FOR NAVIGATIONAL assistance through this latest tidal wave of guilt, I call Amanda and she joins Sasha, Sven and I at the dog park. I tell her that Tom and I will be in Ottawa together for the national memorial service.

She throws the ball and Sasha races after it. “The future must seem pretty daunting on your own,” she says finally.

“I’m OK.”

Amanda smiles. “Oh, I know you are. But I just wonder if deep down, you’re worried about your future—and the idea of one with Tom makes you feel better. And if so, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

I let out a snort. “Except that it’s not real.”

“It is to you. I mean, it’s where you’re at right now.”

“Did you know the memorial service for fallen officers coincides with the one-year anniversary of Sam’s death?”

“No,” she says. “But that makes sense because September 29th is St. Michael’s Day and since he’s the patron saint of police officers, that’s probably why they hold the national memorial service then.”

“And Sam just happening to die on St. Michael’s Day is…what?”

“Very odd.”

I throw up my hands. “Then why am I the only person who questions this stuff?”

“You’re not.” She tosses the ball again and Sasha chases it. Sven charges her on her way back and the two of them tussle in the long grass. “I told my sister-in-law about Sam’s dream—the one where you cheated on him.”

I turn to her. “I thought we came to the conclusion that Sam was worried I would betray my own self by having a baby before I got my book published?”

“There might be more than one meaning,” she replies, “because apparently when you dream you’re being cheated on, that means the person cheating on you is going to be honouring you in the near future.”

“That’s not what Sam got out of the dream.”

Amanda smiles. “I asked about that too. My sister-in-law said that was probably Sam’s ego responding to the dream, not his real self.”

I stop walking. “His real self? As in his soul?”

“I guess,” she says. “Do you remember when we went for lunch last November and you told me how it felt like you had two selves?”

“Yeah.”

“But that you only show people the person you want them to see.”

I nod. “Uh huh.”

“So maybe that’s what the ego is—the fake self we show others. Maybe we think that outer shell, that…”

“Crust?”

Amanda nods. “Yeah—that’s a good word for it. Maybe we think that crust will somehow make us less vulnerable.”

“On the day Sam died,” I say, “when the social worker walked me down the hallway toward the ER, I had the sense there were two of me. I mean, I was walking but I could also see myself walking. Then when I went into the emergency room and saw Sam on the gurney, it happened again: it was like I was in two places at once. I was looking at Sam and watching myself looking at Sam.”

“Really?”

I nod. “Yeah. And one of your teammates was in the room and he later told me how incredibly vulnerable I looked in that moment. I wonder if somehow my ego, you know…fell down for just a sec so that what your teammate saw was the real me—my soul—and not the widow crust I was already creating.”

“Which you had to,” she says, “to survive.”

“I know.” I throw the ball. “But do ya think it’s possible that I was actually in your teammate? I mean, how else could I have seen myself?”

“Shit, you think a lot.”

I snort. “Tell me about it. But if departed souls can move from one person to the next, why couldn’t the souls of the living?” I let out a squeal. “Or maybe it was Sam who was in your teammate, watching me! That would make more sense…he could probably do tricks like that since he was already so close to death.”

Amanda looks at me. “But how could you experience that?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Sam and I are soul mates so we’re pretty much interchangeable.”

WHEN I get home, I call Jodie and tell her about the memorial service in Ottawa. “And since I’m going to be down East anyway, I think I’ll go to New York. Sam and I always wanted to go, so here’s my chance.”

Pause. “Are you sure you want to go there without him, Adri?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“What I mean,” she says, “is that you don’t have to go yet.”

“But I want to—and I was wondering if you’d like to come with me?”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that. And by the way, we’re selling our SUV. I think at one point, you were interested in buying it.”

“I’ll take it for a test drive,” I say. “See how it feels…”

THE NEXT morning, I drop Sasha and Sven off at the puppy parlour and am pulling up alongside my house when I notice how brown the grass is. I fiddle with the soaker hose for a few minutes but can’t get it to work properly, so I decide to use the brass spray nozzle that Sam preferred to hand water the lawn with. I’m standing in front of the tap and have just seen the spray nozzle resting on the ledge of the hose holder—but when I go to reach for it, it’s not there. I blink. It’s gone. I look around the yard and find it on the fence, right beside the gate I’ve just walked in and out of three times.

I close my eyes to ponder this impossibility—and the Waterworld show at Universal Studios comes to mind. I recall Sam’s laughter watching the reactions of the people being squirted with the hose by the undercover actor.

Did I just receive the fifth and final sign from Sam to complete my worldview?

INSIDE THE house, I turn my attention to more practical matters and write a letter to the police chief. The police association’s lawyer was right: not being “allowed” to remarry is bullshit. Even if I never manage to lasso another antelope, what about the next person in my shoes, God forbid there is one? It’s been four months since I’d learned of the remarriage clause and although I know the lawyer is looking into the issue, I dare say it’s time to expedite the process. I cc the chief’s letter to the president of the police association and the lawyer, then pop all three envelopes into the mailbox.

After lunch, I retrieve Sasha and Sven from the puppy parlour then take them to my mom’s apartment. I make it as far as the foyer when a crotchety senior snaps: “You can’t bring those dogs in here!”

I turn to her. “Oh yes I can.”

She wags a finger at me. “No, you can’t!”

“Oh, but I can,” I say, in a very Sam-like manner, “and I will. There’s no rule that says I can’t bring dogs to visit.”

“How dare you speak to me that way!” she hisses.

“How dare you speak to me that way?” is my reply.

Then all three of us march—heads and tails held high—past her and on to my mom’s apartment.

Over tea, my mom asks me if I’d like to join her for a festival of plays next weekend. Since I’m finding meaning in every conversation, book, magazine article, newspaper headline, movie, TV sitcom, current event and misplaced household item, attending an entire weekend of theatre will surely be a buffet for the mind.

INDEED, AT the festival, every play was written for me.

“It is the search for truth and beauty,” says one actor, “that shall set you free.”

Oh yes! I want to cry out from the audience.

But as I’m leaving the theatre, I wonder just how free I am in my supposed search for truth because finding potential meaning everywhere I look is starting to feel increasingly more like self-imprisonment. Perceiving life to be a mere unfolding of some pre-determined plan, in which my role is merely to pick up the pieces of the puzzle and snap them into place, is not a particularly empowering way to live.

Over dinner, I find myself asking my mom why she had four kids.

“We didn’t have the choices you do today, Adri.”

“Given the choice, would you still have us?”

She smiles. “Yes.”

“Even though you know the world is such a shitty place?”

She winces. “It’s also a very beautiful place. And new life needs to go on.”

“But don’t you think we should be solving our problems instead of just bringing more people onto the planet?” I ask.

“And what are you doing to solve our problems?”

“I’m trying,” I say, “to write a book.”

“I know. And I realize you’ve been through an awful lot but at some point you’re going to have to actually do something instead of just complaining about what’s wrong.”

Ah the two by four of truth. How sweet it does not feel as it hits my forehead.