Catch Me When I Fall (16 page)

“Doesn't he want to hear the end of the story?” Jeff said.

I twiddled with my rings, looking at his empty chair. His behaviour was getting more erratic.

“So what happened?” Rodney sounded belligerent.

With effort, I turned my attention to the boys. “This is all just hearsay—I wasn't there. But this is how the story goes. The soldier was very young—Dad told me that at the end of the war, the Nazis were conscripting boys and old men—anyone who could carry a rifle. So, your great-grandfather dared to argue with him. A boy pointing a gun at his chest. He said, ‘The meat is for my mother. She's old. She's starving. You have a mother. What would
you
do?'”

“What happened?” Jeff said.

“The soldier let him go. He delivered the suitcase of meat.”

“Wow,” said Rodney. He picked up a crumb of cheese and put it into his mouth. “Some legacy you have, Mom. He risked his life.” I couldn't tell if Rodney's tone was admiring or scornful.

•  •  •

“Can you two watch Dad tomorrow while I take Jeff and Laura to do some errands in Red Deer?” As I spoke I realized I was wringing my hands. I pulled out the breadmaker and began measuring ingredients and dumping them in.

“I'm out of here as soon as I'm done milking in the morning,” said Rodney.

“Not me.” Harvey's face stayed behind the newspaper. “I've got some cattle to deliver to Edmonton.”

“How come you never told me?” I asked. Rodney was watching us, so I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. The hurt. Usually, I went with Harvey to Edmonton—I did some shopping while he took care of the business.

“What difference would it make? You couldn't come. Who would babysit?” His voice was bitter as bile. So much for protecting Rodney from the tension. “By the way,” he added, looking up, “I found your dad naked in the hallway yesterday.” He glanced uncomfortably at Rodney. “Touching himself.” Rodney's eyebrows arched upwards, and his face flushed begonia pink.

“He can't help it,” I said quickly. “He doesn't know—”

“Of course he can't help it!” Harvey's voice was loud. “That's why he needs help! What is it going to take for you to see he needs help we can't give?” He rose, and his chair scraped loudly, wobbled. Rodney reached out and stabilized it, avoiding my eyes.

•  •  •

I peeled potatoes loudly, bouncing them into the sink, scraping the skins off with harsh strokes, and sloshing them into the pot of water to boil. My thoughts, as I worked, were loud and agitated too. What to do? What to do? Stay-at-home mothers were almost extinct, as quaint and old-fashioned as homemade socks. But I was one, and I had duties. It wasn't just the family legacy, at least I didn't think so. I had a calling. To look after my family, in its broad definition. My relatives, my neighbours, the church community. So I acted out of belief, out of principle. I brought casseroles to people who could use them—the ill, the widowed, the bereaved. I visited old Mrs. Bouwen. I invited Cora Van Harn for Christmas, even though she criticized my kids' clothing and their choice in music. I made my kids write thank-you notes, bring their teachers Christmas baskets, even the high-school teachers, and we gave the minister chocolates and a handmade card on his birthday. And I kept my father in my house, although he brought nothing but tension and upheaval.

•  •  •

The front door squeaked open, then banged shut. I had been pouring boiling water into the teapot and Rodney was making himself an after-school ham sandwich. We looked at each other for a split second, confused. We only used the side door; besides, Harvey was milking, and Jeff and Laura were still at school—their bus wasn't due for another forty minutes. We spoke at the same moment. “Dad,” I said.

“Grandpa.”

Rodney grabbed his boots from the side porch, sprinted through the kitchen and out the front door, with me right behind him. Dad stood about ten metres away, shoeless in the snow, waving his arms and yelling at the windbreak—the bare lilacs and poplars and the bushy young spruce. One of the cats, out for a wintry hunt, dashed away from Dad, back to the safety of the barn. When Rodney reached him, Dad stopped hollering abruptly. He pointed north, gesturing beyond the trees to the pasture. “Gone now,” I heard him telling Rodney, nodding fervently, voice full of relief. He saw me, and the satisfaction in his eyes turned to uncertainty. “It's okay, Vicky.” He waved his arm vaguely toward the trees. The sun hung low in the west, a cold red ball, and the wind was bitter. Dad stepped toward me through the ankle-deep snow. He pointed at the wood stacked alongside the house. “Firewood,” he said, attempting heartiness. “I'll get some firewood for us.”

