Crush. Candy. Corpse.

by Sylvia McNicoll

  “Sure I’ll help out at the Valentine’s party.” Cole’s voice broadcast extra loud from the corridor. He was warning me. I stood up quickly.

  Gillian Halliday breezed into the room, smiling and saying hello to the various residents. Here a shoulder pat, there a hand rub. She got to Jeannette but didn’t notice the brooch. “I see you have your favourite visitor,” she said to her and then turned to me. “Will you come for the Valentine’s party? Cole’s already agreed to help out.”

  “I heard, but my hours are done now.”

  “Oh my, time goes fast.” Her mouth turned down a little. “Still, if you just feel like returnin’ on your own, you know I’ve loved havin’ you. And so did the residents. Anytime. Not just Valentine’s Day.”

  I smiled back at her. She made me want to come again.

  “Did you see the lovely present the young lady gave me?” Jeannette suddenly broke in, pointing to her pin.

  So much for keeping the camera brooch a secret. I felt my skin warm. “We found it on a walker in the hall.” That was the fallback story Cole and I had agreed on.

  “That’s a wonderful present,” Gillian said. She touched my hand. “Come back soon.” She winked at me. “Time to get them to the dinin’ room.”

  This would be my last time helping Marlene and Fred eat, I thought as we guided our old people to their tables. I watched Fred’s hand tremble as he navigated his spoon of potato soup to his mouth. I wanted to hold it steady but I knew it was already hard for him to accept that I cut his meat.

  I dabbed some gravy off Marlene’s chin. Evelyn didn’t like her meatloaf so I switched it for her, telling the goth I’d seen a fly in it.

  Nobody ranted or cried today. The motorcycle guy bumped into Jeannette’s chair and she didn’t threaten to take out his lights. A mellow afternoon for my farewell visit.

  How did you say goodbye to people who couldn’t remember hello? Once I’d left, it would be as if I’d never come. I didn’t even try to tell them I was leaving, just in case it upset them.

  “I wish I’d bought them all presents,” I told Cole as we waited for the bus.

  “Your presence is the only present they require. Same as me. Come on Valentine’s Day.” He put his jester’s hat back on. Taking anything seriously that came from under that hat was impossible.

  “Maybe I will.”

  He grabbed my hand. “Don’t say maybe. You’ve already given away his ring.”

  “It’s gonna be so hard, Cole. His locker’s across from mine. Sometimes he just makes me feel so good. Loved, you know?”

  “Come to the home on Valentine’s Day. Let me take you out after. You’ll see, it will be worth it.”

  “I don’t know.” But I did know, really. Cole had made me want to break up with Donny since the moment I met him.

  “You can’t stay with him. He’s not good enough for you. I mean maybe I’m not either, I get that. But he’ll get you into all kinds of trouble.”

  He was right; I knew it. I should have told him right then and there that it was definitely off between Donny and me. I would be there for Cole on Valentine’s Day. But I thought I had to tell Donny first, thought I owed him that much. What neither of us knew was just how much trouble Cole, himself, would get me into.

  chapter twenty-one

  “Your Honour, for the defence’s next witness, we would like to call the defendant to the stand.”

  I get up, knees shaking, and walk wobbly to the witness box. Does the jury notice? Do they think I’m nervous because I’ve got something to hide?

  “State your name for the record,” my lawyer tells me quietly.

  “Sonja Ehret.”

  “Do you wish to swear an oath or make an affirmation?”

  I can’t help checking out those twelve people now in charge of the next three years of my life as I choose to make the affirmation. Right now I don’t believe in God. Maybe if Mom gets good news from the doctor on Thursday morning that will change. Are the jury members churchgoers? What do they think of me at this moment?

  “Could you tell us in your own words what happened on February 14, when you visited Paradise Manor?”

  “No.”

  The lady with the soya stain leans forward.

  Heh, heh, the guy in the front coughs nervously.

