A Darkness of the Heart Read online

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “My father was satisfied there was no mistake, and he was a physician.” I picked up the fourth letter. It was written shortly after my second birthday. It was the longest and the hardest for me to read. The handwriting was erratic, and my father had clearly been distraught when he wrote it. He told Des that he had been concerned all along about my mother’s attitude towards me, but he had held out hope that she would come to love me. She hadn’t. My father said that I was becoming increasingly withdrawn and fearful, and he had finally realized that my best chance for a normal life would be if Des and his new wife, Nina, adopted me. The closing sentence of the note was uncharacter​istically emotional. “My heart is breaking.”

  The final letter was written two days later, and it was very brief. “Caroline is concerned that if Joanne is with you, my loyalties will be ‘divided even further.’ She asks that I rescind the offer. I am deeply sorry for the pain I have caused you.”

  The arc of my early childhood in five letters. No matter how often I reread them, the facts didn’t change. A new light had been shed on questions that had perplexed me for much of my life, but my thoughts were shifting too quickly for me to form answers. I slipped the letters and the medical reports back into the file folder. Roy Brodnitz was standing at the window watching the creek. When I joined him, he turned to face me.

  “Joanne, I don’t know you well. But even an outsider could understand that you lost something this morning. For what it’s worth, I think when you’re able to process this, you’ll realize that you’ve gained something too.”

  “Zack claims it’s always better to know than to not know,” I said. “At the moment, I’m just dazed, but this news may explain some pieces of my life that have puzzled me.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?” Roy said.

  “When this news sinks in, I’m guessing there’ll be many things I’ll want to talk about, but at the moment all I can think of is my decision to adopt Taylor. I have never for a second regretted it, but there were many reasons why taking on another child, especially a child who’d been through what Taylor had been through, could have made me back away. Money was tight in our house. My husband had died suddenly, and we hadn’t given much thought to building a financial portfolio. All three of my children were still at home, and I was trying to finish my dissertation so I could get tenure. There was a lot on my plate, but I never hesitated because I was certain Taylor belonged with me.”

  “Yet you’d only met her a few times…”

  “And I really knew nothing about her, but I felt this…compulsion.”

  “That’s a strong word,” Roy said.

  “The emotion was strong. Now that I’ve learned that Des was my biological father, I’m wondering if what I felt for Taylor was primal—some sort of blood connection.”

  “I’ve been thinking about the blood tie too,” Roy said. “When you told me about Des taking Sally to a place where they saw flying blue horses together and then coming back with a token gift for you, I was afraid that when you learned Des was your father, you might feel life had cheated you.”

  “Because Sally got the magic and I got the porcupine quill box?” I said.

  Roy smiled. “Something like that,” he said. “But just now when I saw your face as you talked about Taylor, I knew that the sister left behind was the lucky one.”

  My eyes filled. “The sister left behind knows that too,” I said. “It’s just going to take her a while to get her head around the rest.”

  CHAPTER

  2

  As the two of us stood side by side looking out at the creek behind my house, Roy Brodnitz displayed a capacity for stillness that I welcomed. Sensing my need for calm, he was silent until he apparently felt the time had come to draw me out.

  When a neighbour in a slick winter jogging outfit ran along the bike path with her dogs, Roy stepped closer to the window. “Vizslas,” he said. “They’re great dogs.”

  “Our dogs are certainly fond of Bela and Zoltan,” I said.

  Roy laughed softly. “Distinguished Hungarian names for members of a distinguished Hungarian breed.”

  “Not many people are familiar with Vizslas.”

  “Lev-Aaron and I owned one,” Roy said. “Seeing Bela and Zoltan brings back some happy memories.”

  “Bela and Zoltan’s owner usually just runs them up to the Elphinstone Bridge,” I said. “You and I could bundle up and you could get acquainted with the Vizslas when they make their way back. I could use a walk. I’m sure our dogs could too.”

