Vital Signs by Tessa McWatt Read Free Book Online

over at her. She is not wearing her power suit today; she is in slim-fitting jeans and a T-shirt that show off her fine figure. “Why are you dressed like that?” My question sounds more accusatory than I intend, and if I were being honest I’d say it was a refreshing change to her usual angled and buttoned look. She doesn’t answer as I pull out along Bay Street and get stopped at the traffic lights. We are meeting Fred in Yorkville for lunch. Sasha might be able to join us for dessert, once her rehearsal is finished. “They have casual Wednesdays too now in the corps, do they?” I try to joke, but she looks straight ahead at the road in front of us, and I think I detect a rolling of her eyes.
    “Has she booked in for the op?” she asks.
    “Yes,” I say in defeat, and turn on the radio.
    Anna is having another cerebral angiogram at St. Michael’s to determine whether a coil embolization is possible, or whether the traditional and more invasive route of clip ligation surgery will be her only option.
    “Thank God,” Charlotte says, and throws her long chestnut hair over her shoulders, triumphant.
    At lunch, Fred is generous, ordering a fine bottle of wine from our French waiter and telling me I’m looking well, when I know that my skin is sallow and caked like thirsty soil. He has on his doctor’s demeanour—all confidence and impenetrability.
    “Remember when Mom had to spend weeks in the hospital with Sash,” he says, thus acknowledging that this particular grouping of the Williamson family is unusual. When Sasha was three years old, she developed pneumonia, with a fever that burned so high she glowed. Anna would not leave her side, slept beside her in the hospital, and we remaining three carried on without them as though we were a special unit in the family army, offering support to the front line by not drawing attention to ourselves, trying to reconstruct the feeling of Sasha without her there.

    She was very ill for a month but recovered and has barely been sick a day since then.
    “What are all of these words that Mom says?” Charlotte asks.
    “Confabulation,” Fred answers. “Damage to the anterior communicating artery, which affects the—”
    “I know that much, Fred. I have been paying attention,” she says, “but where does it come from?”
    “We don’t understand enough about false memories to explain why they happen,” Fred says.
    “She doesn’t believe they’re false,” Charlotte says.
    “That’s right. For her they’re real, true. She’s right there in the moment with them as she’s telling them.” Fred lifts up his glass of merlot and stares into it as if through skin into blood.
    “Maybe she’s onto something,” Charlotte says, and there’s more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
    “Charlotte, what is it?” I ask, my voice harsh.
    “What is what?”
    “What you need to say.”
    She looks down into her chèvre salad and a smirk plumps her lips.
    “Go on.”
    “Nothing, Dad,” she says as she takes a forkful of the cheese. As she’s chewing, she looks up at me. “Maybe Mom doesn’t want to remember things; maybe she’s chosen other memories because hers are disappointing.”
    “Don’t be an idiot,” Fred says, piercing the last of his steak with his fork. He has eaten so quickly that I think this might be the first food he’s had all day. But then Fred has never stood on ceremony with food or anything else.
    “Dad? What do you think?” Charlotte asks. That sarcastic tone again. She is not too old for smacking, is what I think.
    “Does anyone want coffee?” Fred asks, and it’s clear he wants us to hurry up.
    ‘Aren’t you waiting for Sasha?” I ask.
    “No, I have to get back.”
    Fred’s residency in family medicine at Mount Sinai has been arduous. He is rarely available, his naturally curly hair has gone straight, looking like it has been cut with a bowl and clippers, and he looks twice his age of twenty-nine. I worry that he is bored with