Would I Lie to You

by Mary Lou Dickinson

  “I really can’t think about it now,” Martin said.

  “All the trips we’ve taken together. All the races we’ve entered.”

  “And lost,” Martin added.

  “We won the important ones,” Jerry said.

  Martin was silent.

  Sue’s thoughts drifted to the trips she and Jerry had taken on the sailboat. He kept it at a marina up north not far from their cabin, a cabin she had always loved but no longer wanted to visit as long as she could not do so with Jerry. Some summers, they had sailed out into the gleaming ripples of Georgian Bay and down the rocky shoreline or through the islands. It was possible to get to many parts of southern Ontario by water. Jerry had maps of all the waterways. But he was right that she would rather Martin have Prime Time.

  Before she met Jerry, she had been on a sailboat only a couple of times. Once to see the Toronto skyline with a man she had later discovered was dating three or four other women and using his boat as a means to court them. Sue had always known quickly when a man was the wrong one, but not how she would know the right one. Sometimes, she had wondered how that might feel. That was until Jerry came along and she understood finally why no one could really explain it to you until it happened. It was something that transcended words. It had not struck her like a flash of lightning. It had happened over time. Either way, there was a moment when it had become so clear that she had almost wanted to jump up and shout, “Eureka.”

  Jerry drifted off, his breathing sounding like a rattle in his throat. Martin put on the coffee pot and Sue followed him and stood at the door. He looked up at her with a sad smile, his moustache following the lines of his lips. Tears glistened in his eyes.

  “I can’t sail in that boat without Jerry,” he said.

  “He wants you to have it.”

  “I know that. I understand it. I still find it impossible to think about.”

  They both knew it was not the boat they were talking about.

  “It won’t be long,” Sue said.

  He nodded.

  “My sister is coming today.” Maggie had offered and Sue had accepted without hesitation.

  “Yes, Jerry told me. Is someone meeting her at the airport?”

  “No. She’ll take a cab.” Sue had not thought to ask him. Now she wished she had.

  “I could go,” he offered.

  “Thank you.”

  “Or I could stay with Jerry while you do.”

  “That’s kind of you. I’d really like to meet Maggie.” Sue realized this suddenly now that he had offered. He knew she would not leave for quite that long if anyone else were here. Although Jerry did not have long, it felt as if he had at least another day or two.

  Martin found her coat in the closet and held it up while she put her arms into the sleeves.

  “Drive safely,” he said.

  She went into the living room and kissed her husband. “I’ll be back soon, love,” she whispered.

  *

  Outside on the street, Sue inserted the car key and attached her seat belt. She looked blindly at the dashboard, thinking of the day she and Jerry were married. Everyone had crossed to the island on the ferry early that morning. The water was cool as she walked along the beach, dipping her bare feet. She had worn a long pale blue skirt and loose blouse that tied in the front. Skirt held high, she had tiptoed through the ripples rolling up onto the sand.

  Jerry wore light trousers and a pale shirt that matched hers. Cavorting in the water beside her, he took her hand and pulled her along. Laughing, her hair streamed out behind her in the breeze.

  “This is our wedding day,” she sang.

  “Finally!” He had thought she would never say yes, he had told her. “You were so standoffish for a long time, I didn’t even dare ask for a date.”

  She smiled slightly as she reached to put the key into the ignition. She thought of Martin and Emily who had fallen behind to walk with the young minister. The lines of the ceremony Sue and Jerry had worked out with him were ones they had struggled over as they had looked for ways to make what they would promise to one another reflect their own beliefs.

  “I’m not going to obey anyone,” Sue had said.

  Jerry laughed. “For sure.” She was like a bird, he had often said. “And you have to let a bird fly free.” The minister had struck out the offending word.

  Walking along behind were Maggie and her husband, Angus Milroy. The minister talked with them, their words lost in the wind. Only Maggie and Angus had been invited from either of the families so altogether there were seven of them there that day. Sue bent over and cupped her hand in the water, lifting it to throw droplets at Jerry.

  “Bless you,” she chuckled.

  “Why are you doing that?” he grimaced.

  “Because I’m happy.”

  “What an odd way to show it.”

  Shards of shadow fell across Sue’s face and for a moment she pressed her lips together and was quiet. Only the day before, Jerry had turned and walked out of the restaurant when she had joked about the remarks Martin might make at the wedding. He came back almost right away, but his face was drawn and for a while it was difficult to engage him in conversation.

  Is this a mistake after all? she had wondered. It had not been too late. She could have said, “I’ve changed my mind.”

  But Jerry had leaned toward her with a contrite smile. “I love you, Suzy Q,” he said. “I’m happy, too.” Her thought was that he had likely been nervous. She was relieved when she saw everyone with them had relaxed again also, the moment forgotten. Now, as she pulled out of their driveway, she was relieved that those early portents had not turned into future problems.

