BY MARY SCHULZ
Copyright is held by the author.
HELEN TURNED over in bed to look out the window. She could just reach to open the blind without getting up. She had always been secretly grateful that Marjory preferred the other side, the one closest to the bathroom. After decades of being a slave to an alarm clock, Helen so enjoyed waking up gently, lying back and watching the sky, listening for the call of the geese.
Helen couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been drawn to them. Perhaps it had something to do with the tilting of the seasons, one into the other, like the emptying of an hourglass. In the fall, their melancholy honking reminded her that the season of reflection, crisp walks and reading by the fire was upon them. And now, in Spring, when she heard the furious beating of their homeward wings, her heart never failed to lift in a kind of joy that she, too, had a home. A home with Marjory.
Settling back among the downy pillows, she felt a sense of quiet satisfaction, reassurance even, that all was unfolding as it should. Despite the unwelcome changes that the winter had brought, the tree just beyond the glass was being nuzzled into bud, yet again. As she traced their two intertwined initials that she had long ago embroidered onto the pillowcase, she pictured the tiny, blue velvet box that lay tucked in her underwear drawer. Helen hugged herself as she imagined Marjory’s face as she cracked open the box, finding the silver locket with their lacy initials. When today was over, they would celebrate with impossibly delicate champagne flutes and the presentation of the locket, a reminder of how good they were together.
As she listened to Marjory’s soft, billowing breath beside her, she banished her recurring nightmare. The one where she woke in this bed, with this pillowcase beneath her head, without Marjory breathing like a gentle dolphin beside her.
As though to reassure herself, Helen tapped Marjory’s leg with her foot. Marjory drew back and groaned softly. Helen’s foot was probably cold, as usual.
“What time is it?” Marjory muttered, squinting at her.
Helen reached under the covers and found Marjory’s hand. A delicate, precious hand, with blue veins travelling to tapered fingers, her pink, oval nails. Helen brought Marjory’s hand to her lips, her dry, parchment skin so much warmer than her own.
“It’s still early,” she whispered. “I’ll get breakfast going. There’s lots of time. Go back to sleep.”
Marjory sighed as she turned onto her side. Helen rested her arm lightly over Marjory’s back, being careful not to touch what she knew was still a tender spot where they had drained fluid from her lung. Thank God for that; it had made her so much more comfortable. Helen’s chest constricted with a twinge of loss for the days when they used to sleep in the nude, the folds of their skin snugly contoured. As Marjory’s body succumbed to the ravages of treatment, Marjory began wearing flannel nightgowns that inevitably bunched up around her thighs. In silent solidarity, Helen had unearthed a faded nightgown and started wearing it, too. To do otherwise felt disloyal.
Thinking a pot of strong English Breakfast would be just the thing this morning, Helen sat up and eased the duvet back. She steadied herself before dropping her legs over the side of the bed.
“I may as well get up, too,” Marjory moved to sit.
“No, no. You rest. There’s no need to get up yet. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
Helen tucked the duvet up around Marjory’s chin but was shaken off.
“It’ll take me a while to get ready, Helen, and I want to be early. You never know with traffic.”
“But we’re taking a cab,” Helen reminded her.
“They still get stuck in traffic, and the hospital’s all the way downtown.”
Twenty-three years of living side by side with this staunchly proud, fiercely independent and exquisite woman had taught Helen many things, one of which was when she should let something go, at least for now.
Marjory pushed herself up and, patting the duvet around her, said sternly, “I’m going on my own, you know. We talked about this.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. You talked about this. I listened. I’m going with you and that’s that.”
Helen stood and held the wall for a moment to let her vertigo settle down. “I won’t be in the way. I want to keep you company.”
Marjory slapped her palm down on the bed. “No. You’ve just gotten over that nasty cold. Hospitals are full of germs. Besides, it’s hopefully going to be my last appointment. There’s no reason for you to schlep all the way downtown and sit around for who knows how long.”
“’Hopefully?’ It will be your last appointment!”
Ignoring this, Marjory repeated firmly, “I’m going on my own.”
Helen and Marjory locked eyes for a moment before Marjory took a breath and sighed, “I know, I know. You worry. But I’ll feel better knowing you’re here, waiting for me. And hopefully, I mean we will have lots to celebrate when I get home.”
