Mary, Mary

by Lesley Crewe

  Ethel leaned over the won ton soup to Carole. “She’s going through The Change. That’s the only explanation.”

  “I’ll go talk to her.” Carole left the table.

  “Aren’t you eating anything, Gran?” asked Mary.

  “Nah, this stuff reminds me of worms and maggots.”

  Suddenly Mary wasn’t very hungry.

  Only when the dishes were done did Carole and Peggy emerge from the bathroom. Peggy looked much better, so whatever her sister said to her must have helped. It was at times like this that Mary wished she had a sister to talk to. She did have Sheena, but listening wasn’t exactly Sheena’s forte.

  “I better get back home,” sniffed Peggy. “Sorry to be such a mess.”

  “Do you want me to drive you, Aunt Peggy?” offered Mary. “It’s no problem.”

  “Call Sheena and tell her to get back here with the car,” Ethel said.

  “I don’t want to talk to her right now, Mom. I just want to get home and take a nice hot bath. Thank you, sweetheart, it would be great if you gave me a lift.”

  While Mary got her coat and boots on, Aunt Peggy said her farewells. When they got outside, there was a skim of snow on the back steps and the car.

  “Are we supposed to get more snow?” Aunt Peggy worried. “I hate Sheena driving in this weather.”

  “I don’t think so. Watch your step.”

  Peggy didn’t say much on the drive home, so Mary prattled on about how she was saving up for contact lenses. “I suppose it’s vain, but I’m sick of wearing glasses. They always fog up in our house. Mom’s too cheap to put in proper ventilation.”

  “I’ve bugged her about that for years. The place is rotting under the wallpaper. And no, it’s not vain to want to get rid of your glasses.” Peggy reached out and touched Mary’s knee. “Let me help you with that. Just don’t tell your mother.”

  “I can’t let you—”

  “You can and you will. You’re a wonderful girl, Mary, and I’d like to do something to show you how much I appreciate everything you do for me.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Peggy.”

  Mary gunned the car up the driveway and made it to the top of the hill. She kissed her aunt goodbye, waited until she got in the house, and headed back down the driveway.

  Peggy let out a big sigh in the foyer. She needed a bath to revive herself before Sheena came home. Maybe then they could talk like civilized adults. But at that moment she remembered she wanted to give Mary some money, so she ran out the door only to see Mary’s car heading up the road.

  “Damn.” She turned back on her heel and felt everything drop away underneath her. She landed on her back and arm. There was a snap. She couldn’t scream in pain because the fall had knocked the wind out of her.

  As she lay in the cold and dark, it dawned on her that no one knew she was out here. Who knew what time Sheena would get home. Peggy might freeze to death before help arrived. Great. Now she’d even miss the pathetic wedding her daughter was planning. Someone up in the sky must really hate her guts.

  “Help!” she squeaked. “Someone help me!”

  Total silence.

  “Thanks a lot, Ted!”

  Realizing that blaming a husband several thousand kilometres away was not going to bring results, she set her sights on the front door. Luckily it was still open. If only she could crawl over and grab her cell out of her purse. She tried to move her arm but it lay there like a broken toy. Naturally, it was her right arm. Goddammit.

  Then she tried to slide herself on her back towards the door, but the pain was terrible. She was probably damaging the damage she’d already done. But it couldn’t be helped. And she had moved a few inches, so she held her breath and tried again. At this rate she’d get to the door by midnight.

  Sheena and Drew went to the early show, just so both of them could be out of their respective houses. They stopped for a burger afterwards and sulked as they ate their fries.

  “Why don’t we just elope?” Drew suggested. “No one is happy about anything, so what’s the point?”

  Sheena levelled a fry at him. “The point is I would like some kind of wedding, even if it’s a disaster! And I don’t want your mother to win, quite frankly. I know she hates me but too damn bad.”

  “Why don’t we just live together? We’ll look for an apartment and that will be it.”

