“What are you going to do?” Jim asked.
“I’d like to find something that would take her mind off her sickness, but I can’t think of what that would be.”
“Do you think she is depressed?”
Shane thought a moment. “She doesn’t appear to be. She spends a lot of time trying to cheer me up, and seems contented enough given her circumstances. But there’s really no way to tell how she is really feeling. You know how she laughs at every chance, and how she’s always smiling.”
“You think she’s covering up her feelings?” Jim asked.
“Yes. She has to be thinking about her illness a great part of the time. But it’s impossible to tell. I know that she worries about what’s going to happen to me afterwards. Obviously she puts on a happy face to lift my spirits.”
Jim took a look at Shane and said wryly, “She’s not really succeeding.”
Shane parked his truck in front of Theresa’s apartment. He thought he would surprise Theresa and take her out to a movie and dinner. He hadn’t even called to announce he was coming over. A smile lit his face when he thought of the pleasure he gave to Theresa when he gave her a gift or surprised her with some special kind of attention. He took a bouquet of flowers from the front seat of the truck and hurried through the door of the apartment building. He mounted the stairs two at a time until he was on Theresa’s floor. He smiled in delight at how much she was going to enjoy the surprise. He went down the mail corridor and then turned to the little side corridor where Theresa’s door was located.
As he turned the corner, he reeled in shock. There was blood coming out from under her door.
He dropped the bouquet and ran to the door, “Theresa! Theresa!” he shouted as he furiously attempted to open the door.
At last, unable to get the door open, he backed up and madly kicked the door several times until it gave way.
There was a body lying face down in a pool of blood on the floor of the kitchen. “Theresa!” he shouted again. Then as he bent down he saw that it was not Theresa but rather Victoria. “Oh, God,” he exclaimed.
She had slit her wrists.
He bent down to check her. He was sure she was dead. Then he called the ambulance. As he looked at the body in horror, an insane thought came to him: how beautiful was her lustrous black hair against the bright red blood.
Shane and Theresa called the Barrière Lake band office to let Delores know what had happened. They arranged for the body to be sent back to Barrière Lake to be buried at the old Indian cemetery. Shane was surprised to see that the shock of Victoria’s death had for a time seemed to push thoughts of Theresa’s illness from their minds. They talked about Victoria and what a short and tragic life she had had.
One evening they were playing chess in her apartment.
“Well,” Theresa said, “it looks like you’ll have to get someone else to help you have that baby we talked about having.”
Shane winced very slightly. Although she had said it without any emotion, he knew she must be hurting inside.
“Of course it’s a good way to get zero population growth,” she said, “have the mother die.”
Shane motioned for her to move her piece, hoping to distract her.
“And what about taking to the bush?” she said. “Remember how we talked about hunting and raising our food and building a log cabin? You’ll have to do it by yourself now.”
“Don’t say that,” Shane said. “If we talk only about what might have been, we’ll both go crazy.”
Theresa got pensive. Her mind was no longer on the chess game. She stared at the pieces but concentrated on something else. Finally, a broad smile spread across her face.
“Shane?” she said, drawing the name out slowly.
“Yeah?”
“Let’s do what we planned to do.”
“Do what?”
“Everything we wanted to do,” she said, her eyes lighting up and her smile almost boundless. “Let us move to the bush and have a baby.”
“Oh, Theresa,” Shane said very sadly. Hearing her long after fantasies that would never be realized almost made him weep.
“No, Shane, listen,” she went on. “We can do it.” She was excited now. “It’s only the end of May. We can do it. We’ll have the baby and move to the bush.”
Shane’s eyebrows rose in disbelief.
“There’s enough time for a baby,” she insisted. “We’ll just move it up a little in our plans.”
Shane was silent, thinking about the idea. Then he spoke. “I told Jim I thought we’d probably move out of Montreal soon.”
“We’ll build a cabin in the bush. Do you remember what we talked about? We said we’d go to some lake deep in the bush and build a cabin.”
Shane thought about it for a moment. “Do you think there is enough time?’”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” she said. “We don’t know for sure. But I know that there isn’t anything I’d rather be doing with that time than trying.”
He was now taken with her passion and every modification of it. Not only could he see that these crazy plans would be marvellous for her, but they were already making him come alive. He had forgotten how alive he could feel. Not in a long time had he felt so free.
They found a large map of Quebec and spread it out. There were lakes everywhere. Untouched lakes. Tens of thousands of them. More lakes than there were in all of the United States.
After studying the map for a short while, Theresa said, “Let’s go here.” She put her finger on the map and held it there until Shane could pick it out.
“Lac des Îles — Lake of the Islands,” she said. “It’s right near this little village, Casey. There’s a Canadian National track going through it.” Theresa was happy with her choice. She said the name of the lake over and over again, as if the sound of it would give a clue as to what it would be like.
