Catch Me When I Fall

by Westerhof Patricia

“I know.” Sarah hoisted herself off the bed and wandered to the dresser. “I wear barn boots to walk from the house to the car—the driveway’s like gumbo.”

  “Look, can you drop by tomorrow morning? You weaseled out of GEMS, so I hope you can find time to help organize the church rummage sale. Help me sort the donations. I’ve got garbage bags full of stuff already in my garage.”

  Sarah picked a dead flower from the crown of thorns in the bedroom window. “Okay. Tomorrow.”

  • • •

  That night she woke to loud barking—though they didn’t have a dog. The cows in the pasture nearest the house were lowing uneasily. She scurried out of bed and pulled on her robe and rubber boots. She remembered a coyote had raided the VanEngs’ chicken coop the week before. Grabbing a broom to use as a weapon, she opened the door to darkness as black as the soil. Flicking on the yard light, she crossed the muddy driveway and turned toward the coop. Something lunged at her. Startled, she slipped in the mud and fell down hard as she screamed at the animal and slashed the broom in its direction. It backed up, barking fiercely, sharp white teeth visible in the dim light. Still swinging the broom, she clambered back up and flailed through the mud to the house. She opened the door, plunged inside, and slammed it. She grabbed the .22 from the mudroom—why hadn’t she grabbed it before? She checked to see that it was loaded and lurched out the door. The beast barked, still in the yard. She aimed at it and fired once, twice. She heard a loud yelp and fired again. Had she killed it? She listened, hearing only the wind in the poplars and her ragged breath. She fetched a flashlight from the kitchen drawer, beginning to feel the pain in her wrist from the fall. She shone the light into the yard and saw the dark bushy shape slumped on the ground. A dog. It was a dog. Her wrist was throbbing. She went back inside and wrapped a bag of frozen peas around it. She climbed back into bed, shivering.

  The next morning, after she had dragged the carcass behind the wood pile with her good arm, she called Marisa to cancel their meeting. “You should get an X-ray,” Marisa said. “I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes.” Sarah was too sore and tired to protest.

  “Looks like Pete Kruger’s dog,” Marisa said as she drove toward Red Deer. “Big, mean critter. Likes to wander. Killed two of our chickens last fall. Bram told Pete he’d shoot the dog if it ever showed up on our property again. He’ll be glad to hear you did.”

  “Hope Pete doesn’t sue me.”

  “As if. The dog attacked you! Good thing you did something.”

  They watched some morning talk show on TV in the waiting room until the nurse called Sarah. The doctor said it was a sprain, not a break. She bandaged the arm, gave Sarah a sling, and told her not to use the arm for a while. Afterwards, Sarah and Marisa walked through the rain to the parking lot, where someone had placed miniscule flyers, like the scraps of paper in fortune cookies, under all the windshields. A few skittered across the pavement. With her good hand—the left one—Sarah picked one up and read, God holds you in the palm of his hand. Sarah laughed. Folding it, she dropped it into her purse.

  “Just a sprain. Could be a lot worse,” Marisa said.

  • • •

  At Marisa’s house, Sarah slumped at the kitchen table, feeling bleary from painkillers and lack of sleep. Marisa deposited two mugs of tea on the table, turned her chair backwards, and sat legs apart, elbows on the back of it. “You okay?”

  “Sure.” She took a sip of bitter, lukewarm tea. “You wanted help with the rummage sale?”

  “First we need to decide where we’ll send the proceeds. So we can make a bulletin announcement and a flyer.” Marisa took a long slurp of her tea and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “What do you think? The World Bible League? The Back-to-God Hour? Our missionaries afield?”

  Sarah adjusted the spoon in the sugar bowl near her. Missionaries afield. That was one of many strange phrases she learned when she joined the church. Spoken with solemn reverence, as if you were referring to the recently deceased. She shook her head to clear the wooliness. “How about a women’s shelter in Red Deer? Or a food bank?” She leaned forward. “I don’t know if you’ve been reading the newspaper”—Marisa did not read newspapers; her world stretched to about a twenty-kilometre radius of Poplar Grove and included only churchgoing Dutch Canadians—“but there’s need nearby. You don’t have to go to foreign countries to find abused women, homeless people—”

  “Whoa! You don’t have to get your panties in a knot!” Marisa shook her head. “You’re right. We should ‘act locally.’ I saw that on a bumper sticker, and it makes good sense. Maybe we could support some of those programs that Cora Van Harn’s son was involved in.”

