The car stopped and I snapped awake, slack-jawed with a trail of drool down my chin. Annie yanked the key out of the ignition and hopped out to get my bag from the trunk. I opened my door and stepped into the drizzle and fog that smelled of the sea. I breathed in and held it, letting it settle into my lungs.
Annie led me down a long hall to a room easily three times the size of any one I’d ever slept in. I wiggled my toes against the thick sand-coloured carpet. Two big windows faced me, and I could smell the fresh paint on the walls—soft blue, a spring sky. There was a high, wide bed covered by a white duvet and pale purple sheets and four massive pillows propped up against a pine headboard. A small white night table held a lamp and a crystal vase of yellow tulips. In the corner of the room sat a faded yellow armchair beside a low pine bookcase stacked full of paperbacks, and on the wall above hung a large flat television.
Annie opened a set of white doors. “Here’s the closet. A little dresser in there for you as well.”
Then she opened another door to show me a gleaming white bathroom with a small glass shower and a whirlpool bathtub, a set of new blue towels folded on its edge.
“I know it still stinks of paint,” Annie said. “When the weather clears, we’ll open the windows and give it an airing. But it’s a good room.”
“It’s a perfect room. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say, ‘Thank you, Annie.’”
“Thank you, Annie.”
“Now get yourself settled, and if you’re up for a drop of my famous pea soup and tea buns, I’ll be in the kitchen.”
I put away my things and tried out the bed, hard at first then yielding to my weight, slowly shaping itself to cradle my body. I got up for fear of drifting off and walked down the hall to see about that soup.
I sat in Annie Malone’s kitchen and ate her delicious food. I listened to her talk about the house, how she and Anthony had it built just after Stephen was born. How they’d spent oodles of money renovating the kitchen a few years ago, then split up not long after it was finished. She also told me that Angela had been training to be a nurse in St. John’s, then ran into her high school sweetheart, Ryan, in the hospital after he’d busted up his knee playing hockey. She gave up on her nursing course with only a year left and followed him back to Safe Harbour, a decision Annie was sure Angela would live to regret. Now they owned the restaurant where Annie had taken Edie and me for lunch. “They run a brisk trade in the summer,” Annie said. “But the winters are lean. Not much different than making a living on the water, I suppose.”
I watched her clear away the dishes, all my offers of help waved off. How surreal it all was. I felt weightless, as if I lifted my elbows from the table, I might float up to the ceiling like a balloon. Annie gave the counters a final swipe and poured us each a shot of whisky. She raised her glass and looked me in the eye.
“To the return of Frances Delaney.”
I clinked my glass against hers and reached for my cigarettes. We stood on the back patio, the fog settling in our hair.
“What did Angela say about me being in her old bedroom?”
“I haven’t told her yet. About the room or about you.”
Her words caught me on a large drag of smoke. I coughed until tears poured down my cheeks. “Christ, Annie. When are you planning on telling her? When she finds me dead in her bed?”
“Frances, I’ve had this daughter for a while now. All information is released on a strict need-to-know basis. And you’re not in her old room. You’re in Stephen’s.”
“Now I really don’t know what to say.”
“It’s high time that room got put to some purpose beyond gathering dust. You’re as good a cause as any.”
“Won’t Angela be even more upset about me taking over his room?”
“You’ve enough to be thinking about. You leave her to me.”
I rubbed my temples. “It’s a good thing I’m half-dead. I don’t have the wits or strength to argue with you.”
“That will come in right handy.” She flicked her cigarette butt into an empty clay flowerpot. “Why don’t you go off to bed? The sun might shine tomorrow, and you won’t want to miss a minute if it does.”
I burrowed into the fine bed and was asleep within minutes, but in the wee hours, the pain broke through. I swallowed two pills at the sink and sat in the armchair to wait it out. My head slowly settled, and the worn spine of a small paperback in the bookcase caught my eye. I reached for it—a copy of Anne of Green Gables, its pages yellowed and wavy from damp. I squinted at the writing on the inside of the cover, my name spelled out in pencil. The book my mother had been given when she was a girl and passed on to me on a snowy Christmas morning. The rest of my girlhood trove was there too. Every book I’d foolishly left behind sitting on the shelves. I scooped up as many as I could carry and tossed them on the bed. I couldn’t read the fine, faded type of a single one and instead placed the story of an orphan girl on an island under my pillow and slept with the others piled at my feet.
I woke to the sound of raised voices. It took me a minute to work out where I was. I recognized one of the voices as Annie’s, and the where and the why came flooding back. Almost every day now, I’d wake and for a few blissful minutes the squid and I would be unacquainted. Then it would slowly sink in, a new death sentence handed down with every sunrise. I opened the door and poked my head out. Annie and Angela were in heated discussion, their harsh words flowing from the kitchen.
“Angela, stop overreacting.”
“If you saw first-hand what smoking does to people, you’d know I’m not overreacting in the slightest.”