Helen pulled open a dresser drawer, intently focused on choosing a pair of socks that would match the trousers she had laid out the night before. “You can’t stop me. I’ll take a separate cab and follow you, if need be, which,” she turned to her beloved with a crooked smile, “would be pretty darn silly, not to mention fiscally irresponsible.”
Helen’s smile vanished as she watched Marjory grasp the knob of the bedstead, wincing, as she rested her hand on her chest. Their eyes met. With a groan of exasperation, Marjory leaned over and drew Helen into a hug, whispering, “Oh, you dear old thing. What would I do without you?’
“Hopefully,” she kissed Marjory, “we’ll never need to find out.”
Helen patted Marjory’s bottom affectionately before pulling away. “Now, let’s get this show on the road.”
***
Helen let the magazine fall to her lap. She had known there was no point in bringing a book to read. She’d never be able to concentrate on it and would only end up re-reading everything. She had tucked the latest issue of “Knitter’s World” into her voluminous bag instead, thinking she could surely concentrate on a magazine. But no. Her eyes kept dragging her back to the corridor where Marjory had been whisked away by a nurse who told her that Marjory was being taken for a CT scan.
“But can’t I go with her?” Helen had called to their retreating backs.
The nurse had looked over her shoulder as she guided Marjory through the electronic doors. “It shouldn’t take too long.”
So here she sat, shifting from side to side, trying to get comfortable on the molded orange plastic chair. The long desk where they had checked in was staffed by several people, all separated from the enquiring public by sheets of plexiglass. The only wall adornment was posters that warned, “Please treat our staff with respect. We have zero tolerance for abusive language and aggressive behaviour of any kind.” In contrast to this stern warning, the waiting room opened onto a delightful glass atrium that perched above the city like a beehive. The glass walls provided an unfettered view of the sky, with windows tilted open near the ceiling. Despite the sounds of traffic below, Helen was delighted that she could hear cardinals calling, one to the other.
Helen took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She didn’t remember Marjory’s other appointments feeling this long. She checked her watch and was surprised to see that Marjory had only been gone about twenty minutes. Maybe she should try that relaxation exercise she had learned at the support group she’d joined when Marjory was first diagnosed. Breathe in for four counts, or was it six? Hold for – how many? Out for eight? After two rounds, Helen felt like she was starting to hyperventilate. She gasped in air. Geez, she couldn’t even breathe right.
An elderly man seated in the row ahead of her rested his arm around the shoulders of the white-haired woman sitting beside him. He tilted his head down towards her. Helen’s heart constricted at the bittersweet smile of affection that the woman shone at him. Love. Yes, she knew about that. It had come to them later in life, but how blessed they were to have found it at all.
The woman’s silky scarf slipped from around her neck and fell unnoticed in a colourful puddle behind her chair.
“Excuse me,” Helen leaned forward, trying to get their attention. “Your scarf.”
But they were deep in conversation and didn’t hear.
Helen reached for her cane, resting on the seat beside her and stood. She leaned down and picked up the scarf, feeling a small frisson of pleasure that she could still do this.
Tapping the woman on the shoulder, Helen said, “Excuse me. You dropped your scarf.”
“Oh, my!” she exclaimed, turning to face Helen, “Thank you! I’d have been devastated if I’d lost it.”
The woman exchanged a knowing smile with the gentleman beside her. As she knotted the scarf firmly around her neck, she explained, “It was a gift. When I finished my first round of chemo. I wear it to every follow up appointment, kind of like a lucky charm.”
The woman shrugged sheepishly, as though afraid Helen would find her hopelessly superstitious. Thinking of the locket tucked safely in her dresser drawer, Helen suddenly felt like hugging this perfect stranger. Instead, she replied warmly, “I hope your appointment today goes absolutely perfectly.”
The woman made her feel like she had done something remarkable. Helen blinked away the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks.
She took a deep breath. Since she was up anyways, she decided a short walk would do her joints good. After all, she had recently read that sitting was the new smoking.
