There were many things Nadine loved about her apartment. The controlled rent was a big plus, as were the long windows where she used to luxuriate in the perfect sunbeam on weekend afternoons and the rare days she was home before sunset.
What she didn’t like was her familiarity with the shadows that crossed her laminate floor at three in the morning. Lately, she’d been up so often in the early hours that she could map out their patterns in her sleep.
If she could sleep.
Which she couldn’t, too consumed with worries about strange sounds outside her window and the what-ifs her body repressed during the day to release in a slow, steady whisper at night.
Nadine lay in bed, eyes squeezed shut, trying desperately not to pick up her phone. It would distract her from the fact that she wasn’t sleeping but keep her scrolling mindlessly for hours. She didn’t have hobbies anymore. She had social media.
Not for the first time, she wondered if she’d made the right choice to take the obits job. The role was a metaphorical career graveyard in the eyes of most of her colleagues, although she’d done her best to save face by emphasizing that she took it to get experience as an editor. It was better to lie than have them suspect the real reason she needed a change. No one could know she was having trouble handling the pressure of her reporting job, so the ice queen of the political team had to become Lady Death. There was a grim cyclicality to it.
When the sun was up, it was easier to pretend her new obits job was something she chose. At night, it was hard to deny the knowledge that if she hadn’t moved roles, she would have self-destructed from the stress of dealing with how her life had changed after the death threat. A forced choice was no choice at all.
She buried her face in her pillow. She could count sheep. Do a body scan. Think of beaches and waves and playful dolphins.
Or give up and get a cup of mint tea, which was relaxing despite tasting like garden scraps.
She hauled herself out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen. As her hand hovered over the box of tea bags, she caught sight of her liquor shelf. A whiskey would do more good than tea. No, a hot toddy. Her English grandmother had sworn by them, as well as a rye and ginger at five in the afternoon on the dot, a glass of wine filled to the brim when cooking and another with dinner, and then a nightcap.
Huh. Maybe Grandma had a problem. Or she was onto something.
Nadine added whiskey, honey, and lemon to some microwaved hot water, then checked her phone as a message came in from Raj, the night web editor.Hey, on the off chance you’re awake, did you hear about Dot Voline? Dead.
She read the message twice before she absorbed the words. Dot Voline was dead?
Dot Voline, the literary icon.
Dot Voline, the recluse.
Dot Voline, whose classic bookRiver’s EdgeNadine read in her twelfth grade English class. It had been late October, and the school had turned on the furnace to get ready for winter when a surprise heat wave swept over the region. The warmth pressed down on teenage Nadine until she’d propped her head in her hand to strategically shield her drooping eyelids. Her gaze had fallen on Dot Voline’s lines about love and self-knowledge, jolting her fully awake.
Then Angelika knew, with all of her thirsty heart, that there would always be doors in her life. Logan was one of them, a portal to a place she had yearned for. Yet he was not the destination. That distant landscape lay within herself and would stretch as far as she needed
For the first time, Nadine had understood words had the power to suggest thoughts she had never contemplated on her own. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say Dot Voline was part of the reason Nadine became a journalist.
And now, according to Raj, she was dead.
Corroboration was the blood of life, so Nadine took a sip of the hottoddy, squished the bear for more honey, and settled down with her laptop for some old-fashioned internet sleuthing.
The first discovery was the most convincing, a short statement from Owens and McPhail, Voline’s longtime publisher, linked from their social media.We are saddened to announce that after a long battle with cancer, world-renowned author Dot Voline has died peacefully at her home in Toronto. We mourn the loss of Canada’s first lady of letters.
Tributes poured into the social media post, the likes growing as she watched. Wasn’t anyone sleeping these days?
Nadine leaned back. The publisher said she was dead. A quick search showed Dot Voline had eschewed her own personal social media, so there would be nothing there. She chewed her lip, tasting lemon and whiskey fumes. Voline wasprobablydead, but that wasn’tfor suredead. She found the number for her contact at Owens and McPhail and called. No answer, so that wasn’t helpful. It was the same for theHerald’s arts editor. Ideally, she could get this confirmed from another party, but she was willing to bet Owens and McPhail wouldn’t make a mistake about their top author, and Voline had been ailing for years.
If Nadine had gleaned one thing from staff meetings, it was that Daniel was serious about making sure theHeraldwas first with breaking news. To be second to announce the death of a star like Dot Voline would be unforgivable, and she had already shown her belly by requesting the transfer off the politics team. She couldn’t risk any other doubts about her capabilities.
Stress mounting, she checked again. Some night owl at the exceedingly trustworthyCanadian Literary Reviewhad posted condolences. She glanced at theSpearwebsite as well as a few other competitors. There was nothing yet, but it was only a matter of time.
Thanks to the modern office’s lack of boundaries between work and home life under the guise of flexibility, Nadine could access theHerald’s content platform from anywhere in the world, including her kitchen counter. She was sure she’d seen Voline’s file when she’d scanned theadvance obituaries with a mix of professional and morbid curiosity, wanting to know whose lives Tom had found necessary to write up before the big event.
There it was, Dot Voline’s life compacted into 2,178 words, with a photo of her receiving her first Governor General’s Award. The obit was fine. All she had to do was add the date and cause of death, currently held withTKTKTK.
To come. To come. To come.Like death comes for us all.
Nadine paced around the counter. Back on social media, comments and condolences continued on the Owens and McPhail post, complete with replies acknowledging the more important commentators. It was only midnight on the West Coast, meaning the British Columbia media might scoop her. Breathing in slowly through her nose and out through her mouth, Nadine checked theHerald’s own social media pages, then stopped breathing altogether as she read the comments. Why hadn’t theHeraldposted the story? Was theHeraldagainst Dot Voline? Against literature? Were women writers less worthy of respect? This was unacceptable. Were they againstCanada?
She considered calling Daniel but wavered. Her gut said she should, but if she came running to him for guidance on every little thing, she would erode any faith he had left in her. She looked at his contact on her phone, and her chest tightened. The story was good, and it was important to be first. She had to trust herself to make the right choice and show him she was confident in her judgment.