The calendar indicated spring, but the weather was equivocal and kept the city on hold. Steep sunlight, as yet unfiltered by any leaves, dazzled the eyes and burned the skin, but the winds were icy. A month of recidivist weather: tomorrow it might easily snow. Leonard and Halli Losco were driving home after their Sunday brunch in the Market\u2014a ritual that had been central to their life together since they\u2019d met four years ago, but which Losco suspected might soon be subject to suspension, or worse. Halli was due in two weeks and last night had experienced some preliminary cramping, a benchmark they\u2019d learned about in the pre-natal classes that had recently concluded. In this part of the city, moving up meant moving down the slope, toward the Ottawa River, Westboro Beach and the \u201cvillage.\u201d Two years after Oliver was born they found a larger, slightly older house, a close stroller-push from the shops and the shore. If they were going to have a second child they would be needing more space, they\u2019d agreed, though for him there was another, more visceral reason he kept to himself: the first house had never felt fully secure after the night of his son\u2019s birth. \t The words froze his nape and scalp and made him look up and around the quiet neighbourhood, as if someone must be watching the house, had been stalking them for days. Murray Olson waved from the garden where he was digging. Losco calmed himself. Nothing had happened, nothing was going to happen; Beaulieu had his effects back by now; he must have hacked out this note in a moment of balked fury. Losco crushed the note in his fist and buried it in his pocket, though that evening he removed it, flattened it carefully, reread it several times, then tucked it in a fold of his wallet, where it would remain secretly, dangerously, like an adulterous note he couldn\u2019t bear to destroy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" EXPECTING The calendar indicated spring, but the weather was equivocal and kept the city on hold. Steep sunlight, as yet unfiltered by any leaves, dazzled the eyes and burned the skin, but the winds were icy. A month of recidivist weather: tomorrow it might easily snow. Leonard and Halli Losco were driving home after their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[373,371],"tags":[375],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n\t \u201cSo here we go,\u201d Losco had said.
\n\t \u201cNot yet, silly,\u201d she\u2019d told him, curled on her side, her head on his shoulder while his eyes probed the ceiling, as if for hairline cracks. \u201cI mean, it could be a couple more weeks, even more.\u201d
\n\t Losco as a child had been so anxious that, had he grown up three decades later, he\u2019d have been well acquainted with therapists and would have swallowed medication with his morning juice. Instead, he\u2019d painstakingly coached himself beyond his phobias and become\u2014as his business partner, Vance, put it\u2014cowboy calm. He was a bulky, plodding kid with black-frame spectacles and curiously abbreviated legs. Sitting very upright at his school desk, he seemed of average height, even a bit above, but when he stood up, his large head remained more or less at the same level and his true stature was revealed. This anomaly generated both merriment and creativity among his schoolmates, who called him Tiny Lessco, Lost-legs, and Legs-low, as well as Colossco, Moscow, and Loser Losco. More laconic peers skipped the preliminaries and simply shoved or struck him, though seldom with any committed hostility. Allusions to his ethnicity\u2014he\u2019d inherited the swarthiness and vaguely Semitic features of the Maltese parents who insisted on ferrying him to and from school each day\u2014were less frequent and, when they came, oddly tentative. Possibly his schoolmates considered ethnic slurs superfluous given his physique, or else they didn\u2019t know how to go about disparaging the Maltese, who were not quite Wops, or Kikes, or Greasy Greeks, or Pakis, or anything else, and came from an island no one had heard of or could find on a map.
\n\t Then Losco chose Stendahl\u2019s Le rouge et le noir<\/em> for his grade ten French project and was struck by its little hero\u2019s Napoleonic willpower. It hadn\u2019t occurred to him that you could so fully and plausibly concoct a new character for yourself, thus tightly regulating how others viewed you. Invisibility was not the answer after all. Nor was a class clown\u2019s ingratiating hi-jinks. Image management was the key. So Losco\u2014constantly goading and grading himself\u2014worked to perfect a quiet, wry, never-ruffled persona that his peers began to notice. At university he was widely admired and even imitated by men who, a decade earlier, would have despised or overlooked him, or noticed only his truncated lower half, a feature he had not grown out of and continued to regret. Still, he was rarely anxious now about his physique or any other thing. His years of disciplined shamming had convinced his very core.
\n\t Halli was the sort of woman whose every step or gesture is a small calamity for any watching male\u2014so Losco told himself, with pride. Her slimness and tallness (she was taller than he was anyway) seemed to him patrician; she moved with a panther\u2019s elastic ease and grace. Yet she seemed unaware of, or indifferent to, her charms. Her large brown eyes appeared wholly uncalculating\u2014instead sympathetic and gently amused. She laughed often, though rarely at jokes. She lapsed easily into reveries or trances but in a moment could bear down and focus with tenacious practicality.
