Would I Lie to You

by Mary Lou Dickinson

  This secrecy had haunted her entire life, compelling her not to tell even Jerry. It had lived with them, crowding the rooms of their time together. She fell asleep again. And when she awakened once more, even as she imagined holding a baby in her arms, she could remember the joy of being with Jerry.

  The scent of coffee brewing and muffins baking permeated the room. She was aware there had been no phone call during the night and she sighed with relief as she stepped out of the bed. Before she drank her coffee, she would call the hospital.

  “She’s still sleeping,” the nurse said.

  “Has she been awake at all?”

  “Well, not really. But she’s very peaceful.”

  Sue wondered why Hans had not forewarned her about Florence’s accident. Perhaps she expected too much of people. Even a psychic did not know everything. When he imparted some knowledge, it had more to do with growth and healing than it did with predicting an entire future. And yet he had told her he enjoyed the visions of something he could not figure out that pertained to the life of the person in front of him. More than once, he had seen such things in her future, like the swans.

  Before she dressed, Sue decided to put on the bathing suit the woman had given her. Lying on her back in the pool, she looked up at a bright red, orange, purple, and yellow hot air balloon floating above the green trees on the other side of the river. She stayed suspended for a few minutes before swimming two lengths and climbing out of the pool. When she arrived on the deck after changing into her street clothes, she ate some pancakes overlooking the same river before driving slowly to the hospital. She was surprised to find Florence trying to move. And wailing.

  “It hurts,” she said.

  “Did you ring for a nurse?”

  “No one pays any attention.”

  “I’ll go and make sure someone does.” Sue was annoyed that a person in so much pain could simply be ignored. At the nursing station, two doctors were going through files and consulting with each other as well as with one of the nurses. Sue stood impatiently, waiting for them to notice her. She cleared her throat. Finally, the nurse nodded in her direction and as soon as one of the doctors started down the hall, came over.

  “Look,” Sue said. “My cousin has been ringing for a while. She’s in considerable pain and…”

  “Which room?’

  “316.”

  “Florence Davis?”

  “Yes.”

  “We gave her some painkillers an hour or so ago.”

  “Well, she still needs to see someone.”

  “Just let me check her chart,” the nurse said. She headed down the hall to Florence’s room with Sue behind her. One of the two doctors who had been at the nursing station stood beside the bed. There was a woman in the other bed as well, lying flat on her back with her eyes closed, grey hair streaming across her pillow. She looked to Sue as if she had had a stroke or heart attack. But she knew there was no way of knowing just by glancing at her.

  “So Mrs. Davis,” the doctor said. “Can you tell me what the matter is?”

  “Everything hurts.”

  He checked her dressings and tried to soothe her. Sue was surprised at how gentle he was as he lightly massaged her forehead.

  “You’ve had a rough time, ma’am,” he said. “We’ll see what we can give you. I think you’re going to pull through, but you may be here for quite awhile.”

  When Thomas came, he said that perhaps they ought to start planning. If Florence were bedridden, she would not be able to go back to her house.

  “Could she go with you?” he asked.

  “With me? To Toronto? With all those stairs?”

  “Well,” he said. “Maybe it’s too soon to figure it out.”

  They stood in the corridor, avoiding each other’s eyes.

  “What about you, Thomas?”

  “Oh come on,” he said. “She’d be so bored. Besides it was you she was asking for.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on,” Sue said. “I haven’t known Florence nearly as well as you have and I’m not here to interfere in any way.”

  He turned and walked away. She did not follow him, nor did she go into Florence’s room. Instead, she found the room for visitors where there was a television set and chairs with orange vinyl covers on the seats and backs. A man with haggard lines of fatigue across his face sat staring at the screen. He had been there the last time she had sat in the room.

  It struck her that when Florence went home, she or Thomas might go down for the first week. It was fifteen minutes before Thomas returned with cups of coffee for both of them.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just I don’t know what to do.”

  “‘I’m sure we can figure something out.”

  “I suppose so. But it still feels odd that you knew my father and I didn’t.”

  “Do you think I would have prevented him from seeing you?” Sue asked, puzzled. “You know very well I never knew you existed.”

  “It doesn’t change what I feel sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes, I imagine that if you hadn’t married him, he would have come back to Stratford and found me and my mom.”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think you do either. Although it is the sort of fantasy that children have, I imagine.”

  He grinned slightly, an abashed look crossing his face.

  “Florence could come to Stratford with Kate and me for awhile,” he said. “You’re right. Those stairs at your place would be too hard for her. Our place is all one floor with the door at ground level.”

  “I suppose we’re being a little premature. But I think it’s a good idea to be talking about it. When Florence begins to worry, we’ll be able to reassure her. She may want to go home and have us spell each other for a while, but whether she wants to go to Stratford or not, I’m sure she’ll appreciate your offer.”