Shane called the Canadian National station the next day. There was a daily passenger service going through Casey. He found out that not only did the train stop at Casey but because it was a wilderness service, it stopped wherever along the line the passenger wanted to get off. The woman in the information office told him that the only thing he had to do was tell the conductor where he wanted to stop. To catch the train again at the same point, he simply had to flag it down.
Chapter Seventeen
I
“But she will be away from medical care,” Dr. Saarinen said when Shane went to see him at Montreal General Hospital.
“If she has to die, she really wants to die in the bush,” said Shane, sitting in a chair in front of the doctor’s desk.
“Well,” said the doctor, trying to understand, “I guess I would too. But at the same time, I think I’d want the best medical care possible to prolong life as much as possible.”
“I think Theresa feels that a shorter life in the bush is better than life prolonged in Montreal.”
Dr. Saarinen said, “She’s Indian. I can understand that.”
“Are you sure it’s terminal?” Shane asked with a glimmer of hope in his voice.
“I would say so. It’s an advanced case. The chances of a remission always exist, of course, but they are exceedingly slim.”
“Couldn’t I administer some of the medicine to her?” Shane asked.
“Some, I guess.”
“Then that would allow us to go in the bush,” Shane said.
“To some extent,” Dr. Saarinen agreed.
They looked at each other, her physician and her husband, feeling helpless.
“I’ll tell you what we can do,” Dr. Saarinen said. “I’ll give you some literature on the drugs now, and you can come back with Theresa in a few days. Then the three of us together can discuss whether some kind of medical treatment in the bush would he feasible.”
Shane asked hopefully, “Couldn’t just being in the bush help psychologically — and physically?”
“I don’t discount that.”
“There’s another thing, Doct
or. Theresa and I always thought that we would have a child.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well,” Shane began, hoping that he would be able to elicit some enthusiasm, “we’d like to try now.”
“It would be very difficult, given the time frame you have,” Dr. Saarinen said.
“It’s very important to me and to her. When she’s no longer around, I want to have someone who is part of us. And Theresa wants to leave something that’s a part of us.”
“I can understand that,” Dr. Saarinen said. “In a way, though, it would be a medical burden upon her. Her body would be trying to fight this disease — not to mention the drugs — while trying to nourish the baby. You would be limiting the range of drugs that could be used; also, some of the drugs are very powerful, and they are potential mutagens.”
“And if she got pregnant, the baby could be a psychological help and give her something to live for — for a while at least. And that could help her physically.”
Dr. Saarinen said, smiling, “You may be right.”
“Well?”
“It’s possible,” the physician said, “if she conceived right away. But I wouldn’t recommend it. You see, in her last weeks, she isn’t going to have much strength. It would be a question of seeing whether she would die before coming to term. It would actually be a toss-up. And you certainly wouldn’t want to risk the baby’s life.”
“But we want the baby, Doctor — badly.”
“I certainly wouldn’t stop you even if I could,” the doctor said. “She doesn’t have much time left. She might as well spend her last days the way she wants to, even if it costs her a few months.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“There’s one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“If you do it this way, you’ll have to think about the possibility of complications during birth. You’ll be in the bush, after all. If a breech birth happens, you’ll need some sort of preparation. But we’ll attend to that later.”
They both stood up. Dr. Saarinen came around the front of his desk to shake Shane’s hand.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Shane said, then turned to leave.
Dr. Saarinen put his hand on Shane’s shoulder. “Shane, I admire you and Theresa for this.”
II
Dr. Saarinen fixed an appointment for Shane and Theresa with a gynaecologist.
“If we have a baby, you’re going to have to be the midwife,” Theresa said.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Shane said. “If you can handle your part, I’ll handle mine.”
They went to see the gynaecologist with Dr. Saarinen’s referral stating that, as far as he could see, she could have a baby. The gynaecologist concurred, although he was also reticent about having it far from professional care. Still, he was helped along by Dr. Saarinen who was by now sympathetic to their plans, even if they were incompatible with sound medical practice.
The gynaecologist did the same thing for Shane that Dr. Saarinen had done; he gave him some books to read about childbirth. Then he brought him back later to witness a live birth, with the mother’s permission. He showed Shane, step by step, how to deliver a baby. Shane found the whole procedure rather uncomplicated — until the gynaecologist began talking about haemorrhages. They both dreaded the possibility of having any complications in the bush. But the doctor told Shane that a normal delivery — assuming Theresa’s strength held up — would be relatively easy. If the odds held, they wouldn’t have any problems.
Shane visited Dr. Saarinen again and told him all the things that the gynaecologist had asked him to study.
“It sounds as though he gave you a very good short course,” Dr. Saarinen said. “Did he tell you about a Caesarean section?”
“No,” Shane said.
“He probably didn’t think it would happen or that if it did, you should not attempt to do anything about it. Caesarean sections are done in cases of breech births or in instances of cross births, where the long axis of the child lies across the long axis of the mother. Those kinds of births are actually rather rare, but it’s something we need to think about. By the way, have you ever seen animals give birth?”
“Yes,” said Shane, “often.”
