by Mary Razzell
Bruce tucked my hand into his. My heart stopped.
“This may not be the best time to talk to you about this … You’re special to me. I want the very best for you. For you to finish your education, to go into nurses’ training, if that’s what you decide to do. Maybe when you’re older, twenty-one or so, you might think it’s time to get married. In the meantime, I’ll get my law degree, and maybe my skin graft will be successful … Well, enough of that for now. Lots of maybes, I know. But keep it in mind, because I …” He stopped.
“You what?” I asked.
“I can be loyal, too.”
I sat stunned. Unbelieving. I must have misunderstood him. He couldn’t possibly have said what I thought he’d said.
We didn’t talk about it anymore. The rest of the afternoon was spent burning leaves. A quiet hum had started inside of me. I knew I must have misunderstood him. It was an impossible dream. Yet I kept thinking about it anyway.
It was enough for now that his eyes said he was happy to be with me. The fire turned to red embers, the air cooled as the sun went down, but the humming inside went on and on.
Jack did ask me to the dance again, and, thinking about what Bruce had said, I decided to go.
At work at the Hanson’s on Saturday, the first thing I did was look around for Bruce to tell him.
“He’s gone,” said Mrs. Hanson. “The hospital phoned two days ago, and he went in on the next boat. He left you a note, though.” She took an envelope from behind the kitchen clock and handed it to me.
“For today, I want you to work on the bedrooms in the attic. Now that the mill at Port Mellon is running again, I’ve had a lot of mill workers looking for room and board. You’ll need to take a mop to the walls. I don’t know where all the dust comes from. And after that, start on the floors. Wash and wax.”
As soon as I was alone, I opened the envelope and read Bruce’s note:
Dear Meg,
Sorry I didn’t get to see you before I left, but there wasn’t time. The doctors tell me it’s going to be a long haul, and visitors might be restricted at first because of the risk of infection. I’d like it if you wrote to me. Tell me how you are doing. You know I’m always interested.
Bruce
The community hall was decorated with orange and black crepe-paper streamers, cut-outs of skeletons, witches and pumpkins. I saw Mr. and Mrs. Ballard. He was dressed as a pirate; she wore a gypsy skirt, blouse and dangling earrings. When I told Mom I had to say no when Mrs. Ballard had asked me to babysit, she had said, “I know you want to go to the dance, Meg. Tell Mrs. Ballard I’ll fill in for you. I’m just so glad things are settling down for those two that I don’t mind helping out.”
Jack led me out onto the dance floor that was slippery with talcum powder. His dancing was forceful and strong. A couple of times, he stepped on my right foot. Both times he said, “You have to let me lead.” As if it were my fault. I knew from both Glen and Bruce that I was a good dancer, but I decided to let it go. I found it hard to like Jack, in spite of admiring him for his brains. I was still surprised at the strong physical attraction I felt every time I was near him.
He was attentive. At intermission, he seated me on one of the benches that lined the hall and said, “I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t go away.”
He returned, grinning all the way across the dance floor, carrying an ice cream cone. He seemed so pleased that I couldn’t help thinking that I was too critical of him. My heart softened.
We walked home together after the dance. When we got to the top of the path leading down to my house, he bent his head to kiss me. I stepped back.
“Aww, Meg,” he said. “Come on.”
“Goodnight, Jack,” I said. The wind sighed in the cedar trees. I wished it were Bruce who had wanted to kiss me.
Amy was back at school, a slight bump puffing out the loose tops she wore. Ever since I’d gone to the dance with Jack, the kids had stopped bugging me about being friends with Amy. She and I spent recesses and lunches together and sat beside each other on the bus.
Jack didn’t say anything more about my friendship with Amy. We were too busy trying to outdo each other at school. He would get an A. I’d study even harder to keep up with him. Mr. Freeman beamed.
I knew that Jack would always be better at chemistry than I was, but I tried to learn from him. “I’m going to university and then on to grad school in the States,” he told me. “I’m going to do basic research.”
