I did everything I could think of to stay alert that night, my last night. Black coffee, two cups after dinner. I chain-smoked, added Coke to my whisky, gulped down great breaths of cool night air, skipped the seizure meds altogether, and yet there I was in the armchair, head bobbing and snapping hard enough to break my neck. Not ten minutes before, I’d hung up from Edie for the last time and sat wondering if I’d split in two from the sorrow of it.
An hour before Edie was set to ring, Annie had helped me shower. She’d dried my hair with a towel, then set it in rollers before waving a hot hair dryer at me. She rubbed cream all over my face, then broke out every bit of makeup she owned. She unwound the rollers, carefully brushed my hair, gave me a final dab of lipstick, and buttoned up my good lavender blouse, letting the hem fall loosely over my pajama pants. She propped me up in the chair, then picked up her phone and aimed it at me.
“Okay, Frances. One for posterity.”
I sat up straight. “Make sure you don’t get my pajamas.”
“Cross your hands and lay them on the table. Tilt your head a little to the side. No, the other side. That’s it. Now smile. No, that’s too hard, too forced. Softer, like you’ve got a secret to tell.”
“For God’s sake, it’s not the cover of Vogue. Just give me a second.” I swiped through my phone and found the picture Edie had taken of us at the hair salon. I liked how I looked in that one. I studied it for a moment and tried to copy the smile.
“There you go, perfect. Hold that,” Annie said. She took three shots and decided the second was the best. “Oh, that’s lovely,” she said as she thrust the screen at me.
“I don’t know about lovely, but it’ll do. You’ll send it to her tomorrow night?”
“Right after. Just like you said.” She laid my drink and an ashtray on the table and closed the door.
I sipped and smoked until the chime, then forced the corners of my mouth upwards and tapped the button.
“Whoa, Frances, you look fantastic.”
“Thank you. You look pretty fantastic yourself.” Her hair had been cut to her chin, and it suited her beautifully. She was wearing silver hoop earrings I’d never seen before and her pale eyelashes were curled and blackened.
“Tareq is on his way over. We’re going to a fundraiser for Syrian newcomers. How are you feeling?”
“Fine. I feel fine.”
“Really? Oh, I’m so glad to hear that. If the weather holds, maybe we can go swimming again the next time I’m out there.”
I nodded and gripped my knees as hard as I could. “So Tareq is still the man of the hour, then?”
She got up and closed her bedroom door. “Oh my God, Frances, so get this. Last night we were out eating dinner, and just as I jammed a giant piece of pizza in my mouth, he blurts out, ‘I’m falling in love with you.’ I almost choked to death.”
“Well, now, that’s a big moment, right?”
She closed her eyes and gave a little shiver. “I felt like I was levitating.”
“How do you feel about him?”
“Same.”
“And did you tell him so?”
“I did, despite having a chin dripping with pepperoni grease. The height of romance, I tell you.” She rolled her eyes and laughed.
“Good for you, even better for him. Your love is a gift, Edie. Remember that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m a precious jewel. What do you think about bringing him with me next time? I’d love for him to meet you.”
“And I would love to meet him.”
“Awesome. I’ll email Annie in the morning and ask her. Listen, Frances, I’m so sorry, but I really should go. Mom is home and the minute he shows up it’ll be like the Spanish Inquisition down there. I’ll call tomorrow night and we can talk longer?”
“You enjoy yourself tonight. Edie, you look so beautiful, so grown-up and ready for the world. It’s really something to see.”
“Aw, thanks. I feel ready for the world. Okay, I’m off. To be continued.” She blew me a kiss and then she was gone, off to love with abandon and to block interference from her mother, just as nature intended.
I sat and stared out the window, heartbroken and mired in distrust of my decision to leave Edie out of this. She’d been excluded for her own protection, and for mine. But maybe I’d got this wrong. Having her with me at the end might have been a blessing. A blessing to whom? Me? Edie? Both of us? I was still trying to work it out when I nodded off.
It was after ten when Annie tapped me on the shoulder to wake me. She startled me and I stood up too quickly. Within seconds I went down hard, a flopping fish once more. When it was over, I felt the warm puddle on the carpet beneath me, and I was overcome with relief, the last shred of doubt carried away by a stream of urine. I knew with a certainty that hadn’t fully solidified until that very moment that I could no longer abide. The deed was righteous, and the time was most definitely at hand. A convenient revelation, I thought, given that the good doctor would be locked and loaded in less than twenty-four hours.
Annie stood above me holding a medication bottle in one hand, a glass of water in the other. “You need to take your seizure pills.”
I shook my head.
“I’m not asking, I’m telling. I’d like to sleep beside my friend on her last night on earth, and as much as I care for you, I’m not interested in being whacked in the face or pissed on, so open your mouth.”
I did as I was told—swallowed my pills, leaned against the shower wall while she cleaned me up, sat on the edge of the bed as she dressed me in a pair of freshly laundered pajamas, then watched as she sopped up my mess on her expensive carpet. I was mortified to be sure, yet there was a comfort in it unlike anything I’d ever known, a feeling of unparalleled closeness to this woman who was caring for me as if I were one of her own, a woman laughing as she blotted and scrubbed and told me to stick my croaked-out cleaning advice right up my arse.
“Pipe down. Two kids, two dogs over the years, and one man. I’ve cleaned up more piss and shit and whatever else a body can shoot out than you have in a lifetime. I know how to get a bit of lady pee out of this carpet.”
