VALENTINES WEEK 2026
Runner-up
BY KRISTA JANE MAY
First published in The Antigonish Review, Issue 195. Copyright is held by the author.
WHEN HAMISH had his heart attack, Alena was upstairs, stomping on his pillow. The medley of stumbling thumps and satisfying thuds as she attempted to grind the thick feathered mass into the floorboards — mixed with the sound of her own wounded snuffling — meant that she didn’t immediately hear his persistent, muffled call. And then — the way you gradually tune in to a dripping sound and all at once are aware that water has probably for some time been leaking nearby, the accumulating damage awaiting your discovery — she suddenly understood that something terrible was happening downstairs.
“Len . . . Len . . . Len-o . . .”
She could hear the distress in his distant voice, an uncharacteristic urgent and rhythmic plea, as she maneuvered around half-unpacked mover’s boxes and randomly deposited furniture, down the bending stairway and through seemingly unending corridors of the still unfamiliar old house. And when finally she found him in the unenclosed back porch, he was flat on his back on the grubby plank floor, looking not so much panicked as bewildered by some unanticipated and unwelcome intrusion.
“Len. Leni. I think . . . I think maybe I know what it feels like to be having a heart attack.”
She shouldn’t have expected any different of Hamish, his words spoken with effort, yes, but also with an unmistakable touch of amusement — his way, no doubt, of trying to diminish the seriousness of the situation; to keep things manageable. If a heart was bent on murdering its owner, the one that pummeled inside her own chest seemed a more likely culprit, colluding mercilessly with breath-filching lungs and mind-drowning brain. She fought the malevolent trio in a concentrated effort to sustain her own consciousness.
“Oh, Hamish . . . I’ll — I’ll just run inside and call an amb —”
“No! No, Len. No ambulance.”
“But you need a doc —”
“No, Leni. You know how I feel about that. Just . . . just stay here with me.”
So stubborn was Hamish that alone he had hauled the massive oak desk up the second part of the staircase and pushed it down the hall to the study after Alena, exhausted, had collapsed on the landing, her insubstantial muscles refusing to persevere. Useless. He really had called her that, though the burly moving company men had been jovially let off the hook before noon. And she had fled — shattered in so many ways — to the refuge of the front bedroom to unpack, make up the bed and let loose her festering fury.
While Hamish, apparently, had carried on downstairs and outside, to pull from the ground —bare-handed — an overgrown shrub that was all but blocking the narrow driveway. And yet —even considering the resistance of the doomed shrub, the massive weight of the antique desk and the kind of stress involved in a monumental, cross country relocation such as theirs — this should not be happening to a strong and lean man like Hamish. He did not in the least possess the qualifications required.
Neither did Alena. But it was happening, and she was expected only to stifle tears and throttle her own shaking while he lay, groaning yet disturbingly cheerful as his heart’s relentless spasms grew more intense. Even during this crisis — with Hamish in peril on the floor — Alena owned no control; the situation would unfold under Hamish’s direction. Washed as she was in her own terror, she would do as asked and try to hold off imagining what might be left after this was all over.
The phone — only a few paces away — was rendered irrelevant due to a long ago promise. She would have promised him anything back then, in those glowing early days of anticipation, but of course their vision hadn’t indicated this future scenario. Yet here they now were, in a strange town in a strange province in the crispness of autumn on a strange verandah floor. She must, at least, run upstairs for a blanket and pillow (she’d never promised not to try to make him comfortable) and hope he would not die in the one or two minutes that it would take. Glancing mournfully at the quarantined telephone relaxing on the kitchen counter as she hurried by, she flew up the stairs and then stumbled back down clutching her own pristine pillow and a mound of trailing unsheathed duvet, knocking objects askew in her wake. When she returned to the porch, he wasn’t there.
For just a moment, she could hope that he’d changed his mind and had somehow made for their small truck. It was, after all, thoughts of the inevitable sirens and fanfare involved in a medical emergency that so made Hamish cringe; he couldn’t abide fuss. But a glance towards the adjacent parking pad revealed nothing of Hamish, just the vengeful half-pulled shrub still blocking the truck’s passenger side door. A quick survey of the back yard and she found him, again on his back, this time under a tree.
