It's Just a Game

One - Millie to the Rescue

Dark thoughts clouded my mind. Why would someone choose to murder Pauline and let an old bitch like my aunt continue plaguing the world? I was in her guest bedroom, feeling guilt at my uncharitable thoughts while accepting her hospitality. Time to put on my friendly niece face and join the family downstairs, I chided myself.

"It's about time you got up."

I was on the landing on the stairs when I heard my mother's older sister's voice. Good old Aunt Eleanor. Did she know it was me on the stairs or was this a universal snark at whoever was only coming downstairs after eight in the morning.

I don't wear a watch, so I was not sure what time it was. I had awakened before seven and spent a lovely peaceful hour reading a good novel in bed. It was a luxury for me. Once I entered the family unit for the day, I would be swept away in endless chaos, drama, and complaints. All of it stemming from my dear old auntie.

Her townhouse in the Ottawa suburb of Orleans was decorated just like her big old Colonial had been decorated when she and Uncle James had been the stars of society in Old Ottawa South, which, according to Eleanor, is the most elite section of Ottawa itself. Now she lived in The Pines.

I say stars of society, but that is purely Aunt Eleanor's interpretation of their role in the community. I'm too close to fifty to feel intimidated by anyone, let alone my aging auntie. It's odd how family can turn a full-grown woman into a child with a simple facial expression.

Aunt Eleanor snaps her fingers and I come running. More precisely, Eleanor snaps her fingers and her little sister, my mother, makes me come running. It's the curse of the only child. There is no one to share the filial duties.

After all, I'm single and childless. Also, I am on a work hiatus. There was nothing to prevent me from jumping on a plane from Charlottetown to Ottawa to keep Mom happy.

Dad had picked me up at the airport last night when it was just coming onto dusk, so I could see the Orleans area and the pockets of small communities with rows of townhouses spreading back from the main boulevard through the small city. Living in a townhouse did not seem to be all that palatial and I wondered how Eleanor justified it. Then I saw that her gated community was grander than the ones just off 10th Line.

The Pines being gated was somewhat more exclusive that the neighboring enclaves which had ungated entrances that swirled into circular streets. I would ask to borrow the car and take a closer look, I told myself. That was last night. After a bed lunch with Mom, Dad, and Aunt, I went to bed.

Bed lunch is, I learned over the years, not a regular meal in all parts of Canada. In the MacDonald family, it's been part of our culture. A pot of tea, well boiled, canned condensed milk, biscuits and mild cheddar cheese.

As I descended the final steps into the hallway, my aunt was standing in the archway into the kitchen, which was directly across from the bottom step. She was perfectly coiffed, freshly lipsticked, and wearing a crisp bib apron. She wasn't smiling, but neither was she scowling. This was good. Her hair was still a uniform chestnut brown, her eyebrows penciled to match, and her daytime pearl earrings in place.

"Jet lag," I said as I stepped into the beige hallway, between the sisters. For a brief moment, I felt the tug between Mom and Aunt Eleanor and knew that whichever way I went could be construed as a decision to favor one over the other. It didn't make sense, logically speaking, but it was an old familiar captivity. Come to Mama, I could imagine Mom calling to me as a baby learning to walk while her bossy sister tried to overrule her.

Fantasy. Pure fantasy. The queen of diversion, I glanced at an old hunting picture on the wall just behind Mom's head. Dapper gents on big white horses with hunting dogs dancing around in a verdant tree-shrouded world, darkened with time. It was an old print from some Victorian middle-class living room. The remarkable aspect was the frame. It was wood, with deep sides, so that the darkish picture was in a shadow. The inset had to be at least three inches deep.

"Oh, I remember that from Nana's parlor," I blurted, or pretended to blurt. I had already made up a story. What a liar. Jet lag. The flight from Prince Edward Island was barely three hours and that included a layover in Montreal that was nearly an hour long. Two short hops. But if I could cover my distress at being trapped in the heart of the family with a fib, then I could feign interest in Auntie's décor.

Aunt Eleanor smiled, a tight smile. Mom approached me, with her arms out for a hug. "Good morning, Sweetheart."

"I just made a fresh pot of coffee," Dad said from somewhere behind Mom. I imagine he was sitting at the table in the dining nook between the living room and the kitchen. The layout was classic townhouse.

After Mom's hug, I stepped across the parquet floor toward my aunt and gave her a hug. She was bony and stiff, but she returned my hug. I was grateful that I had dressed. If I had appeared in my housecoat and slippers, I doubt she would have hugged me as tightly.

She despised laziness and slothfulness. Sloth is, she often told me when I was a child, one of the seven deadly sins. I always wanted to remind her that pride was also a deadly sin. I ought to know. I was trained as a United Church minister and had preached and ministered is several dioceses across Canada.

That was the career from which I was taking a break. I was between gigs, as I like to think of it, as a preacher at the moment. Forty-eight years old, with my dignity and career in tatters. No wonder I felt apprehension at being with my family. Mom's story seemed designed to bring me together with the family for an intervention rather than to solve a murder mystery.

Seriously, who would want to kill Aunt Eleanor's bridge partner?