It was still dark when the footsteps outside woke her; there was no glimmer of dawn in the late winter sky, which meant that Caroline could try to go back to sleep, spend another hour or two in blissful oblivion. She had not had an unbroken night’s sleep in–how long? Worries about her mother kept her awake long into each night, tossing and turning, and when sleep did finally arrive it was tumbled and broken, filled with phantoms and worries. She had a confused memory, too, of dogs barking well into the night; coyotes, possibly, were prowling about in the scrub which surrounded the houses above town, disturbing the dogs. Now her mind seized on the sound of the footsteps, coming in through the bedroom window which was open an inch or so, despite the cold. Neighbourhood boys, she thought, and wondered if they would bang on the front door or ring the doorbell and run away, as they occasionally did. Surely it was too late for that sort of nonsense; yes, the bedside clock showed that it was just before 5:00 a.m. Besides, the footsteps sounded as if they were made by one person only, not a group, and there was an odd quality to them. They were shuffling footsteps, which stopped and then started up again repeatedly, as if someone were carrying a heavy load, or looking for a particular address. ‘New paper boy,’ she thought finally; and, having decided that, turned over and went back to a restless sleep, while the footsteps moved away down the street and eventually faded from earshot. Somewhere a single dog began barking; the noise cut off abruptly and was not heard again.

She was surprised to find that it was past 10:00 when she finally woke, unrefreshed. Such a thing would have been unthinkable only a few weeks earlier; the alarm would have woken her, or her mother would have called, thinly but insistently, summoning Caroline to help her to the bathroom, help her to get dressed, help her to her chair in the living-room, where she would remain for most of the day while Caroline was at work. This had been their routine for so long that Caroline still found it difficult to realize that her mother was no longer there; she would wake and listen for the familiar sound of her mother moving in her room, wait for her to call out and summon her, and, the sounds and call not forthcoming, would remember with a dull ache that her mother was in the hospital, in the extended care facility, unable to move or communicate following the stroke which had, in an instant, changed everything.

Caroline’s days now were bounded by the alarm clock at one end, and daily visits to the hospital after work at the other. She would sit with her mother, holding one frail hand in hers, talking inconsequentially about anything that came into her mind, hoping that her mother would give some sign that she could hear and understand what her only child was saying to her. At first there had been times when her mother had seemed conscious of her presence, when the hand Caroline held had tried to close round her own; but now for the most part she simply lay there, eyes closed, the shallow movement of her chest the only outward sign that she still possessed some vital spark. Occasionally she would wake, and her eyes would gaze vaguely about the room; once she murmured something and Caroline, leaning over, heard the words ‘Maggie’ and ‘doll’. Maggie was her mother’s sister, dead for more than ten years now, and Caroline wondered how long it would be before her mother let go of eight decades of life and followed her sister elsewhere.

She showered, dressed, had a cup of coffee, gazed out the front window at the grey skies, the snow on the tops of the mountains, and shivered. Spring seemed impossibly distant, whatever the calendar said. She almost wished that she had not taken the week off; but she had booked the time some months earlier, and there had seemed little reason to change her plans. Next week she would go back, and perhaps life would resume something like a normal pattern. She thought to call the office and see if Norma wanted to go for a bite of lunch; but when she called the internal phone number and dialed Norma’s extension she got only her friend’s voice-mail box, informing her that Norma was away from her desk and unable to take her call. Caroline did not leave a message.

Something white caught her eye out the front window as she passed through the living-room, and she paused to see what it was. A piece of newspaper was fluttering listlessly in the slight breeze, pinned against the bare branches of a potentilla bush beside the driveway. When she looked more closely she saw that a trail of white led away down the street: sheets of newspaper were blowing down the road, caught against the hedge across the way, strewn about the empty lots that dotted the street.

