— Your uncle’s going to be fine. You don’t need to worry.
— So I hear.
Stan put his arm around Emily’s shoulders. She folded against him and yawned.
— I’ll take you home, said Stan. And you, Pete? Do you need a lift anywhere?
— No, I have a car here. I was going to see my uncle but they said to come back tomorrow.
— He’ll be alright.
Stan told Emily he would be in the truck and he shook Peter’s hand again and left. Emily hung back a moment.
— I have to go, Pete.
— I know.
— It would be nice to see you again soon.
Emily went out and Pete watched her go. Then the woman with the cut on her forehead called out that at some point she was going to need some goddamn assistance. Nobody was listening.
THREE
NOVEMBER TO DECEMBER 1980
The accident on Lake Kissinaw was big news for the remainder of November. There was a police investigation and then a Ministry of Labour inquest. Stan’s and Lee’s names were kept out of the paper but for a few days all you would see were pictures of Bud and his despairing widow. He was not buried. He was cremated and his ashes were spread at a campground he’d gone to every May long weekend for the last ten years.
Lee did not go to the memorial. He’d been very fond of Bud, but the thought of people, almost all of whom would be strangers, standing together, looking at him, whispering his name, knowing that it was he who’d been with Bud at the last moment, was too much to bear. He went up to the poolroom instead, and had a few drinks and shot a few games, and then went home and watched the hockey game on his TV.
By early December, six inches of snow had come to stay. Lee came into the hospital through the visitors’ entrance and went directly into a smoking area encased in glass. He nodded to an old man in a wheelchair who was smoking through a tracheotomy. Lacklustre Christmas garlands hung from the walls. Lee lit a cigarette.
Two hospital volunteers were sitting at a desk near the elevators. They were both old, a woman and a man, she with white-blue hair and he with liver spots on his bald head.
— I’m here to see Irene King, said Lee.
They peered at him. The woman painstakingly consulted a list of patients in a three-ring binder. She said: She’s in room 3B. Amiens Wing.
— I know where she’s at. I’ve been here a few times since she got here.
They gave him a visitor’s pass. He felt them watching after he’d passed by. He hadn’t been in any state of mind to pull together his observations in the short time he’d spent here following Bud’s death, but he felt a revulsion towards the hospital, he suspected because of its institutional nature.
It was in the hospital that he’d been interviewed about the accident by the police and by an investigator from the Ministry of Labour. His parole officer, Wade Larkin, had come for the interviews. It hadn’t taken long to clear Lee of any culpability but that hadn’t left him any more at ease. Clifton was in more trouble, and as his part in the investigation wore on, work had ceased.
Lee took the elevator up to the third floor. Up here were a number of other terminally ill persons. Irene shared her room with an old woman named Mrs. Petrelli, who was dying from pancreatic cancer. She did not speak English and she became talkative only when her son came to visit in the early afternoons. The remainder of the time, she watched the TV in the corner of the room, soap operas or news broadcasts. Irene reported that Mrs. Petrelli had had night terrors on two occasions, had screamed until the nurse came. Mrs. Petrelli’s son said his mother was bombed in Italy as a teenager in the Second World War. Most of her family was killed.
Irene was sitting up in bed wearing a nasal tube, her supper tray on a bed table in front of her. The meal was chicken and peas and it reminded Lee of the meals in prison. He sat down beside her. Under the bed, just at the edge of sight, was a catheter pouch full of urine.
— Did Barry or Donna visit today? said Lee.
— Barry said he would come by.
The television chattered. Mrs. Petrelli moaned.
— You shouldn’t have to share a room, said Lee.
— It’s okay, son. Unless she has her nightmares.
— You should have your own room. Goddammit.
— Lee, now.
He held up his finger.
— Wait, Ma.
Lee went out of the room and found the duty station, where a nurse wearing a cardigan over her scrubs was bent over a clipboard. Lee leaned on the edge of the desk. The nurse asked in a flat voice if she could help him.
— I want my mother to have her own room.
— To whom are you referring, sir?
— Irene King.
— Is there a problem?
— She shares a room with a lady who doesn’t even speak English. My mother is real sick. She should be in a more comfortable way. She shouldn’t have to worry about sharing the TV with nobody or getting woke up in the night.
— I hate to say but it’s not so quick a process. Bed space is always an issue.
— Well, what can you do about that?
— I can recommend a hospice or in-home care.
— Something I’d have to pay for, in other words.
— That’s correct. But I assure you, sir, the comfort of all patients here is very important to us.
— She should have her own room.
— It would be nice if this hospital was twice the size it is, I agree.
Irene had been in the hospital since the last few days of November. Lee had gotten a call from Donna, relayed upstairs through Mr. Yoon. Later he’d heard the whole story from Pete, how Pete had come home late one night from work and found his grandmother on her knees in the bathroom. She was trying to cough quietly. There were bright spots of blood in the sink and in the toilet and on the floor.
Dr. Vijay called it hemoptysis. Some of the cancerous blood vessels had burst in her lungs. The doctor did not think it was necessarily severe, and said it would likely subside on its own. But they needed to discuss a more aggressive treatment, he said. In the meantime, she was to be kept in the hospital.
When Lee went back to the room, he saw that Barry had arrived. Barry had stopped to speak some words with Mrs. Petrelli, standing by her bed and holding one of her skinny hands.
— Si chiamano figlio mio? Egli ha sposato un ebreo.
— God bless you, said Barry, patting her hand.
— Barry, said Lee.
— Hey, Brother Lee.
They went to Irene’s bed. She was looking out the window and her breathing sounded like dirt caught in the gears of a machine. Barry was about to speak but Lee spoke first: We’re looking at getting you your own room, Ma.
— Lee, said Barry.
— That’s what we’re going to do.
— Well, said Barry.
