The Death of Donna Whalen

by Michael Winter

  EDIE GUZZWELL

  Donna called Edie out in Grand Falls, she was just getting ready to milk her cows. Mom’s in intensive care, Donna said, at the Grace Hospital. Edie helped raise Donna until she was about twelve years old. Now Agnes was supposed to come out because it was the long weekend. But she went up to have an x-ray on her bowels and whatever they done, she started to have internal bleeding. So Edie and her husband left early the next morning and they got in to the hospital around nine oclock and Donna came up and she had some gifts there for her mom. Her hands were shaking and Edie asked her what was wrong. Agnes was on the phone and Donna got up and lied in the bed. She had on a pair of white jeans with zippers in the legs. She hauled up the zippers and there were bruises on her legs, front and back, and she told Edie that her and Sheldon had been fighting the night before. They had got into a racket over where the car was parked when Donna was in to the hospital. So for that she had red marks on her legs. He must have kicked her because it was from her knees down. She was complaining that her head was paining and she got Edie to feel the bump. Sheldon had put Donna’s head through the wall. The bump was the size of an apple and it was soft and spongy.

  Donna had this balloon and it had The World’s Best Mom on it and she had a little vase there with a rose and she was trying to fix it and her hands were like that. Edie never saw Donna frightened or terrified in all her twenty-six years.

  There was a gun in the apartment and Donna was afraid that if she went home that night Sheldon would kill her. Donna had something on Sheldon that could put him away for fifteen years but if she phoned up the police and had him put in jail there was another member of the family she was afraid of.

  Donna’s father was there and Aubrey said when he went in to work on Monday to the cemetery, he was going to speak to Sheldon. Donna left around four-thirty. The children were at Kim Parrott’s so she went home and got clean clothes and a shower and came on back to the hospital. Agnes phoned Sheldon from the hospital and asked him would he move out. Donna seemed to be very relaxed and she made a comment that she was getting on with her life.

  SHELDON TROKE

  Sheldon kicked the doors in once. That was when no one was home. It seems you do something once and it’s brought back to you in ten different ways on ten different occasions. It all depends who gets the story next. That statement about this time you walk, next time it will be a body bag. They were arguing about old bags at the 301 Club.

  The gun. Donna never had a gun belonged to Sheldon. They had him under investigation for a bank robbery. That’s the only thing he can figure out why Donna would say that.

  He was after taking the front off his car. They had it downstairs in the basement, him and Robert Furneaux were working on it. It was dark, about ten at night, and Donna come down. She had a small police scanner. She had the power pack with it and everything. She had a bill of sale and the receipt to show that it was purchased in the store. It wasnt stolen or anything and Eugene Driscoll wanted a hundred dollars for it and Donna asked Sheldon was it a good deal. Sheldon said just see if you can get it for eighty. So she went up and she ended up buying it. That night when he went to bed Sharon woke him up. She asked where Mommy was at and Sheldon said what’s wrong? She was sick. So he got her some medicine and phoned Kim’s and told Donna that Sharon was sick. She said she was coming down. Half an hour later Sharon came in again and asked where Mommy was at and Sheldon got up and phoned again and Kim told him that Donna was left. Donna come in about ten minutes later and he asked her what took you so long. She said that Rod Tessier was up there and she wanted to make sure everything was all right between Rod and Kim. Rod was after stabbing hisself and Sheldon said to Donna what are you staying up there for, he after stabbing himself. Keeping Kim company, she said.

  The next day Donna said it was Kim and Rod and Eugene she give a run down to Kavanagh’s and they were in getting some beer and she ran out of gas. She had to get a taxi driver to give her a boost. Sheldon was getting fed up with this because the month before Cory was sick and he phoned into Kim’s. Donna wasnt there. That was the night Donna and Kim were going out. Cory was after throwing up and Sheldon told Kim, and Donna phoned and asked was Cory all right and he said he didnt know if he got a temperature. Donna phoned back. She was talking to a nurse at the Janeway and the nurse said to take a glass of ginger ale and beat it with a fork and get all the acid out of it and give him that so his stomach won’t get upset.

