Officer Smith returned with her tea, and Eve held it with both hands and sipped, relishing the flicker of warmth it provided. Her teeth chattered, and the cold had sunk so deep into her bones that she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to stand up when the time came.
“Shouldn’t they be at my house by now?” she asked at some point, but Officer Smith had left and Detective Baird stared dopey-eyed at his magazine.
The praying family moved along, and the mom with the croupy child was shown into an examination room and then ushered out minutes later with instructions to let the child breathe the damp outside air. The man with the ice pack kept watching her.
“Mrs. Adler?” A doctor stood before her, her pale hair slicked back into a ponytail, her expression grim.
Eve found she could stand up after all. “Is she okay? What’s happening?”
“You may come see her now,” the doctor told her. “She’s stable, but unresponsive. It was a major stroke, and we’ll get a better idea about her potential for recovery in the next twenty-four hours. But as you know, she’s elderly, and I think it’s best if you prepare yourself for the possibility that she may not wake up from this.”
“Poor Button!” Eve said, hands over her mouth. “This is all my fault.”
“A stroke can happen at any time. It’s nobody’s fault.”
She didn’t bother explaining to the doctor that she was wrong. “Where is she?”
“Follow me.”
She turned to get Detective Baird’s permission, but he was gone.
“Did you see where the man who was sitting beside me went?”
“No,” the doctor said. “Would you like to wait for him?”
She hesitated, and then shook her head. “No, I’d like to see my grandma.”
She followed the doctor through a set of double-doors marked ICU and past a central nursing station. As they passed, one of the nurses waved a clipboard, clearly requesting a consultation. The doctor raised a hand to the nurse in acknowledgement and said, “She’s in Room 201. It’s at the end of the hall and around the corner. I’ll come by in a bit to answer any questions.”
“Thank you.”
The ICU was quiet save the beep of machinery and the squeak of wheels on linoleum as a janitor rolled a mop bucket down the hall. The light in the hallway was dim, greyed-out, and strangely one-dimensional. Eve moved silently, her muscles stiff with cold and tension.
She passed the janitor, turned the corner, and stopped dead. Button sat on a plastic chair outside the door to Room 201. She wore her grey wool coat, the one with the red buttons, and her hair tangled around her head as though she’d been running her fingers through it repeatedly. Her head hung down, chin to chest.
“Button?” She sprinted down the hall to her grandmother. “What are you doing out of bed?”
Button didn’t look up as she approached. Her eyes were closed, her makeup long gone, her tears like rivers on her cheeks. Her nose was red and raw, her face swollen with emotion, and her frail body shook with such violence it was a wonder she didn’t fall off her chair.
“Button?” She squatted down in front of her grandmother. “You shouldn’t be out of bed, it’s not safe for you to be walking around.”
Button didn’t respond.
Eve reached out to her. “Hey, it’s okay. You’ve had a stroke, but considering you’re already up and about, I’m betting you’re going —”
Her hand passed right through Button’s leg, and through the chair below it. She screamed in shock and fell backward, landing in a sprawl on the linoleum floor. It didn’t hurt a bit.
“Button?” she asked, and then more faintly, “Grandma?”
Button didn’t look up, didn’t respond, didn’t seem to hear her at all. But from inside Room 201, she did get a response.
“Eve,” the woman called.
“No. I don’t want to talk to you.” But, even as she said it, she stood and walked past her sobbing grandmother, moving inexorably toward Room 201. It reminded her of the recurring dream she’d had as a child, the one where she was locked on a chairlift as it descended into the pits of hell. She was as powerless to turn around now as she had been in those dreams.
The room was lit by the dim glow of the street lamps in the parking lot two stories below. She could see the expanse of dark pavement and empty parking stalls pockmarked by pools of light. A curtain was drawn most of the way around the bed, and she moved through the gap.
The figure on the bed lay unmoving, covered in wires and tubes and bandages. Eve edged around the foot of the bed, around the medical equipment stacked beside it, and up toward the head.
She saw the curls first, dark tendrils on a white pillow. One side of the head was crushed like a melon dropped on the sidewalk, leaving the other side swollen and deformed. The mouth was a mess of broken teeth and dried blood. The eyes were open and aware.
In that moment, her consciousness split in two. One part stood beside the bed, staring down at her own broken face, feeling the cold and nothing more. The other part of her lay on the bed, seeing nothing but feeling everything — she felt every fracture, every bruise, and every laceration. She felt every body part that was broken beyond repair.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
From the bed, the other Eve replied, “We’re dying, of course,” and her voice was the same voice she’d heard in every dream and every tangled memory and every broken moment since the accident. It was the voice of Eve, haunting her with all the truths she didn’t want to know.
“Why … how can we be dying?” she asked.
“The accident. With the silver Lexus.”
“What?”
Eve recalled the main in the waiting room. “I want it towed to my mechanic, not some overpriced scam artist.”
“But that was years ago. I survived. I recovered.”
