Unwed (Dovetail Cove, 1976) (Dovetail Cove Series)

by Jason McIntyre

  “Thing is,” she went on. “I believe you’re right. You said that the pregnancy was...well, it’s behind. And I think that’s a generous word. I get strong feelings. About things and people. I believe that there is something wrong with that little baby. And Mary, she’s heading down one of two roads. Either she has a baby with special needs, like herself or even a whole new breed—and we both know she can’t raise even a normal child—

  “—Or—” Bexy paused, searching for the right way to phrase this. “—The needs of that tot start right now...and they drain her and drain her until it’s born.”

  She took the Doc’s hand and squeezed it just like she had Mary’s yesterday as the girl lie nude with her legs in stirrups. She gathered up her mental energies and blurted the rest out.

  “And, so depleted already by then—what if the birth is so taxing, it kills her?”

  Doc said nothing. He moved over to a chair at the flimsy card table and pulled it out on the tile floor with a screech. He sat down, collecting his thoughts. He put his coffee cup down. Bexy turned her chair to him. He finally looked up, rubbing his hands, meeting her gaze.

  “I don’t think I like where you’re headed with this, Bexy,” he said.

  “Where do you think I’m headed?”

  “Abortion,” he said, as if it was a dirty word. And, really, around here, it was. “That’s where I think you’re headed.”

  Bexy looked off at the open doorway. Silence and then a distant clang of pots in the kitchen. “I’m afraid I am. You called me charitable. You did. And I think that’s likely the best thing to help her. No. Wait. That’s exactly what I think she needs. And not just for Mary. For everyone.”

  3.

  Father Frye stood in the activity room, leaning on the pass-through counter and watching the women load up laundry bags with steamed Tupperware holding soup and sandwiches. When Doc Sawbones and Bexy McLeod came out of the side room with the coffee perk, Father Frye stood upright. He turned to face them, stiffening further.

  The ladies left the kitchen and started for the side door with their bags. “You know,” Father said, as if he was beginning a sermon. He didn’t speak to Bexy and Doc, so much as he made a general announcement to the large room. Everyone stopped what they were doing. “When this addition was built, the church of St. Dominic’s was but a fledgling. At least it was under my guidance. I was new, you see, and not the best general contractor. I’m a workman of The Lord. Not one of the nail and the hammer. So I will admit: I hired the wrong crew. This room is not evidence of the Father’s best laid plan. It’s hard to heat. The roof leaks...” He trailed off. He made eye contact with Bexy, and then with Doc. “...and the walls are as thin as paper.”

  He glared down at Bexy, whose eyes fell at his belly’s height. He wasn’t wearing his white robes today. Just a plaid suit and his white roman collar. He put his hand on his hips, pulling his hanging suit coat away from his round waist that was quite a few inches from matching Doc Sawbones’ girth.

  “I simply cannot—” Father said, emphasizing each word, “—condone any behaviour that would either directly or indirectly lead to the cessation of life—not for any member of this parish. Either born or unborn. This church will not stand idly by.” He spat those words, will not.

  Bexy made to speak but Father Frye cut her off. “That’s right,” he barked. “I heard your entire conversation. You two are for shame!” He paused, likely for sufficient affectation. “I will not begin to address the sins you two are committing. Such blasphemy of wedlock—” He said this directly at Bexy. “—such blasphemy of life!” and this last part was aimed more at the Doc’s height. His voice rose and he said it down to Bexy again. “For shame!”

  He spun and marched back across the vast, activity room to his own office beyond the dissipating choir group. They froze. The ladies en route for the side entrance and their idling cars, they all stood anchored to the floor, watching this display too.

  In the kitchen, Gladys Troyer set down a large serving spoon on the counter with a crack that struck the icy silence. Bexy said nothing. Doc said nothing. Father Frye’s footsteps faded.

  Gladys hoisted a bag of freshly-packed meals, rounded the kitchen counter and paraded past Bexy and the doc with her chin up and no eye contact. She traipsed up the three steps to the door with a loud stomp of her boots, angled between two of her nonplussed cohorts, and silently glided out into the day.

  4.

