Loving Piper Read online

  Table of Contents

  LOVING PIPER

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Next

  LOVING PIPER

  Part 1. Up and Down

  by

  CHARLOTTE LOCKHEART

  Copyright

  Loving Piper

  Part 1 – Up and Down

  by Charlotte Lockheart

  Copyright © 2014 by Charlotte Lockheart. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission from the author.

  ISBN (eBook Edition): 978-0-9939813-0-2

  eBook cover designed by coversbykaren.com.

  Chapter One

  “DEIRDRE, I COULD just cry.” Piper Justice felt sick to her stomach as she stared at the back wall of her small redbrick Victorian house.

  “Well, darling, you have every right to,” said Deirdre, her tone sympathetic.

  Piper appreciated her friend not mentioning that Piper had already cried profusely—after the alarming phone call, after the emergency worker for the Toronto Public Works Department had led them through the house, after the insurance representative’s visit. For two full days, she’d been on the verge of tears if not actively weeping.

  “I still can’t believe how fast it happened…and the damage. I was only away for twenty-four hours.” Piper plopped down on the wooden bench in the backyard and rested her head in her hands. The weekend trip up to a cottage on Georgian Bay had been an attempt to catapult herself out of her black hole. Not really a black hole, she amended, more like a gray rut. “Twenty-four hours,” she repeated.

  “Yeah, how true. There you were up at the beach splashing around in the lake when you could have been having the same fun right here at home in your own basem—”

  “Deirdre!”

  “Sorry, darling, you’re right, that was insensitive.”

  “Please, just don’t say anything for a couple of minutes.”

  Piper raised her head enough to watch Deirdre get up and walk to one side of the house, the side where the structure appeared to be normal. Then she proceeded awkwardly through the gullies and bumps made by heavy machinery and made her way to the other side, peering into the gaping hole that exposed the fractured concrete wall. She shrugged and turned back toward Piper.

  Piper groaned inwardly. Deirdre wouldn’t know the meaning of a couple of minutes if they swung her around by her ankles.

  “I know it’s too soon to try to cheer you up, darling. Although whenever you are ready to start looking on the bright side, think of your insurance company. Imagine them not trying to weasel out of this one.”

  Piper sat up and stretched out her arms. “You’re right about that, Deirdre. I know I’m being a big baby.”

  “No, no, no,” Deirdre said, an evident attempt to soothe.

  Piper steeled herself by reciting again the speech she’d repeated many times in the past forty-eight hours. “The flood is simply a physical thing that has happened. Structural damage is simply a description of this physical situation. Homelessness is…” Here, Piper lost her momentum in the attempt to minimalize. This house had been her place of safety and comfort for sixteen years, since Kathleen had been a toddler. She swallowed hard, hiccupped and continued. “No one has been killed, wounded—or even got their feelings hurt. I still have a job and will eventually have a house that can be lived in. And Plumpy wasn’t trapped down there or anything awful like that.”

  “That’s better, dearie, more like the old Piper. Continuing on the positive side, remember this is a mess that won’t take too long to actually fix up. Time and money, that’s all it is.” Deirdre put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the damage. “Just think of the hours we’ve spent talking about how we’re carrying around too much junk. Old furniture, baby stuff, toys—you were never going to use any of those things again anyhow. And you stored photos in lots of places besides your basement.”

  Piper started to cry again.

  “Oh, jeez.” Deirdre walked over and sat down next to Piper, put her arm around her shoulders.

  “It’s not you, it’s…it’s this.” Piper extended her arms to indicate her ruined flower beds, and the mounds of soggy sod and excavated soil that rippled around her house. “I feel ill when I look at it, and I really am afraid of what I’ll find when the water is sucked out of the basement. What exactly is lying on the floor under two feet of water down there—I wish I could remember. I didn’t get rid of those things because they mean a lot to me.”

