Nova Scotia Love Stories

by Lesley Choyce

  Shaking hands with the people who filed by him murmuring condolences, Warren watched her out of the corner of his eye as she moved to the casket and paid her respects to the woman who had been his wife for more than fifty years. God, she was beautiful. Even in that black, shapeless dress – did clothiers purposely design potato sacks for septuagenarian women? – he could see a memory of the body that had once driven him to distraction, had wrapped itself around his and drained him of the first orgasm he hadn’t manufactured himself. And the way she could make him laugh –

  “Warren,” Claire said when she came abreast of him. She held out her hand and he took it, warm and papery in his rough, wrinkled palm. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  Without warning, a lump rose in his throat and he couldn’t speak. He tried to swallow around it and sucked in air at the same time, erupted in a fit of coughing.

  Standing to his right, his eldest son, Richard, stepped closer. Taking the woman’s hand, he said, “Thank you for coming.”

  How many times had Warren heard those words, had said them himself that week to friends at the hospital, to neighbours carrying trays of food, to family and acquaintances who had come to the viewing that afternoon and now this evening. Yet he couldn’t push out even those four words now. Throat locked, he could only smile and try to catch his breath.

  Later, he looked for her outside. He didn’t expect she’d be there, but he scanned the street nonetheless while Richard and his wife, Marie, went to get the car. Jack, who’d never married, and Robert, who was divorced, had already left in the Acura Jack had rented at the airport. Warren hoped they’d gone out for a drink or maybe a drive, anything that would delay their return to the house. He couldn’t face another evening like the one last night when they’d all aligned against him. It was clear they were Alva’s boys. Even Richard, though old photographs showed he was the spitting image of his father at that age. Angrier than he’d been in a long time, Warren had considered ordering them out of his house, but he’d wait until after the funeral tomorrow. Then they could all go to hell.

  Claire was there, standing in the warm August light that slanted low through an ancient maple, the sole survivor of dozens that once lined Main Street. The hurricane that hit the province in ’03 had toppled several of the town’s older hardwoods, pulling down electrical lines that took Nova Scotia Power almost a week to repair. On the utility’s advice, the town council had begun the task of cutting down the oldest trees to avoid a repetition of that disaster, but Paul Goodwin, the funeral home’s proprietor, had appealed to them to leave the one outside his establishment standing. As he’d put it in a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, “Mourners are comforted by constancy.” Warren hadn’t felt the least bit comforted by that tree, but his spirits certainly lifted when he saw who was standing beneath it. So did something else, something that hadn’t lifted without help for more years than Warren cared to remember. Praise the Lord, he thought.

  Richard’s Camry eased to a stop beside him, and Marie got out and opened the rear door. “I’ll get in back,” she said. “You sit up front with Richard.” Richard. Never Dick or Rick or Rich, even when he was a kid. That was Alva’s doing. You carry what you’re given, she was fond of saying. Why name a kid one thing and call him something else? Warren had wanted to name his second son John after his father, who’d died that year, but since everyone called his father Jack, Alva insisted that Jack appear on the boy’s birth certificate. Even when he won, Warren felt like he’d lost.

  He shook his head. “No, thanks,” he told Marie. “I’d like to wait here a bit. You two go on ahead. I’ll take a taxi home later.”

  Richard was sitting on the far side of the vehicle, so he had to bend low across the front seat to look up at him. “C’mon, Pop, let’s go.”

  Warren shook his head again. Raising his voice, he spoke slowly as if English weren’t his son’s first language. “I’m staying here for a while. I’ll be fine. You two go.”

  “Pop,” Richard said, and Warren heard in his son’s voice the tone Alva used when she met resistance from anyone, from garage mechanic to Girl Guide. “Get in the car.”