Caroline recalled the footsteps she had heard earlier. A new delivery person, she thought once more, who had made it as far as her street and then abandoned the rest of his newspapers to the elements rather than be bothered delivering them. She was glad that she had not renewed her subscription; it had really only been her mother who had had the time or inclination to read the paper, and since she was no longer at home there seemed little point continuing to get it. From what little she saw on TV or heard on the radio there was nothing but depressing news about war, disaster, and illness, and she had more than enough to depress her in her own life without looking for more about which to worry. She had heard a few minutes of discussion on an open-line show about the latest flu virus; the expert stopped short of calling it an epidemic, but before she had turned the radio off she had heard references to a ‘particularly virulent strain’, ‘worst flu season in years’, ‘lack of preparedness’ on the part of the government and the health ministry, and the increasing inability of health care practitioners and facilities to cope with the illness. Thank goodness it seemed to be confined, for the time being, to the Lower Mainland; although Caroline recalled that the nurses at the hospital had been looking increasingly worried and weary over the last few days. She hoped that her mother managed to avoid the virus; in her weakened state there was no telling what a case of flu might do to her.

She finished her coffee–which was now lukewarm–and contemplated going outside to pick up the newspapers; it appeared unlikely that anyone else would do it. There were few houses on her street, and no one seemed to be about; certainly she had heard no cars, and there was no sign of movement anywhere. Everyone else must be at work, she thought. She went so far as to open the front door, but a blast of cold wind, carrying the promise of rain, drove her back inside. The papers could wait.

Caroline washed up the few dishes in the sink, made the bed, put a load of laundry in to wash, and then went into her mother’s room, which was scrupulously neat; she had taken advantage of the opportunity to give it a good clean, hoping against hope that her mother would one day be able to return to the place that had been her home for the last several years. She picked up one of the photographs on the dresser, showing her mother and father on their wedding day. Both of them were almost impossibly young, wearing utilitarian-looking World War II-era clothing, her mother with a shy smile, her father looking as if he could not quite believe what he found himself doing. Caroline put the picture back down, looked round for a moment more at the accumulated memories of someone else’s lifetime, and left the room.

She tried to phone Norma again, and got her voice-mail once more. She returned to the main menu and tried Doreen’s extension, but there wasn’t even a voice-mail option there: The phone merely rang and rang, until Caroline hung up. She had a bit of lunch, even though she was not really hungry, then folded the laundry and put it away. She found the silence in the house oppressive, turned on the radio, then turned it off again as the words ‘protect ourselves against this outbreak’ came to her ears.

It had turned distinctly colder, and she wondered if there would be snow. She went into her bedroom to close the window, and as she did so heard a car coming up the street; the first one she had heard all day. She looked out the window and saw that it was Mr. Doherty–what was his first name, Robert, Richard, something starting with an ‘R’, anyway–from two doors down. The car was traveling quickly; more quickly, certainly, than it should be on a quiet residential street. She watched as it pulled into the Doherty’s driveway and stopped at a crazy angle, and saw Mr. Doherty scramble out of the driver’s side and rush to the front door of the house, which he left flung wide open. Caroline watched, puzzled, as Mr. Doherty came out a few moments later, looking left and right before motioning with his arm to someone behind him. Mrs. Doherty followed him to the car; both were carrying suitcases, which they threw into the back seat before climbing in. No sooner had the doors shut than the car was backed quickly out of the driveway, running over a corner of the garden bordering the drive. Seconds later it was driving back down the road as quickly as it had come up, not even slowing down before turning the corner and disappearing from sight.

Caroline shook her head. She did not know the Dohertys particularly well, but such haste struck her as uncharacteristic. Their actions spoke of people terribly late for something; the suitcases made it look as if they were going on a trip, and were running late. That was almost certainly it. She shook her head again. If people would leave things until the last minute, then they had only themselves to blame. She hoped that they didn’t have an accident on the way to the airport, or wherever it was they were heading; a thought that recurred to her a few minutes later, when she heard the sound of a siren cutting through the silence of the afternoon, although whether it was a police car, an ambulance, or a fire engine she could not tell. It appeared to be heading out of town along the highway.

