Weekend

by Jane Eaton Hamilton

  “I’ll drink to that.” The barbecue puffed, slow-cooking the ribs. Logan slathered on sauce.

  “With, you know, cleaving unto one another.” Ajax scratched a bite.

  “Yup.”

  Ajax said, “Like, practically speaking, I guess one of us is moving?” Meaning me, she thought. Who else?

  “Do you really wanna be on the phone every night till six a.m.?”

  “Nah, so done with that,” admitted Ajax. “Or I guess we don’t have to live together.”

  “I’ve put in twenty years looking after my mom. I don’t need to hang around Toronto any longer, in case you want me to come in your direction.”

  “Still, you don’t get to suddenly say, ‘Sorry, gig’s up, Ma, I’m leaving. You’re eighty-three but I’ve, you know, had it. I’m pushing off now.’ She’s going to need more of you as time goes on, not less. That job ends when she ends, really.”

  “You’ve got a kid and soon a grandkid in the Bahamas, and a kid out west. What would you prefer?”

  “You’ve got Lake Ontario,” Ajax said, but actually had to stop herself from laughing. They had a faux-beach downtown park with sand poured over concrete some ten feet above the water. The dog beach was lame. Ajax put her head in her hands. “I mean, I can paint anywhere.” She rented studio space from an art school in Vancouver. “I can’t believe this, Logan. I can’t believe this. Did you really propose?”

  Toby barked.

  “See? Even he’s happy. McIntyre, let me ask you something. Do you feel celebratory?”

  “Honey, this is one of the happiest days of my life.” Ajax got up, removed Logan’s champagne flute, and took Logan’s hands. “It didn’t even occur to me that I was going to have something like this in my life again; I certainly didn’t see it being with you. I mean, we’ve known each other for a hundred years and nothing happened before now, and you’ve always been a bad boi.”

  “But it means I kind of know you. I’ve been aware of you over time.”

  “I had outrageous fantasies of marrying you before we even slept together.” She shouldn’t admit that, she thought, but then she thought, Why not? Dreams can come true. Even for old people. Even for people in my straitened physical condition. Or not, she thought.

  Logan grinned big, rakish hank of hair falling into their eyes.

  “We need to get you a ring, too.” Ajax ran to cut a piece of yarn from the pull-down on the blinds, roped it around Logan’s finger, kissed the top of it.

  Logan beamed and touched Ajax’s face.

  “We can figure all this out later. You’re right that there’s nothing saying we can’t continue doing this long distance, at least until we know what we want.”

  “But I miss you, miss you, miss you.”

  Ajax moved her chair closer to Logan at the barbecue.

  Logan said, “I know. I waited all my life and now I’m still waiting. The ribs are done.”

  Ajax served the ribs with corn and new potatoes with chives. “My friends do it,” she said. “Vancouver to France, back and forth.”

  “You’re more or less free to move to Toronto; I’m more or less free to move to Vancouver. It’s different than having jobs that lock us down. I can do what I do wherever. One of my former partners has a kid I like in Vancouver.”

  Ajax stared at her ring finger, rapt. “Did I say thank you for this perfectly simple ring?”

  Logan said, “You thank me a lot. I like that.”

  “I’m grateful a lot.”

  “I love how you take care of me, Ajax.”

  Their eyes met—I love you passionately, they said.

  Ajax went for dessert—raspberries they’d picked out back. They were half white and not really ready. Ajax put on “Koop Island Blues,” danced, pulled Logan to their feet, and that was somehow it, officially—silver band, champagne, yarn ring—they were engaged.

  JOE

  Joe curled into a fetal ball to nurse Scout; the sights and sounds normal, the smells of baby powder and urine commingling normally. How had she just landed in the middle of a breakup without even having realized anything significant was wrong?

  Gone. Joe was numb. She pinched herself and felt nothing. She flicked her cheek, registered a faint sensation. She realized how many times Ell had come up to the cottage alone over the past couple years. Why? Why had she done that? Joe just wanted it to make sense. And this made no sense. Was it too much to ask that it make sense? Ell, ditching her wife with a newborn on an island, taking their only boat. Come Monday, Logan and Ajax would surely be gone, and what if, at that point, something went awry? What if the baby got whooping cough or an allergy, or god forbid Joe became too ill to feed her, and the landline went dead? This was how jeopardized she now was.