“We have enough inside right now.”

“Enough wood.” He nodded. He allowed Rodney to take his arm, and he tramped docilely, staring at his feet like a bewildered child.

Rodney led Dad to the living room, and, together, we settled him in an armchair. “Here. Take off his socks and wrap this around him,” I said, handing Rodney the patchwork quilt from the sofa. “I'll pour him some tea.” I put on a
CD
of Dutch hymns. “
Ere zij God
,” the choir sang. “
Ere zij God in den hoge—
”

I handed Dad a steaming mug, lowered myself onto a straight-backed chair, and faced him warily. Rodney hovered in the doorway. “That's the song we sing at church on Christmas Eve, isn't it?” Rodney asked. I nodded, keeping my eyes on Dad. “What do the words mean?”

“They're in English in the hymnal,” I said.

“Yeah, but everybody sings it in Dutch. By heart. And the old people seem so emotional about it. Feels like it'd be wrong to look up the words.”

I knew what he meant. He heard the reverence in the singing. The joy. My generation understood it, but we hadn't managed to pass that understanding to the next. “I think it makes them feel a little homesick, singing in Dutch. The song is about peace, and they knew war.”

I sighed—a big, heaving sigh, yet it expressed only the smallest portion of all that I had to sigh about. Dad was huddled now in the grey and white geometric quilt, cocooned in his own wintry landscape. He had picked up a photo I had framed, a photo from about fifteen years before, when my mother was still alive. She looked shrivelled and pale—the cancer and the chemotherapy. Dad touched her image with his thumb. I wondered if he recognized her, if he missed her. I wondered how lonely he was in his strange, unstable world. He hummed along with the music. He looked calm.

“The words are Bible verses,” I said to Rodney, nodding toward the
CD
player. The hymn had become gentle and chantlike. “That part—‘
Vrede op aarde
'—it means ‘Peace be on earth.' And that last part, ‘
in de mensen een welbehagen
—'” I stopped suddenly, the impulse to sigh fading, the hand in my gut relaxing. In place of the stress and tension, I felt sorrow as old as the ground we were farming. I looked at my father, who was a worry, a wall between my husband and me, a trial for my children, a danger to himself. I looked back at Rodney, who worried me too. And infuriated me. He was watching me, waiting. I translated the words.

“Peace be on earth, to the people who God delights in. The people with whom God is well pleased.”

I rose and plodded to the kitchen. I stood still and breathed. Sorrow in, and sorrow out. After a long while, I pulled out the phone book and turned to the Yellow Pages. It hurt to touch the listing. Seniors' Homes. Bethany Lodge. It hurt to pick up the phone.

I'M SITTING IN
the Van Dykes' living room colouring a gingham tablecloth with liquid-embroidery pens when I hear my name. “Paula didn't come with enough undershirts for the week,” Mrs. Van Dyke says in a hushed voice.

“What do you expect,” Mrs. Reiter replies, “when her mother works outside the home?”

If I lean forward, I can see them, sipping tea in the kitchen. But I concentrate on the tablecloth. I colour in the squares to match the pattern on the instructions. Everyone's doing Artex liquid embroidery this winter. Corrine, the Van Dykes' daughter, lent me her pens before she left for college. I've tried to talk my mom into buying some, but she isn't into crafts like the other women at our church. As I think about tackling the subject again with my mom when she gets back, Mrs. Reiter says, “I guess the
dominee
's not home yet if you've still got their daughter here?” I look up. Do they know I can hear?

“They're still in Ontario. They're flying to Edmonton tomorrow afternoon—they should be here tomorrow night.”

