“Yes,” I said, and she frowned and shook her head no. “I have to,” I said, and leaned to kiss her goodbye, not aware at the time of something that should have been obvious.

Leaving the rest home, I tried to maintain the self-confidence that Mother and Marcus Aurelius had planted in me. I remembered a few lines from a book Gabe had been reading some months ago: If something offends or distresses you, it is not the thing that causes you pain but your emotional reaction to it, and it is in your power to control and use all of your emotions.

I think it was also Marcus Aurelius. Or maybe Dr. Phil.

I LIKE CLEAN BREAKS. From friends, from lovers, from clothes I don’t want to wear anymore, from everything. Even seasons. Leaving Mother that night, I felt a clean break from summer to fall. The air was cooler and dryer, the breeze more insistent, the lake more choppy. The sun was already behind the steel mills, slouching toward Kitsilano. A month ago it would still have been high in the sky and warming. It was the end of August and the beginning of autumn—and the beginning of something else, as well.

“I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOUR CALL.” I knew he had been by the way he answered the telephone before the first ring ended. “Josie, what’s going on?”

“Tell me you love me.” I had been wanting to say this all day.

“Josie, you know how I feel about you …”

“Tell me.”

I could picture him closing his eyes, the way men do when something is going to pain them. “I love you, Josie.”

“Thank you. Now tell me you’ll meet me down near the canal lift bridge in an hour, in the parking lot on the bay side. Near the sandbank at the back of the lot. Closest to the bridge.”

“What’s this about?”

“Just meet me, Mel. Park the car facing the bay. Right up against the sandbank so you can’t see it from the parking lot.”

“Not until you tell me why.”

“Damn it, Mel!” I breathed deeply and began again. “There’s a window in the office where Grychuk works. The lift bridge operator. The guy—”

“I know who he is,” Mel almost snapped.

“Sorry. I promise I’ll explain. Just meet me there. Park your car where I said.”

“Why can’t I pick you up? At your house?”

“Mel, it’s only a couple of hundred yards.”

“I can still meet you there. You can tell me what’s going on.”

“Because we’ll be watched.”

“By whom?”

“That’s what I want to explain to you. In an hour. Okay?”

I counted two breaths.

“Josie, please don’t do anything silly.”

“I promise you, Mel. This is the least silly thing I’ll ever do.”

It always feels good to tell the truth. Or at least not to tell lies. Which is not necessarily the same thing.

I had an hour to kill while the sun went down, and I thought it would never set. See what I mean about time passing at different speeds?

I FILLED THE TIME BY APPLYING MAKEUP and choosing a woollen sweater that Gabe had always liked. I believe he liked it, sweet man that he had been, because other men liked it, or at least liked the way I looked when I wore it. And a loose skirt, in case I had to run quickly. And rubber-soled shoes for the same reason. And gathering as much courage as I could from myself and not from a bottle.

At five minutes to eight, I made a final telephone call. Then, together with my nervous knees, I left the house, crossed Beach Boulevard, and began walking toward the canal bridge. To my left the horizon was the colour of roses, the sky the colour of gravel. The wind was east, off the lake, and gusty.

Ahead of me, the lift bridge control room shone with lights from within, where Tom Grychuk sat. On the bridge itself hung green lights for the traffic. Yellow lights marked the bridge outline, and red lights flashed from the top, for low-flying aircraft, I assumed. I had never thought about the bridge lights before. I was seeing them now because it was easier than thinking about what I expected to happen in the next few minutes.

I stopped and looked out at the lake. I tried to look all the way to the Thousand Islands.

Gabe had visited the Thousand Islands with his first wife. They took a boat tour and stayed for a week in Gananoque. When he told me about the vacation I asked him to repeat the name of the town. He did. He pronounced it “Gan-an-ock-wee,” and I commented that the prettiest place names in all of North America were First Nations names like Gananoque. Allegheny. Mississauga. Manitoba. Musical names. Rhythmic names. He agreed, and named some of his own. Nipissing. Kapuskasing. Saskatoon. Muskoka. We played a game of musical names together, each of us thinking of one in turn, because Gabe wanted to cheer me up. Gabe always understood what I was thinking when I became melancholy, and picturing a young Gabe with his still young and faithful wife on a long-ago summer’s day in a town called Gananoque overlooking a thousand granite islands dotted with pine trees and wildflowers made me melancholy.

I stood remembering Gabe and the Thousand Islands because I needed strength. I was about to do something I had never imagined myself capable of doing, and I needed to remind myself why it was necessary. And what could happen to me if something went wrong. I told myself I was doing it for Gabe. But I wasn’t. I was doing it for myself, and if life was to unfold for Mel and for me in the way that I believed it must, I needed to be strong. More than that, I needed to be wise.

I’ve never doubted my inner strength. It was my habit of acting like a hysterical chicken in a hot kitchen that was worrying me. If I had made one error in logic, I was about to look terribly foolish in the next few minutes. I drew some comfort from reminding myself that looking foolish was infinitely preferable than looking dead. Which was also a possibility.

I took a final glance in the direction of the Thousand Islands and resumed walking, turning left before crossing the bridge and following the road that fishermen and boaters took to get to the shoreline of the bay. The road crossed a sandbank before dipping down to the water’s edge, and when I reached the bottom of the low grade I looked to my right to see Mel’s car parked as I had asked. Mel was watching me through the windshield, his face lit by the setting sun, red like molten slag. Behind and above him, I saw a man in the window of the lift bridge control room, silhouetted against the light. I raised my arm. He raised his.

Mel leaned to open the passenger door. I slid in, closed the door behind me and sat back, closing my eyes.

“You all right?”

I opened my eyes to see Mel studying me with that special expression of his, his brow furrowed and his smile wide and warm. He was wearing his blue jacket, with jeans as tight as a second skin. “No,” I said. “I need something from you.”

The smile faded. “What?” he asked.

“A hug, for a beginning. A really warm, solid squeeze.”

I reached toward him and half pulled him close, then leaned away. “Take your gun off. Do you know how uncomfortable it is to hug somebody who’s wearing a shoulder holster?”

“Okay,” he said, withdrawing the Glock from the holster and setting it on the dashboard, then reaching for me. I remained within his arms, feeling his breathing and hearing his heart, long enough for him to tilt my chin up and look at me, perhaps preparing to kiss me.

“I can’t, Mel,” I said.

“Can’t what? It’s too soon?” Meaning, I guess, too soon after Gabe’s death for us to become lovers again.

“Just let me sit up for a minute.”

He released me and I sat with my back against the passenger door, watching him in the dying light. Then I leaned forward. Instead of reaching for another embrace, I took the gun from the dashboard, held it in both hands and pressed my back against the passenger door again, aiming the Glock at Mel’s blue eyes, those beautiful blue eyes, which were already squinting in surprise.