I try the closet in the almost-empty bedroom between the bathroom and the study. Tailored suits give off a faint whiff of dry cleaning fluid, sober grey, blue, brown. She’s been wearing these same suits since I met her. Either that, or when one wears out she buys another one exactly like it. There are several silk blouses, dove greys and browns, mint green, one flowered. What was she wearing when she collapsed in the kitchen? A dark blue suit, I think. What happens to the clothes a person has on when they go to the hospital in an ambulance?

  Beside the suits hang three soft flannelette shirts and several pairs of pants, including the camel ones she had on when she made me tea in her kitchen. A shelf below the clothing holds several pairs of shoes — dress ones with high heels and those comfortable brown loafers. The plaid flannel shirt she wore that day hangs beside the camel pants. I pull it toward me, bury my face in it, but all I get is a faint whiff of laundry detergent.

  I stand in the doorway of her study. The papers and books are in yet another arrangement. She had continued to work on the Levellers, Ranters and Diggers even while preparing for Cindy’s sentencing hearing. I check to see if the brown-smeared paper is still the second one from the top of the pile right beside the door. It is.

  I gather up my skirt and pick my way along the path to the computer but turn off before that, taking the route to the neatly made bed. It’s a cozy space, between the bookshelf and the window. The bedside table holds a lamp and a murder mystery with a bookmark partway through. My eyes are suddenly swimming. Will she find out who did it? There is a small box of tissues on the bedside table. I help myself, blow my nose.

  The pillow is sitting on top of the blankets. I can’t help myself. I lie down on the bed and bury my nose in the stiff, white linen. There is a faint, faint smell of her here. I breathe it in, feeling comforted, although tears begin to trickle down my cheeks and into the fabric of the pillow case.

  ***

  In the morning, I leave by the front door. There are two envelopes on the floor under the mail slot. Bills. I gather them up and set them on the hall table, leaning them against the pottery bowl. There is a ring of keys in it, obviously dropped there when Judith came in and set her briefcase on the floor. I check the tags on the single keys in the bottom of the dish. The one I’ve had in my pocket all these months is there, its tag — dirtier than the rest — labelled “Basement.” Two say “Front Door.” I pocket one.

  ***

  “I’m so glad to see you, Lucy.” Bob Cumberland’s a tall man, but right now looks like a scared boy playing lawyer behind his big desk. He has to peer at me around stacks of files, and he never stops shuffling through them as he talks, though he can’t be seeing them. “Have you been to the hospital?”

  “Right after this.”

  “I have to go to court this afternoon.”

  “They said you’re her next of kin.”

  “Legally, yes. I’m her guardian in health care and I have an enduring power of attorney from her, a will and living will too. I’d be executor if it comes to that.”

  “Doesn’t she have a family?”

  “No one she cares to be in touch with. Ah.” He pounces on a file, stuffs it into his briefcase. Hope he has the right papers when he gets to court.

  “Why don’t you come to the hospital after court?”

  “Yes, yes. Good idea. I’ll do that.” I wonder if he’s forgotten where he’s going, but he suddenly strides toward the door. A stray paper is sucked from his desk. It swoops gently back and forth toward the floor. I pick it up, but there’s no place on the desk to put it. I leave it on his chair.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Judith is barely there, a scrap of life surrounded by a fortress of clicking, humming steel creatures. All I can see is the upper part of her face above the plastic mask and tube, white as paper; the shiny, exposed side of her head; and a delicate hand on the crisp sheet, with two tubes bandaged to it. Tubes, tubes, on her, into her. A giant space spider. I wince as one of them gurgles for all the world like it’s hungry.

  I decide to ignore them, search hard for the Judith I know. Really, her closed eyes are all I have. Studying them in the dim light, I see there are more creases than I had noticed before, a web of delicate wrinkles. Worry lines.

