Kin

by Lesley Crewe

  “Where on earth have you been?”

  “You were supposed to wait for me at the door,” Hilary panted.

  “I have a doctor’s appointment. Why do you think I’m here? I can’t be late.”

  Hilary sat in the chair beside her. “Sorry, Grandma.”

  A young woman who was obviously escorting her elderly relative looked to the heavens in sympathy.

  Grandma complained that she was too hot, so Hilary helped her off with her coat. Then she was too cold. Hilary put it back on. Then she complained that it was taking too long. The other elderly lady leaned over and said, “It’s like this wherever you go.” They started a conversation about how inconsiderate doctors were and found out they both went to the same GP. That led to a review of their various ailments and symptoms and they talked so loud, Hilary was mortified. The others in the waiting room were either scowling or smirking behind old copies of Reader’s Digest.

  Her new friend was called in and they bid each other goodbye. Grandma started complaining again. They sat there for fifty minutes before they called for her. Hilary popped down to put more money in the parking meter, and then waited another hour before Grandmother emerged. She waved Hilary up to the desk.

  “Listen to this so I’ll remember it,” she said.

  The nurse showed both of them the prescription and went over what she had to do, how many drops in each eye every second day and then three times a week for two weeks and in six weeks she’d have to come back so the doctor could see if there was any improvement. Hilary kept nodding like she was in charge of the situation, but it was baffling to say the least. Let the pharmacist look at it.

  The pharmacist. She’d forgotten about that.

  She got her grandmother back down to the car and put her in. Her pharmacy couldn’t possibly be any farther away. Once again, she drove up and down in the mall parking lot looking for a place to park that was close to the door. Several times Grandma pointed to a spot but when they got up to it, there was small car hidden behind the others.

  Finally, success. They went in. Hilary gave the pharmacist’s assistant the piece of paper and Grandma starting talking about what a good granddaughter Hilary was and wasn’t she lucky and did she have any grandchildren? The assistant, who looked like a washed-out forty, said no and left in a hurry. Hilary felt bad about feeling so impatient with her grandmother after the nice things she said. There was one seat left in the small waiting area to the side. Hilary stood. For twenty-two minutes. Her grandmother didn’t notice because she’d made another friend.

  Back out to the car and Grandma asked if she’d mind going to the shopping centre to find a specific brand of support hose.

  An hour and a half and four stores later they found them but they didn’t have the colour Grandmother wanted. The girl said she’d check and see if their other store across town had them.

  They did.

  An hour there and back and Grandma said they deserved a cup of coffee. Hilary rushed to the nearest Tim Horton’s but her grandmother she didn’t want to go there, so they ended up in a restaurant big enough that they had to wait to be seated.

  Forty minutes later, after coffee and a piece of cheesecake, Hilary got her back to the apartment and her grandmother wanted to know if she’d like to come in since she never saw her and she only had one granddaughter.

  An hour later, Hilary kissed her grandmother goodbye, got in the car, and drove over to her boyfriend’s apartment. When she opened the door, Reef gave her a big smile.

  “Hi, babe, how was your day?”

  She closed the door, leaned on it, and slid to the floor.

  “I don’t know how my mother does it.”

  * * *

  David was lonely.

  They were all gone now: his parents, Annie, Henry, and Lila. Kay wasn’t here either. He still had some old buddies he’d see at the supermarket, but Colleen was always in a rush to get him out and he never had a chance to say more than a quick, “How are ya? How’s the family?”

  Colleen kept pressuring him to sell the house and move in with them because she was worried about him living alone. But that was Lila’s and Ewan’s house, the place where they’d been happy. He guessed that hadn’t occurred to Colleen and he didn’t want to bring up any old memories.

  He spent a lot of days looking through old photo albums. He and Annie on a skating rink, her pretending to be a famous ice skater with one foot straight back behind her and her arms opened wide. All the pictures of Annie had her either mugging for the camera or with a big smile on her face. God, he missed her; what a bright button she was, always chasing after him, always wanting to be with him.

  And Mom and Dad. He and Annie couldn’t have asked for better parents. Their home was a safe and loving place to be, their focus on their children and each other. David despaired when he turned on the television and saw the news about battered or homeless or drug-addicted children. Where were their parents? And the worst horror, parents who killed their own children. What was wrong with the world? Hate everywhere, wars still being fought, people starving or exiled, living in refugee camps.

  He was very grateful to be living in Canada and especially in the Maritimes and even more especially to be from Cape Breton and his hometown of Glace Bay, where he knew his neighbours and their families. When he was a kid, it seemed like the whole town knew who he was—the milkman, the mailman, the grocer, the guy who fixed their car, the doctor who came to their house, and the man who delivered the coal. He said hello to people all day long and they always wanted to know how he was or what his parents were up to; friendly chit-chat that made him feel like he belonged, that people would miss him if he left.

