Few Kinds of Wrong (22 page)

She nods and takes the money. “Where were you?”

“I was sick.”

“Your mother seemed mad at you.” Henrietta stands up and pulls on her raincoat. “You know she'd never say nothing, but she seemed mad.”

“Yeah.” I look over at Nan. “How is she?”

“Moaning sometimes. Nurses got to give her some meds around seven. Make sure they don't forget. Sometimes they gets busy at the end of a shift when they have reports. I knows that from when Chuck's mom was in here. We don't want Mom to wake up too much.” She turns to Nan. “She gets scared.”

“Okay.” I wonder if she's changed her
mind about letting Nan go.

“Make sure, now.”

“Yes, I will. Seven. Meds. I got it.”

Henrietta picks up her purse and walks over to Nan. She kisses her forehead and whispers, “I love you.” There is such genuine love in that kiss, I feel drawn into it and when Henrietta stands up, I find myself hugging her. I don't remember ever hugging Henrietta. She stiffens, pats my back, and pulls away.

“What's that for?” Henrietta says and pats my arm. “I'm not the one dying, you know?”

“No, but you're the one here. And you always are. Whenever we need you for anything, you're there. Much as …” I stop myself.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just thank you. Now, go home and see Sarah. And I'll see you later.”

Once Henrietta leaves I sit in the chair next to Nan's bed. We're lucky to have an empty bed in the room but I won't lie there. If I get too comfortable, I might miss something. Might not be there when Nan needs me. So I sit in a chair instead and stare at Nan.

Her lips are dry and cracked. Even when she is asleep, she licks them, searching for a moistness not there. It's been hours since she's swallowed anything. She is dying of thirst and hunger and we are watching, sitting on our hands and clenching our jaws. I wipe lemon glycerine cotton swabs on her lips, hoping the small amount of moisture will relieve the aridness of her body.

Nan's breathing is rhythmic and the darkness in the room, broken only by the crack of light coming from outside the almost closed door, lulls me. I pull a thermal blanket up over me and rest my feet against the metal side of Nan's bed.

In what seems like two seconds, I wake to loud groaning. Nan is awake and staring at me with the eyes of a wild, caged animal. Every time she opens her mouth, her dry, cracked lips split a little more and she cries louder. I run out into the hall screaming for a nurse. One comes out of the nursing station and runs to me.

“Did she get her meds?” the nurse asks me in the room. She is tall and thin, wearing thick glasses and a concerned look.

I look at my watch: 8:15. “I don't think so. She was supposed to get them at seven. I was asleep.”

“I'll check,” she says, leaving the room.

Nan is moaning and scared, her head moving around like she's trying to escape something. I touch her white hair, smoothing it. To my surprise, it seems to settle her. Here she is. Nan. Starving, thirsting, dry, brittle, scared, immobile, but all I see is her white hair and those bright blue eyes I thought I'd never see again. She could have been medicated asleep until she dies but now I have them here, these brilliant eyes somehow shining with moisture, staring at me, barely blinking. There is no longer fear in them. There is a serenity about her as I continue to stroke her hair and I hum. It's not a song really, at least nothing I recognize. Just a peaceful, humming melody, a kind of lullaby.

The nurse appears after a few minutes and does not speak as she sets about placing the needle in the little shunt in Nan's hand, where an IV would be attached if her will had expressed her choice to live.

“She won't be awake very long once I put this in,” the nurse whispers.

I nod. I don't take my eyes off Nan.

“That's okay, Nan,” I say softly. “I love you. I love you so much, you know?” I get a blink in return. But I have said it and as the nurse leaves, as Nan drifts away from me again, as those blue eyes close, the sky leaving me again, I'm grateful that I got these few peaceful moments with her. That I got to say those three important words to her. I know with all my heart how much I'd regret it if I never got to say them.

Even though Nan is sound asleep, I continue to smooth her hair and hum, hoping that even in her sleep, she can feel how much she means to me.

It's just after ten when a man wearing a clerical white collar knocks on the half-open door of Nan's room, smiles and says hello.“ hello.

