Annika got out of the car and stood trembling. Cool, bright air prickled on her skin. There was a whiteness all around her, a thin veil of fog that obscured the horizon and nearby islands; yet the light in it suggested a wideness to the landscape, the sky brightening as if it were just about to lift.
She stood still and listened: a soft, steady sound lapped at the edge of her awareness. There was a small swell, she realized, despite the water’s unruffled surface. It gathered, then broke with a sigh, then pulled back, raking its glistening fingers across the small, grey pebbles on the beach, turning them over and dragging them back, then gathering again, sighing again, the rush of water, the clicking stones, in and out and in and out; it’s slow steady rhythm was soothing, the sound just tickling the surface, drawing her attention to a far deeper silence underneath. She let out her breath and it seemed to spread out into the whiteness, the way a river fans out then comes to settle in the sea. She’d made it. After a hellish week of lawyers and doctors and signatures and contracts, she’d actually made it.
She took the key that the landlady had given her and walked slowly along a path of flagstones that were embedded deep in the earth. Rough grass curled up in clumps along their edges. Then she stepped up onto a small porch that ran along the front of the cottage and fumbled at the door. Her hands were cold and shaking and her fingers barely had the strength to turn the key. Just a little longer, she told herself. She mustered her concentration and clenched her gut, then the key turned and the lock slid back.
Inside, it was even colder than it was out. The landlady had told her the cottage hadn’t been used since the summer. The frigid air was in the wood; it was in the walls.
The main floor consisted of one, long open room with yellow, plywood walls and broad pine floorboards. There was a staircase running up its center; the kitchen and bathroom were at one end, the woodstove at the other. A large window facing the sea ran along the lengthwise wall, while two smaller windows faced the woods on either side.
There was very little furniture: a small table with two chairs and a sagging loveseat near the stove were all the furnishings provided. The landlady had fussed about it being rustic but Annika was glad. In Seattle, amongst Hamish’s friends, she’d felt pressure to care about houses, how they looked, how much they cost and she’d felt herself an imposter in that fluttering, cooing world with all those fussy women. This place would do nicely, she thought. There was a calming simplicity to it. A bareness that required nothing of her.
She climbed up the narrow, creaking stairs to the loft, a single room with sloped ceilings on either side. A black stove pipe ran up through the floor and into the peaked ceiling. There was a double bed pushed up against the wall. She sat down on the mattress and fingered the time worn quilt. A Star and twenty: it was a pattern her mother had liked. She could feel the cold in the heavy batten.
She went back down the stairs. The light was fading now and she crouched in front of the woodstove and set about making a fire. Whoever had been there before had left some old newspapers and kindling in a basket, and it wasn’t long before the wood began to crackle and spit.
Annika left the grate open and remained crouching, holding her hands out in front of her, turning them over and over in the orange glow. It had been her job as a child to light the woodstove in the morning and now here she was with these much older hands, all sinews and veins and wrinkles, passing the warmth between them like a familiar orange ball. There was a sense of rightness to it, like she’d come full circle. The stove pipe creaked as the metal warmed and her thoughts began to drift: to Rose Prairie and her family, to those Summers firefighting, then to Seattle and the clouds and the mountains and the loneliness. And now here. This quiet, spare place.
The room darkened. She put another log on and then another. The flames leapt and roared and threw strange shadows on the ceiling: her hands like a child praying, her hair like a wild animal.
A deep tiredness came over her. It was so very quiet. Outside, the white blanket of fog had lifted and now the moon came up and the water shone silver, the black heaps of the nearby islands rising sharply from it. It was like no place she’d ever been before and yet she found it soothing, like she’d always known it in some deep part of her. She lay down on the hard boards in front of the fire, in the silver caress of the moonlight, and fell fast asleep.
The next morning, she was unloading the car when an old Ford pick-up pulled in the gravel drive. A tiny blonde girl in a sweatshirt and jeans hopped down from behind the wheel.
