22

On tuesday della prepared supper even though she knew Stacey might get home from the ski hill late. She might have stopped for dinner with Amber’s family, or they might have done something else, but she wanted her to return to the house and sit down to asparagus and eggs and baking powder biscuits, one of her favourite meals. While she prepared supper, the winter air filled with the wail of fire trucks so close that at one point Della stood on the front porch to listen. She saw smoke feeding the sky several blocks away. The asparagus and the baking powder biscuits were ready, but she would wait to cook the eggs until her daughter arrived. She turned on the local radio station while she waited, and the news report made her heart feel heavy in her chest. A retired couple living on 9th Street had been asphyxiated in their beds in a house fire possibly started by an old oil heater. The firefighters could not salvage the house, most of which had burnt to the ground.

Stacey arrived hungry. I’ve cooked one of your favourites, and I’m so glad you’re home, Della said. They ate and Stacey gave a full report on the skiing experience. She had only skied once before, but she liked it, she said. Della thought Stacey liked it because she wanted to keep up with Amber, but she didn’t say so. Instead she summarized what she had heard on the radio. She said when something like that happened, it made you want to cherish every given day.

Where did they live? Stacey asked.

A few of the houses at the end of 9th Street are older. I don’t know which one it would have been.

The uncertainty of it all and the compulsion to earn a stake in anything catastrophic provided reason enough to put on toques and scarves and boots and walk in that general direction with the same curiosity that made boys on bicycles race after fire trucks whenever they had the chance. It was late by the time they walked down 9th Street, and cars drove by and slowed toward the end of the road. The fire had been extinguished earlier, and now smoke curled out of the carnage. Della and Stacey stood at the side of the road, taking in the tragedy and the yard cordoned off with yellow luminescent tape that framed the disaster like a dystopian masterpiece. Two cars drove by, and they could hear muffled voices inside the cars, no doubt voicing thoughts similar to theirs. At the side of the yard, lit up by the streetlights, a tree had been scorched by the flames, and toward the back of the yard, a similar tree had gone unscathed. Stacey looked at the two trees, so close together and with such different fates. Underneath the second tree, she thought she saw something move, and she took a few steps toward the side yard.

You can’t go in there, Della said. They’ve probably roped it off because they have to investigate more in the daylight.

Something’s alive over there, Stacey said. She moved ahead and stepped over the yellow tape, and even though Della knew better, she followed. A black dog with a smattering of white on its chest and on the tip of its tail sat in the dark. The dog lay in front of a doghouse but had its head raised, pointing to the charcoaled remains.

Oh my, Della said. This must have been their dog. He’s waiting for them to come out. He doesn’t understand what’s happened.

The dog allowed Stacey to squat beside it and rub her hand over the top of its head. He looked up at her once and whined, then turned his focus once again on the house. We can’t just leave the poor thing, she said. We should take it home for the night where it will be warm and safe. It’s okay, boy. We’ll look after you. She wrapped her fingers around his collar and coaxed the dog to his feet. The dog didn’t object, but he limped. He’s hurt, Stacey said. In the hint of light available, they confirmed that the dog’s right front paw was burned.

We can’t carry him, Della said. It’s too far. You wait here with him, and I’ll get the car.

As soon as Della left, the dog lay down again. He licked at his paw and then turned toward the house. Stacey rubbed her hand along his back and told him everything would be fine, until her mother pulled up and opened the back door. We should carry him, Stacey said, so he doesn’t step on something sharp. Why Della had her purse with her, she did not understand. She slung it over her neck, and between the two of them, they carted the dog to the back seat of the car. On the way home, they stopped at a corner store and bought three cans of dog food and a small bottle of peroxide.

We should call him Lucky, Stacey said from the back seat where the dog lay with his muzzle on her leg.

He’s not our dog, Della said. There could be relatives that want to claim him.

Well, if there are relatives, they have no right. They should have thought of the dog out there by himself in the middle of winter. He’s lucky we found him.

They brought the dog into the house and laid him on a rug in the living room. Della opened a can of dog food and got a small dish and filled it with water. Lucky got up and hobbled toward the kitchen. The dog ate nothing, but he looked thankful for the opportunity to lap away at the water.

Let’s get him back to the rug, Della said. I’ll need you to talk to him and distract him while I soak his paw in a peroxide solution. He won’t like it.

The dog, to their surprise, didn’t flinch while Della attended to his paw, as if he understood someone had to help with his recovery and these people were as good as any. After his paw had a good soak in the peroxide, they rinsed it off, patted it dry with paper towels and wrapped it with one of Sage’s dress socks and masking tape. Stacey took the extra blanket from her bed and put it on the floor. The dog walked over, looked up at her once, then circled himself into his bed, his curious face toward the doorway. Della talked to him while Stacey got ready for bed, and when she settled facedown, she left one arm slung over the side of the bed so she could comfort him on their way to sleep.

