The Winter Wives

by Linden MacIntyre

  I could pretend I was a farmer while letting other people do the farming, pasturing their cattle on my land, harvesting my hay to feed their animals.

  I maintained my membership in the Nova Scotia bar society, and took care of a manageable list of respectable rural and small-town clients. I developed strong professional contacts in Ontario, to whom I carefully doled out the legal work I couldn’t do myself.

  Until recently, it was more or less the same for Annie. She worked from town, only visited Toronto when she wanted to. We’d meet for lunch from time to time.

  The lifestyle suited me. Halfway through my fifties I’d become more conscious of my limits. I went through a phase where I’d wake up in the middle of the night, obsessed with death. Thinking, apropos of nothing: Death really happens. There will be a moment just as real as this one, but it will be my last conscious moment.

  Like someone running low on money, I obsessively checked the existential bank account. Every day a debit.

  Then one day on a golf course, when life seemed to have transcended time, time caught up with Allan.

  * * *

  —

  The phone began to vibrate again, then the ringing started. I could see Allan’s number in the call display.

  It was Peggy.

  –Hey!

  Her usual hello.

  –Hey yourself. What’s up?

  –He asked me to get you on the line. Am I interrupting something? You sound like you’re outside.

  –I am outside. Just puttering. How is he?

  –I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. Here he comes.

  Allan’s voice was strong, but powered by a kind of urgency that said the strength was temporary.

  –Is that you? he said.

  –The one and only.

  –I thought you’d have your bony ass up here by now. We’ve got stuff to talk about.

  –Is something wrong?

  –Everything is wrong. I need you here.

  –I can come by the end of the week, if it’s urgent.

  –You still talk to Annie?

  –When I need to. You know she’s been in Toronto, mostly, since you got sick. I thought it would be temporary.

  –You think me being laid up is temporary?

  –Who knows?

  –I damn well know. So you didn’t know she planned to stay?

  –No.

  –It’s something you’d better think about yourself. There’s fuck all to keep you down there now, and you’re needed here. It’s one of the things we have to talk about. You being here.

  –Give me a couple of days.

  –I know you and your couple of days. I’ve had Annie book you on a flight tomorrow. Check your phone. You should have an e-mail, confirming.

  And Peggy on the line again.

  –You can stay with us.

  –Is he beside you?

  –No. He’s gone back to his room.

  –He sounds strong.

  –It comes and goes. We can talk. Basically, things are okay. The business, I mean. The rest…

  –Is Annie staying with you guys?

  –She’s at the condo. You know that nice place on the harbourfront? The one we bought from the American? The guy with the girlfriend?

  One of our companies had bought the apartment from a businessman who had kept a mistress there. When the woman moved on to an even wealthier Australian, the American put it on the market at a price that I’d considered to be outrageous. Allan bought it without haggling, and paid for it in cash.

  –I know the one, I said.

  –Well, I think she’s going to take it over.

  –So she’s decided to live up there.

  –For now, at least. But there isn’t much there, at the condo, hardly any furniture. So stay with us. Okay?

  * * *

  —

  When I called her, Annie said she’d pick me up at the airport.

  –We’ll have time for a drink while I’m there, I hope. I’m not staying long.

  –Maybe you should get someone to shut the water off. Suspend the services while you’ll be gone.

  –You think that I’ll be up there for a while? Think again.

  –You’ll see for yourself when you get here.

  –So why didn’t you let me know that you were staying on?

  –Because, Byron, I didn’t know myself. I wasn’t ready for what I found here. You should be prepared.

  After she’d hung up, there was the sound of a distant truck. And then nothing.

  I returned to the oak tree. I was moving slowly but felt breathless just the same. When I crouched to tie the burlap, pain shot through the knee of my good leg. All part of a new reality.

  Lately, I’d begun to feel a little flash of panic if I moved too quickly. It wasn’t about the limp, which has always been so much a part of who I am.

  I’d tell myself: You’re only in your fifties. What will your sixties feel like? Don’t even think about the seventies.

  And now I heard myself admitting to the oak tree how much I missed another human presence.

  Is it involuntary solitude that makes us prematurely old?

  I went inside and poured a drink, carried it out to the deck and sat studying my burlap-swaddled oak. Almost all the trees and shrubbery around me had been planted and nurtured by my mother. An optimistic statement, I suppose, acknowledging our limitations but conscious of the continuity of life.

  The sun was setting, promising tomorrow. A promise and a threat, the way I saw it. I felt the chill of the gathering darkness.

  I stood. My body ached. Old sensations working now in tandem with the new aches and pains, from which there will be no recovery.

  I can live with dying. Everybody must. But what about that other possibility? The one that robs us of our ability to know anything? Mom stayed silent on that score.

