by Lou Allin
At Reception a helpful volunteer lady pointed the way to the Chapel. In her fragile and almost giddy state, now that some hope had appeared, she thought of the song, “Going to the Chapel.” But this small nook was a peaceful, nondenominational shelter for meditation, even for agnostics and lapsed Anglicans. Stained glass windows scattered iridescence across the rows of oak pews, vases of fragrant Oriental lilies scented the air, and a wisp of incense lingered, or was she imagining it? Belle approached a side altar heaped with candles in graduated sizes. Her mother’s father had been French Canadian, the only Catholic in the family. She would choose the biggest candle she could find, and ask for, what was it called? Intercession? Funny how these terms from distant confirmation lessons lingered.
She dropped a twoonie into the box and took a thin stick, lighting it from another person’s prayer. As she pressed her knees to the velvet cushion, the candle kindled a small warmth. He was an old man in a nursing home, one tremulous step from the final humiliation of bed care. She would not wish life in name only upon him should his last energy drain from his diminishing capacities. Her favourite Shakespeare play had the best advice: “Oh, let him pass,” Kent said of Lear. “He hates him, / That would upon the rack of this tough world / Stretch him out longer.” If he wanted to live, even for his game shows, her weekly lunches, memories of dusty films, let him live with dignity, or not at all. The finality brought a lump to her throat, and she heard a sob though she had thought herself alone. Crossing herself in a ritual strangely comforting, forgetting whether right preceded left, repeating the process three times, she rose and turned. At the door stood a small figure in white haloed by the bright lights of the corridor. A nurse? Were they looking for her? Was it all over?
“I hope your prayers are answered. I will say a rosary for you,” said a nun in an old-fashioned white habit, stroking with wrinkled fingers a set of blood red garnet beads as much a work of art as a symbol. Belle wiped her eyes and nodded. Something odd, she thought, as the woman disappeared into the shadowy light of the chapel. Was that a humpback?
Finally she was allowed to see her father. “The tests are fine. He’ll be going back to Rainbow as soon as we can get another ambulance. You know the delays,” the nurse said with a shrug. “Have a few words with him, but go on home if you need to. I’ll keep an eye open.”
Belle hadn’t even thought about home, about Freya, her other family. “I’d appreciate that. You’ve all been great.”
She moved over to the gurney where he lay motionless, eyes closed, like a stylized knight atop a marble vault, folded hands ready to clasp a broadsword. Another battle won, perhaps the last victory. She adjusted the twisted plastic identity bracelet, tucked the sheet over his bony shoulder, once so muscular. His hair was neatly combed, and his face pink and smooth. Suddenly the blue eyes snapped open, the brilliant cornflower colour that had courted her mother when Canadian troops were marching off to fight Hitler. Bushy white eyebrows furrowed as he looked up, his eyes struggling for focus. Minutes passed. Was he medicated? Had there been some neurological damage from the asphyxia? “Where’s my pie and ice cream?” he demanded in a gruff tone. She laughed so hard that she had to close her legs.
With her father dozing, Belle walked the long row of critical care beds, glad that the ordeal had been brief. He could have ended up like that poor soul, she imagined, passing curtains fluttering around a patient on multiple support systems, a ventilator, heart monitor, tubes and bags filling and draining the still form. Man, woman, age, it was hard to tell. A bustling nurse moved a corner of the sheet to take a pulse. Stark against the flaccid white arm was a tattoo. Belle stopped, still wiping tears from her eyes, working her memory.
An Amazon in a lab coat, her thick silver-blond hair plaited in one long braid, picked up the chart. Dr. Evelyn Easton, Sudbury’s premier surgeon, an infallible diagnostician with a pair of magic hands. They had met, if one could call it that, over a routine colonoscopy years ago during which Belle had sniffled but never budged under that roto-rooter, she recalled with uncomfortable pride. Suddenly the tattoo came into focus. A black rose. Belle’s blood grew icy, though the room was warm and humid. She heard nothing but pounding waves in her ears. “Pardon me. I might know that woman.”
SIXTEEN
Easton scanned the chart with approval and made a few notes, then rubbed at her neck as if she hadn’t been to bed in days. “A dreadful accident on the Falconbridge Highway last night. She hasn’t recovered consciousness.” She looked up and stared blearily at Belle. “Are you the sister from Montreal we’ve been trying to contact? All we had was a name in her wallet. A family member at the bedside can make a difference.”