  “Even if you can’t rememb—”

  “Even if I can’t remember exactly what’s there. It’s heartache waiting to happen, that’s all I know.” She sighed. “Not to mention I’m homeless for the next three months…at least three months, they said.”

  “Move in with us, Piper. A hotel was okay for two nights, but not for three months. You love Sam and the kids, and Sam agrees with me on this one. C’mon—” Deirdre shook Piper’s shoulder gently “—it’ll be cozy. Just a skip in the time warp from when we roomed together.”

  “That’s so sweet of you—and Sam—Deirdre. If it was just for a couple of days, it’d be different, but three months…three months seems like a lifetime.”

  “Then come for a couple of days, while you figure out what to do next.”

  Piper leaned her head on Deirdre’s shoulder, and they sat for a few more minutes, in silence, staring at Piper’s troubled home. Piper wondered if she’d brought it upon herself, wanting some shakeup in her life. In the future, she’d need to be more careful about what she asked for. “Thanks, Dee, that would be great. I accept.” Surviving the first few days ahead in the company of her friends was suddenly far superior to moping alone in a soulless hotel.

  Rob Mossman didn’t care that his shirt was soaked and sticking to his skin. Jennie was in a good mood. One of the unheralded truths of the world was that bathing worked miracles. Crabby little girls were transformed the minute they hit the tub.

  “Hey…look out behind you!” He whipped the small, inflated polka-dot boat carrying its piggy sailor up Jennie’s back. She squealed and laughed, tried to grab it from his hand, but he was too fast and aimed the small craft at her from a different angle.

  He understood some of the reasons for her moodiness and occasional outright sadness. He missed Sandra, too. And probably a little girl needed her mother even more than he needed his wife. They had stumbled together, he and his daughter, through this first year alone. And nothing about it had been easy.

  Jennie squealed, “Give him to me, Daddy, he likes me better. You’re too aduld.”

  Yeah, she had that right. He shook his head and tried to focus solely on his daughter. He knew he was, slightly addled, but lately he had started to notice changes in himself. There was apparently a process of grieving and he thought he was probably able to identify the clinical stage he was entering.

  She shrieked and splashed and even accepted a hair washing, something Rob tried to do once a week. Too much cleanliness in the North American world, Rob thought. Yes, a little soap and water went a long way. He had limited patience for excessive hygiene. The nightly bath was mostly about pleasure and ritual.

  “Okay, all fish out of the water!” he bellowed, and scooped Jennie up into her favorite blue seascape towel. Timing was everything. He usually allotted a half hour for the bath. The hair-washing nights were a bit longer. Sandra had never let Jennie go to bed with damp hair. That was one of her many child-rearing rules, most of which he still honored.

  Jennie loved being snuggled and rocked aft
er the bath. And Rob enjoyed this part of fatherhood. Life before being a dad seemed vague to him now. When Jennie was dry and dressed in the pj’s with feet, she picked out her current special book and climbed into bed.

  “Sit here, Daddy…closer…I want to see the pictures.” Would she ever get tired of Good Night, Moon? Would he? And when she was older, would he feel about this book the way he now felt about the very first books he had read to her. Parenthood was a sentimental minefield, and thinking you could tread carefully was a foolish misconception. The rules that applied to regular life were made a mockery of from the time of conception.

  It took Jennie much longer to study the illustrations than for him to read the text, but eventually they reached the last page. Within a few minutes, Rob had sung a lullaby, scratchily, and good-night hugs and kisses had ended.

  He tiptoed from the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

  A little cleanup, clarify a complication of the latest environmental assessment report, watch the news, go to bed. That was his normal routine, and he attacked the kitchen first. He and Jennie always did the dishes and put away the food together. Later, after Jennie was in bed, Rob did the fine-tuning.

  This evening, though, the regular drill was unappealing. After wiping down the counters, he poured a recommended Australian Shiraz into a Bordeaux wineglass. The news would keep till tomorrow, and so would the report. He swirled the wine, sniffed and took a large mouthful. Not technically the correct way to drink wine, but very rewarding. He took another.

