Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue.

The hospital wing where Addie worked was air-conditioned, but she’d walked home in the heat one evening, along Main Street, in an effort to be serious about exercise. She remembered her clothes being soaked in perspiration, the sensation of wading to her thighs in a warm, soupy sea. Without thinking, she’d kicked her right leg out to the side to disentangle her twisted underwear. Having done this, she looked around, knowing that if she’d been seen by anyone, she’d have been judged comical, unfeminine, unwomanly. Why should she care? Well, she did care, she reminded herself. It’s just that she couldn’t care right now. During that same humid spell, she had been out on her balcony after dusk one evening, sipping at a glass of Scotch, thinking about Sybil, thinking about work. She wondered what people in the building opposite saw—or imagined they saw—when they looked across or down at her. A doughy specimen with arms and legs, stuck to the side of cement like a flat figure on a felt board. The specimen raising one arm in strong drink. “Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself,” she said aloud.

She stepped back, away from the window. She wasn’t so plump, surely. She had to get a grip on her life, that was all. She tilted the omelette onto her plate and, still standing, dug in with a fork. She took a last sip of coffee and admitted to herself that there were days and nights when she wanted to call Tye. Come back, she would say. I need to lie beside you, talk, tell what is important to me right now. I need to be close. But Tye didn’t know about the weight she’d put on. She’d have to lose a dozen pounds before any meeting with him. Buy a couple of flattering outfits. Stop worrying about her thighs sticking to chair seats in summer heat.

How could any of this matter? Tye was in Montreal and she was in Wilna Creek, and there wasn’t going to be a meeting. She was running on overload: she had information about new privacy laws to disseminate, meetings, obligations, departmental concerns about security of staff and patients, long drives back and forth to Greenley. The utter and complete responsibility for Sybil’s care on weekends. Not to mention the way Sybil’s mother looked to Addie as if she alone could save Sybil. And of course, she could not.

Addie had not lived a normal life for a long time. She had to dig back in memory to think what that might mean. Life as normal, before everything was put on hold while she began to help care for her friend. Nothing she did anymore added up to what she was used to—her routine, she supposed. But what exactly was on hold? Maybe the days she was putting in did add up to normality of sorts. Working, holding meetings, managing staff, being on call, driving, waiting for news, bracing herself for one more request by phone or text.