\n\t He had never been with a woman of such varied enticements and hardly a day passed when he didn\u2019t shake his head and marvel at this outcome. As for Halli, like women before her she was drawn to his calmness, which read as uncomplicated male confidence and which he knew must seem all the more remarkable given his size and appearance. (His one good feature, he believed, was the firm, stoical jaw he\u2019d sprouted in his teens. With a replica straight-razor he groomed it each morning, weekends included.)
\n\t The irony was that once Halli entered his life, his boyhood anxiety began to creep back. The sensations: motion sickness without the motion; a slight but chronic tightness under the sternum; the unsettled pulse of a man constantly expecting final notice from a loan shark. In the bedroom there had been a few close calls and Losco, aiming to pre-empt serious trouble, had supplied himself with pharmaceutical fail-safes that in the end proved unnecessary.
\n\t Still, they\u2019d been happy, often deliriously so\u2014or so he believed, much of the time, when the anxiety was more or less in abeyance. But with the pregnancy it became worse, a flutter felt not just internally but around him, somehow, in the spaces of their house, like a faint tremor from a construction site. When he finally told her, she said in her sensibly upbeat way, \u201cIf you didn\u2019t feel even a tad nervous I\u2019d<\/em> be nervous, love. It shows you\u2019re taking this seriously.\u201d He joked that he was just worried that the child (a boy: he\u2019d insisted on the ultrasound) would inherit his stature instead of hers.
\n\t Odd how the return of unpleasant symptoms\u2014so familiar despite their long absence\u2014could also bring a trace of relief.
\n Driving them home now Losco gripped the wheel of the car with hands at ten and two o\u2019clock. The traffic was light but his eyes flicked mirror to mirror, as if they were on the 417 at rush hour. He\u2019d drunk too much of the restaurant\u2019s potent coffee and he could feel the pulse under his chin. A glossy metallic-blue SUV loomed alongside, swung closer and then, as Losco tensed, veered away. Without signaling, it steered into a turning lane and then, too fast, onto an off-ramp. Halli said, \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d From the corner of his eye he glimpsed something detach itself from the roof of the SUV and fly off.
\n\t \u201cWhat was it?\u201d he said.\u201cThey hit a bird?\u201d
\n\t She was looking back. \u201cPull over, Leo.\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhat, here?\u201d
\n\t \u201cWe have to stop, love.\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhat is<\/em> it?\u201d
\n\t \u201cI think a wallet. It\u2019s on the shoulder of the road.\u201d
\n\t \u201cOr maybe a learner\u2019s manual. That idiot can\u2019t drive to save his\u2014\u201d
\n\t \u201cJust pull over, Leo, okay? I think it\u2019s\u2014\u201d
\n \t \u201cOkay, okay, I\u2019m pulling over!\u201d
\n\t \u201cI think it was on the roof.\u201d
\n\t He brought the car to a stop and reversed along the shoulder. The Audi A4 was a standard and he had driven it for eight years, tall in the seat, jaw heroically firm, eyes
\nfixed coolly on the road in a way that several women before Halli had admitted they liked, trusted. He was backing up quickly, nearing the off-ramp.
\n\t \u201cOh, a car just drove over it! No, it\u2019s okay\u2014they didn\u2019t hit it.\u201d
\n\t \u201cGuy must have been filling up,\u201d he said.
\n\t She looked at him.
\n\t \u201cIn the SUV,\u201d he said. \u201cMust have left his wallet on the roof. This is as far as we can go.\u201d
\n\t \u201cOkay\u2014I\u2019ll go get it.\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhat, are you kidding?\u201d
\n\t \u201cLove, I\u2019m fine, I\u2019m not in a wheelchair!\u201d
\n\t \u201cLet me go for it, Hal, okay? Please?\u201d
\n\t He leapt out before she could argue. He walked back along the shoulder and looked both ways up and down the off-ramp\u2014it was only one way, of course\u2014then stepped into the lane to retrieve the wallet. He made himself move casually, transparently, nothing to hide from the few passing cars. Security cameras must be observing him too. For a moment he saw himself on video, a small blurry figure stooping and reaching for some object. Maybe he should have let Halli get it after all? No one would ever suspect her of a nefarious deed\u2014Halli, pregnant and with her usual bright aura of blamelessness, of exemption from the usual human failings.
