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BOOK: The Best Kind of People

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Every time she had that thought, though, she’d remember the girls in the courtroom and Sarah Myers sunbathing on the pavement of their apartment building, and the rage would return. Clara created a dating profile for her online, and she went on some dates, but she found it too hard to trust people. She missed having a partner, a best friend, so much. Weekends felt unbearably long, and she often took extra shifts at work.

She’d watched Andrew grow colder, more caustic, visiting Avalon Hills less than he had before, and rarely speaking to his father. Jared moved out because Andrew’s moods were out of control, something she only learned from Jared. She’d been posting things on his Facebook, inviting him to come for dinner, and he finally had to let her know.

She called Sadie every Sunday, and she heard the revelry of dorm life in the background. Sadie sent her an email telling her how she was trying to forget the last year of high school and move on
.
“I’m working so hard, Mom, but there was an ease with which I used to learn and it is not so easy anymore, to concentrate and to have perspective, to think critically, and engage. My professors have all said the same thing, that my anxiety seems to be a barrier. I’ve gone to the counselling centre here, but haven’t found a good fit.” The one good thing that had come out of everything was that Joan felt closer to Sadie than ever before, and watching her grow into an adult felt like a blessing. She’d changed her major to Gender Studies. She’d cut her hair short and started lecturing Joan on the phone about all sorts of things. Joan remembered that age, feeling like you know everything. Every time it felt annoying, Joan reminded herself that she was happy to hear Sadie engaged with life again, finding meaning and purpose.

George called Joan relentlessly, trying to reconcile, and sometimes she answered but mostly she did not. When Sadie and Andrew did come home, they would all meet and go out for lunch and it would feel like torture, like getting to visit the life you wanted and had expected to have. George spoke and acted the same way he always had, but Joan’s perception of him had shifted so radically she felt as though she’d experienced some sort of brain injury.

The town seemed to have collective amnesia. It was only on rare occasions that women were even slightly cold towards George, and he usually won them over with his relentless charm. His friendships seemed unaltered. The only real difference was that he was no longer employed at Avalon Hills prep; but he was almost at retirement age anyway, so it didn’t seem all that unusual to outsiders. He even kept in touch with his former fellow inmates, some of whom he continued to tutor in jail.

Everyone in the family had changed significantly, except George, who often
told
them how he felt he had changed. He seemed confident that his family would come back to him, and that Joan would return. And one particularly lonely week the following November, when the skies darkened early and the cold was damp and endless, she did.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I AM GRATEFUL
for the funding this book received from the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Thank you to the Writer’s Trust of Canada, my agent Samantha Haywood, publisher Sarah MacLachlan, editor Janice Zawerbny, and the publicity team at House of Anansi Press.

For editorial help on early drafts, I am grateful to Michael Schellenberg, Heather Cromarty, Andrea Ridgley, Marcilyn Cianfarani, Chase Joynt, Tom Leger, Jake Pyne, Will Scott, Ange Holmes, and Lisa Foad.

Special thanks to the anonymous folks who answered my questions about what it’s like to have family members in prison and/or be related to a sex offender.

Z
OE
W
HITTALL
is the author of
The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life
(2001),
The Emily Valentine Poems
(2006), and
Precordial Thump
(2008), and the editor of
Geeks, Misfits, & Outlaws
(2003). Her debut novel
Bottle Rocket Hearts
(2007) made the
Globe and Mail
Top 100 Books of the Year and
CBC
Canada Reads’ Top Ten Essential Novels of the Decade. Her second novel
Holding Still for as Long as Possible
(2009) won a Lambda Literary Award and was an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book. She won the K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Literature in 2016. Her writing has appeared in the
Walrus
, the
Believer
, the
Globe and Mail
, the
National Post
,
Fashion
, and more. She has also worked as a writer and story editor on the
TV
shows
Degrassi
,
Schitt’s Creek
, and the
Baroness von Sketch Show
. Born in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, she has an
MFA
from the University of Guelph and lives in Toronto.

H
OUSE OF
A
NANSI
P
RESS
was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi’s commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada’s pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”

Table of Contents

The Best Kind of People

Prologue

Part One