Chapter Twenty-Three Sassy
twenty-three SASSY
Sassy squinted at the clock by her bedside: two thirty a.m. Who on earth would call her in the middle of the night? With a groan, she dragged herself out of bed and slumped into the living room.
“Hello?” she said into the phone.
“Miss Rankin?” It was a woman’s voice. Calm, detached, efficient.
Sassy was in no mood. “Listen, lady. I don’t know what you’re selling, but this is a terrible time to phone people.”
“Forgive me.” The woman’s tone softened a bit. “Am I speaking with Susan Rankin? Daughter of Mr. Jim Rankin?”
Instantly, Sassy felt cold all over. She dropped onto the couch. “Yes?”
“I am calling from the Toronto Western Hospital, Emergency Department. Your father was admitted here an hour ago following a car accident. We need you to come in right away.”
Numbness enveloped Sassy, from her lips to the tips of her fingers. Come in right away. She wrapped herself in her winter coat and boots and ran to the elevator. On the ground floor, she tore out the door and sprinted toward Yonge Street, where she hailed a taxi. At the hospital entrance, she thrust cash at the driver then rushed to the front desk. There, they directed her to a room just off the Emergency Department waiting area, where she was told to wait.
“Someone will come to speak with you,” a nurse said.
“Can you tell me something? Anything?” she begged.
But the nurse knew nothing more.
Sassy paced between worn, plastic-upholstered chairs, trying not to hyperventilate. There was a buzzing in her head, louder and softer with her breaths, but it was not coming from the fluorescent lights. She dropped her gaze to the floor and covered her ears, barely registering the faded sparkles in the tile floor. She didn’t hear the doctor enter the room. Instead, she saw his shoes stop in front of her, and she sat straight up.
“Miss Rankin? Your father just got out of surgery.” His quiet monotone barely broke through the humming in her head. She opened her mouth to ask, Is he all right? What happened? Can I see him? Can we go home now? , but the doctor spoke first.
“His injuries were severe, Miss Rankin. We will do what we can to keep him comfortable, but the truth is, he has very little time left.”
The buzzing stopped. Surely she’d heard him wrong. “What?” she whispered. “What do you mean?”
He was older, his hair almost entirely grey. Slim, with deep lines cutting across his brow and around the corners of his mouth. His surgery scrubs were a dull sky blue with a small trail of dots near the neckline. Blood, she realized.
Her father’s blood.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “Your father was in a very traumatic accident. We did everything we could, but his internal injuries were too severe. He will not recover.”
It made no sense. She’d seen him yesterday, walking and talking with Tom. He’d been fine. There was no way this was happening.
“No. That’s not… You don’t know him, Doctor. He’s strong. He can recover from this. There has to be something more you can do.”
“We did all we could, but there was too much damage. His organs are failing, and we cannot help that. They will not heal. He is sedated now, to spare him pain. It’s the best we can do.”
The buzz started again, low and persistent. She shook her head, but it was still there. A hive of bees in the distance, coming closer. She couldn’t get enough air. “I don’t understand. Please, Doctor! You need to do something!”
“I’m very sorry, Miss Rankin. Your father will likely pass within the next few hours.” He stepped back. “Nurse Holly will take you to him.”
Sassy hadn’t noticed the nurse arrive. Could still barely register her presence. “But wait! Please!” she cried as the woman took his place. How could he just walk away?
The nurse put a gentle hand on Sassy’s shoulder. “Come with me, dear, and you can say your goodbyes.”
Sassy recoiled from the woman’s touch. “Don’t say that! My father is going to be fine. He just needs… Please, please, can you ask the doctor, can he… can he…” Her breath was coming in gasps now. She clutched at the nurse’s arm with violently shaking hands. “He’s all I have left.”
The nurse’s gaze was a deep well of sympathy, and her voice soft and soothing. “Miss Rankin, please come with me.”
The corridor was a blur, the fluorescent lights a dusky yellow. A million thoughts, a million empty, useless thoughts whirred through Sassy’s head, but she couldn’t grasp any of them. She had no answers. She had nothing. This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be.
Nurse Holly pushed open a door, entered first, then looked away.
A sound between a cry and a sob broke from Sassy’s throat as she stood paralyzed in the doorway. Tubes and wires connected her father to machines that beeped and blinked, and somewhere in the confusion, his bruised, broken, swollen features lay still on a pillow. Beneath it all was his handsome face and loving soul, the man who had quietly taken care of everyone.