  “Did you not hear me? I want the frigging wedding. Is that too much to ask?”

  Drew put his hands up. “Fine. Jeez. Just don’t expect anything from my mother. Dad doesn’t care one way or the other. He still says he’ll supply the cars.”

  “So you keep saying, but who needs cars at this point? What do we do with them?”

  “Don’t ask me.”

  “So we have six weeks.”

  “Yep. I start work after that. We can stay with my oldest brother in Halifax while we look for an apartment.”

  “What a fun honeymoon that will be,” she said sarcastically. She backpedalled when she saw his look. “Never mind. We’ll make it work. Do you love me?”

  “Sure.”

  Sheena was dissatisfied with this response but decided to ignore it. Why start another argument?

  When Sheena drove up the driveway a little while later, she wondered why the front door was open. Then she wondered what the lump was on the pavement. When her mother’s head popped up, Sheena screamed. In her panic, she put her foot on the gas. She realized her mistake when her mother held up one arm to feebly ward off the Jeep gunning towards her. Sheena slammed on the brakes and jumped out, forgetting to put it in park. The Jeep started to roll backwards.

  “Sheena!” Her mom pointed.

  Sheena looked around and watched her vehicle careen down the driveway and collide with the big fir tree on their property.

  “Oh, my God!”

  “Never mind that now! Come and save me!”

  “Mommy! What’s wrong? What happened?” She bent down and noticed her mother’s frozen eyelashes. “You’re freezing! I’ll go get a blanket!”

  “Where the hell were you?” Peggy demanded.

  Sheena ignored her and ran into the family room. She looked around wildly and grabbed the same throw they’d used for Gran at Christmastime. She ran back outside and covered her mom. “We need to call 911.”

  “Just pull me in the house!”

  Against her better judgment, Sheena hooked her arms under her mother’s armpits, but the minute she tried to pull with any force, her mom screamed.

  “Forget this,” Sheena said. “I’m calling 911.”

  “Damn it.” Peggy shivered. “I have my old bra on.”

  “No one gives a shit about your bra.”

  The ambulance arrived about five minutes later and while they got Peggy on a gurney, Sheena ran down the hill and turned off her Jeep. There was a lot of damage to the back bumper, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She hurried back up to the house and collected her mother’s purse, then locked the front door and crawled into the back of the ambulance with her mom.

  As they drove, Sheena held her mother’s hand. “What happened?”

  “What happened was that you decided to leave with the car and Mary had to drive me home.”

  “Didn’t she wait until you got inside the house?”

  “She did, as a matter of fact, but I ran out to call her back and slipped. She didn’t see me. Call Carole and tell her to meet us at the hospital.”

  “But I’m with you.”

  “Just do it!”

  Mary, Carole, and Sheena sat in the waiting room for two hours before they were allowed to see Peggy. Mary felt dreadful, Carole was annoyed at Sheena, and Sheena was fretting about her mother and the Jeep.

  “If you mention that goddamn Jeep one more time, I’ll smack you.”

  “I’m allowed to worry,
Aunt Carole. I need it to go to work. I can’t drive Mom’s car; it’s a stick shift. Why she needed a standard, I’ll never know.”

  The nurse finally motioned them into the outpatients’ department. She brought them to an examining room. Peggy lay on the table, looking like hell. Her arm was already in a cast.

  “Oh, Aunt Peggy, I feel terrible!” Mary said immediately.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Mary. I ran out to call you back and slipped. It was a foolish thing to do.”

  Carole stated the obvious: “So you broke your arm. It could’ve been your neck. How long were you out there?”

  “Seemed like forever.”

  Everyone looked at Sheena.

  “I’m sorry! How was I supposed to know she was lying outside? We were at a movie.”

  At that point the doctor showed up. “Well, Mrs. Henderson,” she said, “it looks like, in addition to your broken arm, you also slipped a disc in your back.”

  “Wonderful. What does that mean?”

