At nine o’clock the following morning, William visited David in room 311 of Truro General Hospital. Visiting hours hadn’t officially begun, but William presented himself as “family” at the information desk. David shared a room with a telephone worker who’d had an emergency appendectomy. There was a curtain drawn between their beds. David sat up straighter against the pillows when William entered. His jaw was wired shut, the left side of his face bruised predictably black-and-blue, plus his chin had summoned up a yellow splotch with a black outline, like a watercolor painting. First thing, William said, “I called Maggie and told her you’re in the hospital. She asked how bad it was, and I told her my opinion. She said she’s not going to visit, but that I should say get well soon. To my mind, that’s somewhere between nothing and something, which you might consider an improvement in your relations, I don’t know.”
David nodded, smiling wanly, but remained silent.
“My daughter doesn’t need me to fight her battles. This was my own battle, between me and you, for the taxi hitting me. Just so we get that straight. Margaret didn’t approve of my actions.”
David touched the bruised side of his face, pressed the buzzer at the end of a white cord, hoping the nurse would release more morphine into the IV. In a moment a nurse poked her head around the curtain. “Nurses’ station said you had a visitor,” she said. “How nice.”
“Painkiller,” David said, but it came out “fain kiffper.” The nurse had heard it pronounced any number of ways. She was in her early fifties. Her name was Kristin Fournier.
“I understand you’re related,” she said to William.
“Father-in-law,” William said.
“Your son-in-law here’s asking for an anodyne.”
David didn’t know what the word meant, but William said, “Who doesn’t need that, eh?”
“There’s all sorts, of course,” nurse Fournier said. “I get mine from church. But Mr. Kozol needs one through the drip. I’ve been a nurse half my life. I can read his expression.”
She studied the chart on a clipboard tied with string to the bed frame. She fluffed up David’s pillows, gently inspected his mouth and jaw, refilled the plastic water cup on the adjustable tray, replaced the straw. “Be brave, Mr. Kozol,” she said. “You have an hour’s wait. It’s a good hospital that keeps track of such things.”
When the nurse left, David looked at William, and only then did he notice that William was somewhat formally dressed, herringbone sports jacket, corduroy trousers, dark shirt and tie, clothes far too heavy for summer, especially this one. David took up a pad of paper and wrote on it, tore off the sheet and handed it to William: Can you sneak a whiskey in here for me?
“Oh, I don’t think that particular anodyne’s allowed.”
David closed his eyes.
“The estate’s back in good hands now,” William said. “Don’t fret over the swans, for example. Don’t concern yourself one bit.”
David mumbled something incoherently.
“Hard to understand you,” William said. “I know what that’s like, don’t I, having to speak through all that pain and pills. I’m scarcely just past it myself.”
David — for the first time — said, “I’m sorry.”
“By the way, feel free to stay on in the guest cottage. I’ve spoken with Izzy and Stefania. I’ll nurse you back to health. The doctor will no doubt recommend soups. I’m an expert at soups, don’t know if Maggie mentioned. I made soup for her every winter day, elementary school.” William pulled up a chair and sat. “I’ve got an idea. What if tomorrow I bring in the photograph albums from Maggie’s upbringing? Janice was absolutely devoted to those albums, my lord. I keep them in a fireproof safe. Anyway, it might be a useful education. You might get to know better who you’re married to.”
“I’ll provide the commentary,” William said at ten the next morning. He’d brought three photograph albums. He was dressed in exactly the same clothes as the day before, no tie this time. He set the albums on the bed. He took off his sports jacket and put it on the back of the chair, which he pulled close to the bed. He opened the first album across David’s lap. “This one takes Margaret up to age twelve.”
David wanted to say, “I’m going to take a lot of photographs of our daughter,” but held back. First, it was difficult for him to speak at all, though he could’ve written it out. Also, it wasn’t the right time to reveal that he knew Maggie was to give birth in November. William was keeping the news to himself; he’d brought the albums to bring David up to speed on Maggie’s childhood — things should go in the proper order.
Each photograph was held to its page with black adhesive triangles at its corners. (My mother’s company manufactured these, David thought.) “Going left to right,” William said, “this is Maggie’s first bath. In the kitchen sink, believe it or not. This next one’s me holding her, then there’s Janice holding her.”
David pointed to a photograph of another woman bathing Maggie and got a quizzical expression on his face. According to the date written underneath, Maggie was three. “Oh, boy,” William said, “that’s a much younger Dory Elliot. She was Janice’s dearest friend. For a while there. Back then the word ‘pretty’ wouldn’t’ve done her justice, believe me. A lot of men drove great distances just to order a scone at her bakery. You won’t find Dory in any history book, but she’s got a history. She’s done a lot more than make thousands of lemon tarts and her famous coffee cake in her sixty-one years. For instance, did you ever look at those framed newspaper articles behind her counter? I know you go into the bakery a lot. Next time, look at them. It’s Dory, late teenage years and early into her twenties. She entered a number of Canada-wide beauty pageants and sometimes won. I mean first place. What’s more, Dory was a gifted lifeguard. Saved a boy’s life in front of his family, that was near Peggy’s Cove. She was married and divorced twice, started the bakery and stayed that course. Her hair, you’ve noticed, is completely white, but that happened at around forty, not later. Happened almost overnight; she was in the hospital with a heart infection. As I mentioned, she was Janice’s dearest friend for many years. But that’s another story altogether.”
After the nurse replenished the morphine, David ate a few bites of Jell-O, sipped some ice water, chewed on ice chips as William finished with the album, all black-and-whites: Maggie’s first day of school; Maggie putting on lipstick, Janice putting on lipstick beside her; Maggie and William in a rowboat on the pond; Maggie in pajamas, a thermometer in her mouth, Janice worriedly looking on, but so exaggeratedly that David could tell she wasn’t truly worried.
On the next-to-last page was a photograph that showed Maggie sitting with Isador and Stefania on the porch steps. “Now, this was an unusual conversation they were having,” William said. “About as unusual as can be imagined. Maggie’s ten there. ‘Why do you have those numbers on your arms?’—that’s what she asked. She started crying before she heard the answer; must’ve felt bad news in advance. Stefania didn’t go into the details. Too painful to tell, too painful to hear told. But she did introduce the words ‘concentration camp,’ didn’t hold back there. Believe me, Maggie could be very direct, very curious. ‘There were people called Nazis. They tried to kill all the people of our religion, Jewish people, but we’re here, aren’t we?’ That was the history lesson that morning, except Maggie didn’t let it go, even when Izzy added, ‘That was over in Europe before you were born.’ I can’t put the full psychological whys and wherefores to it, but they sat there a good two hours. And if you think I’m being sentimental, guess again, because Maggie had nightmares, oh, I’d say six, seven nights running. Into Janice’s and my bed, hopped right in between us, pulled the blanket over her head. One night she said, ‘I looked in on Izzy and Stefania, and they’re fine. You check on them later.’”