Unwed (Dovetail Cove, 1976) (Dovetail Cove Series) Read online

  “Oh dear,” Bexy said. And, as if the idea struck them at the same time, they both leaned in the direction of the toilet bowl. Bexy looked in. And so did Mary.

  There, balanced on what looked like a slop-soaked corner-chunk of Wonderbread that was floating in the mucky debris of Mary’s castoffs lay a tiny, bobbing object. It was a little off-white tooth, jagged on one end, smooth and bulbous on the other.

  Carefully, with a hand that tremored a bit, Bexy reached down and picked up the stray tooth.

  “Ooh, ooh!” Mary said, forgetting the upset tummy from a minute ago. “I need to put it under my pillow so the toofairy will come. Can I, Missa Cloud, can I?”

  Bexy turned it over in her finger tips, studying it. It had no black on it, just that overall shade of grey, and then yellow patches where it likely hugged its neighbouring teeth, like those that are badly cared-for.

  Absently, Bexy said, “Sure we can, hon.” She wheeled over to the sink and strained to reach the taps. “Let me just clean it up here a bit. Grab a Kleenex, sweetie.”

  Mary got up and drew a tissue from the box on the toilet tank. “I flush it now, Missa? It’s sooo yucky.”

  “Sure, hon. Flush away.” She handed the tiny tooth to her charge, who stood before her naked but as oblivious to that as she was to the stomach-emptying heaves of morning sickness she’d had only a half-minute before. “Wrap up your tooth in that and let’s get that drink. Come now. Back to bed we go.”

  8.

  Before getting her pyjamas back on, Mary had a few sips of Canada Dry ginger ale —there was no Seven-Up in the fridge—and then she simply had to show Bexy the two shiny stones she’d received under her pillow from the ‘toofairy’ following the last lost tooth.

  “See, see?” she said, turning them over in her palm. They were nearly identical in shape and size, two perfect saucers, rounded up like discs. Grey but with agate tendrils of colour in them that sparkled. One wore primarily blue striping and the other was mostly pink, though both had some green and a bit of rust. They were smooth and polished as if machined that way.

  “Found these under your pillow, didja?” Bexy asked and then yawned. They’d turned on the outer light and she took a turn at holding them so she could display them for her tired eyes in a shaft of that light streaming from the family room.

  “Uh-huh,” Mary said. “I can’t wait to get more. Oh, I hope there are some orange ones. I hope I hope I hope.”

  “Hop in there,” Bexy said. “Let’s get those covers up.”

  Mary did, but not before placing the tiny wad of Kleenex under her pillow. She patted the top of the pillow as though it protected her most prized possession, then got up into the bed. Both her and Bexy worked to get the covers pulled across her and smoothed tidily.

  “All right, Little One. Off to sleep, now. I’ll put these over here on the nightstand.” Bexy laid the smooth stones down. Mary was unable to stop staring at them. In her eyes, a sense of wonder, like a child discovering reindeer really do fly once a year from the north pole.

  “G’night, Missa Cloud.”

  “G’night, child.”

  9.

  And with that, morning came. But the house was still dark. It might have only been two or, at most, three hours later, but it came. And Bexy knew it because Mary screamed.

  As she blasted awake for a second time, Bexy remembered her last thoughts before going to bed. The first was that if Nurse Annie had left those smooth stones for Mary under her pillow, then the girl would be awfully disappointed in the morning. Bexy neither knew where to get more or how she could possibly slip them under without waking the girl. She also had no intention of even doing it. She was dog tired.

  Her second thought was that the solution to Mary’s problem—and thus, by association, her’s and Doc’s problem—had come to her.

  Now she pulled her covers off and struggled to get into her chair to go check on the girl. The scream of hers put a real shot of terror into Bexy’s chest. She was breathing hard, huffing really. And her heart beat fast and heavy.

  But even before she could get her bum in the seat of her chair, Mary burst through her bedroom door. She was still dressed in her pjs and she looked like Santa had brought her something off her list.