  “It means you’ll be laid up in bed for six weeks.”

  Peggy and Sheena screamed together and startled the poor man. “Six weeks! Are you kidding me? I can’t be in bed for six weeks. My daughter is getting married in six weeks. This cannot be happening!”

  “I’m sure this is distressing, but I think you’ll agree that any more damage to your back will make you one sorry lady. Once this kind of thing happens, you might always have trouble with your back, especially when you carry extra weight. You have to be careful. Your health is more important than a wedding.”

  “It’s not, as it happens!” cried Peggy. “Oh, go away.” She dismissed the doctor with a wave of her good arm.

  The doctor looked incredulous, but she turned and left.

  Sheena collapsed into the nearest chair and moaned. “I can’t believe it. Daddy’s gone. Mom will be stuck in bed and I’m trying to plan a wedding all by myself! Life is so unfair!”

  Carole pointed at Peggy. “It’s unfair on your mother, not you. It’s not going to kill you to do everything by yourself. You’re the one who wants this so badly. If it’s too much to handle, postpone the wedding.”

  “Oh no, I can’t do that. My mind is made up.”

  “Frig ya, then. Don’t ask for my help.”

  Peggy waved her good arm around. “Be quiet, Carole! Of course you have to help. You’re the only family we have. God. What a depressing thought.”

  “Excuse me?” Carole frowned.

  “I’m sorry…I’m delirious. Can I get some drugs in here?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Early the next morning, Peggy was discharged.

  “How am I supposed to get home?” she asked Sheena.

  “Well, my car is totalled, and I’d have to take a taxi to the house to get your car, but I can’t drive it, remember? Why don’t you drive an automatic like the rest of the world?”

  “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

  “Call Aunt Carole.”

  “I am not going to crawl into that tin can! My back will break in two. I’ll have to pay for an ambulance with a gurney, which is ridiculous. Thanks a lot, Ted.”

  Once they made it back to the house, the paramedics hauled Peggy up the stairs to her bedroom on a narrow gurney. She moaned and groaned in frustration the whole way. She was dozy with pain medication but still managed to be mortified at the sight of her unmade bed, her nightie, and underwear in a pile at the end of it.

  When the two burly men finally shut the front door, Peggy hollered for Sheena. She didn’t answer, so she hollered again. Nothing.

  “This is how it ends,” she whispered. “Alone, forgotten….”

  The front door banged open.

  “Sheena!”

  She heard footsteps and Sheena arrived at the bedroom door. “What’s wrong?”

  “Where were you?”

  “I was outside looking at the Jeep. I had to call CAA again. They’ll pick it up and take it to a shop. Then hopefully Drew can lend me a car while it’s being fixed.”

  “Well, let me know when you’re going outside. I was yelling for you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Mother! Why didn’t you do that before we left?”

  Peggy stared at her offspring. “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that. Just take my arm. I’m a bit wobbly.”

  Once Peggy was back in bed, she asked Sheena to grab the laptop on her dresser. “I have to tell your father what’s going on.”

  “I thought we weren’t telling him.”

  “And let him think we’re having a fabulous time? No way. Stay here in case I need you.”

  “Mom, I have got to get some sleep! I’ve been up all night with you. Let me go.”

  “Before you do, grab me a few cans of Pepsi, a bag of chips, and that ranch dip in the fridge. Then pass me the remote, my purse, and my cell, also my fluffy socks, tissues, and that People magazine on the floor.”

  “I’m friggin’ Cinderella,” Sheena moaned as she left the room.

  Once Peggy had her supplies and Sheena had disappeared into her bedroom, Peggy turned on Skype. She managed to contact Ted on her first try.

  “Hi,” he said. “I thought we weren’t going to call each other until later in the evening. I’ve got five minutes to eat my supper before I have to go.”

  “Well, guess what I’m having for breakfast? Chips and dip, eaten with my left hand since my right arm is broken, and I’m in bed with a slipped a disc in my back. I am bedridden for six weeks!”