  At first she did try to welcome her dementia as a gift of spontaneity, the freedom to be herself, say anything she wanted without consequences, say anything to anyone, about anyone. I believe the reality I witnessed was something else, an imprisonment.

  I went inside, turned on a light and turned up the heat. I considered pouring another drink. Maybe not a great idea, I told myself.

  I sat in front of my computer, the reliable escape hatch, entryway to everywhere. The compensation for everything that everybody isn’t, for everything that isn’t spoken when and where it should be, isn’t heard or understood when and where we need the knowledge.

  I typed in “dementia” and waited for the predictable avalanche of information.

  And in the middle of it all, I read that there are facilities where, for a surprisingly modest sum of money, experts will track the secrets lurking in our genetic code, where time stores all her strategies, where destiny lies dormant, waiting to surprise us.

  I made notes. I made up my mind.

  18.

  I called Annie as soon as the plane touched down. She said she was waiting for me in the car just outside the Arrivals door.

  –What kind of car am I looking for?

  –I’ll stand outside it with the trunk open so you can spot me. It’s black and shiny, like a limo. A Mercedes.

  Allan’s only self-indulgence was his car. He wasn’t into Jags or Beemers like the ostentatious near rich, but he had a passion for Mercedes. Annie was hard to miss.

  –So, he let you take the S-550, I said when I was settled into the passenger seat.

  –Who?

  –Allan.

  –This is mine, she said.

  I could tell that she was watching me for a reaction, but I stared straight ahead. My reaction was anxiety. I don’t know why, or, more accurately, didn’t then. I was also processing her appearance. Hair, makeup, wardrobe. She might have been heading for a film shoo
t. She wore a heavy, not unpleasant scent that was new to me.

  –You seem different, I said.

  –You make it sound like not a good thing.

  When we were finally in the flow of downtown traffic, I asked her when she got the car.

  –When it became apparent that I was going to be here for an indefinite period.

  –And when was that?

  –Not long after I arrived.

  –A gift from Allan.

  –More like a bonus. Or a bribe.

  –Extortion, huh.

  –You’re travelling light, she said.

  –I told you, I don’t plan to be here for long.

  –We’ll see.

  We were at an intersection, not far from Union Station, watching the human throng clotting on the corners, straggling across even when their light was turning red. I could never get accustomed to this morning scene.

  –Do you remember that song from the seventies? The Fugs, if I recall.

  –What song?

  –“River of shit.”

  She laughed.

  –I can’t imagine you doing this all the time, I said.

  She shrugged.

  –I thought you were happy on the farm, I said after a fairly long silence.

  –I think I was. From time to time. Anyway, happy is just a recurring episode, if we’re lucky. Right? You do know that?

  –Yes. Happy is a meaningless concept. I must remind Allan someday.

  I watched the people surging into crosswalks.

  –Daytime vampires, I said.

  She patted my thigh.

  –Get used to it, she said.

  –So, how is Allan doing?

  –Taking care of Allan is a big part of the job now.

  –He sounded fine on the phone yesterday.

  –He can put it on when he has to.

  –You’re depressing me, I said.

  –Life is linear.

  –Which means what?

  –Which means we need to focus on what might happen next, plan for the end point and avoid regrets about what’s past. Done is done.

  –Concentrate on going forward, I said.

  I felt her staring at me, frowning.

  –Man, I hate that phrase, she said. Going forward. As opposed to what? Standing still? Going backwards?

  She leaned on the car horn briefly when the light turned green and the car in front of us didn’t move.

  –Going forward, as if it just happens. As if…Come on, move, asshole! Put away the fucking phone! Go forward!

  * * *

  —

  How I regretted coming. How I dreaded seeing Allan. He and Peggy lived in an expensive corner of a middle-class neighbourhood, not far from an ethnic strip that Allan liked for the anonymity it provided. The ambience was a mix of old-stock Europeans and Asians of a more recent vintage. Lots of women wearing black, many of them covered head to toe.

  –Okay, so why am I here?

  –You don’t know?

  –Help me out.

  –Christ, Byron. Sometimes I wonder about you, you seem so out of it. Estate planning. You’re here for estate planning.

  I laughed.

  –Aren’t we jumping the gun a bit? Also, sorting out estates isn’t really my specialty, certainly not ones on Allan’s scale. Surely there are outfits here that…

  –You’re forgetting the need for some discretion when it comes to Allan’s ventures. It’s about separating his future, such as it is, from his past. Do I really have to explain?

  –I thought that you helped him to take care of that years ago. Sealing off the past.

  –There’s a whole new set of imperatives.

  * * *

  —

  Peggy held my hand warmly at the door, then led me inside. She looked weary, and Annie was anxious to get away, claiming something pressing at the office.

  –He’s been waiting for you, Peggy said.

  I asked how she was coping. She mentioned interrupted sleep, hardly ever getting out. Being there for Allan, his many needs, his changing moods.

