Something feral, defensive, yet frightened in me stirs. Why is Jane here? To find the truth about me? The truth I don’t want her to know? As long as she remains in the hallway, as long as she doesn’t cross the threshold, I am not in this hospital bed. I am somewhere else — lecturing in a classroom, riding my bike, or jogging in High Park. If Jane enters the room, she will confirm the woman in this bed is in fact me. Oddly, I think of myself in third person. No. Blossom isn’t here, no. I will Jane to turn and walk away. But she enters the room.
She hugs me and the fear dissipates. Her wet face is feverish against mine as if she’d been jogging. I am taken aback. It is I who is feverish. She takes her coat off, drapes it around the chair, and sits on the edge of my bed.
I temper my voice into calmness. “Is it raining out there?”
“Buckets,” she says.
Her eyes are glued to my face, and I am transported to our childhood, to her role of the older sister when she guided and protected me. And made me happy.
I am seven years old again, waiting with Anna at the Bay Street bus terminal. Jane steps off the bus, wiggles her hand out of her mother’s, and runs toward me. We hug. She slips the knapsack off her back, pulls out a box wrapped in Barbie paper, and tells me to open it. I hesitate. She reminds me that I am allowed to open one early birthday present and it should be hers. I tear the paper off. Through the clear cellophane wrap of the packaging, an Olympic Barbie in her red ski suit is looking back at me.
Jane knows this doll is at the top of my birthday wish-list. We hold hands and jump up and down and scream with joy, and the sparkle in Jane’s eyes, her thrill at making me happy, is forever etched in my memory.
I reach for her hand. “Jane, will you ever forgive me? I couldn’t talk about it. You understand, don’t you?”
“Nothing to forgive. But promise me you’ll never keep me out of your life again.”
I ask Jane about her children’s art classes and ballet lessons and about her new job. I keep firing questions to avoid talking about myself simply because there would be only one thing to talk about, and it is not pleasant.
Finally I give in to what I have been avoiding. “How did you find me here?”
She shrugs. “I haven’t been able to reach you. But I guess you know that. So I called the university and found out you took the semester off. I knew something had to be wrong. I took the first bus from Ottawa this morning. Then the subway to your house. Your neighbour told me you’ve been readmitted to the Women’s Centenary for more tests. She was surprised I didn’t know.”
I discern a twinge of blame and avert my eyes. “Some type of escapism, I suppose.”
She looks so sad, I feel guilty for hiding my illness. What was I afraid of? I tell her how I’ve been diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia. And of the search for a donor.
She brushes my hair away from my face then hugs me again.
The wayward patient with hot-pink fingernails walks back into my room and shrieks in delight. “Ah, a visitor! And it’s only morning! I fetched a turquoise gown for you before they’re all gone. To match your beautiful eyes.”
She turns to Jane. “Blossom is our princess in an enchanted castle,” she says jovially with a broad sweep of her hand as if I were a piece of furniture in a showroom, and not a patient at a cancer ward. She holds the gown against my chest. “Good contrast against your flaming red tresses.” She points to her turban and winces. “Hope it grows back soon.” She leans close to me and whispers, excitedly. “Rumour has it the hunk, you know, the new chef, is coming around at lunch to see what we think of the new menu.” She scrunches up her nose and chuckles mischievously, lays the gown on my bed, and waltzes out.
Jane looks even more crushed. She can see right through this put-on cheerfulness.
I wish I could tell Jane this is all a big mistake, a misdiagnosis, and all will be cleared up, and I’ll be back home this evening, and we’ll have a lovely dinner and herbal tea with lemon and honey, and tomorrow we’ll take the subway to the opera house where we’ll admire its awe-inspiring architecture and superb acoustics and grumble about how some of the opera company’s recent productions lack the pageantry and flourish we both enjoy — and this whole notion of my illness will be but a bad dream.
