Catch Me When I Fall

by Westerhof Patricia

  “Of course. What should we do?”

  Dr. Maas stood and rummaged through papers on her desk, its oak surface almost entirely hidden by files. After a long search she handed a piece of paper to Valerie. “Here’s a chart of ‘feeling’ words. Put it up where Danny can see it—on the fridge, maybe.” Dr. Maas peered down at Valerie and tapped the desktop with her fingers. “Your son is very intellectual. He talks around the questions I ask about his emotions.”

  Valerie kept her face neutral, wondering how many twelve-year-old boys shared their feelings with strangers. “Does he talk about his feelings at home?” the doctor asked.

  “Not really.” The large wall clock showed 4:01. Valerie lifted her purse from the floor. Dr. Maas watched her, fingers still drumming. Valerie rose, holding the purse tightly, and offered a limp hand to the doctor, who gripped it and shook it with vigour. Mumbling a thank you, Valerie headed toward the waiting room. I should tell her, she thought. I should tell her.

  • • •

  Probably, Valerie thought as she drove out of Red Deer on snow-covered Highway 2, it was her fault. If she had just loved Danny more in the early months of his life. Sang proper lullabies to him as she rocked his colicky body instead of the versions she invented to keep herself sane. Hush little baby; don’t say a word. Mama’s gonna sell you, you ugly turd. She glanced over at him in the back seat behind her. He was picking his nose. “Danny Bouwen, use a tissue!” She handed him one from the glove compartment.

  • • •

  “What’s this?” Brad asked when he came in from the barn after milking. He moved the Calgary Tower magnet to the side of the fridge door to read the list aloud. “Aggravated. Amused. Annoyed. Appalled.” He grunted derisively. “Bitter. Blissful. Charmed. Cranky.”

  “Dr. Maas says it will help Danny.”

  “How was the nervous shrink today?” Brad said. He put a pail of fresh milk into the fridge and then reached out to pat her rear end. She twisted away.

  “Don’t call her that. What if Danny hears you? Besides, you’re not the one who has to supervise his—his recovery.”

  “You won’t let me. Trust me, I could make him eat.” Valerie considered him. Since he’d dropped out of his engineering program to farm the land after his father died, it was as if all the muscle in his brain had flowed down into his shoulders and arms and settled there, a sulky weight, bulky and disproportionate to the rest of his build. She glowered but said nothing.

  • • •

  “How was school today?” Brad asked Danny over supper.

  “Fine.” Danny moved the peas to the edge of his plate while Valerie watched. Each meal a stakeout. Her stomach clenched as several peas rolled back toward the middle of his plate. If his vegetables touched his meat or potatoes, he would refuse to eat them. Maybe she should have served the peas in side bowls.

  “What did you learn?” Brad’s voice was too loud for the tiny dining nook.

  “Nothing.”

  “How can you sit all day and learn nothing?”

  Danny shrugged a bony shoulder. He leaned back in his chair and put his fork down. Since the hospital stay, there was a nonchalant belligerence in his communication with them, as unattractive as the skinny arms attached to his lengthening, emaciated frame. Was the pediatrician accounting for Danny’s increase in height when she approved his weight at the weekly weigh-ins? “Easy,” Danny said. “I have a lousy teacher. She’s a control freak. I think she gets her geography notes from Wikipedia. Today she told us Surinam is in Asia.” Danny’s chuckle was scornful. He looked at Valerie and picked up his fork again. “Matt Bos got the new Kenneth Oppel book, though. He says he might lend it to me if I do his math for a week.”

  “You shouldn’t do other kids’ homework,” Valerie said. “It’s dishonest.”

  “What did you do at recess?” Brad asked. “Are you playing with the other kids like we told you to?”

  “They don’t want me.”

  “Of course they do,” said Valerie.

  “But it would help if you tried to act more like them,” said Brad. He put down his fork and folded his muscular arms across his chest. “You’re asking for trouble when you sit by yourself in the snow and read your book.”

  “Brad!” said Valerie. “Not now.” She turned to Danny. “You’ve only eaten four peas. Eat up.”

