Natural Order (31 page)

“He wronged himself!”

“I don’t know how you have the audacity to say such terrible things about Fred,” Walter says. “Especially in front of her.” I look over to see him pointing at me. “She was the one who lost her son to cancer.”

I feel everyone’s eyes on me. Fern returns and is standing, dumbfounded, with a plate full of meatballs.

“Is that what she told you?” she asks Walter. She looks at me. “Is that what you said, Joyce?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I get up from my chair. “I’ll find a garbage bag for the plates.”

“No point keeping secrets bottled up, Joyce,” Helen says. “Not after all these years.”

I point my fork at her. “Don’t you dare talk to me about secrets. You know nothing about it. You’ve had everything you ever wanted and you’re still not happy.”

“Here we go again. Joyce and her tragic life. Always hard done by. Always the short end of the stick.”

“Are you saying I’m responsible for the losses in my life?”

My sister rises out of her chair. “I’m saying you’re a hypocrite when you accuse me of being unappreciative. At least I’m not a liar.”

There’s a flash of sparkling red. Fern’s blouse between us. “That’s enough.”

“You didn’t want anyone to know the truth about your son,” Helen says.

Walter leans forward in his chair. “What are they talking about?” he asks Mr. Sparrow.

“My son …” I hear my own words trail to silence. I look at the faces surrounding me, searching for the one I want most but he’s not here. “My son …”

“You’re looking a little shaky, Joyce,” Fern says. I feel her hand on my arm.

John died at 11:52 a.m. on Wednesday, July 25, 1984.

“My son didn’t have cancer. He …”

There were no last words. No goodbyes.

And then I say it. “My son was a homosexual.”

I feel myself fall.

No one can stop talking about the Queen.

“I still can’t believe she’s coming,” Fern said the other night. She’s beside herself. “Here, to our little city.”

“Where does she go after Balsden?” I asked.

“Andover.”

“Didn’t she tour Canada a few years ago?”

“Yes, but this will be the longest royal tour ever. She’s even going to the Northwest Territories, for crying out loud.”

Fern feels the best place to watch the motorcade will be Century Park.

“They’ll have bleachers set up. Mother and I are going down there with our flags and binoculars at the crack of dawn. Otherwise, we won’t get a good seat. Thank god this isn’t happening on a school day. I would have had to call in sick. Why don’t you and John come with us?”

I tell her I’ll think about it, but I really have no desire to be sandwiched between Fern and Mrs. Dover and their undying devotion to the monarchy. Helen said she hasn’t decided if she’s going. Mark and Marianne haven’t shown much interest and Helen says Dickie could care less about the Queen.

“Just think of the crowds,” Helen says with a shudder. “The newspaper said they’re expecting ten thousand people. You’d think she was a movie star or something.”

“Stop being a party-pooper. When was the last time something this big happened in Balsden?”

Every day for the past month, there’s been a different article in the
Examiner
, giving updates about the Queen’s visit. She won’t be in the city for more than half a day, which has some people outraged over the cost of the festivities. But better a half-day than nothing at all, others have pointed out. The Queen is putting Balsden on the map.

Charlie finds it all ridiculous. “Why are they calling her the Queen of Canada when she doesn’t even live here?” He says he’s glad he has to work. But I overheard him the other night on the phone to his mother, making sure she knew the royal tour included a stop in Regina.

John can hardly contain his excitement, of course. He thinks he’s friends with the Queen. In the fall, his kindergarten teacher, Miss Robinson, wrote a letter to the Queen on behalf of the class and included all the children’s addresses. A few months later, John received a letter from Buckingham Palace. It wasn’t from the Queen herself, but her lady-in-waiting, thanking him for the letter.

“What’s a lady-in-waiting?” he asked.

“Someone who helps the Queen get dressed,” I told him. “And plan out her day. Like a good friend.”

“I could do that,” he said.

I’d just put his Curly Q Sue doll in the spare room closet after a morning play. Charlie would never think to look there. “Boys can’t be ladies-in-waiting. But you could be the Prince’s butler.”

I took a tea towel from the kitchen drawer, folded it in half and draped it across his wrist. “Now you say, ‘Good day, sir. Would you care for some crumpets and tea?’ ”

When he repeated my words, he said “trumpets” instead of crumpets, which made me laugh.

Every day for the past two weeks, he’s been asking, “Is the Queen here yet?” I’ve been asked what her castle looks like, why her husband is a prince and not a king, if she’s bringing any dragons with her, if knights will walk beside her in the parade.

“Those kind of queens exist only in olden times,” I told him. “This queen is modern and young. She’s not that much older than your mommy.”

Now I’m referred to as Queen Mommy.

“I think he’s on to something,” I said to Charlie.

The morning of the Queen’s visit, before he slips out the bedroom, Charlie tells me to watch out for dragons. Within a few minutes, there’s a knock on the door and John comes in, wearing his cowboy-print pyjamas. His hair sticks up in every direction. A soft explosion.

“Is it time yet?” he wants to know.

“Not yet,” I say. I get out of bed, wrap my housecoat around me and take him into the kitchen to make a batch of pancakes. “The Queen is probably eating pancakes this morning, too.”

His face lights up. “Do you think?”

“Absolutely,” I say. “She has a big day ahead of her.”

