Catch Me When I Fall (17 page)

Mrs. Veenstra's eyes go back and forth between the sheet of instructions and the foam. She has to pay attention and cut carefully to make good wings. Today won't be one of her storytelling days. But it doesn't matter. Mrs. Veenstra has a “make yourself at home” policy—that's what my mom calls it, and you can just help yourself to a cookie, or read your book, or watch her. I play with some scraps of foam and listen to my brothers. Glenn, who is only four, has stopped making tractor noises and has started to sing instead. Mrs. Veenstra and I laugh because he sings a church song—only he sings the mixed-around version that I taught him: “I cannot come, I cannot come to the banquet; don't trouble me now. I have bought me a wife, I have married a cow.”

Mr. Veenstra comes downstairs with the baby. He holds him with one of the steel hooks he has where his hands used to be. His hands were cut off when he jumped from a train when he was a teenager. I stare at the hooks, fascinated at what he can do with them. Mrs. Veenstra has sewn a special upside-down pocket on the back of the baby's shirts, and Mr. Veenstra slides his hook inside to pick up the baby. He can prepare the baby's bottle too.

“Hi, honey,” he says. “How are the Van Dykes treating you?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“I hear your dad wants to buy a cow.”

“Yeah.” I look at him anxiously, but his eyes crinkle into a warm smile.

“Maybe you should come help me with the milking so that you get practice!”

I giggle. “But you use machines!” I say.

He looks at his hooks. “Yeah, but I could still teach you how to do it by hand!”

The phone rings and Mrs. Veenstra picks it up. “Yes, hi,” she says. “Oh . . . okay . . . That's fine . . . Anything we can do? . . . You'd better call the
dominee
 . . . Okay. Bye.” She puts the phone down. I look at her expectantly. “That was Mrs. Van Dyke,” she says. “Some trouble with Corrine. You're staying here for supper.”

“What kind of trouble?” I ask.

“Nothing I can tell you about,” she says gently and exchanges a look with Mr. Veenstra.

I shrug off my confusion because I'm glad to stay for supper. I play with the baby while Mrs. Veenstra glues the owls' wings on the foam bodies and fastens little plastic eyes to foam heads. I tell her it looks nice, but personally I wonder what kind of owl is green with orange wings. My dad has a book,
Birds of North America
, that he reads aloud to us when we're on holidays, so I know more about the colours of birds than I care to.

When Mr. Veenstra comes in from milking we eat supper—
boerenkool
with sausage. I like
boerenkool
—kale and potatoes mashed together. I add a huge dollop of butter to mine. Mom would never let me take that much, but Mrs. Veenstra doesn't seem to notice. My brothers make roads through their supper and drive their spoons all over their plates. They make put-putting sounds like tractors. “Stop playing with your food!” I tell them. They ignore me. I wonder why I wanted to see them so badly.

•  •  •

After supper, it's time to go back to the Van Dykes' house. The temperature has dropped to minus twenty. “I'll warm up the truck,” Mr. Veenstra says. I put on my coat, boots, toque, scarf, and mittens.

“Thanks for supper and everything,” I say to Mrs. Veenstra.

“Any time, honey,” she says. “You'll be glad to see your parents tomorrow, I expect.”

“Yes.” I gulp, and tears prickle.

When I climb into the pickup truck, it's still so cold inside that I can see my breath. Mr. Veenstra eases the truck out of the driveway and onto the road, shifting gears easily with his hook. “How did you get your licence?” I ask him.

He laughs. “Same as everybody else, I guess. I took a driving test. I did do one thing though, just in case they were worried about these.” He holds up his hooks. They gleam in the darkness.

“What did you do?” I ask. He stops the truck on the road. Nobody drives this way at night much—it's safe to stop.

“I'll show you,” Mr. Veenstra says and grins. He reaches into his coat pocket and takes out rolling papers and tobacco. With quick movements, he separates a rolling paper with one hook, then opens the tobacco pouch and sprinkles just the right amount of tobacco on the paper. He brings the paper up to his mouth, licks it, and rolls it into a perfect cigarette. I am grinning now too. He puts the cigarette in his mouth, takes his lighter from the dashboard, and flicks it with the thumblike extension on his hook. The cab fills with the warm, familiar scent of tobacco smoke, and I laugh.

