After River (24 page)

O
UTSIDE
S
T
H
ELENA'S
hospital, Jenny leans into the intercom. ‘Jennifer Mumford here,' she says. The intercom, like the ramp leading up to modern glass doors, is a recent addition. The marble entrance, the wide steps worn smooth at the edge by a century of footsteps, remains the same.

A buzzer signals the unlocking of the door. Inside, Jenny ushers me to the stairway. ‘It's faster to take the stairs than that old elevator,' she says.

I am visiting my mother here for the first time. The last time I was in this hospital, I left behind the lifeless body of a baby born too early. I've been running from that memory ever since. Tonight my need to see my mother is stronger than fright. I follow my daughter up the steps.

Every time I visit Mom I wonder if it will be the last time I see her. Yet each time I leave knowing there are things left unsaid. Things left unsaid by both of us.

Keeping secrets is a lonely business. The longer you hold them, the harder it is to let them go. I knew that my refusal to tell anyone, especially my mother, what Mr Ryan did to me that night in the gravel pit, was a useless sacrifice. He never kept his end of the bargain and I protected no one by remaining silent. Yet once the events that followed began–River's death, Boyer's accident–how could I add
the horror of rape to my family's sorrow? I let my mother, my family, everyone, believe that the stillborn child was the result of my night with River.

Between Mom and me, there had been some kind of unspoken agreement to avoid discussions about that time in our lives. What good would it do to drag up the past? It happened. Shared memories would change nothing. But sometimes, sometimes, I long to unburden myself, to confess my part in all of it, to say out loud how it all came about, where it could have been changed.

Sometimes I want to discuss the ‘what ifs' with her just once. What if I hadn't gone to River's room that night? What if she hadn't seen me? What if I hadn't run to Boyer's cabin, not seen him and River together? And mostly, what if, instead of running off into the forest that night, I had simply gone home? How different would our lives have played out then?

But I can never say these things out loud to her. I can't tell her of the many moments when I could have made other choices, choices that would have left our lives intact. What would be accomplished? What would be the point? Because I'm certain that she already knows most of it, that she has always known.

What she doesn't know, what no one but me knows, is the real cause of the fire in Boyer's cabin. And I wonder if my guilt would be any less if I tell her?

Guilt is a stern taskmaster. It requires you to always be on guard, always watch what you say. So I resisted the temptation to unburden myself, the temptation that crept up every time I looked into my brother's face.

And I avoided him. The last time I stayed out at the farm, the last time I was forced to fight my demons head on, was at my father's funeral.

When my brothers went to bed after the services that night, my mother put away the teacups and set a bottle of wine and two crystal glasses on the table. I sat across from her in the dining room while she talked about my father. I asked her how she fell in love with someone so different from her.

‘Your father was easy to fall in love with.' She smiled and took another sip of her wine. ‘I was very young, and perhaps a bit too romantic. When I looked into your father's eyes I saw what I wanted. I married your dad because I knew he would make a good father. I guess we all want what we didn't have when we were growing up. What I didn't have was family. I knew the farm and your father could give me that.'

She began to talk about her disappointment in the intimacy of their marriage. It was as if she had been waiting to let it out, to tell someone about the barrenness of that part of her life. ‘Sometimes it left me feeling so empty,' she said. ‘So lonely.'

Listening to her reminisce, I felt uncomfortable, as if I were eavesdropping. I resisted the temptation to voice the questions I had wondered about since River's death. Why was she outside his room that night? Did she go up to him after I left? Had River comforted her too? But her answers would not change anything. I knew about secrets; I would let her keep hers. Instead I asked her why she stayed with a man she couldn't be intimate with. She seemed to come back from wherever her reverie had taken her and said, ‘We really did marry forever back then you know. We didn't try it on for size then throw it away when it didn't fit. Our faith and the times did not allow it. Besides, I loved him.'

The next morning I watched from my window as she destroyed the rose garden, which to her represented an unfulfilled promise. While my bewildered brothers stood by gaping and thinking she'd gone crazy with grief, I understood.

 

The hospital corridors are dim on the third floor. The nurse at the night station looks up. ‘Doctor,' she nods and acknowledges Jenny as we walk by. The odour of death and ailing bodies is heavy in the air. My father was right, all the talcum powder and alcohol rub in the world cannot mask that smell. Jenny seems immune to it, and I know that in a few minutes I will not notice it either. But at first it is so overpowering that I have to stop myself from covering my nose.

The door to Mom's room is open. A night-light glows on the wall behind her bed. We tiptoe in, not wanting to wake her. She looks so tiny, so lost in the white sheets.