  There are only three names on the visitors’ list: mine, Bob’s, Althea’s. I wonder if anyone besides me knows that when she comes home from work she drops her briefcase in the front hall, kicks off her shoes and turns on CBC radio. Does anyone else know about the perfectly straight row of yoghurt containers in her refrigerator? The orderly bottles in the bathroom? The chaotic basement and empty upstairs rooms, the bed and stacks of papers in her study?

  Bob and Althea come together. The nurse finds two plastic chairs. Bob nods at me. He looks pretty ghostly himself after a night in emergency and an afternoon in court. Althea reaches over to take my hand. She folds it into hers and her warmth travels up my arm. We sit like that for what seems like a long time.

  I jump when Althea speaks. “Aren’t you supposed to talk to people in a coma?”

  I see Bob’s eyebrows go up.

  Althea shrugs. “I’m sure I’ve heard that sometimes people can hear even if they can’t respond.” She leans closer to the bed. “Hey Judith, honey, we’re here, Bob and Lucy and me. We’re hoping you can come out of this.” She shoots me an uncomfortable look. “I mean, you are coming out of this, back to us.”

  She shifts her generous hips forward to the edge of the seat, lowers her voice even more. It comes out in a syrupy rumble. “How about that leisurely coffee we’ve been talking about? We’ve been bad girls, not making time for friendship. Soon’s you’re better, that’s what we’ll do, coffee at someplace nice, that pastry place in the Hydrostone.”

  She pauses. The pause goes on. She looks at me, pleading. I’m thinking like crazy, but nothing pops into my head. She looks at Bob. “And we’re taking care of things for you, Judith. Bob’s taking over your students and your cases, including Cindy’s. Tell her Bob.”

  Bob looks like he’s having a panic attack. “Judith? Can you hear me?”

  “Just assume she can,” Althea prompts.

  “Okay, if you can hear me, I’d sure like you to come back. How am I supposed to add your caseload to mine? I guess I knew you were going a few extra miles, as they say, but I didn’t realize just how many.” Althea scrunches her face at him.

  Althea lifts her free hand as if scooping something up. “Positive,” she mouths.

  “So, hey, that young guy doing research, Brian. Is he always this whiny? How do you get him off complaining that all he gets are the most boring cases and make him actually do some research? Maybe I should give him Cindy Beals’s file, the whole national and international history of assistance and human rights legislation?” Althea winces. “Kidding, Judith, kidding. Now, what case is Brian on? Oh yeah …” Bob gives us a glance. “Althea and Lucy are here, so I can’t talk about anything confidential.”

  Althea shifts back into the molded plastic seat, lets go of my hand to check her watch. “That’s okay. I’ve got to go anyway. Meeting in half an hour. Lucy? Come with me for a minute? We’ll let these two talk professional secrets.”

  My knees have stiffened. I have to rest a minute, hanging on to the chair back. As we go, I look back at the machines circled around, Judith a wisp on the high bed. Bob, long and awkward, leaning toward her. At least he’s talking now as if she really can hear him.

  Outside the ICU, Althea turns to me. “I’m organizing a community meeting at the North Branch Library on Wednesday evening. There’s a real head of steam built up over Cindy’s case. Time to channel it.” She grins.

  “Like old times.”

  “So you’ll come?”

  I look at the door to the ICU.

  “You can’t sit with her all the time. She needs rest too.”

  “All right.”

  “Great.” She glances at her watch again. “Bob will have to go back to Legal Aid soon. Will you sit with her a little while after he goes?”

  I look around at the comfortable seats in the waiting room. “I guess I can wait.”

  “Why don’t you go down to the cafeteria and have a bite?” She gives me a shrewd look, sets her huge purse on the arm of a chair and digs through it. “Here.” She holds out a ten-dollar bill. I hesitate, but she gives it an impatient shake. I take it.