  Warren glanced toward the maple again and saw no one. Had someone collected Claire in the moments he’d looked away? Or had geriatric brain cells summoned her from desire, inserted her into the landscape of Main Street and his memory? He knew that’s what Alva would have said had she been there. During much of their last year together, she’d been quick to claim that Warren’s mind wasn’t what it used to be and, as she did with every other conviction, she’d harped sufficiently about it until their sons accepted it as truth. The scene that had unfolded in his kitchen the previous night was proof enough of that.

  Marie stood beside him, her forehead creased in that way of hers that meant she’d said something more times than it was worth.

  “What?” asked Warren. He hated that look on her face. Parents of two teenagers, she and Richard were no doubt accustomed to being ignored. The little christers hadn’t even bothered to come see their grandmother get planted. Richard had blamed their absence on summer jobs, but Warren was pretty sure they’d seized the opportunity for no-parent partying while Richard and Marie were out of town. Warren couldn’t blame them, though. Given the choice, he’d have picked debauchery over dead people any day.

  “More tea?” Marie nodded toward the pot she’d brewed. Warren preferred coffee but Alva had always made tea, and it appeared the incongruity would continue. He couldn’t wait until everyone left. The first thing he’d do is make a trip to Home Hardware and buy the biggest coffeemaker he could find, cement the thing to the counter by the stove, and tape the power switch to “on.”

  “No,” he said. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Thanks,” and took a final swallow of the lukewarm Earl Grey that he loathed.

  Richard cleared his throat and Warren turned to see him upend a manila envelope and dump its contents onto the kitchen table. Jack and Robert sat in the other two chairs, all four men forming points of a parallelogram around the oval dinette Alva had bought with her Zellers points before the store became a Wal-Mart. Warren had wanted a La-Z-boy to put in front of the Sony flat screen the boys had given them a few Christmases back, but Alva said the dinette was more practical. The woman was nothing if not practical.

  Richard slid some glossy papers toward his father as the other two boys looked down at their cups. Strange how Warren always thought of all three as boys, could never picture them as men moving about their own homes. He and Alva had been to Richard’s and Robert’s a few times (Jack lived on the West Coast and always seemed to be exchanging one condominium for another, each one more expensive – and with more windows – than the last), but it was like observing exotic animals in captivity, their surroundings a pale imitation of the real thing. Warren always got the impression that their true lives ground to a halt while he and Alva were there and didn’t resume until they left. They’d stopped going when Alva’s blood pressure made it hard for her to travel. No great loss, though. Warren much preferred the everyday hell of home to the exquisite agony of visiting family. At least you had your things nearby.

  “– nearby, but this one offers a lot more activities. It’s smaller, too, so I imagine the care it provides is more personal. We’ll look at all three sometime after the funeral. I’d like to do it by Wednesday, though, so we can get things in motion before we leave.” Richard was speaking faster than usual, almost stumbling over his words. Jack and Robert continued to study their cups.

  Warren blinked. “What –” He looked at the brochures in his hands: Silver Meadows. Golden Acres. Sunset Way. He turned to Richard. “What’re you showing me these for?”

  Richard ran a hand through his hair, already thinning on top. When it came to scalps, all three had taken after Alva’s side of the family. Warren’s hair might be white, but most of it was still on his head. Dianne down at Hair Hunters always commented on the thickness of it when he came in for his cut.
/>   “Pop,” said Robert, “you can’t come live with us. You know that.”

  Warren dragged his eyes from Richard to Robert. “Who in hell thought I wanted to live with any of you?”

  “Well, you can’t stay here on your own,” Robert sighed. “You don’t have Mum to look after you anymore.” Warren seethed. “Look after me?” He was suddenly aware that Marie was no longer in the kitchen. He heard the Sony on low in the living room and knew she’d parked herself in front of it, but he was sure she was listening to every word they said. The woman had ears like a jackrabbit. “I don’t need anyone to look after me! Who do you think helped wipe your asses all those years?”

  “Now, Pop –” offered Jack.