On the third consecutive snowy day in early February, Della sat watching a storm that had made everyone in town aware of their vulnerable human existence. The school wasn’t closed, but Stacey had stayed home anyway and Della didn’t blame her. Lucky stayed with Della every day, but the dog had bonded with Stacey. As the snow continued to mount in the yard and on the roads, Stacey spent most of the day outside playing with the dog, the two of them burrowing tunnels in the snow, and short, high-pitched yelps and raucous laughter filled the yard. Two of Della’s clients made it to the house that morning, but she stood at the window off and on and watched her daughter frolicking with the dog, and it reminded her of when Stacey had been very young and spent the warmer winter days in the yard playing by herself. Della had documented everything significant in their lives since they’d arrived in Fernie, and now she looked out at her daughter who would graduate in two years. It felt like all she had recorded had happened in a matter of minutes. It was late afternoon before dog and child made it back inside the house. Despite his physical exertion most of the day, Lucky pranced on his paws around the house as if he wanted to tell Della about the wonderful day he’d just experienced. Della waited until those in her charge were picked up before she shared with Stacey what she’d known for most of a week.

The doctors want to try your dad living at home. If it doesn’t work out, they will find somewhere else for him, but that will cost money. If he stays here, a nurse will pop in three days a week to check on things and help your dad out. That’s what they’ve decided.

Stacey was lying on the fake Persian rug in the living room, scratching Lucky’s belly with one hand. If she stopped for a minute, the dog would poke her with his paw until the scratching resumed. For the last two months, the dynamic of the household had changed significantly. Stacey felt much closer to her mother, closer than she could remember, and now with Lucky also part of the family, their way of living suited her. She had been mean, at times, to her mother, and she realized, only after Sage was out of the picture, that she had lumped her mother in with the rejection of family, a poison she needed to purge. Her mother wanted the best for her and most of the time would do whatever she could to see she was happy. Twice, since they’d returned from their short Christmas getaway, Della had taken her on short driving stints and promised they would do more in the spring once the roads had cleared. Stacey had the driving licence manual memorized in anticipation. She spent as much time with her friend Amber as always, but now Amber wanted to come to her house. She liked Stacey’s mother, she said, because Della differed from most of the moms in town. They got together one night for a hair dyeing session, and all three of them had their hair treated. Stacey and Amber convinced Della she was too young to go with silver, so she opted for a light blonde that suited her, just as the girls said it would. Stacey had dyed her hair red like she wanted, a startling red, and now she wore her toque as much as possible. Amber’s hair looked the most spectacular: Della and Stacey had worked hard at separating strands of her hair which, streaked in blue, gave her the look of someone with attitude who’d had moved to Fernie from Haight-Ashbury.

Della carried on as if she had memorized a speech. He’ll sit in a wheelchair most of the day. I’ll need to keep an eye on him and help him to the washroom and help him get in and out of bed, but that’s about all we can do for him. The nurse is trained to handle helpless people and will bathe him when she comes. He’s unable to talk in any way we can understand, but we can talk to him. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but he’d like it if you did.

How are you supposed to do all that and look after three kids?

I’m not sure yet, but I’ll manage. Like I said, this will be a trial period. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll explore other options.

Stacey tried to imagine the scenario. She wanted things as they were now. She couldn’t imagine Amber wanting to come over with a zombie sitting in the middle of the living room. If she talked to her dad while he sat in his wheelchair, it would be when her mom was out of the house, and he would not like what she had to say.

Before spring comes, Della said, Hart has agreed to build a ramp out the back. I’ll wheel him out into the yard when the weather is good. I know what you’re thinking. It’s not the way you wanted it to work out. I can’t say I wanted this either, but for now there’s no other choice. There will be a different dynamic around here starting next week, and I know you’ve talked about getting a part-time job, but I’d like you to focus on school, so I’m going to double your allowance so you’ll have more freedom to do the things you like.

We can afford it?

We’ll afford whatever it takes to keep this family together.

Sage wasn’t the man he had been. You could see the fear in his one good eye and hear it in his slurred speech that rose and fell, loaded with incomprehensible emotion. With no ramp to the house, the nurse and Della situated the wheelchair on the front porch, then maneuvered Sage up the steps to the main floor, as if he were an injured football player heading to the sidelines. It soon became obvious that Belle was a no-nonsense woman, serious about her profession. Della tried her best to reassure Sage, but when she did, Belle overlapped her words with her own, suggesting that this was Sage’s life now and he would have to get used to it. Della had been worried about this day but had given little thought to where Sage would find himself once inside. Belle took command immediately, leaving Sage and his wheelchair by the door while she moved a chair off to the side and moved a lamp toward the corner of the living room. Then she backed the wheelchair into the newly designated spot.