  “Are you refusing to answer your own attorney’s questions?” the judge asks.

  “No, Your Honour. It’s just I can tell you what I think happened on that day, but mostly I don’t really know. I only know what I did and didn’t do.”

  “All right.” Michael McCann smiles at me. “Can you tell us your part in the events that took place that afternoon?”

  I have to be absolutely truthful about every detail. I can’t slip up or the jury may think I’m lying about the whole thing. That’s why I said no that first time. I hope that buys me points for honesty with them.

  “On Valentine’s Day I was heading for Paradise Manor after school as I always did once a week for my volunteer credit. Only by this time I had finished my forty hours. That made me a regular visitor. Regular visitors don’t have to follow all the student volunteer rules. I mean, I’ve never seen adult visitors be reminded to wash their hands and they can visit the residents alone in their rooms.

  “To be honest, I wanted to drop off a few presents to the seniors I had worked closely with as a kind of goodbye. And I was going to meet Cole Demers to go out with him afterwards.

  “That afternoon Donovan gave me a lift to the mall to pick up the presents. He was also going to drive me to the Manor afterwards, only we had an argument. I decided to take the bus. Because of that, I was about forty-five minutes later than usual. I don’t know why Cole didn’t wait. I mean, he was supposed to help out with the party, so he should have been there for at least another hour.”

  That’s what I tell the courtroom but in my mind I replay the last time I saw Cole and the look on his face. What I find hard to live with is the reason he didn’t stick around to see me.

  The Forty-First Hour

  I turned in my volunteer journal and thought I was well on the way to an A+. From then on I could do what I wanted, get the job at Salon Teo and visit the Manor whenever. Everything would be perfect, especially after I dumped Donny.

  Whether or not Donovan had just found the pin on the floor didn’t matter. Every smile or touch seemed like a lie to me now. If he told me I was beautiful, it just made me wonder what he wanted from me. When he smiled, I felt he was posing for a camera. Even his curls seemed artificial; I found myself wondering if he’d had his hair permed.

  So I had the talk with him at school at lunch. We went for a walk around the football field and as we strolled, I started. “Donovan, we’ve been together almost eight months —”

  “Best months of my life. When you’re beside me, I feel like . . . I dunno . . . Superman. Nothing can bring me down.” He didn’t even stop walking to look at me. If anything, he moved quicker. Did he sense what was coming?

  “Eight months is a really long time and we’re young —”

  He interrupted. “But it seems like no time at all. Now I understand how a guy can stay with one woman for life. I can see that with you, Sunny.”

  “No.”

  He slowed down. “Well, I know we’re young. Especially you. And I’m not pressuring you —”

  “No, we’re not going to be together forever. Trust me on that one.”

  “I know you’re ticked about the camera pin. But you’re changing me. I’m becoming a better person. That’s how much you mean to me.”

  “Donovan. I’m breaking up with you.”

  “No, no. You can’t. You don’t even know all I’m doing to change.” He stopped and grabbed my wrist. “You have to give me another chance. Let me prove myself to you.”

  “We�
�re finished, Donny. I’m sorry.”

  “No. No! Wait till Valentine’s Day. You’ll see. I’m going to do something for you that will change your mind about everything.”

  “I have to be at the Manor that day. I want to help with their party.”

  “Then I’ll drive you. You know you never get there on time when you take the bus.”

  “Okay, fine.” It wasn’t though. Once you’re done with a person, you really don’t want to be around him and I shouldn’t have accepted the lift. It gave him too much hope.

  After school on Monday, he was right at my locker waiting. I tried to smile. “Do you think we could make a quick stop at the mall? I want to get a few little gifts for the residents.”

  “You have money?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m not asking you to pike anything.”

  “Sunny!” he held his chest as if I’d stabbed his heart. Again he rushed to open the car door. We passed the city bus and instinctively I looked up to see if I could find a jester’s hat in the window. But the streets were dry and it was bright out, so Cole probably took his bike.

