by Bill Stenson
It’s not healthy for anyone to dwell on their own mortality, and Marsha Hamilton believed that, and had never been one to engage in such thinking. So long as I can chew my own food, wipe my own arse and do my weekly crossword puzzle, I don’t worry about going anywhere. This is what she told people she didn’t know if they asked or people she knew if they didn’t.
Her mother, Rose, had been a young mother, seventeen when Marsha Hamilton was born, and she was an old mother now. Rose had managed well on her own until the age of eighty-nine, an age when her life crumbled. Her doctor had her on three medications (heart, blood pressure and anxiety) and Rose often forgot to take them. Marsha Hamilton filled her mother’s fridge with prepared meals she would warm up in the microwave and then forget to eat. Twice she’d gone for walks in the afternoon, only a few blocks from home, then forgot how to get back again. Marsha Hamilton checked up on her in the mornings and again at supper time for almost a year. She had retired by then and had the time. Rose was lucid, mostly, and fiercely independent.
What are you doing back here? she might greet Marsha Hamilton on her second visit of the day, but just as easily it could be: I haven’t seen you for a long time. You should visit your mother more often. This behaviour carried on for more than a year, and Marsha Hamilton’s primary coping mechanism was thick skin.
Rose turned ninety-one and Marsha Hamilton baked her a cake, a large cake, and to reinforce the fact that she was an old woman, Marsha Hamilton lit all ninety-one candles. It took them both much huffing and puffing to blow them all out, and that set off the smoke alarm. She planned to take most of the cake home, knowing her mother would gorge herself if she didn’t. No one Rose had been close to in the valley remained, so just the two of them attended the party.
Mom, I’ve been looking into some assisted living options around here. A couple of them are quite nice.
You can look into them all you want. Put your name down on a waitlist if you find one you fancy. I’m not interested.
They offer tours. We could tour one of them together.
I want a second piece of cake.
Why won’t you at least consider looking into it? You’d have friends there to do things with.
Those places are for old people. I went to visit Amy Bloomingdale there once. Old crocks sitting around chewing on invisible gum and listening to a bald man playing the accordion. Almost all women. Nary a man in sight.
But you are old now, Mom. You’re ninety-one today. They train the people there to help you get what you need. Like your medications every day.
If you’re going to cut the pieces that small, then give me two.
Three times in one month, Marsha Hamilton tried. The second time, the proposal came as a novelty to her mother. The third time she said, You know what happens when you beat an old drum, don’t you?
What would that be?
The same sound as last week and the week before.
Marsha Hamilton had her own place and felt comfortable there. She only lived downstairs, so cleaning the place was easy. Friends could come over any time she wanted. She rarely had visitors, but she could if she took a notion to.
When she moved back home, her mother said nothing about it, as if she were still living at home as a young woman and her mother still curled Tuesdays and Thursdays. She cooked and cleaned, kept her mother company, made sure she ate, monitored her prescriptions and helped her shower every second day. The showering ritual her mother resisted at first, but such an omission was not an option. She needed help to get in and out of the bathtub, a dangerous maneuver, and a shower was easier to accommodate. Her mother used a soapy washcloth to do her front, and Marsha Hamilton took care of the back. The first time she offered such help, it brought her mother to tears.
Her friend Hanne Lemmons stopped by one afternoon to visit and Rose told Hanne she didn’t want to buy anything and told her to go home. Her mother’s hearing wasn’t what it had been and shows like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune blared out of the TV, so that on warm days Marsha Hamilton sat out on the front step and read.
If Marsha Hamilton watched TV, she watched golf, even though she had never tried the sport. She thought Tiger Woods was a dipstick the way he’d carried on over the years, but she liked to watch him play, anyway. When he played well, she cheered him on, and when he stunk, she thought bad karma gave him what he deserved. She had kept everything operating at her house and taped golf from time to time, and when her mother had an afternoon nap, she went home to watch her recordings. Tiger Woods was a man far past his prime, but his physique she found easy to admire.