  Zack and I own a mastiff and a bouvier. Pantera and Esme’s daily routine does not include a late-morning walk, but as I took their leashes from the hooks by the back door, they showed they were adaptable.

  The wind had died down, and Roy and I weren’t the only ones opting for fresh air and sunshine. Our house is five minutes from one of the best sledding hills in the city. That morning the hill was alive with preschoolers in snow gear, cheeks rosy, voices shrill with excitement as they streaked down the hill, while their parents, faces taut with worry and pride, kept watch.

  Roy and I were enjoying the postcard perfection of the scene when Bela, Zoltan, and their owner returned. As Roy and the owner exchanged Vizsla stories, the ache in the back of my neck that signalled an oncoming headache disappeared. Chatting about dogs with friends was part of the life I had always known. By the time Roy and I headed home, I wasn’t quite on firm ground, but I was getting my footing.

  As I filled the dogs’ water dishes, Roy stayed by the back door, his eyes on me. “Do you want me to take off?” he said finally.

  “Why don’t you stay for lunch,” I said. “I have some lentil soup in the fridge.”

  “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather be alone.”

  “I’m sure. My grandmother Ellard used to say that I was a girl who enjoyed her own company.” I felt a jab of pain. “I guess technically she never really was my grandmother, but whatever the case, this is a day when I could use a friend.”

  Roy removed his boots and jacket. “I’m here,” he said. “Joanne, did you love your grandmother?”

  I took out the lentil soup, poured it into a pot on the stove, and ignited the gas under it. “I loved her very much,” I said. “And she loved me.”

  “Then remember the love, and forget the rest,” Roy said.

  “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” I said.

  Roy nodded. “Right. Now, how can I help with lunch?”

  I pointed towards the pot. “Soup’s on,” I said, “but if you want to get the dog drool off your hands, the guest bathroom is the first door to your right as you go down the hall.”

  * * *

  —

  Over lunch, I told Roy that I’d assumed that the reason he’d wanted to speak with me alone that morning was to suggest that Taylor study in New York. During her Grade Twelve year, our daughter had formed a plan: After graduation, she would spend the summer at the lake with us, painting, swimming, and savouring the lazy days with her long-time friends, Gracie Falconer and Isobel Wainberg, before the three of them went their separate ways to attend university. In September, Gracie was to go to Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, on a basketball scholarship; Isobel was heading to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore for pre-med; and Taylor planned to move to Toronto, to share a duplex with her on-again, off-again beau, Declan Hunter, and to attend art school at OCAD University. The plan seemed firmly in place, but when we returned from New York, our daughter informed us she’d decided she needed a year to consider her next move.

  Roy wasn’t surprised when I told him about my assumption. “Taylor and I have been discussing her future,” he said. “So far all she’s told me is what she doesn’t want to do. There are great art schools in New York, but I don’t think enrolling as a full-time student is really the answer for her.”

  “You and Ainsley Blair went to New York together when you were seventeen,” I said. “How did you two get started?”

>   Roy looked sheepish. “By enrolling full-time in a dance school,” he said.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Do as I say, not as I do?”

  “Point taken,” Roy said. “But Taylor is a special case. The school Ainsley and I went to wasn’t one of the top ten, but neither were we. Like all the students in our classes, Ainsley and I had talent and ambition. But everyone knew it would be years, if ever, before our dreams were realized. Taylor has already achieved what her would-be classmates are still dreaming of.”

  “And her fellow students would resent her.”

  Roy shrugged. “It’s human nature. Zephyr Winslow has quotations plastered all over the walls of her studio. One of them always stuck with me: ‘Fame is a prize that burns the winner.’ Taylor’s work is already selling to collectors. She’s extraordinarily gifted. She’s young; she’s beautiful; she’s Desmond Love’s granddaughter and Sally Love’s daughter. She’s the whole package, and that will make her a target of envy. From what I’ve read about Sally, she could shrug off the backbiting. But I don’t think Taylor has developed a protective layer.”

