“There you are,” Darren said. “Are you okay?”
“I need to get home.”
“The way you were walking, I thought you'd gone into labour. Can I drive you?”
“I have my car. Thanks.” Then she remembered. “That boy will be fine, Darren.”
“Oh, right.”
“I better go, Darren. Excuse me.” He was blocking her car door.
“You know, he talks as though his father is alive.”
“But he does know the truth?”
“Yes. I've heard Isabella tell him, more than once. And the man was dying in their house for months.”
“If Cooper's mother is interested in counselling, I'm sure it would be an excellent idea. People respond to grief in different, sometimes peculiar ways. It can take a while to accept that something bad happened. He's only a boy. He's taking his time.”
“That sounds too simple.”
“It's not simple at all. It's complicated. That's why it's hard to understand. How can it be so goddamn cold this time of year?”
Darren sighed, and to her dismay she realized he was taking her question literally. “Strictly speaking, it's a southwesterly,” he said. “But the fact is, it's a northern system that's looped back around. It's the coldest southwesterly you'll ever get. I just wish everyone â ”
At that moment someone began calling to them from the house.
It was Byron. He came quickly down across the lawn, holding the side of his head. He stopped and glanced back and forth between them, but each time his eyes sought out Heather's she looked away. She was too tired to make eye contact with this man.
“Darren, I fell. I slipped and fell against the stove and hit my head. I can't tell if I'm bleeding or not, I'm so covered with that kid's fake blood.”
Fake blood? Heather thought.
Fake blood
. It hadn't registered.
“Of course, the brain can be injured without penetration to the skull.”
“How do you feel, Byron?” Darren asked patiently. “Do you feel dizzy? Drowsy? Confused?”
“I should be checked. I'm developing a brutal headache. I thought I'd been shot.”
“You're probably right. But you shouldn't drive, Byron. I better give you a lift over.”
“Good point. I shouldn't drive. Another thing, that woman in there â awfully nice, by the way â she's a bit upset.”
Heather could see Darren hesitating.
“You realize you're going to have quite a wait, Byron,” Darren said. “Because of the strike?”
“What strike?”
“The doctors in the province are on strike,” Heather told Byron, hoping, for Darren's sake, the plain facts would persuade him to wait until morning.
“They're not.”
“Where have you been?” Darren wanted to know. “Everybody and his missus will be in for a sore throat.”
“It'll be packed,” Heather said.
“Although I heard on the news they expected worse.”
“Darren, it'll be packed.”
“Nevertheless, I am feeling woozy.”
“I'll take him,” Heather said. “It's on my way.”
“No, Heather.”
“You better check on your neighbour. It's a mess in there. I'll drop him at emergency.”
“She said it's on her way, Darren.”
“I don't mind.”
“I'll be right along,” Darren promised. “I'll see he gets home.”
She nodded as though she were sleepwalking. She was excruciatingly tired and the five-minute drive to the Health Sciences Complex felt like something she'd been at for days. As she brought the car to a crushing, lethargic stop at each intersection, she couldn't understand how such a short drive could last so long. Byron was blithering on about concussions and skull fractures, which was irritating and helped keep her awake, but it was so incessant and pointless she grew concerned that he had, indeed, injured himself.
When they arrived, she parked the car and told him she'd accompany him inside. Just in case, she explained.
“In case I collapse. Good point.”
They passed through the emergency doors where a small, easily overlooked sign forbidding entry to the media had been posted, then into a corridor of tiled walls and columns. Heather immediately noticed the abundance of haphazardly arranged chairs, nearly every one of which was occupied.
Heather and Byron approached admittance, passing a number of women all looking grey and tired and either angry or defeated. One woman sat with her elbow on the arm of the chair and her sweater pulled up over her mouth and nose. Many looked asleep. Some clearly had a bad flu.
The first thing the clerk wanted to know was whether Heather realized she was in the wrong part of the hospital. “I
can let you through this way, but you should have been told the entrance is â ”
“I'm not in labour,” Heather said coldly. “We're here for him, not me.”
The second thing the clerk wanted to know was whether that was real blood.
Strangely disappointed, they had to admit it was not real blood. Heather glanced down. While her clothes were wet, it was Byron's white shirt that most obviously bore the ruddy evidence of Cooper's initial assault. The clerk's question was not unreasonable, given this was an emergency department, but perhaps because it was also doubling as a twenty-four-hour walk-in clinic and because neither Heather nor Byron seemed excessively distraught, the clerk said, “I didn't think so.”
“It's only paint,” Heather explained.
“It's not paint,” Byron said.
“Well, it's not blood.”
“It contains a number of ingredients. I can't identify all of them, but certainly Kool-Aid is one. Corn syrup another.”
The clerk had turned her attention to her computer screen. “Hospital card?” she asked.
“How long will this take?” Heather asked.
“There's no telling. Either one of you with a hospital card?”
Heather stepped back. In a moment she could leave. A few chairs and wheelchairs lined the short hallway connecting the emergency department to the rest of the hospital. Space had also been made for two stretchers: on one a blond woman wearing sunglasses reclined; on the other a dishevelled, confused-looking man appeared to have just sat up. Heather remembered this area being stark and empty at the time of her visit for the frostbite.
Primarily women occupied the two hallways, while the men had taken possession of the waiting room, where, along the farthest wall, a string of young men in soccer uniforms sat, every one of them with his head resting against the wall and following the least movement with his eyes. The few women in the waiting
room sat alone, one beside a vending machine. Heather could see the back of her neck and shoulders, her caramel hair recently set, and still with the absent air of a sleepwalker and under the watchful eyes of anyone whose eyes were open, Heather wandered away from Byron and into the waiting room.