  We got to the mall and I picked up some chocolate, one of those singing stuffed bears that sang “That’s What Friends Are For” when you squeezed its paw, and some carnations. I couldn’t afford the roses.

  Back at the car, Donovan opened the trunk and got a long garment bag from it.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  He opened my car door. “Sit and you’ll see.”

  I got in and he draped the bag across my knee. I couldn’t open it. I wanted it to go away.

  He ran to get in on the other side. “Go on. Look!” He grinned at me.

  I unzipped the bag a few centimetres, just enough to see the shimmery blue fabric. “You didn’t!” I gasped.

  “My dad advanced me my first cheque. I’m working at the doughnut shop. I didn’t get the pizza job.”

  “You have to take it back.” I zipped the bag up again.

  “No, no. I want to do this for you.”

  He wasn’t making this any easier. “Donovan, I’m not going to the prom with you.” My voice sounded loud to me. He had to have heard me, but was he registering any of it?

  His eyes looked blank.

  “I’m not going out with you any more. We’re through. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”

  He put his head down on the steering wheel then, not saying a word. This was a different Donny. Was he crying?

  Oh my god! What could I do? I reached over to give him a bit of a back rub, to make him feel better. “There, there. It’ll be all right.” He wouldn’t look up. I gave him a comforting hug. Not too long. Still, from the corner of my eye I saw movement.

  I jumped back and saw a red bike. Cole? I waved, feeling a bit lighter and happier to see him.

  His head turned but he didn’t wave back. He didn’t smile. He looked disappointed, sad even.

  Oh my god, what had he seen? What was he thinking? I jumped out of the car, scrambling to collect the presents I had dropped.

  “Cole!” I yelled and waved wildly. Way too far ahead. He didn’t hear me. I had to catch up to him, to explain. That hug meant nothing! I ran to the bus stop. I heard Donovan’s car tires squeal around the corner as he took off.

  The bus took forever, circling the whole town. People got on and people got off at every single stop. Up the stairs, down. It made me crazy. I had to catch up to Cole and tell him I’d done it. I was free. We could see each other outside of Paradise Manor now.

  Rush-hour traffic crawled, blocking every turn, slowing the bus into a four-wheeled turtle. It was turning into one of those nightmares: you know the kind where you try and try to get somewhere but somehow it’s always just a little farther out of your reach. I began to think I would never get to Cole.

  “Oh, great!” The police had blocked the street directly to the Manor. The bus had to take a detour.

  “Looks like there’s been an accident,” a lady with shopping bags told the driver. “I hope nobody got hurt.”

  A siren warbled in that moment.

  “Must have just happened,” he answered back. “Here comes the ambulance.”

  I didn’t know where the bus would go from there, so I stood up to ring the signal bell. Something made me turn to look back. A red light pulsed across my eyes. I squinted. It isn’t, I told myself. It couldn’t be.

  chapter twenty-two

  My lawyer jumps in with another question. “Maybe there is a detail you can clarify for the court. Why did Cole ride a bike that night if he meant to go out with you afterwards?”

  I close my eyes for a second, open them and sigh. “As long as there was no ice on the road, he always rode his bike. Taking the bus takes twice as long, and that’s if you’re at the stop at just the right time. Besides the bus, if you don’t have a licence you have to rely on parents or friends with cars. Cole just wanted to do his own thing.”

  “But you two were going to go out after.”

  “I don’t know if he planned to leave his bike at the Manor and take a cab after. But I would have taken the bus or ridden on his bike with him if he’d asked.” Whoops. Did I go too far? Riding two on a bike was illegal. Did that show I didn’t mind breaking the law and so I would easily be able to help Helen Demers die?

  “Sunny,” Michael says gently, “did you know what had happened to Cole when you arrived at Paradise Manor?”