Annika stopped on the flagstone path with a box in her hands and watched as the girl got out and looked around, out to sea, then towards the point, then decisively and without hurry, began walking towards her. It couldn’t be her, could it? Annika thought. The woman seemed so young. So small.
When the woman reached her, she immediately extended her hand. “Hello. Annika? I’m Sasha. It’s nice to meet you.”
So it was her. Sasha. The nurse. Annika stared at the strange spritely creature before her. The woman had wide moonish features and a jaunty ponytail. There were bone plugs through both her ears like someone from a tribal society.
Sasha stared back with unflinching green eyes.
Slowly, Annika put down the box. There was a heaviness, a portent to the nurse’s arrival that thickened the air and made it difficult for Annika to breathe. This will be the last person on Earth that I see, she thought. She held out her hand. “Hello.”
Sasha clasped Annika’s hand in a warm firm grip and smiled. Up close, Annika could see there were deep, well-worn creases around the little woman’s eyes. She was not that young, after all.
“It’s great to finally meet you in person,” Sasha said. “How are you feeling?” Her eyes never wavered from Annika’s face. It was unnerving, how steady they were.
“Good. Fine. Tired maybe. Should we? Do you . . . Do you want to go inside?” Annika had no idea how it was supposed to work, or if she even wanted it to, now that she saw her. There were dolphins tattooed on the side of Sasha’s neck near the hairline, nose to tail, in a ring.
“It looks like you’re still settling in,” Sasha said decisively. “I’ll help you with your things.”
“No, it’s fine, really. We can go in. We can talk about the contract.” Annika bent to pick up the box she’d set down but when she stood her vision tunneled and she staggered.
Sasha grabbed her arm. Her hands were surprisingly strong and muscular. “Let me help you.”
“I’ll just take this one in and we’ll go and figure out about the payment and . . .”
Sasha didn’t let go of her arm. She looked Annika full in the face. “I’m going to help you unload the car. Then, we’re going to go inside, have some tea and talk about the details.” Her voice was strong and firm and rather than grate against its sudden authority as she might have when she was younger, Annika felt overwhelmed by relief. It was the first time in months she’d felt sure of what to do. “Okay,” she said weakly. “Let’s do that.”
Sasha had a precise way of moving, calculated but graceful, like a dancer in slow motion. She bent at the knees, placed her hands on either side of the boxes then lifted from the ground in a smooth, controlled motion. Annika could hear her breathing, slowly, deliberately in a way that pulled her own breath into its rhythm. It was calming, almost hypnotic and Annika felt her eyelids grow heavy, as if she might fall asleep just walking beside her.
They went back and forth from car to cottage and with each trip, Annika grew more and more tired. She allowed Sasha to go ahead, then, when she thought she was alone, she leaned against the car, rested her head against the cool metal and closed her eyes.
Then a hand was on her shoulder. Warm. Firm. Confident. “Let’s go inside. I’ll make tea.” Annika followed wordlessly.
Inside, the little nurse moved about the tiny kitchen with those same precise movements, with that same measured brea
th. “This is such a peaceful place,” she said. “Are you happy with it?” She ran the water. She put the kettle on the stove.
Annika stood and opened the cupboard to get the mugs then two hands were on her shoulders, pushing her gently back down. There was no hesitation in those hands, no question as to whether they should touch or not, they just went right ahead. “Sit down, now. Relax. You need to rest.”
Annika slouched. Her thoughts were foggy and confused. The desire to sleep was almost overwhelming and yet she couldn’t let herself. She thought about the divorce, how she’d not really understood it, how she’d just assumed that Hamish would be fair, and then this viaticals thing, how the broker had looked at her with his pale eyes and how the air had quickened just before she signed and how the quickening had made her feel bad, guilty, like she was doing something wrong. She didn’t like contracts or lawyers or legal documents. She never had. “I just. I don’t want to overstep boundaries here. I really think we need to . . .” Her eyelids fluttered.