“Have you ever butchered a large animal?”
”Many.”
“Well,” said Dr. Saarinen, “we can plan for this unlikely eventuality, but don’t tell the medical board I’m showing you these things or I’ll have to take to the bush myself. Theresa has delivered vaginally twice before so it is unlikely she would have to deliver abdominally. But if she does, I want you to cut the baby out.”
Shane’s eyebrows rose.
“The reasons why are obvious,” the doctor went on. “She will be near death from leukemia. In our hypothetical situation — which, I emphasize, is extremely unlikely — she would be facing almost certain death, which would therefore indicate a Caesarean section. I hope you have a sharp knife.”
“I test it by shaving the hair on my arm.”
Dr. Saarinen smiled. “I’ll show you what to look for, how to make the incisions in the abdominal wall and the uterus and then how to take the baby and suture the uterus and the abdominal wall. In the nineteenth century, a Caesarean section nearly always resulted in the death of the mother from sepsis or haemorrhage — or they had to cut the baby’s head. But I think with some intelligent instructions and some antiseptic procedures, you could do a better job than a physician could have in the nineteenth century. In any case, saving the baby would be better than losing them both.”
“Do you know,” Theresa said to Shane later, when he had explained the medical situation to her, “it’s kind of a strange situation. If I have complications, I bleed to death. If I don’t have complications, I die anyway.”
Chapter Eighteen
I
“We’ll need a canoe,” Theresa pointed out.
“We have a canoe.”
“No, I mean a real canoe,” she said.
“A birch-bark canoe? The people at Moose Factory haven’t made birch-bark canoes for decades, maybe since the turn of the century. I don’t know if anyone there would be capable of making a canoe anymore.”
“Delores told me once that there is an old man out in the bush at Barrière Lake who can still make them.”
“How will I learn before we go to Lac des Îles?” Shane asked.
“How long do you think it takes to make one?” Theresa answered with a question of her own.
“Maybe two or three weeks. But you know, they aren’t really easy things to make; it’s quite a sophisticated craft.”
“Many people say you make the best snowshoes they have ever seen.”
“That’s not the same thing as a birch-bark canoe. It’s much harder to get the materials and the work itself is different.”
“But you’re very skilled. You can do it.”
“Maybe,” Shane said. “If there were time.”
Theresa managed to reach Delores through the band office, though it took some doing before someone was able to locate her.
“The old man,” Delores said after Theresa explained that Shane wondered if it would be possible to come north to Barrière Lake to learn how to make a birch-bark canoe, and if there would be a builder who might be willing to teach him. “Patrick Matchewan. His camp is about thirty miles in the bush. He’s a very good canoe builder, and he makes snowshoes and tikinagans too.”
Shane was listening in the kitchen and could make out what was being said at the other end of the telephone connection.
He motioned to Theresa to put her hand over the receiver. “We don’t really have much time,” he said. “Why don’t you see if Delores would hire a driver today and go out to see him and ask him if I can come up there to make a canoe with him? Maybe if Delores told him the circumstances that would help. Then she could call back here collect.”
Delores called back that evening. Patrick Matchewan would gladly take on an apprentice, and Shane could come
any time.
“I’d better go tomorrow, then,” Shane said. “Dr. Saarinen said he wants to have you in for some treatments. Maybe you can get some of our things ready while I’m at Barrière Lake.”
II
Shane started before dawn the next morning and reached Barrière settlement by late morning. Delores drew him a crude map of the thirty-mile bush trip back to Patrick Matchewan’s cabin.
The entire trip from the Barrière village was over wilderness gravel roads, now mercifully dry after the spring thaw. Shane drove on one of the little bush tracks that went off to the side and came upon a lake one-fourth of a mile across. It was surrounded by black spruce. There was a clearing at the end of the little dirt track.
Shane was heartened when he saw smoke coming from the chimney of a little log cabin built in the quickly erected, pièce-en-pièce style, of the kind Shane himself had often helped build in the woods at Moose Factory.
Shane went up to the door and opened it slowly. Patrick Matchewan was sitting inside on a straight-backed chair puffing away slowly on his pipe. He had hair flecked with gray that fell to his shoulders. Shane could see the effect of decades of sunlight and winter cold on his skin. He wore old boots, and his long-sleeved shirt was buttoned right up to the neck.
The man nodded to Shane that he should come in.
Shane was at first reluctant to speak, fearing that his less-than-perfect Algonquin would be a little difficult for Patrick Matchewan. He quickly discovered, much to his surprise, that the old man spoke fluent English and French, in addition to his native language.
“Thank you for letting me come here to work with you,” Shane said.
Patrick nodded. “Want a tea?” he asked. To Shane’s affirmative answer, the old man moved the water kettle on the woodstove from the place where it was being kept warm to the hot spot on the surface, so it would boil again.
As they drank the tea, Shane inquired about the canoe they were to build. “I don’t mean to hurry you up or anything,” he said apologetically.
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