I woke to the sound of birdsong. One by one, my systems slowly switched on until I was fully awake and more alert than I’d been for weeks. A soft beam of sunshine streamed through the window, and I turned my face into its path to soak up the warmth penetrating the thick glass. There was no muddled grasping for my bearings, no sudden flood of details lost in the night. No longer did anything seem surreal, and no longer did I feel conveniently disconnected from my own circumstances. Only hours remained—about nine, to be exact—and I figured it didn’t get any more real than that. I’d made neither plan nor request for this last day, nothing special to be squeezed in before the sun began to set, mostly because I still couldn’t think of anything I wanted over and above what I already had. A brief thought passed through my mind of all the prisoners who’d ever been led to the gallows, like those I’d seen in the movies, those dramatic depictions of the repentant, the defiant, and the odd innocent. What did they do in their last hours? When the time came, did they flail and twist and cry out? Or did they walk gracefully from their cells, straight-backed and reconciled?
My phone chimed and I reached for it to see a calendar reminder on the screen: “Dr. Langley. 7:00 p.m.” Seven-year itch, Seven Wonders of the World, seven deadly sins, seventh heaven. I made a last plea to that thing in my head to be still for once and show some bloody respect. I rocked and rolled my way out of bed, body as rigid as a tree trunk. Annie appeared in the doorway as I limped along. She put the tray of breakfast on the table and turned on the tub faucet.
“Food, then a bath and a rub. We’re not having you go off like that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I ate half of a sweet juicy orange and a few bites of fresh pineapple, washed down my pain pills with a cup of perfectly brewed tea, and topped it off with a final cigarette that I didn’t really want, though the symbolism of it was just too powerful to pass up. Annie lowered me into the bath and placed the CD player on the floor. She lit a candle that smelled like Christmas cookies baking. Then she washed my hair. I sat in the armchair while she dried and brushed, but I put up my hand when she reached for the makeup.
“No, I’m leaving with the face I came with.”
She helped me into bed and went off to shower herself. She returned with the big bottle of lotion and rubbed her hands together to warm them. She started at the top of my right leg, currents of electricity zapping under my skin with every stroke. She made the full tour around my body, leaving only my hands and feet untouched, then knelt at the end of the bed and made slow, deep circles with her thumbs on the bottom of each foot and spoke for the first time she she’d started.
“Frances, close your eyes and think back. Back to when it was just you and me. Before nuns and babies and coffins and graveyards. Back to the time before we knew of anything beyond that old dory. I can remember it all now. Can you?”
“I can.”
“When you leave tonight, promise me that you’ll remember only the good.”
“I promise.”
She finished my feet and sat on the edge of the bed. She pulled a wrinkled piece of paper from the pocket of her jeans, laid it on her lap, and reached for my right hand. She massaged my palm and kept her eyes down on her words.
“Frances Delaney, fifty-eight, my first and most loyal friend, passed away today—peacefully, willingly, and with dignity. She was a shy woman but a strong one. A kind, clever, and forgiving soul who loved books and music, as did her loving parents, both gone long before her. While the twists and turns of life separated us for many years, she returned to this shore to live out her final days in my house, leaving me forever in her debt.” She turned the paper over and picked up my left hand. “Frances leaves behind a legacy of proud service as a housekeeper—the best in town, says her young friend, Edie, who joins me in mourning Frances today and celebrating her for all the days that follow. Few knew her well, but those of us who did respected and loved her more than she could ever know. Please raise a parting glass with me in her honour. Safe journey, my beautiful friend.”
I interlaced my fingers with hers and raised her hand to my lips, then brought it to the side of my face. “No mention of my sexual prowess, then?”
She laughed and dug her knuckles gently into my cheek. “I’ll work that in after you’re gone.”
“And maybe thank Dr. Langley.”
“I’ll see if she’s deserving of it first.”
“It’s as fine an obituary as I’ve ever heard.”
“It is fine, isn’t it?” She released my hand and laid the paper on the nightstand.
I thought about gussying up in an outfit, but in the end, I chose to slip back into my blue pajamas, thinking Edie would’ve likely approved. Annie and I lay outside on wooden loungers soaking up the last of summer. I ate a few bites of a ham sandwich, washed it down with sips of lemonade (a splash of whisky and a plump cherry), and worried down a morsel of Annie’s chocolate cake. A whole hour was lost to sleep under the sun that left my face and neck pink. Annie talked and I listened. Once more about our childhood together, about Stephen, about Edie and Tareq, about everything and nothing, like every other day. The shadows grew long, and she grew quiet. I checked my phone. Five forty-five.
I looked at Annie’s face in the slanted sunlight and I could see all our years apart in the lines etched into her skin. I found it didn’t matter to me anymore. She was my beginning and my ending, and the middle I’d thought so terrible was now nothing more than a collection of tedious moments that had somehow brought me to the only one that mattered.
