Free The Birthday Lunch by Joan Clark Page A

the same offer to her niece, Claudia thanked her aunt and explained that Roger Monahan needed her and she didn’t want to leave him so soon after his father and brother drowned. Her aunt did not appear disappointed by Claudia’s decision. “Very well,” she said, and Claudia assumed she’d understood. Apparently not, because later Laverne complained to Lily that the drownings had not prevented Claudia from going to university, and the offer of a trip to France was never repeated. Since then Claudia has travelled to France and Italy with Leonard, but of course her aunt does not know about those trips or about the affair. Nor do her father and brother.
    “How soon before Matthew is here?” Laverne asks.
    “Any time now,” Claudia says.
    “In that case I will join you,” Laverne says.
    Moments later there are footsteps on the back stairs, the door opens and Claudia sees that her aunt is also wearing yesterday’s clothes. Claudia quashes the impulse to hand her aunta Kleenex so that she can wipe off the smeared lipstick. Instead she offers coffee. “Thank you,” Laverne says.
    Claudia carries the tray of coffee into the living room where Hal is wreathed in cigarette smoke. Allergic to smoke, Laverne sits opposite on the chair where Corrie Spears sat yesterday. Claudia passes around the coffee and they settle down to watch the television where a Dolly Parton look-alike is gushing about next month’s royal wedding, “How will Shy Di manage being a member of the royal family?” she says. “She is so young.”
    “Prince Charles should be ashamed of himself, and so should Trudeau.” Hal says to the TV. “Cradle-robbers is what they are.”
    Leonard is a cradle-robber. Claudia knows that if her father knew about her lover he would be shattered by disappointment, even disgust and might disown her. He would not order her to leave the house but he might push her away if she tried to comfort him. “Don’t tell your father,” Lily advised her. “He wouldn’t understand and he wants to protect you.” Her mother referred to Leonard as a phase Claudia would grow out of and predicted that eventually she would break off the affair. Claudia will, one day she will. But she cannot think about that now, she must think about the notepad in the kitchen, the list of duties she and Matt will follow after he arrives. Claudia turns down the sound and flicking through the television channels, she settles on
General Hospital
and the three of them watch a patient being wheeled into the operating room on a gurney, masked doctors bending to the task beneath a flood of light, none of it real.
    The doorbell chimes and Claudia races downstairs to answer. It has been three years since she last saw her brother and seeing him on the doorstep, the black hair and blue eyes so like their mother’s, brings an onrush of tears. Dropping the suitcase, Matt holds Claudia close and cries into her shoulder until he hears a voice at the top of the stairs saying, “Hello there, Son.” Looking up, Matt sees the hunched shape of his father in the hallway. “Hello, Dad,” he says and after making his way upstairs, he embraces his father—it is a long embrace, an embrace of sorrow, a tacit recognition that the woman they loved is dead.
    Laverne waits her turn in the solitude of the living room. She is not used to waiting her turn, but seeing her nephew after so long will be worth the wait, and at last here he is, walking toward her, taking her hands and in the European way, kissing both cheeks. “Auntie,” he murmurs and for a moment Laverne expects an embrace but Matthew lets go of her hand and follows his father to the sofa. Only Hal lights a cigarette: Matthew does not smoke and Claudia is being considerate. There are questions about the long flight from Alberta, the overnight in Halifax, the flight to Moncton. When the answers peter out, Matthew says that it is time to get down to matters at hand, that when there is a death in the family, there