Page 4 of Who We Think We Are

T he next morning, while Kate works alongside Liling and Chun, her cell phone buzzes. The caller ID says Kelli. Before she answers, Kate tells Liling and Chun, “It’s my daughter! I’ll be back in a while.”

“Hi, pet.” Kate grabs her cup of tea and walks out to the garden. “How are things at school now that you’re a grown-up, sophisticated university student?”

“Good so far, Mom. Thanks for the over-the-top care package! Paige told me about your epic care packages, but I had no idea! Amanda says thank you, too.”

“You’re welcome, sweetheart. I just want you to be comfortable. Are you all settled into your dorm?”

“Not quite. It’s only been a day. How are things there?”

“Fine.” Kate sips her tea.

“Dad texted me that he’s golfing in Edmonton today. He was supposed to be working from home and staying with you for a few weeks.”

Damn it, Jake! He shouldn’t be dragging the kids into our squabble. “Dad needs to be in Edmonton for work, honey. We had a tiff, so he left a day early, that’s all.” Kate stands and starts to deadhead flowers.

“OK, I get it, Mom. You don’t want to talk about it. That’s fine. I don’t really want to talk about it either.

“Hey, I got a letter from you requesting releases of information for all my professors. You did that all the way from kindergarten to graduation. I thought once I hit university, that would be over.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, dear. I just need to be able to contact your professors to see what’s going on if your grades start slipping. I need to be able to help you.”

“You could always ask me how I’m doing. But fine. I plan on doing well, so you won’t ever have to pull that card.”

“That’s the way, Kelli. Do it for yourself. This is just a backup plan.”

“OK, Mom. I love you. I’ve gotta go. Thanks again for the care package!”

“I love you too, pet,” Kate says, but Kelli has already hung up. “I am going to have to teach that girl some manners.”

When Kate gets off the phone, she checks in with Liling and Chun to see how they’re doing. Liling says, “Suze dropped Coco off from her sleepover.”

“I can see that!” Kate laughs because Coco is jumping all over her.

“You two are doing great. I’m going to take Coco for a walk. I’ll be home in a few hours. You should be almost done by then. If you’re hungry, help yourself to anything in the fridge. There’s still plenty from yesterday’s lunch.”

Kate walks Coco for fifteen minutes through old, established neighborhoods with beautiful homes and yards to get to Jericho Beach, their favorite.

It’s a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky, the mountains are clear, and the sun glints off the high-rises of downtown and sparkles like diamonds on the blue water of English Bay.

This clean beauty only exists in Vancouver.

After throwing a ball for a while, Kate and Coco enjoy sitting on the sunbaked sand.

It’s the first time Kate has felt any peace for the past few days.

When Kate gets home a few hours later, Liling and Chun are just finishing up. She pays them, and as they leave, Chun says, “There was a sealed envelope in one of the boxes with your first name on it, so we didn’t open it. I left it on the big table.”

“OK, thanks, Chun. GG must have left me a note. Have a good rest of your weekend. Thanks so much!”

When Kate walks into the dining room, she sees the envelope. It’s not from GG. She would recognize the handwriting of her dead first husband anywhere.

Oh God, what does Bradley Owens have to say? Whatever it is, I don’t care. I’m not reading it. He’s been dead for sixteen years. I do not have to do anything he wants.

Kate reads some of GG’s Holocaust letters on her laptop at the kitchen nook, stares blankly out at the garden, heats up the rest of the leftovers, sits outside to eat, and does a load of laundry.

But as she walks around the house doing these things, every time she walks by the dining room, she sees the letter from her dead husband on GG’s table.

Haunting her. Taunting her. Coco follows her from room to room, tail drooping.

By early evening, Kate knows she won’t rest until she reads his letter.

Avoidance doesn’t solve anything. That’s one thing she learned from him.

Standing at GG’s table, she picks up the envelope and rips it open.

Inside is a single sheet, typed. Her hands are shaking.

She’s annoyed that he can still have that effect on her.

Kate unfolds the sheet of paper and reads it.

3/15/99

Kate:

When you finally get around to going through these boxes, you’ll find this letter, and I’ll be long gone.

You may not see it this way, but I’m doing you a favor.

I have planned my death meticulously for two years.

All except Kelli being born. That part I didn’t plan.

I do feel sorry about that, but I’m not letting it derail me.

Paige will have to split her college funds with her. There’s enough.

When we bought life insurance, I checked the plan very carefully. It would not be payable if a) death was caused by suicide or b) if death occurred within a year after the policy was purchased. So, I waited until today. There’s a certain elegance to dying on your birthday, don’t you think?

Later this morning, I will die in a single-car accident on the Sea to Sky Highway on my way to “go on a hike.” I’ve driven that highway dozens of times over the past few years and have chosen my spot intentionally.

Driving a little too fast around a curve and, oops, you fly over the embankment and crash into the rocks below.

How tragic! I am making very sure that it will look like an accident and that no one else gets injured.

I wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone, least of all you.

I know you, Kate. You don’t think I do, but you are so predictable.

I’m counting on that. You’ll buy your great-grandmother’s house with the insurance money and use the rest to send the kids to university.

I want to make sure they’re OK. Unfortunately, that means you, too.

In a year or two, you’ll find another man to control, and you will live out your miserable life.

Good luck to him. I just can’t do it anymore. I’ve hung on longer than I wanted to. I’ve done my best to make sure the kids are taken care of and that my death looks like an accident. But I want you to know it wasn’t. I want you to know you drove me to this. And one more thing:

I h8 K8.

Bradley

“Well, you found a way to have the last word, didn’t you, you contemptible fucking bastard!

” yells Kate. I knew in my gut his accident was a suicide, but he found a way to make me always wonder and then stick it to me one last time.

Kate takes a picture of the letter, tears it into tiny pieces, and burns it in the fireplace.

No one will ever see this. The kids don’t need the trauma; Jake and Mother will hold it against me, and it isn’t anybody’s business .

Kate doesn’t know what to do with herself.

She starts to dig in the garden, which usually brings her satisfaction, but not today.

She tries to bake banana bread with the rotten bananas in her fruit bowl but doesn’t have the patience.

She has to talk to someone. Suze is the only one she trusts with this, so she calls her: “I need to talk.”

“I’ll be right over. Make us a drink. And from the sound of your voice, make yours a double.”

Kate makes Suze and herself a dark and stormy—spiced rum and ginger beer with lots of ice. It fits her mood. Obeying Suze, she makes hers a double. A few minutes later, when Suze rushes into the house, Kate is in the garden, sipping on her drink. Coco has planted herself firmly on Kate’s lap.

“What happened?” asks Suze.

Wordlessly, Kate hands Suze her phone. As Suze reads the suicide note, she makes comments like, “What the …?” “No way!” and “What a monster!”

“You knew. You just couldn’t prove it.” Suze takes her first sip of her drink. “Mmmm, this is good.”

“And now I know for sure.”

“I don’t know what to say, Kate. I’m so sorry. He was abusive when he was alive, and he found a way to be abusive years after he’s dead. That takes some special talent.”

“Why couldn’t he just ask me for a divorce? People get divorced all the time. I would have agreed. He was getting so mean.”

“Because he was abusive, Kate. He’d been drinking more and he’d threatened suicide before, right?”

“Yeah. I should have taken his threats more seriously. If I had, the girls would still have their father.”

“Remember that course I took on domestic violence when I was a social worker? I learned that drinking and threatening suicide are connected and that, sometimes, perpetrators commit suicide as a form of violence. It’s more common than you’d think.”

“He was right about a few things.” Kate finishes her drink.

“What? That you used the insurance money to buy GG’s house and put the kids through college? Of course you did. Cuz you’re smart, and you care about your children.”

“That, and I met Jake within a year, and I control him.” Kate and Jake had met through friends, hit it off instantly, and got married within six months.

“Jake loves you, Kate. He adopted your girls and loves them as his own. He raised them better than fucking Owens ever could have. All out of love. Sometimes, I think you forget Jake’s not your first husband.

Your anger at Jake really belongs to that son of a bitch.

I know you two have some challenges. Anne and I do, too.

You think a marriage between a black Christian woman and a white Jewish woman is easy? ”

When Suze and Anne decided to have a child, after many discussions, they had a commitment ceremony, and Anne got pregnant with Esther using a white Jewish sperm donor.

In 2005, when gay marriage became legal, they got married, and Esther was their flower girl.

“We all have challenges and things we have to navigate.”

“You two have done so well with those compromises, which I suck at. I’m too controlling. At least that’s what Jake and the girls tell me.”

“Well, I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass and tell you that you aren’t. It’s your primary survival mechanism.”

“My what?”

“Growing up with your mother and the chaos and destruction she created, you had to control to survive. You didn’t have a choice.”

“Luella was always falling apart and didn’t want to be a mother.

And if it weren’t for me, she’d have a wonderful life.

” Kate crunches on her ice. “Someone had to cook, clean, and run the household, and that was me. That’s probably why I hate to do it now.

My dad didn’t know what to do. He appeased and pampered her, just like he does now. He never once stood up for me.”

“Except when he let you go and live with GG, Grandad, and Oma.”

Kate gets up and starts pacing. “I don’t know what I’d be like if I hadn’t moved in with them. Thank God they never made me move back in with her.

“Later, after I married Bradley Owens, he and Luella had many a laugh at my expense.”

“My point exactly. But remember, Kate, you’re not in your mother’s house or that marriage anymore. You got out.”

“You’re right. Thanks, counselor. What do I owe you?”

“One more dark and stormy. Light on the rum. I have to drive.”

“OK, coming right up. One more thing, though, Suze. You’re the only person I’m telling about the suicide note.”

“It’s in the vault.”