“No, Eve.” A man stepped from the shadows and moved into the light cast by the lamp above the bed. His fedora was tipped at a jaunty angle across his forehead, dripping rain onto the shoulders of his overcoat. His eyes were just like hers, like Button’s, like Donna’s. “Time is fluid in the silver. But the accident happened today, and today your body will die.”
As he’d done in front of the coffee shop, he held out his hand. His ring finger was missing from knuckle to tip. “It’s time to come with me.”
“I can’t do that. I have a child —”
“You don’t.”
“Gabriel —”
“Is a boy who might have been,” the man said.
The woman on the bed let out a mournful moan. Eve looked down at her broken body, watched a tear roll down the swollen cheek, and looked back up at the man in the fedora. “No, my son —”
“Your son is a dream you painted on a dying canvas. But it’s time to put down the brush.”
“That’s not true. I married Leigh. We have a child!”
His eyes were soft with sympathy, but the hand he extended to her remained firm. “You haven’t seen Leigh since the day of your mother’s funeral. The marriage, the art shows, even your grandmother’s stroke, they’re all part of this story you created to shield yourself from the truth.”
“I need to see my baby. Please tell me where he is.”
“Eve, your son’s not real.”
The compassion she saw in his eyes was unbearable, and she buckled under the weight of it. “Oh, please, don’t say that. He’s … he’s just the sweetest little guy … and he’s so smart …”
“This life is over, Eve. You must come with me.”
Her legs gave way, and she crumpled to the floor. “My baby. I don’t want to lose my baby.”
The man sat down beside her and placed his hand over hers. He held on while she fell apart.
Eventually, she was able to speak. “Please help me, I don’t want to die.”
Surely the kindness she saw in his eyes was a lie. She didn’t deserve kindness any more than she deserved forgiveness.
She sat up straight. “
The girl in the playground. She said we get to choose.”
“No, my dear. That’s how you get stuck. Your soul needs to face its reflection, to be cleansed.”
“I’m too scared,” she said, acknowledging the bitter heart of her even more bitter truth. Though she’d lived with her guilt every day, she couldn’t see a way to die with it.
“Just let me go back. Please. I’ll do better. I’ll be a good mom. I’ll stay away from Leigh.”
“You need to face what you’ve done,” he said.
She shook her head. “I can’t. Oh, please, I can’t do that.”
“It’s the only way.”
“But then … will I go to hell?”
He didn’t answer, just watched her with those kind amber eyes. Maybe if she’d seen that kind of love in Donna’s eyes even once, she would have had the strength not to make such a horrid mess of her life.
“No. I can’t.”
“Eve,” he said.
With enormous effort, she pulled away from him.
“Don’t do this,” he said.
She hauled herself off the floor and looked down at the broken body on the hospital bed. The eyes had glazed, and the skin was grey. It was no more than a useless husk.
The girl in the playground had said she could choose.
“Eve, don’t,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
With the swiftness of a dream, she flew back through the gap in the curtain, and out the door of Room 201, and past her weeping grandmother. She hurried down the hall, and by the nurses’ station, and out of the ICU, and through the waiting room, and out the sliding doors of the hospital.
Outside, she found morning light that was cool and lemony — her favourite light in which to paint. She was a talented artist; she could turn a blank canvas into anything she wanted.
She needed to get home, where Button waited with arms wide open to receive her. She’d bury her grief and fear in her grandmother’s embrace, and when Gabriel awoke from his nap, they’d take him to the park. No, not the park. Maybe they’d go to a movie, or to get ice cream. Yes, ice cream sounded good. She could get a chocolate sundae with extra whipped cream.
Eve ran so hard she felt the wind on her face. And when the man in the fedora called her name, she ran faster. Seconds or centuries later, she passed the entrance to the Crook. A woman waited for her in the quicksilver, eager to tell her all the things she didn’t want to know.
She didn’t stop. Her home was just ahead. She pounded up the sidewalk, across the wet dew on the front lawn, and around the side of the house. She leapt up the stairs to the kitchen door, turned the handle, and yanked the door open.
“Button,” she said as she entered the kitchen. “I’m home!”
The door closed behind her, and she was back in the interrogation room at the police station. Detective Baird sat in his accustomed spot, his hands on his legs. A large folder, a notepad, and a pen lay on the table beside him.
“Come join me, Mrs. Adler.”
“Oh, please, no.”
“Have a seat.”
“Where’s my family?” she said, even as she took the seat across from him. It seemed she had no choice, after all.
“Look at me,” Baird said.
She didn’t want to, but she looked. “Please don’t make me do this. I’m so scared.”
“It’s time to face your reflection,” Baird said.
As she watched, amber bled into the blue of his eyes. His face thinned, and his hair became a gossamer cloud around his head.
“Let’s talk about your mother,” said the man in the fedora.
FORTY
Eve’s Seventeenth Birthday
“I KNOW YOU THINK you’ve got some talent, but I’m not willing to fund this starving artist lifestyle you’re setting yourself up for.”
