by Jo Owens
The whole family was awesome. Yeah, I remember…this was before your time, Michi, just after I started working here. There was this younger couple, probably early seventies. They’ d only been together a couple of years; they were in love, really adorable. He had a massive stroke on the ski hill. She came to see her guy every day, like, she was dedicated. I really admired her, we chatted all the time. When the dude died about six months later, she was in packing up his stuff, and she thanked me for everything we’d done for him, and I said, “But we’ll see you around.” See, I was green, I didn’t know any better. She said, “Hell no, I won’t be back.” She said, “I was afraid I’d grow old here, waiting for him to die. I’m off to Catalina Island; I’ve got a job there. Toodle-oo. You’ve been a peach.” She gave me a big hug and I never saw her again.
Sounds like my kinda girl!
You know, I wasn’t thinking that way, but now that you mention it, yeah!
* * *
Happy New Year.
My new drugs are amazing but I’m very tired and quite groggy. I am not sure why but it seems that both Ruby and I are more and more content just lying on our beds, resting.
Those two are going down together, says Molly.
My eyes are closed; I’m breathing deeply and the girls’ voices are low. My Molly. My Lily.
Yes, I wonder if it’s coincidence or…
Grace?
Or maybe will.
You think so? I know Ruby’s ready, but Frannie? She’s still so young.
Comparatively young.
Yeah, but…I’ve always thought of Frannie as such a fighter.
Absolutely, but I definitely see a mellowing in her. And a letting go.
Molly speaks with affection: Well, you’re the psychic.
Oh nooo. I just meant…
I’m teasing you, sweetie. Hey, I value your opinion, Lily. Besides. What we think isn’t gonna change a thing. We’re just here to support the journey.
That’s a strange conversation to overhear. Now that the girls are gone I open my eyes and look over at Ruby. She’s deafer than I am, and she appears to be deeply asleep, but who knows. Maybe she’s a plausible faker, like me.
So I’m “going down,” am I? Is that what this is? I feel a flash of anger and a twitch in my bum right arm as if I had narrowly resisted the urge to slap someone. I experience a sensation of falling, and then, almost like a hallucination, dozens of images from my life speed through my mind: a pearl earring lost in my twenties, Ang laughing as she chased after Chris on the beach, the smooth length of my thigh as I put on nylons, the taste of real maple syrup, the crippling grasp of my favourite client’s handshake, the smell of paint when we put a fresh coat on the living room, a tulip broken in the rain lying on the ground in my garden. The sensations form a giddy montage. I feel a bit nauseous and I’m glad when the swirling stops as abruptly as it started.
I recall a conversation that I overheard shortly after I came here; I feel it nudging at my consciousness. I was sitting quietly in the sunroom, listening to Molly, Michi, Blaire, and maybe a couple of others I couldn’t name. They were talking about someone I didn’t know.
What is she hanging on for?
We want to believe that when someone’s ready to go, they’ll go, but when we get one who’s lying there day after day, saying “Why can’t I die?” it kind of shakes that belief.
There must be a reason.
No reason!
Death is like labour. It’s hard work!
People don’t realize that.
Yeah, they think there’s a drug for that.
We do the best we can and sometimes it’s still not enough.
I’ve seen some hard deaths.
We all have.
Like this one we’ve got going on right now.
There was a kind of universal shudder.
The morphine isn’t touching her.
Have they tried a fentanyl patch?
Every night I pray she gets to go.
Oh God, me too.
Odd to think that the woman they were talking about is long gone now, and although I never met her, she has this place in my brain.
This “going down,” if that’s what it is, is beyond my control.
I am here and now. Ruby is over there. Lily and Molly are close. This is the quilt you gave me, Anna, soft, like the fuzzy warmth of a baby’s head.
My eyes are closing again and I let them.
* * *
The pain of losing Angelina was so terrible, there were times I thought it would have been better if she had never been born.
But then again, if I hadn’t been pregnant with Angelina, if I hadn’t had Chris in tow, I would never have gone to your diner that day. We would never have become friends. Chris would have never been an older brother, and he was a good older brother, patient, loving and kind. I remember him playing pony with Angelina laughing on his back. Reading her stories. Helping her learn to skateboard. Even as she got older and wilder, and they had no interests in common, he still cared for his sister.
I’m so grateful that I had my wild child, my darling Angelina, even if it was only for a little while. She was so beautiful, especially when she was in motion: jumping on the trampoline in Raven’s backyard, her hair flying; running arms outstretched after the ducks at the park; throwing herself at me, fiercely physical, so rough always.
After all these years, it still hurts. But it’s a dull ache now.
* * *
So you know that little one that’s dying on the third floor?
Yeah, yeah, skin and bones, right?
Right. So the daughter came in with a bunch of ice cream. She told the staff, don’t bother with the Ensure and the yucky protein shakes, give her ice cream three times a day if she wants it, cuz this time next year she won’t be here.