  They had all moved to the patch of grass under a tree picked for the ceremony. The minister looked around, seemingly trying to decide where to stand. The others surrounded them as the vows were spoken. Martin handed the ring to Jerry who put it on Sue’s finger. The couple embraced, and Sue felt Jerry’s lips on hers, familiar yet different. She had done what she thought she would never do. Marry. What would her mother have said? By now, her parents had both died, and she wondered why fear of their disapproval still kept her from telling Jerry what her mother had told her she must never tell anyone. Surely, he would understand, she figured. Still, she had not told him. Instead, she had thought of Maggie’s children who had sent their best wishes and small gifts; these children who had become almost as close to her, even at a distance, as she thought one of her own would have been. But she could not know that and tried not to think about it as she moved into new territory by marrying Jerry. Nonetheless, her mother’s admonitions still rang in her mind. She must never speak about her secret. Like a safety deposit box for which she had lost the key, it had to remain forever closed.

  And she was Jerry’s bird, his chickadee. A bird they both assumed would fly free. This was what Jerry seemed to promise. There was such an aura of hope in those first days that had never entirely left her.

  After signing the documents, Martin opened a large wicker basket and handed out wine glasses. He peered into the basket again and with a triumphant smile pulled out a champagne bottle.

  “A toast,” he said.

  Pop.

  Soon, they were raising their glasses.

  The minister left after that. “I have to get back to the city,” he had said. This had been understood, that he would not stay beyond the ceremony. The rest of them had brought food for a picnic and searched for a table that would give them some privacy. Emily laid out the checkered tablecloth and someone placed cutlery on it. Sue and Jerry had wanted their day to be simple.

  Sue recalled that she had thought maybe it would not have been so easy to call off the marriage after all. She was glad it had not come to that.

  *

  Signs above the highway indicated the locations of various traffic jams, and, at every jun
cture, they seemed to be where Sue was heading. She had not considered all the lights that would stream toward her as people drove back into the metropolis, and she had not left herself any leeway. She hoped she would arrive at Pearson before her sister’s plane did.

  Maggie was older, with three children, and had been married for thirty years to the same man. Sue thought about how different their lives had been. Even so, they had shared a childhood spent in a house covered with white asbestos shingles in the northern Quebec bush. Their father, one of the earliest to live at the mine site in what became Ile d’Or, had designed the hoist for a new mine. The company had provided the houses. Their mother, a lively woman from Toronto, almost seemed a northerner by birth as she became a skilled poker player and handled guns so well during hunting season she often took other women along with her to show them the best places to shoot partridge. She had also taught Sue how to use a gun. This was something Maggie had commented on more than once. Why not her?

  Sometimes, Sue wondered if her childhood had been easier than Maggie’s. When her sister was eleven and twelve, no one knew whether their father would come home safely from one of his trips into the bush. But, more often than not, he would arrive singing loudly as he navigated his way from the back door to the kitchen. Maggie said she had been so relieved, she had jumped into his arms to hug him. Their mother had sometimes said that he would have to stop flying in those little planes that landed on the lake or she would go back to the city. Sue had thought it was all a joke, but Maggie had seemed to take it seriously. Sue only knew that by the time she reached her teenage years, he was a quiet, rather droll man, often buried in mysteries by Agatha Christie and books about the Second World War by Winston Churchill. He had also liked helping her with her homework. Never the student Maggie was, Sue had needed all the help she could get.

  Time was running out to make it before Maggie’s flight landed. Sue thought of snow-capped mountains overlooking English Bay. Maggie’s husband, Angus, often drove through Stanley Park to the Lions Gate Bridge to the West End so he could see the mountains more clearly. He loved to take photographs of his and Maggie’s trips as well as spots discovered not far from his own doorstep. Like Jerry, Angus Milroy was a lawyer. He worked for one of the mining companies, Amarpec, with an interest in large copper deposits in Chile. Maggie, who had not wanted to move west, now loved it there; yet, as her children moved away, she had become less certain. The Rocky Mountains created a psychological barrier between Vancouver and the rest of the country, she had said. And, as the children gradually reversed their parents’ migration, her focus had begun to shift east again. Never intimating that she would move back, she had said enough to make Sue wonder if it might not happen one day.

  At the luggage turntable, the bags were already circling. It was five or ten minutes before she saw a familiar lime pompom bouncing back and forth on the handle of a black suitcase. When she looked up, she saw her sister coming toward her. Maggie was still trim and youthful although with an abundance of grey hair to which she had stopped adding highlights.

  “You look so tired,” Maggie said as she drew nearer.

  Rarely did Sue think of their age difference anymore. However, with both their parents gone, there was something reassuring in having an older sister. She’ll greet people at the door when I can’t face one more person, Sue thought. She’ll make coffee in the morning and reorganize all the food in the refrigerator. Maggie was here to see Jerry one last time, expecting an imminent funeral. Tears streamed down Sue’s cheeks.

  “Oh, Sue,” Maggie said softly, moving to hold her sister.

  “How’s Angus?” Sue asked when she stopped crying, her voice shaky.

  “He sends his love,” Maggie said. “He’ll fly in the moment we call him.”

  That moment would come soon, with the bed in the living room and the portable toilet looming up beside it, as much omens as dark ravens or skeletons.

  “It won’t be long,” Sue said. “Not more than a day or two.”

  “That soon.”

  “I think so.” Only to Martin had she voiced this prescience that the days of Prime Time were over. “He wants to give his boat to Martin,” she added.

