Shipwreck
Authors: Maureen Jennings
MAUREEN JENNINGS
Shipwreck
Grass Roots Press
Copyright © 2010 Maureen Jennings
First published in 2010 by Grass Roots Press
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
The Good Reads series is funded in part by the Government of Canada’s Office of Literacy and Essential Skills.
Grass Roots Press also gratefully acknowledges the financial support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
Grass Roots Press would also like to thank ABC Life Literacy Canada for their support. Good Reads® is used under licence from ABC Life Literacy Canada.
(A Detective Murdoch mystery)
(Good reads series)
Print ISBN: 978-1-926583-26-6
ePub ISBN: 978-1-926583-52-5
Distributed to libraries and educational and community organizations by
Grass Roots Press
Distributed to retail outlets by
HarperCollins Canada Ltd.
For Iden Ford, as ever, and for Yannick Bisson, who is such a wonderful Murdoch
Chapter One
Bill Murdoch had retired from the police department almost a year earlier, but he wasn’t enjoying himself. His wife, Julie, had died just before he was to retire, and he was still grieving for her. They had all sorts of plans to travel abroad. He’d even agreed to take a cruise to Alaska. Now, with her gone, he had no desire to go anywhere.
Julie’s death was so sudden. It had happened one week before Christmas. Like many long-married couples, they had their routines. He would get up at six, shower, and have his coffee and bran cereal. When he heard Julie stir, he always made a fresh pot of tea and put in some bread to toast. That particular morning, he didn’t hear her. She had complained of being out of sorts the night before, and he thought she might be sleeping in.
He never liked to leave without a kiss, so he went upstairs. When he was partway up, he heard an awful thump. He raced the rest of the way to the bedroom. He found her lying half out of bed, her head touching the floor. He rushed over, but he’d seen death before. He knew that she was already dead. It turned out that a clot of blood had gone to her heart, and it had killed her instantly.
He had spent the next months in a state of shock. The police chief suggested that he retire, as he was so close to retirement anyway. So he did, but he only found himself walking from room to room in the house, feeling lost and alone. He and Julie had lived there for over thirty years. He’d lost his purpose. His friends did their best, but nothing could replace his wife. He stopped answering the phone and refused all invitations. Bill was the kind of man who didn’t share his feelings easily.
He and Julie had one daughter, Wendy, who had a child. Amy was six years old, the only grandchild, and she was the apple of Bill’s eye. She was the one person he didn’t cut out of his life after Julie died. He would have liked to have seen more of Wendy, but she was always busy. She was a single mom. She and Keith, her husband, had parted ways about two years before. Wendy was a producer in a film company, and she worked long hours. She had to juggle the duties of her work and the duties of being a mom.
After Julie’s death, Bill’s doctor had talked Bill into joining a grief support group. Nice bunch of people, as it turned out. Ten, all told. Only two of them were widowers, men who had lost their wives. The rest were women, mothers and wives for the most part. The leader of the group was a lively young woman named Karen. She was kind, but she refused to let the group members live within their misery for long.
“Life is precious,” she said. “We can’t waste it. Those we have loved wouldn’t want us to.”
Bill challenged her when she said that. “You are too young to understand real loss.”
“That’s not true,” she said. “When I was twelve years old, my entire family was killed. My mother and father and my two sisters. They were coming to see me perform in a school concert. A drunk driver side-swiped them. All of them were killed instantly.”
“I’m so sorry, Karen,” said Bill. “Forgive me for my comment. I didn’t know. You seem so cheerful all the time.”
“Oh, I still cry on a regular basis. But as I said, we owe it to those who loved us to keep living as well as we can.”
Bill knew she was right about that. Julie’s zest for life had kept him going through many a dark period. She was like one of those trees with deep roots. No matter how hard the wind blew, she just bent and swayed with its force. She didn’t break. That’s why her death was so shocking. He’d never dreamed she would be the one to go first.
Karen told all the group members to buy notebooks. She asked them to start writing down what they remembered about the person they had lost. It was a healing exercise, she said. Bill had doubts at first, but again, she was right. He found he enjoyed writing. All sorts of memories came back to him about the long life he and Julie had had together. The group members shared their writing every week, and those Friday afternoons were the best he’d had for a long time.
At the end of the grief support course, Karen took Bill aside. “Don’t stop writing, Bill,” she said. “You should write down all your family memories. They are a wonderful gift to leave to your daughter and grandchild.”
“I’m not sure how interested my daughter, Wendy, is.”
“I bet she will be interested once you show your stories to her.”
“Where would I start?”
“Go back as far as you like. You told us that all the men in your family have been police officers, right back to your great-grandfather. Why do you think he chose to join the police force?”
“Good question. The pay was poor and the hours were long. But something made him stick it out, and he became a detective. I have a photograph of him from 1895. He looks like a good person.”