He removes his hands from his face and glares at me. “You’ve obviously never been hungover. Food is the last thing I want.”
“Maybe you have the flu,” I say.
“Maybe I do,” he concedes.
“Maybe you should see your doctor.”
“Maybe I should.”
———
Because it’s Sunday, Sam has to go to a walk-in clinic in 100 Mile House and is gone about two hours. When he returns, he still looks terrible, but he has drugs. He shakes the bottle of pills at me before depositing it in his bedroom.
“Appears you were right, Dr. Dani,” he says. “I have some kind of bug.”
“You probably picked it up at the stampede,” I tell him. “With so many people around, I bet there are tons of germs out there. It’s a wonder everybody who went isn’t sick.”
Sam clears his throat. “Speaking of the stampede, this is the last day, and it’s a short one.” He looks at his watch. “It’s already after two. The rodeo started at one. Even if we left right this second, we’d only catch the tail end of things. I’m sorry, Dani.”
I wave away his apology. “It doesn’t matter. We were there all the other days, and yesterday I was there all day and half the night, too. I’m pretty much rodeoed out. Besides, according to the stampede program, today is family day, and I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to spend my day in the middle of a mob of screaming kids.”
“You’re just saying that so I won’t feel bad,” he says.
“You already feel bad. I doubt anything I say could make it worse.” Then I wave my finger at him. “And that’s another thing. You’re sick. Probably contagious. How could I — in good conscience — expose all those people to you and your bug? How fair would that be?”
He holds up his hands in defeat. “Fine. You win. We’ll stay home.”
“Yes, we will,” I say authoritatively. “And you will have a quiet, restful day. You can sleep or sit in the sunshine and read or watch television. Whatever you want — as long as it’s relaxing and will help you get better. I’ll take Jasmine for a ride and make the supper. I’ll even do the cleanup. You don’t need to worry about a thing except getting well.”
Sam salutes me. “Yes, sir, ma’am. Anything you say.”
Chapter Eighteen
The next morning Sam looks a lot better. He says he feels better, too, and decides to go for a ride around the property. I can tell this is something he wants to do alone, so I don’t ask if I can join him.
“Good,” I say as I pick up my unfinished novel from the coffee table. “That will give me a chance to read the rest of this book. The rodeo was fun, but it really cut into my reading time.” I glance at the piles of books around the room. “I have a feeling I’m not going to get all these read before I go home.”
Sam laughs. “I’ll be giving your name to Guinness World Records if you do. It’s my goal just to get them read in my lifetime, and I’ve got a head start on you.”
“There’s a lot of books here,” I tell him, “but the way you read, you’ll have them done within a year. Then what?”
He takes a sip of his coffee before answering. Finally, he shrugs. “Then I guess I get some more.” He nods to the book in my hand. “Which one do you have there?” When I tell him, his eyes light up. “That’s a good one. The thing I really liked is how —”
“Stop!” I shout and cover my ears. “You can’t say anything until I’m finished. You’ll wreck it for me.”
Sam sighs. “Okay. Fine.” Then he gets up and rinses his coffee cup. “Jasmine and I will be gone a couple of hours. Read fast.”
———
When Sam leaves, I decide to tidy up the trailer a bit before settling down with my book. I only have about fifty pages to go, and I can get through that easily while Sam is gone. Besides, there’s not really a lot of cleanup to do — just some wiping down in the kitchen and a few odds and ends to put away.
Most of the things needing to be stowed belong in the kitchen cupboards, but there’s also the dental floss dispenser, which goes in the bathroom, nail polish, which goes in my cosmetic bag, and a couple of shirts that Sam ironed but forgot to put away in his closet. I grab everything and start down the hall, depositing items in the appropriate places as I go.
When I get to Sam’s room, I stop. It’s almost as if there’s a force field keeping me from going any farther. I’ve never been in Sam’s room. He never said I shouldn’t, and the door is always open — except when he’s sleeping — but for some reason I think of it as Sam’s private place, and even though I have a legitimate reason for going in, I feel like I’m trespassing.
