Catch Me When I Fall

by Westerhof Patricia

  • • •

  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.

  Poplar Grove

  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 th
e 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.

  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 o
ut 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.