“She’s a grown woman. If she wants to smoke, what’s it to you? If it’s Stevie you’re worried about, she smokes outside.”
“How long is she staying?”
“As long as it takes.”
“As long as what takes?’
I took a couple of light steps down the hall.
“Sit down. I need to talk to you.”
I heard the scrape of a chair against the tile floor. Silence, then Annie’s voice, softer and slower.
“She’s not well.”
“So double for the smoking.”
“She’s dying. She has a brain tumour. She has only a short time left.”
“What about her treatment? How will she get that down here?”
“She’s not having treatment. She’s come here to die.”
“Here in this house?” Angela’s voice had shot up a few levels in volume and pitch.
“Keep your voice down. I made up Stephen’s room for her. When the time comes, her doctor will come down and that will be that.”
They fell quiet for a few moments, and I took another step toward the kitchen.
“You cannot be serious.”
“Oh, I’m as serious as can be.”
“You’re making a big mistake.”
Annie scoffed. “Oh, I am, am I? And on what authority do you come to that conclusion?”
“For God’s sake, as someone who knows a bit about healthcare, as a Catholic, as a person who values life. Take your pick.”
My nightgown was growing damp with sweat, and I desperately needed to pee, but I couldn’t tear myself away.
“You know you can’t take part in this. Everyone in town will be talking about it within five minutes of it happening. And in Stephen’s room to boot? Dad will lose his mind.”
“I’ve long since stopped worrying about what your father or anyone else blessed with a wagging tongue thinks of me. You know, Angela, you surprise me with this. Why should she suffer any more than she has to? You had no issue putting the family dog out of his misery.”
“She is not a dog.”
“But she’s had her share of misery, I can tell you that. You’ve no idea what that poor woman has been through.”
“Everyone has their burdens, Mother.”
I jumped at the sound of something shattering against the floor.
“Don’t you talk to me of burdens,” Annie said. “She lost her father, her mother, her home, her child, and now here she is, not a teacher like she wanted but a cleaning woman with a frigging tumour eating away at her brain—a brain far sharper than what you and I have under our skulls—and from what I can tell, no one but a teenage girl and me to help her out. Now get some goddamn perspective and get it right quick.”
“All right, calm down.”
“I will not calm down. I’ve carried this family on my back for nigh on twenty years. A bastard of a husband, a son ripped from me, a daughter who treats me like an idiot, and not once have I asked for something for me. And this is as much for me as it is for her. That woman and I were once each other’s world, and there’s a history between us that you couldn’t possibly know or understand. Frances needs me and I need to help her, so either get with it or get the hell out of my way. And the Church and the good citizens of Safe Harbour and your sainted father can all go fuck themselves. And you can clean up that plate I broke.”
I heard shards of glass being swept up, then the stomp of feet toward the hall. I made a beeline to my room and kept going through to the bathroom, my heart banging against my ribs as I sat on the edge of the tub. I heard a soft knocking on the bedroom door.
“Frances, you up?” Annie asked.
I flushed the toilet and turned on the sink taps full blast so she’d think I couldn’t have heard them. “Be right out.” As I was brushing my teeth, it occurred to me that I’d never once been a guest in a home where I wasn’t on the payroll. I spit and rinsed and fought off a compulsion to bleach something.
I made my way to the kitchen, where I found Annie sitting at the table, arms and legs crossed, chewing on her lower lip. I sat across from her and reached for the teapot.
“I hope Angela and I didn’t wake you with our first fight of the day.”
“Not at all. And even if you had, it’s your house. Carry on as you see fit.”
“You missed that one, but stay tuned. There’s bound to be another as soon as she walks back in the door. Honestly, I don’t know where I went wrong with her.”
“Where is she?”
“Tore out the door in a huff. What odds. There’s cereal and bread and eggs. I think I might have some bacon.”
“I’ll just have some toast with the tea. But stay where you are, I’ll make it. You want some?”
“No, I’m too bloody vexed to eat. You go ahead and hurry on so we can go outside and smoke. My nerves are rubbed raw.”
“You don’t have to wait for me. Go on out now.”
“No, I’m after making a rule for myself. I’ll only ever have one with you. That way I can convince myself that I’m not smoking—I’m supporting.”
“Excellent logic.”
“Isn’t it, though. How’s that bed for you?”
I spooned a great heap of partridgeberry jam on a piece of hot homemade bread and bit into the breakfast of my childhood. “Annie, there are no words for me to convey just how good that bed is. Or how good this jam is. Did you make it?”
“No, that’s from Mrs. Dillon. She’ll give you some if you ask her. She’s got a pantry full of everything under the sun, God love her.”
I polished off another two pieces of jam-covered toast, washed them down with sweet tea, and grabbed the Rothmans.
