Page 11

On paper, Sarah Anderson was exactly what Boychuk would have expected from a woman caught in the worst moment of her life. Volatile, terrified, easily frustrated. She seemed so typical, in fact, he didn’t understand why he had decided to call Joan Phelps, a local psychologist, to consult on the case.

“Something’s off, Jo. I can’t put my finger on it,” he said over the phone after Joan had reviewed the case file.

“Oh God, don’t give me some cliché like ‘you feel it in your bones.’ This isn’t CSI .” Joan tapped at the keys on a laptop as she spoke from her office. “Off how?”

“I don’t know. It checks all the boxes as another would-be adventurer misjudging the conditions. But there’s something about the wife I can’t put my finger on.”

“Now you’re just repeating yourself, Rob. Be more specific.” Boychuk leaned back in his chair and looked out the window. The station was in the middle of Main Street, with the library on the right and a beat-up tourist office on the left. The buildings were close here and the people closer; you survived the hard wildness of this place by building trust.

“There’s something she’s not telling me, Jo. I don’t think she knows what happened, and I can’t say for sure she had anything to do with her husband’s disappearance, but something isn’t adding up, and I think Sarah Anderson may have the answers. I just need a second opinion on this one, that’s all.”

“Fine. But tell me what I’m looking for.”

“It’s a—a simmer.”

“A what?”

“A simmer. On the surface, Sarah seems like any other wife and mother. Trying to balance it all. Typical marital tensions for sure, but nothing drastic, at least not that I can get out of her. But there’s a boiling under her skin, Jo. I think she’s working hard to keep it in check. I just need a second set of eyes, that’s all.”

“Okay. Set it up for tomorrow. But you’re buying the coffee.”

Sarah had spent two weeks in Patricia Bay with Izzy and the kids. Two weeks waiting for word of Matthew. Everywhere they went—the grocery store, the drug store, the town restaurants—they were the target of local pity with raised eyebrows and hushed voices. There were deep kindnesses she could never repay. The hotel refused to charge them for the rooms; the Baykery plied them with coffee and pastries when they walked through the door; and there was a barrage of drop-offs from townspeople: clothes for the kids, baked goods, prayer cards. All of it was appreciated and humiliating. Sarah loved and hated them for it.

She was the woman who lost her husband: an object of gossip and constant “there but for the grace of God go I” stares. If they thought God had spared them, Sarah wondered, did that mean her family was the sacrifice? She couldn’t get away from them, nor her snide thoughts. It was time to go home and leave whatever searching remained to be done to others.

Before they could escape this little pity party of a town, Sarah needed to meet Boychuk at the station. Izzy and the kids were gathering the scattered remnants of their vigil, stuffing donated clothes and secondhand toys into hastily purchased duffle bags. Their belongings had migrated around the small room, seeking out hidden spaces under beds and behind the dresser. The camping gear was shoved into the car, but what remained of their Patricia Bay lives was tossed around like debris at a roadside accident. The thought of pulling all the pieces together made Sarah nauseous; she threw her few belongings onto one of the beds without looking at them and asked Izzy to throw them away.

Izzy questioned Sarah with a sharp look. “I’m serious, Izzy,” Sarah said, “toss it all. I don’t want any of it. I’ve got clothes at home.”

“How about I ask at the desk where I can find a donation box?” Izzy said.

An irritation moved through Sarah, as if her blood were alive, moving independently of the thrusts from her beating heart. She’d grown accustomed to this surge—it came with every gentle hand on her arm or sympathetic tut-tut.

“Fine. Whatever. I have to meet Boychuk,” Sarah said before closing the door on her sister. She felt like a moody teenager. Fuck it, she thought as she walked down the hall, petulance drifting in her wake.

Izzy stared at the closed door as if wood and metal could give answers to the questions tumbling around her head. She didn’t know how someone was supposed to react to the situation Sarah found herself in. How do you process an unknowable loss? Grief was a mutable feast, she supposed, filled with every horrid flavor that the human mind could conceive. Who could even say where the line of normal ended? Certainly, anger was a reasonable response. And Sarah seemed angry, a lot.

And yet Izzy had seen Sarah negotiate loss and grief before. She’d seen pain and hurt, and a raging sadness cast a shadow on her little sister that seemed endless when their parents died. But this ... this muffled rage? This was different. There was something more to the story, and Izzy needed to read it. Her sister’s future depended on it.