  “He came!” she shouted. “The toofairy came!” Bexy reached for the lamp on the end table and switched it on, bathing the family room in a warm glow. Mary ran around the far side of the pullout bed and showed Bexy. Sure enough, she held two shiny stones in her palm. And, indeed, one of them boasted tendrils of sparkly orange. The other was identical, but it’s primary colour was a stunning purple. Mary moved them around in her palm, showing their dazzling sparkles in the light thrown by the lamp.

  Bexy rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t believe it. They were identical stones. But they were not the same stone. “You found these under your pillow, sweetie?”

  “Uh-huh! And the toofairy, he took my toof. It’s gone!”

  Bexy lay back on the rear of the sofa, consciously trying to slow her heart rate. “That’s just ducky,” she said to the ceiling. She remembered the idea that she’d had in the moments before sleep grabbed hold of her. She closed her eyes, coming to terms with it.

  The toofairy, she thought. And then she had an image of that lone tooth balancing on the puke in the toilet bowl. That bled into a mental picture of the Octoson’s TV screen and what Doc might have seen on it: an unborn child showing its teeth...and its fingernails...and maybe even wide-open eyes as it swam in a tub of placental fluid, looking up and staring right into the camera on that special wand coated in green gel.

  Teeth. A fetus with teeth. And now this tooth fairy bringing stones from god-knew-where.

  It hit Bexy hard. And she knew it completely. This blighted child was killing its mother. And if it didn’t kill her before it came out of her body, it would kill her after. Mary wasn’t equipped to raise a child. She just wasn’t.

  Bexy opened her eyes and watched the girl. She beamed down at the two stones in her hand, mesmerized by the sparks of colour in each.

  For Mary to have any kind of life, she’d need to be rid of that baby. And helping her with that would be Bexy’s last act of Charity for her.

  Part II

  Fair of Face

  O MY GOD,

  I love Thee above all things,

  With my whole heart and soul,

  Because Thou art all-good and worthy of all love.

  I love my neighbour as myself for the love of Thee.

  I forgive all who have injured me,

  And ask pardon of all whom I have injured.

  —Common Act of Charity

  1.

  The doorbell woke Bexy. After making a breakfast of eggs and toast for Mary, she’d gotten the girl settled in front of the TV and had promptly fallen back asleep. She’d write her letter to her daughter later. That was the last thought she’d had before the ding-dong of a rather pricey hallway bell struck her awake.

  She got herself back into her chair and wheeled to the front door. A peek through the drape showed her it was Gladys Troyer on the stoop, clutching her collar to her throat and looking irritated. She held a French White casserole dish covered in reflective aluminum foil. Out on the street, her little Honda was her backdrop, sprouting fumes. She’d left it running, clearly in anticipation of a quick getaway—from whatever purpose had spurred her visit. If it was only to drop off a meal, that would be more than enough for Bexy.

  “Just a minute,” Bexy called. “We’re not decent.” Of course she was. So was Mary. Both women had gotten dressed before eating. Getting up and getting at the day was another tenet that the doc had bestowed upon her in the waning days after her accident. She’d stuck with it. And, luckily, young Mary had learned something similar; she hadn’t balked at the idea and had embraced it. As long as she had her four smooth and colourful stones, Bexy was beginning to realize, the girl would do almost anything her elder suggested.

  Gladys gave an exasperated exhale of cold,
white breath and spun around to look out at the street. She probably had no idea Bexy was the one telling her to cool her heels. Bexy never did care much for the Troyers. In her estimation, they were the kinds of charitable folks who only did charitable things when it suited them. And more importantly, when it benefitted them.

  “Coming!” Bexy called again. She wheeled over to a tall mirror beside the front door and confirmed that she looked okay. Well, she thought, as okay as a beyond-middle age woman growing fat below the waist and wearing a steel chair for a pair of pants could look.

  She reached out and opened the door, popping it into the foyer and backing up from it before it swung out and hit her.

  “Mrs. Troyer,” Bexy said in a curt salutation.

  “Mrs. McLeod,” Gladys said. It was only a modest modulation from her regular voice. Everything came out of a woman like Gladys Troyer in a tone of delight. This statement was similar, but drizzled with mild surprise. “Whatever on God’s green earth has brought you over to the Smithson home?”

