The Company We Keep

by Frances Itani

  Tom smiled and carried on. Imagine, he thought. Imagine spending years of your childhood in the shadow of these buildings. You’d be brought up as part of a large medical community with rules, definite rules. Your ultimate threat—your ultimate “or else”—would have to be “I’m telling the hospital!”

  Once he was in front of the main entrance again, he figured he’d go to the coffee shop to buy a pot of tea and something to eat. He had another hour and a half to fill before Dave would call.

  In the first hallway, he pressed himself against the wall to make way for a narrow stretcher with the sides pulled up. The woman pushing it seemed familiar, and he looked and then looked again when he was certain.

  “Addie?”

  Before she replied, he saw the person lying on the stretcher, eyes closed, white hospital blanket pulled up to her chin, gaunt, wasted by disease. It was patently clear that the woman was extremely ill.

  Addie’s face was lined with worry. She had almost pushed past him while guiding the stretcher toward the elevators.

  Was she surprised—relieved?—to see him, to hear her voice called out? Tom wasn’t sure.

  “Tom!” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Did you drive someone this morning? You volunteer for Wheels of Hope, don’t you?”

  “That’s exactly why I’m here,” he said.

  The woman on the stretcher opened her eyes when she heard Addie speak.

  “This is Sybil,” Addie said to Tom in a half-voice, as if she were no longer accustomed to speaking in a normal tone. “My friend Sybil. She was in radiology for an x-ray, and I told the staff I’d bring her back up to the ward.”

  “Do you need help? I’ll take one end.”

  “No, this is easy to push. I’m practised, believe me.”

  Sybil had followed the exchange and now freed a bony arm and hand from under the blanket, extending it toward Tom. She appeared to be too tired to speak.

  What a measure of humanity we are, Tom said to himself, taking Sybil’s thin hand in his own, understanding the situation. Or thinking he did.

  “Here,” he said, “let me take the end. It’ll be easier with two.”

  Addie acquiesced.

  “I’m filling in time while I wait for my passenger,” he told her. “One of the residents”—he almost said “inmates”—“from the Haven. He won’t be finished treatment for a while. Maybe, if you’re free, we can have a cup of tea? Tim Hortons is on this level. Well, you’ll know where it is.”

  Addie nodded, her cheeks flushed. “I’d welcome a cup of tea before heading home. I took the day off so I could spend the morning with Sybil. An x-ray was scheduled, and we—her family and I—try to be here most of the time. Sybil likes to have someone she knows with her. Her sister-in-law is already here to relieve me for the afternoon, though. She just sent a text from upstairs. If you want to go ahead and order the tea, I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

  Sybil had been taking in the conversation, but when the elevator doors opened, she closed her eyes and submitted to being pushed about.

  Tom left the two of them in the doorway of her private room and went back downstairs. He didn’t have long to wait. He’d secured a table for two in the corner, and Addie soon joined him, looking almost as weary as her friend.

  “Go ahead and ask,” she said, and slid into her chair.

  “There’s nothing to ask,” said Tom. “I’m sorry. Sorry to see your friend so very ill.”

  “She won’t last much longer,” said Addie. “That’s why I took the day off; I’m not really here because of the x-ray. Fortunately, the weekend is coming up. When I come back tomorrow I can stay overnight, maybe two nights. But I have to return home this afternoon. I’ll check in at work and then pack a bag so I can cover the night shift for the weekend. Give the family a break. Until. Well, until.”

  “If you want me to drive you anywhere—if you don’t feel like driving yourself—just say the word.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll let the company know when I’m able, Tom. But I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad we met in the hall. Thank you for not questioning me.”

  “Addie, there’s no reason to explain.” Tom patted her arm and started talking to her about driving Dave. He told her about Dave’s easy banter on the trip to Greenley. About walking around the hospital grounds. About the overheard argument between the two boys. He filled up the space while Addie gathered herself, and he could see that she was grateful. After that, they were silent for a bit, sipping at their tea.

  Tom was going back to the counter to order a bagel with cheese and asked Addie what she wanted.

  “I am a bit hungry. Maybe a bowl of soup? Here, let me give you the money.”

  “My treat,” he said. “Absolutely my treat.”

  They’d finished eating when Tom heard the low tone of his phone and checked his messages. “Dave’s ready,” he said. “I have to go upstairs to pick him up.”

  Addie stood when he left the table. He looked down—she was easily six inches shorter—and hugged her.

  “You’ll get through this,” he said. “Sybil is fortunate to have you as a friend. And please, Addie, don’t forget that you have other friends, too. Will you be at Cassie’s on Tuesday?”

  “I haven’t missed a meeting yet. And won’t, if I can help it.”

  “Good.”

  “See you then. Depending.”

  Tom gave a wave and headed toward the elevators again.

  DAVE WAS SITTING on a bench at the end of the hall. He had an ashen look but hailed Tom in his usual spirited way.

  “I’ll walk you to the elevator and down to the entrance,” Tom told him. “You can wait there while I bring the car around.”

  But when Dave stood, he became dizzy and dropped back to the bench, his head bowed.