  Other days, looking through the albums left him feeling melancholy. All the moments in their lives that rushed past them, the days they thought were ordinary but now, looking back, seemed like heaven.

  When he ruminated about all the mistakes he’d made, he got cross with himself and considered all the wonderful things he had, his two girls and his three grandchildren. He loved them and was proud of them. He and Kay did that.

  The girls didn’t know, but he and their mother often talked on the phone for hours at a time, reminiscing about silly things that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else, but were special to them. They were good friends. They shared the same memories and that was important, because she was the only one left now.

  Colleen was picking him up in an hour. Today was the day they’d find out the results, but he knew. He went through the charade for Colleen’s sake. How could he tell his child that death looked better than the life he was living now? But the pain and suffering he’d gone through weren’t worth it anymore. He was tired.

  At the doctor’s office, Colleen cried when he told them that yes, David’s stomach cancer had spread and since he’d ruled out chemotherapy and surgery, the doctor said there was nothing they could do, other than to keep him comfortable until the time came. He shook the doctor’s hand and helped Colleen out of her chair. He hadn’t anticipated how emotional she would be.

  Back at the house, he made the tea. “Colleen, dear, these things happen.”

  “I wanted them to happen when you were ninety-something, not seventy-five. Seventy-five isn’t old these days. Seventies are the new sixties.”

  “I bet the person who said that wasn’t seventy-five and didn’t have cancer.”

  “Do you want me to call Frankie and Mom?”

  “No, dear, it’s my news, I’ll do it.”

  Colleen seemed a lot older, suddenly. When he looked at her, he’d usually see his little girl; now there was a middle-aged woman looking back at him, a sad middle-aged woman.

  He leaned across the table and reached for her hand. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to be one of those patients who insists on dying at home and the whole place has to be in an uproar. I know how busy you and Duncan are. One bed is as
good as another. I’ll make it easy for you.”

  He guessed that wasn’t the right thing to say.

  “Oh, Daddy!” She jumped up from the chair and put her arms around him, hugging him close. “Don’t say that! I don’t want it to be easy for me! You’re not something that needs to be taken care of without any fuss. You’re my dad and I don’t want you to die!”

  He patted her back and held her as long as she wanted.

  It was nice to be loved that much.

  * * *

  It was nice to be loved this much.

  Hilary and Reef lay in each other’s arms on his single bed. He absentmindedly stroked her arm.

  “Feel better now?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Don’t you think it’s time I met your grandmother, and your parents, for that matter?”

  “Yes, you’re right. But when you do, you can’t go spouting off about being a journalist travelling to hot spots around the world.”

  “For the record, I’m not a journalist yet. I still have another year at King’s.”

  “You want us to travel together. That’s news I have to deliver slowly and carefully. She’ll have a stroke.”

  Reef got up on his elbow and looked down at her. “That’s not what I said. I asked you to marry me. And what did you say?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Do you know how reassuring it is when the woman you love says, ‘I don’t know, maybe’?”

  “Why get married? Who gets married anymore? Statistics are we’ll be divorced in three years. Think of all that paperwork.”

  He laughed and reached down to kiss her softly. “I want to marry you because my mother and father have been married for thirty years, my grandmother and grandfather have been married for fifty years, and my brother and his wife have been married for five years. It runs in my family. My mother wants me to have a wife. She says it will be the making of me.”

  Hilary touched his face, dragging her finger down his cheek and along his jaw. “What if she disapproves of me? I’m not Muslim.”

  “My mother has always told me that she will love who I love because I love her.”

  “She sounds nice. I have to meet them too.”

  “We can go to New York this summer. My brother and his wife are having their second baby.”

  “Okay. Come for dinner on Saturday.”

  “It’s a date.”

  “You have to kiss me until then.”

  He scooped her up in his arms and laid her on top of him.

  “Not a problem.”

  When Hilary got home that night, there were barely any lights on. Maybe her parents had gone out, but they didn’t say they were. She opened the back door and her mother’s latest hairy rat ticked across the kitchen floor on his toenails to greet her. She rubbed his head. “Hey there, Monty, or Milk Bone, or whatever your name is.”

  There was no one in the kitchen. She headed for the stairs, and then saw her mom sitting on the family room couch with her legs tucked under her, with only a small lamp on beside her. She had a box of tissue in her lap.

  “Oh my god, what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want to tell you.”

  Hilary’s heart started to race. “Are you and Dad getting a divorce?”

  Her mother screwed up her face. “Why would your father and I get a divorce?”

  “The no sex thing.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but it doesn’t matter. Come sit beside me.”

  This was going to be bad.

  Her mother took her hand. “It’s Grampy. His stomach cancer has spread. He doesn’t have long.”

  Hilary went weak. She almost drifted down, her head in her mother’s lap. Mom stroked her hair. “It’s all right, honey. I know. I know.”

  She didn’t know. Grampy was her best friend.

  Grandmother was inconsolable. Colleen called her every morning. Frankie talked to her every afternoon and their dad called her in the evening. The only thing she did was lie on her bed and weep. It got to the point where they called the doctor’s office.

