Free It Isn't Cheating if He's Dead by Julie Frayn Page B

corners of his eyes. A
slight quiver shook his hand.
    “Oh, Chief. What happened to you? Why are
you here?”
    A scratch of noise whispered from his mouth,
his voice so quiet she wasn’t even sure that he’d spoken. “Pardon me?”
    He looked into her eyes and cleared his
throat with one grunt. “Joseph.” His voice cracked out the syllables of his
name. How long had it been since he made any sound?
    Her heart raced. “Nice to meet you,
Joseph.” She’d broken through. Now she had better back off before he scurried
into the night, never to be seen again. “Can I leave you more sandwiches? You
can have them later, maybe for dinner.”
    His head bobbed in a slight nod.
    “Great. I’ll leave you two.” She looked
behind her and then whispered. “Don’t tell Angus.” She winked and patted his
shoulder then stood to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Joseph, okay?”
    His eyes tracked her movements. Another
slight nod.
    On the way to her van she neared Angus and
Frank who stood on the sidewalk. Angus winked and gave her thumbs up. “Jem,”
Frank whispered. “You ever think about changing jobs? You shrink heads real
good.”
    “Well, I fixed you two, didn’t I?”
    Frank took one of her hands and kissed the
back of it. “That you did, sweet lady. That you did.”
    nod and smile
    Jem set her jaw and pressed the talk button.
“Hello, Mother Wolfe.”
    Heavy breathing on the line. “Jemima.”
    “Althea, are you crying?”
    “He’s home. Thank you. Thank you for
sending him.”
    Finn did that. “You’re welcome. It’s where
he belongs, with you and his father.”
    “Yes, I agree. The funeral is a week from Saturday.
At the Christ Church Cathedral on Burrard. Will you come?”
    Would she come? Stupid woman. “I’ll be
there Friday night.”
    There was a long pause and then Althea cleared
her phlegm-filled throat. “Do you want to stay here? Shall I prepare Gerald’s
old room for you?”
    Jem’s stomach churned. “I don’t want to
impose. You’ll have so much going on. And I’m not sure I could handle that, in
his room. I’ll stay at the Georgia.”
    Althea tsked her. “A little out of
your price range, don’t you think?”
    “I haven’t been anywhere in four years. One
night of luxury at one of the most difficult times in my life can’t do me any
harm.”
    “I suppose not. Perhaps that’s best. My
sister will be staying with me anyway so it may be a bit cramped.”
    Yes, two old ladies inside a twenty-eight-hundred-square-foot
house would leave so little room for Jem. “What can I do? Do you need any help
with the arrangements?”
    “I’m sure I can handle this task on my own.
Gerald’s not the first man I’ve buried.”
    “I didn’t mean to suggest you couldn’t
handle it. I’m only offering my support.”
    “You’ve done quite enough thank you.”
    The hair on Jem's neck stood on end. “I’m
sorry? What does that mean?” It never failed. Any conversation with this woman
on any topic, even the hardest topic of all time, ended up with Jem on the
defensive and Althea on the attack.
    “Do you think it’s a coincidence that he
got…. That his illness, if that’s what it was, didn’t start until he met you?”
    Jem’s right foot tapped the floor at a
frenetic pace. Where the hell were her cigarettes?
    “Again, Althea, paranoid schizophrenic.
That was the diagnosis. You don’t catch it like a cold. You aren’t driven to
it, and certainly not by someone who loves and supports you as much as I did
him.”
    “Yes, support. With all those hours you
worked helping other people, all those hours away from him.”
    “He worked as many hours as I did. More in
fact. If anything, he didn’t support me or my career.” Her blood boiled. It was
the same thing over and over, the same insane rants and complete ignorance of
the facts. Of the clinical diagnosis. “The truth of it  is that schizophrenia
runs in the blood. It is a genetic disorder that is passed down from parent