Alena tried not to cry, for he’d already admonished her for that, but what the hell was he doing out in the back yard lying beneath a tree? How had he even managed it? For the second time she made the dreadful approach, worse now because he was silent. No, please no. But when she sank down to the cold ground beside him, duvet and pillow spilling into the fallen leaves, he spoke.
“I thought this would be better.”
“Oh, Hamish, what are you doing out here? You shouldn’t have moved!”
“It seems nicer somehow, don’t you think?”
“I think you should let me call an ambulance. Please Hamish. Please.”
“No. Absolutely not, Leni. You know I can’t die in a hospital. You know that.”
Yes, Alena knew that. The promise had vaguely haunted her ever since the first night they’d spent together as a couple and Hamish — so fit and alive and, finally, hers! — had asked her, very earnestly, if she’d be willing to one day carry out his final wish. That when he (fourteen years her senior) got to the stage where age or illness confirmed life’s end as near, she would drive him to the foothills of the Alberta Rockies and let him go — to wander, alone, into the wilderness, to die peacefully in the stomping grounds of his robust youth. The idea had intrigued her then. They had each recently watched helplessly as a close friend gradually and painfully slipped away, the end coming in both cases in the cold impersonal atmosphere of artificial hospital light. And she, wide eyed with early love, had solemnly pledged she would carry out his request, though she was acutely aware of her limitations and secretly doubted she’d be capable of one day fulfilling such a grandiose vow. But what was happening now was a completely different set of circumstances, of a sort that hadn’t been contemplated during that long ago passion-fueled scheme. Those foothills being no longer a day’s drive away was beside the point — Hamish was in no condition to stand, never mind wander. And yet, he could still live if he’d just be reasonable
.
“This is a nice spot, don’t you think, Leni? A good spot to die, here under this tree.”
“I don’t want you to die, Hamish. Please let me call.”
“You told me something once, do you remember, Len? You told me that your grandfather died under a plum tree in his own backyard, and you thought that was a really nice way to go. That porch, though . . . that didn’t seem so nice.”
“But Hamish, my grandfather was an old man. He’d lived a good life, a long life, and he’d been missing my grandmother for years. You’re not done yet. Please, Hamish… we’re not done yet!”
Hamish had never tolerated messy displays of emotion, and Alena was struggling to achieve the sort of composure he required. But surely they hadn’t driven six thousand kilometres for him to expire under this leafless stick of a tree flanked by a mangled chain link fence running along a litter-strewn incline that marked the border shared with a shabby post office parking lot. There was a magnificent ancient oak tree right in the middle of their yard, the only worthy tree, really, but typical Hamish — even in this state — had picked a spot that would hide them from any inquisitive passers-by.
Alena gently burrowed the pillow under his head, covered him with the leaf encrusted duvet. He was in obvious pain, his face grey, skin clammy, but his gaze was still determined and she surrendered, settled beside him. The occasional sounds of people coming and going in the parking lot above their heads — just metres away — made her want to weep for the futility of it. Like a survivor in a lifeboat with no means of sending an SOS as ships and planes cruised obliviously by, she took Hamish’s nearest hand in hers, and together they lay and waited for him to die.
“Len-o. Len, did I ever tell you how much I love your feet?”
“What?”
“Your feet, Leni. They’re beautiful . . . elegant. I’ve always admired your feet. You need to know that.”
Oh God. How am I going to do this? Blinking tears, she tried not to let her mind stray to the upstairs bedroom where his battered pillow lay, its fluffy innards strewn beside the bed they’d never sleep on in this once dreamed-of historic Nova Scotia home, a home still awaiting their pledged devotion. He would die unknowing, but she would live with the memory of his last day forever tainted by her unforgivable childish act.
She thought instead of the tiny copper teacup she’d unpacked that morning, one of her greatest treasures. Hamish had secretly crafted it, a beautiful hammered piece complete with saucer and miniature spoon and had presented it to her one ordinary day, his compensation for persuading her to get rid of her china teacup collection.
“It’s old lady stuff, Len,” he’d said of the teacups, “it’s not how I picture you.”
