Remembering the Bones

  Harry was wearing his thick coat, but he had lost weight and the shoulders and sleeves were too big for him. He held a cane in one hand; I had bought it for him while he was still in hospital. We took the elevator to the third floor and, when his name was called, he surprised me again by asking me to accompany him to the inner office. “To hear the verdict,” he said. That’s what he called it: the verdict.

  When we entered, Labrie was standing by the window and staring out at the hill of snow. He was a man of Harry’s height but younger, in his fifties. Slender hands, reddish-brown hair, a jaw designed to store weariness. I knew the look. I also knew that if Ally were to draw this picture, she would prop a skull and crossbones behind him, on top of the snow. The slope of the snowbank would be shaped like a question mark.

  Labrie’s lips moved in a grimace and I thought of my father, Mr. Holmes. We shook hands and he gestured towards two chairs set close together.

  “I’m here to get a clean bill of health,” Harry said, and sat down. He tried to smile.

  Labrie did not return the smile. The results were on papers spread before him. He was sorry not to have better news. If only one lobe of the liver were affected, he might be able to operate and remove it, he said. In Harry’s case, the entire liver was cancerous. Unable to stop myself, I recited silently, lobus Spigelii. I hadn’t thought of the anatomy of the liver for years, and was astonished at how memory could surprise me when it was least welcome.

  Both lungs were also affected. Harry did not ask to see the chest X-rays, though they were blatantly displayed on the wall cabinet, lit from behind. Instead, as if compelled to act a part in a B movie in which he’d been given a role, he blurted out, “How long do I have?”

  Labrie looked more pained than Harry. “It’s difficult to predict,” he said. “Three months, maybe four. I’m sorry.” He wrote a prescription for pain and handed it across the desk.

  I kept my tears inside. I watched my Harry, the man who had rounded the hood of a car to bring me flowers. I watched my once lean and healthy husband push himself up off the armrests to a standing position. He shoved the prescription deep into his pocket, shifted his weight to the cane and waited until his thinner, weaker self rebalanced. He extended his right hand and wished Labrie the best of the season. He thanked him, and I thought, He’s thanking him for news of his impending death.

  If only social conventions would break down. I’d have preferred to see Harry run amok, shout in anger, throw himself into the snowbank outside. He saved that for later. In Labrie’s office, he bowed slightly and turned to leave. I wanted to hold his hand tightly, never let go, but he needed his hand for the cane. The other, he kept rigid at his side.

  When we reached the elevator, he leaned, straightened, and shuffled. For a moment, I had an alarming flashback to the hotel in Syracuse, when his body weight had collapsed against me. This time, the motion was side to side, a dance, a soft-shoe. More of a rocking motion than a dance, but a soft-shoe nonetheless, performed with the help of his cane.

  He smiled his old smile and I was deceived into thinking the moment would last. I reached for his arm when we were back in the basement, but he pulled away and walked ahead of me, aiming for the car. The legs that had danced on the third floor no longer supported him. This time, they buckled. It happened so quickly, we were both taken by surprise. But instead of falling to concrete, Harry took a short run—counting on momentum—and landed with his upper body slumped over the hood. He lay sprawled there, his head turned in my direction, his cheek resting against cold metal. He was smiling to himself and I knew it was because he hadn’t needed me. He pushed himself up and held me back. With his cane stumping before him, he managed four or five Charlie Chaplin steps and inched along the side of the car. He opened the door and fell into the passenger seat. His entire body was shaking.

  I wish the day had ended there. But Harry wanted his prescription filled, and insisted on stopping at the pharmacy.

  “Let me drop you off at home first,” I said. “It won’t take me a moment to come back down the hill.”

  But it had to be done that minute. He barked, “Pull over, park here, stop, oh stop the damned car. Go and get the pills and tell them to hurry up.”

  I had to talk to myself to control my fury. He has a right to be angry, Georgie. Twenty minutes ago he was advised that the medical world has run out of solutions. You’d be angry, too.

  He glared through the windshield when I returned with his pills.