  Sarah was surprised into silence. Marisa didn’t notice. “I’ve been meaning to do something about Cora lately anyway. She looks terrible. Maybe she’ll get involved if we’re helping one of those places. Like that rec centre Samuel went to.”

  Sarah had been worried about Cora as well. Since Cora’s son, Samuel, died late last summer, Cora’s face was a ghost town. Her body too—less substantial each time Sarah saw her. “That’s a good idea. Will you check it with the church council?”

  “Yep.”

  “Great.” Sarah got up and collected her purse from the floor. “I’m not going to be able to sort stuff today. Next week?”

  “No problem. I can help Bram poison gophers this afternoon.”

  • • •

  When Sarah made her Profession of Faith, just before her wedding, she remembered thinking briefly about the enormity of what she was doing, what she was promising. How casually she had drifted into the faith, agreeing to believe. She stood at the front of the church, facing the congregation. Her parents sat in the second pew, uncomfortable, ill at ease, there only because she’d pleaded with them to come. Russell beamed at her from the front pew. In his murky Dutch accent Old Reverend Post had intoned, “Sarah Thomas, do yu prromise to do all yu can, with de help of de Holy Spirit, to strengzen your luf and commitment to Chrrist by sharing faithfully in de life of de shurch?” She’d felt an urge to laugh. And then, for a split second, she felt panic. But her voice—where had it come from?—surprised her. It was clear and steady. “I do, God helping me.”

  • • •

  In June they saw the doctor—their second visit. “Tests look fine. Keep trying,” the doctor said.

  “What if it doesn’t happen for us?” Sarah asked Russell over burgers in the Red Deer Grille.

  “Remember your vows?” He stuck a straw into his milkshake. “For better or for worse?” She took a bite of her burger and said nothing. “You know,” Russell said, “you have a bit of your mother in you. You think you should be immune from the worse.” He reached over and rubbed her shoulder to ease the criticism. “Besides,” he added, “remember Sarah in the Bible?”

  Her other biblical namesake.

  “She got pregnant.”

  • • •

  At home, she recorded the weather in her blank book. High 18. Low 10. She added a tiny Russell is home for the summer! Not a weather report exactly, but he did alter the climate. In a good way.

  She fingered the spine of the book and thumbed through the blank pages. The secret code of God. Maybe Russell was right. Maybe she did expect everything to be easy. Maybe she was still expecting God to put the chain back on the sprocket for her. Maybe Marisa had something to teach her about doing the work of the church, even if she was more like a snowplow than an angel of mercy. Who was Sarah, anyway, to know God’s plan for the ages? God’s plan for her? She closed the book. If there was a plan.

  • • •

  Back in church, they performed the greeting ritual. They were getting better at it. She’d thought the reverend would back down when he saw their lack of enthusiasm Sunday after Sunday, but he hadn’t. Now they seemed to be coming around.

  He preached about the woman in the parable who loses a coin, sweeps diligently until she finds it back, and throws a party to celebrate. Sarah listened, her hand clasped in Rus
sell’s, her eyes on Reverend Dykstra. She felt fragmented. Part of her belonged, part of her didn’t. Part of her believed, part of her doubted. She let go of Russell and hunted through her purse for peppermints. A crumpled scrap of paper found her fingers first. God holds you in the palm of his hand.

  At the end of the service Reverend Post got up to give the benediction. He raised his old arms high. “Now may de God uv hope fill yu vith all joy and peace in beliefing, that yu may abound in hope by de power of de Holy Spirit,” he said gravely. “Go in peace to luf and serve de Lord!” Maybe it was his accent, but Sarah heard, “Go in pieces to love and serve the Lord.”

  She took her husband’s hand and nodded.

  Holy Earth

  WHEN NO ONE is looking, I snack in the pantry closet. Thirty-five calories in each square of chocolate, according to the Nutrition Facts on the package. The teal bridesmaid dress I have to wear next month will need alterations, but I snap off another piece.