Jane passes her hand along her forehead as if to wipe away her worry. Out of her bag, she pulls out a yellowed paper scroll bound with a purple ribbon in which she had tied a small bouquet of fresh lavender. She places the scroll in my hand. “Bloss, I have some very exciting news. And some exhilarating news.”
A mischievous smirk on Jane’s face tells me she recalls the word game Anna and I used to play — a game Jane, who prefers more straightforward talk, never took part in. But now, she prompts the game.
It’s a strange way to present flowers — in an aged paper scroll. So I hold the bouquet in both hands as if it were a bottle with a genie in it. “Two sets of news — one exciting and one exhilarating, ha?”
Jane nods keenly. “Open it up. And read the letter.”
“The letter?”
I untie the ribbon and unfurl the pages — pages tightly hand-written. I hold the lavender bouquet and recall this was Anna’s favourite herb — a numinous cure-all —for chasing the blahs away and lifting the spirit.
Jane is unable to hold back the excitement. “Let’s read it together. I’ve already read it over and over. But I’d like to hear it again.” She arches her eyebrows. “Even better. Could you read it out loud for both of us?”
CHAPTER 42
JANE AND I lean the pillows against the headboard and settle in. The pages of the scroll are curled from being rolled tightly, and when I flatten them with my palms, a few dry bits of lavender spill on my lap. I take in the hay-like sweetness of this fragrant herb that has been in documented use for over three thousand years and recall its many qualities. The Egyptians made perfume from it; the Romans used it for bathing and cooking and scenting the air; French and English royalty demanded lavender filled pillows; and over the years, Anna and Liza had tucked lavender sachets in dresser drawers and armoires to repel moths. This is a good omen.
Jane gets up and begins to pace the floor.
I start to read.
The date at the top is, Ottawa 1969, and it begins with, “My Sweetest Love.”
What is it about the magic of love?
I know the answer. The magic — all that wizardry love conjures up — is in the enchantment of loving you.
I spent the evening in a room filled with men in business suits, women in cocktail dresses — some of the handsomest human specimens. Yet, I was lonely.
After exchanging a few pleasantries with colleagues, I stepped onto the patio for some fresh air and a cigarette. Oxymoronic, I know, marching out for fresh air and inhaling smoke, but what the hell, I needed it — and as I lit up and drew in the nicotine, you were in my thoughts. You, Liza, are all that matters.
How fortunate we are to have found love — the true meaning of life — love for each other, love for our darling daughters, Bloss and Janey. I feel warm inside just repeating their names.
I bought matching dresses for our girls today —the two little sisters. I was so happy to find the sizes. I’m so sentimental tonight, my love, and I can’t help but reminisce about you and me and David. My darling Liza, isn’t it prophetic he is the father of our daughters?
All those years I felt guilty for not telling him about Janey. Now, I see it all as providence. The way the universe itself had lined up events and made you and me and our girls a family. This isn’t gin talking, my love. The gin may loosen the tongue, yes. But the feelings are genuine.
Oh, how I long for you Liza my love. It’s two weeks until I see you, two long, boring weeks of meetings and business suits and cocktail dresses. I’m off to bed now, alone but no longer lonely, radiant with thoughts of you.
My love for you is eter
nal.
Your Anna
I drop the letter in my lap and cup my face in my hands. I can hear my heart beating. I pick it up again and run my fingertips over the signature, as if I was reading braille. I was not wrong. Your Anna.
Jane is still pacing the floor. I stare at her. How this single letter must have transformed her life. Yet she is composed, focused on her even steps as if hypnotized.
“David is your father,” I whisper and she nods, smiling.
“I’ve had a couple of days to mull it over,” she whispers.
I pick up the letter again. Fingering the paper reassures me it is real. My thoughts are imploding like a dynamited high-rise. Jane is my sister! I get out of bed and pace the floor with her. Jane takes my hand. We stop and look at each other — and laugh, laugh happily.