Her mother had made a good seating choice, Heather could not help thinking, as the vending machine gave her less contact with other patients. And on her other side, her large leather handbag stood upright, occupying the seat. She was wearing her white rayon skirt and beige cardigan, a youthful, summery combination that dimmed her blue eyes and drained her face. Heather picked up the handbag and sat down.
Across her mother's face a flicker of relief was followed by consternation.
“You're having the baby. What do you want me to do?”
“No, I am not. Sit back. What are
you
doing here?”
“Good lord, you finally got my phone message.”
“What are you doing here, Mom?”
“Do you answer
any
of your phones?”
Her mother had never left a phone message in her life. “Did you try Mandy?”
“Who?”
“Mandy?” Heather's throat began to feel funny. She was awake now.
“Oh, I know who Mandy is. But I'm not calling her. My God, if I have to hear one more question about cow hunting.”
“But what's wrong?”
Her mother stiffened. “It's personal.”
Heather looked up. Just a few feet away, a woman knitting a misshapen yellow square was listening to them. Beside her, a pale-faced burly man was breathing loudly and leaning on her. He was sweating profusely.
“Is he all right?” Heather asked the woman.
Her mother gave her the softest of nudges.
The woman nodded. “He's after whining and complaining
all day,” she said, the knitting needles clicking furiously in her hands. “He's the mother of all sorrows, he is.”
Heather suspected the woman had been saying this to people all day. She looked over her shoulder and scanned for Byron, wondering if he had seated himself elsewhere.
“Heather,” her mother said, taking her handbag and reclaiming her daughter's attention. “I already mentioned Timmy to them at the desk. Surely he can get me seen more quickly. It's all who you know in this town.”
“Who?”
“Timmy O'Keefe. Dr. O'Keefe now. You might want to go back up there and spell his name for them, Heather. Nurses aren't the brightest crowd.”
Embarrassed, Heather looked across at the woman, who at that moment gave her shoulder a fierce shake, rousing her husband. He lifted his head from her shoulder and blinked dully. He looked very sick. “I think I'll just have a little lie-down,” he told his wife. He slid gingerly off his chair, landed lightly on his knees, and curled up on the floor.
The woman stopped knitting and stared at her husband, but it didn't take long for two nurses to arrive and get the man on his feet. As they led him away the woman finally stood. They told her to stay put.
One of the nurses looked briefly around the room and noticed Heather.
“You're in the wrong part of the hospital, love.”
“I'm not having a baby!”
The nurse froze, taken aback, then laughed as though it was the funniest thing she'd heard all night. Heather's mother put a hand on her arm, a cautionary gesture that seemed to suggest they save their energy.
“How long have you been waiting?” Heather asked the woman.
“We're after coming in about two this afternoon,” the woman replied loftily.
“That's nine hours,” Heather said. “Mom, how long have you been here?”
“Certainly not as long as that.” Shifting slightly, her mother pressed her lips together.
“Mom?”
A man leaned out from the row and said to no one in particular. “I've been here thirteen hours.” He glanced around, looking to make eye contact with someone, and settled on Heather. But then the blond woman with the sunglasses put some change in the vending machine and he turned to her. Heather was surprised the woman had abandoned her stretcher, but when she peered down the hallway she saw it was gone. Rooted out of it, Heather figured, for a more deserving customer.
It was at this point that Byron spotted her and came straight over. He took the seat vacated by the sick man and said, “What a scene in there. I got as far as the duty nurse, who checked my vitals. Nothing alarming.”
“That must be a relief,” Heather said.
“Yes. Even a minor head injury can result in severe brain damage.”
Her mother nudged her again. Heather realized she would not be able to keep from her mother the fact that her arrival here was entirely on behalf of this man.
“Mom, this is Byron,” she said. “Byron, I'd like you to meet my mother â ”
To Heather's astonishment, they both stood, as though being formally introduced. Byron held his hand out, but Heather's mother ignored him.
“I'm going to the ladies' room,” she said. “I'll be back in a moment.”
“You know where it is?”
“I do.”
Byron sat back down.
As soon as her mother returned, she asked, “Did you ask them to page Timmy O'Keefe for me, Heather?”
Heather hesitated, glancing at Byron. “They said they would do what they could.”
“That doesn't sound promising.”
There followed a period of silence occasionally broken by Byron's comments on head injuries in humans, then in birds, which expanded into bird diseases and injuries of all kinds. The woman beside him, listening attentively, began another yellow square, or what Heather assumed would inevitably resemble a square. Heather's mother amazingly offered the information to Byron that Heather had a new bird feeder and a number of bird books. To Byron's question whether Heather was into birds, her mother responded by saying it was only a passing interest. At this, she rose for another visit to the ladies' room.
When she returned Byron was discussing the various objects that could be used to set broken bones. A stainless steel bar from a rat's cage was as good as anything, just sharpen it and boil it. Heather's mother interrupted to ask whether or not he was married.
The question was so thoroughly outside Heather's future reality or interest, she ignored it. She checked her watch. It was 2:37 am.
“No, I'm not married,” Byron told her mother.
The woman beside him knitting the yellow square nodded and drew her breath in sharply, signalling this came as no surprise to her.
Heather found herself resenting this. The man was a crackpot, but he didn't need to know others thought so.
She wondered what had become of Darren. He had promised he would be right along. It didn't matter. She was staying anyway.
Near dawn her mother said, “You can't imagine how much I'm looking forward to having a grandchild.”
Heather was surprised. It was the first time she'd heard her mother express this sentiment. She placed her hands over her stomach. It was of an unbelievable size and tautness. Some women were happiest when they were pregnant. Some women
were
only
happy when they were pregnant. Heather realized that the more she looked forward to the baby, the less she missed its father.
“Are you happy, Mom?” Heather asked.