The Clear-Out by Deborah Ellis Page B

then I will take over your work-out room. And if you won’t let me have that, then I will take my pension and my savings and leave. I’ll move to my own apartment with my books.”
    “One of these days,” Duncan said, “I’ll get rid of all these books and put my dining room back.”
    “You can do that,” Tess said, “but you had better be ready for what happens next.”
    He never tried it.
    Tess did allow Duncan to move another chair into the room. He would sit in there with her sometimes.
    But he was not used to sitting without a TV in front of him, and he had never liked reading.
    When he tried to talk to her, she put her book down and let him talk. But he knew she was just waiting for him to be done so she could go back to her reading.
    Duncan hated the books. He hated them for what they were doing to his wife.
    Before she retired, Tess worked as a secretary in a law office. Her clothes were always pressed and her hair was always done.
    Once she got her library, all that changed. She got her hair cut very short. When Duncan asked her why, she told him, “I don’t want to be bothered with my hair.”
    He told her he didn’t like it short. Tess said he would get used to it.
    She also stopped wearing makeup.
    “How I look is not important to me anymore,” she said.
    Tess gave away all her small purses and started carrying a shoulder bag big enough to hold a book. She always had a book with her. She would read her book whenever she felt like it, no matter what else was going on around her.
    Tess even took one of her books to the annual clubhouse dinner at the golf course. Duncan had gone to the bar for a while to chat with his golf buddies. When he came back to the table, she was not talking with the other wives. She was reading her book!
    He took the book away from her. In front of everyone. She called a taxi and went home without him.
    Tess and Duncan went on this way. Duncan got used to it. But he never liked it.
    Then, one day, Cancer walked into the house.
    No matter what they did, they could not get it to leave.

CHAPTER THREE
    After her second operation for cancer, Tess was too weak to go upstairs. Her library became her sick room.
    The La-Z-Boy went into the living room. In its place was their son’s old single bed. The first-floor bathroom was close by, and so was the kitchen.
    The books now stood in piles on the floor, and the shelves held the things Tess needed to get through the day. Medicines and clean sheets and nightgowns filled several shelves. On one shelf were the adult diapers for when Tess was too weak to walk to the toilet.
    Home care nurses and other help came and went. Duncan hated having strangers in his house. He would turn on the Golf Channel while they looked after Tess. Staring at the TV, he tried not tothink about what was happening on the other side of the wall.
    The helpers visited during the day. At night, Duncan slept on the sofa. That way, he could hear Tess if she needed him in the middle of the night.
    Tess’s hair fell out with the cancer treatment. Duncan bought her hats to keep her head warm. Hats with flowers, hats with pompoms, hats in bright colours. He looked for hats everywhere he went. If he found the right hat, it would fix everything. That’s what his heart told him, anyway.
    When Tess felt well enough, she read in bed.
    One night, Duncan stood in the kitchen door and watched her. When her eyes started to close from the effect of the drugs, she shook herself awake and kept reading.
    Are you afraid? he wanted to ask her. Did you have a good life? Do you regret anything? Did I make you happy?
    He wanted to ask her all of those questions. But he couldn’t ask any of them. He was too far out of the habit of talking with his wife.
    “Enough reading for tonight,” he said instead, and he started to take the book from her.
    “But I’m almost finished!”
    “Finish it later,” Duncan said. “You need to rest.”
    Taking the book away from Tess was easy. She had no