  She could hear Ell’s voice in her head: You catastrophize. None of that will happen. You’re giving yourself horror movies. Her wail in response: But it could! She had to plan for the possibility, remote as it was. Apparently, no one else was planning for her welfare.

  If Elliot wouldn’t, didn’t, couldn’t—even so, their welfare still mattered. They still needed income, a home, food. She had tremors from the weight of her vulnerability.

  Surely it was just a case of horniness—Elliot’s clit pointing like a retriever in some hunter’s field? She’d come back home, she would!

  By noon, the sun had long since boiled the maple syrup that had spilled on the patio stones. Maybe Joe should pack—ask Logan to help—go back to the city, to their house in the Beaches, to lick her wounds and be where she had friends, family, support? She looked around the cottage that Elliot and Logan had built pretty much by hand. The plush couches, the crude pine dining table, the worn Persian rugs, the chandeliers. She’d thought it was hers. Wasn’t it hers? Scout had been born here. The birthing tub was still up against the wall in the guest room.

  She thought back to Logan and Elliot’s breakup. How had that come down? Elliot had been draconian, hurtful, parsimonious, had kept the cottage that Logan’d helped to build. Logan sued, succeeded in getting half the island, but that was all. It was different then; in the bad old pre-rights days, Logan had been lucky to get that much recognition. But now queers had rights and obligations. Elliot would have to split things fifty-fifty.

  Joe, thought Joe, you are extrapolating. Do you know a single thing about separation? She didn’t. When she and Dree split, Joe walked away, period.

  What Joe had loved had just turned to dust.

  Every time Scout sent up a whimper, it jolted Joe, whose mind was madly calculating money and how much she had access to, even on charge cards, and when she could go back to work, and who would watch Scout, and whether Elliot was going to be a shit—a shit—with the divorce. Divorce. No. Divorce? She meant separation. She would never divorce Elliot. She believed in Elliot, believed she’d do the generous and right thing without a fight. Elliot was honourable. Wasn’t she?

  Maybe Elliot had confided in Logan?

  Nearly supper time, and she didn’t know where the day had gone. Joe’s stomach growled, and there wasn’t any Elliot around to dish out food. Scout was soaked and poopy, from the smell of things—had Joe even changed her today? Somehow Joe had turned on the air conditioning, and now she shivered. What had just happened? I kissed Elliot here, she thought. Elliot and I wrestled here. This is where Elliot proposed. Joe left the baby shrieking in her cradle and walked outside—aimlessly, in a fog—through the ants and wasps into the flowers wishing they were opium poppies strong enough to put her to sleep.

  Logan and Ajax were fucking on the dock—it sent her back inside. Goddamned love.

  Back inside, she examined Scout as she changed her. Elliot in her lips, her nose. “I’m so sorry, Scout. I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Joe had already let her daughter, not a week old, down. You have another mother, Scout, but she doesn’t live with us. There had to be another woman! When did Elliot meet her, and why hadn’t Joe suspected or noticed?

  She’d wanted to bring their daughter into a go
od world, a world where avarice and greed and hatred didn’t win, where corporations weren’t gods, where icebergs weren’t melting, where climate change wasn’t alarming, where at least, at least, her parents were good at heart. But maybe it was cruel to have a baby at all in this garbage globe. She hadn’t thought much about that, had she, when the procreation hunger swept over her?

  They said you couldn’t know the fullness of love until you had a baby. She got inklings of that now, this love for which she would lay down her life.

  Would Elliot really fight for this baby?

  Joe could go to Logan’s, barge in, say, Hey, Elliot left me.

  Oh god, she could not.

  She could not intrude on a romantic weekend with this news. She rambled into the kitchen and boiled instant noodles and ate them out of the colander at the sink. She checked her phone, but Ell hadn’t called.

