It’s only been one year since The Bitch’s diagnosis. One long, drawn-out year since a very serious doctor sat us three sisters down in his antiseptic office. Patients in the grip of dementia often exhibit fits of rage or paranoia, he warned. Your mother might wander; become physically abusive; self-harm. But, he assured us, it wouldn’t be too protracted—the disease was already in full grip. He suggested settling her somewhere offering professional medical care.

It was Laura’s idea to take care of The Bitch ourselves, and somehow, like Laura always does, she talked us into agreeing. If Mom could remain in her home until the Lord—or the devil—came to claim her, she argued, then time spent taking care of her would be our final sacrifice. Our begrudging absolution, if you like. Killing her with kindness.

Fortunately though, the doctor’s dire predictions haven’t materialized. Contrarily, her temperament sweetens, like vinegar into honeyed mead. A transmutation. She’d been The Bitch before Alzheimer’s, rattling malice like missile fire, her bomb-blast attacks of spite leaving victims reeling. There’s no question her vindictive arsenal sent our shell-shocked dad into an early urn. And no doubt her erratic, vicious nature and our resulting war-torn childhoods maimed us. But the stronger the disease’s grip, the more she mellows. Her once pugnacious body, solid and steely as a tank, turns elfin, seemingly apologizing for its heritage. Her meekness is god-sent, to say the least. Our hatred begins to dissipate.

* * *

Yesterday morning, starting my shift at Mom’s, my youngest sister Bess reminded me as she left: Jeannie, darling, you promised you’d get up into that attic!

We knew it needed cleaning out at some point before “D-Day,” as we call it, which seems finally to be looming. After a preliminary quick peep, we’d seen enough junk to sink a navy. Ordnances of ornaments; artilleries of ancient history. As the unwed sister with no family claiming her time, and able to work from home, I’d volunteered to tackle it. So, after feeding The Bitch breakfast, I grab bin bags and rubber gloves and pull down the ladder.

Up I climb.

God, the dust! Suddenly woken, it pirouettes in the sharp blades of sunlight stabbing through gaps in the roof boards. We’ll have to get them fixed before we can sell, girls, I note. Everything’s desperately decrepit. I queasily sidestep cobweb forests whose tiny, trapped corpses have turned transparent.

There’s barely enough headroom up here to manoeuvre, but I begin, trying to sort my way methodically. My plan is to arrange piles in rough order of importance, bag and drag them out. But suddenly, over in the farthest corner, half-hidden under a threadbare quilt, a flash of red hatbox catches my eye. There’s something about it—a childhood recollection that clearly pictures it perched on top of Mom’s high wardrobe. I weave through collapsing boxes and stacked paperbacks and drag it out, easing off the lid.

And there they lie.

Amongst ribbon scraps, buttons, hypocritically saccharine birthday cards she’d held onto for some unknown reason—camouflage, maybe?—lies a stack of letters. The once-familiar handwriting is a sickly hammer blow to my solar plexus. It couldn’t be . . .

Pauli?

Heart in my throat, swelling so violently I almost choke, I reach a shaking hand into the box. I count over twenty yellowing envelopes, released from a frazzled rubber band.

Jeannie, My Darling, they all begin.

Then follow descriptions of his new city life; his work week; his new pals; his kindly landlady. Toronto’s fun! Bank staff brilliant! Promotions forthcoming! And lengthy, loving passages of how terribly he misses me. How he longs for when I can join him . . . When am I joining him?

Why aren’t you writing, Jeannie??

I’ve been phoning and phoning . . .

What’s up?

I love you!

Love, love, love . . .

Was this why, years before cellphones, The Bitch had moved our old landline into her bedroom? The heart I’d thought forever broken, re-breaks in slow motion explosions, as if mortars are detonating behind my ribs. It flails, combatting in emotions I’d bottled up for a numb eternity, now released in a deluge.

The letters slowly change their tone. I read: Jeannie— let’s do it! What’s to stop us? Your Mom has no say anymore. You’re a legal adult. Be brave! I’m settled here now, let’s get married. Marry me my love . . .

I almost throw up. Had she kept these as a coup-de-grace, knowing I’d find them?

The next-to-last envelope disgorges a faded, one-way plane ticket to Toronto, naming me as the passenger. And Pauli’s note, attached with a rusted paper clip, says simply:

Come!

* * *

I sit here, attic-bound, in dust and fading sunlight, for another lifetime. Weeping. My entire existence from nineteen? Decimated. Decades of despair from Paul’s callous abandonment? Lies. The anguish? Utterly needless. My living vicariously through happy tussles of nieces and nephews, forever unwed, all orchestrated. Some unspeakably malevolent woman had simply ejected babies from between her thighs and then bestowed upon them feral punishment. I struggle and fail to comprehend how one human being could justify the suffering of another, least of all, her very own daughter. Why? The question screams over and over inside my migraine.

Pauli’s final letter declares he’ll be coming to fetch me “next Saturday.” Could that have been the same peculiar weekend The Bitch had bullied me off to care for my supposedly ailing aunt, who’d turned out suspiciously healthy (and inexplicably nonplussed) when I’d arrived?

Gathering the sorry flotsam of my annihilated future, I lurch down the ladder, vengeance whirling in me like a maimed helicopter. I don’t know what to do. But this has always been a war, and someone must end it.

In the lounge, that conniving tyrant sits in a pallid blue recliner, propped by soft pillows, smiling eyes glued to the TV’s flickering parodies of love. I’m overwhelmed by abhorrence.

I fumble the speed dial number on the landline, eyeing those pillows. When Laura answers, I cry, simply:

Come!