Through a blur of tears, she rushed in and grabbed his hand. It was cold, so she started rubbing it for warmth.
“Daddy?” she whispered, then a little louder. “Daddy? Wake up.”
A slight motion of his eyelids, then she saw the dark slits of his eyes. He closed his fingers slowly around hers, and she saw dried blood hardened on his fingers.
“Susan,” he breathed. “I’m sorry.”
She drew his hand to her lips and kissed it. He smelled like blood and dirt and sweat, but something much sharper tied it all together: the reek of alcohol.
After Joey had gone missing, Sassy had popped into her father’s office every day to visit, but she’d been quickly dismissed. She’d invited herself over for dinner more than once, but he had been distant, even cold. The house was uncharacteristically messy, and nothing appeared to have been cleaned or even tidied in a long time. She was bothered enough that she decided to spend almost a whole day there doing laundry, changing his sheets and towels, then washing up the entire kitchen.
That’s when she discovered the reason behind his change in behaviour.
When she was cleaning the kitchen, she’d found a cache of empty Scotch bottles. Alarmed, she found more in his bedroom and bathroom, some half full, a couple unopened. Alarmed, she gathered every one of them, debated facing him about the sheer number, then decided to throw the evidence away.
But the drinking hadn’t stopped.
“It’s okay, Daddy. You’re gonna be okay.” Her smile kept quivering, like it didn’t belong, but she forced it to stay. “You just need to rest.”
In his tight expression, she saw pain and regret. The corners of his bruised eyes were wet with tears. He knew he was dying.
“Oh, Daddy, please. Please don’t. I can’t—” A shuddering sob tore through her, and she thought, I will never be the same .
“I’m sorry, Susan,” he whispered.
She laid her head on his chest and wept. When his hand came to rest on the back of her head—a comfort she would never feel again—she couldn’t breathe.
Eventually, the door to the room opened again. “I’m sorry, Miss Rankin.” She recognized the kind voice of Nurse Holly. “I need to change his dressings. I’ll send someone to the waiting room for you when it’s time.”
Sassy didn’t want to leave him, but he had fallen asleep again. She wiped her eyes, kissed his hand again, and fled the room. Outside, in the corridor, she leaned against the wall, puffing for air and aware of a sharp, tightening pain around her head. The wall itself seemed unsteady, and stars drifted across her closed eyes.
This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t real. She needed to wake up from this nightmare.
But when another nurse walked past, she had to accept the truth, because now she wasn’t the only one in the cool, echoing corridor. Suddenly, she couldn’t bear to be alone. She staggered toward a pay phone and fumbled in her pocket for change, then she hesitated, the receiver held inches from her face. Whose number did she know? She inhaled deeply, needing to think clearly. Marion, she knew, would come without hesitation, but she had looked exhausted the last time she saw her. No, not Marion. Who else could she call at four in the morning?
“Operator? I need the number for Tom Duncan.” In a flash she remembered a mention he’d made in passing of his apartment building. She gave the street name to the operator.
His voice was hoarse. She pictured him then, his beautiful eyes barely open, his hair sticking out in every direction.
She sucked in a sob. “Tom. My dad.”
“Sassy?” Then again, more alert. “Sassy? What’s happened?”
All she could do was breathe at first, a desperate panting in an attempt to answer him without collapsing. How could there be words for this?
“He… he…” She wanted to tell him everything so she’d no longer be the only one facing the emptiness. She needed him here, to help her manage, to stop the floor from moving under her feet. In the end, all she could say was “Please come to the Western Hospital. He’s dying, Tom.”
Her legs felt like jelly as she returned to the waiting room. She sat, then dropped her head into her hands, her mind blank with panic.
“Miss Rankin?”
A policeman stood before her. “I’m very sorry, ma’am,” he said kindly. He held a small notebook in one hand and drew a pen from his pocket. “I know this is a terrible time for you, but I need to go over the details of the accident with you for my report. Do you feel you’re up for this?”
She stared dully at him, thinking, No, I’m not. Go away. Leave me alone. But she said, “I want to know.”
In a daze, she heard him recount everything about the scene of the crash, the condition of her father, and the ambulance ride. The way the policeman spoke was so matter-of-fact, it almost felt like it had happened to someone else. Then he was gone, and she stared at his receding back, wondering how she got to this place.
The nurse had not come for her yet, so she drew her knees to her chest, needing to hold herself together somehow. Her brow rested on them, and she closed her eyes, welcoming the darkness that helped ease her throbbing headache.