  • • •

  “You must be proud to have such a gifted child!” Dr. Maas said the next week. Valerie gazed at her. If it would fix him, she would part with a lot of Danny’s IQ points.

  “Did you put the feeling words up on the fridge?” Dr. Maas was tapping the desk with her pen, peering at her with those cat eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “And how’s it going?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “How do you feel about having them up on the fridge?”

  Valerie’s throat constricted. “Fine, I guess.” The doctor waited, still tapping in that irritating way. “Although I don’t see how it’s going to help.” Valerie’s voice was tight. “It’s just talking.”

  “Why do you think talking won’t help?”

  Valerie played with a loose thread on her sweater, then stopped herself. Pull one little thread and you never know how much might unravel. She picked instead at a piece of loose skin alongside her thumbnail. She was thinking about that day, a long time ago, when her sister Joanna told her about the knives. She was ten and Joanna was twelve—just a few months older than Danny was now. “You have to tell Mom,” Valerie had said. Together they had sought out their mother in their farmhouse kitchen. “Tell her,” said Valerie. Joanna said, “Mom, I keep thinking about hurting myself. With knives. I can’t stop thinking about knives.” Frowning, their mother had dried her hands on a dishtowel. A blue one with windmills on it. “Don’t talk nonsense,” was all she’d said. She gave Joanna a peppermint from the old Delft tin on the windowsill. “Hush now.”

  The doctor was waiting, quietly now, no longer tapping, Valerie inhaled sharply and spoke in a gush. “Well, it’s already affected his health. The pediatrician said he might have done permanent damage to his organs. And he still doesn’t eat right. There’re about a thousand foods he won’t eat. Meat, for one thing. You should hear my husband on that topic! And he won’t eat candy. It’s not normal!” Valerie clamped her lips together, her face flushing. Had she sounded emotional? She folded her hands together into her lap. “But if you think the list will help . . .”

  • • •

  Valerie drove past her mother-in-law’s farmhouse to their trailer on the edge of the lot. The phone was ringing when she and Danny walked inside. Valerie snatched it up. “Hello?”

  “Hey, there! It’s me. Joanna.”

  “Joanna! Where are you?”

  “Still here in Blantyre. But I’m flying home for a visit. In two weeks. Do you have room for me?”

  “Yes! Well, not in the trailer, but you can stay with Brad’s mom if you can stand a little craziness—her Alzheimer’s has gotten worse since you left.”

  “I’m used to craziness. You have no idea.”

  Valerie hung up the phone, her hand lingering on it for a moment. The late-afternoon sun poured light into the kitchen. “Auntie Joanna is coming for a visit,” she told Danny, who slouched against the counter drinking a large glass of water.

  “Yeah, I caught that,” he said, the tone sarcastic but his expression pleased.

  • • •

  In the car on the way back from the Edmonton airport, Valerie talked more than she had in months. “I thought things would change after the hospitalization. That it would fix him.”

  “Has he gained weight?” Joanna asked. Valerie glanced over at her. Joanna was looking good, she thought. What had seemed plain, even severe, in a teenager—the sharp chin, the serious eyes—had given the thirty-nine-year-old Joanna poise and elegance.

  “Some. But he’s, well, weird. About food and other things. No real friends. Doesn’t go to birthday parties. Never gets invited
to play hockey on the weekend, not even by Vicky’s kids anymore.”

  “He’s never had much in common with his peers. You and I know what that’s like.”

  “He’s hard to get along with. Argues a lot.”

  “He’s smarter than most people. That must be tough.”

  “Maybe.” Valerie picked at a small tear in the vinyl-coated steering wheel. She hesitated. “I guess I just thought it’d be easier afterwards. That I would like him more.” She kept her eyes on the road but thought she could feel Joanna’s wince. “I know,” she said. “What kind of mother am I?”

  • • •

  “So, how’s Africa?” Brad boomed at Joanna over dinner.

  “Still beautiful and still heartbreaking. You should visit some time.”

  Danny said, “I thought you were going to become a minister.” He spooned four beans onto his plate, glanced at Valerie, and took one more.

