The Unfinished Child (39 page)

“I’d like to have a bath,” Marie said quietly.

Frances wasn’t listening. “Elizabeth was concerned too,” she added.

The air in the room suddenly shifted. Marie focused on her sister with a new clarity. “What did you say?”

“I said Elizabeth was concerned too.”

“What do you mean?”

“She phoned last night to see how you were doing. She seemed surprised to hear you were at the hospital.”

Marie fought to maintain her composure. “What did you tell her?”

“She did know, didn’t she?” Frances asked. “I didn’t let anything out of the bag, did I?”

Marie closed her eyes and remained silent.

“You had coffee with her the day after you got the results, after you had lunch at my place. That’s what Elizabeth said. You told her then, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I told her.”

“But she didn’t know you’d gone into the hospital?”

“No,” Marie said softly. “I didn’t tell her that part.”

Marie tried to block the image of Elizabeth’s stunned face when she heard the news. “I don’t feel so good,” she said abruptly. “I’m going upstairs to lie down until the kids come home.” She stood gingerly. “Thanks for everything you’ve done, Frances. I’ll be all right now. You might as well go home.”

She made her way through the kitchen and down the hallway to the stairs.

She knows, Marie thought, the realization almost buckling her knees. Oh, God, she knows. And she didn’t hear it from me.

On Tuesday, Elizabeth arrived at
her store with a heightened sense of urgency. The morning dragged by, but soon the lunch hour arrived and, along with it, Mr. Harrington with his slow gait and hunched posture. Elizabeth ran to hold the door for him and took his elbow as he made his way over the threshold.

“Whew, it’s getting warm out,” he said, removing his hat and mopping his brow. “It’s about time it felt like spring,” he added. “It’s always been my favourite season.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth agreed, “it’s my favourite season too. It’s hard not to feel optimistic when all the colours are coming back.”

He nodded and leaned against the counter.

“Let me guess,” Elizabeth said. “You want roses.” Carolyn’s mother gave her a love for roses. It made sense that roses would be her own favourite flower.

Mr. Harrington smiled. “You’re very perceptive,” he said. “A mind reader.”

“I met your daughter, Rebecca, when she was in town,” she said as she reached into the cooler behind her. “She seems very nice. Talkative, like you. I like that.”

“Yes, she is. We’re quite proud of her, my wife and I. Rebecca said you’d had a nice discussion.”

“And how is your wife doing? Her name is Margaret, right?” She needed to be sure.

“That’s right.” He nodded.

Elizabeth pricked a finger on a thorn. She placed her hands on the counter to hide their shaking. Obviously Mr. Harrington knew he had fathered a girl with Down syndrome, but at some point he’d begun to believe that Carolyn had died. He certainly didn’t know that she’d ever become pregnant and delivered a child.

Elizabeth put some roses in paper and began to wrap them. When she looked up she saw an old man standing before her, an old man whose wife was dying a slow death. On bad days she barely remembered she had a husband and she didn’t know her own children. Yet she remembered Carolyn and she said she was sorry. Did he need to have his world upset even more?

“Rebecca said your wife recognized her. That must have been nice; you had been worried about that.”

“Yes, she even called her by name.”

Elizabeth plunged on. “She also said your wife kept asking about someone named Carolyn. Did you ever figure out who that was?”

She counted out six red roses, three yellow . . . 

He pursed his lips thoughtfully.

Elizabeth willed him to continue.

“Children believe they know everything about their parents,” he said softly, “which of course they don’t. In our case, we never told them that we’d had a baby who’d died before they were born.”

She didn’t die!

“How sad,” Elizabeth said. “If you don’t mind my asking, how did she die?”

“Carolyn was born with Down syndrome. Our doctor said she likely wouldn’t survive and suggested we put her into an institution. Sometimes that feels like yesterday.” He sighed. “My wife never really did get over it, I think. I certainly see that now.”

Your daughter was almost twenty when she died. And your wife visited every month for twelve years! She only stopped visiting when she discovered that Carolyn was pregnant. She had a baby girl who was put up for adoption and . . . 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s all right. It’s good to talk about it. I wish now that my wife and I had talked about it more. I think we erred by not wanting to upset each other.”

