Good to a Fault

by Marina Endicott

  “We saved some for you,” Clary said, taking the packages from her arms.

  “One more present to open,” Mrs. Zenko said. “All mitts, I’m afraid, no originality at all. Well, slippers for Mrs. Pell,” she confided. “It’s bound to be cold on that floor out there.”

  Clary found the package with her own name on it, and opened it. Not mitts: an elegant pair of black leather gloves. She kissed Mrs. Zenko and reached for the top of the hall shelf where she had left the tiny velvet box with her mother’s pink tourmaline chrysanthemum ring.

  Two dew-drop tears came spilling out of Mrs. Zenko’s eyes when she saw the ring.

  “I should have given it to you long ago,” Clary said.

  Trevor brought Mrs. Zenko the knock-down birdie toy. “Do you want to hear China?”

  “Yes.”

  Trevor shook it. Little bells sounded inside. China.

  Too much activity, too much company, left Lorraine shaky and sleepless for a long time. Finally, when all the lights were dimmed and the nurse (not Sherry now but the oldest one, Debbie) had given her a back rub, Lorraine fell asleep. She had a terrible dream of Dolly dying by falling into Christmas ornaments. She fell straight into the tree in the apartment in Trimalo, and all the glass ornaments shattered, and she was cut to shreds. Lorraine woke up with her heart pounding. It was not true. It was not true.

  At home in his empty house, in his empty bed, Paul had a complicated dream, that Dolly had asked him to drive her out to a big field full of stones. They walked across the dry yellow grass to Lorraine’s grave, and Paul drifted off along yellow paths where every tilting old stone said Robina Tippett, 1968–1998. All the other stones were stones, with bones lying near them, but under that one was Binnie, still brightly alive. It didn’t matter that he’d seen her dead, and knew her to be gone. That parcel of bones and skin that had been shown to him was not her, anyway, it was a puppet of Binnie. The real one was down there under the dead grass. He looked back. Dolly was crouched low over the middle of Lorraine’s grave, right about where her mother’s stomach would be. Poor child, she was looking down at the yellow grass between her hands, flat on the slight round of the grave. “You left us all alone,” she shouted through the funnel of her hands into the earth, but the wind sucked her voice away. It was a wild wind. Dolly pounded on the turf with her fists and shrieked into the twisting roots of the grass, as loud as a train coming screaming around the track. Paul helped her up. Crying with dry, wide-open eyes, she kicked at the gravestone as he led her past it, and turned back to kick it again, hard. He almost woke, almost broke through the dream’s surface, but he dove back down and took Dolly for an ice cream cone. Then he could wake up.

  Clary dreamed that she took Dolly to the graveyard by mistake instead of school, and she lay down on the cold grass on her mother’s grave. She cried and whispered how good a mother, how good. Whose grave was that? Was it Dolly’s mother or her own? What girl was lying on the grave? It was Clary herself. Paul lay on his sister’s grave nearby, whispering good, good. No response from them, the quick or the dead.

  Waking, breathless, Clary knew that Lorraine would die soon.

  Pearce was asleep beside her. It would be all right, she would look after him. She would take care of all of them. Even Clayton, only a lost sheep, not evil, making that good chair, which would actually look fine in the living room. The children would like that, to remind them of Lorraine.

  She slid back to sleep, telling herself that this was the best thing she had ever done in her life. She loved how brave Lorraine was, how valiantly she struggled against this terrible illness. She even loved herself—how she had made a safe, orderly life for the children, had learned to do this hard good thing. Paul would come and live here too. They would come home in the evening, after a dinner party with the Haywoods, and carry the sleeping children in from the car. And although they would make love, she would have one ear open for Pearce, and for the children, who would be so sad when Lorraine was dead.

  Dolly dreamed that she fell in love with a bald man, and he took her on a rollercoaster ride that lasted for hours.

  40. Cut-out hearts

  But Lorraine did not die.