\n\t He gave her the fat wallet and pulled back onto the parkway. She told him she would find some ID, a number to call. Her cellphone lay in her lap, inches from her distended belly (lately he\u2019d been pestering her to keep it out of her lap and away from the baby). Looking through the wallet she said, \u201cWe\u2019ll call him as soon as I find a number. If he lives nearby, we could take it right to him!\u201d The prospect of this little expedition\u2014its novelty, its helpfulness\u2014clearly pleased her. Something he\u2019d noticed about his revived anxiety was that it preempted such generosities (not that they\u2019d ever been his strong suit) by making him warily weigh every action, and by tilting him even further toward cynical suppositions. He was thinking now that the wallet was likely stolen, then gutted and left on a stranger\u2019s car roof, a clever way to dispose of it randomly.
\n\t \u201cAny credit cards?\u201d he asked.
\n\t \u201cThree different ones. And a driver\u2019s license, health card, SIN card\u2014Jean-Denis Beaulieu, that\u2019s his name. Even his passport.\u201d
\n\t \u201cHis passport<\/em>?\u201d
\n\t \u201cIt\u2019s in the\u2014oh, what do you call it\u2014in the cash slot, with the cash.\u201d
\n\t \u201cHow much?\u201d
\n\t \u201cA twenty and a five. I\u2019m still looking for a number. Wait, here . . . I\u2019ll call him, this must be his card. It\u2019s a video arcade in Gatineau.\u201d
\n\t \u201cReally? I didn\u2019t think there were any of those left.\u201d
\n\t Peripherally he saw her lift the phone to her far ear, then cover the ear closest to him with her free hand, a natural enough maneuver, yet it set off a thrill of pain under his heart, as if she were trying to exclude him from some private exchange. Silence. Then she was speaking, apparently leaving a message in her flawless French (she\u2019d studied in Paris and now tutored the children of foreign diplomats here). He knew many of the words and heard her leave her cellphone number and their home number but, oddly, he couldn\u2019t make out the message\u2019s full import, though in context it should have been easy.
\n\t \u201cI was hoping it was a cell number,\u201d she said, setting the phone back down in her
\nlap, on top of the open wallet, \u201cbut I guess it\u2019s a land line. But he might check for
\nmessages once he figures out he\u2019s lost his wallet and passport.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI would.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI know you would, sweetheart.\u201d She said the words fondly enough, but then again, the line between settled affection and love\u2019s erosion in habit and predictability\u2014was it not a fine one?
\n\t He pulled into their flat driveway, needlessly setting the parking brake, and turned to her. \u201cHome.\u201d She sat unmoving. These days when the fatigue hit her, it was abrupt and flattening. For the last five weeks or so, she\u2019d been taking a long nap after their brunches. Gently, briskly, he relieved her of the wallet, then jumped out of the car and came around to her side.
\n\t As he unlocked the front door of the house he glanced back across Cedar St, which was cedarless, wide, no sidewalks. Murray Olson\u2014a perpetually tanned, lanky widower in his seventies\u2014raised a hand and left it aloft in a manner that seemed almost shamanic. In his other hand Olson held the tall rake with which he\u2019d been turning the earth, readying his garden. Halli irradiated him with a broad, spontaneous smile. No one besides Losco could have guessed that she was desperate to climb upstairs and collapse into bed for the rest of the day.
\n\t He disliked bringing the wallet over the threshold into their home, as if this step transformed a commendable act into a de facto theft. After tucking Halli into bed\u2014promising her he wouldn\u2019t spend his whole afternoon trying to return the wallet\u2014he went straight to his office, eased shut the door, and checked the landline for messages. Nothing. He called one of the man\u2019s credit card companies. To his surprise he found that they would do nothing to help either him or Jean-Denis Beaulieu. The man on the line, Pardeep\u2014strong Indian accent but flowing English\u2014seemed astonished that Losco expected him to give out a customer\u2019s contact details. \u201cBut he\u2019s lost his wallet<\/em>,\u201d Losco protested. \u201cWe have his card\u2014he\u2019ll want it back, right? Can\u2019t you at least reach him and give him our number?\u201d The wallet\u2014square, black, metallically shiny\u2014sat on his desk as it had on the road. He eyed it as if it were some improvised explosive device. \u201cI mean, I really want to get this thing back to him.\u201d
\n\t The man said the company could do nothing until the customer contacted them.
\n\t \u201cAnd has<\/em> he?\u201d Losco demanded.
\n\t \u201cI cannot answer this question, sir.\u201d
\n\t Next he tried the police. They were no more helpful. They suggested he consider contacting them after twenty-four hours if he still hadn\u2019t heard from the owner of the wallet. He left a message at Beaulieu\u2019s work number, as Halli had done, though Losco recorded his in English. He keyed in the web address of the video arcade and crashed out a wordy email, more detailed than necessary, his fingers snapping over the keyboard. He flagged it urgent. Then he rifled through the wallet again\u2014careful to replace everything exactly\u2014but found no other contact number, though he did notice something that both Halli and he had missed so far. Several items were out of date: a debit card, one of the credit cards, also Beaulieu\u2019s driver\u2019s license and Quebec health card. But the SIN card and passport were current. He rubbed his eyes, blinked moisture onto his contact lenses, and looked again at the passport photo: a man with the neck of a rugby tackle, a stubble beard, thick black hair that seemed to erupt from his scalp just an inch or two above the eyebrows. What no such image could indicate\u2014and who understood this better than Losco?\u2014was the person\u2019s size. Beaulieu might be anything from a giant to a burly dwarf. (Losco glanced again at the driver\u2019s license, where an actual height was listed: 180 cm.)