  –He sleeps a lot, but this is his best time. Mid-morning. Don’t be surprised, though, if he begins to fade.

  She rapped lightly on a closed door just off the entranceway.

  –We turned his office into a downstairs bedroom, she explained. I’ll leave you guys alone, she said, opening the door.

  * * *

  —

  The first thing that struck me was the hospital bed, which occupied one side of Allan’s cavernous office. The whiteness of it. Gleaming stainless steel. The crank. More machine than bed. The protective side rail dropped.

  –Better here than in the living room, Peggy said. She didn’t have to explain that Allan was no longer able to get upstairs.

  Mom had refused to allow a hospital bed in the house. She had her reasons, I assume, locked somewhere in her memory. Something ominous about where a bed should never be. Like in a living room. She’d say, Sooner or later, every living room becomes a funeral parlour, which is why the doors are almost always closed.

  He wasn’t in the bed, though. He was at his desk, looking like someone who’d been parked there temporarily. Uncomfortable. His smile was just teeth, nothing in the eyes.

  –Did she get you anything?

  –Like what?

  –Coffee?

  –I’m good.

  He looked me up and down.

  –Have you been trying to lose weight?

  –I didn’t realize. Speaking of which, you’re looking kind of lean yourself.

  –Clean living. So what’s the plan?

  –You’re the one who insisted that I come up here right away.

  –I think the women more or less have everything under control.

  He winked. I wasn’t quite sure what the wink meant.

  –We can deal with any loose ends. When you’re here for good, he said.

  –And when might that be?

  –The sooner the better, Allan said, then lapsed into a long silence, staring toward a window. At last, speaking as if from a great distance, he said he was sure that I’d been giving a lot of thought to the few things left to be decided.

  –Actually, I’m not a hundred percent sure what those things are.

  –Aha, he said, and shifted in his chair, grimacing. Well. We’re going through another transition phase. It was in the works, which you should know, given what you’ve been doing the last few years. But we have to speed it up now. You’ll be busy.

  –I understand. But I’d like to make this stay a short one.

  He grinned, then sucked his teeth. Found a toothpick on the desktop, picked briefly, examined something.

  –I need you here, he said, still staring at the toothpick.

  –But you said the women…

  –That’s why I need you here.

  He scanned the room, cleared his throat, then stared hard into my face.

  –They’re great, aren’t they, our ladies? But with me kind of out of it, they can use your help.

  He winked again.

  –Come here and help me up.

  He was already lifting himself out of the chair, hands braced on the edge of his desk, arms trembling.

  I went to him and placed an arm around his waist.

  –Where do you want to go?

  –Over to the bed. Come around.

  He grabbed the lapel of my jacket and I almost lost my balance. And then I felt his hand inside my jacket, fumbling with my inside pocket. And then he seemed to steady himself.

  –Just give me your arm, he said.

  When we were beside the bed, he turned, placed his arms around my neck.

  –Now you’ll have to do a little lifting, he said.

  I
placed my hands below his armpits, to raise him. He had his hands on my shoulders, face pressed against my ear, and he was whispering.

  –They hear everything, he said.

  –Hmmm?

  –Every word. They’re listening. They’re watching.

  I lowered him to the bedside.

  –This is great, he declared.

  Then, with his head cocked to one side, he again whispered:

  –The fucking room is wired.

  I stared at him as he settled back against the pillows. Then he instructed me to make mechanical adjustments so he was sitting almost upright. The door opened. Peggy arrived with a tray, on it two mugs of coffee, cookies.

  –How are we doing? she asked cheerfully.

  –Catching up, I said.

  –I’ll leave you to it.

  And she did.

  Allan lapsed into silence when we were alone again. His hand trembled as he raised his mug. I thought of Mom as he struggled, lips pursed, leaning toward the mug to get a sip. She had bouts of paranoia too, days when she’d convince herself that Shirley was spying on her, or that I was snooping in her purse.

  Coffee slopped onto his shirt, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  –So, this transition, I said.

  –Well, we had things pretty well set up before all this.

  –Yes, the reorganization. But I’m not sure about the stuff before I came on board.

  –The dark ages. Forget about them. That’s history.

  –The casino?

  –I handed everything over to the Indians. There was a reasonable agreement about money. You can forget about that casino.

  –There’s another?

  He nibbled on a cookie, stared some more at me.

  –I’m a little out of touch, I said.

  –That makes two of us, he said, and laughed. Hold this.

  He handed me his mug, struggled to sit up straighter.

  –That’s better, he said.

  I handed it back and he sipped at it for a while.

  –How are you, anyway? he said. What’s going on with you? The women don’t tell me anything.

  –Nothing much happens on the farm.

  –You can see what I’ve been dealing with, he said, gesturing around the room.