FLOSSY CLOSED THE DOOR behind her brother, ruth and Phil and leaned against it. The youngsters had straggled out of bed, the rain slowed and they were off, each with a piece of pie in hand, for an early trip to Jimmy’s weir.
She took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. This Elizabeth Bishop Society meeting had been years in the making. The date had been dragged forward for two full calendars and honestly there were times she thought she’d not live to see the day come, yet at this precise moment she wished for nothing more than a solitary few hours to walk along the shore or sit with her own thoughts in a big old chair. Dear old Jimmy. Oh well, perhaps tomorrow. She pushed off from the door and just as she did there was another quick tap and the familiar creak. She turned around fully expecting Mealie to walk in but instead Richard Archibald was there.
“Richard,” she croaked, reaching back for the knob. She cleared her throat.
“Hello Flossy.” There was a bit of strain showing in his eyes. A small indentation just above his right eyebrow was the very same as Ruth’s, and showed when all was not right with the world.
“You’re early. Come in, come in,” she said. “I’m sorry, you’ve taken me a little by surprise. The kids have just gone off with Jimmy. They’ll be back at nine …”
“That’s okay,” he said, hanging his raincoat on a peg behind the door, the same one he’d used regularly every six months or so for the last twenty years. She noticed right away how trim he was this morning, like a bridegroom with a perfect shave, fresh haircut, a toffee-brown jacket with a mustard thread in it, blue shirt and neat taupe slacks. Still a trim man for a forty-year-old, he had the wiry build of a marathon runner, though Flossy thought he’d be hard pressed to chase her downhill to the general store. He took his glasses off to wipe a raindrop from them and Flossy saw how remarkably he resembled his daughter at the dark narrow-set eyes, almost a mirror to Ruth. He looked around the kitchen.
“I got your message, thanks,” he said, “but I’m not here for that …”
“Would you …?” she began.
“I was …” he said.
“… like some …?”
“… driving …”
“Sorry,” she said, stopping.
“No, you,” he bowed his head and turned his palm towards her, “please.”
“Sit down, Richard. I’ll get you a coffee.”
“Thanks Flossy, no,” he made no motion to sit. “I was just driving up from the bed & breakfast to take some things to the Legion,” he pointed over his shoulder, “and there was an ambulance pulling out of Mealie’s. Did you not see it?”
“Mealie’s? No.” She looked across at the studio lights. “Jimmy was here.”
“It was headed for Truro,” he said. “I stopped in. There’s no sign of her. Has she been okay?”
“Well, I certainly think so. I haven’t seen her this morning. Did you check the studio?” She looked across. “The lights are on. I thought she was at work already.”
“I checked, she’s not there. Doesn’t she usually come for coffee?”
“Well yes, she does. Most mornings. I just thought …”
“Unh?”
“She’s been working all-out, getting ready for the show.”
“I think we should go into the hospital, don’t you? We’ve lots of time before the conference.”
“I’ll leave the kids a note.” She reached for a pen and paper, then began to write:
Ruth & Phil,
Mealie’s taken sick, so I’ve gone to the hospital with your father. We’ll be back by nine-thirty. Wait for us.
F
They decided to take both cars, the Volkswagen and Falstaff, in case one of them had to stay. When they arrived at the hospital half an hour later and asked for Mealie, the nurse in the emergency department wanted to know if they were related.
“I’m her son,” said Richard with no hesitation. “This is her sister, Mrs. O’Reilly.”
Flossy glanced across at him then nodded. After answering as many questions as they could for Mealie’s admission, they were told to take a seat in the waiting room. It would be a while yet. Richard, they decided, should go back to Great Village to get everything ready for the Elizabeth Bishop Society. They’d catch up again at Flossy’s place at nine-thirty where he would meet his daughter and they’d all go off to the Legion together for ten. Flossy looked at the clock. It wasn’t quite six-thirty. Still early.
Settling into a wait at the emergency ward of the Colchester Regional Hospital, Flossy looked around at all the day’s uncharmed: people coming and going with a variety of sprains, fevers, bloody hands wrapped in towels, rashes, wheezes and some ailments not discernible to the eye. A young mother, not much older than Ruth, was trying to comfort an inconsolable baby whose crying jangled everybody’s nerves. Someone said there had been an accident on the Trans-Canada earlier that morning in the rain, a group of students from the Agricultural College at Bible Hill, and over the next hour frightened families would arrive and huddle, also waiting anxiously for news. Flossy didn’t know what was taking so long, except that they’d been told the patients would be tended according to urgency, which she took to be a good sign.