“Family.” The last words trailed off like a fading stereo. The floor seemed to move closer. Light shrank into a small white circle in a distant corner. Belle reached for a table, struggling to make her legs cooperate. “My God. Her children!”
With a quick hand, Easton grabbed Belle’s arm, and swept her onto a wheeled stool, shaking her gently, her voice level and demanding. “Children? Small children? Are you saying they’re alone? Wouldn’t they have gone to the neighbours?”
I’m her neighbour, she felt like screaming, but after a hard swallow, she related what she feared.
Calmed by the quiet efficiency of an emergency room surgeon, Belle worked with Easton to alert the police and put the Children’s Aid on standby. “I’ve given them the address and told them about the dogs. Better go home now,” she said, pressing a cool hand to Belle’s cheek. “You’ve done all you can.” The doctor turned to respond to the urgent wave of a young nurse, who was breathing heavily, a splash of blood across the shoulder of her white uniform.
Belle fled the hospital with renewed respect for overworked health care workers. Even so, she knew that she was heading into another nightmare. It would be impossible just to drive past Patsy’s. The air conditioner was set to polar, but she was flushed and wet. This was the fatal convergence, the terrible chance a careless mother had taken to steal a quick trip to town for milk or bread, some inanity, trusting that she’d be back in a hour. How many parents acted with the same boldfaced impunity every week? The papers had enjoyed a field day with the couple who had left for a Caribbean vacation, locking their ten-year-old in the house with a freezer of TV dinners. Patsy’s kids weren’t even in school yet. Dottie had been right about that fine line between meddling and social responsibility, a line easier to ignore by remaining silent. Perhaps Anni had paid the price for that act of conscience. “And the current temperature is 36.6 degrees centrigrade, folks, that’s 100 degrees, a new record for Sudbury,” said the radio. “Enjoy it while you can. Here’s ‘Frosty, the Snowman’ to blow some white stuff your way.”
When she finally pulled up at Patsy’s, she felt reassured to see police cars waiting. Apparently the dogs were still alive, for she could hear them barking furiously. “I’m the neighbour who reported this,” she said to the officer in charge, Hal Cooper. “The Rotties may not have been fed for a day or two.” She paused, thinking of another nauseous possibility.
“Christ, I hope kids aren’t in there. We’ve tried the door. It’s open, but we’re not keen on passing those dogs. Dirk has five minutes to get here with his gear. Otherwise . . .” Fingers brushed over his sidearm, reassuringly snapped Canadian style into a leather holster against the temptation of a quick draw. He let out a breath of relief at an approaching dust cloud. “Here’s our man,” he called to his crew. “Let’s move!”
Another cruiser pulled up, and Belle turned to see a man dressed in a padded suit, two muzzles and a stick with a noose in his hands. Hal introduced them. “You know the dogs? Are they vicious?”
She gestured with despair. “Owner says not, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Could be tricky. I’m going to open the door easy-does-it and see what we have.” He edged in as flashes of dark fur jumped in the doorway. Then the barking stopped, and she could hear his voice talking in low tones. With surprising docility, the Ro
tties were led out muzzled and placed into the police van. “A giant bag of dog food was broken open in the kitchen,” Dirk said, taking off his heavy suit and accepting a soda. “Got water from the usual porcelain bowl. Dogs are pretty instinctive. Kids must be in the bedrooms. I can hear one crying, not very loud, though.”
Hal vanished into the house, returning a moment later. “They’re in the back. Look OK at first glance. Can you go and stay with them, Miss? Uniforms are scary for kids sometimes. No woman on my crew today. I’ve got to radio again and find out where that damn ambulance is. Friggin’ cutbacks.”
Belle wiped sweat from her face. “I think they might be comfortable with me. We met once.”
“They’ll need some water, not too cold, though,” Hal said.
She inched into the house, breathing through her mouth. The window fan was broken. One giant sauna. Any more delay might have brought a triple funeral, dogs notwithstanding. Excrement was smeared over the rug in front of a ripped couch; a few toys lay scattered through urine puddles in front of a giant television and matching VCR. Patsy’s priorities again.