  Compassion, I told myself. Exercise restraint. Harry is going to die. This is not a contest of wills.

  When I started the car again, he shouted, “Where do you think you’re going? Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “Turn left, dammit, it’s faster this way.”

  “I always go home this way.”

  His voice broke. “Why are you doing this to me?” And then he gave up. “Drive any way you want. I don’t have the strength to fight you.”

  To fight me.

  I kept hearing, Why are you doing this to me? The words had come out as a sob. It was the capitulation that frightened me. Even though he was fighting himself, the capitulation let me know that we were locked in. The two of us cried, silently, all the way up the hill. When we reached home, Harry went upstairs.

  That was the way things were after our visit to Dr. Labrie. Each of us entrenched in separate miseries.

  THIRTY-NINE

  ZYX and WV

  UTS and RQP

  ONM and LKJ

  IHG, FED and

  C—B—A

  Oh, there’s no reprieve from living inside your own head. The alphabet sung backwards—of what use? Miss Grinfeld was obsessed with having us learn from every direction: forward, backwards, rote and rhythm. She placed the words of old poets in our young minds. Did she do transplants when we weren’t looking?

  But thank heavens for living inside the mind. Living inside a broken body gives little joy.

  See how the branches droop above me. This is not easy to explain. The last time I looked, they were reaching for the sun. Was that when I first landed? When I first fell?

  The fall of Georgie.

  I feel silly, light-headed. My head has a hard ache. A bell rings in the distance. I don’t remember which day I left. Only that I’m to present myself at the palace on Wednesday. Oh, the grand staircase, which I shall never see. And I won’t be wearing Lizzie’s pearls; the case is out of sight, stuffed into a pocket of my purse.

  Perhaps the bell tolls because I’m being mourned. Perhaps I’ve been missed and no one knows where to find me.

  Leave them alone and they will come home, dragging their tails behind them.

  One thing is certain: I am not lying in wait for the Grim Reaper. See how far I’ve come!

  Be steadfast, Georgie.

  Is that you, Grand Dan? I heard your voice again.

  Have hope, courage. Push dig shove. Suck the buttons on the cardigan, even though there’s no moisture left. Think of redemption, beauty, belief.

  In Geneva, I stood in a museum that held Monet, Van Gogh, Cèzanne and Renoir, all in a single room. I didn’t know which way to turn. I swelled and then shrank before them, and lamented that Ally was not beside me to see such beauty.

  My jaw is stiff from talking to myself. My eyes are dry. They feel as if tiny logs are stuck inside them.

  I need to get angry again. I need to make a hit list to pass the time until my rescuers arrive. Close to the top would be Harry, after our doomsday trip to Labrie. When we returned home, he went to the spare room, where sun poured in the rest of the afternoon, and he sat on the bed that had been made up for visitors. With his back to the wall, he began to read magazines, newspapers, whatever was at hand. When he came out of the room, I was aware of his fragility. I tiptoed around, afraid he would break, like an egg. He slept in our bed at night and I lay beside him with my gut clenched. When I got up in the morning, my gut was still clenched. I went for a long walk and kept to th
e edge of the hill because snow was piled high and the roadway had narrowed to a single lane. I didn’t care if I slipped; I needed to get out of the house. As I walked, I thought about what had gone wrong between us. Harry had dug in, and he had dug in alone.

  For days, he ignored me and stared out the window. He sat at the table for meals, but scarcely ate. He was in pain but could not trade the pain for words. He talked about it only once, and told me it reminded him of the flames in the clock. My memory darted and probed before I recalled the dream he had related in what now seemed another lifetime. Some mornings, I stood in the shower and cried without restraint. We could not move towards each other. Harry would not allow it.

  Case gave me strength. Did I thank my daughter? She was part of this, too. She and Rice came up the hill as often as they could, even knowing how strained things were. They helped me to prepare for Christmas, and I was able to turn my energy away from Harry. Gordo was arriving from New Brunswick on Christmas Eve. Verna and “Ourman” were expected the same day. They wanted to spent Christmas with Harry. None of us referred to it as “Harry’s last.”

