Whatever (21 page)

At the front door, I pulled off the orange slippers and put them in the basket. Robin took them out again and handed them to me. “Please keep them. You always wear them when you're here. You put them on the day I met you, when I brought you here to help with Gran's tea party. I don't want them donated to a thrift store.”

Before I could answer, he was out the door, not looking back. He replaced the spare house key under the third step and called, “See you in the car,” his voice rough again. I pulled on my boots and my backpack and had begun to close the front door, when I remembered the garbage. I slipped off my boots again and went back to the kitchen. The bag of garbage wasn't very full. I grabbed it and started to tie it up when I saw what was on top. An empty bottle of Mrs. J.'s pain pills.

“Darrah? Will you bring the garbage? I forgot it,” Robin called from the front hall.

This belongs in the recycling, I thought, and slipped the empty pill bottle into my jacket pocket. I'll recycle it at home.

“I've got it, Robin. I'll be right there.”

Dinner was quiet, no one knew what to say to me. I kept hoping Robin would call, and maybe come over, but I knew he couldn't. He needed to be with his family. Mom and Dad asked me if I wanted to see a grief counsellor. I said I didn't know, maybe.

I went to bed early, exhausted, but I couldn't fall asleep. I couldn't cry anymore, I didn't want to cry anymore. I wanted to sleep. I heard the rest of the family say their goodnights, and Mom came into my room and gently stroked my hair before pulling the covers up and tiptoeing out. I pretended I was asleep, and then tried, again, to really sleep.

Finally, at about two in the morning, I gave up. I took the orange slippers out of my backpack, put them on, and went downstairs. I'd make a cup of chamomile tea; maybe that would help me sleep.

I stood in my own kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, looking down at my feet in the orange slippers, and I remembered the pill bottle. It was still in my jacket pocket, hanging in the front hall.

I got it, brought it back to the kitchen, and made a pot of tea. Then I looked carefully at the bottle. It had her name, Mrs. J. Johnson, then the date the prescription had been filled, December 24, and the instructions, “Take one or two every four hours as needed for pain, maximum eight a day.” Mrs. J. had died the night of December 26th, or early in the morning on the 27th, the day after Boxing Day, three days after the prescription had been filled. Three times eight is twenty-four.
I looked at the prescription label again. The bottle had held sixty.

I put the bottle on the kitchen table, and poured myself a mug of tea, thinking. That was too many pills for her to take. Maybe she gave some to Mr. Allen? He suffered from arthritis pain. But why didn't she give him the whole bottle? Why take the pills out?

Maybe she got rid of the pills, flushed them down the toilet. Maybe they were in the bottom of the garbage and I hadn't seen them. But why would she do that? She would need more pills the next day and the next. Unless . . .

Unless she took them on purpose.

No. She wouldn't have. Would she? How could she do that? That's not fair to Robin and his family. That's not fair to me.

The tears started again. I gulped down a mouthful of tea. It was hot and burned my mouth. I threw the mug across the room, watched as it shattered against the fridge, almost in slow motion. Chamomile tea dripped down the refrigerator door and onto the floor; part of the broken mug rocked slowly back and forth, slower, slower, and then it stopped. But no one heard the smash; my parents didn't come downstairs to see what was going on.

That's what happens when you die, I thought, still looking at the broken mug. You get slower and slower and then you stop.

Why was I so angry with Mrs. J? She did what she thought was the right thing—the right thing for her. She was strong and brave, but the pain must have been too much. I remembered
how at first she just took one pill, then she started asking me for two at a time.

I missed her, I wanted her alive again. I was sad for Robin and sad for me—that I could understand. But why was I angry?

Because it wasn't right. Killing people, even yourself, is wrong.

An image of a circle popped into my mind. Mrs. Barrett was facilitating again, I was sitting beside her, wearing the orange slippers, Robin across the room and Mrs. J. on the other side of Mrs. Barrett. There were others there, Mrs. J.'s family, faceless bodies.

“I will remind you that we are not here to judge Janie Johnson's character,” said the imaginary Mrs. Barrett, reading from her imaginary script. “We are here to learn how others have been affected by her actions. Mrs. Johnson, please tell us what you did on that night.”

Then the circle vanished. But not before my imaginary Mrs. J. glared at us all and said, “Mind your own business, all of you. Especially you, girl.”

It
was
her business, not mine. It was her pain, her suffering, her life. Didn't she have the right to choose to end her own life when and how she wanted? To end the pain? To die with dignity when and where she wanted?

Her family was with her for Christmas, she died in her own home, not in that “warehouse” she had to move to. All good things.

I would miss her, and her family would miss her, but it was her choice.

The prescription label peeled off the bottle easily. I wadded it up into a sticky mass, wrapped it in Kleenex and buried it in the bottom of our almost-full garbage, under crumpled metallic wrapping paper and tangled shiny ribbons. The now unidentifiable empty bottle went back into my jacket pocket, to be tossed into recycling somewhere else, not here where Mom might see it and ask questions.

Then I mopped up the kitchen floor, wiped down the spatters on the fridge and put the broken pieces of the mug in the garbage. I poured out the rest of the tea, put the tea leaves in the compost bucket and rinsed and dried the teapot. Then I hung up the tea towel. The kitchen was tidy again.

