Part 3 (1/2)

”I don't want to take anything. I'm already taking stuff. I don't know.”

Clara thought the fever was increasing.

”It's hard,” Lorraine said.

”Yes,” Clara said. Not knowing what else to say.

On the very top shelf of the last kitchen cupboard Darlene found a brown envelope taped down on a gla.s.s pedestal thing. Tons of money in it. It added up to seven hundred and something, counting pretty quick, one ear open for Clara coming back from the store. But it was no good to her, it was strange pink money from England. The car! She jumped down from the counter. Too far, so the b.a.l.l.s of her feet hurt, but she didn't get caught.

Finding the house in surprising disarray, Clara tidied the living room and the TV room, and the hall, and the back steps-Trevor had made a fort there with blankets and pillows-before making lunch. Mrs. Pell went to her bedroom and shut the door, and they all left her alone. Clara gave Pearce a bottle. He stared into her eyes thoughtfully while he drank, his fingers splayed against her chest.

When he fell asleep she did three loads of laundry. She remembered to phone and extend the insurance on her mother's car, thinking she might be liable if Clayton got into another accident. She made cookies and started a list of necessities on the door of the fridge: formula, diapers, chicken soup from an envelope. They did not like canned. She wrote down everything the children asked for. It seemed like they were all in cotton wool, or that same smothering membrane which had been bothering Clara herself lately.

After supper Clara walked them to the park in the darkening evening. The children played on the flat merry-go-round, Trevor standing in the middle and Darlene running it around and around, faster and faster, until she could jump up too and they went spinning on and on through the indigo night air.

Clara stood a little distance away from their orbit, letting Pearce rest against her chest, feeling the weight and the balance of his body against hers. It wasn't so hard, being with children.

4. Counting money.

At ten that night Clara went back through the hospital to Lorraine's silent room. The window was a dark rectangle in the white wall. She turned off the overhead fluorescent light, left on the small yellow bulb over the sink, and pulled the alcove curtain partway across so it wouldn't glare in Lorraine's eyes. Now they could see the lights of the city across the river, the pretty bridges, the night sky. Deep shadowy blue, not black, even so late.

”I'm worried about the kids,” Lorraine said. Easier to talk in the darkness. ”I'm worried about Clayton too, but not as much. He can take care of himself, more or less.”

Now would be the time to mention Clayton's departure.

But Lorraine said, ”I'm afraid.”

All Clara could think of was, ”Don't be.” An unforgivable, asinine thing to say. She did not want to remember her father dying, or the horrors her mother went through. ”I'm sorry. Of course you are afraid. I guess I mean, don't let superst.i.tion trap you into pretending to be positive all the time. There is no jinxing, and being blindly optimistic doesn't help.”

”What does help then?”

”I pray, but it does not always-” She could think of no word but suffice, which would sound pompous. ”It's hard to know what to pray for.”

Lorraine snorted, and flapped her hands onto the sheet. ”I know what to pray for! That my, this, thing will go away. That I will have my kids back with me. That everything will go on the way it was the day before we came to Saskatoon, when I was worrying about how to find work and a place to live, not how to live.”

It was not a tirade, but a considered statement.

”I had enough worry before. I'm not going to worry now. I'm not going to pray either. I'm going to be patient and wait for this to happen.” She corrected herself. ”Wait for this to go away.”

There were blue marks under her eyes, and her skin was puffy. The steroids, affecting her already. If her fever could be brought down they were a.s.sessing her for chemo in the morning, Clara knew, and then would come a bad time. For a moment she was glad she had been with her mother during that long struggle, so she knew a little about it, to be able to help Lorraine.

”Is there anything you like to read? Magazines? People? Or something more serious while you've got some quiet time?”

”Some of each,” Lorraine said. Her pointy smile was very tired.

One more thing, though. ”I don't know what to do about Darlene. She wants to see you, of course. Should I put her off, or bring her in?”

”Don't bring Trevor, not right now. But you could bring Darlene. I need her to get some stuff from the car, now that I think of it. Good thing you said.”

Clara had forgotten their car, in the impound lot. ”They gave us the knapsacks, that first day...I've got the children's things.”