I help him ladle the batter into the frying pan and he lets me flip them, knowing that this is too complicated for his small hands. We stack the pancakes onto a plate and slide it into the oven while we wait for the others to cook. Outside, I hear the construction crews starting up. I thought they might have taken the day off, given the celebrations, but nothing, it seems, stands in the way of progress.

No matter, I think. Time has stopped in this moment, in my kitchen, for John and me. It’s just us and the pancakes and the anticipation of something bigger than either of us can imagine building in the distance.

After we finish our pancakes, I have an idea. In a moment that seems both wrong and right, I take a paper napkin, some tape and a pair of scissors and make John a crown to wear on his head. I set it carefully on top of his dishevelled hair.

“There you are,” I say.

“Here I am,” he replies, and his smile is so instinctive, so natural, I ache.

You’d think someone my age would be philosophical. I don’t know if I’ll live to see another year. Death is loitering in the hallway outside my room. Who knows when he’ll decide to step through my door? I should’ve come to some sort of resolution by now. Some statement of fact. But I’m not philosophical. I’m not convinced that things happen for a reason. I suppose I could pull things out of the air, stitch together a quilt of lessons and give some semblance of order to those who have their whole lives in front of them. They need that much more than I do.

“There is a purpose behind everything,” I’d say. “Ladybugs eat the aphids that destroy your garden and so forth.”

I’d say something about idle hands. Maybe toss in a line about licking honey from a rose thorn. Whatever would suit the purpose and satisfy the need.

The truth is, I’ve lived through all my years and losses and I’m not any bit smarter or wiser than I was twenty years ago. Everything is still a ball of chaos. I seem to be able to do less and less about it. But I’m fine with that. I’ve learned to let go. Of some things, in any case.

These are the thoughts that loop over and over in your head as you sit in your wheelchair with a blanket over your lap, looking at the pebbled roof of the convenience store across the street, knowing that there’s an empty vase on the gravestone of your only child.

Ruth has been replaced. My new roommate is Claire. And, miracle of miracles, she can talk.

From what I make of her, she seems all right. She has short, practical hair and a thin, tall frame. She doesn’t like wearing her dentures (only when she has visitors) so her mouth looks like one of those purses with a drawstring, all puckered and pinched at one end. There are photographs of her family on the wall and a small TV that broadcasts her Sunday-morning church service and a cactus on her windowsill that she says is forty-two years old. I don’t think that can possibly be true, but why would she lie about a thing like that? She likes doing word puzzles and has the
Toronto Star
delivered on Saturdays. That’s where she used to live. She came to Balsden because her daughter lived here. Then Claire’s son-in-law lost his job and the family moved to Sudbury.

“You have to roll with the punches,” she says.

Claire’s husband died in the early ’80s. She never remarried, although she dated someone for a while. They used to play cards with the neighbours. Then he died as well.

“I’m still open to anything,” she says. “There are lots of eligible men around here.”

“Most of them aren’t worth much,” I say. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

“One less competitor for me.” She shrugs and returns to her crossword.

I watch Claire as she goes about her crosswords or watering her cactus (“A dribble every three weeks. Never more. That’s the secret”) or poring over her newspaper. She seems so focused. Efficient. She’s unlike anyone else I’ve shared a room with, and this makes me nervous because now I’m the weaker one. This time around, I have a feeling I’ll be the one replaced.

The fire-headed nurse tells me it’s Thursday. Timothy should be coming tomorrow night. I haven’t seen him for two weeks. Part of me is frightened that he won’t come back. What if I scared him away last time? I shouldn’t have asked him to take me to the cemetery.

Claire looks up from her crossword.

“When is Trevor coming?” she asks, as if reading my mind.

“Tomorrow,” I snap. “And it’s Timothy, not Trevor.”

I never should’ve mentioned Timothy to her, but it slipped out. She’ll listen in. Perhaps she’ll try to monopolize our conversation. Make small talk. She’ll ruin everything. I’ll tell Timothy to take me to the end of the hall. I won’t share him.

“I wish I had a son to visit me.” She licks the tip of her pencil.

“He’s not my son.”

“That’s what you called him.”

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did. You said your son was coming for a visit.”

My face goes warm. I
couldn’t
have said that. My mind isn’t gone. But why would Claire make this up? I fumble for the remote control and turn on the television. “He’s not my son.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

For lunch, we have meat loaf and peas that are more grey than green. For dessert, we’re served a dish of apple crisp with a melting scoop of vanilla ice cream. It tastes like heaven. In the afternoon, they put on a movie in the recreation room. I don’t usually go because it’s hard for me to follow as most of today’s actors say their lines too fast, as though they can’t wait for the movie to finish so they can spend their millions. But today, I decide to go. I don’t catch the name of the movie and I’m certain I won’t enjoy it, but in the end, I do. It’s a ghost story about a woman and her two children who believe they are being haunted. But really, they are the ones doing the haunting. They think they’re alive, but they’re dead. I think of Helen who fought her death until the very final seconds. I remember her thrashing in that hospital bed, as though her movements might provide a distraction. But death overpowered her in the end, as it always does. She didn’t look peaceful so much as inconvenienced.

My telephone rings after dinner. It startles both Claire and me so much that she drops her crossword book and I drop the remote control.

“Joyce, it’s Timothy. I won’t be coming tomorrow night.”