It started in her lungs. My mother, who never smoked a cigarette in her life, would pay the dues my father escaped. Yet even now, with this disease eating her from the inside out, her skin is that of a much younger woman, a healthier woman. At seventy-eight, my mother is still beautiful.

At first she appears to be sleeping peacefully. Then I see the rapid movement of her eyes beneath translucent lids, as if she is fighting her dreams. I take her hand in mine. I feel the warmth as it wraps around my fingers and hangs on like a baby's reflex.

On the other side of the bed, Jenny flicks at the IV tube with her finger. ‘She's out of morphine,' she whispers. ‘I'll go get the nurse.'

My mother's eyes snap open. She reaches up and clutches Jenny's hand. ‘No.' Her voice is weak, but she holds on to both Jenny's hand and mine. I'm surprised by the strength of her grip.

Her eyes focus on me. ‘Natalie,' she smiles up at me. ‘I've been waiting for you.'

As if summoned, the nurse appears at the door, a syringe in her
hand. ‘She didn't want any more morphine until you came,' she whispers. She approaches the bed and smiles down at Mom. ‘Oh, you're awake, Nettie,' she says. ‘This will start working in a few minutes.' She deftly inserts the syringe into the stopper of the IV tube.

‘Wait,' Mom says. She takes a laboured breath. ‘I heard—' a mucus-filled cough breaks the words in her throat. She catches her breath and murmurs something unintelligible. Jenny motions for me to lean forward and listen.

‘I heard the baby cry,' Mom whispers into my ear.

‘The baby?' I am not sure I understood her.

‘Oh,' the nurse muses, ‘there are strange noises in this old building all the time. Some of the residents think it's the nuns hiding in the closets. Your mother hears babies crying.'

‘It's okay, Mom,' I croon to her as I stroke her forehead. ‘It's okay, there are no babies here anymore.' But she becomes agitated and pulls me closer.

‘No,' she breathes into my ear. It seems to take every ounce of energy she has left. ‘No, Natalie,' she says. ‘I heard
your
baby cry.'

Nettie

S
HE FELT IT.
Nettie felt it the moment she put her hand on Natalie's stomach. Instead of the yielding flesh, the layers of fat she expected, her fingers felt the taut skin, the hardened muscles of a swollen abdomen.

Still she told herself, just as she told Boyer and her husband, ‘It's her appendix.'

During the slow drive into town, as the truck tyres crunched through fresh snow, she held her daughter in her arms and told her the same thing. By the time they reached St Helena's Hospital she believed it herself.

In the glare of the empty emergency room she breathed a sigh of relief as Dr Mumford, wearing operating room scrubs, rushed in. His unkempt hair stuck out from beneath a green cap. A surgical mask hung at his neck. He looked as if he had been up all night.

Nettie repeated her diagnosis to him.

Wordlessly, his expert fingers probed Natalie's right side, then he held both of his hands cupped to her extended abdomen.

Nettie was aware of the hum of the silent hospital, the constant white noise of the machines, the whisper of a nun's soft shoes as she glided into the room, her daughter's laboured breathing.

Even as Dr Mumford glanced up at her, the surprise obvious in his arched eyebrows, Nettie was not prepared for his words. Delivery room? Birth? Those words brought images of her own pregnancy, the birth of her own children, blue serge uniforms and lost girls. They had nothing to do with her daughter, her baby girl, who was being wheeled away by the stern-faced nun.

Dr Mumford put his arm around Nettie's shoulders and led her back to the reception area. Boyer stood as they came into the waiting room. ‘Go home, Nettie,' Dr Mumford said. ‘I'll take care of this.'

But she refused. She wanted to be with Natalie. The doctor appealed to Boyer. He, too, refused to leave.

‘Then wait here,' Dr Mumford said and rushed out of the room.

Boyer took Nettie's arm and led her across the foyer to the hospital chapel. Inside they knelt together in the candlelight and prayed. They prayed for Natalie, for the child. For River's child, though neither of them would say it out loud.

They waited. When she could bear it no longer, Nettie left Boyer in the waiting room and made her way through the sleeping hospital, up the stairs to the third floor.

The corridors were dark, as if abandoned. No night nurse sat at the reception area of the maternity ward. Nettie rubbed her chilled arms, then remembered this unit was being shut down. Our Lady of Compassion would be no more. From now on, maternity cases would be sent to the larger, regional hospitals.

At the end of the darkened hallway, the delivery room doors pushed open. Dr Mumford hurried towards her pulling his mask aside. In the eerie emptiness of the silent ward, he once again put his arm around her, and gently turned her back to the elevator.