She kisses me on the cheek. “I felt my life upturning. Transforming me into someone else. Someone I tried to see from this new perspective. Someone I hardly know. And yet know as well as my own heartbeat.”
She arches her eyebrows and looks at me, intently, wide eyed. “Then I asked myself, what has changed? How am I different?” She continues. “I’d never imagined Anna and Liza as lovers. They’d always been my aunts. Liza the same way as Anna. They’d been inseparable. Whenever I came, on weekends . . . summertime . . . I used to spend my whole summers with you guys! And loved it!”
“Neither dated anyone else,” I say. “To me this didn’t seem unusual, though. It all seemed . . . routine.”
I think back to Liza and Anna going about the daily tasks, chatting and laughing. And the notion they were a couple is heart-warming. They were content together. Now I realize they were more than that. They were happy. They were in love. And knowing Anna is Jane’s biological mother makes me warm all over as if I am lit up from within.
Jane takes my hands in hers. “Bloss, you know what this means, don’t you? We’re sisters! Sisters!!!”
When I look up, I am met with that gleam in Jane’s eyes I have not seen for over thirty years.
She hugs me, tear-stained cheeks against mine. “I’ve been hearing about him for as long as I can remember. Hearing about your father. While all along he was my father as well. Imagine! And the father I grew up with is my uncle. And my mother is my aunt. And my aunt my real mother. Who would’ve thought?”
Jane wipes her tears. “Now for the exhilarating news. Since we’re sisters, I have a much better chance of being a donor. This could all be behind us very soon.”
* * *
Jane spends the night at my house and comes to the hospital early in the morning. She sits on my bed and takes my hand in hers. “Bloss, I’ve been thinking. You didn’t seem surprised.” She pauses. “Well, not as surprised as I expected. You know, about David being my father.”
I shrug. “I’ve always seen you as my sister.”
She laughs her warmest laugh, the one that rolls out mellifluous and genuinely mirthful. “And I you. But I thought you’d be astonished. Shocked.”
“I’m whole. Justice has been done. The truth revealed.”
“Not surprised? That David is my father as well?”
“A little. But I’m just so happy! And that’s all that matters.”
I untangle my feet from under the sheets, get out of the bed, wrap the housecoat around my shoulders, and slowly pace the room. “You never did fit in with your parents, Jane. You always belonged with us. We were family. And after your visit, each time you went back to Ottawa, I thought it unfair.”
She is genuinely thrown by this. She presses her fingers to her temples and closes her eyes. “And Liza and Anna being lovers? Did you have any idea?”
“They’d been together for as long as I can remember. As a child, I never thought about . . . the nature of their relationship.”
Jane laughs. “No? Not at all?”
“When I was in grade school, they worked flex-hours. One walked me to school in the morning and the other picked me up after school. Come to think of it — I had two mothers.”
Jane makes a funny-frog face, as in our childhood, and says with emphasis: “So you did suspect something?”
“On weekends, Anna often stayed at our house. In the morning, I’d run to their bedroom and jump on their bed and snuggle in between them and they’d talk about my school, my friends . . .”
Jane pipes in. “And which ingredient made the best oatmeal-raisin cookies.”
“I liked walnuts. You wanted coconut.”
Jane claps her hands and laughs. “And Anna insisted on using butter. But Liza usually snuck the olive oil into the batter, instead. To make the cookies more healthful. Except Anna could taste the difference. Hilarious.”
“And the breakfasts? Who could forget those? Crepes with berries and whipped cream. Heavenly.”
“You still have that whipping crème dispenser? We’ll get some cartridges and do the crepes. And waffles. Soon as you get home.”
“You bet,” I say. “Then we’ll go to the park and visit our old friend, Mr. Peacock.”
A shadow of sadness passes over her face. “Remember, Bloss? You thought his magical eyes could see into the human soul.”
“I’ve always had this need to glimpse into other people’s thoughts. My mother’s, primarily. I wondered if my mother had been lonely. Whether she’d sacrificed her own happiness for me. Not wanting to subject me to having a strange man in my life.”
