Good To A Fault Part 5

Unlike the other mountains around him, Paul's reluctance toward the hospital seemed possible to conquer. He left the church, grimly glad to have somewhere to go other than home. There was a parking spot by the entrance generous enough for his old Pontiac. It was a sign, he told himself. He shook reluctance off as he got out of the car, literally shaking his shoulders in his concentration. He had to watch that. Lisanne was good for him, she caught him when the tip of his tongue was sticking out, or as he was about to walk into a parking meter, or when his physical actions betrayed his internal struggles. He was lucky to have an objective eye to catch his idiosyncrasies before he made a complete fool of himself.

He could hear the doggish submission in his thoughts, so he shook that off, too. He decided to go without Lisanne today, just for a holiday. The elevator came smartly to his touch, and soared up without stopping. G.o.d, he thought. Or bounden duty.

In the afternoon room the woman in the bed looked far away, like a boat drifted off its moorings.

"You're the priest," she said. "I thought only Catholics had priests."

"In the Anglican tradition we are called priests too-we don't depart as far from the Roman Catholics as some other denominations, although we do not require clergy to be celibate, and there are doctrinal..." Quiet. He needed a quick answer for that question, one that would serve over and over, but he never could think of one.

"Are you a Catholic?" he asked.

"Not me," she said. "I'm nothing."

She had a sharpness behind her staring eyes. An ironic understanding of her position, he thought.

"Are you-n.o.body-too?"

"That's in a poem." Her pointed teeth slid over her bottom lip as her mouth dragged into something approaching a smile.

"Good ear. I'm sorry. I have a bad habit," he said, bobbing his head like a turtle-he could feel himself doing it. He stopped, and rubbed his ear. "Verse. Too good a memory of that one kind. Not good enough of every other kind."

"It's the frog one. We had it in school."

"Right, the admiring bog." He advanced into the room. "I'm Paul Tippett, Mrs. Gage," he said.

"Lorraine," she said.

He sat in the blue chair at her bedside. "Clara Purdy wanted me to rea.s.sure you that your children will be safe with her."

"And will they be?"

"Yes."

"Okay then."

They sat in silence for a minute.

Lorraine said, "Not that I have any choice, anyway."

He did not think she was self-pitying. That was one of the consolations of hospital visits, the good behaviour of the sick. Weak, to need consoling. It's proximity, proxy death that appalls. His sister's face came into his mind so vividly that tears sprang up to the gate of his eyes. Two years after her death, now, he was able to hold them back.

"I don't know her well," Paul said, taking himself back to duty. "She is shy, I think. But I know her reputation in the community, and her family is respected."

"She's kind of frozen up," Lorraine said, nodding. "It's a big deal, her taking them, though. I'd be hooped without her."

"Well, people seem to like her very much. She's younger than the way she lives, 'one foot in her mother's grave,' as my warden says. She's kind, she has energy and intelligence."

Lorraine lay still.

"Maybe you'll help her," Paul said, and felt Lorraine's withdrawal from the conversation. To suggest her cancer had a mawkish, mysterious-purposes side to it-yammering fool. Priest: the most contemptuous thing his wife could say.

He was silent.

From side to side on the bed, Lorraine turned her head. Looking past the walls to find some answer. Like her head was all she could move.

"May I pray with you?" he asked.

Her eyes fixed on him, her head stalled towards him. "No."

He waited.

"Yes," she said. "Pray for my kids."

He crossed himself. "Father, I commend your daughter Lorraine and her children to your care. Be with her. Give her courage and stamina and have her children in mind always, as she does. Keep them safe and well in the house of your servant Clara Purdy."

Lorraine was unable to recognize this dream her life had become. She thought, if I am G.o.d's daughter, are my kids G.o.d's grandchildren? She could not stop thinking those words, stupid as they were.

"We ask it in Jesus's name," Paul said. "Amen."

Lorraine's breath was coming higher in her chest, right under her collarbone, and her whole body felt flooded with heat. Racing, desperate blood, or fury, or some effect of the drugs: she couldn't tell.

"Thanks," she said. "I'll go to sleep, now." Lying.

Paul touched her arm before he left. His hand was warm as toast.

7. Dolly.

Grace and Moreland came in from Davina to inspect the children. Clara's older cousin, her father's sister's daughter, Grace looked in on her from time to time, checking up on her. Davina was only an hour's drive, close enough to come for errands, if they felt like it. They arrived first thing in the morning, while Clara was clearing up breakfast.

"What are you going to do with three of them?" Grace asked Clara. Unfriendly to this new wrinkle.

"I don't know! The best I can, I guess. It's only for-a while."

"It's not like volunteering for the Humane Society, taking in a few pups over the Christmas vacation," Grace said. Moreland was dandling Pearce on his knee as if he had nothing else in the world to do. Which he hadn't, truth be known, beyond a quick trip to Early's for a bag of the larger dog chews.

"You must have lost your mind, if you don't mind me saying so. Beyond the fact that you've never had anything to do with kids, you have no idea what these ones are like! Who knows how long you might be saddled with them. Don't talk about causing the accident, we're no-fault here, and that's what insurance is for, anyway, you of all people know that-and where's the father run away to? You can't take this on."

"I like Lorraine, and she's alone. She needs help."

Darlene ran through the living room between them. She gave Grace one of her sharp glares, and Grace gave her one right back.

