A Loom of Summer Heat and Doubt

Under the oppressive summer sun of downtown Winnipeg, Sadie, an Indigenous artist, navigates the complexities of a new community arts initiative. But as the project unfolds, she uncovers unsettling inconsistencies that threaten her relationship and artistic future, pulling her into a web of psychological suspense.

Sadie pushed a stray curl of dark hair from her face, leaving a smudge of charcoal on her cheek. The easel stood before her, a half-finished canvas glowing with the ochre and cerulean hues of a prairie sunset she hadn't seen in years. She hadn't seen much of anything beyond the brick canyons and the river's muddy embrace since moving to the city for art school, then staying for Kai, for the 'scene.' For this project. The 'North-South Exchange,' Lena had called it, with her bright, earnest eyes and perfectly coiffed hair. It was meant to bridge the gap, bring Indigenous artists from remote communities to mentor in the city, build capacity. Sounded good on paper.

But paper, Sadie was learning, held a lot of secrets.

Kai was late. Again. The fridge hummed, a low, persistent thrum against the oppressive quiet. She picked at a loose thread on her cut-off denim shorts, then checked her phone. Nothing. He said he was at the 'community outreach' meeting. But the way he'd said it, quick and too smooth, made a prickle of unease run down her spine. It wasn't the first time. The small, almost imperceptible shifts in his routine, the hurried phone calls he took outside, the way his eyes darted when she asked about the budget for the new 'digital storytelling workshops.' They were supposed to be partners in this, artistic and otherwise.

### The Ledger’s Weight

She walked to the small, scuffed oak desk in the corner they shared. Piled high were grant applications, contact lists, and the thick, spiral-bound ledger for the project's expenses. It was Kai's domain, mostly. He was better with numbers, he'd always said. More 'detail-oriented.' Sadie was the big picture, the 'visionary.' The words felt hollow in her mouth now. Her fingers traced the spine of the ledger. She shouldn't. But the pit in her stomach had been a constant companion for weeks, a dull ache that grew sharper with every unanswered question.

She flipped it open. The smell of ink and cheap paper. Her eyes scanned the neat columns of figures. Studio rental fees, material costs, stipends for guest artists. All seemed reasonable. But then, a line entry caught her eye: 'Consultancy Fee – Mixed Methodology Implementation.' A significant amount. Paid out monthly. To a company she didn't recognise. 'Riverbend Arts Development Solutions.' The name sounded official, corporate. She'd never heard it mentioned in any of their planning meetings, nor in the extensive grant proposal Lena had helped them secure.

Her heart gave a faint, irregular thump. She scrolled through. The same company, month after month. Always 'consultancy.' Always a round, substantial figure. More than Kai's own modest project stipend. Much more. She closed the ledger, the faint thud echoing in the heavy silence of the loft. The room felt smaller, the walls pressing in. The sun, now lower, cast long, distorted shadows across the floorboards. A floorboard near the kitchen creaked, a small sound, but it made her jump. Just the building settling, she told herself. Just the heat.

---

When Kai finally did arrive, the evening air was thick and syrupy. He walked in, shirt damp at the armpits, a forced smile on his face. He smelt faintly of beer and something else, something sweet and unfamiliar. Not the usual paint thinner and coffee. He tossed his keys onto the small table by the door, the jingle too loud.

'Hey,' he said, his voice a little hoarse. He cleared his throat. 'Meetings ran long. Brainstorming for the outreach component. It's… intense.'

Sadie just nodded, turning back to her canvas. She kept her posture loose, casual, trying to mimic the indifference she wished she felt. 'Yeah? Get anything done?'

He shrugged, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. 'Always. Lena's really pushing for this new participatory thing. Says it's groundbreaking. Capacity building for days.' He took a long swig, his Adam's apple bobbing. 'She's a whirlwind.'

Sadie felt her jaw clench. 'Riverbend Arts Development Solutions.' The words formed on her tongue, but she swallowed them. Not yet. Not like this. She needed more. Something concrete. She needed to feel the ground beneath her feet before she pushed it out from under them both.