  That day Mrs Whalen had to have day surgery and they snipped her bowel and she started hemorrhaging and she’s an elderly woman. Sheldon was in working at the graveyard and waiting for Mr Whalen to come. It was Sheldon’s birthday. Mr Whalen was supposed to drop Missus off and then wait and give her a run home again, so he never showed up to the graveyard. About two he sees Donna’s car coming down the driveway and Donna and Tom Vivian get out of the car. The way she’s walking there was something wrong. She was crying and saying Dad dont understand and Sheldon couldnt pick no sense out of what she was saying. He was holding her and Tom Vivian come over and Sheldon said to Tom what’s wrong? Missus took sick, he said, and Donna was saying Dad dont understand, Mom’s going to die. Sheldon got Tom to go over and get the car and he helped Donna get in and put the pick and shovel back in the shed and they left and went over to Donna’s house to drop Tom off. Sharon was there and Sheldon asked Tom would he keep an eye on her. They went over to the hospital and Mrs Whalen was up in intensive care. They were talking to her and Sheldon left around suppertime. He left to get the youngsters something to eat and when he come back he went up and Donna wasnt there. She was visiting Albert Canning and then she come back in. A few minutes later a nurse told them visiting hours were over.

  They went back to Donna’s and she put Cory to bed. Sharon was in her room playing Nintendo. Donna went in to lie down and told Sheldon to call her because she wanted to go back over to the hospital again that night. So Sheldon went in and called Donna. Yes, she said, she was getting up. She was a bit cranky with all the stress she was under and Sheldon never said nothing. She stayed in bed asleep. So he went to his grandmother’s house just down around the corner from Donna’s. His grandmother was there, his father and sister and mother. This was Sheldon’s birthday and they ended up getting a six-pack of beer. Sheldon was talking to them and they gave him socks, shorts and a card.

  He went back to Donna’s and she said you were at the 301 Club again. Sheldon was telling her that he was at his grandmother’s. He was showing her the socks and Donna come up close and said what, were you drinking with your grandmother? Because she smelled the beer off his breath. He pushed her and put the bag down and walked out of the room and picked up the phone to call his mother to verify that he was up there and Donna was roaring you was over at the 301 Club and he roared back he wasnt. Donna roared out dont go getting them involved, you were over to the 301 Club with your old bags and Sheldon threw the phone down and went in and there was a lot of cursing going on. He said if youre going to talk about bags, talk about your own friends and she turned around and told him to go fuck himself and he walked in and grabbed her by the shoulder and hauled her towards him and said what the fuck is your problem? Donna was throwing the socks down and Sheldon was saying every fucking time I moves through the door there’s a fight. He was holding her by the shoulder and he turned her and both of them were using the language. They were having words and he walked out and slammed the door. He went in the bedroom. There was a glass on the night table and he was still roaring saying I’m fucking fed up with this. Every time I goes somewhere we got a fucking racket over it, and he was shouting out and picked up the glass and bounced it off a picture. The picture broke. He ended up putting his head through the wall. It wasnt Donna’s head, it was his head.

  The next morning Donna was gone and Sharon and Cory were gone and he cleaned up the glass and went to his grandmother’s. His mother was up there and he asked could he move in with her. His mother said yes. He left there and went to Cathy Furn
eaux’s. After he left Cathy’s, he went back to Donna’s. And while he was there, he was packing his clothes and the phone rang. It was Donna’s mother from hospital. Agnes asked him what was going on. He said I’m fed up with this, I’m moving out. She asked him what happened and he explained it to her. She said youre not going to quit your job, are you? He said no and she asked how he was going to get back and forth to work. My mother and my father, they’ll drive me. What about the keys to the shed? He was going to lay them on the stand at the top of the stairs. He got his father to come down. He moved everything out of Donna’s. He spent the night at his grandmother’s. He slept on her chesterfield. Sunday, that’s when he moved in to his mother’s. It was the long weekend. Mrs Whalen got out of hospital Monday or Tuesday.