  “That’s because she never had to,” I said. “From the moment I adopted her, I’ve tried to shield her. The psychiatrist with whom my new daughter and I spent many hours said Taylor had suffered ‘an appalling and crushing series of traumas,’ and recommended counselling, reassurance, routine, and constant reinforcement of the fact that her new family wasn’t going anywhere without her.”

  “And that worked,” Roy said.

  “It did, but building trust takes a long time. On Taylor’s first day of kindergarten, the children were asked to make a picture of their family. Taylor drew a detailed picture of herself—very small and absolutely alone. I stuck the drawing to the fridge door with a magnet the way I always did with my children’s work. At the end of kindergarten, each child in Taylor’s class was supposed to draw a picture of him or herself ready for Grade One. Taylor drew another very detailed picture of herself, but this time, she dominated the page and Mieka, her big sister, and Peter and Angus, her brothers, and I were gathered around her. The day I stuck that drawing to our refrigerator door was one of the best days of my life.”

  When we finished lunch, Roy turned on his phone, checked the messages, and frowned. “There’s a problem with one of the dancers. Do you mind if I call Ainsley?”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  Roy made his call in the family room and I cleared away the dishes. It wasn’t long before he came back. “I’m going to have to take off,” he said. “Are you okay?”

  “I am,” I said. “Roy, this has been a difficult morning for me. I hope you know how grateful I am that you were here.”

  “Any time you want to talk, text me,” he said. “And I’ll see you tonight at the celebration for Zephyr Winslow.”

  “I’d forgotten about that.”

  “Considering the news you’re dealing with, you might want to skip it,” Roy said. “And it won’t be our only chance to talk. I’m going to be in town for a while.”

  “How long is ‘a while’?”

  “Production will take about sixty days. Ainsley stays till post-production is finished, and she likes having me around. Depending on how other projects pan out, I may be here till summer.”

  “Good news for the Shreve family,” I said. “I mean that, Roy. I’m glad for all of us that you’ll be part of our lives.”

  After Roy left, the house suddenly seemed empty. I’m a twenty-first-century urban woman, but Catherine Parr Traill’s The Canadian Settlers’ Guide written in 1854 contains advice that has carried me through more occasions than I can count. “In cases of emergency,” Catherine says, “it is folly to fold up one’s hands and sit down to bewail in abject terror: It is better to be up and doing.” Discovering that Desmond Love was my biological father was hardly an emergency, and bewailing in abject terror has never been my style, but I am a big fan of being up and doing.

  Zack, Taylor, and I were driving out to the country the next day to have lunch and choose Christmas trees with Mieka and Peter and their families. Carrying the tree lights and ornaments in from the garage was exactly the kind of mindless task I needed, and in an hour, I had the ornaments unpacked, the tree lights tested, and everything laid out on a trestle table in the family room.

  When I picked up the plastic bag containing the photo ornaments of Taylor—one a year since she’d joined our family—I remembered that I hadn’t placed this year’s photo in the ornament I’d bought at a craft fair. Both were on the desk in my office. The ornament was simple—a square frame of reclaimed wood with a loop of hunter-green velvet ribbon to attach it to the tree. Zack had taken the photo of Taylor at the lake the previous August. Tanned and dreamy-eyed, her dark hair still wetly glistening from a swim, our daughter was stretched out in a red-and-orange striped hammock, a glorious girl of summer.

  I cut the photo to fit the frame, slid it into place, and returned to the family room. As I examined the ornament to make sure Taylor’s photo was centred, my mind was flooded by memories of other summers—those I’d spent with the complex, enviable girl I never knew was my sister and the gifted man who, until that morning, I had believed was peripheral to my life.

  * * *

  —

  I had no idea how long I’d been sitting on the couch lost in the remembrance of things past, with Esme and Pantera snoozing on the rug in front of the fireplace, when Zack wheeled into the room. His sudden presence was a shock, and I leapt to my feet. “You’re home,” I said, and my tone was not welcoming.