  He looked at Tom. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This has happened before. Some sort of issue with balance, vertigo. Nothing serious; it won’t last. Thump goes my left foot. But the sole of my foot doesn’t send a message to my brain to say it made contact with the floor. I know the foot is there; I can see it. Just takes a minute, that’s all.” He took a deep breath and prepared to stand again.

  Tom told him to stay put, and he went to fetch a wheelchair, just in case. He didn’t want Dave going down in a heap in the middle of the corridor. He didn’t want him breaking a hip. Not on his watch. His job was to get Dave safely back to the Haven. No fainting fits or snapped bones along the way.

  Being Present

  ADDIE

  Addie sat at the table again. When Tom was out of sight, she picked up her scrunched paper napkin and began to fold and refold, until she’d worried it down to the size of a thumbnail.

  Am I prepared? she thought. Is Sybil’s family prepared? We have no choice and will do what has to be done. We will be present. That is the most important thing. Sybil is loved. There is nothing more important right now. But Addie felt like wailing. Wailing through the day and night.

  She considered the way Sybil had collapsed onto her mattress after being transferred from stretcher to bed. An entire body collapse into instant sleep. And what was today’s hip x-ray about anyway? Was that necessary? Sybil was rarely comfortable, rarely without pain. The only time the lines and creases disappeared from her face was when she was heavily medicated—almost semi-comatose. Addie knew that the x-ray results, whatever they might be, were not going to change the final days of her friend’s life. She felt resentful that Sybil had been put through all the meaningless shifting and moving.

  And Tom. She felt better after seeing him. He would never accuse her of being a misrepresenter of facts. He was accepting, seemed to understand, no explanation needed, none given. None of that mattered anymore.

  She stared out the window at the December sky and experienced a lightning flash of remorse about refusing to provide extra morphine to her friend, who was in so much pain. Pain that lingered as life lingered. But where on earth would Addie have put her hands on a supply? An
d how would she have done such a thing? No, she could not live with that.

  Sybil had accepted her decision and had not mentioned the morphine again. The family knew nothing of any of this. But Sybil had turned away from them all, Addie included. She had turned toward Death. Death with a capital D.

  Addie was finally able to move. But only as far as the counter to order another tea. She sat back down at the table for a while, until she could face the journey home. She wouldn’t need supper when she got there; that was certain. Food didn’t seem to matter now.

  But on her way out, she ordered a ten-pack of Timbits, in case she wanted a snack along the way. She probably wouldn’t eat them at all. She’d just leave them in the car.

  While the Timbits were being put into a cardboard container, Addie tried to pull herself together. She had to drive home to Wilna Creek, and then turn right around and drive back to Greenley in the morning. She would pray for more than a few hours’ sleep tonight.

  She was uneasy. The past few days—and especially this morning—every time she said goodbye to Sybil, she’d felt a looming sense of dread, a foreboding, the world topped with grey.

  And yet, even through the dread, when she walked out of the health centre into the winter air, she came to a full stop. She stood outside the main doors and pulled in a deep breath. For herself. A deep breath of life.

  Ways of Seeing

  HAZZLEY

  Thursday, Hazzley stood by the kitchen window overlooking the backyard. She was surprised to see a peregrine falcon at the top of the neighbour’s tree. Still like the falcon; eye like the hawk. She waited to see what it would do. Probably keeping an eye on her. No, a falcon would be watching the bird feeder for prey. But it would be aware of her, she was certain.

  She had pulled the paper in from the front step and now opened it out over the counter to scan the obituaries while she finished her coffee.

  Right away, she saw the notice about a Greenley woman named Sybil who had died the previous day. A name one didn’t see much these days. She was described as a professor of nursing. Addie Levesque, beloved friend, was named in the list of mourners. The funeral was to be held at a church in Greenley on Saturday afternoon. Two days from now.

  Hazzley stared up at the falcon and thought of Addie. The clarity and immediacy of sorrow, the devastation of loss.

  She thought of her own path over the past three years. Good grief and bad. Or maybe, she told herself, all the grief just sinks to the middle, somewhere in between. A muddle of grief.

  “Look at me,” she said aloud, still staring at the falcon. “I’m trying not to be at a standstill. I thought I could empty the house and change my life in some unknown way, but I got stuck after three rooms: Lew’s office, the dining room, a spare room upstairs. The basement is the obstacle. I’m not even sure of what I was trying to accomplish. Maybe, in the new year, in the spring, I can face a move. Would that surprise anyone? Sal? Cass? Probably not. I could move to a smaller place that would suit me better than this great big house. First things first, however. Addie is the one who’s important right now.”

  The falcon flew off.

  Hazzley refolded the paper, put on her coat and boots and went out to the car. She placed the paper on the passenger seat for Tom. The two of them could talk this over when she picked him up at his house. First, she had to get him to his appointment. He’d phoned a few days earlier to ask if she’d drive him to his eye appointment and home again. He wouldn’t be able to drive while his pupils were dilated, he said. And he wondered if she’d mind.

  Of course she wouldn’t mind. After she’d replaced the receiver, her memory recited: ophthalmus, Greek root, “eye.” Her brain worked that way; she made no excuses. She was glad she could remember Greek and Latin roots. Long-term memory was a blessing, and she hoped it wouldn’t go away. Keep adding to the store, she told herself.