“Don’t be stupid,” I say out loud. My voice booms in the quiet trailer and the realization that I’m talking to myself makes me feel silly. But the scolding does the trick, and I enter the room.
Like the rest of the trailer, it’s small and minimalist in its decor. It has painted wood panelling with a small window cut out of one wall. The floor is covered with a worn carpet — not that you can see much of it, because the double bed takes up most of the floor. There is a small night table on either side and a three-legged stool by the closet at the far end. That’s it for furniture. The comforter and curtains are a bland polyester print, but they match, so I’m thinking Sam must have bought them as a set — his one concession to interior design.
I can’t help smiling. If Mom saw Sam’s place, she’d be redecorating before she got the front door closed. The thing is it would be a mistake. The trailer reflects who Sam is, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t mind it. I guess it’s grown on me.
I have the shirts in my right hand, and as I brush past the night table, the sleeve of one knocks something off. Sam’s pills. I bend down and pick up the bottle. But as I go to return it to the table, a word on the label catches my attention.
Morphine.
I frown. Morphine? Since when is morphine used to fight a flu bug? Morphine’s not an antibiotic. It’s a pain killer. I know Sam had a pretty bad headache yesterday, but he would take acetaminophen or Aspirin for it. Not morphine.
I hang the shirts over the doorknob and look more closely at the pill bottle. The label definitely says morphine, and according to the date, the prescription was filled yesterday. But something’s not right. The label also says this is the third refill.
What? That doesn’t make any sense.
I stare stupidly at the label, reading it over and over, trying to understand the information on it. Finally, reality cuts through the fog surrounding my brain. This isn’t a new prescription. It’s a refill of an old one. Sam is taking morphine — and has been for a while. But why?
I read the label again. The instructions say: For pain, take one capsule every four hours, but there’s nothing to indicate the kind of pain the capsules are for. Whatever it is, it has to be pretty intense to require morphine. The pharmacy that filled the prescription is in 100 Mile House. That’s where Sam said he went yesterday, so he didn’t lie, at least not about that. I sincerely doubt that he visited a clinic though. If the prescription is a refill, he probably went straight to the pharmacy. I look at the physician’s name — Dr. M. MacLeod. That’s the woman from the rodeo. There’s a telephone number beneath her name.
I run and get my phone but stop halfway through dialling. My gaze travels back and forth between the pill bottle and the phone as if they’re a couple of hand grenades with pulled pins. I can’t react. Thirty seconds ago, I knew what I was doing. I was calling Dr. MacLeod. But now it seems like a bad idea. What would I say?
Hello, Dr MacLeod. My name is Dani Lancaster. My uncle is one of your patients. Could you please tell me why you prescribed morphine for him? Or maybe, Did my uncle get a prescription from you yesterday? Or how about getting right to the point and asking, What’s wrong with my uncle?
But I know doctors won’t tell you those sorts of things. All those questions would earn me is a dead phone line.
So now what?
The ratio
nal voice inside my head says, Talk to Sam. Ask him why he’s taking morphine.
But I can’t do that. Sam clearly doesn’t want me knowing about this. The whole time I’ve been in Webb’s River, he’s never said a word about being in pain, and I haven’t seen him swallow a single pill. If he’s supposed to take a morphine capsule every four hours, you’d think I would have noticed. I should have seen signs of his pain too, but I didn’t pick up on that either.
Or did I? What about Sam’s cough? He’s had that the whole time I’ve been here. Is that the source of his pain?
The more I think about things, the more clues I see staring me in the face — little things that amount to nothing on their own, but considered altogether, they’re like a red flag. Sam’s many appointments, for instance. I thought they were business meetings, but what if they were doctor’s appointments? And the night he couldn’t sleep. Maybe he was in pain then. Maybe that’s what brought him home early from the rodeo too and knocked him out the entire next day.
It all fits, but I still don’t know what the problem is. Why is Sam in pain? Could it be an old rodeo injury? I discard the idea almost before I think it. As private as Sam is, he wouldn’t keep that a secret. No — whatever is wrong with him has to be more serious than that.