  Determined to brighten the house, we placed red in every room. Case sat across from me and threaded cranberries. I thought of the kind of child she’d been, making sets, creating displays, always a flair for the bold and dramatic. We tied ribbons above doorways, ironed felt runners and stretched them over tabletops. Case dragged in branches of green, the way she used to drag in her “forests” for backdrops. I wanted to ask if she had said everything she had to say to her father, but I didn’t. I knew that she had already received from him what Ally and I had never had from Mr. Holmes. Outside, snow was heaped higher than the windowsills. Harry became thinner as we decorated, but he was glad Case was there. He sat and watched and was cheered by the transformation of the house.

  The day before Christmas, Verna walked into the house carrying a green basket made from paper and filled with crafts she and Arman had made during the fall. Inside were spray-painted pine cones, red-and-white striped rocks, lean, gritty-looking Santas painted red and carved to be bottle openers—Arman had done the carving beside the wood stove in his kitchen. He had retired as a travelling salesman, and had become Verna’s business partner. I envied their closeness.

  Verna had woven the basket from strips of grocery-bag paper and green crêpe, and she set it—now emptied of crafts—under the tree. She must have seen the look on my face because her voice drawled, “It’s for your bathroom, George. For later. To hold extra rolls of toilet paper.” Arman stood behind her and nodded, approving.

  Gordo had driven for two days, negotiating heavy snowstorms all the way from New Brunswick. This dismayed me because of his age, but he did not wish to fly, he told me; flying upset his stomach. As if remembering other flights, he pulled a TUMS from his pocket and popped it into his mouth.

  Harry was immensely cheered. He had his family around him. And I, too, was cheered.

  On Christmas morning, Case and Rice had not yet driven up the hill. They were to pick up Phil and her companion, Tall Ronnie, from the Haven and bring them to the house at noon. Because the inmates received so much attention, Phil had actually begun to enjoy Christmas mornings at the Haven. An Anglican service was held; gifts were given; carollers sang on each floor; musicians serenaded. Rice had done his part and had given a concert there the previous week, which Case and I had attended.

  Harry and I got up out of bed and went downstairs. I made the coffee. Gordo appeared next, and the three of us sat in the living room with mugs in hand. Outside, the wind shrieked and tugged at the shingles on the roof. We were inside; we were warm and together. Not safe, but together.

  Verna and Arman came down to the living room in their bathrobes, wished everyone Merry Christmas and put a record on the old stereo, which was still in working order. They began to waltz to “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” and after that, “Adeste Fideles.” Harry and I sat on the chesterfield and watched. It was the closest we’d been in weeks, despite the fact that we shared the same bed. I moved into his side, and the warmth of his body darted through me like a quick, sad memory.

  At the end of “Adeste Fideles” and as if by prior agreement, Arman left Verna standing and went to sit in his favourite chair. Verna leafed through a stack of LPs, chose a record and walked over to the chesterfield. She tugged Harry to his feet. The two, brother and sister, separated for more than half a century and having found each other late in their lives, stood quietly until the music began, his hand on her waist, her hand on his shoulder.

  At the first chords, they began to shuffle in time to “Abide with me,” Harry’s favourite hymn. It was Verna’s gift to her little brother. His eyes were bright, almost feverish; his cheeks were hollow, his neck thin, his shoulders slouched. He was taller than Verna, and half her size. He limped while he danced.

  Three months later, he was dead.

  FORTY

  Why didn’t I rant and roar and rage at Harry?

  Because of what we once had. I tried to preserve that, like a lone ember in a cold fire. And we did have something.

  Harry died on the third floor of the hospital in the Danforth Wing. The naming of the wing was an honour belatedly bestowed on my grandfather, now recognized as one of Wilna Creek’s pioneers in medicine.

  What were Harry’s last words? Case never asked—the way Ally and I had once asked Phil about Mr. Holmes. The truth is, I don’t know if Harry spoke at all, to the nurses or to himself. Because I was not in the room when he died.