All the unconventional teas that existed in the world drove Marsha Hamilton crazy. It amazed her that people drank them. What happened to good old plain English tea? Her mother loved ginger tea and, in a separate pot so the flavour wouldn’t corrupt their Brown Betty teapot, she made her mother tea in the middle of the afternoon before she went down for a nap. This became the time when Rose liked to talk about things on her mind, or if Marsha Hamilton came up with a topic, on her daughter’s mind. When it had been bedtime growing up, her mother always read her a story before the dreaded lights out. The story-time routine carried on the same way now, but their roles had reversed.
Did you and Dad love each other? Back when it all started?
Well, of course we did. There was something there. But more like lightning hitting the tallest object around. I was the perfect antenna and your father picked me out above all the others. He tried his best in the beginning. Then when he took his work up north, it was hard to keep it going. When he came back, I tried the best I could. I’d dress up just to cook dinner. Can you imagine that? I suggested we go for a date to one of those smash up derbies at the racetrack where they drive into one another every which way as often as they can until there is only one car left running. I tried everything I could think of to shape us into the perfect family. It was clear every time he came home, you were the one he wanted to spend time with. Not me. No, never with his wife, Rose. When you were young, you could have spit in his face and he would have blamed it on the clouds overhead.
All those times Dad took off with me and left you at home. He called them field trips. You
trusted him?
Of course, I trusted him. He was your father. You’re saying he couldn’t be trusted?
I just wondered what you thought went on all those times. He asked me often if I wanted to move up north. You must have thought about it.
Her mother said nothing, just stared off into space.
Dad once told me that half of what people suggest you do is worth doing and the other half is bullcrap. He said if you don’t say no to half of what people propose, then you’re gullible. I thought about what he meant by that. That’s when I started saying no to the half the things he wanted to do, and I think he was thankful when I rejected him. He didn’t ask as many questions after that.
Rose stared at her empty plate. She would ask for more—it was just a matter of time.
Something separated us after you were born, Rose said. He wanted a boy more than anything, and he spent time with you and not me. He wanted you to hunt and fish like a boy. It’s difficult to change something like that. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I will. Your father started sniffing around when you were little. Before he went up north, I mean. People who are hunters and fishermen need to conquer something they don’t have–they can’t help it. They catch their limit one day and head out the next for more. Your father was one of those. When he said he planned to work up north, he really told me he wanted a new life, one that didn’t include either of us. He said he would support us and, of course, I didn’t believe he would, but he did. For years. Then I worried about you. No father around and a mother who didn’t know how to cope with much. I worried you would have time finding a peace of your own and look how your life turned out. Drama after drama and no understanding of commitment. Money isn’t everything, and he drove a wedge into our family and I was too weak to do anything about it.
Is that why we were never close, you and me?
Now you’re talking nonsense, Rose said. We were plenty close. You were just too young to remember.
*
Every second month she took her mother to see her doctor, a man god only knows how old. Marsha Hamilton thought the two of them were in a slow race to the finish line. The first two checkups the doctor summarized as positive, but on the third checkup, he looked ill when he described her mother’s condition. Rose had complained about a shortage of breath for several weeks, and her ten hours of sleep at night and her two-hour nap in the afternoon had both ballooned.
Your mother has reached the crest of her hill, he said.
Marsha Hamilton listened to his words and knew that nothing else needed to be said. Still, it felt incomplete to leave it at such a pointed verdict.
What do you mean?
Well, her heart is failing. She could carry on like this for several months. Or the end might be sooner than we’d want. I can arrange for her to have an oxygen tank handy, he said. For when the shortness of breath shows up. We will do all we can to keep her comfortable.
As if Rose had overheard the doctor’s dissertation from the waiting room, she never got out of bed after that visit. She tried the oxygen feed a few times, and it helped to bring some colour to her face. Then she would fall asleep for hours after. Marsha Hamilton fed her tomato soup with a teaspoon, and every so often, she would eat a digestive biscuit. Marsha Hamilton didn’t like to think of it this way, but if someone, like Hanne for instance, had suggested a vacation starting in two weeks, she would have accepted, so strong was her belief that her mother would be dead and buried by then. But her mother lingered and lingered some more. When awake, her mother acted as clear-headed as she had been for years. She wanted to talk about her life and knew her daughter would listen.