“A good cook always cleans up after herself, right Mrs. J?”

Slowly, I climbed the stairs to my bedroom. This time I knew I could sleep.

My Recipes

I made notes and changed some of the words from the General Rules in
the
Foods, Nutrition and Home Management
book. They were really old
fashioned. Also, all of Mrs. J.'s recipes and the ones in her book were in cups and
teaspoons, not metric, so I didn't try to change them over. But I looked up some
common measurements in metric, and put them on a recipe card. In case I want to make
something from a metric cookbook. — DP

CHANGING MEASUREMENTS TO METRIC:

¼ teaspoon (tsp) = 1.25 ml (milliliter)

½ tsp = 2.5 ml

1 tsp = 5 ml

1 tablespoon (tbsp) = 15 ml

¼ cup = 60 ml

1/3 cup = 75 ml

½ cup = 125 ml

1 cup = 250 ml

4 cups = 1 liter

2 cups flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

2-4 tablespoons fat
(margarine, lard or butter)

2/3 cup milk or water

• Turn on oven to right temperature (425 degrees for
biscuits) and grease baking pans.

• Mix flour and baking powder in a bowl.

• Put shortening in with flour mixture,
cut with a knife
and work with tips of fingers until mixture is the texture of raw oatmeal
(no big
lumps)
.

• Add milk gradually with as little mixing as possible.

• Put dough on a lightly floured board
(or a clean
counter)
then knead it.
(Not too long, just until it is all mixed
together)
. Roll out until ¾ of an inch thick.

• Cut with floured biscuit cutter
(or a glass the size you
want the biscuits to be)
.

• Bake for 15–20 minutes until doubled in size and golden
brown on top.

• For cheese biscuits, add 2/3 of a cup of grated
cheese to the dry ingredients and reduce the fat to 1 tablespoon.

1 left-over barbecued takeout chicken
(what remains from the
previous meal)

1 cup of chopped carrots

1 cup of chopped onions

1 cup or more of other vegetables: celery, green peas, beans,
red or green peppers, anything you like

½ cup of rice

a bit of oil (small spoonful)

pepper

salt

hot sauce (few drops)

• Pull off as much chicken meat as you can from the
left-over chicken; chop and put in a bowl to add later. Put the rest of the chicken
(mostly bones) in a big pot of cold water, bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and let
it cook slowly, without boiling over, for about an hour.

• Once the stock is ready (it smells good and the bones pull
apart easily) remove chicken bones. Let them cool, pull off any more bits of meat you
can find and add to the other chicken meat in the bowl. Throw the bones away.

• Chop onion, put in frying pan with teaspoon of oil. Cook
for a few minutes until golden coloured, but not burned.

• Add rice, vegetables and chicken to hot stock. Cook for
about half an hour until rice is done. Taste, then put in salt, pepper and a few drops
of hot sauce if you want it spicy.

(Mrs. J. just told me what to do, she didn't have a recipe written down)

1 pound of lean hamburger

1 onion, diced

1 large carrot, peeled and grated

1 tablespoon oregano

1 tablespoon parsley

1 big can of tomato sauce

a few drops of hot sauce

a small bit of black pepper

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped, if you like garlic

Optional vegetables: 2 big mushrooms, washed, diced; green or red
peppers, diced; black olives, sliced

(You can buy spaghetti sauce already seasoned, called “Italian” or “spiced,” or you
can add your own seasonings. You don't need to add extra salt, most canned and
ready-made foods are already salted quite enough, Mrs. J. says.)

• Brown hamburger in a frying pan until no pink shows. Break
it into little chunks while it's browning. Add onion, carrot and garlic—if you are using
garlic. Brown for another 10 minutes, making sure it doesn't burn.

• Pour can of tomato sauce into a medium sized saucepan. Add
everything from frying pan and oregano and parsley. Carefully bring it to a boil, then
turn it down and let it simmer for about half an hour, stirring once in a while.

COOKING THE SPAGHETTI

• Fill the biggest pot you can find ¾ full of water. On high
heat, bring it to a bubbling boil. Break dry spaghetti in half first, if you don't like
long strings of pasta. Add to boiling water. Watch carefully, turn down heat or it will
boil over. Read directions on spaghetti box for how much spaghetti to use and how long
to cook it. Don't cook too long or it turns mushy. Pour cooked spaghetti into a colander
or strainer over the sink and don't let it get cold.

1½ cups white flour

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons cocoa
(the real cocoa, not hot chocolate
mix)

1/3 cup (or 5 tablespoons) melted shortening , butter or oil
(margarine is okay, but don't use the diet stuff)

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 cup boiling water

• Put dry ingredients in a 9x9 baking pan
(a square
baking pan, not too big)
.

• Make three holes in the mixture. Pour oil, vinegar and
vanilla in separate holes.

• Pour boiling water over all. Mix with fork. DO NOT
BEAT.

• Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

• Leave in pan and frost while still warm.

WACKY CAKE FROSTING

½ cup sugar

½ cup milk

2 tablespoons butter