“ Mrs. Collins?” He points to Nan.

“Yes.”

“And you are?”

“Her granddaughter. Jennifer.” My hand goes out and he shakes it.

“I'm Father Carl March. You can call me Carl, though, if you like.”

“Okay.”

I notice a yellow stain on his blue, wrinkled shirt — sleeves rolled up, exposing the gorilla-hair on his arms. I wonder if he has to comb that hair. His muted brown eyes are under heavy lids. His hair, a little curly, is receding and is kept short. A tiny nose centres his face.

“I'm the Anglican chaplain here and I just came by for a visit. Your grandmother is listed as Anglican.”

“That's what we wrote on her forms.”

Nan stopped going to church the day after Pop's funeral. She still believed in God and some form of heaven, but she said that she stopped talking with Him.

“I knows He's there and all, I just got nothing to say to Him anymore,” Nan said once to Henrietta, who insisted someone as old as Nan should hedge her bets and go to church, just to make sure God knew where she was.

“Oh, my dear, don't you worry, He knows where I'm at. Don't need no church or no priest for that,” Nan argued.

Carl smiles. “I'm just here to see if anyone needs anything. Perhaps offer a prayer.”

“I think it may be a little late for that. She's going to die.”

“And you?”

A glib answer like
I don't think I'm dying
comes to mind but I don't say it.

“I'm okay.” I look at my feet. “Well, at least as good as can be expected.”

“It can be hard to watch a loved one die.” His voice is soft and soothing.

Is that voice something that makes you choose to sit with dying people and their families or is it something you learn? “I don't know. This seems necessary.” I sigh. “Makes it easier than … something quick, with no time for goodbye.” My stupid voice breaks.

He bends his head down to meet my eyes. “You know, my ears are for anyone. You can see they're made to listen.”

I look at his ears and notice how large they are. They almost stand straight off, as if he'd bent them forward enough times that they stayed that way. And I laugh out loud, cover my mouth in embarrassment and laugh again, joined by him, until my laughter suddenly becomes tears.

He sits there. Not speaking. Not touching. As I cry for long minutes.

Finally I get to the point where I can talk and I say, “This isn't just about Nan, you know?” I don't know why I need him to understand that.

“No?”

“No. She's sick and she didn't want to be kept alive if she was sick. It's right. It's ugly and horrible but it's right. And I got to say goodbye. And even ‘I love you.'”

“We don't always get to say goodbye, do we?”

I shake my head, the new lump in my throat blocking my words.

“Who missed your goodbye?” Not, Who did you not get to say goodbye to? Different question somehow. “And your ‘I love you.'”

“My dad,” I whisper. “Her son.” I point to Nan. “I thought I'd get to say I love you to him eventually. Even though we never said it, I always felt it. But now, I'm not even sure how I feel about him.”

“Sometimes we feel mad when someone we love leaves us, especially if we don't get
to say goodbye.”

“I feel mad at him but not because of that. Because he lied to me.”

The man is just sitting there nodding, not dragging stuff out with “and how does that make you feel?” Yet I want to keep talking to him.

“Sounds like you're going through a lot.”

“Really? Just because my dad died and my nan is dying and I'm getting a divorce and my mother is sleeping with my father's best friend and I just found out the person I've felt betrayed by all these years didn't betray me but my father did?” Saying it all seems overwhelming yet makes me feel lighter.

“Oh, well, if that's all there is.” He shrugs. “No big deal.”

“You're going to break into some psychological mumbo jumbo now, aren't you?”

“No. But I could, if you want, give you the name of a grief counsellor here.”

“No.” I look around the room, everywhere but at him. “I don't like the mumbo jumbo.”

“Mumbo jumbo is not really my thing. I'm more about listening. And praying.”

“I prayed when my dad had a heart attack. I prayed for him to live but it didn't work.”

“Maybe you prayed for the wrong thing.”

I shoot him a glare.

“If God answered all the prayers for people to live, no one would die. Sometimes we need to ask for His help in getting through a very difficult and painful time. Did you ask for that?”

