Who was sorry? She. Tye.

Tye carried on with his life, as did she. The last time Addie phoned, a woman answered. For heaven’s sake, she told herself. That could have been the voice of a neighbour, friend, cleaning woman, landlady. And so what if someone else lives with him now? Is that my business? Qui va à la chasse perd sa place. Move your feet, lose your seat.

Addie had dated a man named Henrik after her split with Tye, but briefly. Henrik told her he was a scientist and had to leave the city during the summer, to conduct fieldwork. His project at the time was to determine the population of mice in certain wooded areas. So he went off to do his fieldwork counting mice, taking an assistant with him. He carefully explained the procedure to Addie before he departed. He and his assistant spread peanut butter on small plywood boards that were then set on the ground around trees and undergrowth in a given area. A day later, the two returned, collected the boards and counted tiny turds so they could estimate the population and tabulate results. The woods were divided into sections, and each of these had to be accounted for, given the known range of the movement of mice.

Addie learned that peanut-butter-smeared boards weren’t the only ones Henrik set out. After another absence from the city, he confessed that he was a Stompin’ Tom Connors fan and made stompin’ boards from plywood, and then—uninvited—presented the planed and polished boards to the singer at his dressing-room door. That is, if Tom happened to have a dressing room. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes the stompin’ board was presented before, sometimes after a performance. Henrik was a one-person groupie.

Their relationship ended fairly quickly. She’d confessed to Sybil that she couldn’t deal with the obsessions of Henrik, whom she’d begun to think of as Plywood Man.

Now, after several years of separation, Addie still dreamed of Tye. In the most recent dream, her father had entered from the side, knowing she was upset but unable to comfort her directly. He stood with shoulders drooped, wearing slippers, a kind of shuffling position. Not at all the way she pictured her energetic father in Spain. In the dream, he would not or could not face her directly. She knew that he cared for her and Tye, and that he was sorry the marriage had not survived. The morning after the dream, she phoned her father in Sitges but didn’t mention Tye or the dream. Had she done so, her father might have thought she was losing control.

Control was necessary, yes. She’d learned control long ago from her capable mother. Addie had inherited the caregiving role. It had definitely been passed on through the genes. But what was she to tell the Tuesday night group about Sybil?

Nothing, she decided. For the moment, she had enough to face on her own.

Backroom at Cassie’s

Before the discussion started, they purchased drinks in the main part of the café—group decision—and carried them to the backroom. This week, there was an air of familiarity, the mood slightly jovial. Perhaps, in part, because of the extra person. At the second meeting, Tom had mentioned a friend who might be joining, and he’d been encouraged to bring him along.