  Rob lowered the glass to the desk and walked over to a large Chinese vase in the corner of his office. He pulled out the rolled-up blueprints for the renovations that had ceased so abruptly a year ago. He didn’t really need to look at them to know what had yet to be done. The in-law apartment had nearly reached completion, and he studied the list attached to the blueprints. Drywalling done, taping done, painting not done, appliances not done, trim not done, cupboard pulls not done… The remaining jobs were not big ones, but after the accident he had lost his will to carry on.

  He shook his head. With relief, he realized he had some choice now about whether or not he had to be dragged back in time. And at this particular moment, he would remain in the present and address the matter of the unfinished apartment. Things left undone had always bothered him.

  He took another taste of the wine, thumped the glass onto the desk, and stood abruptly and began to pace. Yes, he’d get back in touch with the contractor who had stopped the work a year ago. Glen Wilson had told Rob to take all the time he needed and give him a call when he was ready. He returned to the desk, picked up the list. No, he could do the work; he wanted to do the work. Suddenly the unfinished apartment was a reminder of everything he had lost, and he was ready to move forward. Even as he had the thought, he again noticed his words were firmly rooted in the terminology of grieving. Moving forward, letting go, surrendering… He wondered when and if he would ever describe himself differently in the world.

  But, having made the decision, Rob felt a weight lift. This was good. How had he been able to ignore the construction zone for a year, hardly notice it?

  He was a list maker, and tonight that habit was as rewarding as ever. He itemized what needed to happen and the sequence of events.

  Three weeks to finish it? There had been a time when Sandra had called him handy and had quoted Red Green, “If women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.” He took in a quick breath. Sometimes memory and pain were synonymous.

  He shook his head and returned to the task. Yes, it didn’t look too difficult; he could definitely do the work, and he might even enjoy it. He could be showing the apartment by the beginning of July.

  He would advertise by word of mouth. That was the best way to get a reliable tenant. The ideal tenant would be… He was astounded at how real the situation now seemed. He would rent it out to some nice quiet student. Maybe a vegetarian. Someone who would keep the place clean and fix it up nicely. Young women were a safer bet than young men, weren’t they, or was he stereotyping? He didn’t approve of that streak in him—or anyone else—but thought it might be useful in this particular instance. There was no avoiding the thought that having a woman around, a younger woman, was appealing to him. His urge to wrap his arms around a woman and breathe in the sweetness of femininity was a little unsettling for him. Did this mean that he was forgetting Sandra? Or could he separate physical desire from the deep Sandra waves that enveloped and sometimes drowned him?

  He pulled out a flyer from a nearby appliance store. He liked the local businesses, even if that meant fewer choices. Sandra had made fun of him, but he considered fewer choices a bonus.

  Yes, there was a picture of a four-burner white electric stove, a small white fridge with the freezer on the bottom, and a white low-flush toilet. He would keep everything white, which might reduce the number of decorating mistakes available to him. Plus, white looked clean and new.

  Might as well make it an early night. He left the blueprints and lists in the center of the desk in his study in order to head off a change of mind. As he lay in bed, he noticed that he was looking forward to tomorrow. He rolled on his side and imagined Sandra beside him, curled closely into his body, breathing in sleepy harmony. And as he drifted off, he tried to remember the last day he had looked forward to.

  Piper bent over the deep purple tulips and suppressed an urge to kiss them. “Inappropriate,” she muttered, “regardless of how beautiful you are.” Deirdre’s tiny backyard was wildly overgrown and she pictured her own carefully tended garden. Already she missed it and all things related to the modest plot—the planting, the wild shades of color that should be impossible but weren’t, the weeding, the watering, the bugs. Yes, even the bugs. It was all-out war, and she was no pushover. Victory or bust.