  “Oh my.”

  “Umm.”

  “Will he know me?”

  “He’ll know you.”

  Maggie pulled her suitcase as they began to walk to the elevator that would take them to the parking area. Sue took a small backpack her sister had been carrying and placed it over her shoulder.

  “The book I was reading on the plane is in that pack,” Maggie said. “And a small something for Jerry.”

  Sue did not ask what that might be. She wondered if Maggie knew that all Jerry needed now was love, touch, warmth, and the sound of their voices.

  When they arrived at the house, Maggie put a CD of country music on that was soft and lyrical. Jerry was asleep, but Sue could see a small smile creep across his face.

  “He hears it,” Maggie said. “He hears it.”

  Martin and Maggie went out into the kitchen, leaving Sue alone with Jerry. Their voices, low and gentle, rose and fell quietly in the background. Sue was aware only of the rhythm of their conversation. Jerry’s eyes opened and seemed to hold hers. His mouth formed the shape of some words. The first was “love.” After awhile, he also mouthed the name, “Maggie.”

  “She’s talking to Martin,” Sue said.

  He nodded so imperceptibly that if she had not been watching, Sue would have missed it. Shortly after, Maggie walked out of the kitchen and across the room to the hospital bed. From where Sue stood on the other side, she could see the fireplace with a painting over the mantel of northern scenery — rock, birch, and a lake gleaming in sunlight. To the left was a photograph of Jerry and her taken ten years earlier. A handsome couple, he used to say. And happy. For ten years, most of the time they had been. Occasionally, when there were angry words, they had learned to dispel them with good humour and patience. Usually. The prospect of death had made that harder. She felt guilty about the surges of anger that would come over her unexpectedly.

  “Jerry,” Maggie said gently. “It’s Maggie.”

  He knows, Sue thought. He knows you.

  “Angus sends his love,” Maggie whispered.

  Martin gestured good night from the door. He told Sue he would be back the next evening. When he left, Maggie backed away from the bed and turned to watch her sister. She seemed to ponder something.

  “Do you think I might have a chance to do a little shopping tomorrow?” she asked finally.

  Sue was momentarily speechless. Shopping? “Oh sure,” she said. “Take all the time you want.” If that’s what you came to do, go shopping. She did not add that final thought to accompany her sarcastic tone.

  “I just thought I might be able to find a birthday present for Angus,” Maggie said quietly. “I wouldn’t be gone all that long.”

  “Whatever.”

  They moved around in the kitchen, skirting each other silently.

  “I could feel Jerry squeeze slightly when I took his hand. And he had such a smile for me.” Although he was too weak to follow through with words, could summon nothing more than a murmur.

  “Yes,” Sue said. “He gets tired so quickly.” This was often how he was now, weak and listless with occasional moments when he showed that something was significant. It could be as simple as a wan smile when she brought him a glass of apple juice or a cup of tea, or perhaps on seeing Maggie, who had come all the way across the country. Sue was grateful and in that recognition also knew that Maggie had had to leave things undone at her home in order to make this trip, such as, finding a gift for her husband.

  “Do you have some ideas what you want to buy for Angus?” she asked.

  Maggie took in a deep breath. “A book maybe,” she said.

  When Maggie came back from her walk along Bloor Street the next
day, Sue heard her open the front door from where she and Martin sat at the table. Jerry was sleeping.

  They both greeted Maggie quietly.

  “Did you find something?” Sue asked.

  Maggie held up a small package. “Incense,” she said. “A book.” It was one on politics. “I’ll take everything upstairs.”

  “May I stay overnight?” Martin asked after Maggie disappeared.

  “Of course,” Sue said.

  He could sleep on the couch in the den at the back of the house while Maggie was using the upstairs guestroom. There was a nurse at the house at nights now also. Most often, Sue slept on the sofa to be there when Jerry woke up, to touch him, to sing softly.

  That night, when the nurse left the room for a while, Sue knew she would not be gone long and was close enough to be called easily. Sometimes, she read in the kitchen, sitting at the counter while Sue lay beside Jerry on the narrow bed, holding him. Creeping into the bed with him now, she fell asleep with the warmth of her husband beside her, but was soon awakened by his soft moan.

  The nurse appeared at the sound and Sue thought she must have extraordinary hearing.

  “I’ll give him a bit more,” the nurse said. A bit more of the painkiller, she meant.

  Martin came out into the room and surveyed the scene. He watched Jerry’s slow, laboured breathing.

  “G’morning, buddy,” he murmured. “I’ll put on the coffee,” he said, turning to Sue.

  When that was ready, Maggie brought mugs on a tray. Sue took one, but did not drink it. Jerry’s eyes opened and fluttered. As soon as he saw her, he sighed.

  “Jerry,” Sue whispered.

  He stopped breathing. She stared at him. One moment he was there, and now he was not. “He’s gone,” she said quietly with the sense that she was part of a surreal occurrence.

  She could feel Maggie’s arm around her as she spoke. Martin was on her other side. All of them were beside the bed now. Sue leaned over Jerry and whispered in his ear, her tears falling onto the pillow beside him.