  The three of them drove in silence—all except for the sound of the Plymouth’s tires spinning on the odd patch of ice and Mary in the back seat clacking her four smooth stones together. She started humming Immaculate Mary just before they pulled up at the Banatyne house. Doc spoke first.

  “If we’re going to do this, we have to do it right. I have a feller on the mainland. He’s younger’n me but don’t let that fool you. He’s prolly a far sight smarter. I can have him here right quick. Everyone owes me a favour or two. And he owes me at least one, more likely a dozen. The second thing to note here, Bexy, is this. The reason I want him here right quick is that we don’t have time for this to percolate. Dovetail Cove is an old place with old people. The changing of the guard is coming. Younger men like Walt Parson and even Rod Davies have a broader view of the world than Father Frye and Gladys Troyer. But, for now, Frye and Troyer are still the ones people look to. I don’t want this new idea—as right as it may be—to get trounced before it hits the gate. You see where I’m going with this?”

  Bexy nodded, but kept quiet. She knew not to keep selling once a customer has already bought.

  “And,” Doc said. “The truth is, I prolly agree with you here. It’s the best thing. Truly, it is. I just didn’t have the guts to say it. I’m so tired, Bexy. So, so tired. These days and nights are mixed up. It might have even been why I pulled you—of all people—into this with me. Maybe down deep, I knew you’d say out loud what I couldn’t—what I was too tired and, yes, even scared to.”

  He looked off at the frosted tree branches on the avenue, just starting to melt off into their dark colour from their overnight whites against the robin’s egg blue of the sky.

  “Sit tight, will you? Don’t go blabbing. Keep Mary here. Keep her busy and I’ll be in touch. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Bexy said. The driver’s door squawked open and Doc got out. He set about getting Bexy’s chair from the trunk and getting the women back in the house for lunch before he set off for home.

  “Say hi to Agnes for me,” Bexy said as she was about to shut the front door.

  “Will do,” Doc said. He didn’t add that his wife wouldn’t have a clue who Bexy McLeod was anymore—even though the two had sung in the St. Dom’s choir together for at least a dozen years.

  The rest of Monday was uneventful. The women played checkers. They did the dishes. Bexy adored that the Banatynes had a dishwasher but she needed Mary’s help to load the soap in the right dispenser and get the dial turned so it started to run. It did, with a siphoning gurgle and then a heavy grinding mixed with the sound of spraying water. Bexy imagined how many gallons of water it must use but she wasn’t paying the bills so she gave it little mind.

  When Mary wasn’t looking, Bexy dumped Mrs. Troyer’s lasagna—the delivery for Anne and Mary—in the garbage bin and plopped the lid closed. Then she slipped the French White casserole dish into the remainder of the suds in the sink and left it to soak.

  The dishwasher had been full anyway. And, truthfully, Bexy wanted to see what kind of job it did before using it on a borrowed dish—even if that dish belonged to the Troyers.

  In the family room, they watched The Young and The Restless—which, Bexy admitted, made Mary’s eyes widen comically at least three times. When the credits rolled after only a half-hour, Mary turned to Bexy on the sofa behind her and said, “Is it over already?”

  “’Fraid so, sweetheart,” Bexy said, holding in a laugh. “But it’ll be on again tomorrow.”

  In a strange way, Bexy was enjoying herself. The house
wasn’t set up for a wheelchair but it was a bit like a holiday from her normal life—watching the soap operas and washing dishes notwithstanding—those were little snippets of her regular routine creeping back in. But it was fun to see things through Mary’s wide, impressionable eyes. Explaining things on TV wasn’t the same as adult conversation—which she sorely missed—but it was pleasant to have another person in the house during a day.

  And it was novel to see inside the Banatyne mansion. Was it ever! She looked through the medicine cabinet with help from Mary (who could reach it) and the two of them snooped in cupboards and closets. They found loads of prescription bottles and creams for all kinds of curious conditions. They found little stashes of notebooks and purses filled with bond certificates that Bexy stacked up in the empty breadbox on the kitchen counter. The notebooks mostly had columns of numbers that may have been account balances, but Bexy wasn’t sure. She didn’t give it any more thought after Mary found old photo albums to peruse. Those showed Christopher Banatyne’s grown daughter when she was a child. Many of the pictures of his first wife had been pulled out and, presumably discarded. Bexy wasn’t surprised.

