Catch Me When I Fall
Page 13
“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.
Acknowledgments
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.
Patricia Westerhof was born to Dutch Canadian parents, and spent parts of her childhood in Holland and in rural Alberta. Her Dutch roots and memories of these places are the inspiration behind Catch Me When I Fall, her first book-length work of fiction. Her short stories have been published in Room Magazine, The Dalhousie Review, and the anthology Trees Running Backward, and she is the co-author of a textbook for creative writing students called The Writer’s Craft. Patricia lives in Toronto with her husband and two daughters, where she teaches English and creative writing. Please visit patriciawesterhof.com.
Copyright © 2011 Patricia Westerhof
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (access Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Westerhof, Patricia
Catch me when I fall / Patricia Westerhof.
Short stories.
Print format: ISBN 978-1-897142-51-6
Electronic monograph in PDF format: ISBN 978-1-897142-63-9
Electronic monograph in HTML format: ISBN 978-1-897142-64-6
I. Title.
PS8645.E795C38 2011 C813'.6 C2010-906355-4
Editor: Rhonda Batchelor
Proofreader: Heather Sangster, Strong Finish
Cover design: Ruth Linka
Front cover image: Ege Eksen, istockphoto.com
Author photo: Lorrie Dillard
Permissions information: Epigraph for the book: Diana Brebner, “The Radiant Lady Poems,” p.13, part V, lines 8-9, in The Ishtar Gate, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005. Quotation from “Ere Zij God” on page 135 by F.A. Schultz, copyright Faith Alive Christian Resources. Quotation from “Our God Reigns” on pages 55-56 by Leonard E. Smith, Jr., New Jerusalem Music. Quotation on pages 141 and 147 from “The Wedding Banquet” by Miriam Therese Winter, Copyright © Medical Mission Sisters 1965.
Brindle & Glass is pleased to acknowledge the financial support for its publishing program from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Brindle & Glass Publishing Ltd.
www.brindleandglass.com