  Jen, Peter’s fiancée, asked me to help with the wedding program. Says she wants to get to know me. I haven’t agreed yet. Since I was a kid I’ve assumed anyone romantically interested in my brother must be defective. He’s four years older than me and studies graduate-level environmental science at the University of Alberta. When he tells people this, he emphasizes “graduate,” and carefully pronounces every syllable of “environmental,” in case it’s a new word for his listener. In case the listener is retarded.

  After the wedding they’re going to live in married-student housing. Peter will write his thesis and keep publishing his online zine, Holy Earth! It’s a Christian anti-consumerism zine, kind of like Adbusters, only less well written—and more pious and self-important, since the authors feel they have God’s stamp of approval. A few weeks ago, I heard Mom talking on the phone to my aunt. “I just hope Jen finishes her degree before she gets pregnant.” Jen is studying nursing. “At least one of them will have a job,” Mom said.

  Peter is home this week, trying to get the wedding plans in place. Mom and Peter still aren’t talking. At mealtimes, the silence festers like swamp gas. I gobble my food and take quick, furtive breaths between bites. Mom avoids even looking at Peter. Dad picks at his food before he disappears outside for a cigarette.

  • • •

  I gave in and typed up all the materials Peter and Jen want in the program. Sixteen pages. Multiple hymns and Scripture and the Prayer of St. Francis and a poem entitled “Together We Care for the Earth.” A month ago, we all would have overlooked what Mom calls “Peter’s quirks.” Mom would have laughed with me, maybe teased Peter about the note he wants on the back: We are glorifying God by using recycled paper in the program. Please join us for fair trade organic coffee after the ceremony. But that was before the fight.

  The guest list started it all.

  “I don’t see your oma’s name on here,” Mom said. It was Sunday and we were having coffee after church. “Nor your Auntie Trena and Uncle Jan. They’ll want to fly out for the wedding.” Auntie Trena is my mom’s sister, who lives in St. Catharines, Ontario. Oma moved in with her and Uncle Jan after Opa died three years ago.

  “That’s the reason they’re not on the guest list,” Peter said. “They would fly here.” Mom looked confused. I shoved a lemon square in my mouth and took some deep breaths through my nose. “Fossil fuels,” Peter explained. “I’m inviting a couple of guests from other provinces, but they’re riding their bikes. My roommate Ron is going to make the wedding a stop on his sea-to-sea trip.”

  Mom processes stuff pretty fast. I barely had time to fortify myself with another large square. “My mother is seventy-three years old,” Mom shrieked. “Your Tante Trena weighs two hundred pounds. She hasn’t been on a bike since she was eight!”

  “I know.” Peter was using his patient voice. “That’s why I’m not inviting them. But I’ll send them an announcement if you want.”

  “Verdomme! ” Dad’s Dutch is pretty much limited to swear words. He still thinks we haven’t figured them out; therefore he’s not setting a bad example when he uses them. Mom glowered at him, then rubbed her forehead with her plump fists.

  “You can’t be serious, Peter. Your own grandmother!”

  “You think I want my wedding contributing to the mess our environment’s in? I’m doing what’s right. You’re going to have to accept this.”

  • • •

  I hate conflict. When I was little, I sought out safe and silent places, like the back corner of my closet, or the top of the VanderHeys’ silo near our barn. I snuck cookies from the kitchen cupboard and savoured them in private. When I was about eleven, I read that even if you were in a completely soundproofed room, you would still hear noise: the high, tinny drone of your own nervous system. This made sense; in fact, I hypothesized that maybe my nervous system hummed a bit louder than other people’s, that it generated a faint and irritating mosquito whine. That’s why I felt so much anxiety, I thought, and why I ate a lot—I needed the distraction.

  My eating patterns have made me heavy, and every now and then, I try a diet. Until the fight, I was on one. I started it at Christmas, when Peter announced their engagement and Jen asked me to be a bridesmaid. I don’t like family events, and the thought of the wedding—all those relatives and their nosy questions—frightened me. “Still living at home, Erin? No boyfriend yet? Any plans to go to university? Not still working at that greenhouse?” If I were slim, I thought, I could get through it.

