Turtle Valley (26 page)

His heart speeded up; as it thudded against my own chest, it felt like a baby kicking me from within. “Squeeze my hand once for no, twice for yes,” I said. “Did Valentine kill Grandpa?”

He squeezed my hand once.

“So he didn’t kill him.”

He squeezed once again.

“Do you know who did? Did someone kill Grandpa?”

His hand went loose within mine.

“Did you?”

My father squeezed my hand and hung on. His chest laboured in breath, caving inward like the wings of a bird coming in to land.

“I shouldn’t have asked. It was stupid of me. I know you couldn’t have done that.” He struggled to open his eyes and his face tensed as if he was in pain. Then he made a sound like the harsh caw of a crow, like a child with croup.

“Val?” I called. “Val!”

My sister hurried in and slid a shot of morphine into the butterfly needle inserted in his chest. His face tightened further from the sting of the morphine entering his veins and then, moments later, relaxed. His hand went limp in mine.

Mom hurried into the room hugging the letters; her face was pale in panic. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

“He just needed another shot,” said Val. “He’s sleeping now.”

Mom sank into the easy chair. “Thank God.”

Val took her hand. “You do understand that Dad will likely die this morning?”

“I know. You don’t have to keep explaining it to me. I just hate to see him like this. Your father didn’t want to go the way Valentine went, all doped up.”

“It’s better that he doesn’t feel the pain.”

“I feel so helpless. Isn’t there anything I can do? His mouth looks dry. Can I give him water?”

“He can’t take water,” said Val. “It enlarges the cells, makes the pain worse. You can clean his mouth with a swab, if you like; it will refresh him.” She reached for a couple of plastic-wrapped sticks with small sponges attached. “There’s a choice of cinnamon and lemon flavors.”

“Lemon,” said my mother. “He loves his lemon meringue pie.”

Val unwrapped the plastic, dipped the swab in a cup of water, and held it out to my mother. “Just touch it against the side of his mouth,” she said. “He’ll open for you.”

“Like a baby,” Mom said. And like an infant my father suckled the swab as my mother cleaned his mouth. It surprised me that this relic of infancy, his rooting reflex, remained deep within him, to arise as his consciousness descended.

Val rubbed her brow. “I’m going to try again to get a few minutes’ sleep.”

My mother watched her leave, and waited to hear the door to my old room close before she spoke. “She thinks I’m a child.”

I sat on the edge of the bed at my father’s feet. “No, she doesn’t, Mom.”

She picked up Harrison and put the cat in her lap. “Every time I come in here she’s hanging all over him, hugging him, touching his face. She won’t give me a moment alone with him. She acts like
she’s
the wife.”

“Do you want to be alone with him now? I can leave.”

“No, not until it’s light.” She petted the cat. “It’s too lonely.”

“I’m sorry I woke you. I shouldn’t have called out like that.”

“He needed an injection.”

“It was my fault, I think.”

“How could it be your fault?”

“I asked him if he killed your father.”

“What?”

“I asked if Valentine had killed him, like Grandma thought. Then I asked if
he
had.”

“What did he say?”

“He squeezed my hand, to say no.”

“What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know.” I cupped Dad’s hand in both of my own and touched his wedding ring; it was sunken into the yellowed, translucent skin of his finger. “The more I found out about your father’s disappearance and Grandma’s life with him, the more I felt like I was repeating her life, her choice, to stay with a sick man. I needed to know what happened. I guess I needed to know what will happen, for me.”

Mom put a hand on mine. “Ezra is not my father. Jude is not your Uncle Valentine.” She patted my hand. “And you, my dear, are not my mother.”

We sat without saying anything for a time, staring out the window. Light had begun to spread across the sky.

“The sun should be coming up soon,” she said. “Maybe Gus is hanging on to see one last sunrise.”