She kept busy with chores, little tasks which she had been putting off and which did not really need to be done now; but they saved her having to think and also (although she didn’t want to admit this) delayed the time when she would have to go to the hospital. She told herself that she was only waiting until evening because that was when she usually went, and when her mother would be expecting her, inasmuch as she could expect anything these days. Yet Caroline was almost dreading the moment when she would have to leave the house, go and make small talk to a woman who was, as far as outward appearance went, her mother, but who was really little more now than a silent stranger who bore a resemblance to her mother, nothing more. Everything that had made her who she was seemed to have vanished, and Caroline wondered if any of it would ever come back.

She settled down in her chair to read for a few minutes, but soon found herself dozing. It was not a refreshing sleep; pieces of newspaper were blowing about, and she was trying to catch them, but just when she seemed able to grasp a piece it would slip from her hand and dance away. Eventually the pieces of paper coalesced, formed themselves into something like a figure, and she ran after it, calling; but before she could catch it the apparition began to turn towards her, and she realized that she did not want to see its face, or the place where a face should be, and tried to turn away, but could not, because her feet were frozen to the ground, only when she looked down she realized that hands were protruding from the earth beneath her feet, clinging to her ankles and calves, climbing higher up her legs as whatever was below clawed its way out of the earth.

She woke with a start as the book fell from her hands and thudded to the floor, and for a moment sat in the quiet grey of the late afternoon, trying to convince herself that it had only been a bad dream. When her breath had slowed and her heart had ceased to pound she pulled herself from her chair and went slowly in to the kitchen, where she set a kettle of water to boil for a cup of tea, then went slowly down to the bathroom and washed her face, trying not to look at the old woman who gazed back at her from the mirror.

She made tea straight in the cup–no point making a full pot–and then took it to the back door and stood looking up at the hillside behind the house, grey and drawn in the encroaching darkness. A movement caught her eye, and she shivered as she recalled her dream; but this was not a piece of paper. Rather it was a figure; of a man, she thought, as she watched his progress along the trail which she knew wound along the base of the hills behind the house. It was not uncommon to see people walking there, but not this time of year, not when it was growing dark. His movements, too, seemed odd; erratic, stumbling, as if he were chasing something. She opened the sliding glass door to get a better look, and something clattered to the deck: the broom which had been leaning against the wall, and which must have shifted in the wind. In the still of the late afternoon the sound must have carried, and the man heard it, for she saw his figure straighten and turn in her direction. He was too far away for Caroline to recognize, and part of her dream came back to her, and she realized that she did not want the man to call out to her or, even worse, start moving towards her. She closed the glass door a little more firmly than she meant to, locked it, then pulled the blinds across.

The clock above the stove read 5:30. She debated whether or not to have something to eat before she left, but she was not hungry. She finished her cup of tea, rinsed it out, and then went to close the rest of the blinds before she left. She glanced out her mother’s bedroom window, to see if the man was still on the hillside, but there was no sign of him. She refused to consider the possibility that he had moved closer to the house and was even now in the back yard, despite the suggestion of movement behind the cedar hedge that enclosed the yard.

She pulled on jacket and gloves and went out to the car. The street was still silent, and Caroline could see no signs of life. Usually there would be cars making their way home, a few hardy souls out walking, children on bikes or foot, garage doors opening or closing, lights flicking on; but tonight there was only silence and stillness, as if the world were mirroring her mood. She turned the key in the ignition and was startled by the sudden sound. If there was anyone out in the darkness, they could not fail to hear her; and for some reason the thought frightened her. She shook her head and pulled out into the road.

#

It was a five minute drive to the hospital, taking Caroline around the edge of town, so she did not see how busy or otherwise it was. There was some movement in the bushes by the covered bench beside the convenience store, but she did not look closely. Local teens were inclined to hang out there, and she suspected they were smoking dope or whatever it was they did. The store itself was dark, which surprised her. Winter hours, she supposed, although she had thought the store was open until at least 8:00.

