The Speed of Mercy by Christy Conlin (good books for high schoolers txt) 📕

Presbyterian hymn lady.” Dianne snickered and then threw her head back. “I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger, travelling through this world below,” she crooned. “There is no sickness, no toil, nor danger , In that bright land to which I go . . .” Dianne stopped singing as abruptly as she had started. “I need a smoke. My cousin, Sorcha, is getting me a new banjo. Stella and I are visiting her this summer. Got any smokes, Betsy?”

Betsy’s cheeks bulged out as she tried to swallow her laughter. “Let’s get back to our lights for Nurse Calvin.”

“Oh, she’s some nice, Nurse Calvin is. Sure, we want to do something sweet for her like this here candle stuff, right, Stella?”

“Now, Dianne, let’s be polite. We want to give Nurse Calvin a good send-off.”

“Even a Gorgon gets a send-off, so it seems,” Dianne muttered to Stella, who let out a whoosh of air. Betsy looked up. Whenever Stella made any sort of vocalization they stared at her, like she might break into a monologue and fill them in on all the missing years. No luck. They drew blueberries with green leaves on the glass jars.

Betsy gave them tea lights to put inside, battery-operated tea lights.

Stella rubbed her jaw. There was an ache deep inside the joints on both sides, the kind you’d get from grinding your teeth all night. On the way upstairs, Stella stopped to use the washroom, with Dianne standing outside the door. Her head was heavy and as she closed her eyes she felt a shell in her mind fall from the shelf and crack open, photos falling out as they might tumble from an old scrapbook: Stella and Dianne on their holiday weekend at Sorcha’s house in Kingsport. When? The year 2005 in faded black ink at the bottom of the photo.

Sorcha at the stove with a copper maslin pan, pointing at Dianne. What had she said? “You come stir the pot.” A low, deep voice that was funny coming from such a tiny old woman. An image of hot jars of blueberry jam cooling on the counter. Berries they picked in Sorcha’s backyard. Stella at the counter lining up the sterilized glass jars in perfect order.

Sorcha in an armchair in her house, in the living room where Sorcha’s father had lain in bed for the last six months of his life. When Sorcha couldn’t cope anymore, and Dianne moved to the centre. A black-and-white photo of Sorcha’s father, Wade, who had been the last lighthouse keeper in Kingsport, when there was a wharf the train tracks went out on, when it was a shipbuilding village — all of this illumi­nated by the old framed pictures covering Sorcha’s walls. There was gold wall-to-wall carpeting Sorcha had put down in the 1980s, a soft golden colour, faded but very clean, a china cabinet with fancy teacups.

Sorcha and Dianne and Stella holding hands, wading out in the Minas Basin as the tide came in, Stella in the middle. The piping plovers gathered in intricate clouds, weaving in and out over the water, buzzing low over their heads. Dianne in the water, her coral flowered bathing cap the only sign of her as she moved out in the water. Sorcha with wet shrivelled flesh beside Stella on the beach.

Dianne in the water, a lone blue heron, observing, feeding on the smells, the memories, pulling the sky into her, letting the sun dazzle on her face and eyes so she could take it back to the centre with her.

Words floating out now. “You’re a good friend to Dianne, Stella. It broke my heart to put her there but I could hardly look after Dad. It fell to me to take care of him, being an only child. Some terrible things happened to Dianne over on the Flying Squirrel Road when her Nana died. Some cousin came to the house. I don’t know exactly what he did. Dianne would never say. He disappeared. They found Dianne on the rocky beach, unconscious, soaking wet, as if she’d fallen into the water and the tide had spit her up on the shore. Dianne said Lucretia appeared with her long white hair as fine as sea mist. Pulled her from the sea. There is always a Lucretia, in every generation, in every time. She helps women. You have but to look for her. I never saw Lucretia myself, but I believe the story. I wasn’t going to turn Dianne away. We all need each other, us old ladies, don’t you think, Stella?”

Stella leans her head on Sorcha’s shoulder. She smells of salt and mint and rosewater.

A bang on the door. Stella jumped. “Stella? You dead in there? You don’t want to miss snack time.” Dianne knocked again.

Stella wiped. There was no blood this time, in the toilet or on the toilet paper.

Upstairs in the lounge there were plates of warm oatmeal raisin cookies and glasses of frosty lemonade on the table at the side. A new young nurse came into the room. Stella couldn’t remember her name.

“Stella, honey, finish up your snack. Your social worker is here.” The nurse’s name tag: Susan, LPN in black letters. No last name.

Stella stood up, still chewing her cookie. She didn’t follow Susan, who pointed down the hall.

“Eugene. That’s her social worker’s name. Stella keeps worrying he’s gone for good,” Dianne said.

Stella adored Eugene. Dianne adored him. Eugene always brought flowers for her birthday. He brought her sketchbooks and pencils to draw with. He arranged for her to go to Kingsport with Dianne, to visit Cousin Sorcha. And Isaiah liked Eugene too. Isaiah always said she could trust him. Dianne said Eugene was kind and that was a rare commodity these days. Eugene was here but where was Isaiah? When would he come to visit?

“Your social worker, Eugene Campbell, is here,” Susan said in a very loud, slow voice. Stella covered her ears with her hands.

Dianne stood beside Stella. “You need to explain to her. Explain over and