Mealie was one of the healthiest people in Colchester County. She never went to the doctor. She was a big woman, though; maybe she had a heart problem she wasn’t aware of. Maybe it was that swollen foot Flossy hadn’t had a chance to ask about. It couldn’t be too bad if she could call the ambulance, could it? It meant she could make a phone call. Why hadn’t she called her? It was just like Mealie, not wanting to take Flossy away from the big Bishop day.
Waiting, that long, dreadful look into the unknown with a knot twisting in her gut, recalled for Flossy all the other waiting and watching. She could feel the old nausea creep back, a sensation building at the back of her throat as if she were an anxious bewildered child all over again. It was as if the body held memory that was all rushing back at her this morning. How could anything possibly be wrong with Mealie?
The hospital’s emergency ward was a foreign land. It was unusual to get to eighty-two and not have darkened its door before. Of course, she’d not had children and all the fevers, earaches, broken limbs and stitches that went along with raising them. Thomas and her mother had both died at home. Flossy wasn’t used to the monsters that could slip from the dark of the unknown, the innumerable possibilities of what and why. She’d never had to practise putting them out of her mind.
Outside, it was still raining. The waterlogged flowers of the peegee hydrangeas outside the hospital were weighed down this morning, bent towards the ground like some burdened and splayed old creatures. Flossy was to discover that emergency wards were a timeless warp: no information, no clue, no compassion or consolation, no place to go and definitely no angels. She still didn’t know if Mealie had twisted an ankle, slipped on the floor or fallen on a can opener. What could possibly be taking so long?
Flossy walked over to the admissions window again. She stood, waiting for about three minutes before the nurse looked up from her computer and sighed her impatience.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you,” Flossy began, “but is there any news about Mrs. Marsh?” she asked.
The woman, a different one from before, overweight in a soft-pink uniform, looked behind as if someone might step up and offer just that.
“You family?” she asked with studied indifference.
“Sister.”
“I’ll see if anyone knows,” she said. Flossy went back to her seat. She tried to concentrate on Mealie, not let anger get hold of this day, though every nerve of every soul in that room was taut. There was nothing to read and she didn’t want to leave for a cup of tea lest they come looking for her when she was gone. Her few books were at home stacked upon the kitchen table, though she probably couldn’t have concentrated anyway. How innocently she’d piled them there one on top of the other last night, happily setting Mrs. Woolf on top of Shakespeare, beneath Bishop, but now, this morning, they were cold comfort as she waited for word about Mealie. She certainly never expected to be spending the morning here.
The hospital clock made its indifferent rounds. She changed her seat so that she wasn’t looking at it so often. She had waited the longest of any of those who’d begun the morning with her in the emergency ward. A whole new cast of summer calamities and illnesses had filtered in to take the seats of those already tended and sent on their way. That was either a good sign or a bad one. She put her hand to her chest to quiet the calisthenics inside. “No time for a heart attack, Flossy,” she spoke sternly under her breath, coughing a couple of times to restore her heart rhythms. She could understand the value of prayer in such moments; it was something to do, something with which to push the fear back, to keep hope afloat when in every direction those lights were flickering out.
The rain had started again, a violent summer storm with thunder and lightning crashing and flashing at the same instant. She watched water bounce a foot off the pavement. The ambulance was pulling into the emergency bay again and people were dashing for cover. She hoped Jimmy and the youngsters would be having breakfast somewhere by now.
Eventually a nurse came over to ask the name of Mealie’s family doctor.
“Doctor Morrow, on Prince Street,” Flossy clutched her things. “Can I see her?”
“Soon,” she smiled. “Don’t worry, someone will come and get you shortly.” But there was no news as the clock trudged around some more. A young man, weary and unshaven, who’d been sitting beside her for awhile and chewing his fingernails asked if he could get her a cup of coffee. She declined.
The nurse had said, “don’t worry.” That must mean there wasn’t anything to worry about. Last night, she’d snacked on canned sardines and toast, read until eleven and noticed Mealie’s light on but hadn’t given it a second thought. It had seemed odd, though, wonderfully odd she’d thought at the time, that Mealie was working so late. Flossy watched another three patients disappear behind the emergency room doors. Was Mealie’s light still on when she got up at four? Had she looked over?