When I stood to look outside, something slammed into the window and we both startled. Harrison leapt from Mom’s lap and scrambled, slid into the kitchen. A junco beat its wings at the bedroom window. I turned out the lamp, thinking the bird was attracted to the light, and it flew off. Then there was a face in the window, an old woman’s face. I swung around but Mom was still seated in her chair; it could not have been her reflection. I looked back at the window and the bird again bashed into the warped pane. I jumped back. “Jesus!”

“The birds are panicked,” said Mom. “The fire is forcing them off the mountain.”

“I saw a woman’s face reflected there. A woman in the room with us.”

“I imagine it’s as your father says, a reflection of your own face, distorted by the glass.” Even so, my mother stood to join me, favouring her knee. Outside, the day of firefighting had already begun. Firetrucks and army trucks rumbled down the road. Several helicopters flew overhead dragging buckets, rattling the windowpane. Residents drove out with loads, or drove back in with empty trucks. All this business so early in the morning—others ignorant of my father’s impending death, focused instead on the crisis at hand—seemed at that moment inconceivably rude.

“Who’s that?” said my mother.

“Hmm?”

“There’s someone in the field. My eyes are getting so bad.”

I searched until I found the dark figure emerging from the smoke and early-morning shadows. “That creepy old man,” I said. “I wonder what he wants, hanging around here. I think it might be time to phone the cops. It must have been him snooping around the unfinished house. I wonder if it wasn’t him who ran after me in the night.”

“It’s likely just someone getting a good view of the fire.”

“He’s been watching the house. I don’t want him near Jeremy. He’s not one of your neighbours, is he?”

“Have you gotten a look at his face?”

“No.”

Jeremy cried out in his sleep and I started for the door, but my mother took my hand. “Why don’t you let Ezra take care of him today?”

“He often won’t wake,” I said. But when I left the bedroom, he was there, wearing only his underwear, carrying Jeremy into the kitchen.

“He had a nightmare,” said Ezra. “He wants a mommy hug.”

“A mommy hug! You got it!” I lifted him from Ezra’s arms and held him close. “Thanks,” I said, but Ezra had already turned away. He closed the bedroom door behind him.

I carried Jeremy back into my parents’ room, where my mother stood at the window. “The old guy still out there?” I asked her.

“I don’t know where he got to.”

Jeremy craned his neck back toward the bed. “Can I give Grandpa a hug?”

“You can’t hug Grandpa, but you can touch his hand.”

I put him down and he stroked Dad’s hand as he would a cat. “Grandpa’s really sick, isn’t he?”

“Grandpa’s dying. Just like that bird that died.”

“I want to give Grandpa a piece of birthday cake!”

“I’m afraid he can’t eat anymore.”

“When he’s dead can I give him birthday cake?”

“He won’t be able to eat then either,” I said. “Just like that dead bird won’t eat anymore, or drink water.”

“Or read books.”

“That’s right. Grandpa won’t read books.”

“Or go pee.”

I smiled at my mother. “That’s right. When Grandpa dies he won’t go pee. Or watch TV. Or drive the tractor. Or walk around.”

“Dead Grandpa walks around.”

“No,” I said. “When Grandpa is dead, he won’t be able to walk around. Remember the bird couldn’t fly after he died.”

“No! Dead Grandpa walks around.”

“What do you mean?”

He pointed out the window. “Dead Grandpa.” I could just make out the dark outline of the old man in the alfalfa field before he was obscured again by smoke. “He walks outside. Dead Grandma walks inside.”

My mother put her hand to her mouth.

“Dead Grandpa’s scared.” He opened his arms wide. “I want to give dead Grandpa a big hug and a piece of birthday cake.”

I touched Mom’s arm. “Is this the grandma who walks inside the house?”

“No! This is live Grandma.
Dead
Grandma walks inside the house. Dead Grandma wants to burn the house. Ladybug, lady-bug, fly ’way home!” He pointed at the ceiling and both my
mother and I looked up: the ceiling was covered in thousands of ladybugs. They formed streams down the walls like caravans of tiny Volkswagen Beetles rumbling down a highway.

“My God,” I said.