From there, Belle said, he can see what’s going on in the living room, and there will be nothing going on behind his back, so to speak. He can see the TV if you turn it on for him, and if you want to have him in the kitchen with you when you’re cooking and cleaning, you can wheel it there. If there’s nothing on TV and you have the drapes opened, he can look out on the street from here and watch the kids trying hard to grow up. I think this might work out after all.

Belle inspected the bathroom and then demonstrated the proper procedure for helping Sage use the facilities. Sage squealed in a manner that suggested he didn’t want to go to the bathroom right now, but Belle ignored him, grabbed the handles on the wheelchair and told Della to follow her. His left hand is somewhat serviceable and getting stronger day by day, so he’ll help you by balancing himself while he’s still standing. Sage, grab hold of the counter there. That’s it. Now he won’t topple over, and you can down his trousers like so. He’s wearing a large diaper as you can see, but that’s just like a pair of underwear. If nothing goes wrong, he can wear them all week if he wants to, but if things go sideways, this will make cleanup more manageable. Once you get them in, the best thing to do is plunk them down and then leave them be for five minutes. He sits just like so whether it’s number one or number two. That’s important.

Belle signalled for Della to leave with her, and they pushed the bathroom door almost closed for privacy. Leaving it open a tad allows you to hear him if he’s having trouble. Or he’ll mumble grumble when he’s finished.

Maybe he’s done now, Della said. He shook his head when you took him in there.

I know, I know. Best to leave them for a few minutes. They think they don’t need to go, but once they get seated, things happen. I wish your tub wasn’t so low, but we’ll manage.

The nurse volunteered to take an unguided tour of the rest of the house. She looked out onto the backyard, and Della explained where the ramp would be installed. Unless Belle was issuing instructions, she didn’t say much. She said h-m-m-m as if most of what she saw was workable but not ideal.

Will the dog be a problem? Della asked.

Not unless he doesn’t like dogs. Dogs always add more than they take away.

Belle retrieved Sage from the washroom and wheeled him back to his new place in the world. She said she didn’t normally work Saturdays, this was an exception. She would arrive in the morning every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and she left her card and a card belonging to the call service if something urgent came up on the off days. She pointed to a seven-digit number on the back of both cards, which referred to Sage Howard and no one else. If everything worked out like she hoped it would, a month from now, an appointment would be arranged with Dr. Harris for a reassessment. That’s the kind of doctor he is. He likes to know how his patients are making out.

Belle left and Della sank into a kitchen chair, exhausted. Stacey had left early in the morning for an Environmental Club meeting, and Della was glad she hadn’t been home when Sage arrived. She would have felt like Della did now, that this whole thing was more than she could manage. She lit a cigarette. Smoking in front of Sage might make him antsy for the chance to smoke dope, and he had enough to cope with for now. When she returned to the living room, Sage sat like a mime who had perfected his job.

Well, you’re home after all this time. I’ll turn the TV on if you like. There might be a movie starting at one.

She turned on the TV, and someone knocked at the door. Molly the Nose had flowers in hand as an excuse to get the lowdown. Della thanked her and went to fetch a vase.

Well, look who’s home and looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Sage looked up and moved his head in circles, a compromise between yes and no by the look of it. I brought you some flowers. Carnations. They don’t give off much pollen, and they last two weeks if you keep them wet. Hart said hi. He’ll be over tonight for a visit.

Sage didn’t move his head up and down, sideways or in circles at Molly’s announcement. Della figured he must be tired, and it was too much to take in.

Della made tea and served her guest in the kitchen. She made a small pot so Molly wouldn’t have an excuse to stay long.

How will you cope with all of this? Molly said.

I don’t know. I’ll try. That’s all I can do.

Della didn’t want to explain that she pretty much had to make it work. If Sage went into assisted living, it would take all the money he had coming in from his disability to fund it, and it would be impossible for Della and Stacey to carry on. It wouldn’t do to have Sage knowing the situation, though it was possible, she realized, that he’d already figured that out.

Molly left and Della checked on Sage, then lay down on her bed. She drifted off to sleep and woke because Stacey had climbed into bed and wrapped an arm over her shoulder. Stacey had seen her dad sitting there, seen how age had cast a shadow over his face. I’m scared, Stacey said.

I know, Della said. I’m scared too.