‘The baby came too soon,' he told her in a quiet voice. ‘He was stillborn.'

And with his words, an unexpected flood of sorrow for the lost child–her grandchild–a child she was not even aware of a few hours earlier overwhelmed her. She stopped moving and tried to pull away. ‘Natalie,' she said. ‘I want to see Natalie.'

‘I had to put her under anaesthetic,' Dr Mumford said. ‘She won't be awake for hours. Go home now. Get some sleep. Come back and see her in the morning.'

‘The baby. He needs a priest, we need Father Mac.'

‘I'll take care of that,' he said as he gently steered her down the empty hallway. ‘Look, Nettie, there's no need for anyone else to know about this. No one has to find out.'

‘But, the priest?'

‘Your family has been through enough. We can keep this confidential. Let me look after this for you.'

And she let him. She let him lead her back to the elevator. She allowed him to gently push her through the open doors. She stood obediently inside as he pressed the button. And she convinced herself that the sound, the tiny cry she heard as the elevator doors closed, was only her imagination.

G
OSSIP SPREADS IN
a small town like germs on a warm wind. It doesn't matter if it's true or untrue; it infects and contaminates just as quickly.

This time the rumour mill did not need Elizabeth-Ann or Mr Ryan to get it started. Who knows who began it this time? Someone at the hospital, a nurse, or maybe even a nun? Perhaps it leaked over the grapevine of shared telephone party lines. Perhaps Dr Mumford confided in someone, who confided in someone? Wherever it originated, it leaked and spread as unstoppable as the water over a dam. Within a few days everyone in our town would hear about how the milkman's seventeen-year-old daughter had gone into the hospital for an emergency appendectomy and delivered a baby. It wasn't hard to imagine the thrilled whispers.

‘
Didn't even know she was pregnant!
'

‘
No! She must have known
.'

‘
No, really, she had no idea
.'

‘
Impossible
!'

So now our family had one more thing to not talk about. And the town had another juicy story to feed on. Even though I was hidden away in a private room on the abandoned third floor, by the time I left the hospital everyone knew that it was more than a useless appendage I had left behind in St Helena's.

The next morning I lay in the hospital bed and tried not to think about the baby boy who the nuns said was born too soon. I pressed down on my tender abdomen and felt the wobble of loose stomach muscles. Was life really growing there all those months? How could I not have known? I tried to think back on missed monthly periods. How could I have not paid attention?

I refused to give the baby form in my mind. I would not allow it a place in my heart. I felt nothing, I told myself, except relief.

And yet an unexplained yearning, an unknown longing, tugged at the core of my now empty abdomen as if connected to some invisible cord.

A nun appeared soundlessly with a breakfast tray. She glided in and out of my room as if on cushions of air. My mother came on the soles of determination.

I recognized her footsteps, winter boots on tiled floor sounded in the empty hall. She paused for only a moment before she pushed open my door and breezed in, a smile set on her face. She was carrying a Tupperware container filled with cookies. She leaned over the bed to kiss my cheek. ‘Morgan and Carl send their love,' she said. ‘Dad too of course.'

‘Do they know?' I asked. ‘Does the whole town know?'

‘No one but our family needs to know anything other than you had your appendix out,' she said as she busied herself fussing with my bed. ‘Dr Mumford will take care of that. All you need to do is just get better.' She chatted on as if it really was an appendectomy I was recovering from.

She sat on the end of the bed and lifted the lid on my breakfast tray. ‘You've got to eat, darling,' she said when she saw the untouched porridge and toast. I pushed the tray away.

‘Ruth had her baby last night,' Mom announced. I noticed she didn't say too.

I recalled an image of someone being wheeled past me as I was pushed into the delivery room. Ruth.

‘I guess she will be going back to her home in the Queen Charlottes soon,' Mom sighed. ‘The boys will certainly miss her. Especially Morgan. I think I'll just pop over to Our Lady and visit her before I go home,' she said.

And not talk about her baby too, I thought.

It struck me then, that it was always that way with my mother. She knew everything; she talked about nothing. This event in my life, our lives, was just another thing to be swept under the carpet. We would all know it was there, but we would carefully step around it. That was fine with me. I had no desire to talk about it, to let it out into the daylight and give it life.

Mom never asked who the father was. I would let her go on believing that the birth we were pretending didn't happened was a result of the night she watched me leave River's room. She could mourn that child, I could not. For I felt certain that the baby boy who lay lifeless somewhere in the building was Mr Ryan's child.