“Ladybug, ladybug, fly ’way home.” Jeremy lifted his arms and danced around the room. Hundreds of the beetles took flight, flying clumsily around our heads, lighting on my arms, on my son’s head, in my mother’s hair, and on my father’s face. Dad’s mouth clamped shut as his neck arched backward and his feet thrashed a moment under the covers.

“Val!” I called “Val!”

She stumbled into the room and Ezra followed moments later. “What the hell?” he said, looking around the room at the ladybugs. My father’s kicking eased as Val leaned over him. “A seizure,” she said, putting a hand on my mother’s arm to calm her. “It’s common as the body shuts down.”

My father’s body relaxed for a moment and then his eyes flew open. He stared at the ceiling, the ladybugs there. His breath stopped. I counted the seconds, watching the tick of his heart against his chest, hoping his breath would catch again. But it didn’t.

My mother cried, “Oh, no. God, no.” I wrapped my arm around her as she sobbed. Val hugged Dad’s body, and pressed her face against his. Ezra pulled Jeremy back, away from the bed.

“I want a few minutes alone with him,” Mom said, and we all left the room. As I closed the door behind me, my mother leaned over her husband’s body, put a hand to his cheek, and whispered, “I love you so very much.” The ladybugs descended from the ceiling, whirling in a cloud around her head, lighting on her shoulders and in her hair as if with affection.

I CLOSED THE DOOR
to Val’s old room, where Jeremy napped, and sought out my mother. She stood in front of the closet in her room, tossing dress shirts onto the hospital bed. A few stray ladybugs still crawled across the headboard of the bed and over the photos on the bureau, but the bulk of the insects had retreated into the many cracks of the walls. The radio blared in the kitchen as it had all morning, keeping us informed of the latest developments in the fire. Just as my father had predicted, strong winds had urged the fire downhill. It had begun to break through the fire guards and was heading toward the most populated areas of the valley. “You’ll tell your grandkids about this, folks,” the announcer said.

“The smell of that smoke,” said my mother. “It makes me think of all those campfires on the mountains with Gus. I shouldn’t be taking any pleasure in it, should I?”

“What are you up to?”

“They didn’t take any of his clothes when they came to pick up his body. I’m going to find him a suit to wear.”

“Dad doesn’t need to be dressed for the cremation.”

“I want him to look nice.”

“He rarely wore suits.”

“This is a special occasion.”

I pulled out a coffee-coloured wool suit, something my father would have worn in the early 1960s.

“Not that one,” said my mother. “It’s horrid.”

“It’s cool.”

“The last time he wore that was to your grandfather’s memorial service. I made him buy a new one for my mother’s funeral.”

“You think Dad would mind if Ezra tried it on?”

She hesitated. “I don’t think he’d mind.”

Then I realized the absurdity of what I’d just asked; my father was dead, and I was seeking out clothing for my husband even as I contemplated the love of another man. Ezra would never wear this suit in any case. That life was gone. It hit me then, the first blow of my father’s death. The prickly tears, the rush of cold running up my arms, then down into my stomach, pulling me onto the hospital bed. I watched my mother as she laid the suit she had chosen on the bed. She glanced at me, but turned away to search for a shirt and tie to match, allowing me a moment’s privacy. But then the suit slid from the bed beside me and landed with a thud on the floor. There was something in the pocket. “Mom, there’s a wallet in here,” I said.

“I once found a fifty-dollar bill in the pocket of Gus’s winter
jacket. When I told him about it he said he’d put it there for emergencies. He’d hide money away so I wouldn’t spend it. It hurt, you know, that he would do that. I looked through the pockets of his town clothes pretty carefully before I washed them after that, but I never found any more bills. I imagine he found new hiding places.”

I opened the wallet. “This was your father’s.”

“My
father’s?”

Mom sat on the bed beside me as I went through the contents of the wallet.

“Why would Dad have your father’s wallet?” I asked. “Wouldn’t the wallet be on Grandpa’s body?”

“This must be an older wallet, something he found when we went through my father’s things.”