Something was being pulled out of his nose. It was not a quick feeling. It kept sliding out of him. Coming up from his stomach. A woman dressed in baby blue was standing over him. Dragging whatever it was from his innards.
“We’re just taking the tubes out,” she said. “Can you tell me your name?”
He thought for a second. “Yes.” His throat hurt. It felt stretched. The shape of something that had been in there. Raw. “Go ahead.”
It took him a few seconds to collect himself. Wondering where he was. He thought of what she asked him. His name. He told her.
“Good. Do you know where you are?” He thought about that. He seemed to recognize where he was. But it was slow coming. The tubes came clear of his nostrils. He sniffed out. A horrible tickle. Tried raising his hand.
“Here,” said the nurse. She plucked a tissue from the side of the bed. Wiped his nose with it.
“Can you tell me where you are?”
A moment later. An hour. A day. “Hospital.”
“Good. Do you know why you’re here?”
“No.”
“You had a heart attack. We had to operate.”
He heard other men in the room. It was like he was in a stall. Not like a hospital room. The space he was in was narrow. He could hear nurses asking the same questions to other men.
This sleep he was awake in.
“You’re doing fine,” said the nurse. “The tubes have to come out of your stomach soon.”
He tried looking down. Saw two tubes. One bigger. One smaller. Coming out of him. Just something that was there. Not much meaning to it.
“You’ll need some morphine.”
Morphine.
He waited to feel a pain in his chest. There was nothing. His eyes turned. Like they were swaying. Saw his arm. His hand. A long bandage running down the full length of his left forearm.
“That’s where we took the veins.” The nurse coiled up the tubes she had taken from his nose. “We’ll wait a little while for the tubes in your stomach. Okay?”
He was having trouble collecting himself. Before he had a chance to answer, the nurse was gone. In the hospital that last time. The doctor had told him they couldn’t operate. That he would most likely die. No hope. Why didn’t he die? If that was what was supposed to happen. He shut his eyes. He was not in pain. Not a bit of it. Not a fleck.
“Hello?”
He opened his eyes.
“Can you tell me your name, please?”
He told her right away. It was expected of him. A different nurse this time.
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“Heart attack.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“Hospital.”
“Good,” said the nurse. “Excellent.”
She moved around to the left side of his bed. She took up a needle and filled it from a tiny bottle. “I’m going to give you some morphine. We’re going to take the tubes out of your stomach now.” The nurse put the needle in the IV tube and let the morphine flow.
It was like he was washed clean. Let loose from whatever was pinning him inside himself. There was nothing to care about. No body. Only thought. And even thought did not matter. Thought was just a softness. One thought, another. They lapsed over each other. It made no difference. It was okay to think. Just to lie there in the nothing that he felt. The no time. And the thoughts without full meaning. Without full weight. It was okay to feel. If that’s what he was doing.
The nurse took hold of the tubes. She started pulling. He watched her. She was trying hard. A crumbling edge of sand in his guts. That’s how the pain came through. He felt it that way. A crumbling edge pressing away from him. It ruined everything. A crumbling edge of clay turning to rock with teeth. Forming a space. He saw his stomach rise up. A hump of his skin. Like deadness. The tubes not coming out.
He winced. And the sweat poured out of him. Slick all over every inch of his skin. His body mattered again. Too much. The first time like that. His entire body in pain.
“Sometimes we have trouble with these,” said the nurse, letting go. “Are you in pain?”
He nodded.
“I’ll be right back.”
The nurse left and came back with another nurse.
He was still suffering from the first try.
The two nurses took hold of the tubes. They pulled.
His stomach came up. The pain fired through him. Every inch of his being. Its volume turned up on bust. Pain. Burning bright. Sweat streaming into his eyes. Stinging.
The nurses let go.
Seconds later, he exhaled.
“Get Doctor Power,” one of the nurses said. She looked at him like she was sorry. Like this was the worst part. The other nurse left. “It’ll be okay,” said the nurse. Licking sweat from her upper lip.
The doctor came in. Took one look at the tubes.
“When did he get his last dose?” The doctor knew what to do. No hesitation. The doctor stood there waiting for an answer. This was nothing. Get it done. Move on.
“A few minutes ago.”
“Ten milligrams?”
“Yes.”