  She walked the house, opening closets. Coat, still here. She wrenched open Elliot’s underwear drawer: All new. She ransacked the drawers of Elliot’s dresser, in which half the clothing was new, still creased. What the fuck? She shook drawers onto the floor. Receipts tumbled in a paper rainstorm. Receipts, she saw, for flowers (she hadn’t received), for dinners at restaurants (she hadn’t gone to), for jewellery (she didn’t own). Twenty receipts, thirty, forty. And a wad of cash, fresh twenties and fifties. Ticket stubs for concerts (she hadn’t gone to). Tickets for museums and art fairs (she hadn’t attended). Then an e-ticket for a trip to Rome. Upcoming in November. No mention of a co-traveller.

  She went to check Elliot’s Facebook, but she’d been blocked. Elliot’s email, but the password was changed. Elliot’s desktop—but there seemed to be no clues.

  Wow, she thought. Wow.

  It wasn’t a dream. This was really happening. Tectonic plates had been shifting, and Joe had been stupidly oblivious. Elliot had moved from love and admiration and a sense that it was the two of them against the world into … whatever this was, estrangement. Hatred, maybe.

  Shouldn’t there have been an earthquake first?

  AJAX

  They’d slept entwined at night—they’d found each other during sleep instead of rolling into the shadows. But now Logan stumbled into the late-night living room where Ajax had marooned herself on the couch. “What’s up? Come back to bed.”

  “I’m sick, honey,” said Ajax quietly. She was curled up behind Toby. It wasn’t I have a cold, I might have the flu, my tummy’s upset.

  Logan sat on the armrest, stroked her hair. “Honey, tell me.”

  Ajax’s voice came out whispery. “Do you think we can get me to a hospital from here?”

  “Fuck,” said Logan.

  Ajax was thinking logistics, 9-1-1, choppy boat rides, helicopters. Rescue. Was there even a hospital up here? Of course there was a goddamned hospital, there had to be, but was it any fucking good?

  “Were you gonna wake me up?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. I love you, Logan,” she said. She coughed. Couldn’t stop.

  “What’s going on, Ajax?” Birds chirped—morning even though it was still dark.

  “I suspect it’s atrial fib. It’s not a really good thing.” Her voice was weak, her pulse as she felt it thready with thuds. “But not fatal, either. I mean, I’m not going to fall over dead on you.”

  Logan squeezed her knee. “I’m going to get my phone.” They were back in an instant. “I can take you in my boat.”

  “Joe’s alone over there with an infant. I saw Elliot leave. We can’t take the only boat. She has to have access to a boat, Logan.” She tried to talk, a few strained words at a time, a suck of breath. “My heart feels like a horse is kicking me inside.” She patted Logan’s hand. “I’m short of breath. Very tired.”

  Toby heaved himself up and slinked off the couch, came to Logan, his collar clinking.

  “Have you tried nitro?”

  “Yeah, couple times, not that it would do anything for this. Can you do a stroke assay? Listen to if I’m speaking intelligibly, if I can extend my tongue left and right, if I can lift both arms together with my eyes closed, if I can smile without it being lopsided?” Ajax moved through the steps herself successfully. “I’m a little numb on my left side, so there might be a bleed in my right hemisphere. Or maybe it’s nothing, just me sitting here imagining symptoms. But we should, uh, probably get me out of here to be on the safe side.”

  “Yeah,” said Logan, dialling, talking to the emergency operator, going through symptoms, offering their coordinates.

  Ajax rocked, her face turned toward the window, conserving her energy for breathing.

  “Help is coming. Okay. They say lie down in case you get faint, and we need to get some clothes on you.” Ajax was naked under a blanket; Logan shooed the dog down, got her up to dress her in track pants, and led her back to the sofa. Ajax coughed; Logan propped her up on pillows.

  Ajax asked them to sing.

  “You’re going to be fine.”

  “Sing,” demanded Ajax, coughing.

  Logan sang quietly—bluesy love songs, lullabies. Soft, comforting songs. Sat on the floor, held tight to Ajax’s hand while Ajax drifted in and out. “Don’t you die,” Logan whispered. “Don’t you goddamn die the day I propose to you.”

  Early dawn; there were robins in the yard, pecking for worms as the newly woken sun rose; poppies bent from the weight of dew, the grass silvery. They squeezed Ajax’s hand.

  Ajax felt drifty, spacey, only half connected to reality. Then she thought, It sucks worse for Logan. Then she thought again, Should I call my kids? “Call Joe, okay, so she’s not freaked by the ambulance?”