When I got pregnant with you, it took two months before I noticed. I played on the school soccer team and I knew how to score goals. Your dad didn’t finish school, and he drove a truck when I met him. We had a few dates and the first time I didn’t get my monthly, I put it down to my training. I trained hard. After a second month, I waited in our doctor’s office until closing time. I told him what I thought had happened, and he examined me and said I was right. Your father thought my dad would beat the crap out of him when he found out, so we got married, pronto. Your grandfather had died a year earlier, but your father didn’t know that. It kind of kept him in line. Your dad stayed around for the first two years, stuccoing houses, then he started going up north. He doted on you for those two years. He paid little attention to me. But you! You couldn’t do anything wrong.
Hold on a minute, Marsha Hamilton said. Dad said you two were never married. He said you just lived together like you were.
I must have the paperwork around here somewhere, Rose said. We were married. We may not have divorced, but we definitely got married. In city hall.
Marsha Hamilton watched her mother’s eyes fixate on the ceiling as if she saw something there or her mind had stumbled on a memory from the past. Rose did this from time to time and often forgot about what they had been talking about.
Anyway, Rose said, about you. In grade two, you had a temper tantrum. You smashed your hand through your bedroom window and cut your knuckles. Do you remember that? I’m not surprised you don’t remember because when your dad got home, he said you must have slipped. I wanted to smack your ass. It was an accident, he said. I could have poked his eyes out.
The stories might last fifteen or twenty minutes at a go, and once they were done, her mother felt hungry. Marsha Hamilton fed her different varieties of baby food and called it supper warmed up from the night before. Then she would sip ginger tea through a straw and fall asleep for twelve hours. This happened for days in a row and Marsha Hamilton encouraged the stories, not just because they filled some holes in her life, but it meant her mother would at least eat something once they were done.
One afternoon Rose kept saying Kacper. Nothing about him. Just the name. It had been years since his monthly cheques had arrived at the house and Rose believed he had died. One day his name came up and Rose mentioned him doing something like she believed he still existed. Now her mother kept repeating his name as if haunted by a ghost.
Kacper, Marsha Hamilton said. Your husband who lives up north?
No. Kacper is dead. He sent his money.
Marsha Hamilton had control of her mother’s bank account, but hadn’t paid any attention to her financial situation for months. Enough money existed to support her mother’s meager existence. The next day Marsha Hamilton went into the bank and asked for a printout of the last year, and found a cheque for $245,000 from the estate of Kacper Jablonski. Ten months ago, her mother’s mind would have known what had happened, and yet she had mentioned nothing about it.
After a week of elucidation, the stories shortened. Her mother had less to say, and in the middle of a tale she would stare off into space and make garbled sounds, like someone just reprimanded, a tongue stuck behind teeth. Several times a day, Marsha Hamilton asked if she wanted to use the oxygen tank, but most often she said no.
I want your help, Marsha Hamilton.
I’m here. What is it you want?
My time has come and I’m ready to die now. Help me.
Mother, your time will come soon enough. If your time was here, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Are you in pain?
Not screaming pain. But I’ve had it. I can’t take it anymore. I’m suffering from too long a life. You can help me. I’m asking you to.
They had legalized physician-assisted dying. Anyone with one eye had read about it, but Marsha Hamilton knew her mother’s doctor didn’t believe in the ruling. She knew because she had raised the topic during their last visit. There were ways around it, and she knew that. She could ask for another doctor to arrange things. It took eight to ten days to put in place. They told her it could take that long.
You want me to ask the doctors about medically assisted dying?
I don’t want doctors sticking needles into me. I’ve had enough of that. This is what I want you to do.
How long her mother had such a moribund plan in mind, she did not know. It had to be
something that had come to her recently. What her mother asked for brought to mind the old man who had lived on the Weber’s farm for years, a man begging for his life to be over. Her mother wanted to swallow two sleeping pills, the ones she took months ago when she couldn’t find sleep, and once she had fallen asleep, it would be Marsha Hamilton’s job to put a pillow over her head and wait until it was over. It wouldn’t take long, her mother tried to convince her. One minute. Maybe two.