“Give him another five.”
The nurse gave him the shot.
The doctor looked toward the doorway. The other nurse hurried back in. Wiping her hands in a paper towel. Tossed it away in the basket.
Two nurses standing there. Ready.
“Just pull it out,” said the doctor. “Don’t be afraid.”
Who was the doctor talking to?
It was hazy and grey. Deeper into the carelessness. He watched them pulling the tubes. His stomach rising up. Attached to the tubes. He felt it. But it was painless. Just his stomach attached to some tubes. A body without being. A costume. Someone else. Someone who didn’t matter. Why didn’t they just cut a hole there? Two people pulling at something. Whatever it was.
“Pull,” said the doctor. “Hard.”
The two nurses yanked.
The tubes came out. His breathing changed. When he inhaled. There was a flutter. Like a ripple of water. He exhaled. Inhaled. The ripple of water expanding.
He shut his eyes to the swell of goodness. His body was okay. His mind, too. There was no difference. For once.
She was sitting there. In a chair by herself. She was looking down into her lap. Frozen. Maybe she was asleep. She had long brown hair. It hung by the sides of her face. But then she moved and a page turned in her lap. A book.
Every breath he took. There was the ripple again. He had to breathe a little at a time. Something had happened to his lungs. Something had changed. He shifted his eyes to the right. A glass wall. A sliding door. He was in a different room. A woman in baby blue walked past. A nurse. She was saying something to someone up ahead. He couldn’t hear the words. He heard the sound of a page turning. A ruffle. A flutter. Like what was happening in his lungs. He shifted his eyes back to the chair.
The woman was watching him. It was Ruth. She stood from the chair and came over. She didn’t make a sound. Not that he could hear. His ears felt strained.
“How you doing?” she asked, smiling.
Was this his life? he wondered. His head was muddled. Confused. Where did he end off? And this begin. Is this my life? He didn’t try to speak.
“You had a heart attack.”
Is this my life?
“You’re a lucky man.”
Lucky.
She looked at his chest. “One of your lungs collapsed when they pulled out the tubes.”
The woman blurred. He heard a raspy sound at his left. Something dabbing at the corners of his eyes. A tissue.
“They cleaned out your heart. Filled a big bucket with the sludge.”
He shut his eyes. Why hadn’t he died? Maybe he did. It would make sense. The gentle dabbing at the corners of his eyes. He tried to say her name. Ruth. There was a tube in the side of his neck. He could feel it. His jaw barely moved. His throat bone dry.
“Randy called.”
He tried opening his eyes. Then forgot.
When his eyes opened again. Ruth was gone. The chair was empty. He shifted his eyes toward the glass door. It slid open. A woman in baby blue came in.
“You’re awake,” said the nurse.
He didn’t know how to answer that. He thought he might be smiling. It hurt. Was he laughing in his sleep? He coughed. He held onto the pain. Like it was a part of his body. Tightened his grip on it. It tightened its grip on him. Smiling? If he was, it must have looked stupid. His face felt that way. Then he shut his eyes and listened.
“Your wife went to get a bite.”
He opened his eyes. The nurse was looking at the screens to his right. “She said she’d be back soon.”
Wife. Bobby. Skinny little Chris. He felt more pain. Pain broke from his grip. Shot through him. He thought the nurse might have rushed forward. Shoved her hands against his chest and pushed. He was soaked in sweat. Just like that.
“Are you having pain?”
Pain? Was that what it was? He made a sound. His body shifting in the bed.
The nurse went around to the other side of his bed. She picked up a needle. From the ledge by the window. She filled the needle. Then gave it to him.
The pain blurred away. Disintegrated. Smoothed over.
“There she is now,” said the nurse. “Your better half.”
Ruth came into the room. A paper cup of coffee in her hand. She wasn’t wearing a coat. Like she lived there. He shut his eyes. His head sunk back. Deeper into the pillow. He might have been talking. But everything was gone. Everyone. He didn’t have to think. He didn’t have to feel. He was there. Perfect. One long, silent moan. A gentle hand laid on him.
The nurses were like angels. Sometimes when he’d think of them, he’d start to cry. It would come over him. Alone in his room with the glass wall. Their kindness. Their patience. They made certain he was okay. They checked on him. They washed him. The indecency that they didn’t seem to mind.