  “What?”

  “And guess who’s getting married in six weeks and moving to Halifax?”

  “What?”

  “And guess who smashed her Jeep last night?”

  “Wait a minute! Slow down! Are you joking?”

  “I can’t believe you’re not here to help us. Do you see now how selfish you’ve been? How life can change in an instant? How about putting your family first, Ted?”

  “What a second…I didn’t know this would happen.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  Peggy could see Ted’s ears getting red on the screen. “There’s nothing I can do about it right now. We aren’t allowed to leave the compound.”

  Just as Peggy was about to lambaste him for that, a woman appeared on the screen, walked up to Ted, and put her hand on his shoulder. “Say goodbye, Teddy; we have to go.” Then she disappeared.

  “Who the hell is that?”

  “She’s a colleague.”

  “A colleague who calls you Teddy?”

  “My friend introduced us. He calls me Teddy, so that’s how I’m known here.”

  “You son of a bitch. Don’t ever speak to me again, Teddy!”

  Pressing a finger on a dot on a computer screen wasn’t nearly as satisfying as hanging up a phone receiver in someone’s ear, but what was satisfying was eating an entire bag of chips and a container of dip and feeling not one bit guilty.

  Carole closed up shop for the day and slept until noon. Then she and Ethel picked up a few things at Sobeys before heading over to Peggy’s. Ethel was still annoyed that Carole hadn’t let her come to the hospital the night before.

  They managed to get up the driveway on the first try. Carole helped her mother out of the car and then opened Peggy’s front door with her spare key.

  “Hello?”

  There was complete silence.

  “They’re both asleep, I bet,” Carole said.

  “Your mind is a steel trap.”

  “Ma, don’t give me grief. Just sit here until I bring the groceries in.”

  Once that was accomplished, the two women went up the stairs and stood in the doorway of Peggy’s bedroom. There was the poor woman, her head back, mouth open, snoring loudly, her good
hand still inside the bag of chips.

  Ethel tsked. “No wonder Ted left town. Imagine looking at that all night.”

  “Can you give the woman a break? She’s an invalid at the moment.”

  Ethel approached Peggy and put her hand on her shoulder. “Peg?”

  Peggy grunted and smacked her lips. When Ethel took Peggy’s hand out of the chip bag, she opened her eyes. “Who’s there? Don’t kill me!”

  “It’s your mother. I’m not going to kill you. However, I can’t vouch for your sister.”

  Peggy blinked. “Ma? Why are you here? You never come over.”

  “I was here at Christmas. What more do you want? How are ya feeling?”

  Peggy looked around groggily and saw her arm in the cast. “I thought I was dreaming. So this really happened?”

  “Yep. You’re lucky to be alive. What were you thinking, falling down like that?”

  “I guess I wanted more drama in my life. Really, Mother, what a stupid question.”

  Ethel turned to Carole. “She’s okay. Let’s go.”

  Carole pulled her mother away and led her to a corner chair. “Just sit and be quiet.” She then turned her attention to her sister.

  “We brought you a few groceries like milk and bread, but what else do you need? What can we do?”

  “There’s nothing you can do. It’s hopeless.”

  Carole took Peggy’s good hand and gave it a shake. “It’s not hopeless. We’ll take it one day at a time. Just give yourself a few days to figure out what you need and let us know. We’ll do our best to help you. Isn’t that right, Ma?”

  Ethel was sorting through her scratch tickets. “Yeah, that’s right. What she said.”

  Peggy gave Carole a weary look. “Can you believed we survived our childhood?”

  Later that evening, Sheena brought up some supper for her mother on a tray.

  “Thank you, dear. What on earth is this? Kraft Dinner?”

  “There were ten boxes of it on the kitchen counter.”

  “This must be what Carole and Ma brought over. I hope they brought something else.”

  “There’s a bunch of bologna too. And white bread! When was the last time you had white bread? It looks kind of great.”