“Honeymoon” was Angela’s final complete memoir. She later wrote a few fragments, but perhaps she felt the important part of her story had been told.

After graduating, Doug got a job in the chemical research department at Ontario Hydro, now Hydro One, where he worked until his retirement in 1984. Angela was a stay-at-home mom but continued to take part-time photographic jobs to supplement the family income for a few years. Angela, Doug and their children lived in the apartment on Pape Avenue until 1956. Doug’s full-time salary gradually improved the family’s financial situation. In 1956, they bought a small bungalow on Ranee Avenue in North York. Brian and Susan left home in the late 1960s. 

Doug died of cancer in 1994. Angela lived alone on Ranee Avenue for another dozen years. She was convinced Doug’s spirit was there, in the house, taking care of her. In one of the final memoir fragments she wrote:

At the beginning of 2002 the alarm system went off again. Security said that two of the sensors went off at the same time.

The security alarm went off several times in the early mornings for no apparent reason. A check of the house and entrances found nothing was amiss.

One winter weekend I came home… and found a note in my door from security, saying that the alarm went off several times that day. They checked the outside of the house but found no signs of a break-in.

I asked Doug’s spirit to stop setting the alarm off, especially after midnight, because it scares me. It never went off again.

I walked into the furnace room one day and got a strong whiff of the perfumed pipe tobacco Doug smoked.

For some years in the middle 2000s, I’ve been hearing light taps behind the fridge and a soft ring that seemed to be coming from the alarm system in the entrance hall.

One day my son and I were in the den when we heard some loud banging which seemed to be coming from the kitchen, behind the fridge. My son wanted to know what the noise was. I told him it was Dad behind the fridge. My son said, “Dad never believed in spirits.”

Doug stood at the foot of our bed for only a few seconds; he was wearing a striped sleeveless sweater, the type his mother knitted for him.