The doctor told him that every patient on Cardiac ICU had their own nurse. One to each patient. That’s how it was.
“You take care of yourself,” the doctor said. Nodding at his chest. “You’ll be like a superman when you get your strength back. Won’t take long.”
The doctor told him he had ninety percent blockage in two places. Twenty percent blockage in another place. The doctor told him other things. Dangerously high cholesterol. Overactive thyroid. An ulcer. These complicate healing.
“But these are things we can manage,” the doctor explained. “With medication.”
He had listened. He had no choice. He wasn’t allowed to move his right leg for two days. A wire had been in it. With a tiny camera. Pushed up through him. To look at his heart. He was on his back. His chest a patched scar. When he first laid eyes on it. He felt like a dead man. Cut open. Sewed back together. He was surprised by the lack of pain. It only splintered through him when he coughed or sneezed.
When Ruth was there. The doctor spoke to her too. Like it was information she needed to know. He heard the word “lucky” mentioned once or twice. The doctor told Ruth how long it would take to mend fully. What could be done after so much time. The steps. The doctor called her Missus Myrden. Who knew the difference?
“Much better circulation,” the doctor had said. A big smile. “Good for the both of you. A young man again.”
Ruth brought him special things. Kiwis. Mangoes. A full pineapple. Things he’d never eat. He wasn’t hungry. He told her to eat them. It was good to watch her eat. He tried not to feel sick at the sight of it.
When Ruth was there. He thought about his wife. He wondered what was the matter with his wife. Why was she the way she was? What had he done to be cursed with her? Why had he ended up with his wife? Pregnant at seventeen. Do the right thing. That was it. It made no sense to him. He’d made a mess of it. Not just his life. He’d find himself moving his head. Slowly back and forth on the pillow.
“They’re moving you upstairs tomorrow,” Ruth told him.
“Maybe …” he said. He was weak. On drugs. It was hard to talk. “The Waterford.”
She laughed. “No.”
“See Gilbert?”
“Gilbert?”
“What?”
“You said Gilbert.”
“Oh.” He tried to think. Slow motion. With bits worn away. Faded. “Did I say Gilbert?” He watched her face.
“Yes.” She smiled.
Oh, God!
Oh, Christ!
How could she be so beautiful? How was it possible? For her to be there. Looking after him. He didn’t deserve her. He wanted to touch her. Have her crawl into bed with him. Her head on his chest. On his bandage. Kissing the top of her head. It was the only way he would believe.
The room upstairs had three other men in it. They all were members of the Zipper Club. That’s what he heard from one man’s wife when she was visiting. He listened. People talked like no one could hear them. Low voices. But you could hear every word behind the drawn curtain.
The stitches up the chest. The Zipper Club. He was a member too.
“I’ve asked for a private room,” Ruth said. Sitting in the chair by the side of his bed. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry,” he told her. He didn’t want to be a bother. Even if he couldn’t stand the talking. The men with their relatives. He was still unwell. The conversations hurt his head. They made him sicker. They made him squirm with pain. The man directly across from the foot of his bed. The man’s wife always on the telephone. Talking with her friends. Telling them about her husband. Like her husband wasn’t even there. The story of his heart attack. The way he fell down in the supermarket. Wonder he wasn’t killed. Cans of fruit falling on top of him. Denting his head. Wonder he wasn’t skulled. The ambulance. They were stunned as bats. The whole bunch of them. Like they didn’t know what they were doing. Dropped him once. The nurses. They didn’t give a damn. You couldn’t get a nurse if your life depended on it. Yes, he’s fine now. Ate most of his breakfast. Had a good bowel movement just a while ago.
Her voice pure agony.
“Keith Jarrett’s coming here,” Ruth said. Lifting a magazine out of a bag.
“Who’s that?”
“Pianist. Jazz.”
“Oh.”
“In a month. Interested in going?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ll be okay then.”
“Only if I’m alive.”
“You will be.” She smiled. Her hair in a ponytail. Silver hoop earrings. She watched him like she loved him. “You were already dead. You’ve done that.”
He stared at her. “How dead?”
“Completely.” Her voice flat. Too serious. “Beyond dead. Half buried.”