“What did they say?”

“Not much. They just checked Pass and sent me to the office to collect my licence.”

He moves the truck back into gear and drives the short distance to the Van Dykes'. “Thanks,” I say. I climb down onto the creaking snow.

“You come back soon,” he says.

I take off my coat and leave my boots in the porch. When I walk into the kitchen, I can tell right away that something is wrong. Mr. Van Dyke sits at the kitchen table, his face in his hands. Mrs. Van Dyke tries to smile at me when she says hello, but she sounds like a little bird. “What happened?” I ask.

“It's Corrine,” Mrs. Van Dyke says. Corrine goes to school somewhere in Saskatchewan. She's maybe nineteen or twenty.

“Is she hurt?” I ask.

“No, nothing like that,” Mrs. Van Dyke replies.

“Oh. Maybe my mom and dad can help when they get here tomorrow night,” I offer reluctantly. I don't want my mom and dad to talk to anyone but me when they get back. I don't even like sharing them with my brothers. But the Van Dykes look funny. They look small, like sparrows.

“I hope they can help.” Mrs. Van Dyke sighs. “Get ready for bed now.”

I slip into my flannel nightgown and come back into the kitchen to say goodnight. The Van Dykes still sit at the kitchen table and talk quietly.

The next day passes slowly. I feel more homesick than ever now that I know my parents are on their way home. We go to church in the morning and sit through the boring service. An Elder reads a sermon, since my dad is not there to preach. The Elder looks nervous. He stumbles over words. When we get to the Van Dykes', I change into my play clothes. I read most of the afternoon and work on the tablecloth a little.

A half-hour before my parents are due to arrive, Mrs. Van Dyke disappears into her bedroom. She comes out fifteen minutes later in her beige Sunday skirt, pantyhose, and a brown blouse.

When I see my parents' red car, I yank on my boots and bolt out the door before they come to a stop in the driveway. Mom is still climbing out of the car when I hug her fiercely. Then I go and hug my dad. He lifts me up and swings me around. I'm way too big for this, but I don't mind too much today.

“We need to talk to the Van Dykes for a few minutes before we pick up your brothers,” Dad says as we walk up to the house.

“Did they call you?” I ask.

“Yes,” Dad answers.

“What's wrong?” I ask.

Mom and Dad look at each other. “We'll talk about it later,” Mom says.

I want to ask more questions, but the Van Dykes have opened the porch door to welcome my parents.

“Why don't you read for a few minutes?” Dad says to me. The grownups sit down at the kitchen table. I go into the living room with my Nancy Drew book and curl up on the sofa near the door. If I squish back into the cushions they can't see me, and they'll forget I'm here.

They chitchat for a few minutes about my parents' trip while Mrs. Van Dyke makes tea. Then Mrs. Van Dyke says, “We don't know what to do,” and I can hear that she is crying.

Mom says, “How far along is she?”

“Five months,” says Mrs. Van Dyke. “I guess she can't hide it anymore.”

“How is she feeling?” asks Mom

“I think she's fine,” says Mrs. Van Dyke. “We didn't really get into it on the phone last night. It's been such a shock . . .” She makes a small sobbing noise.

“How could she do this?” says Mr. Van Dyke. He bangs his fist on the table and the teacups clatter.

“What about the father?” Dad asks. “Is he with her?”

Mrs. Van Dyke is still crying. “Corrine wouldn't say much about him. She said she wouldn't marry him even if he wanted to marry her.”

“She'll sleep with him but not marry him!” Mr. Van Dyke makes a funny yelping noise, like a dog that's been kicked.

“Well, she can't stay in Regina by herself,” Mom says.

“No, we'll have to go out and get her, but then what?” cries Mrs. Van Dyke.