“Do you think you’ll tell Rebecca?”

“I don’t know. If Margaret keeps going on about it I suppose I’ll be forced to at some point. Alzheimer patients often get fixated on earlier parts of their lives. Obviously giving up the baby affected her more than she ever let on.”

“What about you?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Giving up a child must have been difficult for you too. Wasn’t it?”

He studied his fingernails intently for a moment. “It was difficult, yes. Certainly it was, but my entire focus at the time was to keep Margaret whole. I was afraid of losing her to grief, so I expect I proceeded as if nothing had really changed in the hopes that our lives would return to normal somehow. Our son, James, was born a year later, and that helped. Margaret had been nervous throughout the entire pregnancy, and I think we were both a bit surprised that our son was healthy when he was born.” He chuckled for a moment. “The doctor had said lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place, but we weren’t at all convinced. I can’t tell you how relieved we were to be able to bring a baby home.”

Elizabeth finished wrapping the flowers, taped the paper together, and delivered them to the man across the shop. “These are on the house today, Mr. Harrington. For being one of my most valued customers.”
Grandfather.

She helped him stand and gave him a quick hug. “Give my best to Margaret.”

“Thank you, Ms. . . .”

“Elizabeth. Call me Elizabeth, or Lizzie.”

He nodded and smiled. Then he put his hat firmly on his head and stood up, cradling the flowers like a newborn in the crook of his arm.

She opened the door for him. “See you next week,” she called to his retreating form.

“If all goes well,” he replied as he walked steadily to the corner.

After work Elizabeth
crossed Jasper Avenue, passed the two stone statues, and walked toward the entrance of the hospital. It looked more like an office building than a hospital, with its many storeys with small windows running in straight lines across the old stone.

The glass doors slid open automatically when she approached the main entrance, and she walked directly to the information desk on the right. Behind the glassed window a plump, grey-haired woman in her early sixties greeted her warmly. “Can I help you, dear?”

“Hi, I hope so. Can you tell me how to get to the Alzheimer’s ward?”

“There are Alzheimer patients throughout the hospital, dear. Are you sure she’s in the Alzheimer’s ward? You need to give me a name.”

“Margaret Harrington.”

She searched through her files. “Oh, yes, here we are. She’s on the tenth floor. Ward Y. The elevators are just down the hall.” As she spoke she gestured to the group of elevators in the middle of the lobby.

“Is there a nurse’s desk there? I haven’t visited before, but I’m family.”

“Yes, the desk is just inside the ward. They’ll be able to direct you to the right room.”

“Thank you.”

Elizabeth stood in front of the elevators and stared at her distorted reflection in the metal doors.

The air carried the smell of food from the cafeteria, flowers from the gift shop, and disinfectant from the cleaning staff’s mops and rags. The air also held hope, despair, relief, and grief. Lives were saved here and lives were lost. Miracles and misfortunes.

Elizabeth stepped out at the tenth floor and followed the signs to Ward Y, hugging the flowers to her chest. If she met Mr. Harrington, she’d say she was delivering some flowers for a customer, as a personal favour, but she was hoping he didn’t spend the entire day with his wife.

At the end of the hallway were a set of doors with a sign overhead reading
WARD Y
. To the right of the door was a green button to push for entrance. Elizabeth pushed it and heard a click as the door momentarily unlocked. She stepped inside and the door swung heavily shut behind her. A combination code was on the wall beside the door, but for now she was effectively locked in.

She experienced a moment of panic immediately followed by shock at the powerful smell of disinfectant on the ward. Obviously it was supposed to mask the unpleasant odours of bodies kept in captivity. Holding tanks for people past their prime. What was it about humans, she wondered, that made them lean toward caging things?

The nurse’s desk was directly in front of her. A reed-thin woman with curly black hair was talking on the phone.

“Can I help you?” the nurse inquired when she finished her call.

“Yes, please. I’m here to visit Margaret Harrington. I’m her granddaughter.” How strange it felt to say it out loud.