He chuckled and it hurt enough to stop. He started sweating right away. From the pain. The sweat sprung out of him. He waited. Shut his eyes. Turned his head. Away from the pain. But it wasn’t enough.
“I was dead,” he said.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“A while. Five minutes. They brought you back.”
His head throbbed. It was pulsing. And he was disappearing at the same time. He tried to remember. What had he seen behind his eyes? Where had he gone? He was dead. It had been nothing. He had been nowhere. Nowhere. That scared him. Scared the hell out of him. Gone. And then back. Nothing in between.
“Are you okay?”
He couldn’t speak. He had been dead.
“Do you want the nurse?”
“No.” If he stayed still. He came back to himself. More and more.
Still.
If he moved. It was like he was someone else. Him trying to fit with that person. What that person was seeing. He had to stay still. Stay quiet. He couldn’t bear sound. Even Ruth. Talking. He couldn’t suffer it.
Ruth stayed quiet.
He stared out the window. A view over the city. Toward downtown. The harbour and the hills. Small square houses. Perched on the hill. A tough neighbourhood. The Brow. They called it. He knew people from up there. Two huge oil-storage tanks near the houses.
Ruth sat in the chair. She opened her magazine. Started reading. “Lunch on the way,” she said. “You can smell it from here. Yum-yum.”
The woman across the way: Yes, he’s walking now. He’s up and around. He just went out to the corridor. Now, he’s coming back in. He’s gonna lie down, I think. You gonna lie down? Are you? Yes, he’s gonna lie down. There he goes. Lying down.
At first. He couldn’t move without being helped. He’d try. And he’d be stuck. Weakness. Pain. He’d push to get up on his own. Have to give up on it. It beat him. Let go of the metal rail. Lie there and wait for help. The nurses got him up and around. The slow shuffle down the corridor. It was important to start walking right away. And to pee. They kept asking him if he’d peed. He kept trying to force it. If he didn’t pee soon they’d have to put a catheter in. That was something he’d rather avoid. It hurt just calling it to mind.
For some reason. He kept thinking of his wife. He couldn’t get her out of his head. His family. He wouldn’t go back there. Not to Randy’s apartment either. What would happen to everything in the apartments? Gilbert. He should tell Ruth. Ruth would take care of it. You could trust Ruth. He thought of Jackie. Caroline. His life. He kept thinking he should call them. See how they were doing. He didn’t want them to know. Not to see him like this. If they came for a visit. He’d lose it. He’d take one look at Caroline and he’d be in tears. They’d have to mop him up from the floor. Everything he could have missed. A little life. He wanted to watch her grow. If only that. That was all. Grow.
He wanted to get things cleared away. When everything was cleared away. He’d see them again. He wanted the money. He couldn’t stand to see them in Willis’s house.
He called his lawyer from the hospital. He asked the nurse to dial the number. When Ruth wasn’t there.
“How are you?” the lawyer asked.
“Fine.”
“I was calling your wife. She didn’t know where you were. She sounded a bit worried.”
Worried about what? He said nothing in reply.
“You want news, I guess.”
“Yes.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“It appears as though we’re getting closer to a settlement. It appears very promising. The government indicated its willingness to deal with this quickly. The justice minister announced a special commission to study your case and others. One of the statements he made at the press conference concerned the priority for quick compensation for the wrongfully accused.” The lawyer waited.
“Good.” He swallowed. Took a slow breath. Kept it from going too deep. The ripple of pain was almost gone now. “How long?”
“I can’t say for certain, but it looks like months. It’s that close. The government’s lawyers called right after the announcement from the justice minister. They want it done. Word like that rarely comes. I’ve had compensation claims going four, five years. Ten years.”
“Good.” He shut his eyes. That would be good. Caroline’s and Jackie’s faces in his mind.
I was dead. He wanted to tell the lawyer. The lawyer was almost a friend. The lawyer would understand. Dead.
“They’ve requested that you appear before the inquiry.”
He thought about that. The words sometimes didn’t make sense. Unless they were plain. It must have been the medication.
“What?”
“They’ve asked you to appear before the commission.”
“I don’t know.”
“You can give your side of it.”
“I wouldn’t know …”
“What?”
He couldn’t talk.
“Hello?”
“Yeah.”
“You said, I wouldn’t know.”