  “Well, that was a long time ago. I completed the first year at seminary.” Valerie noticed that Joanna never changed her voice when she spoke to Danny. Even during her visit four years ago when Danny was only seven, she addressed him as if he were wise and important. “But it was a tough year. Back then people felt pretty suspicious of women seminarians.”

  “But then you became a missionary,” Danny said.

  “Not really. I joined the Mennonite Central Committee and became a health worker.” Her voice was gentle. “I like to think I’m still doing God’s work even if I’m not preaching the Gospel.”

  “The babies you work with wouldn’t understand the Gospel anyway.” There was that hint of belligerence in Danny’s tone again, Valerie thought.

  “No,” Joanna said. “Not the words.”

  • • •

  “How long do you think you’re going to stay in Malawi?” Valerie asked later that night. Brad had disappeared to their bedroom to watch the hockey game, and Danny was in his room reading a fat novel with a fiery dragon on the cover.

  “I don’t know. Until it doesn’t feel right to be there.”

  “Do you ever feel homesick?”

  “Homesick, no. Lonely, yes. I don’t know how to explain this, Valerie. But I feel such a strong sense of calling. There’s so little I can do to help, yet I feel like I’m meant to be there.”

  “Doesn’t the sickness get to you? And the crying?”

  “That’s just it. Some weeks are bad—when so many babies die I start to think of myself as an angel of death. But maybe that’s what I’m meant to do. To hold them.” Joanna sounded so calm, thought Valerie. “I hum. I stroke their little heads. It’s like it’s my job to let them know, in their dying breaths, that they’re loved.”

  • • •

  As they climbed into the car, Valerie asked, “Can’t you stay longer? Everyone is happier with you here.”

  “I have a few appointments in Edmonton before I fly back.” Joanna’s grey eyes looked serene. She’s happy to be going, Valerie thought.

  Joanna said, “How much longer will Danny be seeing Dr. Maas?”

  “Just a few more weeks. That’s all our health plan covers. I think it will be a relief to finish.”

  “Maybe you should tell her some of our family history. What we learned from Mom.”

  “You mean like, ‘Keep yur house clean. Szort de closets.’” Valerie mimicked their mother’s thick Dutch accent.

  Joanna’s eyes crinkled. “Alphabetize de spice cup’ort. Ja?”

  “Na! Moof de furniture, ven yu vacuum, hor?”

  “Vater de African violets from de bottom, hor. Als yu don’t vant zer leafs to turn brown.”

  “Tuck de sheetz onder ven yu make de bedt. Echt gezellig, heh? Ent don’t buy fitted sheetz—zey’re impossible te folt neatly.”

  Their giggles turned to snorts. “Iron everyting.”

  “Polish yur szoes for kerk—I still do that,” Valerie said. “Oh—and if someone compliments you, say, Ja, yu just caught me at un goot time, heh?”

  “Yeah. Minimize the effort it all takes.” Joanna adjusted her seat back slightly. She grunted, a sound that reminded Valerie of the guttural noises their visiting Dutch tantas made after climbing stairs. “We laugh, but she’s in our heads, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.” Valerie paused. “Don’t talk nonsense,” she said quietly in her mother’s accent. She glanced over at her sister. Had she overstepped?

  Joanna placed her left hand lightly on Valerie’s right, which clutched the steering wheel. “I’m okay now. I got help. Are you okay?”

  • • •

  “Damn it!” The sound of Danny’s rage travelled from the living room to the bedroom where Valerie was folding laundry.

  “Danny Bouwen, watch your language!” She hurried to the living room and remembered to lower her voice. “What’s wrong?”

  “Damn program won’t work. This is a stupid dinosaur computer!”

  Valerie headed to the kitchen, to the list on the fridge. Freeing it from its magnet, she joined Danny at the computer, standing behind his rigid back. “How do you feel?” she said. The question sounded artificial. Silly.

  He turned to her, his thin face twisted with annoyance. “I think—”

  “A feeling word.” She thrust the list at him and waited, biting her cheek.

  He gazed at her for a moment. “Mad!” he said. “Enflamed. Enraged,” he said. His finger moved along the list. “Frustrated. Irritated . . . Incensed . . .” Valerie put a hand over her mouth as a laugh burst from him. “I like these words,” he said.