At six, I asked her to take me to the bedroom. She settled me against two thick pillows, then stood looking at me with a pained expression on her face and her arms wrapped around herself.
“Oh my God, Frances, I don’t know about this.”
I patted the bed. “Come sit down.”
She sat on the edge of the bed with her back to me and leaned forward with her face in her hands.
“Annie, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”
“And what? Sit in the kitchen while you’re in here alone? Just give me a minute. I’ll be fine.” She took a couple of deep breaths, turned the music on low, and lay down beside me.
And God help me, I dozed off. Down to the very wire and still a martyr to sleep. The doorbell woke me. Annie bolted off the bed and turned to me, wide-eyed and alarmed.
“That’s her, isn’t it?”
“Go open the door. I’m ready.”
The doorbell rang a second time, and she backed out of the room slowly. I heard the introductions, the offer of tea and their polite refusals, then footsteps down the hall.
Annie stood in the doorway. “Will I bring them in?”
I nodded.
Dr. Langley stepped in the room, smiling softly, another woman trailing behind her. “Hello, Frances. It’s good to see you again. This is Claire James.”
She was young, sandy-haired, and so reminiscent of Edie that I almost wept at the sight of her. I expected white coats, but they were both wearing pretty summer shirts and jeans. They looked calm and humbly confident in what they were up to. Dr. Langley sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand in hers. Her eyes moved toward the flowers on the nightstand, then back to me.
“What a lovely room you have and what a beautiful day it’s been. Tell me, how’s your memory today?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s a good day.”
“I’m going to ask you a few questions. Just do your best.”
The date, the time, the season. Annie’s last name, the names of my parents. Seven minus two is what. Where are we now. What is about to happen. She nodded and made notes, then laid her paper down.
“Now just because we’re here doesn’t mean we have to continue. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
“So I’ll ask you one final time. Is it your wish to proceed?”
“It is.” Irrevocable. Absolute.
She nodded solemnly. “If you’d like some more private time, Claire and I will step out. If not, we’ll set up there on the table.”
“You can start. Annie can stay, right?”
“Yes, of course. Whatever you need.”
“Can I lie next to her?” Annie asked.
“Whatever is most comfortable for you both,” Claire said.
Annie lay down on top of the covers and held my hand. Claire came to my side of the bed.
“Frances, I’m going to start an IV in your arm, okay?”
I gave Annie’s hand a squeeze. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Claire walked back to the table, then Dr. Langley came and laid out the filled syringes on the nightstand.
“The first drug is a sedative that will send you off into a lovely sleep. The second and third will send you into a much deeper sleep and finally bring your life to an end. You won’t feel any pain. You won’t feel anything at all.” She wrapped her hand around my shoulder. “Frances, I want to thank you for your trust in me, especially today. It was my pleasure to care for you all these years.”
I nodded, then looked at Annie. She was staring at the ceiling, tears running down the side of her face. She turned toward me and tried to smile, a wobbled effort that she gave up on. I tried to speak, to clearly utter the phrases that would be my last, but I couldn’t make my thoughts turn into sound. All those bloody words rattling around in my head for over half a century now suddenly sucked down into the dark and rotting recesses, never to be found again. No words to speak to her one last time, this woman whose uncommon mercy would be known by so few. No way to ask if her memories of me would ever again be coloured by anger and sadness. No words to tell her that I did my best. That I gave to this life what I could. That I was leaving happy. And I wanted to tell her that I remembered the good. All of it. Every minute, every single second locked away in my heart.
Annie held my face in her hands. “I was so afraid of this. So afraid that I couldn’t see you through. But I’m not afraid now. All I am is grateful.” She leaned in and laid her lips on mine and whispered into my mouth. “Thank you, Frances. Thank you for coming home.”
She pressed the side of her face against mine, then slowly pulled back. I held the photo of my parents and my obituary in my right hand, gripped Annie’s hand in my left, and nodded the go-ahead to Dr. Langley.
“I’m about to inject the first medication now.”
Annie rested her hand on my chest. “You go on now, my love. Go in peace.”
Suddenly the room falls away. I hear nothing but the beating of my heart, slow and strong, feel nothing but the weight of Annie’s hand as my chest moves up and down with my last steady breaths. My mind is hushed, a clean white chamber where the squid is bowed in silent surrender. I wrap my fingers loosely around Annie’s wrist and press my fingertips against her pulse as Dr. Langley slowly pushes the plunger on the syringe. I close my eyes and draw in a deep breath, and I am in the sea once again, rolling on the crest of a great wave. And as I feel myself being drawn under, every cell in my brain discharges a final flare, a flash of energy that instantly takes the form of an image—a woman with pale skin and strawberry-blond hair, a blue-and-white watercolour scarf wound loosely about her neck, a small stack of books held between her thin hands. I feel my mouth fall open as the final word breaks the surface. “Georgina.” I exhale and let the tide take me.