Still searching her mind for their names as she picked her way across a floor littered with toys, she saw a colourful height chart beside a doorway, each child’s progress documented by a clown holding rising balloons. Down the short hall she followed the whimperings, entering a small room with bunk beds and a crib. On the floor were two children, the girl apparently sleeping with a teddy bear, the boy barely sitting up. Where was the third? She fumbled with the blankets in the crib, retrieving an empty plastic baby bottle. The boy blinked at her, eyes struggling for focus under a shank of wet hair. She smiled, modulating her voice, trying not to sound panicky.
“Hi, Joe. I like your Batman shirt.” She turned to the girl, naked except for a pair of panties. “And you must be Lisa. I’m Belle. Remember me? Your mom can’t come home for a while, and I’ve come to take you to a nice cool place where you can get a good supper. Are you guys hungry?”
“Uh-uh. Thirsty.” Joe pointed to an empty box of Cheerios, his face pale from dehydration. “We didn’t go out. Mom said she’d be right back. She always is. Susie’s in the closet. She was sad and I got her out of her crib and played with her and I couldn’t lift her back.”
Belle’s knees grew weak as she turned to the closet to stir what looked like a heap of clothes. Please not a head injury. Would he have told the truth if he had dropped her? For a moment she thought the baby was dead, so still, the skin clammy. Yet its diapers were soggy. Perhaps that had kept it cool.
Hal brought in bottled water. “Drink slowly, kids,” he said, resting the girl against his leg. Her hair was done in meticulous braids, a cornrow design that must have taken hours. “Hey, what have you got there? Another one?”
“I hope so,” she said. As she handed him the bundle, an ambulance siren sounded.
“About bloody time,” he said with a growl, cradling the baby as he left. Belle rummaged in the drawers for a change of clothes to send, surprised at the neatness in the drawers, even the tiny sox pressed and folded. Patsy was an ace laundress, if nothing else. She tossed the small pieces into pillow cases along with a couple of teddy bears, then put shorts and a top on Lisa. Joe took her hand as they left, and on one shoulder she carried the girl. Funny how little kids weighed. Light as a doll. Odd that none of the kids had their mother’s flaming red hair. Jet black, every one.
“Ambulance held up at the tracks by a hundred-fifty-car freight. We’ll take them to Emerg for a check, and then Children’s Aid can take over.” Hal glanced at Belle with a grin. “Sure you don’t want to go along in case there’s a delay? You did pretty well here, Mom.”
She laughed in relief, accepting a lukewarm swig from his can of Coke, happy to have helped but wishing she were loafing on her deck with a glass of wine poured over a thousand ice cubes. It had been too long a day. “Not tonight, darling. I have a headache. Last time I took a couple of dogs, and that’s my limit.”
Washed with sweat, still shaking after the close encounter, Belle did no more than remove her slacks and shoes, let Freya out and race her to the lake. They strolled into the sheltered bay, then swam to the rockwall, the dog pawing at her as if she needed rescue. “Stop trying to herd me,” she said. Once past the wall, she floated in the icier temperatures, bearable only in mid-summer. She paddled over her water line fathoms below in the crystalline depths. Weighed down with a succession of cement blocks, it sat on a tripod, foot valve well off the silty bottom, safe from fluctuating water levels and ice pressure.
Back in her bedroom, as she toweled off, her answering machine was beeping. As Dorothy Parker said, what fresh hell? Steve reported that the license check on Nick had turned up a drunk driving offense in Kamloops five years earlier, about the same time he’d appeared in Sudbury, she recalled. Maybe by sequestering himself far from temptation, he was building a better life. Now that she knew his pastimes, she felt mean-spirited about having suggested him as a suspect. Her gentle friend had nothing more than a wish to live with his talented pen. As for the rest, Zack didn’t seem distressed that his alibi hadn’t been confirmed. The Godfather of Bear Gallbladders and his team were out of business. Of course there was still Patsy. Was there ever Patsy. She was in for a blast tomorrow, if she lived.
The evening nurse at Rainbow Country took her responding call, assuring her that George had returned in such a lively condition that it took their entire supply of ice cream to satisfy him. “Lord knows we couldn’t begrudge him that small pleasure. I heard the man was a whisker from eternity. Don’t mind telling you that we’ve lost some before.”