Helen looked left and right and decided she’d head back to the elevators so as not to be too far away, should they call her. Her cane made its comforting tapping sound as she carefully moved past the row of staff, nodding at each of them as she went, feeling a bit like she was passing a judge’s panel. Was it her imagination or did the thin young woman at the desk, the one with the scraped back bottle blond ponytail hold her gaze longer than necessary?
She was the one who had puckered her lips into a loosely veiled smirk when Helen had pulled herself up tall and replied to her question, “I’m Marjory’s wife”. Surely, she wasn’t shocked, not in this day and age! Helen chuckled that it was this statement that had finally dragged the young woman’s gaze away from her computer screen to scrutinize them both. But Marjory had only turned to Helen with a look that still warmed her, reminding her of lazy mornings entangled in their sun dappled bed.
True to her plan, Helen turned back at the bank of elevators, but not before taking a moment to stare into its glossy surface and tuck a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. How unalike they were, physically, she with her short legs and ample waist, Marjory as tall and thin as a lamppost, always immaculately turned out in her signature Talbots’ sweater sets and modest mid-calf skirts. How wonderful the locket would look on her!
They had met at an accountants’ conference at the lunch buffet as Marjory had hovered, undecided, over a bowl of green apples and a platter of chocolate chip cookies, each one the size of a bread-and-butter plate. Recognizing the struggle, Helen had caught Marjory’s eye and winked.
“Go for it,” she’d grinned.
And they had, ever since.
Helen glanced at the wall clock. Forty minutes. On impulse, she returned to Bottled Blonde Girl and offered her most ingratiating smile.
“I’m sorry to trouble you, but could you tell me how much longer my wife might be?”
Her question was met with a pause so lengthy that Helen wondered if the woman had heard her. Finally, she finished typing and looked up at Helen through the plexiglass screen.
“It shouldn’t be much longer.”
Finding this response spectacularly unhelpful, Helen persisted, “Thank you but do you know if she’s back from her scan? Maybe I could go in and sit with her, wherever she is?”
The woman shook her head, her pony tail swinging from side to side, “No, that’s not possible. She’ll be brought back to this waiting room when she’s done. Unless, of course, the nurse asks you to join them.”
“Join them?”
“Yes.” The woman barely contained her impatience.
“Why would she do that?”
“If there’s a problem of some kind.”
“A problem?” Helen echoed dully.
“Yes.” She lowered her head and resumed typing.
“What sort of problem?”
Bottled Blonde Girl stopped typing but kept her hands poised over the keyboard like a reluctant concert pianist, “You know. A problem,” she repeated. “Like with the scan. Then the doctor will want to see you.”
Helen drew back and almost lost her balance. She grabbed on to the edge of the counter with one hand, tightening her grip on her cane with the other.
“No, no. You don’t understand. This is just a routine appointment. Our last one. We’re done.”
Helen would have laughed at the young woman’s ignorance if her heart hadn’t suddenly felt heavy, crowding her chest, like it took up too much room. Getting no response, she swallowed hard and turned away. It would be ok, she breathed. She had the locket. Champagne chilling in the refrigerator. This twit didn’t know anything and cared less. Helen blinked furiously. Her thoughts raced, swirled dizzyingly like a kaleidoscope. Surely, they weren’t going to have to start all over…. the treatment, the nausea, the valiant clash of hope and fear?
“Ms. Humphreys?”
The nurse who had guided Marjory through the electronic doors was standing in front of her. There was something about the careful tilt of her head, the red file folder in her hands that made Helen’s blood run cold.
“Yes?” Her reply came out as a cracked whisper.
“Could you please follow me? The doctor would like to have a word.”
Helen’s heart hammered in her ears. She tried to read the nurse’s neutral expression but failed. She fell in line with the nurse’s come-this-way gesture, straightening her back and forcing her leaden feet to move, to not stumble in their obedience.
Then suddenly, as she passed the skylight windows of the atrium, she heard it. Helen stopped, vaguely aware that the nurse was now several paces ahead and looking impatiently over her shoulder. Helen lifted her head, every muscle taut, listening. She couldn’t see them but they were there. Coming home. There was no mistaking their haunting cry.
The geese were in flight.
***
Mary Schulz is a Canadian writer with a passion for opera, art that takes her breath away and the company of old dogs.
