“Sure they will. It’s Ruth we’re talking about, not Jimmy Hoffa. Just give me one second.”
His hand grazed my shoulder. It was the first time we’d touched. I noticed a silver ring on his middle finger. He’s a nice young man. Kind. There aren’t many people like that in the world. I want to ask him things, personal questions, but I can’t. All I can manage is what I asked him last week:
“Why do you come here?” This was after we had a lengthy discussion about the woes of rheumatoid arthritis. “Don’t tell me you enjoy listening to old people complain.”
He shrugged. “I think of it as a matter of insurance.”
“In what way?”
“That when I’m old, someone will visit me.”
“You don’t have children.” I meant this as a question, but it came out as a statement.
“Just a schnauzer.”
“You should bring your dog in sometime. I’d like to meet him.”
“He’ll likely pee on the floor.”
“Then he’ll fit right in.”
Timothy was soon back in my room. “Well, that took all of three seconds. She’s at Our Lady of Mercy.”
“The
Catholic
hospital?”
“I’ll go tomorrow afternoon and then stop by here.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I don’t mind. Now. What do you want me to tell her?”
“Tell her …” I looked over at the photograph of John on my dresser. “Tell her I’m waiting for her.”
After he left, my energy evaporated. My arms became heavy and my hands started to itch. In the past couple of days, I’d felt my heart pause, deciding whether it should keep beating. I looked up to see a woman reflected in the window. She startled me. Her hair was a pulled-apart cotton ball. For a moment, I thought it was Mrs. Pender. But of course it wasn’t. She’s been dead for years.
“Me,” I decided.
It’s almost a week since the gala, and I’m anxious for Timothy’s arrival. I putter around the room, rearranging the plants on my window ledge. When did he say he was going to the hospital? I don’t remember.
When noon rolls around, I decide to opt out of lunch and wait in my room.
“I’m not hungry,” I tell the fire-headed nurse.
“Nonsense,” she says. “It’s Spaghetti Saturday.”
She wheels me into the dining room, parks me at my table and ties a blue-and-white-checked bib around my neck before I can say a word of protest. I’m left staring at the vacant faces of my tablemates.
“Henry, let me switch sides with you,” I say. “I want to keep an eye on the hall. I’m expecting company.”
He looks confused and perhaps he has good reason. The only other thing I’ve ever said to him is “Hand me the ketchup.” But he pulls back from the table and, with some considerable manoeuvring, we manage to switch places. Irene stares at me. There’s a piece of spaghetti stuck to her chin.
“Nothing wrong with a change in scenery,” I say, reaching for a roll from the basket.
Timothy doesn’t come until mid-afternoon.
“How’s Ruth?” I ask before he even has a chance to sit down. He’s wearing a smart jacket. It’s black with grey stripes. John used to like jackets as well. Charlie did, too, now that I think about it. Did they notice the things they had in common?
“Tired, but good,” he says. “I had to put on a gown and a mask and gloves. I’m not sure she even knew who I was.”
“Did you say hello to her for me?”
He sits down on the bed. “Yes. I said you were waiting for her.”
“Did you speak with a doctor?”
He shakes his head. “The nurse wouldn’t tell me anything. I’m not family, after all. But I saw no reason why she wouldn’t be leaving soon. They’re likely keeping her there as a precautionary measure. I’m sure she’ll be back within a week. Guaranteed.”
“There are no guarantees in life,” I tell him. Then I pause. “You did a very nice thing. Not only for Ruth, but also for me. Kindness is hard to find. Especially in this day and age.”
“You really believe that?”
“You don’t?”
“I think what goes around, comes around. Maybe you have some acts of kindness owing to you.”
I nearly laugh. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”
He wags his finger at me. “You’re too hard on yourself, Mrs. Sparks.”
“Call me Joyce. And you don’t know the first thing about me.”
“I beg to differ,” he says.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I
T WAS A
T
UESDAY
in April, a few weeks after John’s return from Winnipeg. Charlie was working days. I listened to him get dressed in the darkness of the bedroom that morning. The clank of his belt buckle. His dresser drawers sliding out. The floorboards creaking beneath his socked feet. Sounds so familiar to me after all those years. When we were first married, I’d get up to have breakfast with him. I believed it was important for us to share those early-morning moments. But not anymore. I kept my eyes shut and the covers wrapped around me, waiting until I saw the flash of the headlights on the bedroom’s far wall.