“You’ll be good at it,” I said and meant it. I knew he would have to do it on scholarships alone, with no help from his family.
He had told me about his family one afternoon after we got off the school bus. He said that his own parents were divorced, that his father was a navigator in the Air Force and that he had a stepfather. “He’s jealous of me and my mother. He wants her all to himself. I hate him. He’s logging on Gambier Island where we live, making up booms. One day I was down at the beach, and I happened to look up at the top of the cliff. I saw him about to roll a huge log down on me. I jumped out of the way and yelled back, ‘If you ever try that again, I’ll kill you.’”
I looked at him quickly. He must be making this up, I thought. But his jaw was rigid, and I believed him. I could see Jack saying and doing exactly that.
I’d seen the same look on his face one evening when we’d gone to the Friday night movie at the community hall at Gibson’s. We were supposed to meet there at 8:00, and when he didn’t turn up, I found a seat on my own. About twenty minutes later, he came in, short of breath and with his fists clenched at his sides. He told me that three or four of the high school boys had ganged up on him. “You think you’re so smart,” they’d said. Cliff Olson, the biggest one, had started hammering him.
“I knocked him down with my first punch,” Jack said. “He didn’t know I was light-weight boxing champ at Port Mellon this summer.”
I craned my neck around to see if Cliff was there in the hall. He was standing by the back door looking subdued, and I saw him put his hand up and rub his jaw.
I’d never liked Cliff Olson. He farted and burped and made sucking noises whenever he passed a girl. He’d never bothered me, but I think that was because I had brothers.
“He’s nothing but a bully,” I said now to Jack.
Jack’s breathing didn’t return to normal for about twenty minutes. I felt the anger in him gradually subside. But he stayed alert.
I didn’t know if I liked Jack or not. He had a coldness about him, yet he wrote poetry to me. He seemed to know something about everything, but he didn’t know that he sounded conceited when he boasted. I remember what Bruce had said, that I should get to know boys and learn about them. So far, what I’d learned about Jack was that he cared for himself most of all.
Bruce had said he cared about me, what happened to me. Maybe I was making this up. I must be. But I walked around in a daydream anyway, as if it were true.
Bruce hadn’t answered any of my letters. I told myself that he was probably not feeling well enough yet, or was in too much pain. Olive had said that burn patients suffered a lot of pain. When I asked Mrs. Hanson how Bruce was, she always said, “We’re hopeful.”
As the days and weeks passed, I thought that I must have blown up what Bruce had said. Then I would grab my textbooks and concentrate on getting the highest marks I could.
At the beginning of December, Amy’s blood pressure climbed dangerously high. Dr. Casey decided to send her to St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. She was almost five months pregnant.
“Doc Casey thinks it’s pre-eclampsia, and I have to stay on bed rest and have my blood pressure and urine monitored until it’s time to deliver. And, oh, Meg, they’re going to do a Caesarian. I don’t want a scar!”
Amy had more bad news. I was helping her pack a small bag for the hospital, and she was crying when she said, “Glen’s father has refused to give his permission for Glen to get married. That means we have to wait four more years for him to be twenty-one, the l
egal age to marry.”
“No wonder Glen hates his father,” I said, taking the top she was scrunching into a ball and refolding it to lie flat in the suitcase. “Do you think that Robert could change the father’s mind?”
“I’ve already talked to him about it. He said he’d try. He says that for some reason, their father is harder on Glen than he ever was on the other sons.”
Over the Christmas holidays, I went into Vancouver and stayed a few days at Olive’s. While there, I caught the streetcar downtown to visit Amy at St. Paul’s Hospital. The hallway floors looked like marble and were speckled, like the stones in the creek at the Landing.
Amy was in semi-private on the maternity ward. I could hear the newborns crying from the nursery nearby. A black-robed nun with a starched white wimple glided down the hallway, footless under her black robe. She smiled at me.
I found Glen sitting in the straight-back chair next to Amy’s bed.