He came up behind her, putting his arms around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder. His hands felt heavy, not comforting. 'What are you working on?'

She flinched, almost imperceptibly. 'Just… messing around.' The lie felt like gravel in her mouth. She could feel the faint tremor in her own hands. He usually loved seeing her progress, offered unsolicited, often annoying, advice. Tonight, he barely glanced at the canvas.

'Dinner?' he murmured, his breath warm on her ear. 'I'm starved.'

She pulled away, making an excuse about needing to wash the turpentine from her hands. She could feel his eyes on her back as she walked to the tiny kitchenette. The silence between them was suddenly vast, stretching like the prairie sky, but filled with unspoken questions, with accusations she hadn't yet voiced.

### Beneath the Concrete Canopy

The next morning, Sadie found Lena at the community centre, already surrounded by flip charts and marker pens. The centre was a welcome blast of air conditioning after the humid trek through downtown. Outside, the summer sun glared, turning the old brick buildings into an oven. Inside, the cool air felt like a reprieve, but the knot in Sadie’s stomach remained stubbornly tight.

Lena, energetic as ever, beamed at her. 'Sadie! Perfect timing. We're just about to deep-dive into the stakeholder analysis for the new methodology. This is going to be big. Truly transformational for the urban Indigenous arts community.'

Sadie offered a small, stiff smile. 'Sounds… ambitious.' She paused, picking at a loose piece of vinyl on a chair. 'Hey, I was looking through some of the project invoices. I saw 'Riverbend Arts Development Solutions' listed. For consultancy?' She tried to keep her voice light, innocent. As if she wasn't dissecting Lena’s every micro-expression.

Lena's smile didn't waver, but her eyes flickered. Just for a second. 'Ah, yes. Riverbend. They're a new firm. Specialise in, well, exactly what the name suggests. Mixed-methodology is their proprietary system. Very cutting-edge. Kai brought them to the table. Said they were essential for securing the final tranche of funding. Had to be on board before the grant committee would sign off.' She spoke quickly, a little too brightly, gesturing emphatically with a green marker pen.

A new firm. Proprietary system. Kai brought them to the table. The pieces clicked, grimly. 'Right. I just hadn't seen them mentioned in the original proposal,' Sadie said, her voice flat. She looked down at her hands, then back up, meeting Lena's gaze directly. 'Or in any of our meetings.'

Lena’s eyes narrowed, just a fraction. The bright, earnest facade seemed to crack. 'Well, these things evolve, don't they? Especially with a project of this scale. We have to be adaptable, Sadie. You know that. Bureaucracy… it's a beast.' She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. 'Now, if you're ready, let's talk about building sustainable networks…'

Sadie felt a chill, despite the summer heat. The air conditioning suddenly felt like ice. Lena was deflecting. Kai had brought them. And Lena, a woman Sadie had admired for her transparency and dedication, was covering. The web was tighter than she'd imagined. And she was right in the middle of it. The truth, whatever it was, felt like a heavy stone sitting in her chest.

---

Back in the loft, the air felt stale, heavy with the weight of her unspoken suspicions. She waited until Kai had gone to bed, his breathing a slow, even rhythm from their bedroom. The old floorboards creaked under her bare feet as she crept back to the desk. This time, she wasn't just looking. She was searching. A quiet desperation hummed beneath her skin. She needed to know. For herself. For the artists they were meant to be helping. For the integrity of the work they supposedly shared.

She pulled out the ledger again, this time prying open the back cover. She remembered Kai once joking about a 'secret compartment' in the old desk. He'd laughed it off, but something in her mind had filed it away. Her fingers found a small, almost invisible seam in the worn wood. She pressed, and a small, shallow drawer slid open, barely a centimetre deep. Inside, a smaller, thinner notebook lay nestled. Not the official project ledger. This one was a cheap, school-style exercise book, its cover faded purple.