The door to my hospital room opened. Boyer stuck his head in. He must have driven Mom in to see me. I was surprised. Except for last night, he had not left home since he returned from the burn unit. For a brief moment I wondered what it must have cost him to appear in town in broad daylight, to endure the stares of the curious and the rude. Yet, when he asked, ‘Can I come in?' I pulled my blanket around me and turned away.

 

Back at home my isolation became complete. Through the grates I heard Mom tell Dad and my brothers that I would come around eventually, but I wondered how I would ever be able to look any of them in the eye again knowing the destruction and shame I had caused.

From my upstairs bedroom, I watched as the last days of February vented their fury on the countryside. The days lengthened and grew milder. Gigantic icicles outside my bedroom window wept great tears, then shrunk and disappeared. The snow and ice on the roads began to recede turning our farmyard into a spring sea of mud and manure.

All the while my mother brought trays upstairs and left them outside my door. She stopped trying to talk me out of my room, stopped pressing me to return to school. I didn't know if I was relieved or saddened by her silent acceptance.

But often in the evening I heard her at the piano. I buried my head in my pillow as the music floated up through the hallway grate and seeped under my bedroom door.

Once again I began to creep downstairs in the middle of the night, or whenever I was alone in the house. But now it was not for food. I walked around the rooms memorizing the familiar objects of our home. As ritualistic as my mother fingering her beads, I touched all the things that once defined our family. My hand ran along the linoleum-topped kitchen table, the marble sideboard in the kitchen, the wooden bread bin that always gave off the aroma of baked bread, the china cabinet in the parlour, the oak dining room table, and the piano. All the reminders that I was once a part of this family. I stood in the dark staring up at the painted portrait of our farm, and at the smiling faces in the family photograph sitting on the piano top below. Then I carried the feeling back upstairs with me and tried to pretend everything was still the same.

‘She can't stay up there forever,' my father said one night in March, his voice rising up through the hall grates to find me.

A week later I sat in the cab of the milk truck as we drove away from the farmhouse. The warm winds of a spring storm danced through the swaying trees, blowing the last of the snow through the
branches. The swirling wind created a commotion of white on the road before us. I resisted the temptation to turn and take one last look at my home. I was already gone. I had left my home as surely as if I was already on the bus my father was delivering me to. The bus that would carry me away from this place, from my family, from my life, into the unknown abyss of the city.

Widow Beckett came up with the solution. I said nothing when Mom sat down on my bed and told me about the offer. I'd heard it all from my room.

‘For Natalie's sake, for your whole family,' the Widow told Mom. ‘You have to get her away from here.'

I'd heard the telephone calls to Widow Beckett's brother and his wife in Vancouver.

‘They have a huge home,' Widow Beckett explained. ‘They take in foster children all the time, one more in that house won't even be noticed.'

Mom's carefully hoarded egg money would pay my room and board. ‘It's only for the rest of the school year,' she told me. ‘You have to catch up or you won't graduate.' I shrugged my acceptance.

On the day I left, she stood at the kitchen table, her back to me, when I came downstairs with my suitcases. On the table, pie plates lined with dough waited to be filled. A bowl of frozen huckleberries, Boyer's favourite, thawed in the sink. Mom slammed the rolling pin on the dough round as if life depended on it.

I hesitated for only a moment before I pushed open the screen door with my suitcase and walked out. She did not come after me. I did not turn back. Neither of us was willing to give in to that awkward moment of goodbye.

‘It won't be for long,' she'd said the night before as she left my bedroom. I think we both knew it wasn't true.

Dad and I rode in silence to the highway turn-off where we waited for the Greyhound bus. We both stared down the road as if we could will the bus to come sooner.

‘Well, this will be an adventure, hey, sunshine?' my father finally said. ‘Off to the big city, eh?' He reached inside his jacket pocket, then glanced up at me as he opened the silver cigarette case. I tried to return his crooked smile. He leaned into his cupped hands to light his cigarette, but not before I read in his eyes the toll the fight to keep the farm was having on my father's spirit.

He rolled the window down and blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘Your mother and I want you to know that when you want to come home–that is, whenever you are ready–well the minute you think you can come back, you just phone us and we'll have you on the next bus.'

I wondered if he really believed I would ever be ready to come back and face the gossip, the town, Boyer's broken life, the ghosts. Or even if he really wanted me to.

I wanted to go. I wanted to spare my family the constant reminder of the havoc I had created. Yet as the bus pulled away, as I watched my father's truck grow smaller, I could not stop the overwhelming grief that washed over me. For at that moment I believed I would never see my father, or hear him call me sunshine, ever again.

I was right.