Up in Smoke (4 page)

“She's wanting talk to you.”

“About what?”

“She not tell me.”

That was a bad sign. His parents had shared everything: their midnight escape from Hungary as young children in
1956
, their years of low-paid agricultural labour, their pennies scrimped for the down payment on a farm, their worries over crop damage and tobacco market dips.

“She just say it is time, Zollie.”

He wanted to ask “time for what?” but he couldn't force out the words. And he didn't want to hear the answer. He knew it would come to this. Mum had almost refused her last chemo treatment, insisting that her back pain, and the overwhelming nausea, exhaustion, and mouth sores of chemotherapy were going to steal her dignity. She hadn't fussed over the loss of her hair, but she had vowed never to relinquish her self-respect. She'd carved out her place in the New World and she was going to leave it on her own terms, proud of her family and her accomplishments. He pictured the stash of morphine behind the Bible in her bedside table. They both pretended he didn't know it was there. Her security blanket.

“Can she take the phone?”

“She say you must come. Must see you in person.”

“But can't we talk for a sec?”

“No, Zollie. You come now.”

CHAPTER
5

Zol glanced at his mother sitting beside him in the minivan. Katalin Szabo — Kitti to her family, to her friends at the Catholic Women's League and the hospital's volunteer association — fidgeted with the tissue wadded in her bony fist. Her eyes widened at the sight of the next set of potholes, and she braced against the armrest. He pumped the brake as gently as he could and eased onto Robinson Street. Simcoe General Hospital loomed at the end of the block like bits of mismatched Lego snapped together through the decades.

Mum clutched her handbag to her chest and leaned forward. Damn, here it came, another coughing fit. He swallowed hard, slowed to a crawl, and planted his hand on his mother's shoulder. As he rubbed her upper back, he felt the shuddering through her heavy cloth coat. When the fit stopped, the vehicle was eerily still. With heartbreaking grace, she pressed the Kleenex to her lips and deposited something undoubtedly nasty.

He'd never get used to her turban. It was supposed to hide her chemo baldness, but instead it drew attention to her cancer like a neon sign. It would not let him forget that though his mother looked encouragingly robust, she had a serious illness. He couldn't stop thinking of the impending weight loss that would steal the flesh from her soft round face and make a mockery of her high, Slavic cheek bones.

No matter how gently he tried to negotiate the county's neglected roads, she winced with back pain every time the vehicle rocked like a tractor on a stony field. “I'll drop you at the front door,” he said, “and get you settled. I can park in the visitors'. Won't take me half a minute.”

“No. We walk from car. I still have my good legs.”

They used to be gorgeous legs. Everybody said so. A closet full of shoes was her only vice. That and a pack-a-day smoking habit she'd kicked about a year before her lung cancer diagnosis.

“No, Mum. Let me fetch a wheelchair.”

“Certainly not.”

“But, Mother, it's freezing.”

“We walk. Together.”

He parked in the visitors' lot, as close to the front door as possible. She took his arm against the heavy gusts blowing all the way from Chicago. He had no idea why they were going to this effort. Though she wasn't as strong as she liked to pretend, she didn't seem sick enough to need immediate admission to hospital. She hadn't packed a bag and she'd warned him to steer clear of the emergency department.

Why were they here?

Twenty minutes earlier, greeting him from the wingback chair in her living room, she'd looked surprisingly confident. Her breathing seemed comfortable, she was a good colour, and she'd thrown him a warm smile. Then she'd told him enigmatically that
Now is time, Zollie
and insisted he take her to the hospital. He'd asked what was wrong, but she wouldn't say. She had a handbag in her lap, but no suitcase.

“Is your doctor expecting you?” he'd asked.

“No questions. Take me to hospital.”

“But don't you need a few things? What about your meds?”

She'd waved her hand dismissively, then extended it to indicate that he should assist her out of the chair. His dad helped her into her coat and made a face that said,
Your mother, she make up her mind, and I doing what she tell me
.

Now, as Zol walked her from the parking lot toward the hospital's main entrance, Kitti refused the wheelchair ramp and steered him to the steps. Three teenagers were lighting up, two paces inside the yellow line marking the tobacco exclusion zone, an exact nine metres from the front door. Of course, it was his health unit that was charged with enforcing the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, but only a jerk would hassle those kids over a couple of metres.