Sasha leaned against the counter and watched her. “It’s difficult to make an exact plan, Annika, because it’s impossible to predict how things will progress. My rates are determined by the nurse’s union, as we discussed. It’s up to you, but what I’d like to do is start with two visits a day, then go to a live-in arrangement as needs change.”
The dolphins on her neck were nose to tail. One time, when Annika had come home from school and reported that dolphins had the IQ of a seven-year-old child because that’s what she’d learned in science class, she’d been made to kneel on the hard floor for telling lies. She shook herself. She tried to think. “The hours though. We should talk about the hours . . .”
Sasha poured the tea. Steam coiled up over her hands then slithered away. The fire cracked. Someone had lit it. Annika couldn’t remember. Sasha handed her a mug. “Hey, I’m not here to screw anyone over. It’s like we agreed on the phone. Trust me. Please. Let me help you.” She had such an open, clear face.
Annika took the tea. The warmth bled into her fingers. She blinked twice, then closed her eyes.
Annika slept. She slept like she’d never slept before. Her body was greedy for sleep. The books she’d brought, ambitious titles she’d always thought to try, remained unpacked; the letter to her parents unfinished, a white piece of paper with Dear Mother and Father in her dark leaning cursive at the top and nothing more. All the awful things she’d imagined: the terrible indignities, the excruciating pain, being cheated by her hippie nurse, none of it happened. Instead, there was only this tiredness, a full body craving for rest as if she’d been awake for a thousand years.
Days and nights went by and she drifted in and out of sleep. Sometimes it was dark and sometimes it was light. Sometimes the heat travelled up the pipe tat tat tat like a small creature climbing.
She was still strong enough to make it to the washroom herself and to cook light meals and twice a day she made the descent, her head so heavy with sleep she feared it might topple her, forward or back, if she let go of the rail. Then, when she was back, safe in bed, she’d think, it’s not happening yet. Not yet, for she was still able to do the stairs. As long as she was able to do the stairs, it wasn’t happening. Then sleep would pull her back under.
Time went by. She dreamt about many things and the fact that they were end dreams, sick dreams didn’t seem to matter. Sometimes her dreams were mundane. Sometimes foolish. Sometimes sexy. Sometimes weird. On the occasions when they seemed portentous or significant, she’d wake and think: remember, you must remember; yet remembering proved too arduous, reflection too tiring, and even regret, with its morbid tenacity, could not hold her mind.
Sasha came twice a day as they’d agreed. She went about preparing food and making tea, checking vitals with her firm, sure hands. Sometimes she sat cross-legged in the room where Annika slept, breathing in her slow, steady way. The first time Annika woke to find her there, she’d found it strange to find this grown woman sitting on the floor.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m meditating. I hope that’s alright.”
For a moment, Annika was irritated and thought about how the women in Rose Prairie used to whisper prayers with their thin pinched lips and eyes full of judgment and she didn’t want it, she didn’t want anything to do with it anymore but then the tiredness swept in again. “It’s fine,” she said and soon she came to look forward to it, this calm and silent presence in the room.
Weeks went by. Then a month. It was coming up to Christmas.
Then one morning, Annika woke to find that something was different. She lay perfectly still and listened, trying to figure out what it was. She could hear birds outside, thrushes sending their calls spiraling upwards into the trees. She could hear the waves. It took her a minute to realize it was not a sound that was different, but a feeling. A strange fluttering inside her.
She went down to the washroom and saw that Sasha had brought in a folding cot. It was leaning against the wall. There’d be a time when she couldn’t do the stairs, she supposed. There were boxes of medical supplies on the floor. She walked over to them and touched the lids.
Sasha was at the stove, making soup, her back to the main room. She stopped what she was doing and stood very still.