  “Okay,” said Logan. Ajax’s eyelids fluttered. “What’s your cell phone password so I can call the kids?”

  Ajax opened her eyes. “Don’t call them. Not necessary at this stage. Find out if there’s something to worry about first.”

  “Honey, your cell password.”

  Ajax told them, “If this goes sideways, tell the children I couldn’t have asked them to be better people.” She looked into Logan’s eyes, held the gaze tight. Had a coughing fit. Logan sat her up, pounded her back. Ajax smiled weakly, but her eyes were closing. She was sliding somewhere, sliding away.

  Logan said, “Baby, you’re going to be okay.” They sang.

  Ajax’s eyes fluttered open. A robin found a worm and tugged it from the ground, red belly glowing. Logan phoned Joe, said they’d explain later, told her where the boat keys were, asked her to take Toby to her cottage.

  “And the grandkids,” said Ajax suddenly, her eyes opening. “I have the best grandchildren!”

  Logan sang “Too Darn Hot,” just to shut her up, belting the tune.

  When the water ambulance arrived, two paramedics took over Ajax’s care, giving her oxygen, switching her to a gurney.

  “Take my ring,” Ajax said, lifting her oxygen mask, holding out her arm to Logan.

  The ring that had glided on so easily now slid off and was pocketed. In the boat, in the ER, Ajax heard Logan telling the paramedics they were married. “She’s my wife.”

  Ajax was immediately transferred to an available bed.

  Logan and Ajax watched the atrial fibrillation on the ECG monitor, crazy-assed tracings with no rhythm, a two-year-old’s scribbling, a heart rate of 180. They did tests and dispensed a blood thinner, a medication Ajax had long resisted because of the potential that she might, as she described it, “spring a leak.” She’d had two instinctual evasions through her years of being sick: first, open heart surgery, which meant a broken sternum, and second, blood thinners. She’d eventually given in to a modified version of the first. But warfarin meant a continual and strict regime of measuring levels, multiple changes in dosing and considerable risk. The problem with not using it was that a chaotic atrium could throw a clot and cause a stroke.

  Ajax had an IV taped to her hand; a bag of glucose hung beside the bed. “Tired of hospitals,” she said.

  “Baby, how often you been hospitalized lately?�
��

  Ajax counted on her fingers. “Nine surgeries? Plus a few stray times landing in ERs temporarily.”

  “And you wonder why you’re tired all the time?”

  “I’m tired because my left ventricle doesn’t work,” she said. “And lots of my medications cause fatigue, and I’ve been pushing myself with you.”

  “Still.”

  “Glad you said we were married. It gets you access. I wish you were my spouse.”

  “Right now, I just wanna take you home so I can get you back to the city.”

  “They’re not making admitting noises,” said Ajax.

  Both of them watched Ajax’s heart going in and out of rhythm. “You feel better?”

  Ajax shrugged.

  “You were right that it was A-fib.”

  She looked at Logan. “Life in the fast lane with a heart crip. How come the heart crip crossed the road?”

  “I give up.”

  “She thought she saw a salt shaker.” Ajax drummed her fingers on top of the blanket. “I’m enough sick that I need to be here, but not enough that I want to be here. Discharge, discharge, discharge.”

  Logan sang to Ajax—French and German lullabies they said were from childhood. The ER crashed along around them—nurses, the screech of curtains, intercom, paramedics, doctors, gurneys whipping by, Code Blue, Code Blue, Code Blue. Somewhere in all of this, Ajax’s heartbeat returned to sinus rhythm. She looked less ashen.

  The neuro resident arrived to do a stroke battery. Logan sat off to the side while Ajax was put through complicated paces. “You’re lucky again,” the neurologist finally said.

  “Yup,” said Ajax resignedly.

  “I don’t think you had a stroke. If you did, just another TIA.” She put her hand on Ajax’s leg.

  “Another TIA?” said Logan; they had to ask what it was. Transient ischemic attack, mini-stroke.

  Ajax grimaced.

  “Possibly past TIAs,” said the resident and scratched her head. “See how her face is lopsided? She’s been hospitalized for stroke before, she said.”