“It never crossed my mind,” Jane says.
“That small measure of guilt? Now, all dissipated. Liza and Anna had each other.”
CHAPTER 43
CHESTER IS PERFECTLY at home in my kitchen. He had prepared our favourite dinner — stir-fried tofu with broccoli and snow peas and toasted slivered almonds. A bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape Grenache is breathing on the table. He is enthusing about the pastoral landscapes of Provence he’d visited during his university days, and the ruins of the fortress-like-palace of Châteauneuf-du-Pape — a historic village in France’s southern Rhone Valley famous for full-bodied red wines — places on our must-visit list.
His optimism is contagious. I underwent a series of tests at the hospital, and was approved for an experimental drug. I am responding well to the new medication. My energy level is close to normal, and the doctor has given me the green light to return to my usual activities as long I don’t exert myself. I am even allowed to have a bit of wine with dinner. The professional development workshops I had committed to at the university are now exciting, and I hope to return to teaching in January.
Chester pours the wine. As he raises a glass to offer a toast, someone knocks on the door. He sets the glass on the table and opens the oak-panel entry. From the dining room, over the living room sofa and the wingback chair and through the vigorous Ficus benjamina thriving in a tall ceramic pot, through the glass of the screen door, I glimpse the woman on the porch. My heart begins to race. I run to the door.
I open the screen and scream in delight: “Helena!”
Helena has an irrepressible golden tan, and her shoulder-length white hair is bound by a turquoise scarf. We hug for a long while.
She turns to Chester and gathers him into an affectionate hug. “How wonderful to see you!”
“Helena, what a surprise! You’re like some exotic bird from a botanical garden in Florida. Blown in by the wind.”
Chester shrinks into the embrace of fairy-like Helena. They hug in a side-to-side rhythm, and as she pats his shoulders, the long corners of her scarf sway along her back like peacock tail feathers. She is dressed for July, although it’s December. She releases Chester and signals to the cab in the driveway and he backs up and leaves.
She slips off her running shoes and shrugs the knitted white cape off her shoulders. Her white cotton dress splashed with scarlet peonies flutters about her.
“Blossom, darling, how could you keep this from me? You’re my little gir
l, don’t you know?” Helena kisses my cheeks tenderly and her love, like perfume, infuses the space she carries with her.
Chester takes off to the kitchen. He busies himself at the sink and leaves us to our catching up. He does so as much for himself as for us. I’ve gotten to know that tension in his face. Although he puts on an air of optimism, his fear for me is deep-seated, like some ancient curse he is unable to dispel. He has sequestered this worry in some corner of his mind. Every once in a while it scores through his defenses like sharp claws, and I glimpse it in his face when he is unaware of being observed. Then he sets another plate, pours another glass of wine, and announces that dinner is ready.
Helena claps her hands in awe and tells us good-humouredly that she planned it all and arrived just in time — dinner, wine — stir-fry is her favourite meal, and Châteauneuf-du-Pape Grenache? She’s always wondered what that burgundy elixir, in that wind-blown, sand-pitted bottle tastes like. She vouches to make it to Provence some day and see the vineyards for herself.
“The secret to that whole region is in its poor soil,” she says. “Dry and rocky, like gravel. Forces the grape vine to grow deep and seek nutrients for sustenance. The limestone in the soil absorbs the sun and keeps the vine warm at night. And the wind beats it day in, day out. Dries the mold and saves the grapes.”
Chester gives a nod of approval: “You’ve done your homework, Helena.”
“Took a wine tasting class. And would you believe my luck, that bottle got finished before it got to me. Never happened before, or after. Go figure.”
We clink glasses and sample.
Helena raises her glass against the light and admires the colour: “It’s the vine stress that causes high quality grape. And best wines.” She gives us a meaningful look. “It’s the struggle that creates some of the best people in the world. Makes survivors out of us.”
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