Two of the teens had ski jackets thrown over their flimsy hospital gowns. The third teen, a boy of about fifteen, looked like a visitor — black pea coat over a tee-shirt and jeans, piercings in his lip and eyebrows. Zol was getting used to the body jewellery kids sported these days, but he couldn't help being shocked by the boy's extreme obesity. The youth was a head shorter than Zol and weighed well over three hundred pounds. Diabetes, heart disease, and sleep apnea were lurking for him around the corner. The kids in the gowns, a girl and a boy, were attached to
IV
poles and puffing away. He couldn't see any obvious lesions on their lips. Were they jaundiced? He couldn't tell from this distance and didn't want them to think he was some weird guy leering at them.

Both kids were emaciated, weighing no more than ninety or a hundred pounds, that was obvious. He couldn't help eyeing the contours of their collarbones jutting above their open jackets. It struck him again that much of the world had lost its ability to correctly judge how much they should eat. Until half a generation ago, calorie consumption came naturally to almost everyone. Without thinking much about it, Zol's family had stayed trim because they balanced their food-energy input with their exercise-energy output. But nowadays, most people were too fat and a few were too skinny. And whose fault was that? He understood the urgency of the issue, but nothing in his training as a chef and a doctor had taught him how the fatness epidemic had happened so quickly and on such a grand scale. And no one seemed to know what to do about it.

He nodded to the smokers through their tobacco fog. He was struck by the harsh, tarry smell of the cheap, unregulated stuff from Grand Basin Reserve. Half an hour away, dozens of Native-owned smoke shops offered cigarettes they produced from locally grown tobacco and sold at one tenth the cost of the international brands available in town. The sale wasn't legal, but law enforcement had given up interfering with the trade. He despaired at the hopeless task of persuading young people not to smoke in the face of a ready supply of cigarettes sold in packs of twenty-five that cost less than a cup of coffee.

Ringo Starr jammed three bars of “Yellow Submarine” into Zol's brain as he fought the stench, the front door, and the blustery wind. Two steps inside, Kitti stopped and clutched her chest. Her face was ashen. She tried to speak, but nothing came out, not even a cough. Oh my God, was this the end? Had Mum known it all along and was putting on a false front?

His own chest tightened with panic. He scanned the lobby for a wheelchair. He spotted one and scooped her into it as her knees gave out.

He started wheeling her at top speed to the emergency department. When she realized where they were headed, she put up her arms and shouted, “No, Zollie. Stop.”

He kept rolling. “Don't be silly. You're having a heart attack.”

She waved her arms. “A little spell, only.”

He stopped rolling and looked her in the face. “Mum, this is serious.”

“I am fine. This happens. Sometimes. When I am doing too much . . . vacuuming.”

“You've been vacuuming?”

“Who else? Your father, he doesn't even know . . . where I keep it.”

“For God's sake, Mum.”

“Zollie, is okay.” She motioned to the bank of empty chairs in the waiting area at the far side of the lobby. “We wait there. A few moments only. Then we continue.”

“No,” he said, pushing the chair forward. “You're going to Emerg.”

She scraped her boots against the floor and jammed them under the wheelchair's foot rests. He had to stop pushing before he broke her ankles.

“Good,” she said firmly. “Now, let me catch breath.” She felt her handbag as though checking to be sure the contents were intact. “And then I tell you where we going.” She closed her eyes and bowed her head.

A few moments later, she opened her eyes. Her breathing had settled and she pointed to the hallway leading to the older section of the hospital, which housed the inpatient wards. “I'm ready. Take me to elevator.”

“Not so fast. You said you'd tell me where we're going.”

“Soon, you see,” she said and waved him forward with an imperious flip of her fingers. “But now, you push.”

Opting for peace, he rolled her toward the elevator, the route taking them past the cheery gift shop and the spartan library. Being Saturday, the gift shop was open, the library closed. Commerce trumped knowledge. He wondered whether these days anyone read printed medical texts and journals. Medical stuff was better online — easier to find, more up to date, and loaded with fantastic images.

They stopped in front of the twin elevator doors. “Up or down?” he asked.

Kitti thought for a moment, which surprised him. He thought she'd already worked this out. “Down,” she said.

“The basement? Are you sure?”

“Yes, down.” She slipped something out of her purse and palmed it so he couldn't see it. Whatever it was, it seemed to reassure her.

