Read Online The Boy by Betty Jane Hegerat - Free Book Online Page B

trips. Louise squints at them, trying to find a likeness to the petite blonde woman in the photos she’s seen of Jake’s first wife, but it must have been Brenda herself who was the snapper of pictures.
    Louise glances at the empty street periodically, stands up twice to walk down into the front garden and look around the side of the house, but there’s no sign of Danny. Almost to the bottom of the box, and about to re-pack the mementoes as carefully as she found them, she pulls out a yellowed scrapbook. The first five pages bristle with newspaper clippings, the rest of the book is empty. A series of articles from the Edmonton Sun , starting February 26, 1984, ending March 5, 1984. A chronicle of a crime. “The Bobby Cook Story: Part One. Did we hang the wrong man?”
    She stares at the photo of a young, bare-chested man against a brick wall. Unshaven, muscular, arms held away from his body, he looks slightly brutish. “Bobby Cook: Was he innocent?” the caption asks.
    â€œIt was a quiet Sunday in June, 1959 when Mounties discovered seven mutilated, blood-spattered, decomposing bodies in a grease pit in the Cook home at Stettler. The victims were identified as Bobby’s father, Ray Cook, 53, his step-mother, Daisy, 37, and Bobby’s five step-brothers and sisters, aged between three and nine.”
    Louise lets the scrapbook slide from her lap. What kind of morbid interest possessed Brenda to keep these clippings? People she knew? But 1959? The articles were written twenty-five years after the crime, and must have been in Brenda’s keeping, then in Jake’s for the next ten years. She picks the book up again, and flips through the pages. The last article: “The Bobby Cook Story 25 Years Later. Some Doubts Remain.” A photo of a gravestone. Seven names. Ever Remembered, Ever Loved.
    She will ask Jake about this. Forget taping the box shut and pretending she didn’t snoop. An innocent enough mistake to open a box accidentally—she’ll admit that she was driven by curiosity, apologize for trespassing, ask him what this is about.
    The breeze is picking up now, gusts rattling the leaves of the honeysuckle against the screen. The old Fahrenheit thermometer tacked to the doorframe reads eighty-five degrees. Jake tried to teach her the formula for converting back
to Celsius, but the pregnancy has reduced her brain to a bowl of mush. “Forget it,” she finally says. “It’s just bloody hot.”
    Coal-coloured clouds are piling up in the west, and there is the scent of ozone on the wind. She pushes the boxes against the wall. She needs to put her feet up again—should have done so an hour ago. These past two days, even elevating hasn’t reduced the swelling in her ankles. It feels like there are donut-shaped cushions straining under the tight skin.
    Louise wanders in to the deep shade of the living room. She settles into Jake’s recliner, facing the window. It’s been several hours since she felt the baby move. The gigantic maternity t-shirt is limp from the heat. She slides her hands underneath and rests them on her belly, fingertips gently tapping. Usually, this caress wakes the babe, but this time there is no answering flutter.
    When she closes her eyes, she senses a flicker of movement on the other side of the room. Opens them, and the curtains are swaying. On the second window, just a foot away, the old lace panels hang slack.
    Breathe, she whispers to herself. Get up slowly. But even so, the room spins around her, and she bends over, grabs the edge of the table, takes a deep breath. Another breath, and the whirling stops.
    Another three weeks in this swollen state. She’s scheduled for induced labour if the baby hasn’t arrived by then. Or a C-section at any time, if her blood pressure spikes again. She plods to the other side of the room. When she leans across the sewing machine to press her face to the screen, to look out at