\n\t An internet search turned up little information, just a few hits linking the man to the video arcade and citing that same phone number. Two other men shared his name, one of them deceased, the other a notary in Laval with a busy Facebook page.
\n\t Halli slept for three full hours. Since long before the pregnancy she\u2019d enjoyed this happy capacity to sleep at any time. Losco saw this knack, which he mostly regarded with affection but at times also envy\u2014even a trace of puritanical censure\u2014as another sign of her healthy, feline nature. She did not live to one side of herself but wholly within her own being, her own instinctive life.
\n\t He was in his office, checking email again, when she came in.
\n\t \u201cLeo\u2014honey\u2014I told you I\u2019d deal with it. I knew you\u2019d . . .\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhat?\u201d
\n\t \u201cNothing, love. It\u2019s okay. So he hasn\u2019t called back?\u201d
\n\t \u201cMust be nuts. Hasn\u2019t he noticed his wallet is missing?\u201d
\n\t \u201cIt\u2019s Sunday, Leo\u2014some people don\u2019t check things as often.\u201d
\n\t He studied her face, half-expecting something new to appear there, some
\nexpression he\u2019d never seen before. He said, \u201cIt\u2019s just\u2014I hate having this thing hang over us.\u201d
\n\t \u201cThen we won\u2019t let it! Would just soup be okay for dinner? Maybe Thai?\u201d
\n\t \u201cLet me do it, Hal, I said I would.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI\u2019ve had a long rest, love. Let me, I want to.\u201d
\n\t And she withdrew before he could object. For a moment he felt he might lower his brow to his desk and weep. She loves me, she loves me, she loves me as much as I love her\u2014and how can that be? And yet it seems she really does, still.
\n\t He turned to some of the work he\u2019d meant to catch up on during her nap. He
\nand his partner had an investment consulting firm and for a year Halli had handled the communications side of certain portfolios (she could calm and conciliate the prickliest clients), but lately, of course, she was falling behind.
\n\t The telephone on his desk detonated. \u201cHello?\u201d he said in the cool, noncommittal bass he affected whenever answering.
\n\t Through a heavy accent\u2014not French\u2014a loud voice pushed out a word and repeated it. At first he thought it was a garbled hello<\/em>, then he thought it was Halli<\/em>, then, perhaps, Ali<\/em>.
\n\t Losco said his own name, then, \u201cWho am I speaking to here?\u201d
\n\t \u201cThis is Halli<\/em>?\u201d
\n\t \u201cLosco, Leonard Losco. Who is this?\u201d
\n\t \u201cShe leaved me a message.\u201d
\n\t \u201cToday?\u201d The tweak of jealous suspicion came with a sense of familiarity, as if
\nhe felt it all the time or had long been expecting it; this could not be Beaulieu, surely; this
\nwas the eventual interloper who had always been destined to call.
\n\t \u201cOf course, yes, today!\u201d said the voice.
\n\t \u201cWhat is this about?\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhat? You have my wallet, yes?\u201d
\n\t Losco glanced at call display and scribbled down the number. \u201cPlease tell me your name.\u201d
\n\t \u201cJean-Denis Beaulieu.\u201d
\n Losco’s own French accent was mediocre, he knew, but he himself could have pronounced the name more correctly.
\n\t \u201cWould you rather speak French?\u201d Losco asked. \u201cI think I can manage. My wife\u2019s is better, but, uh, she\u2019s\u2014\u201d
\n\t \u201cHalli?\u201d
\n\t \u201cYes, Halli, my wife!\u201d
\n\t \u201cNo, my French is no better than English.\u201d
\n\t \u201cBut\u2014\u201d
\n\t \u201cMy mother was not Qu\u00e9b\u00e9coise,\u201d he said brusquely, as if he\u2019d had to explain too many times. \u201cI grow up elsewhere, Albania.\u201d
\n\t After a moment Losco said, \u201cOkay, well\u2014so can you come pick this thing up? No, hang on,\u201d he said, hesitating to give their address.\u201cI can bring it to you. Where are you?\u201d
\n\t \u201cNo, I am not,\u201d the man said confusingly. \u201cI pick it after dinner. Where is your house?\u201d
\n\t It hit Losco that he couldn\u2019t be out delivering lost items this evening, he had to
\nstay with Halli. \u201cWhat time would after dinner be?\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhat? I am not sure. Maybe eight.\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhy don\u2019t we say eight p.m. then. I\u2019ll be waiting.\u201d
\n\t \u201cMaybe I be a bit later.\u201d
\n\t \u201cPlease don\u2019t. My wife . . . she\u2019s not feeling well.\u201d
\n\t \u201cAh yes, I see,\u201d the man said, now sounding amenable, even sympathetic.