  Graft-versus-host disease swept over her in three ugly weeks of sores and thrush and cramps—and then it swept away again, because she told her body to smarten up. It was Darwin’s marrow, there was no reason to panic. She did the ten breaths of Zen over and over, the way Darwin had read to her. In the almost-darkness of the hospital night, Darwin’s big shape in the cot against the wall, she wandered through her body with her mind’s eye, allowing his marrow into her own bones, her self, becoming partly him.

  Almost secretly, she turned off from that long sloping downward hallway.

  After a few weeks she was measurably better. She was walking around. She was healed.

  One thing Lorraine was not prepared for: the shame of recovering. When the chief doctor came in one morning to tell her officially that all her results were good, very good, she didn’t know who to tell. Darwin was driving out to Davina to talk to Fern most days. Clayton was working all the time. She hoped the woman who had been moved into the bed beside her had not heard the pleasure and relief in the doctor’s voice, how glad he was to be able to say, “Well! This is good! Very good!”

  They said she could go home on Monday, if the weekend went well. Something for them to plan for.

  Clary was the one to call. But Lorraine was ashamed to talk to her, for everything she had been doing, the huge unpaid, unpayable debt, and afraid of what that obligation would mean now.

  There was also the shame of not being completely, freely, happy. How could she not be happy? Especially compared to the woman in the next bed, not so lucky, who was having exploratory surgery in the evening and sobbed to her daughter on the phone about the black options they had outlined for her.

  The desperate clench in Lorraine’s stomach might take a while to relax, she thought. She was not ungrateful, just slow to realize change. Having to pick up life and cope again. She didn’t want to tell anyone yet.

  On Monday, they said Tuesday.

  Every time Clary went in Lorraine looked better. Wasn’t it wonderful.

  Things were improving, that was obvious, but everything was so busy, and it was February already—almost Valentine’s Day. The children had to have a valentine for every child in their classes, twenty-seven for Dolly, twenty-nine for Trevor. Clary had run over to the scrapbooking store for card and pink tissue and paper lace doilies, and more manly trim for Trevor, and there were cut-out hearts all over the dining room table. Trevor’s hand ached from printing names. When Clayton came to take Trevor out to a hockey game Clary had to say no, he couldn’t go till the printing work was all done. She tried to broach the subject of some extra help for him, or maybe testing for dyslexia, but Clayton clearly didn’t want to hear it.

  “There’s nothing wrong with my kid,” he said, staring at her aggressively. His hands were dirty.

  She left it for later. She could just arrange it without consulting them, after all—the times Clayton came by were few and far between. He was no help at all.

  Fern had been back and forth, but after Grace and Moreland left for Hawaii on their long-planned anniversary trip, Fern told Clary she was going to Vancouver. Clary wanted to ask why, but it would seem like she was spying for Grace. She said the children would miss her, and tried to pay her for all her help. Fern wouldn’t take anything. The last few months would have been impossible without her, so Clary was impatient with her, having budgeted for fair pay; and impatient with herself for resenting Fern’s desertion.

  She was more disturbed when Darwin said he was driving out to the coast with Fern.

  “I’ll go out to Tofino, see Phelan,” he said. “And I’ll help Fern out, like she’s been helping us.”

  His son Phelan, she remembered with some difficulty. Who seemed to have been getting along fine without him till now. And how would Lorraine manage without him there, ho
w would the nights be? She did not ask, but he answered.

  “Clayton’s going to stay late Fridays and Saturdays, but she’ll be okay without me now. The nurses know her, and she’s not so scared.”

  Besides, Clayton did not like Darwin, so maybe it was time for him to go. They packed their bags to the rafters in Fern’s old car, and headed off. Trevor chased the car down the street, crying, but really the children were all right. They knew he was coming back, they were fine.

  Lorraine did not need her any more, either; especially now she was getting stronger. Clary hardly ever visited the hospital these days, since Clayton was around again and clearly didn’t want her there. She was busy with planning and managing; it was even hard to fit Paul in.