She’d been overwhelmed by the gesture, having long gotten over his prettily-wrapped insult. But now she remembered that she hadn’t disposed of the china teacups after all, she’d covertly packed them up and hidden them away. Those condemned cups and saucers had made the trip, unbeknownst to Hamish, riding in padded comfort — coast to coast — in the company of other secretly horded trinkets and now they lurked triumphantly, somewhere nearby. While the deserved acknowledgement of the beauty Hamish created would never more be his, the uncompleted and unrealised accomplishments slipping away with his masterful hands. What a fraud she’d been. She would smash the china teacups if only he’d live. She would smash them after he died.
Unable now to suppress tears that came with her every unwanted thought, with Hamish’s every painful gasp of breath, it was now a matter of hiding her face from him, muffling sobs as the air grew cooler, shadows lengthened. The sun wouldn’t linger. How much longer, she wondered, until she alone would feel the cold.
Somewhere in her blurry periphery, a moving shape materialised where the unfenced far end of the yard opened onto a quiet back lane. Sitting up, Alena wiped her eyes with her sleeve and watched unbelievingly as the stooped figure of an elderly man ambled towards them. Sensing the intrusion, Hamish painfully pulled himself up as well and was in a vague sitting position by the time the old man was close enough for introductions.
“Kind of a cool day to be setting about on the ground, I reckon.”
Hamish somehow managed to reach up and lightly shake the offered age-spotted hand. “Oh, we think it’s quite nice, really. We like it out here.”
“Well, that’s good, that’s real good. I’m Joe McConnell from just round the corner.” Joe smiled warmly; spoke in a slow maritime drawl, his aging eyes no doubt rendering him oblivious to any apparent distress. “Guess you folks must come from away…”
Mustering an approximation of a cheerful return greeting, Alena seized the only opportunity she might have and excused herself to the contrived sound of a phone ringing inside the house. Grabbing keys, she raced back outside to the truck, jumped in and pulled clear up to the tree, making apologies to Joe that they couldn’t linger as the laundromat would soon be closing. Joe — taking in the soiled wad of bedding at the base of the tree and the unmistakable anguish in Alena’s voice — grinned and nodded knowingly to Hamish of the curious ways of women. He wished them well and turned for home. By this time Hamish, comprehending that the unbearable pain could persist indefinitely, allowed Alena to help him into the truck, drive him to emergency.
“I didn’t think dying was going to take so long, Leni.”
When Alena later told Hamish that Joe’s miraculous appearance had saved his life, Hamish had told her that was horseshit — old Joe just happened to be out to empty his compost bucket in the community bins nearby. But Alena knew that due to Hamish’s fervent need to retain his dignity despite any circumstances, the old man’s arrival had forced him to that respectable sitting position. A position that had enabled Alena to get Hamish into the truck’s elevated seat, a feat she knew she would not have been able to accomplish otherwise. That aside, the simple intrusion of another human being must have told Hamish that perhaps he wasn’t going to get away with dying undisturbed in his own backyard. So to Alena, Joe would always remain their guardian angel. Whenever she walked past the sweet cottage-style house he shared with Marie, his wife of sixty-some years, she’d check to see if they were sitting, as they often were, in their front glass-enclosed porch sipping tea from china cups, a vase of seasonal garden flowers on the wicker table between them. And as she heartily returned their never-failing smiles and waves, she couldn’t help but believe they somehow knew of her unspoken but eternal gratitude.
It would be some time before Alena would acknowledge any part of her own in securing future chapters of life with Hamish. It was enough to be absolved of the horrific deed she had committed that autumn afternoon on the upstairs bedroom floor. An exquisite replacement pillow had awaited Hamish’s return, though he was not the sort of man to notice any difference. But a different man did come home from the hospital, due not so much to any change in Hamish, but rather to an awakening on Alena’s part to the fact that Hamish was not, after all, to be worshipped but merely loved, and his intension had not been meant to seem otherwise. And slowly, Alena became acquainted with the woman Hamish had always known her to be.
***
After years of self employment in the fine arts and antiques world, Krista Jane May finally submitted her first piece of fiction in 2018. She recently took first place in the 2024 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition. Publications include The Fiddlehead, Grain, The Other Journal (USA) and Minds Shine Bright anthology (Australia). She was runner up in the 2024 Creative Writing NZ Prize and took first place in Pulp Literature’s 2024 Raven Short Story Contest. She currently resides on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.