\n\t With a spasm of dread that Losco recognized as irrational, he gave their address and simple directions.
\n\t In the kitchen he found her seated on one of the shining stools by the new black marble island. She was hunched over, a hand spread over her belly, the other splayed on the marble. On a cutting board lay the chrome-bright Japanese chopping knife, a sweet potato, strips of bell pepper, veiny leaves of chard.
\n\t \u201cHal?\u201d
\n\t \u201cDon\u2019t worry. I\u2019m fine. Just a little cramping. The soup\u201d\u2014he finally took in the delicious aromas of chicken stock, coconut milk, lemongrass\u2014\u201cit\u2019s almost done.\u201d
\n\t \u201cLet me take over. I knew you shouldn\u2019t be doing this.\u201d
\n\t \u201cOh, Leo, enough\u2014I told you, I\u2019m not a patient.\u201d
\n\t Firmly, but with a complete lack of vehemence\u2014trusting as always that the world would listen to her with respect and, sooner or later, agreement\u2014she\u2019d maintained that the medical establishment had pathologized the natural process of pregnancy. Gradually she\u2019d overcome his resistance to a midwife, though she had then compromised as well and agreed to have the midwife attend her not at home but in the obstetrics ward of the nearest hospital.
\n\t He wondered if he should be thinking of taking her there now.
\n\t She agreed to lie down in the living room and watch a little TV while he finished the soup and steamed some rice. She couldn\u2019t see him from the couch where she lay. He poured himself a scotch from the supply he kept in the cupboard, for guests. She, of course, was not drinking while pregnant, and he had insisted that he would teetotal as well, in solidarity. He very much missed wine at dinner\u2014and contrary to the forecasts of acquaintances, the craving did not fade. Most evenings now, after she turned in, he would serve himself a double, afterwards carefully washing the glass and observing his hand\u2014a stranger\u2019s, small and hairy\u2014replace it in the cupboard.
\n\t Over their supper, after he\u2019d filled her in on the phone conversation, she said she was curious to meet the elusive Monsieur Beaulieu, but by 8:30 he still hadn\u2019t arrived and she said she couldn\u2019t wait up any longer. Losco kissed her at the foot of the stairs, then loaded the dishwasher very quietly, not wanting to miss the sound of the doorbell.
\n\t He went out onto the front porch and looked up and down the empty street. It was almost dark but there was still a glow to the west above Olson\u2019s roof\u2014a surface decidedly in need of repair.
\n\t \u201cWhere the fuck is<\/em> this guy,\u201d Losco said in a gangsterly undertone that he was pretty sure would have shocked Halli.
\n At 8:55 he took a second Balvenie up to his office and called the number he\u2019d jotted down. Two rings, then an answer, \u201cAllo?\u201d<\/em> A background of white noise, the hum of a highway or busy street.
\n\t \u201cJean-Denis?\u201d He hoped his gruffness would convey his feelings and spare him
\nelaboration.
\n\t \u201cOui, c\u2019est moi.\u201d<\/em>
\n\t The tone was blunt and cold, acknowledging nothing.
\n\t \u201cLeonard Losco here . . . Hello?\u201d
\n\t \u201cYes, I am here.\u201d
\n\t \u201cBut you\u2019re not here<\/em>.\u201d
\n\t \u201cPardon?\u201d
\n\t \u201cYou said you\u2019d be here at eight!\u201d
\n\t \u201cAt eight, yes. It was impossible.\u201d
\n\t \u201cYou\u2019re on your way now?\u201d
\n\t \u201cI think so.\u201d
\n\t \u201cYou think<\/em> so?\u201d
\n\t No answer. Losco tried to fill his lungs, his chest suddenly tight. He said, \u201cI\u2019ll see you shortly, then,\u201d and added, as if Beaulieu might have forgotten, \u201cI have your wallet<\/em> here.\u201d Silence. \u201cHello?\u201d<\/em>
\n\t The man had hung up.