  Smithson Home, Bexy thought. Yes, right, definitely. As though anyone on ‘God’s green earth’ would ever begin calling the Banatyne mansion anything but the Banatyne mansion—and only a few months after the death of the Banatyne hag and the disappearance of her boy Friday.

  Gladys trotted through the door and into the house, opening her long coat and closing the door behind her. She set her casserole dish down on the tall credenza beside the door. She untied her scarf but kept her matching mittens on. “Where’s Annie? Is Mary ready?”

  Bexy looked down at Gladys’ wet boots leaving puddles on the mat, then up at Gladys who was fluffing her hair in the mirror. “I’m helping out,” Bexy said. “Nurse Anne had to go to the mainland for a family emergency.”

  “Oh, well then...” Gladys said, trailing off. “I suppose you might as well eat this. You and Mary, I mean.” She handed the casserole dish down to Bexy, who reluctantly took it. “It’s lasagna. Family recipe.”

  Bexy cocked her head. “I’d offer for you to come in but—”

  “Oh, no need. I’m just here to get Mary. It’s almost time for practice.”

  “Practice?”

  “Of course! I manage the Meals on Wheels program at the church. I meet there and coordinate hot lunches on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays each week. On the way, I pick up Mary for her choir practice on Mondays and Fridays. Usually, Annie comes with. She helps pack up lunches.”

  “Hot lunches. I see,” Bexy said, as if it was a brand new idea.

  “Uh-huh,” Gladys said. “That’s right. Lots of people find it really hard to get out. Especially this time of year. Shut-ins. There are more folks in town than you can imagine.”

  “That’s so good of you, Mrs. Troyer,” Bexy said.

  “Oh, you know. Just doing my part.”

  Bexy spun around. “I’ll get Mary,” she said as she drove away towards the broad opening of the family room where Mary was playing with her stones on the rug and watching Farrah Fawcett go head-to-head with Lee Meriwether on Battle of the Network Stars. “Funny, though,” she said back at Gladys.

  “What’s that?” Gladys asked, rubbing her cold nose with her knitted mitten.

  “I’ve been shut in for years, Mrs. Troyer. I never once found a hot meal on my doorstep.”

  In a few minutes, Mary appeared, pulling on her heavy coat and carrying her mittens. Mrs. Troyer looked unperturbed. “Ready, darlin’?” she asked Mary.

  “Uh-huh,” the girl said, pocketing her stones. Apparently, she didn’t feel the need to tell Gladys about her visit from the tooth fairy. Behind Mary, Bexy appeared. She pulled to a stop and then pulled her waistcoat on herself as well, straining against the arms of the chair. She looked in a hurry, as if she didn’t want to be left behind. In her lap, her favourite wool blanket covering her legs, and the set of keys for the Banatyne house that Doc had given her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. McLeod,” Gladys said.

  “Sorry for what?” Bexy asked, fighting a yawn.

  “I just won’t have any room. I’ll be picking up some more choir members on the way.”

  Deadpan, Bexy looked up at her and said, “You said ‘Nurse Anne comes with.’ I’m ‘coming with.’”

  Gladys smiled. But it was a fake one. “Right. Yes. Of course. It’s just that—”

  “Just that what?”

  “Well, I’m not certain I have the strength to—”

  “No need, Mrs. Troyer.”

  “Really?” Gladys said, perking up, certain she had just gotten herself out of this inconvenient pickle of taking a paraplegic with her to the church this morning.

  “Yes. Really,” Bexy said, waving her hand and driving past her and out onto the front stoop. Mary followed her. “Just open your passenger door. I can lift myself in. No trouble at all.”

  “Right,” Gladys said quietly. She rolled her eyes and pulled the front door closed and locked behind her. She followed her and Mary out in the crisp, mid-morning air. “No trouble at all,” she said in an irritated echo.

  2.