  And she suddenly couldn’t stand it at the hospital.

  Instead, she let all her energy go into the children and the new school term. Things were busier than ever, with school and dentist and field trips, and getting some order back into the house after the Christmas chaos. There was a lot to arrange: the children should be taking lessons, the piano was just sitting there; and Trevor really needed to start at Kumon if he was going to keep up, but Clayton was so resistant that she hadn’t brought that up again, she’d wait for a while. There was Dolly’s museum trip to help plan, too, and Clayton never showed any initiative; even when she asked his opinion, whether the children should take piano lessons or join the church choir, he seemed peevishly content to let her see to everything—and pay for everything too. His surly whipped-dog arrogance was beginning to irritate her.

  And if Lorraine was getting better, there were arrangements to work out at the house.

  Clary was working out what would be best for them: they could have the basement bedroom now that Darwin had gone west, but she’d have to find a double bed. Maybe it would be better to put them in the TV room upstairs, closer to the bathroom. That would be better. Only there wouldn’t be room for Pearce’s crib in there, he’d have to stay in her room.

  She’d think about it later, when all those Valentines were done. The days seemed to be speeded up—time was moving like electricity, the meter-hands whirring around, ticking away money and energy and life.

  On Tuesday, Clary went to the hospital in the afternoon, because Lorraine had left a message asking to see her. She left the children at home with Mrs. Pell in case Lorraine needed help with anything complicated.

  She thought she had the wrong room. Lorraine was not there, and the bed was stripped. But—they were saying that she was doing well—she could not be—

  Not dead, no. She was in the washroom, the door slightly open, brushing her teeth. Wearing clothes.

  “Lorraine?” Clary said, her voice sounding weirdly ordinary. “Are you all right?”

  Lorraine spat into the sink and rinsed, and stood up. She dried her toothbrush with a white hospital washcloth and put it in her toilet bag.

  “I’m good,” she said. “I’m really good.”

  Clary stood in the middle of the room. The other bed was empty too—what had happened to that poor woman?

  Lorraine said, “They say I can go home.”

  Clary did not speak, for a second. Then she shook her head, and smiled, and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Wonderful!” she said.

  “Yes, so I’m going.”

  “Well, of course!”

  “Clayton’s got us a place, we’ll go over there this afternoon.”

  That did not make sense. Clary’s chest was tight.

  Lorraine went to the closet and added her toilet bag to the already-packed suitcase.

  “Seems pretty amazing to be getting out of here,” she said. She moved a pile of magazines from the closet to the bed.

  “But, Lorraine,” Clary said. Then she didn’t know how to continue. All her bones moved downwards, as if in deeper gravity.

  “He’s gone to get Dolly from school, and he’ll get them packed up, but I wanted to tell you about it alone,” Lorraine said.

  She was carefully meeting Clary’s eyes, every step of the way, every word she said. Not shying away from it, even though it would be bad. Clary looked like she’d been punched, but hadn’t figured out what had happened yet. Lorraine thought her own face must have looked like that, her first day in here.

  “Does Darwin—?” Clary was speaking too slowly.

  “He phoned last night from Vancouver, I told him they would be letting me go home.”

  “Did he say—”

  “He said, to give you a kiss from him.”

  Lorraine did not move, but Clary flinched anyway.

  “So, Clary, I have to say thanks for everything,” Lorraine said. “There isn’t any way to thank you for looking after my kids all this time. But I know I owe you big time.”

  Inside the hollow globe of her head Clary was unable to figure this all out. She fought the pressure in her chest. She stood up straight, making more room for air.

  “You’re—Clayton has a place? Not the room?”

  “It’s okay, he says. An older building but they’re renovating, and our suite is already done. He’ll be the part-time super, there’s a little money in it. Looks like a good deal.”

  “Where?”

  Lorraine stopped talking.

  Clary asked again, “Where is the apartment?”

  Lorraine looked at her without smiling. “They are our kids.”