I think it’s time for your nap, Marsha Hamilton said. You’ll feel better about things when you wake up.
Like hell I will. It gets worse each day. Do something, for Christ’s sake.
Marsha Hamilton went for a walk. She told her mother her intentions, and she walked longer than she planned. When she got back, her mother slept. Still breathing with effort, but alive and at rest.
The next morning her mother refused water, tea, soup, biscuits. She lay staring at the ceiling and didn’t say a word. It scared Marsha Hamilton because when she spoke to her mother, she couldn’t tell if the message got through. She sat with her and waited. This had to be the end, this defiant refusal to live. Her mother’s eyes remained open. Her breathing stuttered from time to time and she rarely blinked. Marsha Hamilton scrolled through her memory bank of all she had been through with her mother. She shared some things that came back to her.
I remember when black patent leather shoes were all the rage, and our grade seven sock hop was coming up, but this one was special because we got to wear shoes. All my friends had black patent leather shoes, and all I had were dull brown ones. Every time I asked you, the answer was no. What do you need black patent shoes for if it’s a sock hop,? When I came home from school the day before the big event, there on my bed sat my new shoes. You had slipped a dandelion blossom inside the buckle of each shoe.
Marsha Hamilton flitted from tale to tale, trying to fill her mother with as much good as possible. After one story, she looked at her mother’s face. Her eyes remained open and her face looked the same, but there were tears trickling down her cheeks. She opened her mouth as if to practice what she had to say, and then she said it.
You and I are close. Help me. Help me.
Her mother’s eyes turned on her then. They were open like they had never been open before. Marsha Hamilton could see right inside her mother’s soul. Her mother’s lips quivered without a sound, then her eyes closed to the world. Marsha Hamilton grabbed the extra pillow on the bed and did what her mother had asked her to do. At first, she didn’t apply much pressure at all. A few seconds later, the fingers on her mother’s left hand twitched, and then nothing. She waited longer than she had to. When she removed the pillow, her mother’s mouth was closed, but her right eye remained half open, staring skeptically at the heavens.
Mother? Can you hear me?
Marsha Hamilton held two fingers against her mother’s neck. There was nothing there. With her index finger, she closed her open eye. A life had ended.
*
When the ambulance came, she told them her mother’s heart had just stopped. She had lasted longer than the doctor expected she would. She gave the name of the doctor. My mother was ninety-one, she explained, and she said it twice.
With her mother gone, the house felt empty. She stripped the bed and did two loads of wash. She scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom floors and vacuumed the living room from corner to corner. Every dish or pot and pan her mother owned, she cleaned and put into cupboards. The garbage and recycling she set out at the curb, even though it would be days before pickup. Marsha Hamilton had just killed her mother. Once she left the house, she didn’t intend to come back ever again. She would leave a key with a realtor and wait until it sold. Her mother had pleaded with her for help. She had asked for her life to end, but that took nothing away from what she had done.
She wanted nothing inside the house for herself. None of the furniture. Not a single picture from the wall. A desk in front of the master bedroom window offered a view of the street. Her mother sat at the desk when she wrote letters. People did such things back then. She opened all six drawers. Most contained pens and paper, staplers and so on. One bottom draw had a large family picture in black and white, a picture she’d never seen before. Marsha Hamilton figured she had to be five or six in the photograph. The three of them sat on a cushioned French provincial bench she didn’t recognize. She wore a frilly dress and had a ribbon in her hair. Her father wore a striped suit and looked very handsome, and she sat on his lap, smiling. Her mother was on the bench too, but almost as far from the two of them as possible without falling off the end. The gap between them was so large that the picture gave the impression that at any moment the bench could flip on its side. The picture was in a cardboard frame and there were no other pictures in the desk drawers but this one. On the back of the picture, it said 1960.
Her mother had kept this picture to herself. Marsha Hamilton owned only a few pictures that had her father in them. If she took this picture, she would have one more to add to her collection. She put the picture back where she found it, and then she shut the drawer.
About the Author
Bill Stenson has five works of literary fiction published to date: three novels and two collections of short stories. He lives and writes in the Cowichan Valley and daily envisions living in a better world.