  Warren turned on him. Jack was the boy he admired most – his second son pleased only himself, lived his life on the move, didn’t carry a lot with him – but he was just like the others when it came to group mentality. If Alva had taught them anything, it was to stick together. Come what may. “You get this in your heads right now,” Warren snarled, letting his gaze move from Jack to the others again. “All three of you. I have no intention of living anywhere but in this house. You got that?” He shoved the brochures across the table, their glossy smoothness taking them beyond the edge of the oval, and they see-sawed back and forth in the air before fluttering to the linoleum. Shoving his chair back, Warren pulled himself to his feet, fighting to keep the twinge in both knees from showing on his face. “I’m going to bed.”

  He could hear the boys bending to collect the brochures as he moved down the hallway, took some satisfaction in that knowledge as he struggled to plant one foot solidly in front of the other.

  She had come to the funeral, too.

  Warren hadn’t expected to see her again, but there she was two pews back on the other side of the church. It had begun pouring sometime after midnight, the rain tapering to a steady drizzle by daybreak, but St. Mark’s Presbyterian had suddenly seemed awash with light. Warren had had to force himself not to gaze upon her during the service, allowing only one long look before the minister had begun the proceedings. But during the readings, hymns, and eulogy, all he could think about was the first time he’d seen her. While Richard, Jack, and Robert each said a few words about what a wonderful person their mother had been, Warren relived that Friday in ’56 like it was yesterday.

  He’d been working in Halifax. It was his first real job apart from what he’d done at home, and he didn’t even mind the crummy rooming house he lived in after eighteen years on his father’s Hants County farm. Post-war prosperity meant people had lots of money to spend, and many of them chose to squander it in the pages of mail-order catalogues. Such shoppers who lived in or near the city often went to the Simpsons-Sears building on Mumford Road, where they could select what they wanted and then pick it up the same day. Warren was an order-runner whose job was to remove the slips of paper from plastic containers that hurtled through vacuum tubes into the building’s main office and then deliver them to the appropriate warehouse departments for filling. He was little more than an errand boy but the job got his foot in the door, and it beat mucking out a cattle barn, his overalls forever covered in cow shit.

  He’d seen Claire on his second day. Her back ramrod straight, she sat at the switchboard directing calls with a voice that could melt stone. Even behind the huge oak desk with its tangle of black wires, she’d eclipsed the other women bustling around her. Many with long hair wore theirs piled high and businesslike on their heads while this woman – a girl, really – wore hers down, feathery curls the colour of honey framing her face and making the red lipstick she wore seem even more vivid. The moment he saw her he’d shuddered to a stop, frozen in mid-step while he mined his memory for some glib comment that refused to surface. She’d spied his flustered face hovering beyond the desk, looked at him with luminous eyes, the corners of her mouth tugging up into a shy smile while she continued to speak into the switchboard’s microphone. A balloon lodged high in his chest as he’d fumbled with words, tried to say –

  “ – say, Warren?”

  He looked up. Reverend Fisher was staring at him from the pulpit. So were his boys, now sitting beside him, their bodies turned toward his.

  “Pardon?” he heard himself croak, but all he could think about was the warm spot in his underwear. Hoped he hadn’t pissed himself. Wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t.

  “Is there anything you’d like to say?” the minister repeated.

  Warren shook his head. There’d been enough said about Alva already.

  The rain held off long enough for them to get her in the ground. Everyone had umbrellas out just in case – Warren holding his closed in front of him at groin level – but Alva must have had some influence with the guy upstairs. Or down below, Warren mused.

  Several of the people at the church hadn’t come to the gravesite but, despite the threat of a drenching, there were still a few there waiting, watching as the minister said the final words. His comments were accompanied by the sounds of traffic on the highway beyond the cemetery, his ashes-to-ashes litany underscored by the throaty grumble of an eighteen-wheeler gearing down for the incline.

  When it was over, a handful of them moved toward Warren, his sons, and Marie. Again he found himself searching their faces for Claire. He knew he wouldn’t be lucky enough to see her again, but it didn’t hurt to hope. Maybe Alva could use her influence one more time, could do this one last thing for him. She owed him that much.