  Sheldon’s after hearing that Donna had a black eye. His parole officer went to see Donna. There’s nothing about a black eye him ever mentioning it. Sheldon spoke with Donna on the phone one day and there was two police officers sot right in the house talking to him and Gary Bemister was one of them. He never heard no references to black eyes then. There was a mark on Donna’s eye right here. Donna was having trouble with her station wagon—the battery used to heat up. One time the terminal even melted off and Sheldon brought the battery back to Canadian Tire. He was fixing it one day and he threw the keys up to Donna from the bottom of the steps and Donna caught it. She got it in the eye. It was a point right here when she caught the keys. It was like a scrape.

  There was nights Sheldon cried, yes. There was nights he went to Donna, crying, and some nights he’d cry over his brother Raymond. He was going to quit alcohol and she was going to quit pills.

  BERTHA TROKE

  Sheldon moved out to Cabot Apartments, but that was only for a few days. They werent getting along and they needed to be away from each other for a while. Donna said to Bertha, I got to admit it we do have our arguments but I starts a lot of them.

  Bertha was at Sheldon’s apartment with Cathy Furneaux and Donna, and Sheldon walked in the door with Vicki Pinhorn. Vicki had an iron in her hand. She was going to iron Sheldon’s pants. She went into the bedroom because there was no room out in the living room. When she went in the bedroom Donna went right in on the back of her. She closed the door and you could hear them talking loud and at one point there was a bit of razzing going on. Donna was really mad because Vicki ironed Sheldon’s pants and they were broke up. She was furious.

  Donna was doing things and she made Bertha promise that, when her and Sheldon were broke up, Bertha wouldnt tell Sheldon that she was shoplifting and doing prescription drugs.

  Donna asked Bertha once for a Gravol. She had the flu and she was stomach sick and Bertha laughed and said yes you had a flu too many. She give her a Gravol and Donna said yes the pills had made her sick.

  KIM PARROTT

  Sheldon smashed an elephant a couple of months before Donna died. Donna was up to Kim’s house and it was late. One of the youngsters were after waking up and Sheldon phoned looking for Donna and she answered the phone and told Sheldon she was late because Rod had gotten stabbed. That was a lie. Then Donna hung up and she was still there a few more minutes and he phoned again. Donna asked Kim not to say that she was there. Tell him I just left. So she told him and he said she’s nothing but a whore. Kim didnt want to carry no conversation off with him because Donna was there sitting in front of her. And when Donna went home he grabbed her by the face and shoved her and she phoned Kim, it was around three oclock in the morning, and Donna told her what he had done and Kim heard him going with the vacuum cleaner. He was after smashing this glass elephant. He gave Donna money to get a second elephant.

  CATHY FURNEAUX

  Cathy has known the Trokes for years. She went out with Sheldon’s brother Raymond. He’s deceased now. She knows Sheldon good this few years. She knows his brother Paul Troke.

  Friday night she phoned up the 301 Club to see if Paul or Sheldon was up there. She was talking to the lady that was working the bar. A lady from the Hill had the place rented out because her little girl needed money to go away, so they were from the Hill and that’s where Cathy is from so she said I’ll go over there.

  Cathy’s sister-in-law dropped her off. She had a few drinks and talked to a few people. She dont go out to clubs or downtown or nothing. She was mostly sitting down by the people that were playing the music, the Morrells.

  It was about two oclock when she left because the club was over, the lights were after coming on. She dropped into the gas station that’s up by the club. She went in to pick up a bag of chips. She walked home to Freshwater Road. It’s a house with two apartments. Cathy’s is the top.

  Her son Robert was there, and Sheldon’s brother Paul. Robert is sixteen. It had to be around two-thirty. She sat there on the couch, had a cigarette. They were watching TV, she was eating chips. She was talking to them for a few minutes then laid down on the chesterfield and went to sleep. Paul was sitting in the rocking chair and Robert was at the foot of the couch on the floor. You had to go up over another flight for the bedrooms and that.