“No.”

“Would you like to do that now?”

“No.”

“Okay. Would you like me to pray for your grandmother?” I shrug. “I guess so.”

He stands up and I follow. We stand over her bed. Carl bends his head down and closes his eyes. I keep my eyes open, looking from him to Nan and back.

“Dear Lord, please help your servant, Laura Collins, and welcome her to your kingdom when she gets there. Ease her suffering and allow her to see the light. And please do the same for her family as they grieve her loss and continue to deal with other losses. Grant them the peace that only you can give and allow them to feel your love through their pain. Amen.”

“Amen,” I say.

But he's not finished. He takes a small vial with a ring on it from his pocket. He uses the oil from the vial and makes a cross on Nan's head. This anointing and the words he is saying, the whole scene, makes me turn my head away. Suddenly his soft voice blessing her and asking the Lord in his love and mercy to uphold her by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit makes this more real than anything the doctor has said to us, even more real than my words when I told Carl that Nan was dying. Nan is dying. Not in the abstract, not in just words. I am here in a hospital and a priest is anointing her. As Carl says the Lord's Prayer, I join in, barely whispering the words my voice is not strong enough to say out loud.

I sit down and whisper, “Amen.”

“You okay?” Carl asks.

I shake my head. “Not okay. Not sure what word I'd use.”

“I hoped that might help give you some peace as well.”

“No. The only thing that gives me peace about this, that I try to keep in my mind, is the garden.”

I look at him and the question on his face.

“Nan says that when she dies, she's going to see the most beautiful garden ever in heaven. She even calls dying going to the garden.”

Carl sits down in a high-backed, blue chair and smiles a broad, beaming smile. “That's a wonderful image.”

“Do you think it's true?”

He shrugs. “I think there's light and love in the afterlife, so why not flowers?”

“Dad probably got a 73 Challenger that needed a lot of work when he got to heaven.”

“Well, I'll let you in on a little secret,” Carl says, leaning forward. “I'd rather the car than the flowers. I have an 84 Camaro and she's my baby.”

I laugh. And it's real and free. It is a laugh. I picture Dad at his car and Nan in a garden and I laugh some more.

“I haven't laughed in a long time. Seems wrong to do it now.”

“Why?”

I point to Nan.

“She doesn't like laughing?” Carl asks.

“Loves it,” I whisper. “If she's here now, with us, if she understands anything, she's enjoying the laughter.”

“Then that must be a good thing.” Carl is grinning.

“She loved a game of poker too. And cigars. Well, those Old Port, wine-tipped ones. I remember she'd save the tips for me when I was little and I'd hold them in my mouth, acting like I smoked, tasting the wine flavour and the tobacco. Back then that seemed cute. Back when you could still get candy cigarettes and they weren't called candy sticks.”

I look at Nan, sleeping peacefully, looking so unlike the woman I'm remembering. I want Carl to see her too, to know her as something other than this sick, dying person in the bed.

“She rode a motorcycle once and she loved soap operas, especially the guys, especially if they had their shirts off.” I giggle. “She called their muscled abs a sex pack no matter how many times Aunt Henrietta corrected her.”

“She must have been very proud of you.” Carl smiles but his eyes are full of a sad empathy.

“In some ways. She hated that I worked as a mechanic. She thought I should have kids, especially when I got married.”

“And did you consider them?”

“I guess you consider anything before you dismiss it.”

He nods.

“Guess I was always afraid I wouldn't be good at it. I can fix machines but a kid is something else. And now I think maybe I might be like Mom, and if I had a kid I would feel…”

He waits a while before he speaks. “Feel what?”

“I don't know.” I look him straight in the eyes. “I really don't know how I made her feel.” My eyes searched the floor. “You're easy to talk with. You're not like a priest.”

Carl laughs and the guffaws echo around the room. “I don't know if that's a compliment or not. If it's any consolation, you don't seem much like a mechanic.”

“No, I guess not.”

“Do you want to talk about what your mom felt?”