I look at the phone number on the label. Maybe I should call it. If I ask the right questions, maybe I will find something out, even if it’s just whether or not Dr. MacLeod is a GP or a specialist. There’s a thought. If Sam has bone pain or some kind of respiratory problem, Dr. MacLeod could very well be a specialist.
But I don’t have to call her office to find that out. A telephone book will tell me the same thing. I go to the kitchen and start rooting through drawers and cupboards. But no luck. There aren’t many places to store things in Sam’s trailer, and the only other place I can think the directory might be is in his bedroom, and I am not going to look in there.
Then I have another idea. I can do a search for Maggie MacLeod on the Internet. I pick up my phone again and start pushing buttons.
“Dr. Margaret MacLeod, Cariboo, B.C.,” I say aloud as I type in the words. Then I hit enter.
The very first result is a listing for a doctor in Kamloops. I check the phone number against the one on the pill bottle. It’s the same. The address is there too, but there’s no indication what kind of doctor Maggie MacLeod is.
Even so, it’s a clue. The day after Sam’s sleepless night, he went to Kamloops. Maybe he was going to see Dr. MacLeod.
I scan the headings of the other entries. None of them tell me anything. But halfway down the page my gaze flits over one that sends a shiver up my spine.
Dr. Margaret MacLeod, Cariboo oncologist, lauded by the CMA for her work with cancer patients.
Chapter Nineteen
Oh my god. No. I squeeze my eyes shut — my mind too. This has to be wrong. It has to be a different Dr. MacLeod. I slowly open my eyes and read the entry heading again, but the only two words that register are oncologist and cancer. Anxiously, I click on the link and skim the article. At the end there’s a photograph. It’s her. My stomach starts to churn. This isn’t possible. It’s a mistake. It has to be.
But my gut says it isn’t. Dr. MacLeod is an oncologist, a physician specializing in cancer. And she’s Sam’s doctor. That can mean only one thing. Sam has cancer.
I push the idea away and slam my mind shut again. Then I switch off the phone and push it away too — as if it’s crawling with maggots. My stomach is heaving and rolling like crazy. I feel cold and dizzy. I grab the edge of the kitchen counter with both hands and sag against the cabinet. A wave of heat replaces the cold, and I begin to sweat. Breathe, I tell myself. Breathe! So I do — loudly and deeply. I block out the swirling kitchen and my swirling stomach and concentrate solely on breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
When the dizziness passes and my stomach settles, I take a last steadying breath to calm myself. I will not jump to conclusions. I will not. I say it over and over in my head. Whatever Sam is seeing Dr. MacLeod about, it’s just routine. He’s probably getting a mole checked out or maybe having a prostate exam. Yes — something like that. It makes sense. Sam is an outdoors guy. He spends a lot of time in the sun. It’s good to take precautions against skin cancer. And middle-aged men should have regular prostate check-ups.
I take another deep breath. I have to stay calm. I have to be rational. I have to concentrate on what’s real. Okay — so what is real? I try to remember what I was doing before I googled Dr. MacLeod’s name and the world turned upside down. What was important before that?
I search my mind, but it’s a wasteland. Empty. There’s nothing there. It’s like I just woke up from a deep sleep, and my brain hasn’t caught up.
Think!
I try harder. Then, in a flash, it comes to me. I need to finish reading my novel. Sam and I are going to have one of our book talks this afternoon. But wait. I scoop the pill bottle off the counter. I can’t leave that sitting around. Sam will wonder what it’s doing there.
Like a robot, I walk down the hall to his bedroom and set the bottle on the night table. As I turn to leave, I see the ironed shirts on the doorknob. I should hang them up. But I leave them where they are. This way it looks like I never went into the room.
If only that were true.
———
Though there’s not a chance I’ll be able to make myself read the book, I flop down on the couch with it. The thing is I don’t even get it open before I hear a familiar whinny. I go to the kitchen window and peer outside. Sam and Jasmine are coming across the field. Panic shoots through me. They can’t be back yet. It’s way too soon.
