he says Laurene was always in the right.”
LEA TASSIE grew up on a northern British Columbia homestead. One of her short stories, “Guardians”, won Storyteller’s 1999 Great Canadian Short Story contest. Tour Into Danger, a suspense novel, is due out in 2001. She’s working on two novels, one serious and one a romp with two crazy cats.
SEEING RED
LINDA WIKEN
She couldn’t run any faster. There was no escape. She tried to lengthen her stride, but it kept pace. She stumbled and almost pitched into the darkness. Get up. Run. The house. She had to reach the house and mommy. She needed her mommy. Keep going. Don’t look back. Almost there. The house. With locked door. It wouldn’t open. She pounded. She cried out for her mommy. Don’t leave me. And then woke to the sound.
Hannah Price jerked bolt upright in bed, gasping to reach total consciousness. Trying to shake off the dream. Her heart was pounding too fast in her chest. It’s only a dream. She tried deep breathing. It helped. She glanced at the bedside clock, 5:30 a.m. A shard of sunlight cut across her bed. Time to run. Shake off the night and the dream.
She groaned and rolled out of bed, jerking to a stop as a pain shot through her left hip. Running had brought that on again. She’d known it would happen. But she needed the high, needed to escape the horror of what was happening, if only for an hour.
As she pulled on a grey cotton T-shirt and nylon shorts, she listened for sounds from the next room. Carrying her Rykas, she crept along the hall and opened the door to her mother’s room. She heard the same raspy breathing she’d heard last time she’d checked, a couple of hours ago. She longed to go to her mother, crawl into bed beside her, wrap her arms around her and make everything all right. Why her, God?
Once outside the house, Hannah went through her routine of stretches while sorting a mental list of tasks for later in the day. Then she started down the gravel driveway at a medium lope, waiting until she reached the main road before going all out. She didn’t expect much traffic at this hour. Maybe on the way back, the occasional car would be transporting its load of office workers into Victoria for the day.
Hannah had no idea if that included the neighbours who were only a mailbox at the road’s edge about fifty metres along. They were new to the area, moved in long after Hannah had left home for the promised land of Vancouver. Her monthly visits home were filled with her mother. There was no need to look for others to socialize with. And now that she’d come back to nurse her mom, she didn’t want anyone else intruding. She wanted this time alone with her, to stretch out every moment of their final days together as long as possible.
Nobody loves you like your mom.
Ain’t that the truth, thought Hannah, especially when there’s no one else in your life to love you. And soon there wouldn’t even be Mom.
No-body-loves-you-like-your-mom. It fit her stride. No-body-loves-you-like-your-mom. Her mantra for today. Block out all other thoughts. The ones she couldn’t cope with.
“So what’s it to be for lunch today, a decadent chicken broth or an exotic pea soup?” Hannah tried not to stare at her mother as she straightened the bedding.
Five months of fighting ovarian cancer had reduced her to a body with sharply angled bones stretching a covering of translucent skin, a sharp contrast to the bright red and yellow scarf tied around her head. Her days were spent entirely in bed, mainly sleeping. Her short waking periods were filled with Hannah reading to her and, each afternoon, a visit from a home care worker.
“I don’t know, Hannah. Surprise me.” Her lips slid apart in a strained smile.
Death warmed over. The phrase, unbidden, leapt into Hannah’s brain. She swallowed hard to allow an answer through the massive knot blocking her throat.
“O.K., Mom—a surprise it is.”
She tried to think of some variation from the bland items that had become the daily food fare as she cranked up the volume on the Graco monitor in the kitchen. She’d had it installed last month, a convenience that allowed her to eavesdrop on her mom’s bodily noises. Nothing was private any more. There’s very little dignity in a painful death, thought Hannah. Her eyes filled with tears, and she quickly poured herself a glass of water from the ceramic rooster pitcher kept in the fridge. Hannah ran both hands along its orange and yellow contours, a link to her childhood, a happy time with just the two of them and the assortment of four-legged creatures that were a part of the family unit from time to time. None of the pets had survived, and soon there’d be only Hannah. She can’t leave me. I still need her.
She shook her head and finished drinking the water, then opened a can of broth, adding some fresh mint and rosemary once it started heating, sniffing the aroma. A comfort food from a happier time. The doorbell startled her. She glanced at the aging round clock that hung above the sink. Another childhood memory. She turned the element to simmer and went to open the front door.
She knew this face but couldn’t quite place it. Something familiar. That smile, so damned sure of himself. It couldn’t be. No. The son-of-a-bitch was back. “What the hell do you want?” She stared at Dan O’Connor, debating whether to slam the door in his face.
As if he read her thoughts, he stuck his foot in the door and held out his right hand in appeal. “Hannah? It is you, isn’t it? You’re all grown up. Please, Hannah. Can’t we call a truce? I’d like to see Carolyn. I do still love her, you know.”
Hannah couldn’t look him in the eyes. She’d never been able to, even as a kid. She concentrated instead on the mass of wrinkles etched on his tanned face and the greying hair. He’d aged in the seventeen years since she’d last seen him. The night of her twelfth birthday party. The night he’d walked out of their lives; one of the happiest nights she’d known in the five years he’d lived with them. The worst part was she knew her Mother still thought about him. She refused to believe it was love. But her Mother would want to see him.
Hannah pulled the door open wide. “She’s in her bedroom. I’m just making her lunch.” She turned her back on him and went to dish out the soup.
How dare he? He thinks he can just waltz back into our lives. The bastard.
She rushed pouring the soup into a mug, spilling some onto the counter and floor. She threw the dishrag on the largest puddle and plunked the soup mug on the tray, spilling some more. Damn him. When she joined them in the bedroom, Dan was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding Carolyn’s hand. Hannah flinched and bit back an acerbic comment.
“You’ll need to move, Dan.” That’s my place.
“Of course.” He leaned over and kissed Carolyn on the cheek. “I’ll just go and put away my things. I’m in the guest room, I presume?”
“Yes, my dear.” Carolyn patted his hand then looked at Hannah. “So, what’s my surprise to be?”
The guest room? Hannah busied herself helping her Mom sit up, and with setting up the bed tray, wanting Dan to be out of the room before she spoke.
“Did you know about this?” she asked, guiding spoonfuls of the liquid to her mother’s mouth.
Carolyn nodded. “Yes, he called the other day while you were out. I should have told you.” She paused, struggling