  Tom was good company. He’d mentioned that he’d be flying west to visit his son’s family for five days over Christmas. Hazzley would be in Ottawa over the same period, staying with Sal. She’d be happy to catch up on the lives of her grandchildren, who would all be home. And there was plenty of snow in Ottawa. More than Wilna Creek had received so far. Hazzley decided that she’d put her snowshoes in the car, just in case.

  Maybe she would ask Tom about the snow poem. Ask if he knew the lines she couldn’t place.

  As I look over the

  White and soundless world.

  His appointment wouldn’t last long—an hour, maybe. She could read or do the daily puzzles to fill in the time. The clinic had a small coffee bar in the pharmacy on the main floor of the building.

  She had no idea if Tom was having a problem with his eyes. The appointment was probably an annual check. Everyone their age had their eyes checked. She’d had her own appointment a while back, and as ever, the doctor had commented on the abnormally large size of her pupils—without drops. Something she never noticed in the mirror or thought of at all until someone brought it to her attention. Not that she’d ever been blinded by a blazing surge of insight. No, she thought. Insight seems to be portioned out in stages.

  She had never been to Tom’s home, but she knew his street because it was only five blocks from her own. She slowed until she came to an older house on a corner lot. Tom was waiting at the front door and climbed in beside her. When she showed him the obituary, he did not seem surprised. He was the kind of person, she figured, who accepted things as they were. Straight on, as events unfolded.

  By the time Hazzley pulled up in front of the eye clinic, the two of them had a plan. They would return to Hazzley’s after Tom’s appointment and start phoning from there. They were aiming for three in the afternoon. Hazzley would make a couple of sandwiches and a pot of tea for lunch while she and Tom waited for the others. In the meantime, while Tom was in the doctor’s office upstairs, she would call the café. Cass would definitely want to know. Hazzley pulled out her cell.

  A SELF-SERVE SHELF for tea and coffee had been set up along the window side of the pharmacy. Three narrow tables were squeezed into a small space. Hazzley draped her coat over a chair and helped herself to a mug of boiling water from a large urn. She dropped a tea bag into her mug and paid at the cash.

  A family—mother, toddler on a booster seat and an older woman (maybe a grandmother?)—were at one of the tables. The toddler had a perfect rosebud mouth and reddish hair. In fact, all three had reddish hair. Hazzley smiled at the child and he shifted his torso to a defensive position, his shoulder slanted away from her. He was in a grumpy mood. She gave up trying to be friendly. But he kept vigil because now he needed to know where she was. His mother and grandmother, oblivious to this exchange, were arguing, wrangling over something, and they, too, fell into a grumpy silence. The grandmother, who was terribly thin, shifted her arms over the tabletop as if they were weightless, as if her bones were knocking about under her skin. She stared up at the ceiling as if there was no point in going on.

  There is! Hazzley wanted to shout at her. At both women, really. There is reason! Don’t waste your time arguing with each other! Even your child looks as if he’s accepted conflict as the norm!

  She began to work on the crossword, and then thought about bringing Tom back to the house for lunch while they waited for the others to arrive in the afternoon.

  She made another decision.

  Seeking Balance

  CHIYO

  It was shortly before one o’clock, and Chiyo had been behind the counter for forty minutes. She was in charge of mashed potatoes—one plop or two—a slice of meat and a scoop of gravy for each plate. The next task was to serve extra helpings, if anyone wanted more. This was Chiyo’s second day as a volunteer. The previous day, when she’d arrived at the church to offer her services, she was put to work immediately; that’s how short-staffed they were. She was handed an apron and assigned to soup, one bowl per tray for each of the men and women as they slid their trays along.

  The soup kitchen in the church bas
ement was open every weekday. Forty to fifty people showed up regularly for the hot midday meal. Some were hungry and in need of food. She suspected that others were there for companionship. Most seemed to know one another. There was no charge for the meal. Chiyo had made a commitment to work twice a week, on days when she was free over the lunch hour, usually Wednesdays and Thursdays. She was told that for Saturday and Sunday meals, a second soup kitchen was open at a local mission not far from the church, but that was run by a separate organization.

  Communal tables had already been set up in the church basement, chairs in place, before the outside doors were unlocked. Another volunteer explained that the tables stayed up throughout the week unless the space was needed for some evening event. Tables and chairs were folded and stacked along the side of the room, as necessary. The kitchen was broad, with a high ceiling, long stainless counters on one side, spacious paint-chipped cupboards above those, a huge white table in the centre, electric ranges on the opposite side, along with two deep sinks and a large dishwasher. In the room where the food was served, the ceiling was low, pipes and beams evident. Turkey suppers as fundraisers used to be served there during Thanksgiving and Christmas, and Chiyo had attended more than a few with her mom. Over the past two decades, those had been replaced by free meals for the needy. The entire place was familiar, even welcoming. A large Christmas tree in one corner of the room had been decorated with garlands that glittered of silver and gold. Strings of multicoloured lights flashed on and off like signals from a lighthouse.