“What to say.”
“Anyway, think it over. I could be there with you. I’m working to get this sorted out.”
“Thanks.”
“We should get together.”
“Okay.”
The lawyer waited. “You sure you’re okay? You sound a little down.”
“Yes. Fine.” Just that I was dead.
“You taking care of yourself?”
“Yeah. That’s good … news.”
“Keep in touch. We should get together in the next few days.”
“Golf?”
The lawyer laughed. “I didn’t know you played.”
“Yeah. I used to play.” He smiled at the thought of it. Him and Randy on the public course up on Mount Scio. Having a laugh. Making a mess of everything. Like they were playing street hockey. Rented clubs. Slapshots. The grass so green.
“Okay then. Gotta go. Court in ten minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Take care.” The lawyer hung up.
He didn’t know what to do with the receiver. He laid it down on his chest until it started beeping. There was concern in the room. The relatives of the other men. The wife of the man across the way made all sorts of remarks. She really wanted to know what was going on. He could hear her step close to his curtain. There was no greater emergency than her needing to know. If she peeked in, he’d whack her in the head with the receiver. With what little strength he had left. It’d be enough. Knock her to kingdom come.
The telephone beeped for a long while and then it went dead. He shut his eyes. When he opened them again, the receiver was gone. And it was night. Ruth would be there soon.
He was in the newspapers again. On TV. But no one knew where he was. They thought he might have disappeared off the face of the earth. They didn’t come outright and say it. They just made the words sound that way. Made him sound guilty all over again. But it didn’t work on him. He knew better. He felt like a rich man in hiding. In the woods. Ruth’s house. A recluse. He’d grow long hair. A beard. Walk through the woods. Talk to birds. Eat wild mushrooms. Make soup out of things picked. Find a moose and stare it down. He suspected it might have something to do with the pills he was taking. Ruth made sure he took them.
TV reporters talked to his wife. She told them the answer to anything they asked. Anything at all. If she didn’t know the answer. She made something up. Just for show. No idea what she was saying.
He watched the TV while Ruth was at work. He wanted to see what was happening in the world. He never cared before. He watched the news stories from faraway places. These people in these countries. How did they get there? How did people live those lives? How did he get here? In Ruth’s bed. In prison. Fourteen years. Owed money now. Soon to be a rich man. Cars blew up on the TV screen. A group of men and boys hacked at burned bodies. This was entertainment to them. Joy and rage. Burned bodies strung up on a bridge. This was all real. For once. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
He changed the channel. Two men talking about politics. He listened. Heard the words. Tried figuring some of them out. He got the point of it. Despite the fact that the men were using words they didn’t want him to understand. It was a game. A puzzle. People against people. Get them to agree with your point by sounding better. Get them to accept it. Believe in it. People would be improved because of it. It was the solution. If only everyone would understand those exact words.
He changed the channel. The local midday news. Live from the inquiry into the wrongfully convicted. The place was packed. Spilling out into the corridor. The place to be.
Ms. Brophy was there. She had a button pinned to her suit jacket. It had “Myrden” printed on it. Who gave her the right? His fucking name. They interviewed her about her part in it. She said the same things he’d already heard.
They interviewed Mister Dunne and Mister Milton. Two of the wrongfully convicted. There to testify. One was from here. The other was flown in from the mainland. Mister Dunne and Mister Milton. They were happy to be free. That was the bottom line. You put a man away. You let him out. He’s happy to be free. That’s what he’ll say. But everything changes then. It starts with being free. Then what you are after that changes. Freedom isn’t the important thing anymore. It becomes a given. Let’s see them try to take it from me again. They won’t. They wouldn’t dare. He could see the changes in the two of them. What they were talking about. What they had learned. What they had been taught. What should be said. Whose cause? Fighting what? Fighting against what? Mouthpieces. Words written down for them. Words repeated.
He shut off the TV.
“You’re turning into a TV junkie.”
He looked toward the bedroom doorway. Ruth. With a plastic bag dangling from her hand. Fresh from the outdoors. The air following her in.
“I find it interesting.”
“TV?” She laughed in a nice way. “I thought they fixed you in there. But I was wrong. They made you sick.” She walked off. In high spirits. The sun was shining outside the window. He would get up and sit outside. Feel the heat from the sky on his face. “Did you take your pills?”