Aw damn, I love that!
Yup. She said her mom’s been on a diet her whole life and they used to laugh and joke together about this day and how she’s gonna eat all the ice cream she wants. She brought strawberry ripple and butter pecan and triple chocolate threat and the kitchen put it in the freezer with her name on it.
Oh my God, I’m tearing up.
I know, right? It pays to talk things out with your family, there could be ice cream in it for you when it really matters!
Good call.
* * *
Ruby bounces back. After a couple of days she is up and about again, going to exercises and chapel as she did before.
I’m happy to have my eyes open, but I just want to lie here. That’s all I want to do.
I’m glad I had Chris and the nurse help me with the Degree of Intervention form. I don’t think I’d be up to doing it now. I don’t think I could concentrate. I haven’t touched the things on my table for days. My new calendar is still in its cellophane wrapping.
I’m getting my meds by injection now. It’s my turn to have a “butterfly” needle attached to my arm. What an image! Butterfly. Beautiful. Fragile. Capable of flight, like an angel.
My thoughts are capricious; they amuse me. The pain is still there, but I don’t care. The morphine is effective.
I drift away again.
* * *
“I don’t know how to say this, but I’ve got to try. It’s not that I don’t want you around. You’re still important to me. But I don’t need you. I’ll be okay. I don’t want to see you suffer. So if you want to go, go. I know you love me. And I love you.”
I can’t get my eyes open. I should show up for this—look! Chris is making an effort to express his feelings. I never thought I’d see the day. Lord, I never even knew that I wanted to see the day—didn’t even know that I was craving and needing that until the words came out of his mouth. Inside I smile, but I can’t drag up the energy to make my muscles move.
If only I could open my eyes.
Now Chris is taking my hand. “Are you ready?” he asks me.
It is for his comfort and peace of mind that I am able to will everything I have left into squeezing once, and letting go.
There. I’ve done my best. Dearest son, I hope you understand.
* * *
It is afternoon. Almost shift change. Molly and Lily are doing their final room checks, and I know they’re talking about me. My eyes are closed, but in my mind, I see the three of us. It all feels very distant, very remote.
It looks like she’s going to beat Mary out the door.
That’s Molly.
Yes. We weren’t expecting that. But her directive says “comfort measures only.” She went through it with Chris only just a little while back.
Where is Chris?
I think he said goodbye. I don’t think Francesca would feel free to go if he was here. She was pretty protective.
She’d spare him. Oh my God. I don’t know who I feel worse for.
Francesca or Chris?
No! Frannie or Mary.
Molly, don’t feel bad for Francesca.
I do!
Oh my gosh. Mama Molly is crying.
Oh, sweetie. You’re sad for yourself.
I am! I love her so much. And I have the feeling she got ripped off. Her life was hard and short. It isn’t fair.
She’s choosing the happy ending, Molly.
What do you mean? This doesn’t look like a happy ending to me!
But it kind of is. An ending is when you close the book. Think of where Fran is now compared to where she was when she came to us. We all love her to pieces. She has this adorable friendship with Ruby. Chris is doing so much better. Remember how he was when Francesca first came in? Or even a couple of months ago? His whole body language has changed. He’s so obviously in a much better place. I don’t know if he’s told her about Michiko, but Michi is going to be really good for him. That means everything to Francesca. This is a great ending. But life goes on; there’ll be another story with new tensions and trials. A happy ending has everything to do with timing.
But why can’t she have some time to enjoy all that, Lill?
She’s not the type. She’s not the kind of person who’s still hanging on at the end of the party having one last highball and a cigarette while the hosts are yawning their heads off and trying to put away the beer bottles and air the place out. She’s the kind that would stand up and say, “Well! That’s been fabulous,” and kiss you twice and be gone before you had a chance to say “More wine?” She’s a take-control kind of a woman.
Oh, Lily. When my turn comes, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have tuck me into bed.
Thank you, dear. Coming from you, that’s a real compliment.
Molly blows her nose.
Well. God knows, long and slow is no way to go.
It absolutely isn’t.
Lily comes closer, places a hand on my cheek. It’s cool and comforting.
She can hear us, you know. She hears every word.
Molly bursts into tears again. Lily turns to her, and holds her.
Don’t worry, Molly. Everything is going to be fine. Look! I get to give you tissues for a change.
Molly gives that shaky kind of laugh that means it’s time to pull yourself together. Then they both kiss me, and tell me that they love me, and wish me safe journey.
My eyes stay closed, my body inert, but I am surprised to find my heart is full of contentment.
* * *
Sepsis.
I am hot and every part of my body aches. My right arm is weighing me down—I cannot toss but I writhe, skewered, without comfort. Finally the crazy night nurse makes her rounds, and calls the RN to give me something to lower my temperature and something else for pain. I start to float, and then I’m dreaming.