\n\t By 9:30 Losco was in a full-blooded fury. What if he, too, had needed to turn in early? He snapped the laptop shut, having cleared out his inbox\u2014a feat he tried to accomplish at least twice a month and which usually left him feeling cleansed and in command. He closed his office door, slipped downstairs, let out Halli\u2019s old cat, Mitch, then fiercely emptied and cleaned the litter box. Down in the finished basement he changed into his gym gear, switched the wide-screen TV to a documentary channel and boarded the treadmill. His short hairy legs chugged beneath him, adrenaline overriding the whiskey. He felt he could easily run for an hour, and maybe he would\u2014though surely Beaulieu would appear in the driveway before then? Losco would see him coming: the basement was dark except for the TV, while a grated window high in the wall gave a ground-level view of the lawn, the driveway, and Olson\u2019s house across the street.
\n Olson\u2019s upstairs light winked out. It was after ten. Blameless Bastards<\/em> (Losco was joining the documentary a bit late) followed an Irishman\u2019s search for his elder half-brother, whom as a baby the church had taken from its unwed mother a few years before she married and went on to have a \u201clegitimate\u201d son. On her deathbed, she\u2019d told this son that his half-brother had been raised by nuns in a special home. The son\u2019s search had revealed that thousands of children like his brother had died in these homes, often of minor ailments\u2014\u201can outcome bespeaking neglect\u201d\u2014and that while death certificates had been issued, few graves could be found.
\n\t Programs of this sort could be counted on to sharpen a workout. The angrier Losco became, the more he took it out on the machine, pounding the conveyor belt with his shoes while panting retorts and epithets at the TV. He\u2019d rarely gone to church as a child. His parents had been conservative and traditional in most ways, but for reasons that Losco never managed to learn, they attended mass only at Christmas and Easter.
\n\t At 10:50 he stepped off the treadmill, toweling sweat from his sheared, balding head, and stood watching the screen as a voice-over described the discovery of some thirty tiny skeletons in an old septic tank behind a nunnery west of Dublin. Across the screen flashed images, thankfully low-res, of the grisly excavation\u2014or was it Losco\u2019s sudden tears that made them look indistinct? \u201cSooner or later all buried wrongs must face the light of justice,\u201d the narrator intoned, and Losco in a thickened voice snapped back, \u201cYeah, right, tell me another good one!\u201d
\n\t At eleven p.m. sharp\u2014a touch calmer after the exercise\u2014Losco called the number again. After four rings a recorded voice mumbled something about not being available . . . pas disponible<\/em>. He called back and listened more closely to the recording. No invitation to leave a message or call-back number.
\n\t He showered quickly in the basement washroom, so as not to bother Halli, then dressed and ran back up the two flights of stairs on his toes, silent. In his office he checked the phone for voicemail. Nothing. His email inbox was already clogging up again\u2014spam, a few auto-replies, social media site invitations\u2014but nothing from Beaulieu. He slid the bedroom door open and peered in. She was sleeping quietly. He ran downstairs and stepped out the front door in his slippers, then walked to the end of the driveway and looked up and down the street. The wind had died; the air felt milder than out in the harsh sunlight this morning. He looked back at the house to confirm that the street number was visible under the carriage lamp, as if the pruned juniper by the door could have sprouted a few feet higher since dusk. His eye was drawn up to their bedroom window and a memory seized him, not of real life but of a film he had seen years ago. An old farmhouse is turning on its occupants, a family. The father is outside at night, doing something\u2014patrolling the grounds? No\u2014there\u2019s an axe in his hands\u2014he\u2019s chopping wood. He looks back at the house. In the high window of the room where his children lie sleeping, the face of some monstrous creature glows, staring out at him.
\n\t He went inside and phoned again and this time left something after the beep, a gruff repetition of their address. Haltingly he added, \u201cJe vous attends avec impatience,\u201d<\/em> though as he hung up it came to him that the phrase actually meant something quite affable, \u201cI look forward to seeing you,\u201d or even, \u201cI can\u2019t wait to see you.\u201d
\n He took the wallet downstairs and sat on the couch in the front room, facing the street, curtains open. On a table beside him were a telephone, his glass of mineral water and another Balvenie, just a taste. The wallet\u2019s contents he emptied onto his lap. This time he noticed that Beaulieu was smiling slightly in his passport photo, one corner of his mouth curled up, which was odd, in fact astonishing\u2014the bureaucrats at Citizenship were notorious for rejecting photos betraying even a flicker of a smile. Born Montr\u00e9al, 1975. Customs stamps indicated that he\u2019d visited Albania several times in the past few years.
\n The telephone rang and he swept it up.
\n\t \u201cYes?\u201d
\n\t A phrase in that surly, Slavic-sounding French.