"Are they safe, do you think?"

Clara watched Darlene going around the kitchen corner. Was Trevor still in the back yard? She got up and looked out the dining room window. Peeling bark off the birch.

"I think they're okay, Grace. Safer here than wherever else they would be right now."

"I meant safe for you," Grace said.

"I know what you meant. I'm answering what you should have asked."

They were silent for a minute. Then Grace laughed, her temper repaired. "You've been quiet long enough, maybe you can stand the racket. You were so good with your mom, we've been wondering how you'd keep yourself occupied."

"Well, she's gone."

"I know. That's hard to get used to."

"Not for me, Grace. She was not herself any more. And really, she couldn't have got out any easier." Out through the door to death, that heavy door that sticks on its hinges and doesn't want to push open. "I've got different concerns now," Clara said.

Trevor raced through this time.

Grace's look trailed after Trevor. "You sure do," she said.

"I can see what's happening to their mother, and I like her, and I'd like to help her."

"That's all it is, then?"

"It's true, that I've wished for-I've missed-having children."

"You're not old, I'm not saying that."

"I'm only forty-three! They're better off with me, and I'm better off with them."

Grace looked at Moreland, but did not allow her eyes to roll. The baby crawled to Clara across the berber carpet, new eight years ago, still creamy and clean in this spinsterish house.

"What's the little one's name?"

"Pearce."

"Pierce your heart," said Moreland. "Sweet boy."

While Grace and Moreland were still there, Clara ran over to the hospital to see Lorraine.

"Your priest came," Lorraine said. "He had a lot to say about you."

Clara was wary about that. "Did he?"

"That you've been lonely since your mom died."

"Well, that was two years ago now. I'm not really lonely. I just haven't wanted to go back to church, to be honest." Clara sat beside the bed, taking the upright blue chair.

Lorraine was sitting upright herself. She looked very tired, her wide face stretched taut around her nose and eyes, with purplish shadows. Her eyes were staring, a look that Clara knew from other people who were ill, not open to easy comfort. Her legs moved restlessly beneath the yellow sheets.

"He said I should be glad to have you for the kids. So that's my plan," Lorraine said abruptly. It was too much. She could hardly bear to speak. Her body was aching, and her head felt like a large gla.s.s ball she had been trusted to carry, that she was bound to drop.

"I brought you some soup from my neighbour, Mrs. Zenko, the best cook I know. It'll do you good," Clara said. She went to find the microwave down the hall.

Lorraine lay back, not at all wanting soup. She didn't seem to be able to cry, but she had sometimes found herself sobbing, noise without tears, and she didn't want to do that in front of Clara. She was tired in her chest and deep in each arm, in a way she found very frightening. Knowing herself to be really sick, knowing it from inside.

She wanted her brother Darwin. It had been hard to find the house occupied by a stranger, someone who'd never heard of him or Rose. She should have looked after Rose better in her last years, made her come live with them instead of Mom Pell. But now Clara had Mom Pell. Lorraine almost smiled. The tender unfamiliar feeling in her cheeks made her laugh, especially because it was about something kind of mean.

Coming back, Clara smiled too; relieved, probably, to see her more cheerful.

Lorraine slapped herself mentally and sat up. "Thanks," she said, reaching for the bowl. It was homemade, invalid soup: pale gold, a few tiny noodles, shreds of chicken and delicate slivers of carrot and green onion.

Clara sat and watched her eat.

"How are they?"

Arranging her mind to tell what could be told, Clara said, "Trevor is happy, except for missing you, but he's an easy, good-natured boy. Darlene is sad, but not complaining. Harder to tell with Pearce."

"Eating lots?"

"Oh, like a monster. I'll have to weigh him for you." Clara paused. "I thought I might take him to the doctor, just to-"

"He's sick?"

"In case you hadn't been able to take him lately, to get him weighed, and so on."

Lorraine looked at her for a minute. Clara felt like she had stones in her stomach, but she didn't look away. Nothing to be worried about, she was saying to Lorraine's eyes. Behind, she was thinking Don't ask about Clayton. But Lorraine did not.

"Yeah," Lorraine said, finally. "The health cards are in my wallet, in the cupboard."

Clara unlocked the cupboard for her, and saw Lorraine's scuffed shoulder-bag on top of the box and maps. Lorraine went through the skinny wallet to find the health cards. She pulled out a photo, not Clayton.

"My brother," she said. "Darwin."

Clara took the photo, a broad smiling face under dark hair.

"We thought he was in Saskatoon, but we couldn't find him. The last place he was, they couldn't tell me anything," Lorraine said, searching for the health cards. "It seems like I'm all alone."

"Well," Clara began. "You've got your mother, and the children..."

Lorraine laughed. "That's Clay's mother. She's sure as h.e.l.l not my mother. Thanks a lot." She handed three health cards to Clara.

"Oh!" That made more sense. "But her name is Pell, not Gage."

"Husband three, Dougie Pell. He wasn't around long, anyway. She's had a rough life."

Clara couldn't think of anything to say to that that wasn't rude.

"My mother's dead," Lorraine said. "She died when Darwin was little. My cousin Rose brought us up. Darwin's got a different dad. My dad died before I was born, he was a long-haul trucker. After that my mom got married again."

Clara wished she could respond, other than reciting the deaths on her own family tree. "I always wanted a brother or a sister."