So now I’m worrying that shock and anxiety are written all over my face. Sam will only have to take one look at me to know something is wrong. Act normal, I tell myself. It would help if I could remember what normal is.
I go to the door and open it. The blue sky that ushered in the day has turned to grey. It’s the first time since I’ve been in Webb’s River that the sun isn’t shining. The dirty clouds do nothing to improve my mood.
Sam and Jasmine are standing by the shed, and Sam is examining Jasmine’s back foot.
“What’s the matter?” I call. My voice is amazingly steady. “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”
“Jasmine lost her footing on a rocky patch and threw a shoe. She’s all right, but she doesn’t do well without shoes. It’s about time she had them changed anyway. I called Tom Barnes — he’s the farrier around these parts — and he’s on his way over.”
“How long will that take?” I ask. I’m pretty sure Sam will want to hang out with the farrier while he works, so that will give me some time to get my head together.
“Well, I can’t tell you when he’ll get here, but it should take him about an hour to change her shoes — and have a coffee. Tommy does like his coffee. Could I ask you to put on a fresh pot, Dani?”
“Sure,” I say.
“Thank you.” Then he turns his attention back to Jasmine. He pats her neck briskly. Her tail swishes, and she snorts. “It’s your lucky day, old girl,” he tells her. “You’re gonna get a pedicure.”
Tom Barnes arrives as I’m making the coffee, so I figure he must have been in the neighbourhood when he got Sam’s call. Judging from his wispy white hair and weathered skin, I put him at around sixty — maybe sixty-five. He has a friendly face, and though he’s carrying some extra weight around the middle, his shoulders are broad and his arms are muscular. He backs his truck up to the shed and lowers the tailgate. The bed is full of all sorts of tools I’ve never seen before. While the coffee brews, I watch from the kitchen window until Tom Barnes heads into the shed.
I put cream, sugar, the coffee carafe, a couple of mugs, and a plate of cookies on a tray. Then I slip on my runners and a sweatshirt and take the tray out to the shed.
Sam and Tom are deep in conversation when I arrive. At first they don’t notice me. I put the tray down on top of a crate and shove my hands into my
sweatshirt pocket. It’s Tom who sees me first.
“Well, looky here,” he says, glancing up from the hoof he’s scraping. “Who’s this now?”
Sam smiles and beckons me to come closer. “Tom, this here is my niece, Dani. She’s staying with me for a few weeks. Dani, this is Tom Barnes, the best farrier this side of the Rockies.” Then behind his hand he adds, “And the worst poker player.”
“Hey, hey. Now what kinda talk is that?” Tom protests. “You tryin’ to poison this young lady against me?”
Sam shakes his head. “Nope. I’m just telling her how she might go about earning some extra money.”
I smile, though it’s the last thing I feel like doing. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Barnes,” I say. Then I gesture to the tray. “I brought you guys some coffee. It’s fresh. The cookies not so much, but maybe if you dunk them.…” I shrug and let the sentence trail off.
“Thank you kindly,” Tom says. Then he raises his head and inhales all the way down to his feet. “Mmm. Smells wonderful. And I do believe it’s just about time for a break.”
I force another smile and turn to Sam. “I’m going for a walk,” I say. It’s hard to look him in the eye.
“I thought you were reading,” he replies. He cocks his head and squints at me. “You okay?”
I nod. I want to shout, Are you? but instead I say, “I can’t seem to concentrate. I think I need some fresh air and exercise.”
Sam is still assessing me with narrowed eyes. Finally he says, “Okay then. I’ll see you later.”
———
I walk aimlessly for almost two hours. Sam’s property is gorgeous, but today, I don’t see it. I don’t see the clouds either, though I feel them pressing down on me. I’m too caught up in my thoughts.
My initial panic has passed. Now I’m just numb. I feel like I’ve been drugged or maybe wrapped in a thousand layers of cotton batting. The world is turning in slow motion and nothing seems real.
Truths I Learned from Sam Page 10