Page 9 of Not a Word

I nodded.

The cop keyed the ignition and backed up far enough that I could squeeze past. Once I was on the street, I put the car in drive and was on my way after that same cop raised the yellow tape to let me pass.

My car was too old for Bluetooth so I took the phone back out of my pocket and with one hand on the wheel and one eye on the road ahead, I brought up my wife’s number, tapped the screen, and held the phone to my ear. I knew there was a chance it would go to voicemail. Diana was at work in the Yorkton Hill municipal offices, where she was probably sending out tickets to people whose vehicles were caught on camera running red lights. A leading source of revenue for the town.

Her cell rang twice.

“Hey,” Diana said. “’Sup?”

“I dropped by Dad’s and . . . Jesus, I hardly know where to begin.”

“What’s happened?”

“There was no answer at the door, so I went in, and . . . he’s dead.”

“Oh, honey, god no! A heart attack?”

“No.” I almost said I wish.

“An accident?”

She was probably remembering an incident a few years ago, when Dad slipped getting out of the tub and threw out his back.

“Nothing like that,” I said. “The circumstances are . . . they’re complicated. Mom wasn’t home. She’s at some lunch.”

“This is horrible, I’m so sorry. What can I do?”

“I don’t know. I think . . . I guess I’m in shock. On a whole bunch of levels.”

“You want me to go pick her up?”

“No, I’m going for her now. Can you get Gage from school?”

Our fourteen-year-old son would be devastated by the news. His relationship with his grandfather was a close one, closer than with his grandmother. They shared an interest in anything automotive, and Dad had often taken Gage with him to classic car rallies, dealerships to see newly released models, drag races, monster truck shows. I’d never had that same level of enthusiasm, maybe because when I was a kid, Dad was away so much, he didn’t take the time to indoctrinate me in his passion. But when Gage came along, whenever Dad came over, he’d tell Gage to check his coat pocket for a surprise, which was invariably some toy car.

It would be hard enough for Gage to lose someone this special. But trying to explain how Grampa had died was going to be particularly difficult. I had no idea how I was going to come to terms with it myself.

“There is no school today,” Diana said.

I’d forgotten. This was a so-called PD day, one of two or three throughout the school year when teachers were in “professional development” sessions designed to make them better at their jobs. It was also why we’d given him slack after he’d stayed out late the night before, since Thursday was not a school night this week. He’d promised to be home by midnight, but when he woke us with a text after eleven asking if he could have an extra hour, we relented. There were days when we worried we were being too lenient, days when we worried we were too strict. It was hard finding a balance.

“I don’t know where he is,” Diana continued. “Probably with Joey, or at Bashir’s playing Minecraft or Fortnite or god knows what.”

“Call him, tell him to come home, tell him there’s been . . . an incident, with his grandfather. Details to come. And whatever you do, don’t bring him to my parents’ house.”

“How bad is it?”

I steeled myself to deliver the news. “It looks like Dad was having an affair and he and . . . this other woman, whoever she is . . . were upstairs and he shot her and then he shot himself.”

Diana’s gasp was audible. I could picture her at her desk, sitting there, her mouth open, trying to take in all that was packaged into those few words. If I had ever, in my life, delivered more stunning news to anyone, I couldn’t think what it would have been.

“Okay,” she said. Diana had always been one to put aside overt reactions and start dealing with the facts. “I’ll head home, try to find Gage.” She paused, then asked, “What about Holden?”

It was my turn to go quiet. After a few seconds, I said, “Leave him with me. I’ll try to reach him.”

“And just when he’s been running on an even keel,” Diana said. Yorkton Hill was right on Lake Ontario, and sailing was big here. Diana’s family had owned a sailboat—nothing special, barely a twenty-footer—when she was a kid, so the even keel expression came naturally to her.

“So far as we know,” I said. Holden had been out of rehab—I’d lost count how many times—for a few months and seemed to be doing okay these days. But I hadn’t talked to him in two or three weeks, and a lot could happen in that time. With Holden, a lot could happen in twenty-four hours.