How sad for Charlie, I think now. To get up in that darkness, morning after morning. I imagine him on those drives into work, a lunch box beside him (one he’d packed himself, as I stopped doing that years ago as well), perhaps the radio news to keep him company, if news was even broadcast at that hour, the oil drums rising in the distance, the dull humming of machines, the smell of crude oil wafting in through the vents of the car. What a landscape compared to wheat fields.
I got out of bed and went into the hall. John’s door was closed, as usual. I’d wake him for school in a half-hour. He’d become so lethargic in the mornings, moving from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen like someone dragged into existence. I ate toast, listened to the radio and brought in the milk when I heard the delivery truck pull away. By then it was seven o’clock. I went down the hall and knocked on John’s door.
“Time to get up,” I called and opened the door. His bed was empty. I tried to remember if he had band practice that morning. No. He had practice on Wednesdays and Fridays. Had he mentioned a school meeting? Then I saw the piece of paper on top of his pillow. I knew then. My son had left. I turned on the light and read the letter with shaking hands.
Mom and Dad. I’ll call you when the time is right. Don’t worry about me. John
.
Somehow, my fingers managed to dial Charlie’s work number. When had he left? It must’ve been in the middle of the night. My boy. What have you done?
“Where would he go?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t know.” But I had my suspicions. Was John hitchhiking his way towards Quebec at that moment?
“We’ll find him,” Charlie said.
I called Angela as soon as I hung up with Charlie. Her mother answered the phone.
“Angela’s in the bathroom,” Mrs. Dawber said. “Who’s calling?”
“It’s Joyce Sparks. John’s mother. I need to speak with Angela. My son has run away.”
“Oh, dear. Hold on, Mrs. Sparks.”
I heard the hard bounce of the phone landing on the floor. This couldn’t be happening. John was playing a joke. A trick to get back at me for looking through his things.
“Mrs. Sparks?”
“Angela, John has run away. I found a note on his bed. Do you know anything about this? You have to tell me. Did he say where he was going?”
“No. He didn’t tell me anything.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“No, Mrs. Sparks. Honest. I haven’t even talked to John for the past week.”
I brought the phone close to my lips and lowered my voice. “Is he with the trumpet player? Don’t be embarrassed to tell me.”
“The trumpet …? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Did he tell you what happened between him and the trumpet player? In Winnipeg? Tell me, Angela.”
I heard muffled noise followed by a brief pause.
“Mrs. Sparks, it’s Mrs. Dawber again. Angela says she doesn’t know anything. But if she hears anything from your son, I promise we’ll contact you right away. You’ll have to excuse us, but Angela has to get ready for school. Goodbye.”
Helen assured me he’d be home in a day or two.
“Wild oats,” she reasoned over the phone. “I told you about the time I found alcohol in Mark’s bag, didn’t I?”
“Helen, my son has
run away
. We’re not talking about a few sips from a vodka bottle. I’m going crazy with worry. Charlie is driving the streets as we speak.”
“Joyce.” She spoke my name as though it was something painful in her mouth. “I know there are certain things we don’t discuss. Sometimes I wish we talked more. We’re sisters, after all. I’m always here for you.”
Why was she saying this? I had no time for her sentimentality. I looked up at the kitchen clock. Thirty minutes had passed since I discovered John was gone.
“I know, Joyce. About John.”
“You know what?”
“I don’t feel comfortable saying it. So I won’t. But you know what I’m talking about. And I’m not blaming you. You’ve been a good mother. I can see that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. There was a mark on my kitchen wall, just beside the oven. How long had it been there?
“John isn’t right, Joyce. Even Mark and Marianne know that. They told me he gets picked on at school. They say John brings it on himself. That he acts different.”
The mark on the wall looked like a hand. A little red hand.
“Have you ever tried seeing someone? A doctor, I mean. For John.”
“You mean a psychiatrist.”
“Yes. Or not even. Maybe all he needs is to talk to a school counsellor. Or a friend. I’m sure Mark or Marianne could give him some advice. They care about John. We
all
do, Joyce.”
John had told me once that Marianne showed him a line of hickies on her stomach and that Mark was barely scraping by in most of his classes. They were the last people my son needed advice from.
She cleared her throat. “Mark told me that John tried to kiss him once.”