Anxious and hungry, but not wanting to leave, she stood and stretched her legs, scarcely knowing what else to do as she waited. The chairs were terribly uncomfortable. A woman in a lab coat was standing by the nurse at the admissions desk. They were both looking in her direction. In another minute, she came over.
“Are you the family of Mrs. Marsh?” she asked.
“Yes.” Flossy nodded.
“I’m Doctor MacGillivray,” she said, extending her hand. She was pleasant and calm. “Why don’t you come with me so we can find a little quiet.”
Flossy gathered her purse and her raincoat and followed the younger woman through a set of swinging doors into the cluttered heart of the emergency ward. There were many people in all directions, nurses, doctors, technicians, aids, patients on gurneys, family members wandering about, crying children with parents, charts, computers, coffee cups and noise. She looked around for Mealie but didn’t see her. It was all very busy and she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to find her way out again. After a maze of hallways, they finally stepped into a quiet room. A brass plate on the door read “Chaplain.” Inside the room, the young doctor ahead of her turned a dimmer switch on.
At that absolute moment, Flossy was truly amazed at the mind’s capacity to know something yet refuse to hold it up and stare at it straight on, because as those seconds of waiting stretched into a minute, maybe two, she was not at all prepared for what Dr. MacGillivray was about to say.
“That’s a little better,” she said, taking a seat in a soft chair across from Flossy. She looked at the chart in her hands. “You are Mrs. Marsh’s …?” looking up at her.
“Sister,” she said, “Flossy O’Reilly.”
She looked down at the chart again, made a quick note and spoke with her head lowered, “Mrs. O’Reilly, I’m very sorry to have to tell you this but your sister didn’t make it.”
Flossy’s hand went to her mouth as she collapsed with a moan she couldn’t suppress.
“I’m very sorry,” she repeated. “She didn’t regain consciousness after they brought her in by ambulance and we lost her about an hour ago.” They were both silent for two or three minutes until Flossy could speak.
“What happened?” she managed to push the words out in a whisper.
“Without an autopsy, I can only surmise that the blood clot in her leg may have become dislodged and caused a heart attack.” “Oh my Lord.” She was feeling weak, perspiring, “I saw her leg and didn’t think to ask. Why didn’t I …? Oh dear God.” She shuddered and shook her head.
“Where was your sister being treated, Mrs. O’Reilly?” The doctor spoke slowly.
Flossy looked up. “Treated? I don’t even know if she’d made an appointment with her doctor. You see I didn’t ask her about it.”
“For the cancer?” she asked. “We don’t seem to have any record of treatment here in the hospital. Was she going to Halifax?”
She frowned, “Cancer?” Flossy leaned in as if she hadn’t heard correctly.
The doctor looked up from her papers. “You didn’t know?”
Flossy shook her head.
“Oh.” Dr. MacGillivray pulled her clipboard up against her chest, closed her pen and slowly placed it in her pocket. “Well, this will come as a great shock to you too. Were you not close?”
“Close? Yes,” she squeaked.
“Why was she not seeing her doctor?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know there was anything wrong.” Flossy could feel an ache creeping up into her jaw.
Doctor MacGillivray, a woman half her age, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, did not meet Flossy’s eyes. “Mrs. Marsh appears to have been in the latter stages of an untreated breast cancer,” she said.
“Ohh,” Flossy moaned again, putting her head into her hands. “I’m sorry, Mrs. O’Reilly,” the young doctor reached across and placed a hand on Flossy’s shoulder for a moment. “I spoke with Doctor Morrow and she said Mrs. Marsh was diagnosed over two years ago but apparently declined treatment at the time.”
“Why would she do that?” Flossy could barely speak; she looked away.
“I don’t know,” the doctor answered.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” she said. “Can I … see her?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Is there anyone else you’d like to call?”
“No, no, Richard’ll be back.”
“Did she have any prior arrangements?”
“I don’t know,” Flossy replied. “Mattatalls would be fine, I’m sure.”
Flossy stood, clutching her things. Her knees were weak, she turned the wrong way and had to turn back again. She couldn’t think.
“I’ll take you to her,” the doctor offered. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I don’t think so,” she whispered.