Annika looked at the boxes. There were bed pans, gloves, iv bags. Dying supplies. She picked up a plastic, kidney shaped tray. It was for vomit, she knew. She knew its feeling in her hands, its exact dimensions, its curves and its weight and then all of a sudden it came back to her, a memory so clear and vivid it seemed impossible she could have forgotten it all this time.
“My aunt died at home,” she said without looking up from the boxes. She turned the pan over and over in her hands. It was pale pink. “I don’t know how I possibly could have forgotten that until now. I must be crazy. The cancer must be affecting my brain.”
She heard Sasha exhale slowly. “Sometimes we repress things. It’s not uncommon. Especially difficult things.”
Annika frowned. She thought of the old house; she could see it square and bulking against the wispy, prairie sky; she thought of the footsteps on the floor and the curtains blowing in and felt this strange fluttering deep inside of her. “She wasn’t that old,” she continued in a daze.
She went over to the table and sat down. “She would only have been about 40, although she was considered a spinster in Rose Prairie. Like me, I suppose. Did you know that? That where I come from I’m already a spinster? That my life would be considered a tragedy, a failure?”
Sasha put the soup ladle down. She moved gracefully to the table and sat. Her movements were even more careful, more deliberate than usual.
“It’s funny to think about that now because I remember my aunt as being so old, this gaunt, scary lady with brittle hair . . .” She shook her head. It felt incredible to put the connections together, incredible yet frightening all at once. What else did she not know? What else had she failed to understand?
“How did she die?” Sasha asked carefully.
How was it that she’d never made the connection to her own illness? It seemed impossible yet here it was. Annika frowned. “It was cancer. She died of cancer.” She looked out the window at the stacks of cloud piling up offshore. Golden shafts of sunlight pierced through the spaces in between them and slanted down onto the grey surface of the water. She felt all turned up inside, like she didn’t know anything anymore. The story kept coming. “It was a Saturday when she died so I was at home. I was ten at the time and in the kitchen, baking bread. Isn’t that crazy? I was only ten years old and already doing all the baking and helping out on the farm. Why didn’t I remember any of this before? Anyway, it was bright and sunny out and there was all this sweet, spring air moving through the house; it was blowing the curtains in, and I wanted to be out in it so badly, I remember that, that I felt guilty for the desire in me to run and skip and play while this great solemn thing was h
appening in the house.”
“You were a child,” Sasha said. She looked down at her hands, as if concentrating very hard on every word. Her breath came slow and steady.
“I was in the kitchen when I heard my mother yell, “Quick! Quick! Anni! It’s time!” We’d gone through what I was to do and I ran so fast, my heart was pounding. I was so afraid, so afraid to screw up, that I wouldn’t do it right and her soul would bounce back and be stuck for all eternity, like a bird hitting a window, you know? That’s how I envisioned it: a bird hitting a window then fluttering about in a panic for the rest of all eternity. I ran upstairs and ripped the bedclothes off the beds and hung them over the mirrors. I even took the pillowcases and ran out into the drive and threw them over the rear views on the truck. When I came back in, my mother came out of the room and there were tears in her eyes and she said, “She’s gone, she’s left,” and just as she said it, this sweetest of breezes came through the house and out the windows and we watched it move off; it shimmered in the aspen that lined the drive, then past and away, out into the fields where it bent the grass down so it was pale and silver and then it was gone. ‘You did good, Anni, you did good,’ my mother said. She was mostly a quiet person and didn’t talk much. It was a secret, what we did. My father didn’t believe in souls bouncing back; it wasn’t something we learned at Church, but some of the women . . . they still believed in all that old stuff, stuff their mothers and grandmothers had passed on before they came there. Spirits. Omens. They didn’t dare talk about it in front of the men. Their lives were so hard, those women, maybe too hard to even look at clearly, so they gave to ghosts and spirits all the things they couldn’t say,” Annika looked out at the sea. The clouds had pressed together now into a solid, purpling mass. Wind scurried across the grey water underneath. She felt the strange fluttering inside, quick and faint the way leaves shiver in an unfelt breeze.
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