“What?” I laughed but felt my stomach twist.
“It happened a long time ago. When they were kids. Obviously, it upset Mark a great deal. He looked up to John. Don’t say anything. I promised Mark I’d never tell.”
“That’s ridiculous. Mark is telling lies.”
“Why would he lie about something like
that
, Joyce?”
I suddenly felt naked and wrapped my bathrobe tighter around me. How could my sister say that? No one knew John. Especially not Helen. Especially not her
children
. Had things slipped past me? Had I lost my grip?
He gets picked on at school
. That’s what she’d said. But it wasn’t true. Couldn’t be. John had never said anything of the sort. Besides, he had band. He had friends. He’d just gone to Winnipeg. He was my son, for god’s sake. I knew him better than anyone.
“You’ve got no right speaking about John this way,” I said. “Especially at a time like this.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“It’s too late for apologies now.”
I hung up the phone and attacked the mark on the wall with my fingernails.
——
There’s a small gash on door number 12 of the Seahorse Motel. I try to ignore it and instead focus on the peephole staring back at me. If it’s Freddy, it might take him a second or two to recognize me. It’s been years, after all. Oh, god. I look nothing like the girl I once was. In any case, it’s best to attempt a friendly face, even though I’m not sure I have the strength to hoist up the corners of my mouth. I knock once on the door and step back, shivering in spite of the heat.
Seconds tick by. I knock again, this time more loudly. He could be hard of hearing. It was number 12 that he went into, wasn’t it? I step back from the door to look at the other numbers. Yes, it was 12. Or had it been 13? No, it was 12. Definitely 12. I turn around to look at the car again. It’s big and white. I think of Mrs. Pender waiting for a white limousine. Had it finally arrived?
The deadbolt clicks behind me. I swing around. The door opens a crack.
“I don’t need housekeeping, thank you.” The door closes.
“Wait!” I say, knocking again. “I’m not the maid. I’m Joyce.”
“Pardon?” The door opens again, slightly wider this time. Now there’s an eye between the door and the frame. Half a nose. “You’re
whom?”
“Joyce Sparks,” I say. “Conrad, I mean. Joyce Conrad.” My words spill out. Oh, god. Is it him? It can’t be. “I took the highway. I never drive—Well, I do, just not—Are you …?” I take a step closer. “Is that you, Freddy?”
The eye widens and the door shuts. I hear the chain rattle. The door swings open.
The man standing in front of me is chubby and short. Although he looks to be around the same age as me, there’s a too-thick mass of dyed auburn curls covering his head. He pushes a pair of gold-rimmed glasses up his nose with a stubby finger. I see a flash of rings. It’s not him.
“I’ve made a mistake. Excuse me.” I turn and start to walk away.
“Wait!” I hear. “You knew Fred?”
My feet stop dead in their tracks. I turn on my heel. “Fred?”
The man puts a hand on his hip. He’s wearing a black shirt with orange and green geometrical shapes. “Well, that’s what you said, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. That’s what I said. Fred.”
“I thought so.” The man steps out from the dark room and into the sunlight. He shields his eyes with his hand. “What did you say your name was?”
“Joyce. Sparks is my married name, but Conrad was my maiden name. Who are you?”
“I’m Walter Clarke.” He says this as though I should know.
“Oh,” I say. “Have we met before?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“I see.” This is shaping up to be one of the most confusing moments of my life. “But you know the Freddy I’m talking about?”
“Quite well, as a matter of fact. Fred was my partner. I don’t mean business partner. I mean life partner. The word ‘lover’ leaves less room for interpretation, but I don’t like the connotation. As though all you do is feed each other grapes. It’s lucky you caught me. I just got back from visiting Freddy’s mother at the Fading Sunset.”
“You mean the Golden Sunset?”
“Fading, Golden, Final.” He rolls his eyes and swats the air. “Call it what you like. The place smells like piss and plug-in air fresheners. It’s nasal rape. I’m sorry I didn’t answer the door right away. Truth is, I’m a little on edge.” His voice drops to a hoarse whisper. “Motels make me nervous. I hear a knock and I jump fifty feet in the air. I’ve watched too many horror movies. Fred said this was the only decent motel in the area. But there must be
some
thing closer to Balsden. I’m so sick of the drive. Did you work at the ice cream shop?”