  “How is the B&B?”

  “Very comfortable, thank you.”

  She wanted to tell him about the baby, but it did not seem like either the right place or time. Although Sue supposed eventually she would. It was all so confusing. Her daughter would be much older than he was. Yet, for Sue, she was the baby she had never seen. And the one to whom she felt attached in a way she could not to Thomas, content as she was that he had found Jerry’s world even if only after his father had died. As for her own child, she now knew she might go looking for her. She might put her name on a list with some government ministry indicating that Sue would like to see her if she so wanted. What were the odds of that? And what would she say to a daughter after all these years? This was the kind of question one could ask of a psychic. Sue smiled a little at that thought.

  “Something funny?” Thomas asked.

  “Not really,” she said. “Let’s go back and sit with Florence.”

  All of life seemed contained within the walls of this room, with its florescent light and white sheets, where Florence lay. It struck Sue how many worlds there were that we never entered, or only entered for brief periods. Yet, while in them, they seem the entirety of existence. It had felt like that during Jerry’s illness, both in the hospital and beside his bed in the living room.

  Florence was calmer as the day wore on and it seemed that their company soothed her. Also, it was almost as if the doctor had wielded some magic by acknowledging her and paying attention. A nurse came into the room and greeted them pleasantly, but later, another was curt and dismissive. She talked down her nose at Florence, as if Florence were a child.

  “She can hear you, you know,” Sue said.

  She could see this surly nurse talking loudly to older people routinely and likely as well to those for whom English was not their first language. It appeared she viewed them as trespassing on her territory. Sue could remember similar experiences with Jerry when he was so ill. Finally, she leaned over the bed to kiss Florence’s forehead.r />
  “I’ll drop in tomorrow in the morning before I head back to Toronto.”

  Thomas kissed Florence also, and then he and Sue ate dinner in the cafeteria. He left shortly after to drive to Stratford, and she went back to the bed overlooking the river and lay awake in the dark. She was almost afraid to drop off to sleep, aware of what darkness might unleash in her dreams again. She was relieved to rest easily and not to remember any dreams the next morning.

  She packed her suitcase early and went up to the dining room to drink coffee and eat home-baked muffins. There was fruit in a large pale blue bowl in the middle of the table.

  “Help yourself,” the woman said.

  “Thanks.” Sue took out her purse and paid her bill. “You’ve made what is a very difficult time easier.”

  “If you need to come back, give us a call.”

  At the hospital, Florence was smiling. “It’s very kind of you to be here again. I hope I wasn’t too hard on you.”

  “No, not really. Knowing how much you care made it possible to start thinking about what I never dared talk about before.” She began to tell Florence what it had felt like to be pregnant, how it felt not to know what had become of her child.

  “Tell me more if you want to.”

  “She’s over forty now. My daughter. I don’t suppose I’ll ever see her.”

  “Would you like to?”

  “I don’t know. One moment I think I do, and then soon after I change my mind.”

  “You could go to the government and see if your child is looking for you. You could do it for her and if nothing comes of it, then you would have done all that’s required.”

  “Do you think it’s required?”

  “Well, I’m not equipped to say really, am I? It’s your life. But yes, I think it would be a good thing to do. For you. And if she’s willing, surely for her.”

  Sue nodded and pulled the sheet and thin blanket up to just below Florence’s chin. She was asleep again before Sue could formulate an answer. I’m not sure I want to, Florence. She wished she did not keep changing her mind. But how could she say that to Florence as she lay bedridden in hospital? And even as she stood there resolved to do nothing, she began to wonder about her baby, her daughter, again. It was time to find out what it would be like to meet a woman of over forty to whom she had given birth.

  *

  Sue procrastinated for days, almost afraid to uncover the long history that was now her daughter’s life, her birth a distant shadow. But was it possible to ignore this reality any longer? What would she find if she actually pursued this search? The child she had borne could be a teacher or a doctor or a midwife, she supposed. A diplomat assigned to a posting in some foreign capital. Islamabad? Canberra? Or the Canadian embassy in Washington? She might be a hairdresser or a cook. Anything at all.

  All these prospects seemed more like the story of a woman in some romantic novel, and not the story of a real person. But she realized she had no choice about starting this search now that the door had been opened. It was something she had badly wanted to do even though it was frightening. There would be a family somewhere. Did her daughter have children? It was likely she would have siblings.

  When she could no longer take all the possibilities her imagination conjured up, Sue finally began to plan. She called the Ministry in Toronto, surprised at the lengthy process required. Forms would be mailed to her. She would fill them out and there would be a waiting period. If someone came forward, she would be notified by mail.