  The choir practiced in the activity hall at the back of the church. It was an addition with a generous kitchen and several offices and a meeting room off the main area. Bexy went into the kitchen and tried to visit with the ladies dividing food into containers for the Meals on Wheels program. These were women she used to coffee with and gossip with, so it seemed polite to ask after their kids and their activities. But when it became clear they simply didn’t have anything beyond one- or two-word answers, she wheeled around the pass-through and watched the choir finish up.

  After they’d arrived, she’d noted that Gladys Troyer hadn’t stopped to pick up any other choir members and no other ladies to work on meals. Apparently, she’d either forgotten and some of those ladies would be standing out in the cold and waiting—though the traditional ladies of Dovetail Cove’s upper crust were already here and accounted for—or there were none waiting on a ride from Mrs. Troyer.

  Using the phone in the meeting room, Bexy also called Doc Sawbones at home. She’d asked after Agnes to see what kind of a night Doc’s wife had endured and enquired as to how much trouble it would be for Doc to swing by and pick up Mary and her after the practice. In better weather, Nurse Anne and Mary had often walked home afterwards, since the ladies all had to head out for their meal deliveries. Why a half-dozen or so hot turkey sandwiches was made into such a production—and involved a matching number of six ladies to handle it—Bexy did not know.

  So, while she waited for the novice choirmaster to lead Mary and the rest of them through a badly-executed arrangement of Immaculate Mary, in a less-than-traditional interpretation of the hymn’s lyric, she sat quietly and fiddled with the hem of her wool blanket. She thought of how to broach things with Doc. Worried and fretted, is more like it.

  Doc arrived in a few minutes and gave Bexy a warm smile. “Coffee?” he asked.

  “Why, I’d love to,” Bexy said as he took the handles at the back of her chair and steered her toward the meeting room at the back of the activity hall. He must have known there’d be a coffee perk in there and either wanted to avoid the throng of visiting ladies in the kitchen, or simply wanted them to speak alone.

  “’Sides,” Bexy said as they went. “I’m exhausted. I could use a big cup. That girl, bless her little heart, she was up at least three times in the night.”

  “Oh?” Doc said. He was a man of few words the last couple of days. Bexy would bet that Agnes had been up at least twice that number of times.

  “I feel like I’m a new mother again,” Bexy said. “She’s sure the tooth fairy is visiting her. That’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “What’s that?” Doc said, parking the chair and beginning to pour coffee in two styrofoam cups.

  “Well, the girl’s lost at least two teeth this week.”

  “Two,” Doc said, considering. “I’ll make an appointment with Dr. Berger this week. He owes me at least a thousand favours. He’l
l get her in. Probably a couple of fillings’ll have Mary right as rain. You know how those types forget to brush.”

  “Well,” Bexy said. Beyond the meeting room, the sound of the choir halted. The choirmaster’s voice rose up as though giving voice direction of some kind. Bexy wondered if they’d ever have the choir sounding as nice as it had when she’d sung with them. “I think it might be more than that,” she said, looking up at Doc, who poured sugar into his cup as if it was on loan from the national reserve and there would be none left after sundown. “I’ve been thinking about that...what’s it called? The machine in the clinic?”

  “Oh, Bexy,” he said, a touch of exasperation in his voice. He stirred his coffee and sucked the little plastic stirrer before tossing it back on the table. “Don’t give a second thought. I was just tired is all. I startled m’self more than anything. You know I didn’t see anything on that screen except my own overtired imagination showing me a...well, a funny picture show.”

  “Certainly,” Bexy said. “I didn’t think anything different than that at all. Teeth,” she said and laughed a one-note burst. “But I believe you did see something on that little screen. And, an old coot like you—” she smiled at him playfully, reached out and gave his elbow a gentle nudge with her knuckles. “—you’ve been birthing babies and caring for their mamas for so long, you probably don’t even realize how much you soak in at just a glance. Even with no sleep under your belt, you probably see more out of the corner of your eye than that new town doc does after studying an x-ray for two hours.”

  He winked at her, an acknowledgement of her compliment. He took a small sip. It was hot and strong. He handed hers over and she took it. Black. He didn’t ask if she wanted anything to soften it.