A Thief in the House of Memory Read Online Free PDF Page A

grinning mug seemed to be saying, “I’ve got a secret, kid. Can you guess what it is?”
    It was May but still chilly in the big house. Dec had avoided the place for so long. But you could cut the air with a knife back at Camelot. His father liked the quiet life and Denny Runyon had made short work of that. There had been reporters phoning at all hours for interviews — all of them denied. His father was as jittery as a jaybird. Birdie was just as bad. They wanted Dec to see a real shrink to help with the nightmares. As far as he was concerned, they were the ones who needed help.
    But that wasn’t the only reason he had come here. The place seemed alive again, somehow. Seeing her — seeing Lindy — however briefly had brought her back.
    He was about to put the cigarette package back in the drawer when a postcard caught his eye: The Fort Garry Hotel, Winnipeg. He picked it up, looked at the scrawl on the back.
    It was from his mother. There was another one under it. He had almost forgotten. And yet there had been a time when he read these two cards every day.
    Dec 7/97
    Darling Declan, There isn’t a minute goes by I don’t think of you. I know I’m the world’s worst Mom. I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going but I do know I LOVE LOVE LOVE you to bits and pieces and don’t YOU forget it. One day I’ll be able to explain but for now I’d better not make any promises I can’t keep. I’m already up to my eyeballs in those!!! Help your dad look after our little Sunshine. XOX Lindymom.
    The second postcard showed a panoramic view of Edmonton with the North Saskatchewan River snaking through it.
    March 8/98
    Darling Declan, It’s been the longest winter of my lifeand the coldest. I found some work here. Temp work in an office. I play a bit at a little coffee house sometimes. Your mommy the folk singer. My head’s a bit cooler now. Maybe because it’s just so damned cold. I hope you don’t hate me. Hah! Bet you’ve forgotten your crazy mom by now, eh? Maybe it’s all for the best. I’ll try to write more soon XOX Lindymom
    Sunny was wheeling a baby carriage around the upstairs hall. “My Babies are Fussing,” she announced. You could walk the whole way around the wide stairwell, which is what Sunny was doing, as if she were on her own private merry-go-round. She was pushing a full-sized regal blue British pram containing seven or eight dolls. “I ‘splained to them they Can’t, Can’t, Can’t be on Television.”
    Little pitchers have big ears, thought Dec.
    â€œI’ll be downstairs,” he said. He didn’t mind that she had tagged along. She could amuse herself for hours up here, and he had a feeling she needed the break as much as he did.
    He made his way to the study at the end of the front hall. It was a gentleman’s room panelled in walnut; a room of globes and framed antique maps, of masks from exotic places. It had been his grandfather’s office and his grandfather’s father’s before him and so on back five generations. They had all been judges and magistrates, members of parliament or captains of industry.
    All except Bernard. Bernard was a man of leisure, a puttererand handyman, an amateur historian and wager of tabletop wars. Whatever spark had ignited the Steeple clan had sputtered and gone out in Dec’s father.
    A mammoth mahogany desk dominated the room. On its expansive surface there was a brass lamp, an old black telephone and a faded red leather blotter. Dec’s laptop sat on the blotter looking particularly incongruous — an Apple iBook with a tangerine-coloured plastic top. Dec had some writing to do: an essay on Frank Lloyd Wright for art history.
    He made himself comfortable in the cracked leather chair, wheeled himself in close and opened the laptop. He flexed his fingers like a pianist. He had found a quotation he