No one talks for a minute. I notice that I am biting my nails, a habit I have been trying to break. I fold my hands in my lap. Then Dad says quietly, “You have room in your house for your daughter and a new little child. Do you have room in your hearts?”

The kitchen clock ticks. Mrs. Van Dyke sniffles and blows her nose. Mr. Van Dyke finally sighs, “I don't know,
Dominee
, I just don't know. Should it be that easy?”

“It's not easy, Pete,” Dad says.

It's quiet again for a little while. Then Mr. Van Dyke says, “Okay. We'll bring her home. I don't know what we'll do with her, but we'll bring her home.”

“We'll come with you to pick her up,” says Dad. How about next Thursday?” They start to talk about travel plans and I decide it's safe to go into the kitchen.

“Thanks for taking care of our daughter,” Mom says. “I hope she remembered her manners.”

“She was no trouble at all,” Mrs. Van Dyke says. She smiles at me uncertainly.

She looks like a little brown sparrow again. I say, “Thanks for looking after me.”

Once we have picked up my brothers, Mom turns toward us in the back seat. “We have some things to talk about with all of you,” Mom says. “Not tonight, but tomorrow we'll sit down together.” Good, I think. I want to hear more about Corrine.

We gather the next morning around the kitchen table. Mom gives us orange Tang and brownies. Then she says, “You know we went to meetings in Ontario this past week. Some of those meetings were with a university in Guelph. They want Dad to come and work there. So, most likely, we'll move out east this spring.”

I am dumbfounded.
Dumbfounded
is a word I have read before but never felt. My mind fills with hundreds of objections to this plan. My secret forts in the woods, the thick ice on the sloughs in the winter, the wild roses that I pick in spring. My friends—Debbie, and Irene, and Sandy—Mr. Veenstra and his hooks. All these things and more tumble through my head. “What about the cow?” I say. “We're getting a cow!”

•  •  •

Ten days later, at 9:00
AM
, the phone rings, on schedule. The university is calling to find out Dad's answer. My brothers and I have planned an answer of our own. As Dad starts with the small talk, we bellow a song, and I have told my brothers to sing it the right way: “I cannot come, I cannot come to the banquet, don't trouble me now, I have married a wife, I have bought me a cow—” Mom frowns at us, but Dad turns and winks. We keep singing: “I have fields and commitments that cost a pretty sum; pray hold me excused, I cannot come.” Then I surprise myself. Tears run down my cheeks. I look out the window at the snowy yard, the chicken coop, the rabbit cages, the fence we've built for the cow.

Through my tears, everything already looks blurry, like a memory, or a dream.

I began this manuscript as a solitary venture, but completed it with generous help. I thank Douglas Burnet Smith and Nandy Heule for reading early drafts and encouraging me to keep writing. Thank you, Michael Winter, for your insightful editing and your attention to detail. Thank you to Susan Cockerton, Sylvia May, Sarah Parks, k.g. sambrano, and Robert Schreur for your close reading and belief in the project.

Though this is a work of fiction, occasionally it required research. I thank Ken Jackle, Judy Van Haren, and Ed Nyman for allowing me to consult them for details about farming. Any errors are mine. Thank you to Jack and Pat Westerhof and the Knibbes for sharing family stories of the Nazi occupation of Holland.

Thank you to my editor, Rhonda Batchelor, and to Ruth Linka and her colleagues at Brindle & Glass. I appreciate your work tremendously.

Grateful acknowledgement to the Toronto Arts Council.

Thank you to Carol Knibbe, Albert Koke, Ed Nyman, Brian Dower, Connie Chisholm, and Stewart Chisholm for your support and friendship. Special thanks to Connie and Stew for all the Saturday meetings.

Finally, thank you to Doug, Peryn, and Jillian, for everything.

“Poplar Grove” is published in
Trees Running Backwards
(Toronto: Life Rattle Press, 2004). “Killdeer God” appeared in
Room
. “How Lovely Are the Feet of Them” appeared in
The Nashwaak Review
and “Probability” appeared in
The Dalhousie Review
.