Alice Munro - The Love Of A Good Woman

“Well, keep her comfortable if you can,” the doctor said. “You know how as well as I do.”

Enid didn’t phone Mrs. Green. She knew that Rupert would not be back yet from the auction and she didn’t think that Mrs. Quinn, if she ever had another moment of consciousness, would want to see or hear her sister-in-law in the room. Nor did it seem likely that she would want to see her children. And there would be nothing good about seeing her for them to remember.

She didn’t bother trying to take Mrs. Quinn’s blood pressure anymore, or her temperature-just sponged off her face and arms and offered the water, which was no longer noticed. She turned on the fan, whose noise Mrs. Quinn had so often objected to. The smell rising from the body seemed to be changing, losing its ammoniac sharpness. Changing into the common odor of death.

She went out and sat on the steps. She took off her shoes and stockings and stretched out her legs in the sun. The children began cautiously to pester her, asking if she would take them down to the river, if they could sit in the boat, or if they found the oars could she take them rowing. She knew enough not to go that far in the way of desertion, but she asked them, Would they like to have a swimming pool? Two swimming pools? And she brought out the two laundry tubs, set them on the grass, and filled them with water from the cistern pump. They stripped to their underpants and lolled in the water, becoming Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose.

“What do you think,” said Enid, sitting on the grass with her head back and her eyes shut, “what do you think, if a person does something very bad, do they have to be punished?”

“Yes,” said Lois immediately. “They have to get a licking.”

“Who did it?” said Sylvie.

“Just thinking of anybody,” said Enid. “Now, what if it was a very bad thing but nobody knew they did it? Should they tell that they did and be punished? “

Sylvie said, “I would know they did it.”

“You would not,” said Lois. “How would you know?”

“I would’ve seed them.”

“You would not.”

“You know the reason I think they should be punished?” Enid said. “It’s because of how bad they are going to feel, in themselves. Even if nobody did see them and nobody ever knew. If you do something very bad and you are not punished you feel worse, and feel far worse, than if you are.”

“Lois stold a green comb,” Sylvie said.

“I did not,” said Lois.

“I want you to remember that,” Enid said.

Lois said, “It was just laying the side the road.”

Enid went into the sickroom every half hour or so to wipe Mrs. Quinn’s face and hands with a damp cloth. She never spoke to her and never touched her hand, except with the cloth. She had never absented herself like this before with anybody who was dying. When she opened the door at around half past five she knew there was nobody alive in the room. The sheet was pulled out and Mrs. Quinn’s head was hanging over the side of the bed, a fact that Enid did not record or mention to anybody. She had the body straightened out and cleaned and the bed put to rights before the doctor came. The children were still playing in the yard.

“July 5. Rain early a.m. L. and S. playing under porch. Fan off and on, complains noise. Half cup eggnog spoon at a time. B.P. up, pulse rapid, no complaints pain. Rain didn’t cool off much. R.Q. in evening. Hay finished.

“July 6. Hot day, vy. close. Try fan but no. Sponge often. R.Q. in evening. Start to cut wheat tomorrow. Everything 1 or 2 wks ahead due to heat, rain.

“July 7. Cont’d heat. Won’t take eggnog. Ginger ale from spoon. Vy. weak. Heavy rain last night, wind. R.Q. not able to cut, grain lodged some places.

“July 8. No eggnog. Ginger ale. Vomiting a.m. More alert. R.Q. to go to calf auction, gone 2 days. Dr. says go ahead.

“July 9. Vy. agitated. Terrible talk.

“July 10. Patient Mrs. Rupert (Jeanette) Quinn died today approx. 5 p.m. Heart failure due to uremia. (Glomerulonephritis.)”

Enid never made a practice of waiting around for the funerals of people she had nursed. It seemed to her a good idea to get out of the house as soon as she decently could. Her presence could not help being a reminder of the time just before the death, which might have been dreary and full of physical disaster, and was now going to be glossed over with ceremony and hospitality and flowers and cakes.

Also, there was usually some female relative who would be in place to take over the household completely, putting Enid suddenly in the position of unwanted guest.

Mrs. Green, in fact, arrived at the Quinns’ house before the undertaker did. Rupert was not back yet. The doctor was in the kitchen drinking a cup of tea and talking to Enid about another case that she could take up now that this was finished. Enid was hedging, saying that she had thought of taking some time off. The children were upstairs. They had been told that their mother had gone to heaven, which for them had put the cap on this rare and eventful day.

Mrs. Green was shy until the doctor left. She stood at the window to see him turn his car around and drive away. Then she said, “Maybe I shouldn’t say it right now, but I will. I’m glad it happened now and not later when the summer was over and they were started back to school. Now I’ll have time to get them used to living at our place and used to the idea of the new school they’ll be going to. Rupert, he’ll have to get used to it, too.”

This was the first time that Enid had realized that Mrs. Green meant to take the children to live with her, not just to stay for a while. Mrs. Green was eager to manage the move, had been looking forward to it, probably, for some time. Very likely she had the children’s rooms ready and material bought to make them new clothes. She had a large house and no children of her own.

“You must be wanting to get off home yourself,” she said to Enid. As long as there was another woman in the house it might look like a rival home, and it might be harder for her brother to see the necessity of moving the children out for good. “Rupert can run you in when he gets here.”

Enid said that it was all right, her mother was coming out to pick her up.

“Oh, I forgot your mother,” said Mrs. Green. “Her and her snappy little car.”

She brightened up and began to open the cupboard doors, checking on the glasses and the teacups-were they clean for the funeral?

“Somebody’s been busy,” she said, quite relieved about Enid now and ready to be complimentary.

Mr. Green was waiting outside, in the truck, with the Greens’ dog, General. Mrs. Green called upstairs for Lois and Sylvie, and they came running down with some clothes in brown paper bags. They ran through the kitchen and slammed the door, without taking any notice of Enid.

“That’s something that’s going to have to change,” said Mrs. Green, meaning the door slamming. Enid could hear the children shouting their greetings to General and General barking excitedly in return.

Two days later Enid was back, driving her mother’s car herself. She came late in the afternoon, when the funeral would have been well over. There were no extra cars parked outside, which meant that the women who had helped in the kitchen had all gone home, taking with them the extra chairs and teacups and the large coffeepot that belonged to their church. The grass was marked with car tracks and some dropped crushed flowers.

She had to knock on the door now. She had to wait to be asked in.

She heard Rupert’s heavy, steady footsteps. She spoke some greeting to him when he stood in front of her on the other side of the screen door, but she didn’t look into his face. He was in his shirtsleeves, but was wearing his suit trousers. He undid the hook of the door.