Prudence is still explaining the extent of this betrayal. “When Iconfide in you, it’sconfidential. Itold you not to tell anyone, and especially not Grace. This is tough for her. Iknow it is.”
“But Ididn’ttell Grace,” says Clemence. She never tells Grace anything. She shouldn’t even speak to Grace, because look where it gets her. “She already knew—Mom told her. It’s Mom you shouldn’t have confided in.”
“But Mom wasn’t the one who told Grace that Ididn’t want this baby. You made me soundcallous, Clemence. That was never what Isaid.”
“And Inever told her that,” says Clemence. “Iknowyou’re not callous. Iwould never have said anything at all, but she just got me on the phone, and Ithought everything was all out in the open. Imisjudged. And I’m sorry.” She’d said it twice. And she was sorry. But she also needed this to be over. “And you know how she twists things.”
“Ido,” says Prudence, after a pause. So they’re on the same side again. “Maybe Ioverreacted.” Clemence lets this stand. “I’m actually looking forward to it, you know. This baby. One more go-around. Sandro says he’s getting a vasectomy. He said our fertility awareness is lacking.”
“He’s not wrong.”
“And he mentioned it to his doctor, who asked him if he was really sure. She told Sandro to think of any future partners and what they might want.”
“How many families is Sandro going to have?” asks Clemence.
“He’s determined that ours will be his final one. He says any future partners will have to lump it. That they’ll probably be busy wrangling the scads of children I’ve born to him, anyway.”
“And where will you be?” asks Clemence.
“Hopefully sipping a stiff drink on a tropical island. Anyway, Isuppose you’ll want to know about this editing job …”
And for the sake of family harmony, Clemence pretends not to know what her sister is talking about as she scrambles for a pen and paper to write down the details.
Fifteen
Clemence dreams about Toby, about his lips, and in the dream those lips do more than just receive her fleeting kiss, and when she wakes up in the morning, she’s unable to distinguish between Toby in reality and everything that happened in her head, which is confusing and embarrassing. She knows that when she sees him, she will blush, and any discerning person will be able to tell that something’s going on, and luckily Toby isn’t discerning in the slightest, but this doesn’t make Clemence feel any more confident about the matter.
She meets Jillian in High Park and they go for a walk. Jillian’s is the kind of lifestyle in which the suffix “power” gets applied to various items and activities, including juices, lifting, brokering, and yes, walking, and so Clemence finds herself chasing her friend up and down the hiking trails. She has worn inappropriate shoes, flimsy slip-ons, which make her heels hurt, but she doesn’tcomplain, because Jillian has made time for this in her busy day, time for friendship and physical fitness. Jillian is also clearly in much better shape than Clemence, because she doesn’t get winded at all.
“Ithink you’ve gotten off track,” she calls out over her shoulder, moving a tree branch that snaps back and hits Clemence in the face. “Ithought the point of all this was to forget about men, to be your own centre. To fill your life with other things—that’s what you said. Aspiritual pilgrimage. But you’re acting as silly as a schoolgirl. No offence.”
There is none taken. Jillian is right. And now they’ve arrived at a rock face, and Clemence’s heart falls at the premise of having to scale it, because even in the right shoes, it would have been impossible, but luckily there is another path that winds around it, and Clemence follows her friend along that trail.
“Ithink Iwas confused,” says Clemence, “about the difference between going off one man and going off all men in general. I’d forgotten there were men who aren’t Toad. And I’d forgotten what it felt like to lust after those men. To feel that tension. The anticipation of a kiss. Jillian, it’s fun. It’s like my soul has come back to life. Do you know what a relief that is? Do you know that I’ve been masturbating so much that I’ve triggered my carpal tunnel?”
“Is that good news?” asks Jillian.
“Ithink so.”
“Iknow a good physiotherapist.”
“It’s not desperate yet. Ibought a brace at the drug store. It might also be my office set-up. The kitchen tablein my place is not exactly ergonomic, and I’ve got this new editing project.”
“Love poems.”
“They’re pretty erotic,” says Clemence. “Sometimes Iwonder if everyone affiliated with Sandro is a sexual deviant. Let’s just say Ihave to take lots of breaks.”
“Clemence!” Jillian hurls a pinecone at her head, and it hurts. “You’re making me uncomfortable.” But Jillian brings it out in Clemence, with her straitlacedness and unflappability. Sometimes Clemence wants to make Jillian flap. It’s not healthy to keep so much pent up inside.
And maybe Jillian agrees, because she almost explodes with the following sentence: “I’m having an affair with my therapist.” These woods are empty and expansive, and Jillian’s exclamation echoes on the breeze.
“What?” Clemence feels displaced. She’s supposed to be the outlandish one. She had been on the cusp of disclosing that Toad is trying to get in touch—his familiar number lit up on her phone yesterday, and she’d felt a dread so potent and familiar that it felt like being married to him—but she’s refusing to answer his calls. “You have a therapist?” Clemence is not being funny—this is the greatest surprise of her friend’s revelation. “And isn’t that wildly inappropriate?”
“You’re not the only one who gets to have a shadow side.” And then Jillian charges away into a thicket.
Clemence follows, getting burrs stuck all over her cardigan, and probably in her hair. During this whole outing, she’d felt like Jillian was trying to get away from her, and now she realizes she wasn’t wrong. But whenshe finally reaches her friend, Jillian has stopped moving, perched on a big rock under a maple tree. Looking up, Clemence sees that the leaves are beginning to turn.
Jillian is crying. Clemence sits down beside her and tentatively moves close enough to put her arms around her. Jillian has never been touchy-feely, but she consents to this, collapsing in Clemence’s embrace. She says, “It’s so fucked up. Iknow it’s so fucked up. And nobody knows, except Jeremy.”