”Yeah, but I got some stuff hidden in there, in the Dart. We were living in there for the last couple weeks. You know how it is. You have to keep your stuff somewhere.”

From her tone Clara supposed it was money, or even drugs. But she would not be a good judge. Maybe papers, that kind of treasure. ”I'll bring Darlene tomorrow. I meant to ask if there is anyone that I should call for you. I'm not sure if Clayton has had a chance to do that.”

”Nice way of putting it,” Lorraine said. ”No, there's no one. No one that I know where they are, anyways.”

This time Clara stopped herself from saying she was sorry. She decided again not to get into Clayton's absence. ”You look like you could sleep,” she said. ”I'll bring books tomorrow.”

”Yeah,” Lorraine said. ”I'll catch up on that summer reading I've been meaning to get to. Don't bring Pearce. That would be hard on him.”

”All right,” Clara said. ”I'll keep him at home. He's good, he's doing well.”

”Thank you.” Lorraine closed her eyes and turned her head away from Clara before she opened them again. The window looked out on all the lights across the river, a million glinting sparks.

Walking down the hall, thinking ahead to breakfast for the children, Clara did not see Paul Tippett until he took her arm, right beside her. She jumped, and he apologized, both of them speaking in whispers because it seemed so late. The hospital was closing down around them, patients being put into storage for the night.

”How is your family?” he asked.

”The mother, Lorraine, is not doing very well,” Clara said. It felt disloyal, to say it out loud. Superst.i.tion. She was as bad as anyone.

Paul Tippett looked sad, the clear lines of his face blurred. She was sorry, because she liked him, as far as she knew him. He seemed crippled by diffidence, but always kind.

”Will you do something for me?” she asked. ”Will you visit her?” She could see him pull away involuntarily, like she had pulled away from Darlene's s.n.a.t.c.hing hand. ”Tomorrow, I mean, or-not as a paris.h.i.+oner, to comfort her-but I've got her children, and her husband's gone-oh, but don't tell her that. Just to ease her mind, that I'm not a monster, because she has no choice, she has to put them somewhere, and I'm the only-” Clara stopped. She was making a fool of herself.

He stared at her, in the lowered light of the night hall. ”The husband has gone?”

”Yes,” she said, not mentioning the car, or the teapot, or his weak threat. ”But he might come back.”

Paul thought Clara Purdy had experienced a radical change since he'd last seen her. She seemed charged with energy. The force that through the green fuse drives the flower. It was involvement that put you into time, perhaps. He shook his head, astonished at the brightness of her face, then saw that she thought he was refusing her request.

”No, no-I will,” he said quickly. ”I will visit her. Sorry, I was thinking of something else. I'll tell her how fortunate her family is, to be with you.”

He couldn't remember her house. A bungalow. ”You have enough room for all of them, do you? What's her last name?”

”Gage. Lorraine Gage-in this ward.”

He wrote it in his little calendar book and gave her a quick apologetic smile, for his reluctance. She could not help smiling back. She did like him. Too bad about Mrs. Tippett, that cold fish.

Lorraine lay in bed counting money. Seventy-seven dollars in the glove compartment. Lucky sevens. Three twenties, a ten, a five, the $2 bill saved for years. Wh.o.r.e's money, Clayton would call that. Not loose, for anyone to find (meaning Clayton, of course), but stuck between the back two pages of the map book. They were not going to get to Newfoundland or Labrador. $189 left in the bank, but she thought Clayton probably had her bank card, and he knew her PIN. A hundred dollars-one $100 bill-hidden, taped inside a box of tampons in the cardboard box in the trunk. He would not have found that, but the worry was that someone might throw out the box.

She could hardly stand to think about money. What would Clayton do? He had $300 and some left on the Husky Gas card before it maxed out. But no car, so gas wasn't going to do him much good. They could eat, though, at Husky station restaurants. If he decided to take the kids on to Fort McMurray, which she wondered if he was planning on doing, since he was obviously not at Clara's any more.

$189, $300, how long would that last?

At a certain point every time in all this figuring, Lorraine would feel her neck stiffen and swell from tension, and she'd fling the whole thing out of her mind.