  And there she was, moving carefully in their direction over the rain-softened ground. He almost cried out as he saw her approach, had to force himself not to reach out and pull her toward him.

  “Warren,” she said softly as she paused in front of him, “how’re you holding up?” She put a hand on his arm, and he could feel the heat of it through his overcoat, his suit jacket, his shirt.

  “As well as can be expected,” Marie said from behind him. “A little disoriented at times, but –”

  “I’m holding up fine,” said Warren, scowling. He wanted to tell his daughter-in-law to pile sand but wanted even more to go on feeling that hand on his arm, warming him. “Better now that you’re here, Claire.”

  Claire’s eyes widened, and she pulled her hand away. She looked at Richard, who looked at his father.

  “Dad,” Richard murmured, “this is Alva. Alva Carleton. Mom’s friend from the ladies’ auxiliary. You know Alva.”

  The woman cleared her throat, continued awkwardly, “I always loved your Claire, Warren. She was such a card. Always kept us laughing. I’m going to miss her so much. We all are.”

  Warren felt things leaving him. The traffic sounds. The smells of rain-soaked grass, freshly turned earth. The air around his face.

  He felt his knees buckle as something turned inside him, felt hands support him as he staggered. After a moment, the sounds and the smells returned. He got his legs under him and he brushed the hands away.

  “I’ll hold this for you,” said Robert as he picked up the umbrella his father had dropped. It had begun to drizzle again.

  Warren snatched it from him. “I can carry it!” he muttered. “Your mother gave me this umbrella.” He struggled to open it, fought with the button, the black cloth, the metal ribs. “You carry what you’re given,” he choked, the rain on his face something like tears.

  Operation Niblet

  Chris Benjamin

  After a brief time conducting mad science experiments in the St. Lucian rainforest, Chris Benjamin took a master’s degree in environmental studies at York University. There he fell head over heels in love with a diverse array of eco-feminist radicals. “Operation Niblet” is a work of fiction inspired in part by the three very different but equally influential worlds where Chris grew up: the Nova Scotia suburbs, Dalhousie campus, and grad school where he learned to be a loud and proud hippie.

  Zoëy taught Gerry – who was always in love with animals and every year painted several landscapes featuring majestic moose in wide open fields –
about how people think animals are property but they’re not; they’re sentient and have a right to live and enjoy smelling and tasting and seeing beauty. Eating them was wrong, and he wouldn’t do it anymore.

  Terry and Sue, their other roommates, were also vegans. They were much more radical than Zoëy. They had each served time. Terry was convicted of assaulting a security guard and Sue snatched a wad of cash off an inattentive bank teller and burned it, setting off the fire sprinklers. Gerry loved their stories of defiance and lockup, like Bonnie and Clyde if they’d survived all those bullets from the posse. Zoëy was captivated by their ideas and questioned them like a reporter seeking the perfect sound bite.

  Maybe it was the weed, the fact that Gerry smoked and they didn’t, but when they all sat together on the front porch he was often stunned into silence by the things Terry and Sue said. Their words seemed hazy and unfathomable but he loved listening anyway. He loved it when they called people pussies – he hadn’t expected that from lesbians.

  But he was also glad they weren’t night owls like him and Zoëy. When Sue stood and held her hands out to help Terry up, and led her by the hand inside to their shared room, it was the happiest moment of Gerry’s daily routine. It was when he got Zoëy alone and they could talk about her more nuanced ideas.

  At such a time he told Zoëy about his mother, specifically about his experience witnessing the moose the day she left him with a bullshit story, how the majestic animal gave him strength to carry on despite the loss, how he had had many dreams of moose since, of being a half-moose half-man unsuccessfully harvesting wild rice with hooves, and of his previous life as a (possibly female) member of the Moose Clan of the Mamaceqtaw people of what is now called Wisconsin.