  Zack chuckled. “Not quite the greeting I hoped for, but yes, I am home. Like the proverbial bad penny, I always turn up.” He bent to give the dogs a head scratch. “However, I am early. Madam Justice Gorges came down with the flu, so court was adjourned.” He wheeled closer, looked at me, and frowned. “Are you okay?”

  I tried to shake myself out of my reverie. “Of course,” I said. “What made you think I wasn’t?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that I don’t remember ever coming into a room and finding you doing nothing.”

  “When she was little, Taylor used to say, ‘I’m not doing nothing. I’m thinking.’ ”

  “Fair enough,” Zack said. “I’ll try again. Is there something special on your mind?”

  “Yes,” I said. “As a matter of fact, there is.”

  I told the story of Roy Brodnitz’s visit that morning without digression or unnecessary detail. Zack was the most active listener I’d ever known. He soaked up information, taking everything in without questions or the need for clarification. The folder discovered in the safe hidden in the basement was still on the table where Roy and I had taken our coffee. I brought it to Zack. He was methodical as he read through the medical reports and my father’s letters. When he’d finished, he replaced everything in the file and handed it back to me.

  “This would shake anybody,” he said.

  I nodded. “When I read it, I felt as if I’d been caught in a riptide,” I said.

  Zack’s voice was deep and comforting. “You’ve always been a strong swimmer, Jo.” He turned his chair so it was parallel to the couch, transferred his body onto it, and said, “Come join me for a while.”

  For a few minutes we sat close, content just to watch the flames jump and flicker in the fireplace. Finally, Zack broke the silence. “So where do we go from here?” he said.

  “Roy says that I’ll come to see this as a gain rather than a loss.”

  Zack began massaging the back of my neck. “I could bounce a dime off those muscles,” he said. “I take it that at the moment, balancing gains and losses is tough slogging.”

  “Boy is it ever,” I said. “As far as family goes, I didn’t have much to lose. I was a boarder at Bishop Lambeth School from the time I was six till I went to university, so I don’t have many memories of my parents. What I remember of my mother was her never-empty highball glass, her overflowing ashtray, and her non-stop diatribe about how I’d r
uined her life. Oddly enough, what I remember most about my father is his office. It was at the front of their house across the hall from the waiting and examining rooms.”

  “You never mentioned that your father’s office was in your home.”

  I nodded. “My grandfather was a doctor too, and he practised in that same space. When I close my eyes, I can still see my father’s desk and his chair. On the wall behind his desk were his medical degree from the University of Toronto, a framed article by Sir William Osler entitled ‘Chauvinism in Medicine,’ and a reproduction of a painting called The Doctor by Sir Luke Fildes. The painting was of a doctor examining a dying child while the child’s parents looked on. I always struggled not to cry when I looked at it. When I told my father that, he said the painting made him want to cry too.”

  “Sounds like a good guy,” Zack said. “I wish I’d known him.”

  “I wish I’d known him better,” I said. “I’d just started Grade Eleven when he died, and, of course, I was a boarder. The only time I really spent time with my father was when he came up to the lake to be with my Grandmother Ellard and me in August. He taught me how to canoe and swim, and he grew cherry tomatoes—the kind you like. When I woke up in the morning at the lake, there was always a little bowl of them by my place at the table. He died not long after Des. He and Des had been best friends since they were boys. I’ve always thought the pain of losing Des killed my father. Anyway, that’s about it for my parents.”

  Zack frowned. “It doesn’t make sense. Your father wanted a child so much, and then…”

  “And then he was absent for most of my life,” I said. “Why he abandoned me has nagged at me since I started at Bishop Lambeth. At the end of classes my first day, the other girls were getting ready to go home. I started to get ready too, and one of the teachers took me aside and explained that I was a boarder and that meant that Bishop Lambeth was my home now.”