“You are not giving that man any credit for the months he walked ’bout this Toronto, last summer knocking on doors asking for a job. A man does get very tired begging. Boysie ain’t no different. Christ, Dots, is it any wonder then that Boysie gone mad? Or that he gone now walking behind white woman?”
“Do you love Boysie better than you love me?” And Dots got up and went across the room to where Bernice was sitting, and she embraced her and kissed her squarely on her mouth. Bernice returned the embrace, the feeling, the affection and the kiss. And three hours later, when they were dressing, after having eaten two of Mrs. Burrmann’s largest porterhouse steaks, and having drunk a quarter of a twenty-six-ounce bottle of Haig & Haig Pinch, Bernice promised to think over what Dots had suggested about their living together in a house or an apartment. She asked Dots to go to the hospital with her, on Thursday, to bring Estelle home. Dots agreed and promised to meet her on Thursday afternoon at the corner of Yonge and College streets, in the Honeydew restaurant there.
“You have to leave Mistress Burrmann. Come and live with me.”
“I am going to think about it, Dots.”
“Think about it. But decide to do it.”
“I promise.”
“You don’t have to tell him, Mr. Burrmann, that you’re leaving. I suggest you leave sudden.”
“He was in the house yesterday morning. I had my door locked.” And they laughed, heartily, and Bernice said, still laughing, “If he ever come smelling round me, because he think I am alone in this unprotected house, be-Christ, I put you on him!” And Dots laughed again, and before her gaiety subsided, she was embracing Bernice in a close personal hug. They both felt very good about it. When Dots got ready to leave, Bernice, anticipating her loneliness and fear in this large house, where she would have to spend the night alone, held Dots’s hand and said, “I am going to write you a letter, tonight, darling.”
“Be careful, though.”
“I know.”
“No name, you hear?”
“No. Just my initials.”
“Not even that. Boysie know you name,” she reminded her. “He bound to know your initials.”
“Not my handwriting, though.”
“No, he don’t know that.”
“Well, I won’t sign my name.”
“Good.”
“Okay.”
“Goodbye, darling.”
“Get home safe, honey.”
“ ’Bye, sugar.”
“ ’Bye, sweets.”
“I want you to have these,” Estelle told the beautiful blonde woman. The young woman smiled effusively; took the bouquet of red roses (the third bunch which Sam Burrmann had sent to the hospital), together with the vase, and she put it on her bedside table. “Get better soon, hear?” The young woman smiled again. Estelle and this young woman had spent the long previous evening the same way she had spent the nights when Mrs. Macmillan was there. The young woman had the bed on the other side of Estelle from the one Mrs. Macmillan had occupied, and she and Estelle quickly made friends during the long lonely afternoon following Mrs. Macmillan’s departure. They watched the evening until it became dawn, and they did something new. They listened thirstily to CHUM radio station, and in that short time, learned and hummed all the tunes of the Top Ten tunes. But they did not talk about personal things; they did not become as close as Estelle and Mrs. Macmillan. This young woman talked mainly of the number of “guys who laid” her; and Estelle laughed, and listened hungrily to her frank way of saying things. She had more guts than Estelle, and Estelle liked her for that. Now she was leaving, and she would miss her. Still, Estelle knew that the moment she crossed the threshold of this ward, she would have to forget this young blonde woman.
“Take care of yourself, Ess,” the young woman said, and smiled. “Next time, make sure he got a ring in his hand, or a rubber on his prick!”
“I will.” Estelle blushed.
“Come and see me before I go.”
“I will.”
“Now, don’t forget to come and visit me.”
“I won’t.”
When the porter wheeled Estelle out, past Priscilla fuming about something, or somebody, and into the waiting elevator which was being held especially for her, Estelle sighed, and promised never to come back. Perhaps the young woman knew this. Once she had said, “Hospitals, Ess, are like morgues. I wouldn’t even come to visit my mother, if she was dying.” Estelle knew she wasn’t ever coming back to Ward 6A. Just as the door was about to close, Nurse Priscilla shouted for the porter to come to her desk. “Give that to her!” she said. It was a letter with Estelle’s name on it. And because of the urgency or the lateness of its delivery, Estelle felt she could not read it on the elevator going down with the orderly standing over her. It could not be an important letter, she surmised, else it would have been delivered before, even before she received her prescriptions and her appointments with her doctor. Her doctor was as scarce as Sam Burrmann. The taxi was waiting. She got into it, settled herself in the back seat, said, “Praise God!” and told the driver, “Union Station, please.”
The shortest way from the hospital to Union Station is straight south on University Avenue, turn left, and you’re there.