“I just wanted to say hello, Amy,” I said quickly, putting the grapes I’d brought on her bedside table and backing out the door.
Glen followed me out into the hallway. “Thanks for coming,” he said. It was the first time he’d spoken to me since that day on Shelter Island in the summer.
“You’re welcome.” He looked exhausted. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“Well, working every night and going to university at the same time is a killer.”
“When do you sleep?”
“From eight to noon. I go to classes in the afternoon then catch a nap before I go to work at eleven … I’m tired all the time.”
“Where are you working?”
“At the Hotel Vancouver, as a desk clerk. Pay’s not great, but it gives me a chance to study.”
“You’d be good at the job. You’ve had the experience.”
“Yeah, the old man trained me well. In fact, the manager knows him, and that was enough for me to get the job.”
“How is your mother?”
“She’s all right. Dotes on me. That makes it hard on me, though, with her husband and kids. They resent me, I think.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Glen?” called Amy’s voice from within the room.
“I’ll be right there, Amy.”
I told Olive about Bruce being on the burn unit. “I’m not sure how’s he’s doing. His mother doesn’t say much. I’d like to see him, though.”
“You could always phone hospital information, give them Bruce’s name and ask them to put you through to the nurses’ station on his floor. They’d be able to tell you if he is allowed to have visitors … The phone is in the kitchen, and the phone book is in the drawer below.”
It took awhile to get through the switchboard to the right part of the hospital, but finally, I heard, “Miss Coleman, Heather Pavillion, Medical Floor.” I gripped the receiver so close to my ear that both my hand and ear hurt.
“My name is Meg Woods, and I’m a friend of Bruce Hanson. I’m from out of town, and I’ve written him, but he’s never answered … Is he dying?”
“Oh, no. No, my dear,” the nurse was quick to say. “He had a bad infection, but he’s responding well to the new drug we started this week. Penicillin.”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“Yes, it’s a miracle drug they’ve been using overseas for our wounded soldiers. We put in a request to Ottawa and had a supply flown in.”
“Would you please tell him that I phoned? Meg Woods.”
“Meg? Yes, of course, dear. I know it will mean a lot to him. He’s talked about you.”
“Really? He doesn’t usually say much.”
“Well, he was pretty sick, there, for a while. Delirious.”
Talking about me. Saying my name. My God, maybe he does care, after all.
Now there was no stopping me from going over to the hospital. I stopped at a Chinese grocery store on Broadway and bought a potted poinsettia. The red flowers seemed to shout out the joy that I felt. Bruce said my name.
The Heather Pavillion was one of several buildings of the hospital complex. I got lost looking for it and wound up in a courtyard next to the TB Willow Chest Centre. From there, it took me twenty minutes before I was in the right building and standing before their information desk.
“I’m sorry, visiting hours are over for the afternoon,” said the receptionist. “You can leave the flowers here. I’ll see that they are delivered to Mr. Hanson. Come back at seven.”
“I won’t be here then. I’m from out of town, and I’m catching the boat back this evening. Could I just pop up and leave them myself?” I asked. “I’ll just say hello.”
“Up the stairs, turn left, through the doors, and you’ll find Mr. Hanson’s room about halfway down on the right-hand side. Here, I’ll write his room number down for you.”
Once up on the next floor, I went down the short corridor to Bruce’s room. His bed was empty. “I’m sorry,” said the nurse attending to the other patient in the semi. “Visiting hour are over, and Mr. Hanson is in the treatment room right now.”
“May I leave this?” I asked.
“Yes, just leave it on his bedside table.”
I tucked a card in the foliage. On it, I’d written, “Dear Bruce, With warm thoughts of you and to you. Meg.”
I found a cafeteria in the main building of the hospital and bought a cup of coffee and a date square. The coffee was vile — a thin, bitter brew that Mrs. Hanson would have poured down the sink — and I couldn’t finish it.