  At one point, Bexy looked longingly at the main stairs and wished she could go up there for an even more in-depth snoop session. She’d bet the master bedroom held a few secrets.

  Late afternoon came and it was time to start thinking about dinner. Nurse Anne had stocked the fridge and the cupboards with plenty of food before she’d taken the ferry back. For that, Bexy was thankful. Heading out for groceries in January was a nuisance and she didn’t know how close the bus came to this house. Calling the town cabby, Arnie Dwyer, was an option, but an expensive one. Bexy was careful with her pennies and didn’t want to either spend money she didn’t really have anymore or guilt Arnie into a free ride when he had a family to feed.

  She made lamb roast with thick-cut veggies and potatoes. It was nice to have someone to cook for again—even if Mary initially turned up her nose at the grey meat. Bexy coaxed her into trying it with the promise of bread pudding for desert and the girl ate a good meal. That was heartening to see. Bexy was worried for the girl’s health, especially after she’d emptied her stomach again following lunch.

  They watched Little House on The Prairie after dinner and then brushed, peed, and got into pyjamas. Mary even helped Bexy get hers on and, she had to admit, it was much easier with an extra set of hands willing to help. “I used to help Ingy get dressed. That girl was so bouncy, Nurse Karen used to say her brain was a coffee maker!”

  They went into Mary’s room and Mary sat on the bed. Sheepishly, she produced a wadded-up bundle of Kleenex and showed it to Bexy. “Missa Cloud?” she asked. Bexy knew where this was headed and couldn’t hide her disappointment—not at what the girl was about to ask, and certainly not at Mary herself—but that it had happened again. Worry pushed into Bexy’s mind again.

  “Yes, dearest?” Bexy said, expectant.

  “I lost anudder toof. Can I put it under my pillow?” She held out the white wad but Bexy didn’t take it from her.

  “Now, honey,” Bexy said, “You know the tooth fairy isn’t real—”

  “It is, he IS!” Mary said. “He IS SO real!”

  “Well, fine. If you believe in the tooth fairy at your age, that’s just fine. But you have to know that I can’t help the tooth fairy put any more of those fancy stones under your pillow. If he doesn’t come tonight, you can’t be too disappointed. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Mary said, half-dejected that Bexy might be right and half-pleased that she was going to be allowed to put this new stray tooth under her pillow.

  “Now promise me you won’t be upset if that tooth is still there by morning.”

  “Promise,” Mary said excitedly and laid down in her bed, pulling up her covers. “Going to sleep now!” she said.

  “All right then,” Bexy said and wheeled to the door. She took a last look at the girl, adorably pinching her eyes shut in mock sleep. Then she flicked off the light and drew the door shut behind her so it let only a crack of light into the girl’s room.

  Not nearly as tired as she was last evening, Bexy made a mental note to have a look around for a prize she could leave under Mary’s pillow. Even if she found something half as magical as the coloured stones, she worried she’d wake the girl up and hoped against hope there’d be no more bouts of morning sickness tonight. Nurse Anne had found a winner with those and she wondered if she could find the younger woman’s stash. Absently, she thought maybe Mary herself knew where they were kept and sleepwalked to find them in the wee hours. That was the only rational explanation. It still didn’t cover all the bases though. Where had the Kleenex bundles holding the teeth disappeared to?

  Yawning, she heaved herself on to the binding of the pull-out mattress to watch the last bit of Maude, then All’s Fair. She was going to turn in but then Sonny and Cher started. Even in the first five minutes she laughed so hard she thought she’d wake Mary. She’d allow herself the luxury of staying up and seeing the end. Just this once.

  A moment or two after she’d flicked off the TV with the remote control and dried her eyes, she threw the family room into darkness by extinguishing the chair-side lamp. She laid down in the bed and pulled the covers over her idle legs, but Bexy was startled from her drowsy thoughts by a gentle, faraway tapping.

