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

surgery for my cervical cancer, Nurse Calvin is put out that we ruined the barbeque, her swan song, her grand farewell. And so she has come here to the Valley Regional Hospital to let me know that when all is said and done, she forgives me, in her own fashion.

Everybody was shocked. No one ever thought we would make it so far away. Nurse Calvin says Dianne’s funeral was terribly sad but her time had come. And of course it saved them from having to tell her that her cousin, Sorcha, had passed too, some time ago. I was still unconscious so they had to proceed without me.

Nurse Calvin says she just knew that manic, Seraphina Sullivan, had to be behind most of our shenanigans, that she was off her medication and if she would only take her medication, but it was the bane of Nurse Calvin’s existence that patients would just not be compliant.

“They took her daughter away, probably permanently. She has no one to blame but herself. Going on and on about the evil group of men coming to get her and to get you, and that no one is safe, that there are people in high places, people in power, all out to get her, to silence her, that only Stella Maris Sprague knows the salt water cure. Gone off her rocker right into the deep end, Seraphina has. What a pity, and a good thing her parents are dead and gone so they don’t have to witness it.”

I don’t point out that maybe someone is after us, that something bad happened many years before. Maybe we do have evidence, and these middle-aged mental patients might know something — maybe we aren’t just drunk mermaids ranting and raving.

The shock of hearing my voice has her somewhat subdued, although I can tell from the gleam in her narrowed eye how she is sure that I probably talked all along, and even now I’m just stubborn. For I remember so much now, but there are still holes. And I know that memory is more alchemy than science — that what comes back and what recedes, what is permanently lost and what finds its way back is a great mystery. It is not one that brings me any comfort.

And then Nurse Calvin surprises me. She comes to my bedside and leans down. “There was a man at the Jericho Centre looking for you. I sent him away and said I’d call the police if he came back again. I didn’t like the looks of his eyes, all watery blue and round, like some sort of rodent. I told Grace and she seemed to know something about it. Lord, I’m too old for this. Anyway, you stay put. You’ll be safe here.” She pats me on the cheek and then turns, but as she does I can see a tear trickling down her cheek.

Nurse Calvin has left me a vase of deep magenta asters she must have picked from the path out back to the graveyard. Now I can’t stop myself from blubbering. Dianne is dead, and because of me. What a burden I must have been to her at the end, although she never complained. I wish she was here. She’s been protecting me for years — I can’t manage without her.

They say they got the cancer before it spread. It was a vaginal surgery, which is why I don’t have an incision on my abdomen. The surgeon is a nice young man. The other surgeon with the turban has retired, was retired, had just been filling in. Silence, my old friend — she swirls around me.

The doctor says he understands. Silence speaks well for me but she can’t take over now.

“I know you’ve had some mental health issues and traumatic brain injury, Stella. Call me any time, if you have any questions. No lifting or exercise for at least two weeks. But I think you’ll heal quickly. All your walking has you in good shape.”

“Thank you.”

He smiles. He says he’ll see me any time, not just for my follow-up but if I want to discuss my health, menopause, all these things that seem to have avalanched down on me. How can it be I was twelve and now that time feels oceans away, and I’m fifty-four, in a hospital bed, with my uterus gone, my cervix gone, my shrivelled oyster ovaries left alone inside?

The next morning I wake up and feel a bit sore but more alert. I remember the doctor’s visit. And with my clearer thinking, I remember that someone was out to get us. Was it real?

They bring me lunch and I eat it sitting in a chair, a bowl of soup and some applesauce is all I can manage. I’ve lost so much weight my skin hangs on me, my flesh an old dress that no longer fits. After I eat, a terrible exhaustion comes on and I fall asleep looking out the window of the hospital at the brick wall of another wing. I think of my father and his misplaced and idealistic desire for moral treatment, for beauty and healing, and I think of him at the centre that day, with Cynthia and me, when we were young and full of life, with Cynthia already captive to Tommy Jessome but hiding it, of Cynthia who must have known I was in the window that day. My tears leak from the corners of my eyes into the hospital pillow, which smells of bleach. This is all my fault. For not doing anything when I should have, for not speaking up, for being a coward, for being so weak and spineless when I should have helped. And no matter how I try, I can’t remember what Cynthia told me to keep safe, what Dianne told me to do. Dianne’s banjo lies on the window ledge. I feel gutted. They’re all dead now, and it’s just pathetic Stella left behind. I close my eyes and wish I was