Once I was out of the hospital, I went back to Heather Street and stood there, looking up at what I thought must be Bruce’s room. I caught a brief glimpse of a movement at the window. It was too far to see who was waving. But just in case — yes, please, Lord — it was Bruce, I waved back until my arm ached.
Chapter Twelve
The Christmas holidays were over. When I saw Jack at the bus stop, I wondered what had happened to him. He looked wild with his uncombed hair and purple shadows under his eyes.
As soon as we got in the classroom, he flipped up his desktop and started to throw things on the floor. He was swearing under his breath. Once, he kicked the desk.
“What’s up, Jack?” I asked.
His voice was deep with bitterness. “My stepfather has made another one of his brilliant decisions. He’s moving us into Vancouver. He and Mom are in there now, looking for a place to rent. That means starting a new school — which totals four in the last two years — and no one cares how it affects me. I hate the bastard.”
“Oh, Jack! Sorry. We’ll miss you. One day we’ll read about your brilliant career in science and say, ‘We knew he could do it.’”
“I’ll write to you, Meg, and let you know my new address and phone number. When you come into Vancouver, we’ll get together. Okay?”
I nodded. I would be sorry to see him go. It would be hard to keep up with chemistry on my own. But it was more than that. Amy gone. Bruce away. And now Jack.
Feb 7, 1945
Dear Bruce,
I hope you liked the poinsettia I left for you at the hospital. I wanted to visit you, but they said you were in the treatment room.
My brother’s fiancée Olive, I told you about her, is a nurse, and she says the new drugs and dressings they’re using are working miracles. I sure hope that’s true and that your pain will be gone soon. I say a prayer every night for you. (I’m for anything that works.)
I’m trying to knit booties for Amy’s baby. I’ve had to unravel them twice. I’m only going to try once more.
Your mother has a few mill workers boarding with her.
Most of them are single guys who are lonely and away from home. They rave about her cooking.
Love,
Meg
I wished I had enough nerve to visit Bruce, but I wasn’t sure he’d want me to.
I missed him so much that I felt like I had swallowed a huge rock, one with jagged edges on it. Sometimes I couldn’t stop tears from coming. I thought if I ever started crying, I
would never be able to stop.
I was worried about him because his mother said, “Bruce is doing as well as can be expected,” which could mean anything. I worried that he was in a lot of pain. I worried that he had a raging infection. I worried that the skin graft wasn’t taking.
Most of all, I was almost sick thinking that he didn’t really care for me, and it was all just wishful thinking on my part. Of course, why should he care? Then I felt so foolish. Pathetic. And I was torn up by the idea that I’d imagined that, somehow, I was special to him and that he did want us to be together in the future. What kind of skin graft was he having, anyway, that made this all so mysterious and serious? Had his burns made him somehow afraid to fall in love? Why? Did he think he was too disfigured? Maybe he couldn’t have children? Or couldn’t make love? Physically, I mean. I loved him anyway.
I decided that I would study even harder to fill up the big hole in my life. Before Jack left at the end of January, he had gone over all our correspondence chapters yet to be done and helped me make out study cards, and he chose lists of experiments I could do on my own. We checked it over with Mr. Freeman, and he was impressed.
“Well, Jack,” he said. “It has been a pleasure to have you as my student. We all wish you the very best.” Mr. Freeman never showed any emotion except cheerfulness, but I thought I saw a look of sadness in his eyes.
“You and Meg. You are two of the best students I’ve ever had. If all my students were as good, my life would be easy. Keep in touch, Jack. Let us know how you are doing. You will go on to do great things, I’m sure. If there is any way I can help, any way at all, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
A few days later after school, I stopped off at the Landing to pick up the daily mail. The Lady Rose was tying up at the wharf on her return trip to Vancouver, and, as usual, I went down to the wharf to see her off.
Jack stood by the gangway with a suitcase by his side, and I walked over to say goodbye. His body was stiff with anger, but I thought I saw more than that in his eyes, a softness, a vulnerability. He took my hand and said, “You did come down to say goodbye.”