  She woke up on Saturday morning about ten-thirty. The phone rang. It was Bertha Troke. Cathy went up the stairs and woke Paul up. He was up in his bed. Paul stayed at Cathy’s place a lot but he did have his own apartment too. When she went in he had the blankets hauled up around him and she just nudged him. She shook him and said Paul and he said what. She said, Have a guess who’s dead. She told him Donna. He said why what happened did she OD? No, Cathy said, she slashed up. He said go on, and he just turned in then and went back to sleep.

  JOHN MORRELL

  John has a sideline, playing music at weddings. Word of mouth. He’s familiar with the 301 Club. Fred Riles asked him to play the music at a fundraiser, it was about this sick kid. The second weekend in June. He brought the stereo equipment in and set it up. He went with his wife, Winnie. Cathy Furneaux was there. She was dancing and drinking. She had a flask in her purse and a beer. She said she brought her own booze to save on money. She wanted John to play a song for her. She had it in a purse on a tape. John played the song. He had a couple of dances with her.

  They called out last call for the bar and the lights came on about two. Cathy came back and got her tape. She left then. John unhooked his stereo and left about quarter to three. There was two people left besides him and Winnie.

  John doesnt know Sheldon Troke or any of the Troke family.

  Cathy was feeling good, she wasnt drunk. Whiskey or screech, she poured it in a glass. She wasnt measuring these with any sort of cup, just free pour. He’s positive about it because she offered him a drink. She was mixing it with Pepsi because she had a glass of Pepsi.

  A lot of people were saying what a consequence that that night he played at the 301, missus got killed.

  It was a dark purse, it was about that big and about that high. Cathy laid it on top of his stereo. She had jeans on, John wasnt really sizing her up but she had jeans on and a top and a jacket.

  SHARON WHALEN

  A truth is something that happened and you say it happened, and a lie is something you made up and it didnt happen.

  Sharon heard a big bang and thought it was the coffee table knocked over because her mom might be sleepwalking. Her mom was saying no, Sheldon, no, leave me alone, leave me alone, and she could hear another voice saying be quiet, Donna. A man’s voice.

  She has two diaries. The one from around the time that her mother died has a teddy bear on the cover. The other has flowers and a sticker. Her mom was cleaning up the water with a cloth and she lifted up the coffee table. It was tipped over. Sheldon was mad, her mom said, and he tipped it over. Her mom was going to see Sharon’s nan at the hospital and she was going to drop Sharon and Cory off at Kim’s. She didnt tell Sheldon because he doesnt like Kim. They were going to the car and he told her mom to come back into the house. Sharon and Cory waited in the car. She was taking a long time so Sharon told Cory to stay out in the car. She went to the door and peeked in and Sheldon pu
shed her mom and she grabbed on to the rail and she almost fell down over the stairs. Sheldon hauled her back in and Sharon went up the stairs a bit and looked into her room and he pushed her mom on the bed and then she got up and was coming towards the door so Sharon ran back to the car.

  Sheldon had his stuff moved into the house and when they were together he slept there almost every night. But once a week, he’d stay back. On his birthday he came back from his mom’s house. They were arguing because Sharon’s mom was wondering why he was out so late and he was telling her because it was his birthday and he wanted to have some fun and she asked him if he was drinking and he said yeah. Then they started to fight and she came into Sharon’s room and Sheldon came in and he told Sharon that her mom was bad and she was a devil and he was calling her bad names. He went out and slammed the door. He called her the B-word and the S-word. Her mom was crying. In the morning she told Sharon that he punched her in the eye and he was hitting her on the head. She had a bruise all around her eye. He was really mad at her. He was mad because she was asking him a lot of questions. He was yelling really loud. His voice is really tough.

  Another time in the kitchen they were arguing and Sheldon was drying the dishes and he started to dry a knife and he dug it down in the table. It didnt stick into the table, it just left a hole in the table.

  Christmas Eve Cory wanted to stay up to watch a show. Sheldon said they could and their mom said they couldnt because they had to go to bed early. Sharon’s mom told the children to go into their room. Sharon heard a lot of yelling. In the morning her mom told her that he was hitting her. He was grabbing her and he was kicking her in the leg and in the stomach.