  ***

  When I get back upstairs, Bob is gone. Judith lies slightly to one side, looking like she’s having the most peaceful sleep in the world even with tubes coming out of her in every direction. The machines tick and hum, squiggly lines jagging up and down. They’re watching too, and they don’t feel friendly. I think they’d like to throw me out of here, leave Judith for them to suck dry.

  I carry one of the smaller plastic chairs around to the side of the bed she’s facing. Now that I’m alone, it’s not hard at all to talk. “So, Judith, in all the excitement around Cindy, the end of my probation slipped by. You said you would take me out for supper. I’ll hold you to that, as soon as you’re out of here.

  “Another thing too. There’s this project sending volunteers to Guatemala. The Peace Accords were signed in December, and they need foreigners to accompany the people who’ve been living in exile, keep them safe while they travel home and rebuild their communities. I won’t leave you here like this, Judith. But as soon as you’re better, I need a letter saying I’m off probation and okay to go.”

  There is a nurse behind me. She’s come up on those silent, rubber-soled shoes they wear. I hope she didn’t catch “I’m off probation.” She ignores me, looks at one of the screens with the squiggly lines for a few moments, picks up the clipboard attached to the foot of Judith’s bed, writes something. I turn to look up at the screen too, not that it tells me anything. She smiles at me. “It’s good that you’re talking to her. Most of the time, when people come out of a coma, they don’t remember what people have said to them. Probably because of the sedatives we give them.”

  “She’s on sedatives?”

  “It helps with the irritation from the tube in her throat. But sometimes people can recall at least part of what was said, although they often remember it as a dream. So keep talking.”

  A minute later she’s gone. I stare at Judith. “Can you really hear me?”

  ***

  For the first time, I walk up to Judith’s front door. I dig into my pocket, latch first onto Bara’s copy of the basement key, then the one with the “Front Door” label. A car door opens and closes out on the street. I pay no attention until footsteps come up the walk behind me. Instinctively I glance around for escape routes. Best bet, look perfectly normal, like I own the place.

  I turn. Bob Cumberland’s eyes fall on the key in my hand. “Oh. You’ve got a key to Judith’s house?”

  “I — “

  “Have you been staying here with her, then?”

  I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

  “Because that would solve a problem. Her enduring power of attorney makes me responsible for the house and the insurance company wants to raise the rates if it’s empty. But if you’re here …”

  “Well, I — ”

  “Do you pay rent or share costs?”

  “Well, I … I’m not … at the moment …”

  “I see,” he says, with a glance at my clothing that he probably can’t help. “Well then, that’s fine. When the bills come, bring them to me and I’ll pay them from Judith’s account. And if anything needs fixing, let me know, all right?”

  I nod. Wow. Lucky day, I think, followed by a sharp stab of guilt.

  “I’ll let the insurance company know it’s occupied.” One side of his mouth quirks up. “That Judith. Full of surprises.” He turns to leave.

  “Oh, Bob, wait.” I put the key in the lock and turn it, praying it works. The door opens. I scoop up the bills on the hall table and hand them to Bob. He glances at them, tucks them into an inside pocket of his jacket.

  Dear Judith, thank you for thinking of everything. When you get out of hospital, I’ll take care of you, I’ll —

  “Hey, Luce.” I start. Robin. He and Bara are sitting at Judith’s kitchen table.

  “What are you two doing here?”

  “How is she?” Robin asks.

  “Out cold.”

  “And you, Lucy. How are you?” says Bara. She gives me a worried once-over. “You look exhausted. Here, sit down. Tea?” She holds up Judith’s old Brown Betty teapot. “I found some in the cupboard.”

  “Bara.” I put my hesitation into my tone.

  “If she’s out cold, Lucy, she’s not coming back soon, is she?”

  I sit down heavily in the third chair. Bara puts the kettle on.

  “How did you get in?” I ask her.

  “Basement door,” she says. “You didn’t lock it.”

  I didn’t? But time has already split into before and after that soft thump above my head, my memory of before gone fuzzy.

  “Who was the guy at the door?” Robin asks.