“She’s in Room 7,” the nurse said. “Bed 2. It’s down the hall on the left.”

“Can I ask why the door’s locked?”

“For security. This is the lockdown area. The patients here tend to wander off. This way we know none of them are finding exits. We’ll let you out when you’re ready.”

Elizabeth thanked the nurse and walked slowly down the hall that branched out into an open recreational area with rooms on the outer walls in a circular pattern. Several patients sat watching television by the potted ferns. One woman with hair white and sparse as a dandelion sang bits of a song to herself over and over again while the man on the couch kept telling her to be quiet.

The room numbers were on the door, and as Elizabeth passed she peered in to find two beds per room. “Is that you, Gertrude?” a woman called out. “Is that you?”

Mrs. Harrington’s room would be almost at the end on the left side. Most of the patients were bed-ridden, but two were wandering up and down the aisles as if searching for something.

Elizabeth stopped outside Room 7, peered inside, and was relieved to find no visitors. A vase of fresh roses sat on a table beside Bed 2. The woman in the bed was sound asleep, her mouth hung slack. The other bed was unmade but empty. Elizabeth stepped quietly to her bedside and looked at the photographs beside the roses. One was an old wedding picture. In another she recognized Rebecca, who posed with her family. The third photograph was of a man (Margaret’s son?) and his family. Tucked into the frame of the wedding picture was a small photograph of a golden retriever in full flight after a ball.

Now that she was here, Elizabeth wasn’t sure what to do. She looked more closely at the sleeping figure in the bed and noted how papery thin Mrs. Harrington’s skin looked. Small blue veins around her temples looked as if a child had taken a ballpoint pen and drawn them there. Her sparse white hair held the look of a fresh styling. Her dentures had been removed and her mouth had sunken into itself, leaving her chin to jut sharply from her face.

Elizabeth sat down in the chair beside the bed. This woman had allowed her husband to believe that her first-born child had died. This woman had secretly visited that child every month and then had disowned her when she’d discovered her daughter’s pregnancy. This frail woman, fragile as a newly hatched robin thrown from its nest, had lived with the weight of her decision all these years. Had she ever inquired after Carolyn’s baby to see if it had found its way to a good home?

Elizabeth’s mind raced with questions and various scenarios, but she felt calmly separate from any blame or anger. Maybe it was the newness of discovery that allowed her to be self-controlled. Whatever the case, Elizabeth knew she’d had a good life. That she’d never had a child wasn’t the end of the world, despite the dark years of trying. There were greater darknesses out there, and this late discovery about her own life seemed pointless in a way. It could just as easily be the narrative of someone else’s life, an interesting one that would make for a good story, but not one that resulted in shattered lives.

Wait until she told Ron that she’d just visited her maternal grandmother.

Just then Mrs. Harrington’s eyes opened and fixed on Elizabeth’s face. She had startling blue eyes with a faint milky haze on them. She stared and stared without blinking and without changing expression. Elizabeth felt trapped by her gaze. Who was she to be here?

Her granddaughter. That’s who she was. She lifted her chin slightly and smiled.

Then Mrs. Harrington reached out an icy hand and gripped Elizabeth’s arm with a surprisingly firm hold. “I knew you’d come,” she said in a small, shaky voice. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Elizabeth placed her hand over Mrs. Harrington’s and allowed the warmth from her youthful body to spread into the chilled hand of the woman who had been expecting her for forty years.

On the Monday following Marie’s
release from the hospital, she watched from the front window as her parents’ car pulled up to the curb. Her father stepped slowly from the car, looked toward the house, and smoothed what was left of his grey hair back into place. Then he walked slowly around to her mother’s side of the car and opened her door. Fay stepped briskly from the car and gathered her floral skirt in her hands as her husband closed the door behind her. Fay had always been great in a crisis, and she’d been through this once before with Frances.

Fay’s omnipresent black purse hung from the crook of one arm while a bouquet of flowers was wrapped and cradled in the other. She turned and said something to her tanned husband, who promptly opened the back door of the car and emerged with some grocery bags. Then the two of them began a quick ascent up the cement path and rang the doorbell.