I’m in the pool with Chris, who is a toddler, and I’m teaching him to swim. My black bathing suit hugs me, my body is strong and mobile, and Chris is an extension of me as I balance him lightly on my palm while he floats on his back. I show him how the water will support him when he flutters his feet with the gentlest of kicks. His eyes are wide with possibility, blue as the water; his face registers fear and then amazement. A current of pride races through my body, a lightning bolt of joy.
Then a whistle blows, sharp and piercing, and it’s time to get out of the pool, and there is Angelina, reaching to help me, one lovely arm extended. Her body is my mother’s body, and my own: long, muscular brown legs, a slim waist, firm breasts, and such a proud neck, long as a queen’s. Angelina, my beauty, my darling. I reach for her…
But Chris—I’ve forgotten him—I turn back and there he is, full-grown. He is swimming away from me, doing the butterfly, the most difficult of strokes, his powerful shoulders cresting and sinking, spray shooting like fireworks gracing the sky. Like a whale breaching for the sheer delight of wind and water, Chris rises and falls with pounding effort, making his purposeful way across the pool.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I have been working as a care aide for over twenty years now. I still feel passionate enough about my work to ramble on at length about it to anyone who will listen.
All of the characters in this book are fictional; the things that my characters say have been said many times, in many different ways, by many different people, but no one person ever said these things.
I want to mention that the care aides in this book are appallingly bad about talking shop in front of the residents, which is a professional no-no. I let them talk that way, even though they’re supposedly good aides (at least, I think they’re good aides) and should know better, because I wanted to write about what actually happens, rather than what ought to happen.
I have tried to write as realistically as possible to the best of my ability, with one glaring exception: the dynamics in Francesca’s five-bed ward work out pretty well for the most part in this novel. That is rarely the case in real life. In our culture, we value privacy highly and consider having our own room to be the bare minimum; even double rooms are usually nothing but trouble.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many people deserve my thanks for the making of this book. I am very fortunate to work in a facility that prioritizes high standards of resident care and safety. I want to thank everyone at Mount Saint Mary’s and especially the Sisters of Saint Ann for creating a very special place; my life is richer because of you. I have fed my family and my soul. To my residents: it has been an honour to care for you. To my amazing, diverse and talented co-workers: I have learned so much from you.
Thanks also to Bente Birchall and Susan Link, who answered my questions about what it was like to be a woman in the accounting business on the west coast in the seventies, eighties and nineties.
Thank you to my many first readers, especially Joy, and also Eva and the Judes, for the reading the half-baked, semi-raw versions of my book and encouraging me. I am very lucky to have you guys in my life.
Thank you to Honora and Ann-Marie, for championing my book; without you, I would never have had this incredible experience and I am so grateful.
Thank you to Anne Collins at Penguin Random House for taking a chance on A Funny Kind of Paradise and to my wonderful editor, Amanda Betts, who helped my book step out of its stinky sneakers and put on some classy, hard-wearing Blundstones. Thank you to the whole team that helped in the production of my book: my copy editor, Tilman Lewis; my cover designer, Kelly Hill; and my publicist, Danielle LeSage. Just the fact that I get to say these words is a huge thrill.
Thank you to Don Craig for the skookum author photo. I look great!
Finally, I’d like to thank the usual suspects on Team Jo: the friends, family and professionals that keep me safe, sane and functional. Thanks to Susan Farling. To Veronique, Avery and the good folks at Westcore Fitness. To Kim and Murray, who always have my back,
and my present partners, Ross and Regina, who teach me something new every day. Thanks to Shirley, Shiela, Valerie and Saskia, who bring me rainbow colours in a million shapes. To my extended family, both my side and Clayton’s, whom I count as my own: Kay, my brother, my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, my cousins, my aunts and uncles, and my awesome collection of nieces and nephews—I’ve been blessed. Special thanks to Allan—when the sky started falling down, you were right there for us—and my sister Shelley, my biggest cheerleader. Most of all, thank you to my mom, who always had faith in me. Safe journey, Mama.
And at the very core of my heart, my husband and kids: you mean everything to me.
TUNES
When the author of an enjoyable book provides a soundtrack of music that complements their text or inspired them, I am always utterly delighted, so I’ve decided to include the music list that I compiled while writing this book:
“Bless the Kind Heart,” Pied Pumkin:
a dedication to health care professionals everywhere.
“I Will Survive,” Gloria Gaynor:
this song is for Fran, because she’s a survivor.
“Danny’s Song,” Loggins and Messina:
Anna, falling in love with Chris.
“Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Nirvana:
this is the song that kept playing in my head when I was writing about Angie. As well as: “Think I’m in Love,” Beck.
“I’ve Got You under My Wheels,” Alice Cooper:
Angelina and Alice Cooper both like to stir the pot.
“Sweet Disposition,” The Temper Trap:
this song makes me think of Lily.
“Matches to Paper Dolls,” Dessa:
a brilliant song about making the same stupid mistake over and over again, even though you know better. Also for Lily.