  I tell them about Bob and the house.

  “All right!” Robin says. “We can move in, like a co-op house.”

  “You will not!”

  “Just kidding, Luce.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Sorry, bad timing. But you’ll come and live here?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But that Bob asked you to, or you’ll invalidate the insurance.”

  I look at Bara.

  “It’s okay, Lucy,” she says, pouring three mugs of tea. “Cat and I will keep on looking. Meanwhile, I’m okay at Fresh Start.”

  ***

  Robin stands at the sink, suds billowing out onto the counter, washing up the mugs while Bara walks to Fresh Start to get my things. He rattles on about Wednesday’s meeting at the North Branch until she comes back, my small cardboard suitcase in one hand, tightly rolled sleeping bag in the other. When they’ve left, I turn on CBC radio, but it brings a wave of sadness. When I switch it off again, silence comes to fill every corner of the house. It’s going to be a few weeks before Judith comes home, at least. I head upstairs.

  It’s a shame to bring the Lucy disorder into such a pristine space, but I open my suitcase on the bare mattress in the only room that has one and pull everything out. Frantz Fanon, This Place, a pile of clothes. Most are clean. Bara has kept on top of that. I notice she has also washed the sleeping bag. It smells good.

  I consider the clawfoot bathtub for a moment, but I’m too tired. I drop the clothes I’m wearing into a pile on the floor, find my nightgown and pull it over my head. I find my way along the narrow path between the books and papers and crawl into Judith’s bed. It does smell of her. Just faintly. I can feel the books and papers all around me, waiting for Judith. She’s coming back, I tell them. Soon.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  They have moved the breathing tube to a heavily bandaged patch on Judith’s throat. Talking to her feels more normal without that thing going into her mouth. However, today the fluid in the tube draining her head has tiny flakes in it. “Is that supposed to be like that?” I ask the nurse, pointing.

  “Hmmm,” she gives it a quick glance. “That’s normal.”

  “When she comes out of this …” I stop, thinking, if she comes out of this.

  The nurse is a small woman with large brown eyes, familiar looking, but I haven’t had the energy to learn any of their names. She’s waiting patiently for my question.

  “Will she be all right? I mean, can a brain heal from a … whatever it’s called?”

  “Subarachnoid hemorrhage. It’s really hard to know.” She’s giving me a sympathetic look, which scares me. “There will be damage. Brain cells don’t heal like other cells do, but how much damage there’ll be, what will be affected, there’s no way to know in advance.”

  When she’s gone, I can’t stop staring at that horrible tube, the little dust mote things moving slowly along in the yellowish fluid. That’s all draining out of Judith’s brain. She can wrap her head around massively complicated ideas and then — how often have I seen her do this — she can boil them down to something crystal clear, so that someone with a Grade 3 education gets excited about them. I feel as if it’s all draining out of her, her ideas, her thoughts, her mind.

  My eyes prickle and I tear them from that hateful tube, reach out and stroke Judith’s pale hand. No response. Speak to her. Among the eavesdropping machines, it’s hard to start.

  “Bob’s taking care of everything, Judith, for when you’re well again. It feels a little odd, him being your next of kin. I mean, not odd in itself, he’s a great person to take care of things, but … your family. Aren’t there relatives, somewhere? All these years we’ve worked together, been friends, and I don’t know.”

  I’ve stopped anyway, but now the nurse slips in. She checks things, gives me that sympathetic look again. I stretch out my pause until she walks away.

  “But then, if it were me lying there, you wouldn’t know anything about my family either, would you?”

  I’m searching for more words when Judith’s eyelids flutter. I suck in my breath, hold it, watch. Did I imagine that? No, it happens again. “Nurse!” I’m on my feet. “She’s coming to.”

  The little nurse with the brown eyes comes in. “Judy?” She shakes Judith’s arm.

  “She’s called Judith.”

  “Judith?” The nurse pats her cheek, firmly.