It was three in the morning, but Donna was still drinking coffee. The kitchen table in front of her was heaped with papers, and she scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad. She didn’t look up, so Eve spoke to the top of her head. Grey strands mixed with black at the part in her hair.
“I’m not planning to be a starving artist.”
“There’s no other kind.”
“But I’m good. Really good. You must know that!”
“Art’s not my thing.” Donna half-stood to reach across the table. She unearthed a thick folder from the bottom of a pile, sat back down, and flipped through it.
“Did you bounce the cheque on purpose?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you don’t want to waste your money on art school.”
“Well, you make a good point. It is my money.” She ran a highlighter over a paragraph of text and then made a note on her legal pad.
“When I did the program to graduate early, you promised you’d pay for my first two years of college.”
“Emily Carr is not college. Eve, are you done? I have closing arguments in the morning, and I’m exhausted.”
“I’m going to reapply for next year.”
Donna sighed and closed the folder. She opened her giant wheeled briefcase and stuffed papers and folders into it. “I won’t stop you.”
“No. You won’t.”
She finally looked at her daughter, her amber-coloured eyes cool and appraising. “But I also won’t pay for it. And you’ll have to find somewhere else to live, too.”
“What?”
“Quiet, or you’ll wake your grandmother. I was going to tell you this soon, anyway. There’s a real estate agent stopping by this weekend. We’re going to sell the house.”
“What are you talking about? This is Button’s house. It’s not yours to sell!”
Donna gave a tight smile. “Your grandmother is needing more and more care. I’ve got her name on the waiting lists of several assisted-living facilities. Selling the house will help pay for that.”
“I don’t … what the hell are you talking about? Button doesn’t need to live in some old folks home. She’s fine.”
“I’m not having this argument with you,” Donna said.
“I’m sure you mean well, but these are adult decisions.”
“And where am I supposed to go?”
Donna shrugged as though she couldn’t have cared less.
“Wait. No, this isn’t right.”
“At the end of the day it’s not your decision to make, Eve.”
She practically jumped up and down with fury. “It’s not your decision to make, either! This isn’t your house!”
“It’s my responsibility to make these tough choices. I have power of attorney.”
“But —”
“And don’t go running to Button for financial help, either. Between funding your trip to Paris and paying for the courses you’re taking this year, she’s scraping the bottom of the barrel.”
“What am I supposed to do? I can’t save that much money in a year. Especially if I have to pay rent somewhere, too.”
“If it’s important to you, I suspect you’ll find a way.”
Donna closed her briefcase and carried her coffee mug to the sink. She rinsed it and placed it in the dishwasher.
“I’m going to take a shower and get a few hours of sleep. You should sleep, too. You’re getting bags under your eyes.”
“I’m not tired.”
“Then put on the dishwasher once I’m done with my shower. And make a pot of oatmeal for the morning.”
After her mother left the kitchen, Eve stood frozen for a moment. Then she stormed after her.
Catching up to Donna in the hall, she hissed, “Why are you such a bitch?”
Donna turned in her bedroom doorway. There was something shiny and dangerous in her eyes, something that looked a lot like tears.
Hissing back, Donna said, “Yes. You have the worst mother in the world. Little do you know how much I’ve protected you.”
“Protected me from what?”
“From knowing the pain I felt raising a child of rape.” Her mother’s voi
ce was so quiet, so matter-of-fact, that it took several heartbeats for her words to sink in.
“What?”
“Shh.”
“But you said —”
“I said I used a sperm donor, but that was a lie. I was raped. By someone I trusted a great deal. Someone I really cared about. And every time I look at you, I see his face. I feel him hurting me.”
Eve reached for the wall to keep herself upright. At that moment, everything she’d ever believed about her life flipped upside down, so she could see the dark underbelly. The things she’d always felt from her mother but never understood — the contempt, the alienation, the anger — it all suddenly made sense.
“And you hate me for it.”
Tears fell down the marble of Donna’s cheeks. “You’re a part of him.”
“But I’m a part of you, too. Can’t you love me for that?”
“I’ve given you a good life. I’ve done everything I can for you.”
“You really think so?”
“My client spent years being molested by her own father. You think you’ve had such a terrible life? You should be grateful for everything I’ve done for you.”
Without another word Donna left Eve in the hallway, staring blankly at the closed bedroom door. A storm brewed inside her, electric and deadly, and it felt so good.
“What you’ve done for me,” she said, tasting the words on her tongue. They burned like acid. “Is teach me to hate myself.”
She looked at the paintings Button had proudly hung, like a timeline, along the hallway. Her whole life spread across the walls before her, and it was all a lie. Near the kitchen were a couple of Paris scenes, their paint still slightly wet. Farther along were paintings of the river on New Year’s Day, and the Foil in springtime with its yellow flowers in bloom.
She approached the one of the Adlers’ backyard. It was one of her earliest paintings, done in the backyard before she even had her art studio. She barely looked at it anymore. The grass needed some work. It was too one-dimensional, too green. The flowers looked like daisies, but they had blood in their roots. She wondered if they were still there.
The Day She Died Page 24
