EDWARD WALKED ACROSS THE parking lot trying to juggle the rolled-up Chronicle and flowers in one arm, and his briefcase and a package of baby bottles in the other. He smelled the medley of flowers that Nadia had ordered for him from the boutique and was pleased with her choice.
Before leaving KemKor, he had called Grynberg Laboratories and spoken to Irving about the viability of his idea of collecting downstream samples; he conveyed that he already had effluent scrapings. Irving held out greater hope for substance identification from the scrapings than from any water samples and added that if Edward insisted on water samples, they must be taken no later than today. He suggested that baby bottles would be excellent sample collectors for the job. Throughout their conversation, Irving repeated several times that he didn’t hold out much hope for the water samples. Edward had listened patiently to Irving, thanked him and politely hung up. Believing in the long shot, Edward went ahead and bought the baby bottles anyway.
He opened the door to his Wrangler and placed his briefcase and package of bottles on the backseat. His attention briefly fixed on the package of baby bottles, and he wondered what it would have been like to be a father. Shutting the door, he went around to the driver’s side and climbed in, carefully placing the flowers alongside the newspaper containing the photos he was interested in learning more about. He had already decided that his visitation to the Chronicle would have to wait until later this week or next.
John Elkhart had phoned just before Edward had left his office. According to John, the lab technicians had already taken samples from the effluent taps, and Chris Stedman had reconnoitered Building 3C, both outside and inside, and had found nothing out of the ordinary. When Edward had asked John when the surveillance cameras around Building 3C had been activated, he had been told that it had occurred shortly after they last spoke. Edward had found that answer more than a little disconcerting, since fifteen to twenty minutes after they had last spoken, the cameras had still been down. To Edward, it was starting to sound as phony as John’s dyed blond hair. None of it made sense to him since, within the time frame John had told him, he should have passed Stedman and the technicians when he had headed back to his office with his effluent scrapings.
Edward popped in the CD Body and Soul and drove out of the parking lot and past the guardhouse, turning sharply onto Main Street. The classic voice of Tony Bennett in duet with Amy Winehouse filled the Wrangler, and softened the hardship of his day, if only slightly.
The traffic lights ahead turned red, and he came to a stop. Until a month ago there was only one set of lights in Markdale, at the intersection of Main and Toronto Streets. Then City Council decided there was a need for this second set and, it seemed, no matter the time of day, he always got the red light; today was no exception. Casually he glanced around, impatiently drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for this interminably time-wasting traffic light to turn green. He was distracted by the sales advertisement on the Home Hardware window when a loud pounding sound on his hood startled him. The McAlistair brood of two boys and four girls were peering back at him, making an assortment of contorted faces while using the hood of his vehicle as a set of bongo drums. Their mother, Susan, tried with some difficulty to shoo them off. The same age as Edward, her stunning youthfulness was accented by her auburn, shoulder-length hair and contoured clothing. Though crying on the inside, he mustered up a smile. Karen and Susan had been close friends, and he felt obligated to put up a good front. He rolled down his window and called out to her. “Hey, Susan! What have those sweet muffins of yours got you roped into now?”
Emma, Susan’s youngest, turned and stuck her tongue out at Edward and began to giggle. The others joined in. The mirth in this moment momentarily assuaged Edward’s troubled thoughts, and he joined in by sticking his thumbs in his ears and wagging his hands, emulating their gestures.
“Survival, Eddy,” Susan called back, pointing to the Ritchie’s ice cream sign in the window of Sweets ’n’ Stuff, designed like a late-19th-century ice cream parlour. “When are you comin’ over?” she asked as she busily ensured her children reached the sidewalk safely. “Mo and I haven’t seen ya for a while. You haven’t forgotten about that horse, have ya?” Mo was the abbreviated name she called her husband, Morris.
Actually, he had forgotten. Two weeks ago, he had promised to stop by to inspect the horse they had for sale. “Of course, I haven’t forgotten! I’ll phone you early next week.”
“Eddy, are you okay? I know today can’t be easy for you …” Edward shrugged and mustered up a half smile. “Why don’t you drop by for supper tonight? We haven’t seen you for a while, and it would do Mo good to have ya around.”
“Let me take a rain check on that, Susan. But I will drop by soon.”
“Okay, Eddy, I understand.”
“I’d better get movin’,” he yelled back, pointing at the light, which had just turned green.
He continued along Main Street toward Barr Road and home. He glanced into his rear-view mirror and smiled as the last McAlistair child entered Sweets ’n’ Stuff, followed by Susan. His hand reached out to the flowers beside him as he passed by the Barrhead Sports Bar and Grill tucked away at the bend of the Barr Road. It had been a location he and Karen had frequented most Friday nights shortly after he took the position at KemKor.
Rolling hills and thirsty acres of farmland filled his route in a dusty grey hue. Pesky twitch grass and weeds, the only green vegetation, flourished. The tall grass at the side of the road suddenly parted, and a groundhog scurried across in front of him. Edward hit his brakes and swerved his Wrangler to miss it, causing the vehicle to fishtail on the gravel before coming to a stop. While catching his breath, he watched the groundhog scurry, unharmed, into the opposing ditch before disappearing into its burrow at the base of an old, dead maple tree. Placing his car in park, he rested his arms across the steering wheel and stared out the window, tears streaming down his cheeks.
In a mangled heap, lying on the floor, were the flowers.