“So, he managed to get a Sunday off with that conference he's going to, did he?” Mrs. Reiter's voice sounds sly. I hum tunelessly. I count the squares I've coloured so far—sixty-four. I count again to double-check.

Now they talk about my dad's sermon of last Sunday. “At least he's following the Heidelberg Catechism,” says Mrs. Van Dyke.

“Yes—‘My only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own, but belong body and soul to my precious Lord,'” Mrs. Reiter recites. “You can't hear that too often. Such good words for Communion Sunday.”

I feel relieved by their approval, although I didn't listen to the sermon last week. I counted the organ pipes—sixteen on each side. When Communion came, I watched, even though my brothers and I are not allowed to join in—we are not old enough and have not made Profession of Faith. But when Mom gives us peppermints in church, we save them until we hear our dad say, “Take, eat, remember, and believe that the precious body of Christ was broken for you.” Then we pop them into our mouths.

Mrs. Van Dyke and Mrs. Reiter have moved on to the evening service. I fill in more squares. Mrs. Reiter doesn't like my dad's series of sermons on “The Laughter of God.” She says, “I don't know that he should spend so much time talking about how God delights in us. Surely there are more important things to preach about.” I wonder what my dad said. I don't go to the evening services; my parents think one service on Sunday is enough for us kids. I have heard people grumble about that, but I don't care—I like staying home.

“Have you seen the chicken coop he's built behind the parsonage? Now that's an eyesore!” Mrs. Van Dyke says.

“The building committee says he never even asked their permission to build it,” confides Mrs. Reiter. I strain to hear her quiet voice. “He acts like he owns the parsonage.” I squirm a bit. It's true that from the church parking lot you can see our bantam rooster, our gaggle of geese, the pair of ducks, and the brown chickens. My little brother John lets his pet chicken, Brownie, out and she follows him around the yard. Last spring she got roosty, and she sat on a nest of duck's eggs. When they hatched, Brownie didn't know what to do—the ducklings climbed into the water dishes. We have rabbits and cats too. One of the cats wandered into church during a service last summer, and the bell on its flea collar jingled.

“I heard he's talked to Wiebe Mulder about getting a cow,” says Mrs. Van Dyke. “But I can hardly believe it.” I keep my face down. I have helped my dad work on the fence for the cow. I colour another square and hum to myself.

“A
dominee
playing farmer!” Mrs. Reiter sniffs. She looks my way, and I catch her eye through the French door. I look back down at the gingham cloth and think, I want to go home.

After a few minutes I walk into the spotless white kitchen. “Can I visit my little brothers?” I ask. They're staying at the Veenstras', half a kilometre down the country road. It's not far, but at 4:30, it's already getting dark, and the bright Alberta sun does little to warm the air in February. I get tears in my eyes as I ask, and Mrs. Van Dyke says I can go.

I pull on my down-filled coat and warm blue snowmobile boots. My feet crunch on the snow as I walk. When I pass the Harts' farm, their German shepherd bounds over to bark at me. I know him so I just yell, “Get lost, Toby!” and he wags his tail and runs back up the driveway.

It's nearly dark when I get to the Veenstras'. Light glows from the windows and everything inside looks golden. I knock and go in. Mrs. Veenstra gives me a hug and tells my brothers to say hi to me. They're playing with Tonka tractors and farm animals on the floor and look up only for a second. “Hi, sis.”

Mrs. Veenstra makes me hot chocolate. She has a special tin with a Delft-blue pattern, always full of homemade cookies or fudge. She sits at the dining room table and cuts bright pieces of foam into owl's wings. I know what she's making; I've seen the owl mobile in other people's houses. Sometimes people give us the latest craft—a crocheted hat-shaped toilet paper holder, the wall hanging made out of fake fur circles (one side a happy face, the other frowning). Mrs. Rhihns gave us a doll that looks like Aunt Jemima, made out of a Sunlight dish-detergent bottle, scraps of fabric, and a foam head painted brown. I liked it, but my mom said, “I draw the line here.” She put it behind the towels in the linen closet.