  “Come to mama,” she sang in a lusty voice, feeling cheerier this morning as she lifted scissors to the narcissus. She knew she was loud but didn’t care, blissful to be temporarily removed from the gray no-man’s land, though the reasons for the reprieve were mysterious. The only thing that had happened was a catastrophe. Had catastrophe ever been touted as a treatment for mood disorders. That was just silly, and she knew the upswing wouldn’t last longer than the trip back into the house. Still she’d take what she could get. “This won’t hurt a bit, or not for long anyway. Hey baby, baby, baby, a cranky disposition is not a good floral quality.”

  True enough, she thought as she arranged the bouquet in Deirdre’s kitchen, her good mood ebbing. She stopped, straightened and rubbed her forehead. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

  “I was going to ask you about that,” Deirdre said, entering the kitchen at a brisk clip and pouring herself a huge mug of coffee. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Despite having just said those words herself, Piper had considered the question rhetorical was disconcerted that Deirdre didn’t argue with her. “Well, let’s see now, what could possibly be the ma—”

  “I know all that, and it’s no fun, that’s for sure. But I am a GP—your GP—and something besides the house isn’t quite right. I’ve been wondering about you for a couple of months, but got busy, you know how it is. For starters, why are you talking to yourself? You’re only thirty-eight. Forty’s the golden portal into carrying on both sides of a conversation.” Deirdre positioned her laptop on the table in front of her.

  “If you’re going to be like that, let me get my representative. Plumpy! Here, kitty, kitty.” Piper looked around the kitchen and found her big gray Russian Blue on a chair wedged under the table. When she pulled the chair out, Plumpy remained immobile. She squatted down, gripping his head with both hands, and touched his whiskers, which made him sneeze. “Sorry, but look at me, Plumps. Deirdre’s making some enquiries, some of those things we’ve talked about.” Piper stroked Plumpy’s substantial body and he repositioned himself and lowered his head. “Are you listening to me?” Relaxed and asleep again, he wheezed softly. Piper stood up, hands
on her hips. Plumpy had reached the REM stage and was now twitching in his sleep. “So, shall I tell her that you are unavailable for comment?”

  Deirdre shook her head. “Okay, I give up, what’s this all about?”

  “Don’t know. There’s something wrong with me.”

  Deirdre laughed. “Of course there is, Piper, that’s part of your charm.”

  “Not funny.” Piper said.

  “No, of course it isn’t, sorry about that. Then I’ll tell you what I see. Here, sit down for a second.” Deirdre patted the chair beside her. “I see an aimless, distracted, unenthusiastic—unhappy—person where you used to be. Listen, darling, when someone needs something done, who do they call? You. You’ve always worked your tail off, been merciless with any mission, good and loud in everything you’ve ever done. You’re a people person, nobody can stop you.” Deirdre thumped the table and looked Piper straight in the eye. “Plus—you’ve never indulged in soul-searching or naval-gazing, which, in my opinion, is a good thing when it comes to happiness.”

  Piper slumped in her chair, feeling too low to complain about being described as what to her sounded remarkably similar to “shallow.”

  “May I speak in my own defence?” Piper said. Shoulders back, she sat up and leaned toward her friend. “Of course I have a few idiosyncrasies—who doesn’t at thirty-eight. What exactly is the point of having a life of your own if you can’t indulge in a bit of aberrant behavior? So, if I end up talking to myself, or my beloved—Plumpy, that is—what is the matter with that?”

  “Nothing, Piper, and I like to hear you sounding more animated—that’s more like you. But something is a bit out of whack, isn’t it?” Deirdre powered up the laptop.

  Piper knew Deirdre was right. They were both right. Something had changed, and it had happened so slowly she had not detected anything different at first. Then she had found her new and unfamiliar state building momentum. She was becoming an outsider in her own life, and without the usual resources she would bring to a dilemma. She felt her forehead; maybe she’d contracted a virus, something insidious that attacked the foundation of a person’s character. Could there be a virus called longing? If only she could figure out what was making her feel so incomplete.