\n\t \u201cCould you repeat that in English? Is this Beaulieu?\u201d
\n\t \u201cAre you still waiting me?\u201d
\n\t \u201cOf course I am! Do you want your wallet tonight or not?\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhat?\u201d
\n\t \u201cIt\u2019s past eleven now. It\u2019s eleven-thirty-five. Do you want your\u2014\u201d
\n\t \u201cI cannot come there yet. I am very busy. I will come there soon.\u201d
\n \t \u201cYou\u2019re not serious.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI am not . . . what? I will be there no later than one.\u201d
\n\t \u201cOne in the morning<\/em>?\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhat . . .? Of course.\u201d
\n\t Losco heard himself babbling into the mouthpiece, \u201cForget it. Okay? I\u2019m going to bed now. I\u2019ve got to be up first thing tomorrow. It\u2019s almost midnight<\/em>. I\u2019ll stick your fucking . . . I\u2019ll leave your property in the mailbox and if it\u2019s still there tomorrow I\u2019ll be leaving it with the cops. The police\u2014you understand?\u201d
\n\t \u201cYou cannot do that.\u201d
\n\t \u201cOh, I can\u2019t? What can\u2019t I do?\u201d
\n\t \u201cYou are meaning, the box for mail, outside?\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhere else?\u201d
\n\t \u201cBut you have my passport!\u201d
\n\t \u201cI don\u2019t want<\/em> to have your passport, okay? I want to give it back to you!\u201d
\n\t \u201cBut, maybe someone steals.\u201d
\n\t \u201cFrom my mailbox in the middle of the night?\u201d
\n\t I should never have given him our address, Losco thought. Should have taken the thing straight to the cops.
\n\t \u201cI tell you, I come there soon. Maybe before one.\u201d
\n\t \u201cLook in the mailbox, then. I\u2019ll be asleep.\u201d Hardly. Losco knew his own nervous system\u2014he would be alert for hours unless he took a sleeping pill, a practice he was resisting lately, since at any time he might have to drive Halli to the hospital. \u201cDon\u2019t mind the barking of our dog,\u201d he heard himself add, conjuring a second, more formidable pet. \u201cHe can\u2019t get out at you.\u201d
\n\t \u201cYou cannot do this\u2014I tell you this.\u201d
\n\t \u201cOh, you tell<\/em> me this? I\u2019m waiting ten fucking hours here and you tell me what I can or can\u2019t do?\u201d
\n\t \u201cHoney?\u201d
\n\t \u201cJust a minute,\u201d he said and covered the mouthpiece. \u201cHalli? Darling?\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhat\u2019s going on down there, Leo?\u201d
\n\t \u201cNothing, Hal.\u201d She must be at the top of the stairs\u2014yes, there, her feet, white and swollen. \u201cGo back to bed, Hal, I\u2019ll be right up.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI\u2019m cramping again. I think maybe it\u2019s happening! I\u2019m really wet.\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhat, you mean your waters broke?\u201d
\n\t \u201cI don\u2019t know, maybe. I just woke up. Oh . . . I\u2019ve got to sit down.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI\u2019m coming, Hal!\u201d He unblocked the mouthpiece and said softly, like a philanderer ringing off in a rush, \u201cI\u2019ve got to go.\u201d The line was dead. Onto the table beside his unfinished drink he tossed the gutted wallet and the various cards and passport, then leapt up and ran to the stairs. She was sitting at the top in the white linen slip she\u2019d been wearing to bed this third trimester. In the half-light her eyes looked small and red, her lips tight.
\n\t \u201cI\u2019m phoning the midwife,\u201d he called up firmly, as if expecting opposition. \u201cShe\u2019ll meet us there.\u201d
\n\t \u201cWait . . . it might be easing off.\u201d
\n\t He took the stairs two at a time and sat beside her, put his hand at the base of her
\nspine, kissed her clammy cheek.
\n\t \u201cCome on, beautiful. I\u2019ll help you get changed.\u201d
\n\t The phone rang. He swore, startling her, and she flinched as if at another contraction. He leapt up and made for his office, calling back, \u201cSorry\u2014just a sec!\u201d
\n\t He closed the door behind him and swept up the receiver. \u201cWhat?\u201d
\n\t \u201cYou hang up on me.\u201d
\n\t \u201cYou hung up on me<\/em>. Now leave us alone, I\u2019ve got to take . . .\u201d He caught himself; he\u2019d almost revealed that the premises might soon be empty. \u201cI\u2019ve got to get some sleep. I\u2019ll put your wallet outside now. Don\u2019t ring the bell when you come\u2014I won\u2019t answer the door.\u201d
\n \t\u201cBut I come now<\/em> to the door!\u201d
\n\t \u201cYou\u2019ve been saying that all fucking day! And I\u2019ve let the cops . . . I\u2019ve told them I\u2019ve been trying to reach you\u2014to return your property.\u201d
\n \t\u201cLeo!\u201d he heard. He rammed down the receiver. \u201cJust a second!\u201d he cried, then plucked the receiver back up and called the midwife, Simone\u2014he\u2019d put her number on speed-dial\u2014and asked her to meet them at the hospital. Then he grabbed his
\ncar key and his own wallet and strode out of the office.
