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the polished corridors behind Lawrence to Aunt Janetta’s doorway; we entered slowly, passing a nurse carrying a lunch tray on her way out. Aunt Janetta was sitting up, a smile on her pale face.
    We each gave her a careful hug, then pulled up chairs and sat at the side of her bed. Lawrence perched on the edge of the vacant bed in the room, cap in hand, feet barely grazing the floor.
    â€œHow nice of you to come, Lew. And for you to take time from your busy job, Bella.”
    She recounted the story of her heart attack. How she finished the supper dishes, how she felt tired, how she pushed herself to water her posies because it had been so dry lately instead of sitting down to watch the news as she normally did. “She could have asked me, but oh no,” said Lawrence on cue. Then she described her indigestion, thinking it was because she had met a friend for lunch and ordered her first Thai salad, which was spicier than she liked. Then the heartburn got worse, so she went and sat in the kitchen. “He was putting the lawnmower away when the pain really started. I could barely get to the door to call him.”
    â€œFortunately, the ambulance came right away or the damage could have been a lot worse.”
    The two of them had relived these details so many times they were now in slow motion and perfect unison. Ordinary events that would not bear repeating except for their consequences. Something like my dream where those underground tunnels were collapsing while everyday life went on above. I sat captivated by the story, mainly because Janetta became Sara in the telling. They had always looked alike, though Sara was considered pretty, feminine, and vivacious, and her daughter, neat and pleasant-looking. Today Janetta’s grey hair, not yet fastened into a roll, fell around her thin face and shoulders and transported me back to the Vancouver General and my final visits to Sara. Maybe it was because I had so recently lost my mother that I suddenly saw Janetta as a necessary member of my world. A woman I hardly knew became my mother and grandmother. “You have to get better,” I blurted out. At the same time my nose started dripping and it probably looked as if I were crying.
    â€œThank you, dear,” she said, surprised. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. They want to do more tests and then I’ll be released.”
    Dad appeared oblivious to this blurring of identities going on in my head. He knew this was his sister and not his wife or mother and continued talking to her about Lenny and Doug and how he had been doing on his own for the last six months. “Don’t know how I would have managed without her,” I heard him say before realizing he was talking about me.
    â€œWe’re both starting courses in the fall,” I said. “He’s taking cartoon drawing and I’m taking history.”
    â€œWe’ll see,” said Dad, embarrassed. “She wants me to start a course so I don’t drive her crazy.”
    â€œThat’s perfect, Lew. You know, Bella, I used to love it when we were kids and your dad had to look after me if Mother and Dad were out. He’d draw fantasy figures the whole time. Better than the funnies, by far. What did you name your comic strip again? The Ratchet Family , that’s it. They all looked like tools. Mrs. Ratchet had curlers in her hair, so her head looked like a ratchet wheel. Her husband was Hatchet Ratchet and he had a hatchet jaw. The son was Hammerhead and the daughter was Naillie, thin as a nail. The town they lived in was called Latchtown, and all the doors and windows of all the houses had huge latches. The province was Patchton, so everything anybody owned was covered with patches.”
    â€œHow come you didn’t draw the Ratchets for me?” I demanded. “But I was pretty happy with Cedric the Cockroach and Thump the Butterfly.”
    Janetta began to shake with laughter, more relaxed and merry than