  Hilary went with her mother to her grandmother’s apartment. The doctor said he would see her if they could get her in before the office closed, otherwise they’d have to go to the emergency department.

  Her grandmother looked like a tiny limp rag doll.

  “Mom, you have to get dressed and come with us. We need to get you better.”

  “He’s the only man I ever loved. No one else. The only one I ever loved.”

  “That’s nice, Mom, and he knows that. We all know that, but you’re not helping him by carrying on this way. It’s making it very stressful for him. If you love him as much as you say you do, you’ll be strong for him. He needs you.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “You’re right. He does need me. I have to go to Cape Breton this very minute. I’ll stay with him and nurse him back to health.”

  “I’ll take her,” Hilary said. “Reef and I will take her.”

  “Who’s Reef?”

  “I told you. The boy who’s coming for dinner on Saturday.”

  “He’d go with you?”

  “He’s good like that.”

  Her grandmother sat on the bed and watched the two of them like a tennis game. Her mother mulled over the plan. “If you take her up this week, I can come and get her the next, because I was planning on going anyway, after my doctor’s appointment. But I better call Dad to see what he thinks.”

  Hilary was alarmed. “What doctor’s appointment?”

  “Nothing…just nonsense and hormones and menopause and every other blight known to womankind.”

  Grandma pointed at the phone. “I’ll call him.”

  She told him she was coming up to take care of him. He said it wasn’t necessary and when she started to cry, he backed down and said he’d love to have her. That was how her grandmother operated. The minute she got off the phone the tears dried up.

  “I’ve got to get packed.”

  She jumped off the bed and hurried into the bathroom, her tiny body visible under her nightie. At the back she looked like a ten-year-old who’d been deflated a little.

  “I love your bum, Grandma.”

  She shouted, “I always did have a nice ass.”

  Hilary paced by the living room window waiting for Reef to get there. Her mother had bought one of those frozen roasts that were ready in ten minutes, with frozen roast potatoes, frozen mixed vegetables, and canned gravy. The one food in the oven was the frozen crescent rolls. She had an ice cream cake she bought on the way home. Hilary was cold just thinking about it all.

  She saw his headlights in the driveway. “He’s here!” She said it louder than she meant to. Her parents looked at each other.

  Reef came to the door with a cardboard bakery box wrapped with string, a bouquet of flowers, and a bottle of wine. He stood and smiled at them.

  They stared back.

  Hilary went over to him and put her arm through his. “Mom, Dad, this is Sharif Jamal. Reef, these are my parents, Edward and Frankie.”

  “Welcome to our home, Sharif,” Dad said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “You as well, sir.”

  Mom shook his hand too. “Hello…there’s so much that Hilary hasn’t told us about you. I look forward to our evening.”

  Reef held out the gifts. “The flowers are for you, Mrs. Roth.”

  Mom took them. “Thank you, they’re lovely.”

  “And the wine is for you, Mr. Roth.”

  “I appreciate it, thank you.”

  Mom pointed to the box. “That looks interesting.”

  “It’s for dessert, Basbousa. My father makes the best in the world, but this will have to do.”

  “How interesting. I’ve never heard of it.”
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  Hilary was going to scream if her parents didn’t start acting a little more relaxed. It’s like they were in an amateur community play.

  Fortunately, Reef turned on the charm and told them about himself. That he was born in New York City, the Bronx, and that his father was Egyptian and his mother was from Harlem. He mentioned that he was Muslim before they asked him and said his dad was an engineer and his mom was a nurse. They lived in Brooklyn now and his older brother and his wife and baby lived down the street. He mentioned that his mother’s sister lived here in East Preston and that’s how he knew about King’s University. He told them his mother only let him move away because her sister was close by. He expressed how lovely Hilary was, and added their daughter was the nicest and smartest and most compassionate girl he’d ever met and his parents were going to love her.

  “How long have you been going out together?” Mom asked.

  “I can’t remember,” Hilary laughed.

  “It’s been one year, six months, and eight days as of midnight tonight. We met at the SUB building at Dal. We bumped into each other signing a petition. I forget what for.”

  Mom’s face lit up. “That’s where my parents met! What an amazing coincidence.”

  Hilary brought out the Basbousa and gave everyone a piece. “This looks delicious.”

  “What’s in it?” Dad asked.

  “Yogurt, almonds, sugar, lots of good things.”

  Her parents raved about it.

  “That’s what happens when you cook something from scratch, Mom.”

  Reef thanked them very much, shook their hands, and walked to the car. Hilary walked with him.

  “Thanks,” she said. “You handled them perfectly.”

  “They’re nice people.”

  “They are, aren’t they?”

  Mindful that her parents might be looking out the window, they shared a chaste kiss, but he whispered “I love you,” in her ear before he left.

  Hilary went in the house. Her parents were clearing the dishes.