  “All right,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “I’d like you to send me the forms.”

  Afterwards, she watched for an official envelope among all those others the postman dropped off each day through the mail slot in the front door. Then one day, there it was, a large manila envelope with her name on it. Her fingers fumbled with the edges, but she could not bring herself to open it. The contents would change her life in ways she could not even imagine and she put it on a small table in the hall. When she could not ignore it any longer, she finally took a letter opener and slit it open. She looked at the spaces she would fill in. Surname … Walters. First names … Susan Catherine. There were other particulars, but without that name no one would be able to tell her anything.

  After Sue returned the form, it seemed like forever before a letter came telling her there was a match. What information would you like revealed? the government representative in the Ministry had inquired.

  Sue was ecstatic now that she knew her daughter was actually looking for her. But when she felt the impact of this, she wondered if this young woman would be angry or merely curious. And whether, knowing how long it had taken her to do anything, if she, Sue, could even face her.

  Having gone through those inevitable feelings, Sue wrote back that she would like to meet her daughter and to answer any questions she might have. Even then, she would have to wait to see if her daughter still wished to proceed. She was not sure how she would feel either way. She only knew that if the answer were positive, it was not a clear path even then as mandatory counselling by the adoption disclosure personnel would be required before they could go further. But all of that seemed worth it. As Florence had likely known it would be. That it was important.

  When Sue went into the Ministry to meet with the counsellor, her hands were trembling. She sat behind a desk perusing the forms she had filled out.

  “Well, Ms. Walters,” the counsellor, a woman who wore thick glasses and appeared to be in her thirties, said. “My name is Shirley Meacham. I’m pleased to meet you and to know that it’s good news. As you know, someone has been looking for you. Actually, for quite a few years now. It will be a surprise to her that you’ve come forward. Once we contact her, we’ll let you know what her wishes are.”

  “I see,” Sue said, wondering why she felt so numb. This woman who was her daughter might well tell her what a failure she had been as a mother. I don’t want to meet her, she thought. What am I doing here? “I think I’ve changed my mind.” Then she wanted to retract the words she had hardly realized she had just spoken aloud.

  Shirley Meacham looked up. “Most mothers get nervous at this point,” she said kindly. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

  Sue was frightened, but how did she tell a stranger that?

  “Usually, there’s some kind of resolution for people to find out who their birth parents are,” the counsellor said. “And then, there are the health issues, the ones related to biological parents.”

  “I don’t know anything about the father’s side. He never knew about it, so he didn’t even know she was born.”

  “That happened often in those days.”

  Sue wondered how long it would take for Shirley Meacham to form an opinion of her. Would she guess Sue was ambivalent and deem her irresponsible? Even with her kind face and gentle voice, it was this woman’s job to draw conclusions about people.

  “You’ll figure out what to tell your daughter if you meet. It will depend also on what questions she asks. Do you want to proceed?”

  “Yes, I will.” She could not keep this secret any longer. And if there were, all these years later, anything she could do for her daughter, she owed her at least that much in amends for her silence, for her original betrayal. What mother gives away a child? Even as she knew she could not have done otherwise under the circumstances.

  “We’ll be in touch again as soon as we have more information for you,” Shirley Meacham said.

  “All right. My name is Sue Reid. I changed it when I married.”

  “Fine, Mrs. Reid.”

  As Sue walked out onto the pavement, the reflections in the glass of the windows she passed revealed the walk of a confident woman. She had expected delays and disinterest on the part of bureaucracy. And that such delays, all the red tape, might give her the time she needed to get used to the possibility of meeting her daughter. That did not h
appen.

  “Jerry,” she whispered. “We both had secrets. Secrets so huge we were sitting on minefields.”

  And she wanted both Hans and Florence to know, suspecting it would make both of them happy. She wondered what Maggie knew. She must have known something. Their mother must have given some explanation for Sue’s long absence to her older daughter.

  When she arrived back at the house, Sue hung her jacket in the hall closet before going to the telephone and dialling the familiar Vancouver number.

  Sue did not know if her sister would be at home that afternoon or what she would say to her. She was a bit apprehensive when Maggie picked up at the other end.

  “Hi Maggie,” she said.

  “What a nice surprise to hear from you,” her sister said.

  “Florence was in a car accident,” Sue said, not able to say why she had really called yet.

  “I’m sorry. Is she all right?”

  “Well, it looks as if she’ll make some kind of recovery, but no one knows for sure to what extent yet. She’s still in hospital in London.”

  “I didn’t really get a chance to know her except at the memorial.” Sue could hear a clinking sound and thought her sister must be tapping her spoon on her habitual cup of coffee. At least Maggie would not have to run off to make coffee as they approached what promised to be a difficult conversation.