Sarah’s blood had calmed by the time she reached the station, but she knew it was only resting, waiting for the next jolt of sympathy to bring it back to life. Boychuk led her to a back room immediately.

“Please have a seat, Sarah. How are the kids?” Boychuk said.

Sarah had been in this room a half dozen times already. She had studied every peel in the paint and whorl in the ceiling as words tumbled out of one officer or the other, none of them able to tell her anything she didn’t already know. The room’s most distinguishing features were a horizontal mirror on one wall and a long-forgotten cat calendar by the door counting off the days of December 2001.

“They’re fine. Thanks,” Sarah said. They’d been through this dance. Sarah knew he meant well, but she didn’t feel like two-stepping with him today. She wanted this to be over. She wanted to go home.

“Can I get you anything? Coffee? Glass of water?” There was a change in Boychuk’s tone; it was subtle, like a whiff of something you can’t quite place. The pity had abated. Gone were the hushed words and lingering looks.

“No. Thanks.”

“I’m going to grab a coffee myself. I’ll bring you some water, just in case you change your mind,” Boychuk said.

Though they’d been through this routine a half dozen times in the last couple of weeks, Sarah detected an awkwardness in Boychuk’s normal professional sympathy. Her eyes lobbed questions as he turned to leave the room.

Boychuk came back a couple of minutes later, a bottle of water in one hand and a woman beside him. The other hand was empty. No intended cup of coffee.

“Sarah,” he said, “this is Joan Phelps. She’s here to help you through the next steps.” He looked uncomfortable, as if he were discussing Sarah’s menstrual cycle.

“What steps?” Sarah said.

“Hi, Sarah. Please call me Jo. I’m a psychologist. I consult for the police.”

“Psychologist?”

Jo brought a chair around to Sarah’s side of the table and sat facing her, forcing Sarah to turn her chair to keep both the psychologist and Boychuk in her sight. She sat at a distance, but close enough for Sarah to notice gray streaks in her dark hair and light makeup on her cheeks and lips. She was dressed in a long indigo sweaterdress over black leggings, like an artist or kindergarten teacher. Sarah disliked the woman.

“The police sometimes request my services in missing persons cases to help family members. But I want to be absolutely clear, Sarah: whether I stay or not is up to you.” Her tone was warm, devoid of the dripping condolences that had become typical in this town. “If you don’t want me here, you can be completely honest. Don’t feel you need to stand on politeness.”

Sarah looked from the woman to Boychuk, still hovering by the open door. His impassive face gave no clues. “It’s okay, I guess,” Sarah said, though she kept her eyes on Boychuk.

Boychuk moved swiftly to close the door and settle in his usual spot across the table from Sarah. Jo angled her chair, forming a triangle with Sarah at the highest point. It felt like a net was closing in.

“Sarah, the teams have finished dredging the lake and searching the area around Nagadon Lake and the Mirabelle River down from the rapids,” Boychuk said, his voice clinical and pointed. He was ripping the dressing off a festering wound, one that would never heal. “There was no trace of Matthew passing on foot from where the canoe was found, so we undertook a radial search from the last known point extending to the maximum point of containment without success.” Boychuk expelled the technical terms.

“What Rob means,” Jo said as she passed Boychuk a questioning look, “is there is no evidence of Matthew in the forest and no sign of him in the water.”

Boychuk took a breath, slowing his words. “We’ve done everything we can for now, Sarah. I know this is devastating for you and the kids. We’re all out of options. The search and rescue will move to a passive search. This means we’ll keep the file open and we’ll follow any leads that come up, but ... well, active search measures are being suspended. Sarah, it’s presumed Matthew drowned.”

Sarah’s eyes followed a crack that slithered the full length of the far wall. She wondered what might have caused it. Had the building shifted? Did it go through the paint to the drywall? Did they even know it was there?

“I know this is hard news, Sarah,” Boychuk said. “There’s nothing else we can do right now. Matthew’s case will go to Missing Persons, but there is a strong possibility he drowned. The case file will be accessible across the country and available to agencies in every province. I’m sorry, Sarah, but we’re at a standstill.”

Sarah’s eyes traced the crack, stopping just above Boychuk’s head. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I thought you said you’d be able to find a body if he drowned. You told me you’d be able to find him.” Her stare challenged him to deny it, but there was little fight in her anymore. She needed to end this.