  I tried a diet I saw advertised on the Internet. I spent a lot of money on this powder that was supposed to numb your appetite. You stirred one packet into a glass of water and drank the greyish mixture fifteen minutes before each meal.

  When that failed, I found an article in an O magazine that advised overweight people to substitute positive self-talk for food, to “celebrate successes” and “take nothing for granted.” I tried it. Every day, at work, in the truck on the way home, even in my bed at night, I listed my accomplishments. Seedlings successfully transplanted. Rows of plants watered. Genial interactions with customers. I recalled kindnesses received. Warm smiles. The occasional compliment. I fingered them all like Smarties. And it worked. As I lost weight, I could imagine myself at Gull Lake this summer in a bikini, my straight blonde hair loose, my body tanned. Maybe someone would want to date me. Maybe I would quit my job and go to college, get a certificate in hospitality or interior decorating.

  Now, I’ve gained back the nine pounds I lost, and more. I avoid looking at the teal bridesmaid dress. And at myself.

  • • •

  Mom has been harassing me. Mom is pretty for a middle-aged, big-boned woman, but when she’s upset, she pulls her lips into her mouth and her eyes narrow and her puffy face turns red. All you see is furrowed eyebrows and blotchy folds of skin. “Talk to him, Erin. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

  On Monday evening Peter was on the couch copy-editing Holy Earth! I sat down on the pump-organ bench.

  “Do you remember how Oma had that drawer full of string and thread?” I said. “The leftover pieces from her sewing? She’d check that drawer first before using a new piece off the spool.”

  “Yeah. She’s always been cheap.” Peter kept his eyes on the copy. He looked awkward, his beefy hand concealing the mouse, his farmer’s frame bent over the laptop he had perched on one of his broad thighs. “Comes from living though the war in Holland, I guess.”

  “And remember how she resisted the dryer that Opa bought? Only used it in the winter? And she saved dryer lint—she won that contest.”

  Peter’s left hand travelled to his head, where his thick fingers clenched around clumps of his short hair. He moved the mouse and clicked. He’s a lousy copyeditor, and the zine always has mistakes. “Mmm hmm,” he said.

  “That contest in the newspaper. That column—it’s still running: ‘Tillie’s Tips.’ Oma won twenty-five bucks for telling people to use dryer lint as tinder in their fireplaces. She framed the column—it was in her kitchen. And she saved her dryer
lint in toilet paper rolls and gave it to the youth group at church to use for their camping trips. You remember?”

  “So what? She was thrifty. What’s your point?” Peter looked up, irritated. He shifted the laptop to his other leg. So many genes in common and so many years of living together and yet he can seldom follow my train of thought.

  I was pretty sure I could hear my nervous system humming anxiously by then, so I said, “Nothing. Forget it,” and retreated to my room. But all week I have been thinking about my resourceful Oma. Peter could devote a whole issue of Holy Earth! to her. Oma froze her garden vegetables in margarine containers she had washed and stored. Sewed gift bags from old scraps of fabric. She saved candle stubs and showed me how to melt the wax carefully over boiling water in a pie plate and then pour it into juice cans to make new candles. One year we used ice moulds to make fanciful ice-sculpture candles—I gave them to my parents and my teachers as Christmas presents. Another year we cut little pictures out of magazines and Sunday-school papers and attached them to bath soaps with a thin layer of wax. Oma said if I used the soap I would have to remember to rub the non-picture side because the wax side wouldn’t lather.

  A month after Opa’s funeral, just before I graduated from high school, Oma decided to move to Ontario. The arrangements were made quickly, and I cried when we drove her to the airport. “Schatje,” Oma said. “You can visit me. These days distance means nothing. Whenever you want to, you come visit me.” She hugged me tight. She smelled like anise cookies.

  • • •

  Peter and Jen don’t want to cut anything out of the program. “It’s really long,” I pointed out when I showed them the typed pages.

  Reverend Dykstra said the same thing when he met with them in our living room last night. “You’ve invited the whole congregation. What if it’s a really hot day? The church isn’t air-conditioned.”

  “Thank goodness,” said Peter.

  “We’re only getting married once,” said Jen. “We’ll just tell people to talk fast.” She puts her hand in front of her mouth when she giggles. “And sing fast.”