The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland Page B

back then.
    God, Kenny-he feels like forever ago. Not even a ghost. Listen to me: ghosts, ghosts and ghosts. I often wonder if I'm genuinely haunted.
    Bethany's first friend, Becky, died of cancer. I remember that, but if I'm honest, I was more wrapped up in taking Bethany's father to the cleaners after he left us. I can't even put a face on Becky, though she was doubtless cute as a button.
    I got zippo in the divorce because Reid (that was his name) was a shitty-businessman broke-oh, there was some furniture, and the minivan was paid for, but that was it.
    A year later, both of Bethany's grandfathers died within five days of each other. What are the chances of that? My father hit an oncoming semi-trailer loaded with raw telephone poles on the 99. Grandpa Mike, Reid's father, had a kidney stone so big and sharp it sliced his kidney from within. The slice got infected with some drug resistant bug, and within thirty-six hours it was curtains. Ever done two funerals in one week? Not fun. Especially if you're not wanted at one of them, and especially if all the family members involved with the other funeral are unstabilized psychos off their meds.
    About a year after the funerals I married Catastrophe Number Two, Eamon, a handsome devil, but a devil. His daughter was a sweet thing named Julie, and her nineteenth birthday was the same day as our wedding, I remember that. A few months later her life partner, Jed, clobbered her and then threw her out a window. Her shinbone punctured her lung. He's eligible for parole in 2028.
    That Thanksgiving my mother died of emphysema. We knew Mom's death was coming. Bethany, I might add, pretty much lived in the hospital for a month, taking care of Mom. She is a good kid. I don't deserve her. That is my mantra: I don't deserve her.
    If I remember correctly, next Mr. Van Buren, Bethany's band teacher, got killed-another car crash on the 99, driving up to Whistler. They should throw that highway into the trash and build a new one. It's cursed.
    Oh, hell, then Kurt Cobain blew out his brains, and then Ginger and Snowbelle-our pair of twin Persians got diabetes and we couldn't afford the treatment and that was that. Bethany was sixteen or so when two of her pals smoked dope laced with angel dust. Cops found their bodies in the duck lagoon at Ambleside.
    By then I'd divorced Eamon and married Kenny, and a year after that is when Devon hanged himself from the chandelier with an electrical cord.
    Shit.
    I'm going to pour myself a drink.
    My sister Paulette, was next, and she is, I promise, the last death I'm going to tell you about. I hated that woman, but boy, I loved her too. Her primary means of expressing emotion was sponging stencilled Mother Gooses onto the dado of your guest bedroom. Or showing up at barbecues with potpourri gift baskets shaped like frogs wearing RayBans. She had no sense of humour; none!!!
    But then at the dinner table one night (Paulette cooked, even when she came over to my house), Kenny made a joke about Muppets in a leather bar and Paulette laughed, and the two of them hit it off, and I was so jealous I thought my eyeballs would pop like popcorn. Paulette had married some wimpy dude named Miles back when she was twenty-two, divorced after three months and never remarried. I think she was a dyke, but what's done is done.
    Even after Kenny and I divorced, he remained the best of pals with Paulette. I bumped into them once, coming out of a Meg Ryan movie at the Esplanade Six theatre. Almost in stereo, they said, "I don't buy that Meg/perkiness thing anymore," and off they went, riffing away while I shot invisible Drano-tipped pitchforks at their backs from my forehead.
    During Paulette's breast cancer, I was a wreck, but so was Kenny. It was almost like a sitcom, the way the two of us tried to "out-care" each other on Paulette's behalf, while at the same time avoiding each other. We were both seeking out the usual stuff: vitamin therapies, inspirational paperbacks, online