  I shake my head. “But the bus I was on passed the accident. The ambulance arrived as we made the detour and I saw a crumpled bike at the side of the road. I’d hoped it wasn’t Cole’s, but not that many people bike in February and it was red like his.” Tears burn at the back of my eyes. My fists bunch. It’s been a whole year since Cole rode away from Paradise Manor. How many times will I cry over that? I have to blink and that sends a tear sliding down my cheek. I don’t wipe it away — I don’t want to call attention to it.

  “Did you continue with your regular volunteer activities?” Michael asks me.

  “No, because it wasn’t a regular volunteer hour anyway.”

  “Right.” Michael nods. “This would have been your forty-first hour.”

  “Yes. But I had this awful feeling. When I stepped through the door of Paradise Manor, my head felt like it was floating off my body. Still, I followed all the rules, signing the book, washing my hands, keying in the lockup code. I passed out my gifts to the residents, but I didn’t stop to chat with them. I couldn’t.

  “Only Jeannette was holding a bag of candies. She told me she’d taken them from Helen Demers’s room. Cole never leaves those behind, so I thought maybe he’d just gone to the bathroom.

  “I took them back from her and headed for Mrs. Demers’s room. I saw some of the aides talking and the way one looked at me, I knew something was wrong.

  “Still I wasn’t sure what. I ran to Mrs. Demers’s room, hoping Cole would have returned by now.”

  “But he hadn’t,” Michael says gently.

  I shook my head. “No. So I sat down beside Mrs. Demers and I heard, we both heard, the receptionist, Katherine Filmore, tell someone that Cole had been hit by a car. Thrown. I couldn’t move or do anything for a while.”

  Michael coaxes me on. “Do you feel Mrs. Demers understood what was said about the accident?”

  I shook my head. “I couldn’t tell. Mrs. Demers just stared at me, not saying anything.”

  “But this would have been perfectly normal for her in her condition, correct?”

  “Yes, but it did feel different. I reached out and touched her hand and she called me Cole and asked if I could give her a butterscotch.”

  “Would she normally have been able to speak in full sentences like that?” Michael McCann asked me.

  “No, not for a month she hadn’t. So I unwrapped one
and put it in her mouth for her.”

  “Did she begin to choke?”

  “No, she didn’t. I didn’t take the rest of the bag with me because it didn’t belong to me. And honestly, Mrs. Demers couldn’t walk anymore. She was in a wheelchair. There was no way she should have been able to reach the rest on the bureau where I left them.

  “But at that moment I just couldn’t stand being there any longer. I left her room and ran down the hall and out of the building. I know I didn’t sign out or talk to anybody. But I couldn’t deal with anything at that moment.”

  “To the best of your knowledge, you did not kill Mrs. Demers with that one candy, then?”

  “I’m positive I didn’t.” What I don’t tell them is that she motioned to me for another butterscotch. I waited for a second but she moaned and waved her hands. In a minute I thought she would start yelling the way Jeannette did when you didn’t humour her. So I unwrapped a second candy slowly. I didn’t want to give it to her. She hadn’t even eaten the first one. I just wanted to play along with her, to comfort her. Just as the staff always did.

  “No further questions.”

  “Mr. Dougal, do you wish to cross examine the witness?” the judge asks the buzzard.

  “Yes, I do, Your Honour.” He stands up and flicks at the back of his robe. His black feathers unfold behind him. He clears his throat. “Miss Ehret, you appear to be crying. Are you sad that a seventy-six-year-old woman died last year?”

  “Objection!” Michael McCann calls.

  “Overruled,” the judge says. He turns to me. “You may answer the question.”

  That buzzard saw my one tear and he knows it isn’t for Helen. That sarcastic tone of his. What should I answer? Should I be honest? I wipe both cheeks with my hands and take a breath. “Yes, I am sad.”

  “But you knew she was dying of Alzheimer’s. That she couldn’t walk or talk or even eat the things she liked anymore.”

  “Yes, I’m sad for all those things too.”

  “Aren’t you really sad over Cole’s accident?”