Holly asked, tipping back her billed cap. She wore a light blue shirt under her jacket, duty belt, and dark blue slacks with the traditional yellow stripe. Despite Hollywood films, the famous Mountie red-serge suit was for formal occasions only. No love lost on the stiff, short boots with a spit shine that had taken years, but they held up better than the running shoes she wore off duty.
The woman was dressed in beige slacks and a light sweater with a striped silk scarf. Summer was cool on the Vancouver Island coast overlooking the windy Strait of Juan de Fuca. “Officer?” she said and swallowed, looking at the sports car with a quizzical expression. “I—”
“Just on my way to work. Got car trouble?” Holly considered the Audi. Given the faded paint, it could have been ten years old, it could have been twenty. With the soft winters and salt-free roads, vehicles ran forever. “I’m afraid I’m no auto wizard. How about we call a tow? Shouldn’t take long to get you to a mechanic. Do you use Dumont? Tri-City? Or maybe you’re visiting.”
The woman pressed her full lips together in frustration. “I think I’m out of gas. With all that’s been happening, I forgot to fill up.”
Holly nodded. It was among the most expensive spots in Canada, especially during tourist season, and gas had hit $1.55 a litre this week. The woman didn’t look like the type to cadge a free gallon by playing the helpless female. “Easy enough, then. I keep a jerry can in the trunk. We’ll head for a station in Sooke and have you on your way pronto. Are you in a hurry?”
The woman gave a grateful smile, faintly familiar with its honest expression on a heart-shaped face. Holly might have seen her buying groceries or banking. Context was key. The woman looked the same age as Holly’s mother had the last time she’d seen her. Late forties plus, but very fit. Her gold Nike tennis shoes had well-earned scuffs. “My partner Shannon is at the Sooke Hospice. I hoped to get there before...I mean...oh God...” Her voice dwindled to a small sob.
Holly put a light hand of reassurance on her shoulder. “Ten minutes then. But lock your car.” The coast had its share of opportunistic petty thieves who broke into vehicles left by trusting hikers on the famous Juan De Fuca trail, or even in town. It was nearly impossible to stop them, especially at night with few streetlights. A video camera left in sight could lead to a broken window and a thousand-dollar repair bill.
As they settled into the Prelude, the woman extended a slender hand, deceptively strong. “I’m Marilyn Clavir. Thank you for your help.” She touched a tissue to her soft grey eyes and cleared her throat.
“I’m always passing by the hospice. It’s small, but we’re lucky to have it, so far from the city.” Why did Holly feel that she had to make conversation? Becoming a better listener was on her planning board. Right after doing one hundred crunches a day and training for a marathon.
“They do limited respite care now. A dedicated room was funded this year. Before that they merely coordinated efforts to help people stay at home as long as possible. Usually I ask a neighbour to stay at the house with her, but she was away, and yesterday I had to go to the mainland on urgent business. Then the nine p.m. ferry was cancelled due to engine trouble, so I got home around midnight.” A groan of a sigh expressed Marilyn’s frustration.
People loved to complain about the rising costs of the ferries along with the shrinking service, but an island with a bridge wasn’t a real island. Holly nodded as she drove swiftly but prudently on the winding road, knowing that a logging truck was around every corner. Becoming another statistic wouldn’t help. “I’m sorry to hear about your partner. What...happened?”
Marilyn leaned back in the seat, taking deep breaths to calm herself, one hand on her breastbone as she loosened the scarf. A small blue vein pulsed at the fragile skin of her throat. “Nothing that we haven’t been expecting. She’s had multiple sclerosis for a few years. It came on late, and it came on fast.”
“Isn’t that unusual? I thought it struck people by their twenties.” Holly recalled a girl in her zoology class who had managed with arm crutches, a real hero who didn’t suffer fools gladly.
“Canada has one of the highest rates in the world, and British Columbia leads the provinces. It may have something to do with lack of sunshine and Vitamin D. Women are twice as likely to contract it, so are people with northern European backgrounds. As for age, most cases begin between twenty and forty. And some have a more benign condition with little progress in symptoms.” She spoke with a resigned authority.
“Haven’t there been any medical advances in recent years?” Holly slowed to let the car ahead pull into the post office.
“It’s ironic, but that discovery about a vascular connection may have some merit. Even so, the provincial government won’t pay for some of the latest drugs. Nothing helped Shannon, not even a treatment we got in Seattle. She was in acute pain from the spasticity. It was heart-breaking.” Marilyn pinched the bridge of her aquiline nose until the skin was white. “Listen to me going on, but it was all so crazy. You get desperate.”
“The island is famous for alternative therapies. You must have tried them all,” Holly said sympathetically. Canada’s pot laws didn’t punish discreet personal use, and the boost to the provincial economy from B.C. bud was legendary. But many saw cannabis as a gateway drug.
“Bee venom. Medical marijuana. Replacing mercury fillings. Each time the disappointment increased. Then a heart condition developed as one of the side effects. To think that I was so naïve as a child that I believed people could have only one health problem at a time.” Marilyn shook her head in self-rebuke.
“That must have been hard for you. Could she walk?”
Marilyn’s hands clasped each other in her lap, taut with tension. “That was the worst part. Shannon was a great hiker. We did all the island trails, from Tofino, throughout Strathcona, even up north and across in the Olympics. Then five years ago the unsteadiness started. Bothersome vision problems. She bluffed for awhile, tried to pretend that nothing was wrong. But the myelin connections weren’t working. Then her job...” She paused for a moment as if to muster the will to continue. From a pocket she pulled a tissue and dabbed at her nose.
“What did she do?” There Holly was using the past tense. Dehumanizing the sick.
“She worked as a nurse in the O.R. at the General. That requires not only consummate training and skill but considerable stamina. Those who can do it are worth platinum for the profession. Every surgeon asked for her. Double shifts were common, and not for the money. But it was no use, not even a desk job was feasible. The Valium for seizures made her so groggy, too.”
“Medical personnel are godlike to me. I can’t imagine the stress. The highs must be wonderful, but the lows...you can’t save everyone.” Neither can the police, she thought, but we try, one little corner of the world at a time.
They slowed for the first traffic light as West Coast Road became Sooke Road at the town limits. At the hub of the small village of six thousand were Wiskers and Waggs Pet Store, the Stone Pipe Restaurant, a Petro-Canada and a convenience store. They passed competing strip malls before turning right heading for a small building shared by a pizza business and the hospice, an odd couple made odder by the bloom-filled boat advertising a florist. From east down the highway, flanked by evergreen hills on one side and the sweeping harbour on the other, shrieked the Doppler sound of an ambulance. Marilyn was twisting her scarf into a rag. Holly could hear it ripping like the tears in the woman’s heart.
Raucous crows dueled for the prize of a McDonald’s bag. Wrappers and cups spilled onto the gravel. The crafty birds seemed oblivious to the presence of cars, hopping out
