car had barely stopped when Marilyn snapped off her belt, jumped out and ran the few steps to the hospice, yanking the door open. The ambulance arrived and backed in. A man and a woman hustled a gurney with dispatch. Holly held the door for them, seeing a bright and cozy sitting room with a desk to the side. Bateman prints on the walls. A vase of carnations. A shadowed hallway led to the back of the building.
Holly could hear crying from the interior. “Shannon, darling. I’m so sorry. I thought that...” Marilyn said. This part of duty Holly dreaded, forced to take a ringside seat at an inevitable tragedy. It was her role to be supportive but not intrude, get the information required, make sure there was support and move on to the next crisis.
“Please, ma’am,” came an official reply from the crew. “Allow us. We’ll take her now.” Then there was a “Damn!”
“Defib! Stat!” The female ET charged back into the hall and ran to the vehicle. She retrieved a cumbersome machine on wheels and hustled it up the wheelchair ramp.
From inside, yells and thumps ensued, along with a few swear words. A cry rent the air, a dreadful keening alive enough to have strength to die. Then all was silent. Along with the woman at the desk, Holly lowered her head in respect. Had Marilyn arrived only in time to say goodbye?
Despite the early hour, a small crowd was gathering, and someone had the temerity to peek into the front window. Constitutional walkers strolled the quiet streets, fueled in the summer by hoards of tourists stopping at Serious Coffee, McDonald’s and A&W. With no movie theatres or other commercial entertainment other than a par-three golf course, there was little to do but enjoy the temperate weather and watch the boats and comical seals in Canada’s southernmost harbour. Holly went out to supervise, waving off a young boy with a practiced gesture. “We have an emergency here. Please stand back and give the ETs room to work. That means you, son. Now hustle.”
Then the door opened, and the gurney rolled by like a deliberately slow funeral cortege. The body was covered with a light blue blanket, except for an exposed hand with a simple gold ring. Marilyn walked alongside, holding the hand, pacing herself. Her eyes met those of the ETs, and she nodded as the gurney stopped. Her finger touched its soulmate’s index twin in the briefest contact, the final movement in a dance from a bygone era but one in which the energy of life could no longer pass. Then she blinked, moved back, and the team closed the van doors with a gentle push. With no sirens or reason for haste, the vehicle tracked down the road toward Victoria.
Marilyn’s head was bowed, a lonely character on an empty stage. “She just let go. The spark flickered out. I don’t know how she kept going the last few months. Sheer will, I guess.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Holly said, stepping forward to offer support as the woman’s knees threatened to buckle. Yet she didn’t seem the fainting kind. “Should you be driving? May I call someone?”
Marilyn straightened and looked into the distance at the fog across the harbour as if watching her old life disappear into the mist. She had short, curly grey hair in a no-nonsense cut and a broad, intelligent brow. Make-up, if any, was subtle. At five-eight, she was Holly’s height. Her voice became stronger and preternaturally calm, as if she were convincing herself. “Her spirit is fled, and she will bide. Funny, that’s my grandmother’s word, and I never knew what it meant until now. For all our feeble human efforts, deaths can’t be orchestrated any better than births. When I left her yesterday, she was cheerful, almost rallying. Perhaps she knew. Do you think so?”
“It’s possible.” Holly had seen only one person die. Her mentor Ben Rogers, shot by a frightened deaf boy whose air rifle turned out to be a .22. When she thought of Ben, she still saw the red pulse of his blood spreading on her lap while she screamed for help.
“Do you believe in an afterlife?”
Holly swallowed, afraid to give a wrong answer, as if there were one. How strange to be having such an intimate conversation with someone she barely knew. And yet it seemed natural. “I’m not...religious in a formal sense. Perhaps the concept is meant to help the living, like funerals for closure. Then again, so many have returned after describing that tunnel of light. I guess I’m saying that anything is possible.” Her mother had told her that once, during a painful and undiagnosed tubal pregnancy, her late beloved father had appeared to her in a dream and told her to go immediately to the hospital. That had saved her life. Or had it been her own intuition for survival?
“There are some things we can’t explain, aren’t there? Beyond science.” Marilyn looked over for a brief validation, and their eyes met and held.
Holly stood, arms at her sides in sad ceremony. Notifying the next of kin in serious accidents or worse yet, fatalities, was a duty every officer dreaded. As part of their training, they had been taught the proper words for empathy, respect and care. But no canned phrases ever seemed to fit the moments. “Sorry for your loss.” #1 “My condolences.” #2. It was like reliving the same nightmare, but she hoped she’d never be calcified against feeling. As if summoned, the sun sliced through the morning fog and backlit Marilyn’s strong profile. She was inspecting her hand as if it belonged to a stranger, perhaps remembering that last touch. This was a delicate leave-taking of kindred spirits.
“We...still have to get gas for your car,” she heard herself say, then bit her lip. She thought about the sad tasks awaiting the bereaved, the paperwork, the palpability. Why hurry? The dead had no timetable. “If you’d like to sit for awhile, can I buy you a coffee?” Did she sound like she was suggesting that the woman pull herself together?
Marilyn managed a smile which bathed Holly in its warmth. Dreamy philosophy gave way to brisk acceptance and a return to the living. “Strong black tea would be best, I think. You’re kind to ask. I must be keeping you from your job.”
“Not at all. This is my job.” Holly shifted in the heavy Kevlar vest. A trickle of sweat was making its way down her spine. “Some people think that we’re on permanent vacation at the Fossil Bay detachment. It’s quiet as...” She stopped and swallowed, distracted by the swooping flight of a shrieking pigeon heading for a daily pile of grain left by the keeper of a convenience store. “As you can imagine.”
Two savvy locals, by mutual agreement they gravitated towards an alley on a backstreet across from the Legion. Dave Evans, his world-class barista certificate proudly on the wall, ran Stick in the Mud coffeehouse as a proud artist. In the small but cozy nook with tempting aromas of house-roasted fair trade blends mingling with cinnamon and nutmeg from on-site baked goods, Marilyn took one of the leather armchairs. Stacks of the radical Monday magazine sat on a table. Local artists were represented by photos and colourful art on the walls. Holly returned with a VOS1N0, Dave’s version of an Americano, named for their former postal code, and a chai. “There’s some sugar if you need it and a warm Morning Glory muffin. Or you can take it for later.” The trite words you need to keep up your strength drifted into her mind, and she batted them to a corner.
The nuances of a smile reached Marilyn’s face. Two shy dimples made their way onto her careworn cheeks.
Holly said, “You look familiar, Marilyn. I’ve just moved back to the area after fourteen years. Sooke used to be a tiny fishing village with a few B&Bs. Now it’s a bedroom community for Victoria.”
“Most of that cookie-cutter development sprawl hasn’t reached Fossil Bay. We...live at Serenity. That little cottage at the Sea Breeze Road corner.”
Did the quaint custom of naming houses come from England by way of California? It seemed more prevalent on the coasts. “Right. Isn’t that a massage therapy business?” Full of retirees and fitness addicts of a left-wing