Her hands trembled as she pulled it out. This was it. The real one, maybe. Her fingers brushed against the rough paper. She opened it. The handwriting was Kai's, unmistakable. But the entries were different. Dates matched, but descriptions didn’t. 'Consultancy fee,' in the official ledger, corresponded to 'Personal Investment Repayment' here. Larger amounts. More frequent. And beside them, smaller, handwritten notes: 'Mortgage deposit.' 'Car payment.' 'Loan from C.R.'

Sadie felt the blood drain from her face. It wasn't about the project funding. Not directly. It was about *their* money. The grant money, funnelled into Kai's personal accounts, under the guise of consultancy. The new car he'd just bought, the down payment on the condo they'd been looking at, the one he'd said was 'a stretch' but 'doable' with a bit of luck. Luck, or something far more cynical. He'd been siphoning off funds. Their future. Their shared dream. It wasn't just the project that was compromised. It was everything. Her vision. Their life together. It was a domestic thriller, played out in excel sheets and whispered lies, not shadowy alleys. And she was the victim, caught in the web spun by the person she trusted most.

The silence in the loft was deafening now, amplified by the frantic beat of her own heart. The air felt heavy, metallic. She clutched the purple notebook, its flimsy cover digging into her palm. She could hear Kai's soft, even breathing from the next room. So calm. So unaware she knew. Or maybe not unaware. Maybe he'd known she would find out eventually. And what then?

She looked at the numbers, the stark reality of the betrayal. Her throat felt tight, a burning sensation behind her eyes. He’d used their shared project, their passion, their community, to fund a life she thought they were building together. A life that, it now seemed, was built on a foundation of shifting sand and quiet deceit.

The heat of the Winnipeg summer suddenly felt inescapable, suffocating. The city hummed outside, indifferent to the quiet implosion happening within these four walls. She didn’t know what to do next. The thought was a lead weight in her gut. Confront him? What would he say? Would he deny it? Would he explain? Or would the placid surface of their life together shatter into a million irreparable pieces?

She imagined his face, open, artistic, the face she loved. And then she saw the subtle dart of his eyes, the hurried phone calls, the evasions. Two faces, two realities. And she was caught between them.

### The Loom Unravels

Sadie stood by the window, the purple notebook clutched to her chest. Dawn was breaking, painting the eastern sky in bruised purples and oranges. The city slowly stirred to life. A single early-morning bus rumbled past below, its brakes hissing. She felt a profound weariness settle into her bones, heavy and cold, despite the burgeoning heat of the day. The loft, once a sanctuary of shared dreams and creativity, now felt like a cage, its bars forged from suspicion and betrayal.

What if Lena knew more than she let on? What if the 'new firm' was a complete fabrication, a ghost company set up by Kai? The possibilities spiralled, each one darker than the last. She looked at her hands, still smudged with charcoal from yesterday's painting, a symbol of the creative life she cherished. Had that, too, been a lie? Was this whole art project, this chance to uplift and connect, merely a façade for something far more predatory? The dream, the very thing that had brought them together, was now the instrument of their undoing.

The first rays of direct sun hit the window, glaring. She closed her eyes, but the numbers, the dates, the damning notes in Kai’s handwriting, were seared behind her eyelids. The 'uplifting' vision of the project, the hope for community, now felt like a cruel joke. She wasn't just an artist anymore; she was a detective, caught in her own life's grim mystery, and the suspect was sleeping soundly a few metres away. The summer hummed, a lazy, deceptive sound.

She felt the soft give of the floorboard behind her. A small sound, almost swallowed by the city’s awakening. Her breath hitched, not in fear, not yet, but in a terrible anticipation. She didn’t turn around. She couldn’t. Not yet. The weight of the morning, the city, and the truth, pressed down on her. The silence stretched, pregnant with unspoken words, with the terrible understanding that the world she thought she knew, the person she thought she loved, was irrevocably changed, and she was now standing on the precipice of its ruin.

She felt the gentle brush of a hand on her shoulder. The touch was familiar, but now, it felt foreign, imbued with a chill that had nothing to do with the summer heat.

And she just stood there, staring out at the hazy, shimmering city, the purple notebook still crushed in her hand, waiting for whatever came next.