\n \tHe held her small suitcase as he opened the front door for her. She was supporting her belly with both hands, hunching over enough that she and he were almost the same height. Her eyebrows were crimped together as if from the pains\u2014or maybe fear, though she showed no other sign of it. As he locked the door, the landline rang from both his office and the living room. \u201cForget it,\u201d he said roughly, as if to Beaulieu.
\n\t He helped her into the front seat of the Audi.
\n\t \u201cLeo? It\u2019s okay. We\u2019re going to make it just fine.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI know that! Do you have everything?\u201d It hit him that he was forgetting something himself. His cellphone? Yes. It didn\u2019t matter, she had hers.
\n\t \u201cHoney,\u201d she said, \u201cyou want me<\/em> to drive?\u201d
\n\t As he neared the end of their street, trying to accelerate smoothly, reasonably, a white cargo van sped past them in the other direction. A streetlamp\u2019s glare on the van\u2019s
\nwindowless side briefly showed the ghost of some painted-over name and logo.
\n\t \u201cGod damn it! I knew there was something.\u201d
\n\t \u201cWhat?\u201d
\n \t \u201cNothing,\u201d he said through his teeth.
\n\t \u201cLeo, I need you to be calm now, for me.\u201d
\n\t \u201cI know. You\u2019re right.\u201d
\n\t There was little traffic on Carling, and the lights, to his surprise, favoured them. He\u2019d looked forward to this trip, brief though it would be; he\u2019d planned to shine as her imperturbable pilot, guide and guardian. Now it seemed almost too easy. Something must be wrong, or about to go wrong. Some of the signage in this familiar strip now seemed charged with ominous significance, EMERGENCY STAIN REMOVAL, while ahead in the night the hospital\u2019s glowing H reared like a prophetic initial.
\n\t \u201cAlmost there,\u201d he said.
\n\t A red light finally stopped them. Her cellphone rang in her purse.
\n\t \u201cLeave it,\u201d he said.
\n\t \u201cCould be Simone,\u201d she said in a pain-flattened little voice. \u201cWait\u2014this number.
\nI think it\u2019s the wallet guy. I forgot about him. He didn\u2019t come for it?\u201d
\n\t Losco stared ahead at the light. \u201cNever showed.\u201d
\n\t \u201cThey\u2019re getting really close, the pains.\u201d
\n\t \u201cWe\u2019re there, Hal. There it is. Look.\u201d
\n\t \u201cOh!\u201d she said, \u201cdid you remember to bring Mitch in?\u201d
\n\t \u201cDamn it!\u201d He slammed the base of his palm on the wheel as the light changed. \u201cI forgot\u2014I forgot the cat too!\u201d They lurched forward with a roar. Among all the apprehensions bearing in on him now, worst was the old assumption that at some point, under some unforeseeable, fatal pressure, the elaborate device of his persona would crack. <\/p>\n
\n\t In the second house one night\u2014Halli lazing on her side, her head on his shoulder, her mouth by his ear (she disdained the protocol confining women to certain awkward post-coital postures while trying to conceive)\u2014she said, \u201cYou never did hear back about that wallet, did you?\u201d It seemed this latest try had reminded her of the day leading up to Oliver\u2019s birth.
\n\t When Losco had driven back from the hospital at six the next morning, to let
\nin the cat and feed it, he had found neither voicemail nor email from Jean-Denis Beaulieu. The wallet and its contents lay on the side table where he\u2019d forgotten them in the throes of their departure, beside his unfinished scotch and the lamp he\u2019d left on. Curtains wide open. In his relief that no disaster had come to pass\u2014the thug-faced Beaulieu smashing a window, breaking in, trashing the place, maybe finding and hurting Mitch; above all, Halli coming to some harm in childbirth\u2014he\u2019d sunk into the couch and plunged his head into his hands, shaken by sobs that were both violent and soundless.
\n\t On his way back to the hospital, from which he would bring his family home that
\nafternoon, he\u2019d dropped off the wallet at the police station.
\n\t \u201cNo,\u201d he says now in a tone of mildly intrigued surprise, as if the oddness has only just struck him. \u201cI never heard anything more from the cops or that guy.\u201d
\n\t Their marriage is young enough that he can still remember every lie he has told her and this is one of them. The truth: a few days after their return from the hospital, groping in the mailbox, irritably trying to dig out a flyer clinging to the inside, he found something he must have missed for several days\u2014an old parking ticket, not his. On the back, someone had written a line with a failing ballpoint pen, the strokes almost slicing through the paper so that even where no ink had flowed the message could be read: <\/p>\n