SHE DID NOT KNOW WHEN SHE DISCOVERED THAT IT WAS TIME TO go. Maybe after her friend Diana died—maybe a long time before then. But when Perley said he was going to come down to save her, she realized she was a burden to everyone who she had ever loved. So she devised a plan—and a very good one.
She had placed the copies of those newspapers that had insulted her integrity for weeks, around her body, to look as if she wasn’t wasting away. She walked back and forth in her cell, or sat on her bunk with her feet size five not quite touching the dirt floor, and looked an average a hundred and ten pounds. And under her loose top and underneath her ballooning pants that still made her look so young:
“Mary Cyr es puta—diabla—asesina” written large.
Pages and pages of “Mudered no sólo los amantes sino su hijo.”
Murdered not only lovers but her son.
Photos of her tossing the gold charm bracelet over Niagara Falls.
And pages of photos of her in chains.
Pictures of her estate in New Brunswick.
Pictures of the farm in Dénia, Spain.
Pictures of her husband and her mother’s lover, Doc Swain, who turned up naked in SCREW magazine.
There were pictures of her sitting on Lord Beaverbrook’s knee, a picture of her half naked walking into the sea.
“Me wa amante—era salvaje y insashabe puta.” EL
I was her lover—she was a wild and crazy bitch. EL
She had placed them around her body, layer by layer, until you got to the picture of little Denise Albert, which was placed next her heart.
They had given her the means with which to say goodbye. The little guard was kind enough to allow her to shower in private, at the resort. So she came and went to the shower with a robe around her body.
Under all of it she was skin and bones, and sores were breaking on her flesh. Sometimes—well, she could be so stubborn it was like arguing with a brick wall. And once she decided something—she did decide!
So there you go, ho de ho ho ho!
Even when she got a secret note from someone close to the prosecutor’s office that told her if she pleaded guilty, she would be back in Canada in eighteen months.
“What is in Canada for me now?” she said. Yes, she sounded spiteful—and she was sorry—for decorum was the thing.
No—she had done what she had done, and she would now go away.
They just did not know it yet.
Debby Dormey’s mother had taught her the secret without ever meeting her once.
For when you do go, you do not have to say goodbye. If you are brave enough, you just have to someday walk away.
Years ago the Miramichi writer who she liked but who she could never read told her that they both were the kind of people who did not belong. He said you couldn’t fight that—ever, for they will not allow us safe passage to the end of the night.
Which meant, and he smiled: “That you and I will leave them—so suddenly that it will take a while for them to catch their breath and realize we are no longer here—”
Every time she closed her eyes, the world got farther and farther away. When she breathed, she was racked with pain.
“Señora, ¿puedes darme algo de dinero?” she heard softly.
Can I have some money?
“Ah, claro. Dame un minuto y lo conseguiré para ti.”
Just give me a minute and I will get it for you.
“¿Nos amas? Mary Cyr.”
Do you love us, Mary Cyr?
“Sí—toto—muchas mas.”
And they would giggle at her accent and her choice of words.
And then they would talk about the love affair going on between two women in the cell at the end of the corridor and say:
“La de da da da.”
She did not know what she handed over—it was almost fifty dollars. The woman looked at her, astonished. She nodded and said:
“I am sorry.”
And her eyes closed slightly. She felt as if she might fall. The day was warm and mucky, and the donkey was lying down.
“¿Estás enferma, mi señora?” the young woman asked.
“No—no—no—” Mary Cyr said. “Toto bien—toto bien—”