What felt like minutes later, a pair of warm, strong arms gathered her up against a solid, wool-clad chest. The light scrape of a beard brushed her brow.
“I’m here, Sassy. Tell me what I need to know.”
Tom’s voice rumbled through her, and she clung to him for a moment. Then she pulled herself together as best as she could and held his gaze. “I should have said something. I should have stopped him.”
“What happened? Were you with him?”
“No. He was alone, but I found out last week that he’d been drinking a lot ever since Joey went missing. Last night he had way too much, then he drove his car into a building. I don’t know if he was drinking at a bar or at home, and I have no idea where he was going in the middle of the night. He was going so fast the police think he might have passed out with his foot on the accelerator. They told me there’s nothing left of the car.”
“Miss Rankin? You can come in now.” The nurse eyed Tom. “Family only.”
“He’s my old man,” Sassy blurted.
Whether it was for show or for need, she didn’t care which, Tom took her hand and helped her to her feet, then they walked in silence to the room where her father lay. Her breath caught when Tom pulled the curtain back, though nothing had changed other than clean white bandages. She could never get used to seeing that, and she already knew she would never forget it. Together they sat on either side of her father’s bed.
“Can he… can he hear us?”
“He spoke to me,” she said, though his whispered apology had been almost too faint to count.
Tom bent forward, his face pale. “Jim?”
Slowly, her father opened his eyes. His mouth opened slightly, but nothing came out.
“It’s all right, Jim. I’ll take care of everything.”
Sassy pressed her hand hard against her mouth, needing to hear it all, see it all, feel it all, remember it all, and if she let herself weep, she knew she would never stop. Her father’s eyes rolled toward her, held her, then returned to Tom.
Tom nodded. “I’ll take care of her, Jim. I promise.”
He died just before seven o’clock, when the rest of the city was coming to life. Sassy sat beside him the entire time, fighting sleep, needing to be with him every second. Tom left and returned a couple of times, bringing her coffee and something to eat, but he never said a word. When the time came and the doctor entered the room, they stood together. Tom wrapped his arms around her as the nurse drew the sheet over her father’s face.
And he held her tight as she convulsed with grief.
The funeral was three days later. As he’d promised, Tom took care of everything. Sassy was vaguely aware of things happening around her, but no more than that.
The night before, Marion had come over to help her pick an outfit. She freaked out that she had nothing black to wear, so Marion went back to her place then quietly returned with all Sassy needed, including a pair of practical black shoes.
After she dressed, Sassy stared into the mirror. She didn’t recognize herself.
Except for the puffy redness around her eyes, the girl in the mirror was very pale. Sassy had a fair, freckly complexion, but this girl was almost grey. She supposed she should put on some makeup, but she couldn’t even bring herself to wear lipstick. She brushed out her hair and pulled it back into a bun, then she looked at herself again. Leaned in closer and stared right into those swollen eyes.
“I can do this,” she whispered to her reflection. She was a performer, after all. She could sing a sad song with a smile on her face, couldn’t she?
Her green eyes looked back, searching. “Can I?”
There was a knock on the bedroom door, then Marion led her downstairs. Tom waited at the curb in his blue Chevette, and he drove them to the church in silence. They sat in the front pew with her, Marion on one side, Tom on the other.
Joey wasn’t there. Maybe he was dead, too. She tried to picture him sitting beside her, but she couldn’t imagine him in a black suit.
A stranger stood at the front of the church to read the eulogy. Jim Rankin was a pillar of society. An inspiration to many. An innovative businessman with a deep love for family. A good friend.
Mr. Moore, leaning heavily on his diminutive wife, said a few words, too. Jim Rankin saved my life. He was a hero. The world has lost a great man.
When Sassy rose at the end of the service, she felt Marion drape her winter coat over her shoulders. They followed the casket out, and she was startled by the number of people sitting or standing in pews behind her. She spotted Betty, her father’s secretary, right away, then she recognized others from business meetings. A few of her former neighbours were there as well. When she spotted her childhood nanny, Minnie, she had cried out without meaning to. So many memories came with that familiar face. Her father and Joey laughing with her. You two kids are peanut butter and jelly. Minnie dissolved at the sound of Sassy’s pain. In the back row, Davey gave her a careful smile, and it was hard not to go to him for the hug she knew would be there.
At the church exit, Sassy stood like a cardboard cutout, observing all the life around her and feeling none of it.