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

back. Fred was Charlotte’s only remaining family. She wanted to move him to the West Coast but didn’t want to disturb his routine.

Bob came into the Lifestyle Room. Bob looked entirely normal. He was from Cape Breton. Or maybe Cape Sable Island. One of them. Or Ecum Secum. Stella couldn’t remember exactly. He was new. The same age, give or take, as Fred. He also had been hit on his head. Or hit in his head. He was beaten up. With a baseball bat. Yes, that was it, Stella remembered . . . beaten on his head. He repeated words. Once he started speaking he got stuck, the way old records used to skip. His memory still worked well but he could not pay attention unless it was an action movie.

“Stella, we went to the drive drive-drive-drive drive-in last night. Why didn’t you come, Stella? It was John Wick. John Wick. John Wick. Chapter Three Three Three. Parabellum. Bang Bang Bang. Fred, why didn’t you come to the drive-in?”

“Too much killing. You never know when you’ll get killed, Bob.”

“But John Wick’s a good guy.”

“Bang bang. On your way out. Lights out. Lights down. House is dark.”

“But he’s an actor. Keanu Reeves.”

“No drive-in for me.”

“Bye, Stella,” Fred yelled. Stella waved as he spread his mat out at the front of the room.

There were new floor fans in the four corners of the room. The Jericho Centre was built in the 1960s to replace a previously existing cottage hospital, the lunatic asylum, built in the 1920s. It was a modern hospital and then converted to a long-term-care facility. It was state of the art in the 1960s, but now old and worn. Stella enjoyed this about the centre, how the past and present wove together with no fixed time period, a world that existed only in the institution.

Sometimes Stella and Dianne would try to follow Karen’s instructions for the entire class, and sometimes they rested on the mats and forgot Karen was even in the room. Today Stella and Dianne were participating. Stella watched Dianne attempt downward dog. Her silver necklace dangled from her neck, the intricate filigree rectangle hanging from the chain, banging on her chin as she stuck her butt in the air and relaxed her neck.

Karen came over to check their form. “Awesome. Must be all that walking you girls are doing again. When you sit down all day, it signals your brain to shut off the lower part of your body. Dianne, why don’t you leave your jewellery in your room?”

“I can’t do that, Karen. Family heirloom. Won’t take it off ’til the day I die,” Dianne said, still bent over, the delicate silver rectangle resting between her eyes.

Karen laughed. “Dianne, I think you just might live forever.”

Karen put her head to the side as she watched Dianne wiggling her buttocks.

“JohnWick-JohnWick-JohnWick,” Bob yelled from the front, jumping up and down. Stella lifted her head, straightening her neck and glancing through the wobbling downward dog triangles of the class. Fred’s arms stretched up in the air, his fingers fully extended, as he yelled out that Charlotte would soon arrive.

Dianne’s teeth fell out. She reached for them with opened fingers but fell forward a bit and knocked them. The teeth scuttled over the floor. Dianne’s dress fell down over her head, her old lady green cotton panties exposed as she balanced on one hand, the other hand trying to pull her dress down. “Goddamn yoga.”

Stella wobbled after the wayward teeth, still in downward dog. She stopped and took a deep breath, her eyes closed. She inhaled and mooed, as Karen had shown them over and over again, flapping her lips. Stella reached for the false teeth. She handed them to Dianne, who now sat on the mat with her legs out straight. Her knee joints were often stiff and she called herself the Tin Lady. Dianne wiped her dentures with the hem of her dress and popped them back in.

“Thanks, Stella, my girl. Damn things.” Dianne chomped down on her teeth, wiggling her tongue, settling them into place.

They did a few more poses, wobbling mountains, quivering trees, felled trees giving up and collapsing to the mats for savasana, the meditation part of Yoga Monday.

Dianne farted. Stella laughed but laughing made her abdomen hurt. She felt something warm between her legs. Maybe pee. Stella worried there would be a stain on her dress. She wanted to leave before the other residents got jammed in the door. She was comforted knowing she had an exit, free passage. It’s why she was fond of life at the centre. There were walking trails and gardens and it was close to town. It was an institution with many halls. If there was a blizzard they could walk the halls and corridors. The power never went out. The Jericho Centre was on a generator and a back-up generator. It was a spaceship, the Starship Enterprise, Bob called it, never stopping, its passengers lost in time.

Stella shuffled over to the cubby to get her knapsack. She slung it over her shoulder and her sketchbook fell out behind her onto the damp tile floor. There was nothing in the sketchbook except for her few drawings of flowers and woods and leaves with a pencil or ink, but it still felt very intimate, private. But something new was on the floor beside the book — a postcard of two girls in a canoe, muted pastels, a vintage postcard. Stella squatted down and picked up the sketchbook and put it in her bag, all the while looking at the postcard. It was as though a voice was coming from it, a feathery whisper, words she couldn’t make out. A voice from her past.

Stella flipped over the postcard. She recognized the handwriting. Years ago the girl it belonged to had told Stella to hide. And now this girl, this woman, was coming.

Seabury.

Little Bear.

The Nature of Love.

Then

Stella’s father fans his hand out at the view as