  “Well, I realize that.” Her legs were shaking. “I realize that. But if you are planning to move them out of the school district, they would have to transfer, and which school would they be—”

  “It’s in City Park,” Lorraine said. “It’s not a bad place. It’s an older building, a little run down, but it’s what we can afford. The kids will be fine.”

  “You’re not ready, though! This is impossible. You can’t—you can’t look after children in this state. And Clayton! You think he can manage them?”

  But that was enough, for Lorraine.

  “You can’t stop thinking of us as low-class, you can’t stop!” she said. “You keep thinking you’re better than me, even though you try not to. It’s built into your whole life. But we’re the same as you, we’re just the same.”

  Clary felt hot tears welling up, like tears of blood. To be accused of prejudice, when she had worked so hard—how could Lorraine think so? She would, she would think so, with her trailer-park ignorance. Shocked, Clary smacked the thought away, but it was there. Less worthy. Less human.

  Lorraine said, “Here’s the difference between us: you got taken to the dentist more, and your mother filled your head with stuck-up shit about how great you are, and you got to live in the same house all your life. That’s most of it. You went to school for longer, and you worked in a clean office instead of cleaning the office. You have a better-looking face and better-looking clothes, and that gives you some feeling that you’re better than me.”

  “I don’t, I don’t. You’re mistaken.”

  “I’m trying to tell you how it is for me,” Lorraine said. “Here it is: it’s the same as it is for you.”

  Her eyes were hard to look at.

  “When you’re hurting because you have to lose Pearce, that means you know exactly how I hurt to lose him. I don’t have less feelings because I don’t know the words to say them, I don’t have less to say to my kids because it’s not always—” She shook her head sharply. “It’s not just grammar. You think I’m not as good for them as you are.”

  “You’re right,” Clary said, sadly. The tears had receded, and the hot blood behind them. It was too important, it was the children. She could not be silent or polite, there was only now to say it. “It’s not you, it’s Clayton. I think it will be—hard for him to look after you all well enough.” Still polite after all.

  “Well, he gets to give it a try,” Lorraine said, not angry any more. She gathered her paintbrushes from the water-cup and set things in place in the paintbox. “He was doing okay until you crashed into us.”

  That was the first time she
had mentioned the accident since it happened. She had not blamed Clary for it then.

  “But what will happen to you if things get hard—if you run out of money? You can’t work, you have to be careful. You can’t leave the hospital behind, or head for Fort McMurray—and the children, they need stability, and their ordinary life, not to be shunted around the country living from hand to mouth.”

  “We are their ordinary life, not you,” Lorraine said. She stopped, the cup still in her hand, and looked straight at Clary, piercing her with the stern arrows of her eyes. “The kids don’t give a rat’s ass whether they have money or a nice house, they just want me and Clayton with them. They love us. Him too, not just me. Don’t kid yourself. You are a babysitter, to them. They’ll be glad to leave you.”

  Clary didn’t speak. She was having trouble with her ribs, like a stitch. They didn’t seem to want to expand properly to let her breathe.

  “It’s not your fault that you don’t get it,” Lorraine said, red smears of rouge bright on her cheeks. “You never had kids of your own, and you weren’t very well brought up.”

  That was it.

  Clary turned and left the room.

  She drove out of the parking lot crying, tears splashing on the steering wheel, on her skirt, running down her face and into her collar, wetting her chest—which still wouldn’t open to let her catch her breath. Her feet were clumsy on the clutch and the brake.

  Without meaning to go there, she found herself at Paul’s house. She stood on his porch trembling, pressing the doorbell. He was not going to answer, he would not be there.

  He opened the door. He saw her distress and took her hand, her arm, and pulled her inside. “What? What is it?” he asked.

  She could not answer, she could barely breathe.

  “Clary, tell me. Is it Lorraine?”

  She sobbed, nodding, not intelligible, yes, she sobbed, yes, yes, it is all Lorraine.

  “Is she—what—has she died?”