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“Well, I guess it was partly the Parkinson’s…”
“Tracy!”
“She fell down the stairs.”
“What?”
“She fell down the fucking stairs.”
“I don’t understand,” I sputtered, trying to make sense of what Tracy was saying. Surely I’d heard her incorrectly. “How could she fall down the stairs? How is that even possible?”
Tracy perched on the edge of the sofa, took my hands in hers. “All is know is what Dad told me, and he was pretty upset, to say the least. Apparently, he and Elyse were in the kitchen having breakfast when they heard this loud crash. They ran into the hall and found Mom at the bottom of the stairs. Dad thinks she must have gotten out of bed and somehow made it to the landing, and then tripped or something. Anyway, she fell down the stairs and broke her neck.”
“Holy shit,” Harrison exclaimed.
“They called an ambulance. Dad said that it got there within minutes, but the paramedics told him she was dead, that she’d died instantly.”
“Where is she now?”
“They took her body to the morgue.”
My thoughts returned to the last time I’d seen my mother,lying in a crumpled heap in the upstairs hallway. Had she gotten tired of crying out for attention and tried to make it to the elevator on her own, then tripped over her own useless feet? I shook my head, trying to rid my mind of the image of my mother somersaulting down a flight of stairs.
“Dad’s a mess,” Tracy said.
“We should go over there.”
“No,” she said. “He doesn’t want that. He said he has too much to do, that he has to phone the cemetery, make the funeral arrangements, put the notice of her death in the papers, all that shit.”
“We can help.”
“He doesn’t want our help.”
“You mean, he doesn’t wantmyhelp.”
Tracy shrugged. “He’s in shock, Jodi. He’ll come around.”
“Can we go to the morgue? Can we see her?”
“Are you kidding? You want to see her?” Tracy looked as if she was about to be sick.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Harrison said.
Tracy breathed an audible sigh of relief.
“So, what do we do?” I asked, feeling as helpless as I could ever remember. My mother was dead. My father wanted nothing to do with me. I was essentially an orphan.
“I don’t think there’s anything wecando,” Tracy said. “We just have to wait, see what Dad wants. At least Elyse is there to look after him.”
“I’ll bet she is.”
“Wouldyourather do it?” Tracy asked.
I had to admit she had a point.
“Did he give you any indication when the funeral might be?” Harrison asked.
Poor Harrison, I thought, knowing what he was thinking. This couldn’t have happened at a more inconvenient time for him. He’d been so excited to receive the invitation to the writers’ festival in Whistler, and was scheduled to fly to Vancouver onWednesday, returning to Toronto on Sunday. In addition to his own presentation, he’d been asked to interview one of his favorite authors, and he’d been busy rereading the man’s books for weeks, making copious notes. Unless the funeral were to take place next week—and there was no reason why it should—he’d have to notify the festival, cancel his appearances, disappoint the organizers and his publishers, not to mention his fans…
Tracy shook her head. “No idea. Sooner than later, I would think.”
“What a mess,” I said.
“That it is,” Harrison agreed.
Tracy scooted closer beside me, surrounding me with her arms and hugging me close. I laid my head against her shoulder, felt the bones of her clavicle against my cheek. And then, each of us lost in thoughts of our own, nobody said anything.
