"I've been there." I a.s.sured her, "I sprained both my hands, once. Let me tell you, the surprising things you cannot do when you have no hands. Someone else has to pull your underpants up over your b.u.m."

"Stan married me for my b.u.m," she pointed out, as she rearranged her scant hospital gown. Then she waved her hand at me, as if I were a skeptic. "Oh, yes he did, I had quite the b.u.m."

We shuffled back to the bed, arm in arm. "Stan may have admired your b.u.m, but he loved you for your love, you know, for the spark of you."

"Oh, go on," she said, and I had heard her say it just that way to Stan himself, pleased as punch, trying to conceal her smile, "Oh, go on, Stan, you're full of old rope."

"No, he did," I insisted, acting on intuition. "I can tell, the way he loved to tease you, the way he loved your hams, like you were nourishing his soul."

"Oh, he's an old goat, is what he is. A rascal." Present tense.

She settled back into bed and explained how Stan's mother-who had been widowed young by the coal mine and grew deranged in her bitter poverty-had regularly fed her three sons offal thrown out by the New Waterford butcher, picking up discarded "roasts" that she simmered first with vinegar to tease out the maggots.

"Can you just imagine," Bernice concluded.

I shivered. Decent food wasn't just an offering of love, for Stan; it was a loving spoonful of civilization.

"You know, Bernice," I ventured, scrambling around in my purse for a pen and a pa.s.sable bit of blank paper, which ultimately took the form of an inverted bookstore receipt, "if you're not too tired, I would love it if you could give me the recipe for your Cape Breton meat pie. I've tried to make it at home, but I can't get it right, it never tastes as wonderful as what you make." This was no lie. Bernice and Shirley somehow produced this meat pie-I'd had it every time I was in New Waterford-that I understood to involve shredded beef and pork, but I couldn't replicate its succulent, simple flavor.

She took me through its preparation, step by step, advising me on what cut of meat to buy and what pot worked best for a slow simmer, as confident and content as I had ever seen her.

"Stan married me for my pie," she confided, when I'd finally written everything down, having started on a bookstore receipt, progressed to the inside envelope of my plane ticket and ended on a doily.

"And your b.u.m," I reminded her.

"Oh, go on." She waved her hand in that signature gesture of hers, as if swatting me away.

"You'll see him soon," I said, studying her face. "You know that."

She nodded. For once, she wasn't afraid. "In Heaven," she murmured, shifting over to her side and surrendering to sleep.

"Yes," I said, pulling the thin blanket up over her shoulder. "In Heaven."

40.

Early morning. Orderlies preparing to wheel around their trolleys full of toast. I woke up with such a crick in my neck that I felt like I'd swallowed a hanger. No sign yet of Calvin, who was doubtless waiting for Lester to wake up and have his breakfast. I stretched, lolled my head, and had just began wondering if it would be fair of me to split when Shirley rounded the corner. She caught sight of me and jumped like a spooked cat.

"Oh my Lord," she stammered, "you gave me such a fright. I wasn't expecting anyone to be here."

"I'm sorry," I said, stifling a huge yawn, "I was actually just going to leave."

Shirley's corkscrew perm was bedraggled by rain, her pink-tinted spectacles misted over. She tugged at the b.u.t.tons of her silvery-gray polar parka, which looked just exactly like a sleeping bag. "Well, I hope Bernice didn't give you too much trouble," she ventured, eyeing me dubiously. The last time Shirley had seen me, I was having a panic attack in a bingo hall. She probably didn't think I was up to much. "Bernice can be a handful."

"She was fine," I answered, rubbing my eyes.

"Well, she will be," said Shirley, putting down a tray of Tim Hortons coffees. "Just get this cancer under control with that new drug the doctor's saying about, and I've found her a beautiful apartment over near Sobey's. It's a.s.sisted living, you know, so she'll have her own s.p.a.ce, own kitchen and all that, but there's nurses in the building."

"Okay," I said, polite.

It reminded me of Kate, what Shirley was doing. Trying to impose her own version of the truth. I couldn't argue her out of it. I left Bernice with her sister and walked out of the hospital. Began shuffling, exhausted, down King Street, splashing in puddles and sniffing the salt air carried inland from the Atlantic.

"Well, h.e.l.lo," said a voice behind me on the sidewalk. "Our young stranger is back in town." It was Father McPhee in a navy-blue pea coat, his hands thrust into his pockets as he strode to catch up with me.

"Oh, hi," I said, unduly pleased to see him. "How are you?"

"Very well, thank you," he replied. We stood smiling at one another on the sidewalk, beside a fire hydrant painted as Papa Smurf. "And you, Frannie? I'm guessing you spent the night at the hospital. Can't get much sleep there."

"No," I agreed. "But it was good. Bernice told me how to make her meat pie. She gave me the recipe."

He grinned. "Now, isn't that something to be treasured." He gazed at me for a moment. "I knew you'd find a way, Frannie. Have you prayed for her, as well?"

I nodded as I ducked my head. I had. I did pray. But there wasn't a simple answer to the a.s.sumption behind his question, that I knew there was a G.o.d who was listening.

"Why are you out this early?" I asked him, evading the subject.

"Oh, I tend to be on call." He shrugged as he glanced toward the ocean. "I wander out as the occasion requires." He looked back at me and broke out once more into his characteristic grin. "It's good to have Calvin out here, you know. Nice to learn more about Bernice's family. I've actually had a chance to talk to him once or twice." He winked at me. "Says you've been on a bit of a quest this winter. He says listening to you has helped him to think about his dad."

"He said that?" I asked, amazed.

"Sure. Oh, he loves you a lot, Frannie. You remember that in the coming days, when he needs you to be there. He won't know how to ask."

"Okay, I will," I answered, and waved warmly as the priest walked away.

I covered the final block to the house as the sun rose, reflecting on why I'd shied away when he'd asked me about prayer. I still had a journey ahead of me, if I was going to find my way to G.o.d.

But it was fair to say this much: I had come a long distance since Jesus was born in December. Ahead of me on King Street, I saw Lester and Calvin coming out of the house and heading in my direction. I waited for Lester to notice me, for him to light up with that wondrous excitement that your small children feel when they see you. Then my anxiety about the days ahead rushed in again, as chilling as the North Atlantic tide.

"Oh, Les," I wanted to say as he ran toward me, clumsy and heedless in his puffy snowsuit, "please forgive me for the days you're about to go through." But I do have a gift, I thought. A direction my son, himself, led me to. A way of talking about faith, a way of caring for the dying. A way of holding steadfast in the world.

PATRICIA PEARSON is a wife, a mother and an award-winning writer. She has won two National Magazine Awards, a National Author's Award and the Arthur Ellis Award for best true crime book for When She Was Bad. Her first novel about the life of Frannie Mackenzie, Playing House, was nominated for the Stephen Leac.o.c.k Memorial Medal for Humour. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two children.

VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2006.

Copyright 2005 Patricia Pearson All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief pa.s.sages in a review.

Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2006. Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Random House Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2005. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

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eISBN: 978-0-307-37091-4