“I’m sorry if I gave you that impression, Sarah,” Boychuk said, no defensiveness in his tone, only a well-honed sadness. “It’s rare, but it’s a big lake. It’s not always possible to cover every inch. And if he went into the river, there are times when a body doesn’t surface. Sometimes it gets snagged in deadfall under the water, sometimes a current can wedge it against rocks.”

Beneath Boychuk’s voice, Sarah heard rushing water, felt it snake over her body until it reached her face, covering her nose and mouth, robbing her of breath. She had no more voice.

“Sarah?” the psychologist said.

Sarah looked up. Jo’s face filled the center of her vision, like an old-fashioned sepia-tone picture. She remembered Matthew on past camping trips, his body smooth and slick against rust-hued water. She imagined his face turning toward her on the shore, heard the pull of life-giving breath as it powered his next stroke.

Jo knelt in front of her, and Sarah could feel the woman’s hands on her knees. Filling her lungs and clearing her mind, Sarah was racked by one irrefutable belief: her husband had not died by the water’s hands. “I need to go home,” she said, though she didn’t care if they had heard her. “He didn’t drown.”

“I know it feels impossible to wrap your head around right now. That’s normal, Sarah. It will take time.”

“You’re wrong,” Sarah said, as if talking to recalcitrant children. “Matthew did not drown. Not in that river, not in that lake. You don’t know my husband. The water would never have pulled him under.” Sarah stood.

The shallow furrow on Boychuk’s brow and steady gaze from the psychologist told Sarah all she needed to know.

“Sarah, if what you’re telling us is true, this now moves to another level of investigation,” Jo said. “Missing Persons will take it over. They will undertake a full investigation that will pick apart Matthew’s life. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, Sarah. They’ll comb through everything and everyone in Matthew’s life, including you, your family, your friends. It’ll be a bit like swallowing the disease to get to the cure. They’ll search your home, talk to everyone who knows Matthew. They’ll have endless questions, and—”

“Sarah, I know it’s difficult to hear, and I’m truly sorry for what you and your family have had to endure,” Boychuk said. “But I have to ask. Why are you so sure he didn’t drown?”

Sarah resented the kindness and suspicion in their eyes. They were acting like the town residents, cloying and considerate. She was sick to death of their pity, their fabricated sympathy, their superficial condolences. Walking through the constant gauntlet of faux sadness in this misfortunate little town was the problem. She needed to get out. Away from them. Away from here.

“I understand what you’re telling me, Rob,” Sarah said, using his given name for the first time and feeling calmer than she’d felt since waking up in the tent. “It’s Occam’s razor.” The muscles in her face relaxed, and her shoulders slipped down her back.

The officer and psychologist looked at each other.

They don’t get it, Sarah thought. She would need to lead them. “Occam’s razor. In the face of the unexplained, the simplest answer is the most likely.” The remembered lines from an undergraduate philosophy course dropped confidently from her lips. “But I’m telling you, my husband did not drown. I don’t know what happened to him, but there is no way the Mirabelle took him. She wouldn’t do that. You need to keep looking.”

“Sarah,” Jo said, “denial is normal. It’s our mind’s first reaction to the incomprehensible. But you need to prepare yourself for a life without Matthew. I’d like to work with you to find some support at home. Officer Boychuk tells me your sister is with you, but I’d like to set you up with a colleague of mine in Ottawa. Her name is—”

“I appreciate the offer, Joan, but I want to go home now,” Sarah said. “Matthew and I have a counselor. We’ll make sure to see her when he’s back.”

Boychuk and the psychologist rose from their chairs, blocking Sarah’s path to the door. “I know I sound crazy,” Sarah said. She almost took pity on their bewilderment. “But I know my husband. I am absolutely certain Matthew could not have drowned. Not by that river or that lake. He loved them too much. And they loved him. It wouldn’t be ... fair. You need to keep looking.”

“It’s the eyes,” Joan said, sitting in Boychuk’s cramped office, sipping the promised cup of coffee. Boychuk wanted to hear her unvarnished thoughts, before professional language subdued her opinion in a formal report. He preferred her early gut reaction. “Always look to the eyes, my friend. For all her timid outward demeanor, Sarah Anderson tracked everything in that room.”