The morning sun had chased the fog away, and the large swath of Annie’s newly cut, impossibly green grass steamed and glistened. Her land extended into a wide tree line of white birches and spruces, and a yearling moose emerged from the forest and nibbled at the lawn. A pair of blue jays perched on the branch of a tree watched over us while we sat in silence at the patio table. The chilled island air was as pristine as it had always been, and blowing clouds of smoke into it seemed like sacrilege.
“Is Angela upset that I’m in Stephen’s room?”
“Oh, I imagine so, but what isn’t Angela upset about? Every day it’s something new.”
“I’m not keen on causing any tension here.”
“The tension was here long before you. What she has to be unhappy about I’ll never know. But I say the one with the brain tumour wins. And she can stuff any objections right up her backside. Years I’ve been kowtowing to her just to keep the peace and I’ve had enough. There’s a new sheriff in town.”
I laughed. “Annie, get your gun.”
“I’m telling you, Frances, God help the next fool who crosses me.” She made a pistol with her hand and took aim at the two blue jays. “So it’s a beautiful day. Up for the water?”
When we arrived at the shore, I was pleased to see so few people about. I was also pleased that Annie had thought to bring two square cushions for the hard plank of the dory. We nestled our aging behinds and faced the sparkling sea.
“Annie, I forgot to mention it. My books.”
“I was wondering how long it would take you to notice.”
“But how did you come to have them?”
“After you left, Mom went down and boxed them up. They were in her attic for years, then in mine.”
“Why did you keep them all this time?”
“I guess I hoped you’d be back for them someday.”
“I’m very grateful to have them.”
“As you should be.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a small tube of sunscreen and spread a dollop over her face and neck. “So what’s happening with young Edie?”
“She’s worked up about a boy these days. She wants to come for a visit next weekend, if that’s all right with you.”
“Sure. She’s a sweet little thing. She’ll have a hard time with your passing.”
“Edie is as strong as she is sweet. She’ll be fine.”
“And what about me?” Annie said. “Will I be fine? I don’t know how strong I’ll be when that doctor comes through my door. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to sit and hold your hand and see you through. I hope I am, but I don’t know.”
“You don’t need to know. Not yet, anyway.”
She nodded and watched the water. “You know, I never grow tired of this shore. Not once has that ocean failed to impress me. I could never be away from it.”
“I never thought I could be near it again. I’m just happy to be able to look at it without falling apart.”
“You’re easy to please, I’ll say that for you.”
“It’s easy to be pleased when there’s nothing left to lose. Believe me, I’ve never had it so easy.”
She gave me a doubtful look.
“No, it’s true,” I said. “I find dying makes living easier. At least for me. I can’t recall ever feeling this settled in myself. You must remember what I was like, nervous as a cornered cat.”
“You were just shy is all.”
“No, it was more than that. Like what you saw at my place yesterday. Oftentimes much worse. Being around people would set it off, so I did everything I could not to be around people, which only made it worse. And over the years, it just got wedged so far in me that there was no getting it out.”
“Why didn’t you find someone to help you? You can’t throw a rock nowadays without hitting a shrink.”
“I don’t know. Back in the day, nobody talked about that kind of stuff. I was too ashamed and ignorant, I suppose. Too scared of someone calling me crazy and locking me away. Too sad, too busy trying to scratch out a living. Anyway, it’s got in the way my whole life. Stopped me from doing so many things.”
“Like what?”
“Like everything. Like seeing you before now.”
“We don’t have to get into all that right now. You only just got here. There’s time.”
“I know, but just listen to me. I’m not sure you know just how much you helped me when we were young. How much easier my life was because of you. Just being near you always made me feel like a stronger person, a better person.”
“That went both ways.”
“But when I went away to the home, it was like my mind somehow locked everything in place. Like everything would be frozen in time exactly where I left it. But then Mom died, and everything seemed ruined. And then that awful fight we had. And when I called and you talked about getting married, it was like I realized for the first time that you’d carry on without me. That nothing was ever going to be the same again. And I couldn’t bear it. So I just ran away, and then I couldn’t seem to find my way back. I put it all aside and tried not to think about it just so I could keep moving forward, one day after another, until too many days had passed. I’m not making excuses. I’m just trying to explain myself. To you and to me, I guess. I know what I did was wrong. I’ve always known it. But I didn’t know just how wrong until I woke up in that room this morning. Your clearing out your beautiful son’s things to make way for me. I mean, the kindness in that, Annie. It’s hard to take in. And then the books.” I paused and drew in a few ragged breaths and let the tears I’d been holding flow. “I’m so sorry for those horrible things I said about you and your mother that night. And I’m so sorry for everything I put you through. I really am.”
“It’s all right, Frances. Come on, now. Don’t go upsetting yourself. We’ll hash it all out by and by. For now, let’s just sit here and say nothing. Then we’ll go back to the house and eat and drink too much and talk about stupid shit that doesn’t matter. As for everything else, it’s kept for this long, and it’ll keep a little longer.”