“Guess it’s minced from now on,” she said, hanging up, grateful not to get a lecture for carelessness. Shrimp and french fries weren’t the easiest foods to chew. She should have changed the menu a long time ago. He’d adjust. That was one of his happiest traits. Food was food, the ampler the better, and ice cream always slid down well.
Decompression time. After a makeshift antipasto of sliced Black Forest ham, Swiss cheese and salad greens, Belle climbed up to bed, cursing with each step. 20°C in the basement, 25°C on the first floor, and 30°C (nearly 90°F) in her master suite. Should she opt for the cool but hard leather sofa below in the living room? Blow up an air mattress and bunk in the basement? Easier to tough it out, set up an extra fan, place a glass of ice by her bed and use her emergency procedure, several cold bath dips, blotting on sheets, trusting that the plastic liner on the waterbed would protect her from electrocution. It was absolute insanity flying in the face of science to drink Scotch, but she was a creature of habit, convinced that she would not sleep unless nicely medicated. Jagged little pills were dangerous dragons, nowhere near the fun of liquor.
So she drank, and smoked, and reread Frankenstein. Few people raised on the movie versions realized that in Shelley’s original, Victor Frankenstein pursued his creature to the ice floes of the Arctic. Her sympathies lay with the Monster, born like a giant child, reviled for his ugliness and abandoned without even the benefit of speech to walk an ignorant world. “I will quit the neighbourhood of man, and dwell . . . in the most savage of places. My evil passions will have fled, for I shall meet with sympathy,” he said in pleading for a mate. But the concept had been too grotesque for his creator. No Elsa Lanchester with her lightning bolt hairdo would share his bed.
Freya, voting with her feet, was bivouacked on the cool tile floor in the basement, so Belle went down to let her out for a final pee. The night was palpable as blackstrap molasses. Deathly quiet, as if every living thing felt too ponderous to move. Bank this memory for thirty below, she thought. Yet heat was so enervating. Maybe Canadians did have thick blood. She clumped reluctantly back to her room, wishing she had pitched a tent on the lawn. Her camping gear was in the boathouse probably getting eaten by something hairy, rabid, or both.
After prayers, she concocted a sleep scenario designed for summer. Step by step she would snowmobile to a hypothetical cabin north of Wapiti, catalo
guing the food and gear, describing the light snow starting halfway across the lake, building to a blinding blizzard as she reached the North River trails at the far shore and couldn’t turn back. The atmosphere had to be threatening so that when she arrived at the camp, she would be cozy and protected, kindling a fire to banish shivers, shedding heavy clothes like a carapace as the stove warmed the room, cocooned away from even a radio station. She never could decide whether to take a friend (complicated) or if the place would have power (gas generator? hydro?) not to mention indoor plumbing, and debating these fine points endlessly led to snores drowning out the sounds of the imaginary beans bubbling on the woodstove.
SEVENTEEN
The next morning, Belle found her father eating peach yogurt for lunch, a milk moustache on his lip. “Is this Ronald Colman I see before me?” she asked with an exaggerated doubletake. Then she kissed his fresh-shaven cheek. “How’s your throat? Do you remember what happened yesterday?”
“It’s fine. Of course I do. How much is this going to cost? Will I go broke?”
He was still thinking of Florida and the outrageous American health care fees which drove many to bankruptcy, or maybe he was remembering the Depression. “This is Canada, Father. We’re taxed to the max. It’s free. You just have to wait a long time.”
“I didn’t, though, did I?”
“Quite true. There must be life in the system yet.”
Time to find out what Patsy knew. If she could talk. Belle found herself on the Mobius strip route to St. Joe’s. “Mrs. Sommers regained consciousness,” the nurse said to her inquiries. “She’s in 233.”
A creaky elevator took her upstairs, where the lack of air conditioning combined with record temperatures made a hospital stay a nightmare. Carts of dirty linen lined the halls, and the acrid atmosphere reflected the staff shortages all over Ontario. Her neighbour’s bed sat in a ward of four patients, scant space or privacy except for thin curtains, no personal possessions or colour to warm the sterile environment. Did everything have to be painted slime or oatmeal? Patsy looked weary and drained, though the cumbersome monitors had been replaced by a bag of saline.