  • • •

  On Sunday, Danny sat between his grandmother and Valerie in church. Brad, next to Valerie, was reading the bulletin, his thigh pressed against hers. She listened closely as Reverend Post, the retired guest preacher for the day, read the parable about the man who found a treasure buried in a field. “This is the word of the Lord,” Reverend Post intoned.

  “Thanks be to God,” the congregation responded. Valerie glanced to the aisle beside them. Old Mrs. Veenkamp sat hunched over in her wheelchair, her chin resting on her chest. She clutched a bulky purse on her lap with one hand. The other arm, elbow balanced on top of the purse, gripped a wad of tissues to catch the drool that dribbled down her chin. Old Mr. Veenkamp held the Order of Service out for her to read along.

  Reverend Post spoke in a loud monotone with a strong Dutch accent. He threw his arms out to the side. “A man found a treasure hidden in a field, and so he sold his belongings and bought the whole field! For joy he bought the whole field. Rocks, weeds, and all.”

  Valerie’s mind drifted to the nearby village of Blackfalds where her dad had attended auction sales when she was a girl. She remembered the boxes of junk he brought home. “I bought the whole box for fifty cents,” he’d say, his smile as wide as the Alberta sky. Valerie’s mom watched with pursed lips as he unloaded the box in the garage next to the dozen other boxes of slotted wrenches, screws, nuts, bolts, cotter keys, udder balm, and cans of dried paint or old engine oil. Once, in the bottom of a box of rusty tools, he found a waffle iron that still worked. He and Valerie experimented on Friday nights with their own recipes. One night, they put pieces of orange in the batter, and the waffles turned out pea-soup green. Only she and her father ate them.

  Valerie looked at Mrs.Veenkamp. Her arms were shaking. As she trembled, the purse inched toward the edge of her lap. Her hand lurched from her chin and the soggy Kleenex tumbled to the floor. Old Mr.Veenkamp gently nudged the purse back in place, adjusted her hand on the purse, got a new tissue for her, and helped her hold it to her wet chin. How many times a day, Valerie wondered, does he wipe her chin?

  “The treasure is worth the whole field. Claim it—with great joy,” Reverend Post concluded. The pianist hammered out a jazzy version of “Amazing Grace,” and the deacons rose to collect the offering. Valerie glanced at Danny. He was playing tic-tac-toe with his grandmother on the children’s bulletin. The sun streaming through stained glass turned one side of his head bright gold.

  • �
� •

  Early on a cold Thursday in April, Valerie drove Danny to his last visit with Dr. Maas. “You should have turned right on 71st, Mom. Now you’ll have to go around the block again to get to the parking lot.” Danny sounded long-suffering.

  “What have I said to you about backseat driving?”

  “In three weeks, I’ll be old enough to sit in the front seat.”

  “It’s not just age. You have to weigh enough. They’ve changed the guidelines since this car was made. There was a recall.”

  “Yeah?” Danny sounded dubious. Valerie opened the glove compartment and handed him the Ford manual.

  “Look at the loose sheets inside,” she instructed.

  “Wow,” Danny said after a minute. “Okay.” Valerie adjusted the rear-view mirror to avoid eye contact with him. “Do you want to go to Wendy’s or Harvey’s for lunch later?” she said. “You could get a veggie burger.”

  “I know what you’re doing.” His tone was dry, even a little amused. Valerie turned the mirror back to look at him. “Maybe,” he shrugged.

  • • •

  After a half-hour visit with Danny, Dr. Maas sent him to the waiting room with a Sudoku puzzle and asked Valerie to join her.

  “Danny’s doing very well,” Dr. Maas said. She seemed to be redecorating her office—the walls were now bare, although inexpertly laminated posters covered the desk. The doctor drummed her fingers on one poster featuring a pudgy skunk and the words “Perfect Is a Trap.”

  “He eats carrots and bread,” Valerie said. “That’s about it.”

  “You’ll need to continue to help him expand his food choices,” she said, sounding unconcerned. “But he’s eating enough, and that’s great. I’m also pleased to see that he’s communicating more openly.”

  “I guess he’s coming along.”