Just Another Tuesday

It’s early August and already the air feels noticeably cooler in the evenings, and downright chilly in the morning, a portent for an early winter, I think, as I sit on my back porch and sip a hot cup of coffee.

My mind wanders to the list of things yet to be done before winter sets in, the house must be prepared, motorcycle and dirt bikes stored, winter tires and maintenance.

And of course, school supplies and attire.

I sigh and get up and walk through the creaky weathered back door and into the kitchen, where some bacon is frying on the Elmira stove.

My mind wanders even further to the man who has been attempting, very patiently I might add, to woo me. He has potential, and he's an Aries which is a good match for a Leo.

Perhaps we should just randomly get married on a Tuesday, and let the cards fall where they may. It could work, you never know, I am thinking, when my phone starts to ring.

It’s my younger sister, Janet. She rarely calls unless...I answer “Hi Janet..” I can hear immediately that something is wrong, as she gulps back a sob “Its Jane” she says, “She was here when i got home, passed out on my couch and she REEKS Iris! She pissed herself on my COUCH!”

I gasp in horror as she goes on “I got her up and told her she pissed herself and she punched me in the face....”

“Is she fucked up?” I ask, trying to wrap my mind around the scene unfolding in my little sisters home “I don’t know, her words are slurring, I called the cops but....they wont do anything.....my house smells so bad....my couch...”

“Have you called mom?” I ask as I notice the bacon is near burning and pull it off the heat.

“I did, she said she would come and get her” Janet’s voice is shaking now in anger “I have tried so hard to be a good sister to her, and this is what i get? My cozy little home, my safe place...violated? And my couch, I bought that couch, it was $6,000....” she begins to cry again. “ I can’t do this anymore”

My mind flicks through the events that have led to this horror, to who Jane has become.

“That’s not Jane, not really. Jane died that day, 3 x on the table, and whatever came back, it’s not her.” I say, because it feels true.

She had every intention of ending her life that day and she honestly did, only to be jolted back and forced to live. For over a decade now, our family has struggled with this new version of Jane, not disabled enough to be put in long term care, but far too disabled to function in a normal society as she is expected to.

The result is a endlessly horrific kind of chaos.

“I feel people's energy, you know, and hers...it's just...static. That’s not Jane. You need boundaries, and you shouldn’t feel bad about creating some.”

Janet sniffs “I know, I can't deal with this anymore.... How will I get this smell out?” she cries “I can’t afford to replace the couch”

“Pet odor remover, the kind you use for shampooing carpets” I am now obsessively cleaning my kitchen as I try to bring some calm to the situation “take the covers off and bag them, take them to the laundromat and add a good lot of the stuff to the load, it should get the smell out, you can take the cushions to the car wash and hose them down then let them sit in the sun and dry?” I suggest, as I wipe dust off of objects on tall shelves. “And Janet....perhaps call her an ambulance? She needs to be admitted, and committed”

The true horror is, there is nowhere to send Jane. A psych hold only lasts so long then they get bounced back out again. Our world is no longer such that asylums exist, and god how we wish they did.

The residential psychiatric institutions were all shut down, the last of them in the early 2000’s, their residents, it had been decided, needed “autonomy over their lives” they claimed it was more “ethical”.

And now here we are. Poor Jane, her brain is peppered with bird-shot, left over from her attempt over a decade ago.

I let Janet go to call our mother to determine when, exactly, she would be there.

Afterwards, I feel drained.

I stand in the middle of the kitchen for a long moment, the phone still warm in my hand.

The bacon has gone cold on the plate. My appetite gone, I nibble on some and share the rest with my little dog, wipe the stove clean, and open the back door again.

The morning air is still cool.

Somewhere down the road a garbage truck rumbles to a stop.

For a second I let myself believe that maybe this time it will be different.

That the ambulance will come, that they will finally see what the rest of us have seen for years, and that Jane will be placed somewhere she cannot keep destroying herself and everyone around her.

A real place.

Not seventy-two hours and a bus ticket back to the same chaos.

The thought is as fragile and improbable as randomly marrying that Aries on a Tuesday and letting the cards fall where they may. I pour the rest of my coffee into the sink and start a fresh pot. Winter is coming. The list is still waiting.

*** This is a work of fiction, highlighting the current crisis in Saskatchewan where persons with Acquired Brain Injuries. Over 80% of the homeless population has an ABI according to the ABI society. ***