Three Days (2 page)

He wasn't sure what time it was. The clock on the bureau was slightly turned away and he couldn't see the numbers clearly. He couldn't reach it without getting out of bed. Art decided it must be close to ten.

By then he'd practised his first sentence several times, listened to it rattle around his bedroom when he said it out loud, astounded by how thin and reedy his voice sounded.

“I haven't been out of bed in three days.”

No, not quite.

“I haven't been strong enough to even get out of this bed for three days.”

That was better. If that didn't make them stop and take notice, he didn't know what would. Maybe he could act drowsy and a bit confused when someone finally came upstairs. And he could muster up a deep, rattling cough with no problem. As he thought about coughing, he could feel the fluttering in his lungs, a cough that wanted to start, and he managed to hold the reflex at bay until it faded away.

As the urge to cough faded, a memory rose, flickering like old film: Patrick and Jane, both still children, somewhere between five and ten, in their aunt Anne's yard in Maine, during a summer when Anne had been breeding setter puppies. He remembered bright sunshine, the clumsy new puppies tumbling and rolling over in the grass, Jane on her then-pudgy knees with her hands held straight up over her head in the air, Patrick holding a puppy carefully while the dog chewed busily on his thumb with its new, needling teeth. Both Anne and the puppies' mother carefully attentive, not interfering but clearly concentrating on everything that was happening. Tolerantly on guard. Anne had already explained that the mother dog — was its name Dex? Art couldn't be sure — might nip if it felt the puppies were in danger. Both children smiling, concentrating on the small dogs. The kind of memory Art could hold in his mind and see as sharply as if he were holding a photograph of it in his hands.

It's all in here, Art thought, one hand behind his head as if he could safely cradle every thought. All of it. He was watching the light behind the venetian blinds changing.

All they had to do was ask.

Afternoon came.

Then evening.

Three days folded gently into four.

Art slept.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Russell Wangersky is critically acclaimed writer whose most recent short story collection, 
Whirl Away
, was a finalist for the Scotiabank-Giller Prize. He has also won the British Columbia National Award for Non-Fiction (
Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself
), the BMO Winterset Award (
The Glass Harmonica
) and has been nominated for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (
The Hour of Bad Decisions
). He is a newspaper editor and columnist based in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Copyright © 2013 Russell Wangersky

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This edition published in 2013 by
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ISBN 978-1-77089-473-0

Cover design: Alysia Shewchuk
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We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi's commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada's pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”