The parking lot at the hospital was almost empty. An ambulance was pulled up at the emergency bay, one of its back doors open, but there was no sign of anyone attending to it. She knew that the main doors would be closed now, so went to the night door, prepared to buzz for admittance; but to her surprise the door opened as she approached it, and she entered the hospital and turned right, towards the nurses’ desk and the extended care wing. No one was at the desk, but she could hear movement down the hall towards the emergency ward, and assumed that the staff were there, attending to who ever had come in by ambulance. She turned down the hallway to her mother’s room, passing several doors that were firmly closed. She could hear someone moaning behind one of them.

She pushed open the door of her mother’s room, and was surprised to find that it was in darkness; usually someone would have been in by now to close the curtains and turn on the lights. She did this herself, then turned to the bed where her mother lay, still and silent. The chair was where she had left it the day before, pulled up beside the head of the bed, and she moved it slightly to one side so she could fluff the pillows beneath the grey head and smooth the hair back from her mother’s brow. Her mother’s forehead felt hot and dry, like parchment stretched thin over a flame, and she stroked it for a moment, then sat down and took one of her mother’s hands in her own.

Caroline sat for a time, trying to think of what to say. She and her mother had always had so much to talk about; but now Caroline’s well of words seemed to have run dry, and she realized with a dull pang that she had nothing to talk about. Was it even worth it? she wondered. Could her mother hear her? If she could, did the words mean anything, or were they merely sounds, like the noises an animal would make? She found herself wishing that her mother would acknowledge her presence in some way, even if it was only to call her Maggie, or talk about some long forgotten incident in her childhood. But the woman in the bed gave her no help, no sign that she knew her daughter was there, and Caroline wondered how much longer this could go on for.

A noise in the hallway made her swivel her head towards the door. It was an odd sound, as of someone moving along in great pain; Caroline could hear a muffled grunting noise, and then a sound like…She tried to place it, but it was a moment before it came to her. Like a giant cat, she thought, lapping at a bowl of milk. For some reason the sound made her shudder, and she was glad that the door to her mother’s room was closed, and even more glad when the sound moved off down the hallway. One of the patients, Caroline thought, who had wandered into the hall. A nurse would be along soon to attend to the person. She had no desire, herself, to go to the door, open it, and see who was there.

Caroline turned her attention back to her mother. She did not recall her mother having been this flushed, this hot, before, and she wondered if she should call one of the nurses, ask if this change was normal, what it might indicate. She recalled the discussion she had heard on the radio, and wondered if her mother had come down with the virus that the experts had been talking about. She shook her head and sighed. As if her mother had not already suffered enough. And yet…perhaps it would be for the best if her mother succumbed to something that would take her quickly, painlessly, spare her the indignity of living out the rest of her life in a hospital bed, attended by strangers, unable to recall anyone or anything that had been of any significance to her. Caroline thought of an endless parade of days and nights spent sitting in this exact spot, trying to converse with a woman who looked like her mother but retained nothing of what had made her the woman she was, and wanted to cry. She could not do it. She could not.

More noises from the hallway; this time there was the sound of something breaking, followed by a cry that was cut short. Caroline got up and tiptoed towards the door; she wanted to make sure that it was securely closed. She stood inside the door for a moment, listening. There was the sound of someone crying, and for a moment she thought to open the door and call out, ask if everything was all right; but a movement from within the room caught her attention, and she turned towards the bed.

‘Mother? Mother? Are you all right? Mother, it’s me, Caroline.’ She slipped into the chair by the bed and caught her mother’s hand, which was scrabbling above the bedclothes like a spider, between her own. ‘Mother, do you want me to call someone? Is there anything I can do?’

The hand between hers was still, of a sudden, and Caroline caught her breath. Her mother’s eyes opened, for the first time in what seemed like days, and looked fully at her; then the hand trembled and was still once more, and the eyes closed, and Caroline did not realize that she had been holding her breath until it escaped her in a ragged sob, and she clutched the hand more tightly between her own.

‘Mother,’ she whispered, ‘oh, mother,’ and bent her head low over the frail body on the bed; and so did not notice when the eyes and mouth opened, full of hunger.