Joan referred to Sarah as a social savant, able to seamlessly merge into the expectations of those around her. “Don’t bother looking it up. The term doesn’t exist. It’s just my shorthand for a person who gives the viewer what they want to see and hear,” Joan said. “I don’t know about that simmer you mentioned, but she seems like a chameleon to me. I get the feeling she’ll be exactly what you need her to be to suit her purposes.”

Boychuk had dealt with more missing persons cases and grieving family members than he could count. Yet none had been as hard for him to read as Sarah Anderson. Maybe this was the reason why. If she was playing a part, he could deal with that. What mattered wasn’t the part she was playing but her reasons for playing it. Those he found hard to decipher.

“I think you’re intimidated,” Joan said.

“What do you mean?” Boychuk crossed his arms. Joan had a way of dropping uncomfortable truth bombs.

“You don’t know what to make of her because it’s obvious she isn’t missing a thing even though she puts on a pretty good doe-eyed show.”

Boychuk raised an eyebrow.

“Rob, that woman is in control. If she seems flustered, it’s because she wants you to think she’s flustered. If she seems focused, it’s because she wants you to see that. Did you notice her follow your every move? I think she already knew what she was going to hear when she walked in here today.”

Joan explained how Sarah’s body language had changed subtly when Rob walked into the room. Initially relaxed, she’d stooped slightly and dropped her head in his presence, as if slipping on a costume.

“It’s a good act, I’ll give her that. I can’t tell you whether she’s being truthful with you, but what I can tell you is you know exactly what she wants you to know.”

Boychuk took in Joan’s words, rolling the idea around a bit before he asked, “Do you think she’s capable of harming someone? And if she did do something to her husband, why fight the drowning theory?”

It was an unfair question, and Boychuk knew it. What psychologist would draw a conclusion from such little interaction with a client? Joan refused to answer directly, but she did offer him some generalized theories. “Denial is one way to explain her behavior. The mind’s unwillingness to accept a soul-crushing reality.”

Boychuk leaned back in his chair. “Too easy,” he said.

“Look, I know you cops all think it’s possible to tell when someone’s lying, but we psychologists are more subtle than that. The mind can do amazing things, make you see red when it’s blue. She may be lying or hiding something. Who knows? Or maybe she wants to believe so badly that lies seem like truth to her. I mean, that was some overly complex argumentation, aggressive eye contact. All intended to shut down questions.

“Is she telling you the whole truth? I don’t think so. Does it matter to this case? That I won’t speculate on. I’ll tell you this, though. Sarah Anderson shows some magical thinking and thought distortions. She seems to be under the impression a death-defying bargain has been struck between her husband and a river. I’d hate to think how she would react if a bargain were ever broken with that woman.”

A week after the last interview with Sarah Anderson, a manila envelope landed on Boychuk’s desk. Inside was a printout of an academic article entitled “The Powerful Role of Magical Thinking in Dealing with Grief.” Boychuk flipped through the article that detailed a small and inconclusive study out of England where subjects displayed magical beliefs in the face of complex situations—a grandmother who knit a scarf every day for twelve years because she believed it would keep her grandson safe, a man who believed a daily visit from a stray cat was preventing his cancer from coming back. None of these patients suffered from bipolar disorder or mental health issues; rather, they’d fashioned complicated bargains with some unseen force to achieve their ends. One sentence in the article was highlighted in neon yellow: “Magical beliefs and superstitious behaviors allow people to reduce the tension created by uncertainty and help fill the void of the unknown.” Two words scrawled in Jo’s handwriting at the top of the page made Boychuk snicker: Just saying!

Sarah was exhausted by the time she climbed into her car for the drive home. Sitting in the driver’s seat for the first time in weeks, she caught the faint scent of sweetgrass from Matthew’s deodorant. She caressed the steering wheel, feeling the resin, smooth as a worry stone. She remembered Matthew’s ritual: adjusting everything that could be adjusted before starting the car—the seat, the steering wheel, the mirrors. She ran her hands across all of these, claiming them.

“Can we go already?” Bella said, her voice a surgical slice.

So much sadness in a simple question. Bella sat in the back seat, her eyes locked on an open book in her lap. Charlie climbed in beside her and settled Norbert on his lap. Izzy was in her own car. The plan was to convoy to Ottawa, each leading the other out of the wilderness.

