Brian Francis - The Natural Order

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Fruit

COPYRIGHT 2011 BRIAN FRANCIS

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisheror in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agencyis an infringement of the copyright law.

Doubleday Canada and colophon are registered trademarks

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES OF CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Francis, Brian, 1971
Natural order / Brian Francis.
eISBN: 978-0-385-67154-5
I. Title.
PS8611.R35N38 2011 C813.6 C2011-902500-0

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text and cover design: CS Richardson
Cover image: John Kuss/Corbis

Published in Canada by Doubleday Canada,
a division of Random House of Canada Limited

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v3.1

For Mom,
my best publicist

The Balsden Examiner

July 27, 1984

Sparks, John Charles May 5, 1953July 25, 1984. After a sudden illness, John passed away peacefully in Toronto in his 31st year. Survived by his loving parents Charles and Joyce Sparks of Balsden, his Aunt Helen and Uncle Richard, Aunt Irene and Uncle Dwight, cousins Marianne, Mark, Rebecca and Patricia. Friends and family will be received at the Floyd Brothers Funeral Home, 927 George Ave., on Sunday, July 29, from 79 p.m. The funeral service will be held at St. Pauls United Church, 70 Ormand St., on Monday, July 30, at 12 p.m. Reception to follow. Interment to follow reception at Lakeside Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Canadian Cancer Society.

I lived in hope. I prayed in vain

That God would make you well again.

But God decided we must part,

I watched you die with a broken heart.

T HE BUZZERS keep me awake at night. Thats one thing that hasnt gonemy hearing. Most everything else has faded. My taste. Vision. Even my voice, which comes out sounding like a scratch in the air.

The buzzers bleat in the hallway like robot sheep. We keep our strings close to us so theyre easy to reach and pull. Mine is attached to my purse. Before I go to bed, I always set my purse on my night table. During the day, when Im in my room, I keep it on my bed. I always have it near. Sometimes, at night, when the sounds wake me, Ill stare at my purse until I fall asleep again. Its not a particularly nice purse. I dont even think its real leather.

Most of the buzzers you hear arent for what youd call real emergencies. Usually, someone needs an extra blanket. Or someone had a bad dream. More often than not, I think people pull the buzzer just to see how long it takes for someone to come to their room. I did that, the first few months after I came here. Id pull the string and count the seconds, panic building.

17, 18, 19

What if Id fallen out of bed? What if I was having a heart attack?

34, 35

What if Id broken my hip?

What if I was dead?

Joyce Sparks.

My name is on the wall outside my room next to a straw hat with a yellow ribbon and a couple of glued-on daisies. The hat reminds me of my sister, Helen, although it isnt hers. The social coordinator had us make our own hats for a tea party last spring. I dont know why someone decided to hang my hat outside the door. I didnt do a nice job of it. Ive never been good at crafts. I dont have the patience.

Ruth Schueller is the name on the other side of the door. Shes my roommate. She doesnt have a hat next to her name because she wasnt at the home in the spring. Instead, theres a black-and-white photograph beside Ruths name, taken during her younger years. I hardly recognize her. Frightening how much damage time does to a face. Ruth is eighty-two. I turned eighty-six in July.

Ruth snores something awful. Not at night, usually. But during her daytime naps, she makes the most horrific sounds. Shell fall asleep in her wheelchair and her head will flop down like a dead weight. Thats when the snoring starts. Some days, its so loud I cant concentrate on the television, even when the volume is turned up all the waywhich it usually is. Ill have to throw the Yellow Pages at her. (Never at her head, although Ive been tempted. Only at her feet.) Then Ill watch her out of the corner of my eye as she tries to sort things out. What was that noise? Where did this Yellow Pages come from?

Last week, I wheeled into the bathroom and found my hairbrush on the back of the toilet tank. This bothered me because I always keep my brush next to the faucet. I wheeled out of the bathroom, carrying my brush like a miniature sword.

RUTH, DID YOU TOUCH THIS?

She blinked back at me like I was talking another language.

ITS NOT RIGHT! I said. YOU CANT DO THINGS LIKE THAT!

I dont know why they cant give me a roommate who can talk. Ruth is the second mute person Ive had in the past year. She replaced Margaret, who was also soft in the head. Shed sit in her chair, knuckle deep inside a nostril for most of the day.

If you find an escape route up there, let me know, Id say to her. Then Margarets liver shut down and she turned bronze. She lay in her bed, day after day, while a string of family members Id never seen before came in and out of our room. They stood at her bedside, joisted fingers over their bellies, looking down at Margaret and shaking their heads as though this was one of the greatest tragedies theyd ever witnessed.

Its not nice having someone die in your room. Ill say that much. I woke up in the middle of the night, the sheep bleating in the distance, and even though I couldnt see her, I knew Margaret was gone. There was a stillness in the air, a cold pocket. I thought about reaching for my purse, but then wondered if it mattered. I didnt want to deal with the commotion that would follow: the lights turning on, whispers, white sheets. So I lay there with my hands at my sides and said a short prayer for Margaret. Although she couldnt talk, I could tell by her eyes that shed been a good person. Kind. Gentle. She hadnt deserved her fate. After a while, I fell back asleep.

One week later, Ruth moved in. Shed been living on the second floor where the other soft-headed people are, but her family wanted her on my floor, the fourth. Did they think shed be more stimulated up here?

I suppose it could be worse. Theres Mae MacKenzie down the hall, trapped with that horrible Dorothy Dawson. Dorothy keeps the divider curtains shut so the room is cut in half. She even safety-pinned the flaps together. She means business.

She trapped herself in once, Mae told me. Kept pawing her way around, trying to find the opening. It was the best entertainment Ive had here yet.

Dorothy doesnt talk to anyone. Mae says shes a bitter woman. Theres been some talk of a husband who had wandering hands. A daughter into drugs.

Some people get a rough ride in life, Mae said with a slow shake of her head.

I held my tongue.