Things We Do in the Dark

Twenty-five years after switching identities with her dead friend, Mae, Paris returns to Toronto with Drew. Memories begin to flood back to Paris.

The two head north to Maple Sound, to the house of Paris’s aunt and uncle, where Ruby is staying. Paris carries a cashier’s check for $1 million, which she believes is enough to settle matters with her mother.

Drew agrees to wait in the car while Paris goes to the house to meet her mother for the first time in more than 20 years. The conversation is awkward. Her mother accuses, “I did twenty-five years in prison for you” (332). The secret emerges in their conversation. Ruby had allowed Charles Baxter to molest her own daughter, and Ruby had become jealous of Joey. Paris reminds her mother that the night that Charles died, the two of them had a nasty fight. Paris remembers how, that night, Charles had come to her bed. “All she could do was close her eyes, remain still, and allow the darkness to take over” (334).

It was then that her mother stormed into the bedroom. Charles told her at first that Joey had seduced him. The fight immediately sparked, Ruby calling Charles a “sick fuck” and Charles calling Ruby “a gold-digging bitch” (335).