  Just before one in the morning he appeared to be sleeping, and I went downstairs to stand outside the main entrance, to gulp in fresh air. It was March, early spring. I was desperate to be free of partitions and walls and the odour of Dettol. A strong wind had been blowing during the day, but had settled into a softer breeze. I wore no coat—only my Austrian cardigan. I stood in shelter of the low overhang outside, and hugged my arms to myself. I looked towards Emergency, the part of the hospital most brightly lit, and watched an ambulance pull up quietly, no fanfare, no patient to wheel inside. Two young men got out and I recognized them as the two who had responded to my call when Harry was admitted for surgery several months earlier. They entered Emergency by the same entrance through which he had also been wheeled on a stretcher in 1947, shortly after our polio honeymoon.

  I leaned against the brick building. The town was quiet, the sky unusually clear. The stars seemed smaller somehow, as if they had shrunk inside their own shapes. There was still snow on the ground but it was spring snow. I had noticed signs of melting during the day. Honeycombed snowbanks were steadily receding; thick icicles dripped from the eaves and left puddles that turned to black ice at night. I wondered how long this would go on. There was no name for “this.” It could not be called waiting. I was not waiting for Harry to die. There seemed nothing else to do but to come to the hospital every day and be with him.

  As it turned out, I was in the elevator on my way back up to the third floor when Harry took his last breath. The time of his death was recorded as 1:25 a.m. A night nurse was standing in the hall and saw me step off the elevator. “I need to talk to you,” she said, but she would not say why. She led me to Harry’s room and put her hand on my shoulder and told me that my husband was gone. She did not say the word dead.

  I don’t know if he spoke before he died, but I clearly recall every gesture of our final conversation, two hours earlier. I’ve never told anyone about this. There had been no Cheyne-Stokes breathing, no death rattle, no farewell, no romantic declaration like that of my grandfather ‘who had passed on the message, “Tell my Danny she’ll always be the love of my life,” before he exploded.

  I had gone home for a shower and a change of clothes, and returned to hospital around eleven in the evening. When I walked back into Harry’s room he must have heard my footsteps, because he turned his head to face the doorway. I could hear a distant voice, my own, inquire, “How are you?” as I entered. It was the polite inquiry of a stranger.
A stranger who did not want to hear the reply.

  Harry stared. He was propped against four pillows and he was so wasted, so unlike the man I’d once known, I had a sudden impulse to run to the bed to check his wristband to see if this gaunt figure truly was my husband.

  He raised his arms, opened his palms and let his hands drop back to the sheets. He had no energy to reply. He looked out the window, to punish me, and his expression said: Can’t you see that I’m dying? Do I have to spell it out?

  When I think about that moment, I am confronted by the question I asked that was not worthy of response. Harry was offended. He was angry throughout his entire illness. He was angry until the day he died.

  I did not pose the right question.

  What was the right question? What did I want to say?

  I wanted to put my hand to his cheek and say things great and small. I wanted to say, “Remember our good days, Harry? The months and years of good days, before your illness, before the pain?” I wanted to say, “Isn’t it remarkable that two separate lives, our lives, managed to become one life.”

  It was too late. To say such things would have been an outrage. Harry was going about the business of dying and he had gathered himself fiercely. Fierce was something I understood. I also understood that I was more alone than I had ever been. And Harry, too, was alone.

  I had given up my anger. But was it also necessary to give up my love?

  FORTY-ONE

  After Harry was cremated, Verna told me what it had been like for her when her second husband died. She was in a confessional mood and we were alone in my kitchen. It was midnight and we had taken off our funeral clothes and were wearing dressing gowns. Arman was upstairs in bed, and so was Gordo. Harry’s older siblings had survived him. Ally and Trick had flown in from Florida and were staying with Trick’s relatives in town. Case and Rice had driven Phil and Tall Ronnie back to the Haven after the funeral. Tall Ronnie had loomed over Phil, and I saw how dependent she had become on his friendship. I watched him stoop over her as she held his arm and walked to the car. They leaned to each other as if they’d been partners throughout their entire, very long lives.