a lot of energy is going into the effort of keeping everything secret from Hugh and others.

On page 80, the relationship with Ben has progressed to the point where sexual intimacy is happening. Most times it takes place at Ben’s house while his parents are at work. Of course, Ben had deliberately left this part of their relationship out of our Café chat. In her journal, Mom is joyous about their deepening relationship, experiencing their sexual intimacy as a perfectly natural thing to expect.

On page 92, two words appear in the middle of the white page – I’m pregnant!

Eighteen, pregnant and unmarried. Very much in love with one guy; falling quickly out of love with the other. It’s obvious she’s having only occasional sex with Hugh and a whole lot of it with Ben.

There’s no explanation for what happens next.

Mom tells Hugh she’s pregnant. His parents, ever the good Catholics, insist they get married right away. A quickie service is arranged at City Hall. Hugh’s father brings him into the electrical contracting business so at least as a married man he’d have a well-paying job. Hugh’s parents have a small basement flat in a rental property on Clarkson Road, so the couple moves in and prepares to have a baby. Mom writes she’s grateful for the support of Hugh’s parents. Oddly, there’s no mention of her parents.

But Mom has to settle up with Ben. The diary entry is intense in its language and details of their final meeting. She tells Ben that Hugh has asked her to marry him and she’s accepted. She offers Ben no explanation. There’s nothing in her writing to explain why she lies to him.

She doesn’t tell Ben she’s pregnant. Again, no explanation in her diary as to why she chooses this path.

As one would expect, Ben doesn’t take well to the sudden news of Beth’s imminent marriage to Hugh. There's a lot of tears. Long, lingering hugs are exchanged. Before they part, she says to Ben - ‘Friends forever?’ ‘Scout’s honour’ he says, then kisses her lightly on a tear-stained cheek, turns and walks down out of the park. It’s heavy reading. Mom’s emotions are raw and alive right there on the pages in front of me.

In the rest of the diary, Mom is in the early months of her marriage and the mid-stages of the pregnancy. There’s a delightful note about my moving around in her belly, sometimes kicking in time to the beat of the music on the radio.

But her relationship with Hugh is deteriorating. He’s described as being ‘difficult’ and ‘ranting horribly’, ‘out all the time with his drinking buddies’ and ‘skipping work to do god knows what’.

It doesn’t take much for me to read between the lines.

In the diary, considerable time goes by where no entries are made. And then her final entry appears.

It’s worth sharing with you. It’s not dated.

‘Today Anita and I saw Ben Middleton coming out of the Dairy Queen. Anita says he’s just finishing up at the police college in Aylmer. Rachel Downey was hanging all over him, guarding him like a dog does a favourite bone. She’s in her final year nursing at St Joe’s. That woman has always wanted to get her hooks into him for as long as I can remember. She must be pleased with herself. Anita tells me they got engaged recently! My dear, sweet Ben. I wish you happiness but please, for god’s sake, not with that bitch Rachel.’

^{______________}  <> ^{______________}

I sit under the soft glow of the chair light. I’m trying to make some sense out of everything I’ve read in Mom’s diary.

Waves of unexpected emotion break over me. Intense sadness at my mother’s early married life. Seething anger at how Hugh treated her – these days, many would say how he abused her. Profound disbelief at her inexplicable estrangement from Ben and the uncharacteristically cold way she went about shutting down her passionate love for him.

I have an over-riding feeling of not quite pure despair. Given what I ‘ve read about the man, I’m not sure anymore I want to keep tracking Hugh down. I don’t like the man my mother’s words portrayed. I’m beginning to think that perhaps it’s best to let go of his ghost and free myself from its heavy emotional burden on my heart over all these years.

But bubbling away, just under the surface of this emotional tsunami that has me in its grip, is the sense that if I open myself to the meaning of my mother’s words, another far more important clue will reveal itself. It’s in the subtext of what my mother has been recording in her diary.

I go back and re-read the many entries that appear to hint at it. And then, out of the mists of her words, the shape of a clue begins to emerge.

I sit silently and wait patiently in my mother’s reading chair. It’s as if I’m trying to channel her spirit into the room. I want her to confirm what I think I’ve just discovered. I wait. But on this particular evening, my mother’s spirit chooses not to appear.

Time passes. Perhaps, I nodded off for a bit, exhausted from trying to interpret and digest what I’ve learned from my mother’s words. I get up and take a few of the old photos into the bathroom. I turn on the light above the sink and stand in front of the mirror.

My mother with Hugh. My mother with Ben. I look back and forth between the photos and my reflection in the mirror. Several times I shift my head left, then right. At one point, I take a small makeup mirror from a drawer and reflect profiles of my face. Once again, I compare mine to each man in the photos.

I study Hugh and me. Then Ben and me. Back and forth. Back and forth.

I go back to sit in my Mom’s chair. I close my eyes. I sense her presence in the room but she does not speak.  Time passes.

^{______________}  <> ^{______________}

I check my watch. Twenty after nine. It’s not too late.

I grab my cell off the counter and open the address book. I scroll down, find who I’m looking for and press ‘call’.

I wait.

I’m hardly breathing. My chest feels as if a steel strap is being slowly tightened around it.

An automated voice asks me to leave a message. I’m surprised because I expected a live person to answer.

“It’s me. Hey - look, I’m really sorry I pissed you off last week. I was way over the line. We really need to talk.”

I pause.

“Call me.”

I hesitate again, unsure what to say next. And then one final word -

“Please.”

First Published: This story was published in the February 5^th, 2018 edition of the UK online magazine, Fiction-On-The-Web.

The Backstory: I’m always interested in reading true stories of adults searching for one or both of their birthparents. But what if the search did not go according to plan? And it’s this circumstance that ‘My Father’s Son’ begins to explore. 

Legal Rights. ‘My Father’s Son’ is the intellectual property of the author, Don Herald. No part of this story may be reproduced in any format without the written permission of the author.