The first half hour of the drive cut through dense Canadian Shield landscape. Sarah sped past pristine lakes, intricate rock formations, and endless forest and hated all of it. The trees closed in around the road, striving to cut them off from home. Sarah pressed down on the accelerator, willing the car to outrun the hunted feeling.

“You’re speeding, Mom!” Charlie said.

Sarah glanced in the rearview mirror to see his disapproving face.

“You’re right. Thanks for catching that, buddy. I’ll slow down a little.” She aimed her words at the little furrow, hoping the worry that dogged her son would subside when they got back to the comfort of home.

“Hey, where’s Auntie Izzy?” Bella said.

“Just behind us,” Sarah said.

“No, she isn’t, Mom,” Bella elongated the o ’s, imbuing them with all the sarcasm her eight years would allow.

“What do you mean?”

In the rearview mirror, only an asphalt road surrounded by rocks and trees was reflected. The absence raised discomfort in Sarah’s shoulders. She started checking the mirror every few seconds, willing the woods and rocks to release her sister.

Since the sisters had been reunited in Patricia Bay, Sarah felt a part of herself return, even through the chaos and grief of Matthew’s disappearance. The wedge that had driven her and Izzy apart seemed smaller, almost inconsequential, in the face of everything. It hadn’t been a single moment, after all, that led to the estrangement; rather, it was old arguments that expanded into open space.

They’d initially stayed close after Sarah’s wedding. They talked every day, celebrating the big and little events in each other’s lives. When Sarah was pregnant with Bella, Izzy showed up at the door with a self-care basket, complete with coupons for massages and dinners at trendy restaurants. She took to “aunting” with unabashed gusto, finding joy and humor even in the mundane stories that Sarah shared.

Life, though, had a way of rolling over relationships. Sarah’s day-to-day was consumed with kids and work, especially after Charlie was born. She started to feel stifled by Izzy’s questions and attention. Little by little, Sarah came to see a pattern of mistrust in Izzy’s need to know the minutia of her life, especially when it came to Matthew. An old scab in their relationship became visible.

“How can you not know the name of the hotel where Matt is staying?” Izzy asked on the phone one night.

“I never know. He’s in Saskatoon. I think,” Sarah said as she wandered around the living room picking up discarded socks, abandoned toys, and what she was sure was a scoop of oatmeal from yesterday’s breakfast.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that he never tells you where he’s staying?”

“Oh God, not this again, Iz. I’m too tired to have this same argument.” Sarah had called to unload some of her exhaustion. She didn’t want to hear more about Matthew’s inadequacies according to Izzy.

“It’s hardly an argument.”

“Look, I know you worry, Iz, but this is normal. We’re busy, and thanks to the modern invention of texting, I don’t actually need to know where Matt is to reach him.”

“Well, that’s just naive.”

There was a pause while Sarah gauged how to respond to yet another of Izzy’s implications that Sarah was still a child. She had a career, a family, a home—clearly she could take care of herself.

“Fuck, Izzy. Are you ever supportive of me?”

“What are you talking about? I’m nothing but supportive.”

“Really? ’Cause last time I checked you second-guess me at every turn.”

“Sarah, you’re being ridiculous. You’re just tired.”

Maybe it was exhaustion. Or perhaps her own insecurities. Or even an age-old sibling dynamic that neither would have truly been able to escape. Whatever it was, Sarah felt a shift in that moment, a resentment that had been building for longer than she knew but was powerless to escape. “At least I can hold a marriage together,” she said—a single pellet, poisoning the well of their relationship.

“What did you just say?”

Sarah could have called it back, apologized, and moved on—she knew that Izzy’s last marriage hadn’t survived the loss of a pregnancy—but sometimes our choices do not reflect what we imagined they would be.

“You heard me,” Sarah said.

The sisters talked periodically after that, but a piece was missing. Eventually, stilted phone calls were replaced with birthday and Christmas cards as each waited on the other to apologize. Sarah had mourned the loss, but not more than she’d nursed the grudge.

“Hellooo, earth to Mom.” Bella’s mocking brought Sarah back to the car. “Now you’re going too slow.”

Sarah looked again in the rearview mirror to see Izzy’s little red Mazda, like a spot of blood against the surrounding forest. She hit the gas pedal and resolved to pay any speeding ticket she might get.