A Sharp Intake of Breath. Джон Миллер

Bessie at Baycrest, I made a mental note to remind Ari that he should think about which of the things we’d put in storage he wanted to take to Montreal.

      He’d called yesterday to ask if we could talk after he visited his grandma Bessie, as if I were busy enough that I’d need to fit him in. After the move, I’d been certain I wouldn’t hear from him for months, but everyone was making a fuss now. I got more calls from Warren and Susan than I’d had in years, and suddenly Lil’s girls were phoning all the time from the States too. They were all worried for me, worried I was sad and lonely and scared.

      They had no idea. I’d been all those things, and I was done with them. Breathing in didn’t worry me anymore. Exhaling no longer filled me with dread. And as for speech, well, I’d said mostly all I had to say. I’d mastered the words, those small sculptures, but all works of representational art had their limits.

      In the end, people saw and heard just exactly what they wanted.

      BESSIE HAD A PRIVATE ROOM at the end of the hall, and as I started towards it, the smell of disinfectant assaulted me. The walls were painted beige, and the doors to the residents’ rooms, a light peach. A large woman sat on a chair in the hall, her eyes closed, head slumped. One would have thought her asleep had she not been rubbing her wrinkled hands together and muttering something too low to hear. Her skin was ghostly and spider-webbed, and her age wasn’t fully to blame. Old age homes badly need regular lighting. Instead, fluorescent lamps cruelly accentuate our frailty, poor circulation, and peaked skin tone.

      A thick-bodied nurse came out of her station across from the elevators and helped a very short man back into his narrow room. I heard a moan from behind the walls. As I approached Bessie’s door, the sound of the television reached me, and for one blessed moment I thought my sister was alone. But no. Pearl Feffer was sitting on a chair beside the bed.

      Pearl, Bessie’s annoying sentry.

      We’d known each other most of our lives, but for many reasons, we’d not gotten on so well. She and Bessie had fallen out of touch for some thirty years, while Pearl lived out west, but a few weeks before I took my own apartment in The Terrace, Pearl had moved in a floor below me. Bossy like you wouldn’t believe, and honest to God, she was getting on my very last nerve. Every time I went across the way to Baycrest, no matter what the time of day, she’d be there already visiting my sister and reading aloud from the newspaper or some novel. Bessie, poor thing, was trapped in her bed and semi-dazed from pain medication for her own battle with cancer, so I couldn’t even tell if she enjoyed the visits.

      As if that weren’t bad enough, Pearl always gave me a kind of look—judgemental—as if to suggest I should be the one reading instead of her. She never actually said it, but she snorted at me a lot. I’d practised in my mind what I’d say to her if she could be direct enough to confront me. I’d say, maybe I’d visit more often if you weren’t here. Or, mind your own business, ya busy-body.

      Today they were watching the Parliamentary Channel. Pearl had the converter clutched in one hand, pointed to the set. Bessie was propped against the headboard, her bathrobe wrapped tightly under her crossed arms, her short permed curls damp and slicked back behind the ears. Pearl had given Bessie a home dye job and now her hair was a slightly lighter shade of purple than the bathrobe.

      “Toshy, sweetheart, come here, pull up a chair. They’re televising the Sue Rodriguez case at the Supreme Court.” Bessie pointed to the screen. It was nice to see that her face had colour to it, and it surprised me, given what she was watching.

      Pearl uncrossed her legs, stood up, and pulled over a chair for me to sit beside her, but I went to lean against the wall near the entrance. The last place in the room I’d choose to be would be in a chair beside Pearl. She fussed with her silver hair, immaculately groomed so that bangs more or less covered the birthmark on her forehead.

      On television, a lawyer argued his case.

      “That’s counsel for Sue Rodriguez,” said Pearl. “I think he’s just wrapping up.”

      “Did I tell you my daughter-in-law Susan interviewed her last night?” Bessie said to Pearl, her voice full of pride. Susan was the co-anchor of Searchlight, the prominent CBC news magazine, and an occasional replacement for their lead news anchor.

      “How can you be watching this?” I asked.

      “Because it’s historic, that’s how,” said Pearl, butting in. “I’m surprised at you. This is amazing, really, that they broadcast these things nowadays. Can you imagine if we’d had television sixty, seventy years ago? Think about what it would have been like to watch them argue if women should get the vote.”

      “I’ll see it on the six o’clock news after all the yabbering is done. Bessie, it’s a nice day. Are you sure you don’t want to be sitting in the room down the hall?”

      “That poor woman,” Pearl continued, ignoring me. “She should be allowed to end her life if she wants, and by the time they hand down their decision, it might be too late for her. I honestly don’t know what I’d do if I had such a terrible illness. Imagine, being trapped in your body, miserable, and not being able to even take a bottle of pills on your own. I say bravo to that Svend Robinson for standing beside her all the way. When do we ever see members of Parliament taking risks like that? He may be light in the loafers, but that man has guts.”

      Bessie nodded her head but her face was taut. Pearl was touching on sensitive topics and didn’t even know it. For one thing, she didn’t know that Bessie had a gay grandson. My sister didn’t like to talk about it. She’d accepted the fact and loved Ari regardless, but she’d learned only recently that he was gay and still grieved the end of the family name. Which was interesting, since Ari carried her late husband Abe’s family name, not ours.

      Her grief for the end of the Kagan line was really grief for Abe, whom she thanked for saving her from a terrible mistake he knew nothing about. This mistake was a secret she’d shared only with Lil and me. It wasn’t exactly accurate to say that Abe had saved her, either. Lil and I had done the saving and then Abe helped her recover afterwards. We’d fixed things, ensuring Bessie could be safe in his loving arms. The price was eleven years of my life.

      The phone rang and Bessie answered it. She said, “I don’t think so, dear, but I’ve got visitors. Let me ask your uncle Toshy and my friend Pearl.” She covered the receiver. “It’s Ari, down in the lobby. He wants to know if he can get us bagels from across the street. I’m not hungry, are you?”

      Pearl shook her head.

      “Tell him not to bother,” I said. “I’m coming down to discuss what stuff he’s bringing back to Montreal and I wouldn’t want it to disturb your cheery television program.”

      “You just got here,” Bessie protested.

      “I’ll come back later. You and Ari should have time alone.” I glanced at Pearl, who stood up.

      “I should go too, Bessie. I can meet your grandson another time. I have to call my daughter anyway.”

      “Wait, Toshy, I have a newspaper clipping I thought you’d want to see. It’s over by the television.” She relayed my message to Ari while gesturing to Pearl to get it. Pearl, who’d stood up to leave, passed it to me, and as I unfolded it, I was aware she was craning her neck to read along with me.

      Its headline said, “Nurse and poverty activist Dorothy Fister gets Order of Ontario.” The article mentioned she was raising money to support a group of homeless people setting up a shantytown near the Queen Elizabeth Way.

      “Fister? Bessie, do you think...”

      “It’s her granddaughter. I just thought you’d want to know.”

      “Whose granddaughter?” said Pearl.

      “Nobody. Just a very kind woman we knew when we were young,” said Bessie. I folded the paper and put it in my shirt pocket.

      Pearl must’ve sensed she shouldn’t press further. I followed her to the elevator, and as we waited,