Against his better judgment, he pushed the down button. His chest was still tight. They should be in Emerg, not taking an elevator to God knows where.

The left-hand door opened, and he wheeled her forward.

“Stop. Not that one.”

“For heaven's sake, Mother, they both go to the same place.”

“No. Stop.” He did as she asked and let the door close without them. She waited a moment, then pressed the up button three times. “We take next one.”

They waited in silence.

Was she losing it? First down, now up. Maybe it was a lack of oxygen. He glanced at her lips. They were pink enough. But what was that in her hand? What the heck was she up to?

Her eyes flashed in satisfaction as the right-hand elevator opened.

“Okay, now?” he asked. He'd let a little sarcasm creep in. His mother was used to that. His sister had a Master's in it.

She looked from side to side, as if checking to be sure they were alone, then nodded. “Yes. This one.”

“Which floor?” he said, once they were inside.

She hesitated, then told him to push number four, the top floor.

He pushed the button and watched the indicator numbers light up in succession. Two. Three.

Suddenly, she lunged forward, waved the thing in her fist over the elevator's control panel, and hit the large red button.

The car lurched to a stop, and so did Zol's stomach. “What the —? Mother, what are you doing?”

She sought his face, and held him tightly with her gaze, her lips quivering. She pressed her palm to her mouth, then took a slow, deep breath. Still clutching her purse, she said, “Know where you are, son?”

Yeah, stuck between floors three and four with a woman whose behaviour was becoming increasingly irrational.

She stared up at him with a faraway look, her eyes glistening, teardrops on each cheek. He took a step back, unnerved. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his mother cry. This wasn't the face of the practical, no-nonsense woman who, until a few months ago, had kept a spotless household and spearheaded half a dozen charity projects. It was downright frightening to see her this way.

“You born right here.” She pointed to the scuffed linoleum that looked as though it hadn't been replaced in more than thirty-five years. “My first baby.”

He fumbled in his pockets for a Kleenex, but realized she didn't want one. She wasn't tearing with sadness. She was indulging in a moment of nostalgia.

He knew the story, of course. And the graphic details of his sudden appearance on the elevator floor amid a gush of blood and body fluids.

“Your dad, he parking the car. I told him he should hurry, the baby is coming. But that man, he always behind. Like cow's tail.”

“Come on, Mum. You're not supposed to interfere with the elevator. Security's going to —”

She showed him what she'd hidden in her fist. Her photo
ID
card from hospital.
CODE ORANGE VOLUNTEER
was printed across it in bold letters. “I'm on Disaster Team. They allow me control the elevator when necessary. And necessary now. A few minutes only.”

“But —”

“No time wasting.” She dug into her handbag and pulled out something the size of a couple of cigarette packs wrapped in blue gingham.

Without unwrapping the object, she raised it with both hands. “I must die in peace.”

He grabbed the handrail and squeezed his eyes closed against the vertigo threatening to topple him. His own mother, delusional from the cancer now spread to her brain, was asking him to euthanize her. Right here in the exact spot she'd delivered him. Her sense of the poetic was in overdrive, and she was out of her mind.

He opened his eyes and held the rail with both hands. His mother's eyes were clear, the faraway look replaced by earnest practicality. Maybe she hadn't lost her marbles. Perhaps she'd come to a rational decision about ending her life. That would be just like her. Everything planned, micro-organized to a fault. She must have squirrelled away enough of her bedside morphine to do the job. And now here, where she'd brought him into the world, she wanted him to inject her with an overdose. She was asking him to end her life in the exact location she'd brought life to his. Rational perhaps, and clearly dramatic, but out of the question.

“Mum, I can't —”

“Quiet, Zollie. I show you something.” She removed the gingham wrapping. In her lap was a small box. He recognized the logo and blue colour — a Birks jewellery box. She removed the lid to reveal the object inside, nestled in a bed of cotton batting. “This for you. Now your turn keep it safe.”

Zol couldn't believe what his mother was holding. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. His heart was racing, his chest tighter than ever. “How did you get this?”

“You promise keep it safe? Don't tell your father?”

His tongue was as dry as a boxful of sand. “Um . . . well . . .” He'd never seen her look so vulnerable — her turban, her sunken cheeks, her grey eyes imploring with a new set of tears welling at the corners. At this moment he'd do almost anything she wanted.

He stared at the object in the box. Its eyes. They weren't red, they were black. How could this be?