What Remains of Elsie Jane


 
 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Contents
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 Eleven
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 Fourteen
 Fifteen
 Sixteen
 Seventeen
 Eighteen
 Nineteen
 Twenty
 Twenty-one
 Twenty-two
 Twenty-three
 Twenty-four
 Twenty-five
 Twenty-six
 Twenty-seven
 Acknowledgements
 About the Author
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 One
 Acknowledgements
 About the Author
 
 
 
 Page List
 
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 What Remains of Elsie Jane
 a novel
 
 
 What Remains of Elsie Jane
 a novel
 Chelsea Wakelyn
 
 
 
 Copyright © Chelsea Wakelyn, 2023
 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
 Messages from “Ion” on pages 219 and 222 used by permission of Eythan Slootweg.
 All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
 Publisher: Kwame Scott Fraser | Acquiring editor: Russell Smith
 Cover designer: Laura Boyle
 Cover image: CSA-Printstock; Unsplash.com/Felix Mittermeier; Jeremy Thomas; Kiwihug; Andy Holmes
 Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
 Title: What remains of Elsie Jane : a novel / Chelsea Wakelyn.
 Names: Wakelyn, Chelsea, author.
 Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220269254 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220269262 | ISBN 9781459750845 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459750852 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459750869 (EPUB)
 Classification: LCC PS8645.A4535 W53 2023 | DDC C813/.6—dc23
 
 We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.
 Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
 The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.
 Rare Machines, an imprint of Dundurn Press
 1382 Queen Street East
 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4L 1C9
 dundurn.com, @dundurnpress 
 
 
 
 For Kris
 
 
 
 Contents
 One
 Two
 Three
 Four
 Five
 Six
 Seven
 Eight
 Nine
 Ten
 Eleven
 Twelve
 Thirteen
 Fourteen
 Fifteen
 Sixteen
 Seventeen
 Eighteen
 Nineteen
 Twenty
 Twenty-one
 Twenty-two
 Twenty-three
 Twenty-four
 Twenty-five
 Twenty-six
 Twenty-seven
 Acknowledgements
 About the Author
 
 
 One
 At the funeral home, they give me water with lemon slices. It tastes like poison because everything tastes like poison now. They speak to me very softly, like I am a child about to go down for a nap, and they listen with their heads slightly tilted to demonstrate empathy. Ushered into a parlour with gilded floral wallpaper, I sit at a long, gleaming table of dark oak. It’s a difficult time to make decisions, they tell me, and I think, Thank God, they understand. But then they give me a stack of papers to sign, which are full of decisions. Then come the catalogues of flowers and food menus to look at, also full of decisions. Sam’s family and I look at these decision things as if they’re written in hieroglyphics.
 Another catalogue: pieces of jewellery that can be forged from ashes of the body. Unfortunately, I can’t view the body right now, as it’s being embalmed in the basement. But I don’t want to see it, anyway, do I? If I see the body, that means the body is real.
 “I don’t want to see the body,” I tell them.
 “Well, you might change your mind,” they say. “Many people find it a great comfort to see their loved ones at rest.”
 “Our mortician is excellent,” they say. “Samuel will look just like he’s sleeping.”
 Then they tell me to keep in mind that he’ll be taken off-site for cremation by noon, so unfortunately there are some time constraints if I do decide to participate in the viewing.
 “It’s not him, though,” I whisper.
 No, darling, of course it’s not me.
 If Sam had known he was going to die at age forty-three, I bet he wouldn’t have been upset about the white hairs sprouting from his chest and ears and back.
 “Fuck, I hate getting old,” he said one night as we drove the kids home from