He looked at them. The bits of different colours. Different shapes. Resting there on the bedside table. “I’d like to fight in a war.”
Ruth called out: “A war?” She was putting things away. A cupboard door closed.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
He stared at the blank TV screen. He didn’t really know why. It was just a feeling. Whose war? And which side would he fight on?
“You want to kill people?”
“I want to go away.” He sat up on the side of the bed. Stayed that way for a while. Said quieter. To himself: “Not a war, the opposite.”
Ruth ducked back into the room. “Where to?”
He looked at her. He wondered about the man. The man she had left. The man she told him she never really knew. “Name a place,” he said.
She wanted him to go with her to the graveyard. They pulled in through the big iron gates and parked the car. Next to the caretaker’s shed. There was a dripping spigot on the side of the shed. To water the graves. Ruth had a red rose in her hand. Sunglasses covering her eyes. Her hair loose. She opened the door for him. He held onto the sides of the door. Carefully pulled himself out. The pain wasn’t so bad. “Okay?” Ruth asked. When he was on his feet.
He nodded. Looked around. The gravestones going on for as far as he could see. The sunlight was bright. He squinted a little. Wasn’t used to being out in the world. Looked toward the entrance. The big iron gates. Always open. The nose of a hearse pulled in. Shiny black and deathlike. Followed by a string of cars. A few black ones. Gleaming. Then all sorts. It took a while for all the cars to pass. To reach the broken earth toward the back. Where everyone would gather. Where the body would be put. Body in a box. In a hole in the ground. Dirt shoveled over it. No way out. For anyone gathered there.
I was dead.
He and Ruth waited. Then they crossed over. Stepped along the paved path that led toward where Ruth was going.
He knew the way. He saw his parents” gravestones. He passed them by. Wouldn’t look. His head gave a little shake on its own. His two sons were buried farther off. Toward the back of the cemetery. Bobby and skinny little Chris. They kept adding to the rows. He had no time for these places. There was no point in coming here. Why here? You could talk to the dead anywhere. Visit anytime. Up in your head. That’s where they were buried.
He followed after Ruth. A man wandered by with his hands in his pockets. A little boy trailed after the man. The boy was scuffing his feet. Where was the little boy’s mother?
When Ruth arrived at the gate. She opened it. The baby graves were in there. Fenced in. Worn, soiled teddy bears. Little wooden cribs. Plastic flowers. Dolls. Toy debris. Small gravestones. The green mesh fence was waist-high. Put up around all these dead babies. To hide behind. The shame.
Ruth crouched down and laid the rose on the grave. She took off her sunglasses to see clearly.
He stood there. His hands loosely joined in front of him. There was no way of standing normally in this place. These plots all around his feet. So close together. It was impossible not to step on one if you moved at all.
Ruth was saying a prayer. Her head was bowed. One hand on the stone. The baby’s last name. The same as Ruth’s last name. One date. He looked at the date. That date. It hurt him to know the date. His mind did the math. A shiver rushed through him. Prickled his skin everywhere. Jesus! He took a step back without knowing. Was it a boy or a girl? He checked behind to see what he had stepped on. The space.
Ruth was saying a prayer. One knee on the ground. That date. Or maybe she was talking to her baby. All these years. He wondered what she could be saying. His heart beat faster. His feet on that earth. His eyes didn’t want to look at the grave. Not anymore. Was Ruth asking how the baby was? Was she saying: I wish you were in my arms. I wanted you in my arms. If I could only see your face again. Once more. I wish I knew what you would become. I love you so much. Why did you die? Why? I made you. I made you to die. I’m sorry I did that. I’m so sorry. If only I could have been better to you. Saved you. I love you. My baby. My beautiful baby. Her hand still on the cold stone.
He turned away. Went over to the gate. He couldn’t bear being in there. The bottoms of his shoes. A child in a different house. A life of possibility. Ruth’s house. Piano lessons. Summer vacations. University. There now in a dead place. He opened the gate. Went out. Took a hard breath. Waited. Watched Ruth. Her head bowed. More than before. Talking to her baby. His baby? When she was done. She came out. Wiping at her eyes. After all these years. She shut the gate behind her. But the catch didn’t stick.