  Tap-tap-tap.

  In the darkness, her ears went out in search of the noise. At first she thought it was coming from the side of the room that fed into Mary’s bedroom. But it wasn’t. It was coming from the other direction. It was coming from the foyer.

  In a flurry, Bexy hiked herself up and hauled herself awkwardly into her chair, still waiting at the ready. She was used to relying on the assistance bar she had hung over her bed at home but admitted it was good exercise to do things with a bit less coddling. She intended to live to a hundred after all, wheelchair or not.

  She wheeled around the corner into the foyer in the dimness of a half-moon screening through the windows. A large shape stood behind the glass of the door and Bexy’s heart quickened to heavy, irregular thuds. She thought of weapons. She had nothing, and until this moment had never considered needing one while she stayed here at night. Having Mary as a companion hadn’t allowed her mind to wander in such a disheartening direction. At home, she thought of things like that often.

  Next, her mind veered to calculating how fast she could wheel back to the telephone table in the kitchen. Could she dial the chief at home before a fist knocked through a window pane in that door?

  The figure spoke. “Bexy? Are you awake?”

  It was Doc. And welcome relief.

  5.

  “What on earth are you doing here?” Bexy squawked. She clutched her pyjama top at its throat, partly out of modesty but mostly because of the winter draft Doc brought with him through the front door.

  “Wait,” she said as he lumbered in and kicked the door closed behind him. He sort of hung his head and mumbled something about how it’s not that late. “Have you been in the drink?” she asked.

  He mumbled something else.

  “What?” she said, her irritation showing up in her volume and her tone.

  “A little,” he said. “Agnes is with her night nurse. She’s um…she’s—”

  And then Doc did something Bexy had never seen, not in her whole life. He broke down and cried. He collapsed to his knees on the wet carpet in the foyer and he put his arms around Bexy in her wheelchair. He fell into her, just a big, heavy sack of a man, letting all his weight rest on her small frame. He was warm, despite just coming in from the cold. His sobbing drenched the shoulder of her pyjamas. The sound of his wailing was percussive in Bexy’s one ear and yet, she found herself hugging him. She didn’t utter clichés like, “There, there” but she did feel a natural inclination to put her arms around him and hold him. They stayed that way for many minutes, him in her arms, him enveloping her, she returning it as best she could. And it wasn’t awkward. It was warm. It was l
oving.

  His crying faded to sniffles. He eased away, shielding his face with a big mitt of a hand.

  “I know it’s late. You’re tired. Me too. Can I—?”

  He turned away from her as he stood.

  “Can I come in? Just for a bit?”

  “Of course, of course,” she said quietly. “I’ll put on coffee. Something tells me you could use it.”

  “No,” he said. “No coffee. I don’t want to think clearly.”

  “What is it?” She reached up and put an arm on his back. A comforting gesture. “Agnes? She’s not doing well. Is she?”

  Doc looked like he was going to break down again. But from her partial angle of his face, she couldn’t be sure. She only read his body language. It was as if he might buckle.

  “She’s mostly gone,” he said. “What’s left of her mind, I don’t imagine it’ll be long before the tumour chews the rest of it away.” He curled his hands into fists at his side. His shoulders tensed into shaped blocks of wood.

  “Come now, dear,” Bexy said, addressing him as if they were married. “Come in where it’s warm. I won’t bother with coffee but sit down at least.”

  She wheeled past him and led them into the family room where the pullout couch waited with its blankets and sheets strewn onto the floor. He rubbed at his eyes, then tipped forward to pick up the sheets and sort them on the bed. He teetered, threatened to go right over, but he reached out and found purchase on the thin mattress, keeping himself upright. He tossed the stray sheets up on the bed, then flopped atop them in a haphazard sit on the middle of the bed, making it squeak and sag at his large dimple.

  He blew out a noisy breath. “I haven’t woken Mary, have I?” he said, his face showing red and his eyes doing the same, even in this weak light.

  Bexy sat before him in her chair. She cocked an ear in the direction of Mary’s cracked door. “Don’t think so. She’s a good sleeper. When she’s not fussing about the tooth fairy.”