“Yes, but have you ever had to pull a used condom off a ceiling? Because I’ve done that more than once. Two in the same hotel room.”
“Jesus, what’s wrong with people at all? I expect that gives you some talking room. Although washing a teenaged boy’s sheets is worth a prize or two, let me tell you. There. Good as new. Now how are you? How’s your pain?”
“Not too bad, but I’ll pay for this tomorrow.” How casually the word rolled off my tongue. Tomorrow. If tomorrow never comes. Here today, gone tomorrow. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Christ, that squid never knew when to let up. I spoke softly to it. “Can’t you see I’ve got the upper hand?”
“What?” Annie asked.
“Nothing. I was just talking to myself.”
She narrowed her eyes and walked toward me. She bent over me and gave me a soft tap on the side of the cheek. “Pull yourself together.”
“Ah, you know you’ve got a good friend when she can make you laugh the night before you die.”
“I think the better measure is in that bucket over there, but whatever you say.”
She sat on the bed and put her hand on my cheek again. I pushed my face against her palm and closed my eyes.
“You know you can still back out of this if you want,” I said, knowing full well that wasn’t true.
“I want what you want. It’s you who needs to be sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“Good, because I’m not cleaning that carpet again.” She gathered up her cleaning gear and left me to rest.
I dozed again, then woke to the sound of soft fiddle music. The room glowed from the light of candles placed all around. Annie was next to me, sitting up against the headboard with her eyes closed. I gingerly lifted my aching arm and let it rest across the tops of her legs. Above the music I could hear rain driven by a howling wind pelting against the windowpanes. I made a move to sit up, but my muscles revolted, and I abandoned the effort. Annie kneeled on the bed and hoisted me up against the headboard. She reached down to the floor and pulled up the whisky bottle.
“Can I interest you in a drop?”
“You can indeed.” I raised my glass to her and managed a small swallow.
She got up and walked to the window. “Some storm. I hope the power holds.”
“Maybe God is giving the place a good going over before I come.”
She climbed back in beside me. “Do you still believe in God?”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever really been a believer.”
“I figured those nuns would’ve drilled it into you.”
“If anything, they drove me away. What about you?”
“Depends on the day. I look at the state of the world and I can’t imagine how any God would allow it. And when Stephen died, I was sure there was nothing but sky above me. But then I hold little Stevie and I see how perfect he is, or I see something silly like a rainbow and I think, Maybe. Maybe.”
“It’s a nice idea, heaven and angels and the like, but I can’t get my head around the notion of God, not the one we were told about anyway. Some old man sitting out in space somewhere, judging and condemning and selecting who’s good enough and who’s not good enough to enter the kingdom. Sounds too much like Santa Claus to me.”
“So where do you think you’re going tomorrow?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
“Not once since you found out about the cancer?”
“I was pretty sure there was nowhere to go but into an urn, so I didn’t spend any time on it. But now you’ve got me thinking.”
“Okay, just say there was something, some heaven or afterlife or whatever. What would you hope for?”
I tried to construct my version of paradise, but my head was too muddy to build anything beyond fleeting visions. I saw water and my parents, old and wrinkled. Edie and Annie. A classroom with my name on the door, a pretty house filled with books, and me coming home to it after a day of teaching, smartly dressed, weary but placid and self-assured.
“I’d hope for a do-over, a chance to be who I always thought I’d be.”
“You and me both. Well, I don’t know what the hell is out there, but if you do find yourself at the Pearly Gates, I need you to do me a favour: find my boy and tell him I’ll be along soon enough.”
“Goddamn it, Annie. Don’t be saying sweet stuff like that or I’ll spend our last night bawling on your shoulder. Besides, for all you know I might end up down below.”
“True. When Anthony shows up, tell him I said to go fuck himself.”
“I will. And there’s something I need to tell you. I was planning to wait to the last moment, but I’m afraid I won’t remember tomorrow. I’m thinking about the time I first came back to Safe Harbour, about the day you tore into me for disappearing on you. I went back to town and thought that was it. I’ll never see her again. She’ll never forgive me. And I had no idea how to die with that hanging over me. But you turned it around. And to find myself here with you now . . . I mean, I don’t even have words for it.”
“I dare say we both turned it around. It’s funny because I was thinking just this morning how proud I am of us for this, for just deciding we were worth the effort. Packing away all the old shit and making it happen.”
“I’m proud of us too.”
“You know, you make it sound like it was hard for me, Frances, but it wasn’t. And you make it sound like it was all for you, but it wasn’t. I didn’t really know how much I was suffering until I saw you that first day you came back, and somehow going through this with you has really healed me. I wasn’t going to tell you this because I’m pretty sure it’s a shitty thing to say, but I feel like you’ve given me my life back.”
“What do you mean you weren’t going to tell me that? What’s shitty about it?”
“Because, dummy, you’re dying and here I am talking about a new lease on life. And because you won’t be here to live it with me.”
“Do you have any idea what that means to me? How happy that makes me? Don’t you see? That makes this whole dying thing worthwhile for me. Imagine me going off without knowing that. Good Christ.”
“All right, settle down. I told you while you’re still alive to hear it. You keep this up and for sure you’re going to hell.”
“Don’t make me laugh. My head is bursting.”
I slowly shimmied my way down the headboard and she fed me my pills, then nestled in behind me.
“I’m going to miss you, Frances. More than you know.”
I was in too much pain to answer. I reached for her hand and gripped it until I felt the morphine start to kick in, then floated away.