It's Just a Game

Two - When Duty (or Mother) Calls

Let me tell you more about how I got in this situation. I mean, the situation in Orleans, not the career situation. I'm not ready to deal with that. Not yet. If I stop and face reality, I know I have not much more than a month before I have to make a decision. The diocese needs an answer and I promised that I would provide the answer by end of September.

It is possible that part of the reason I was willing to take this side trip to the family was a delaying technique. I had been studying to be a minister and being a minister since I was eighteen. Thirty years. What would I do if I did not go back to the diocese?

Late summer on Prince Edward Island is a time of beauty and tranquility. The potatoes are not ready to dig. Fishing season is going smoothly. The spring lobster season up east is over. The western season is underway but not facing the stormy weather issues the spring season has.

I had grown up in Blue Pond, a fishing community in Princess County, Prince Edward Island but I had left home when I was eighteen. Other than short vacations to visit my parents, I had not been home since. Until eleven months ago when I decided to lick my wounds in a safe place. I rented a small apartment in a large old farmhouse on Albany Road that had been converted into an apartment building.

Even before Mom called, I was feeling the niggling irritation of discontent. Not discontent with the scenery or the weather or the day but discontent with myself. My self. The trees were still green, many shades of green. Pickups rumbled up the road from the harbor, heading to the TransCanada Highway or along the main street heading inland to the fishers' homes.

Angst. That described what I was feeling. What did my future hold? For some time, I have been hovering on the edge of a crisis of conscience. It is difficult to talk about because I try to keep angsty thoughts out of my head but if I ignore this feeling of unease, it will never go away. If it never goes away, I will never be able to move forward with my life.

The question I have when this thought arises is, do we really have to move forward in our lives? I had taken a leave of absence from the United Church out west where I had been the minister for nearly five years. I had thought that I could happily live out my preaching life in the small urban community. This was month eleven of my self-imposed sabbatical.

I tell myself I had to take a break because I felt like a fraud. There were too many meetings and not enough hands-on caring. The synod was a nasty group of back-biting control freaks. And there is my fatal flaw. I have no patience.

Some Reverend MacDonald I was.

And then, underneath it all, I had to come to terms with the real reason I was on my so-called sabbatical. It had not been my choice. It was the best of a bad situation.

That was my mindset when the phone rang and cut short my mental wandering into dangerous territory. I was so glad to be ripped out of speculation about my future that I answered it without even looking at the incoming phone number.

"Millie?"

"Mom." I stepped back across the living room and settled into my favorite corner of the soft sofa. It was the middle of the afternoon, not Mom's usual time for a phone call. She was in Ontario, staying at her sister Eleanor's townhouse. She and Dad. They were helping Eleanor pack up her home, so she could move into a senior-friendly apartment that had elements of assisted living. The town house had three levels, including the basement. At seventy-seven, Eleanor was seven years older than my mother, Arlene.

Arlene MacDonald was a vibrantly healthy woman and the age difference between the two sisters appeared to be a great deal more than seven years. When Eleanor's bridge partner died, she became a weeping and wailing victim of life. That was it, she announced to her baby sister. She could not bear to continue living in this community where a murderer could run loose. Pauline was the only good neighbor she had and the whole street was nothing but pain for her now.

I had heard some of this already from Mom, in her daily texts. The details were sparse. She didn't like typing all that much, but it was a convenient way to pass on information about her visit with Eleanor. It was clear from her snippets of information that she believed that this was simply her sister creating a drama around her.

"How are you, dear?"

"Great. And you, Mom?"

It was our usual opening conversational gambit. If she had been calling to tell me that Dad had a stroke, the conversation would still begin this way. It was a way of smoothing the path for any conversation.

"We need your help," she said. "A friend of your aunt's died suspiciously, and we need you to help us figure this out.

Eleanor was too smart for her own good and easily bored, was Mom's interpretation of her current crisis. As she talked on the phone, it was as if she were telling me for the first time about Eleanor's obsessive insistence that her bridge partner had been murderer.

I could hear Eleanor's voice in the background. "Tell her I'll pay her."

Mom said, "I will."

"I heard her, Mom."

Eleanor was still talking in the background.

"I'm sorry, dear," Mom said and before I could ask what she was sorry for, I heard her say, "Here, El. It would be better if you talked to her."

Eleanor's voice is different from Mom's and mine. It has a distinctive timbre, with a hollow undertone that gave her words a deep musical resonance. Such a lovely voice for such inane words. I thought that when I was a child and I thought it now.

"Millie. I need you to come here as fast as you can get here."

I tried to say something agreeable. I had learned long ago to be careful when confronted with a demand for my time and attention. Even asking me what I had planned for the day called for a thoughtful response. Otherwise, I would be lured into doing errands, tasks, and favors I did not want to do. I usually responded to the question about my plans for the day with another question, "Why do you ask?"

Eleanor was doing a complete stream of consciousness monologue, so I did not have to attempt to say anything. Now she was saying, "I know people. Everyone is always amazed at how perceptive I am in sussing out the frauds and liars amongst us."

I was grateful she did not pause for my response to those words.

"And I knew Pauline. We played bridge twice a week for years. She was my best friend and I was her best friend." Her voice broke and I heard Mom say, "Here, El, let me explain it."

"I'll pay her way and a fee for service. I have the money." Eleanor's voice was moving away from the phone.

"One sec, Mil," Mom said, and then speaking away from the phone, "George, can you get Eleanor a cocktail?"

"What is going on?" I said. While I have no patience in most circumstances, I had learned to be as Zen-like as possible when talking to my family.

"I'm going out back," Mom said. I heard footsteps and a door open and close. "It's her friend Pauline. Her death was called suicide. An overdose. But Eleanor refuses to accept it. She knows people, and she knows Pauline, and she knows that there is no way Pauline would kill herself."

Don't get me wrong, I do love my aunt. Loving people is possible when you take the time to get to know them. The important thing is the you should avoid trying to change them. Accept them if you can. If you can't, let it go. For some time, in my younger years, I had a very difficult time accepting Aunt Eleanor. With family, it is not always possible to let them go and just walk away.

Her husband died, making her a widow when she was in her thirties, and she had been on her own for nearly forty years. She liked being single and Uncle James had left her with a hefty life insurance payout, so she did not have to work. There was never anyone who was close enough to her to suggest that she take a breath between sentences. Not after James. Probably not even James dared suggest it to her. I don't remember him well.

That was on Thursday. Four days later, here I was facing the daunting task of consoling my aunt on the loss of her best friend and trying to figure out how to investigate a suicide. I had accidentally been involved in a couple of local incidents in Blue Pond that involved sudden deaths. Murders. It was circumstance and happenstance more than skill.