Free Turtle Valley by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

more comfortable now.
    Ezra returned and stood next to me holding our son. He nodded at Val. “We got one truckload piled up, at least.”
    “You can drop it off at my place before you head back this evening. I’ve left the garage open.”
    “Don’t forget to take those boxes you stored in the barn,” Dad said.
    “I imagine that’ll be the last of what we pack out,” I said. During our move to Alberta that past spring, Ezra and I had left a number of boxes at my parents’ farm in order to make room in the U-Haul for a last-minute gift from my mother, the table and chairs that had once sat in my grandmother’s parlour. I had no idea what was in the boxes we had left behind. I hadn’t yet unpacked the many stacked in the basement of the house we rented in Cochrane.
    “What about the cattle?” Ezra said.
    “It’s all arranged,” said Val. “I phoned Uncle Dan this morning and he said he’d take them. He’ll be bringing the trailer around as soon as he can get away from the dairy.”
    Dad ran a hand over his mouth. “He’s got enough to worry about without us bothering him.”
    “What will we do with the cats?” Mom asked.
    “The SPCA has set up an animal shelter on the fairgrounds. We’ll have to round them up and take them there for now.”
    “No!” Mom said. “They’ll be terrified.”
    “I can’t keep them at my place, Mom, there’s just too many.”
    Jeremy clapped in excitement. “Are we going to chase the kitties?”
    “Wouldn’t that be fun?” I said. I looked up at Val. “How about the chickens? I doubt we can catch all those wild bantams.”
    “Oh, we must!” my mother said. “Imagine what it would be like for them, caught in a fire. I so love my chickens.” She turned to me. “My favourite, of course, was Lady Barred Rock.” Thiswas a bird Ezra and I had years before, not long after we were married, at the small farm we owned in Chilliwack. The bird would hear our movements in the house and run to the front or back door as we exited, looking for leftovers that she’d peck from our hands. One day I noticed the bird’s comb was pale, and the next I found her dead within the roost. I buried her under the maple and planted tulips over her body. Mourning a chicken.
    Dr. Ellis pulled back the curtain. “Well, Gus, the rib is broken. A cough could have done it. I’m afraid the bone was eaten through.”
    “The cancer?” Dad asked.
    Dr. Ellis nodded. “It will take us a few days, as the room is currently in use, but I suggest we admit you to our palliative care room. It’s a suite, really. Beth or one of your daughters can stay with you around the clock.”
    “I don’t want to stay another night in this hospital,” Dad said to Val. “All my life with your mother, we hardly ever slept in separate beds, except for these damn hospital stays. I can never sleep.”
    “You will need more care than your family is able to provide at home.” Dr. Ellis looked down at the clipboard he carried. “Beth says you’ve been having trouble swallowing. I suggest we stop giving you the medications, and switch the morphine from pills to injections.”
    “You’re giving up on me then?”
    “Nobody’s giving up on you, Dad,” Val said.
    “But I am dying, aren’t I?”
    “At this point the treatments will have little if any effect,” said Dr. Ellis.
    “How long?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “A matter of weeks?”
    “Maybe less.”
    “I don’t want Grandpa to die,” said Jeremy.
    I took him from Ezra and held him, rocking him back and forth, trying to think of something to say to comfort him, to comfort us all.
    “I want to go home,” Dad said. “Now.”
    “We can’t, Dad,” I said. “We may have to evacuate at a moment’s notice.”
    “And the smoke from the fire will continue to be a problem,” said Dr. Ellis.
    “Put me on oxygen if you want. I don’t want to die in some damn hospital with a bunch of strange women watching over every bodily function. I want to go