Pallbearing

by Michael Melgaard

  Most of his family memories were here. They’d moved in when Jake was ten, and Nick had moved out just before the boy turned sixteen. Jake’s mom had held on to it until he finished school, then sold it. Nick had never owned a house after that one, just rented apartments. Jake seemed no worse for the divorce; he was a smart kid who worked for the municipality now, made good money. His wife commuted up to the city, worked at some law firm. And their daughter, Nick’s granddaughter, Lily, was a beautiful little kid. She’d be coming up on six, starting school soon. Or had started. Nick couldn’t remember. He didn’t see her as much as he would have liked; the wife didn’t care for him.

  He looked over his old brickwork from the road, making sure it was still in good shape. It was.

  Nick drove to the far end of town on the old highway and turned off onto one of the logging roads. Less chance of running into a roadblock there. The town was getting so you couldn’t do anything. There hadn’t even been cabs to take you home after the bar until a decade ago. The road took him over an old wooden bridge and up the side of a mountain. He stopped at a small lake he knew in one of the valleys. He finished his beer and listened to the radio and thought it was only a matter of time before the area was all houses.

  A Jeep full of kids came out of the woods on the other side of the water, close enough that Nick could hear their music over his. They all got out and one of them saw him looking and said something to his buddies. They laughed and then another one said, “Hey man, you want a toke?” They all laughed again. Nick toasted them with his beer and headed out.

  The logging roads took him over the other side of the mountain and then suddenly he was on paved roads that were new since the last time he’d been through. He’d heard they’d subdivided this area. There were lots marked out with neon flags and For Sale signs, a few sites cleared of trees. The houses would all be up against each other, no real yards, just a strip of lawn between. That was no way to live. And it was expensive; all the money went into the mountain view, so the developers went cheap on materials. The houses would all be vinyl-sided or stuccoed. They wouldn’t last twenty years before they’d need to be redone. Brick was better — it lasted longer — but it was more expensive, so none of the developers wanted to use it. Better to build a house on the cheap and let the buyer deal with the repairs down the line.

  Nick drove around the new streets until he came to a lookout point — a little grassy area and a couple of park benches with a view of the valley. He parked and sat at one of the picnic tables. Lit a cigarette and sipped his beer. He saw how much the town had grown, built out instead of up. The whole valley had filled up with buildings and he’d had a hand in building most of them. He thought it was a nice view; he should come up here more often.

  A couple walked by with their dog and gave his truck a dirty look and then him a worse one. A minute later another couple came by; they had a dog too. They let him know he shouldn’t be drinking. He told them it was non-alcoholic. They didn’t believe him, or take him up on the offer of a beer. He cleared out.

  He headed away from town, out to the bay. His son lived out that way and he thought he’d maybe pop in. It was early enough that Jack’s wife would probably still be on her way home from the city. It would just be his son and granddaughter; he could get a bit of quality time in. Nick pulled into their subdivision. It had always bothered him that they’d moved here. He’d offered to help them pick out a lot and build them a proper place, but they’d wanted something finished, ready to move into.

  Both Jack’s car and his wife’s were in the driveway; Nick drove by without stopping. He’d have to give them a call later, set something up for the next day. The wife always insisted on having notice, even though it seemed no matter how much notice he gave, they always had plans. Nick drove through the subdivision and back onto the main road.

  He took the long way back, around the lake and past the old farmhouses. The owners of one property he passed had him build a brick wall along the road a few years before. It looked ridiculous — too low to keep anything out, and he’d always thought it would be a pain to get out of the car and open the gate they’d had him put in. But they paid well and in cash, so he didn’t complain. And it beat the industrial jobs he’d been getting the last few years. There’d been no work but warehouses and garages, cinder-block shoeboxes, nothing to them but putting one block on top of another. And even that was beginning to slow down. He was lucky to get a half-dozen jobs a year and they were nothing he was proud of. Not like the old all-brick houses, or the fireplaces he’d built years before — open-front stonework that took up a whole wall, with tiled stone all around. He’d have to find how to fit each irregular stone with another, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. It took time and skill. But no one wanted fireplaces anymore. Just like no one wanted brick houses either. Just cinder-block warehouses.

  But work was work and those warehouses were a thing he could say he’d had a hand in, and a thing that would last long after he was gone. He didn’t dwell on that line of thinking; he wasn’t ready for it yet.

  There was a roadblock just before the highway. Nick threw his jacket back over the case and stashed his open beer between the seats. The line inched forward, one car at a time. Nick recognized the cop that came over to his window; it was one of the old guys.

  The cop shook his head when he saw Nick. “Hey Nick, how many you had?”

  “Just three.”

  “You sure?”

  Nick pulled his jacket off the case and tilted it to show how many were missing.

  “That probably puts you over, you know?”

  “I figured I’d better tell the truth, or you’d give me a hard time for lying. Besides, you wouldn’t have believed me if I said none.”

  “You’re right, I wouldn’t.” The cop looked down at Nick, weighing his options.

  Nick said, “You know I wouldn’t be driving if I’d had too many.”

  “I don’t want to hear that. Listen, I’m off work in an hour. If your truck is not parked outside of your apartment when I drive by, I’m going to make things hard on you, okay?”

  “Sure. Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. And for fuck’s sake, don’t hit anyone on your way home.”

  Nick went straight through town to his apartment block. He parked close to the road and went up to his room. He had a beer while he showered and a cigarette in front of the TV. Jeopardy was on. He guessed a few answers and when he didn’t get any right, he turned it off. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a clean button-down shirt and walked down to the bar.

  * * *

  “Is Lily up?”

  “Dad? It’s the middle of the night, no one is up.”

  “I was thinking we could go for a drive tomorrow.”

  “Dad, can’t this wait?” Then, muffled, “It’s my dad.”

  “Yeah, I was just thinking it’d be nice to see her, maybe show her a few things I built around town.”

  “You been drinking?”

  “Only a bit.”

  “You shouldn’t call here when you’re drunk, I’ve told you that.”

  “It won’t happen again.”

  “. . .”

  “So, how about a drive tomorrow? I’ll pick you guys up around eleven.”

  “You going to be up by then? It’s pretty late.”

  “I’ll be up.”

  “Why don’t you call when you get up?”

  “I’ll be there, don’t worry.”

  “Sure, Dad, sounds good. Can I get some sleep now?”

  “Yeah, sorry to call. I just thought it’d be nice to show her some things, so she’ll know I built them.”

  “Get some rest, Dad.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, Dad, tomorrow.”

  Nick hung up the phone and felt around the coffee table for his cigarettes. The pack was empty. He picked up a
couple of bottles and drank the ends of them. Then he lay back on the couch and wondered what his granddaughter would remember about him.

  Unpacking

  “It’s been six months since Mom died,” Anne said. “You really should make the place your own.”

  Margaret knew that. “I know, I know,” she said as she put her coffee down on the kitchen table so she could rub her eyes.

  “You haven’t changed anything since you moved in.”

  “I know, I know. It’s just, how would you feel getting rid of all Mom’s stuff?”

  “I’d feel fine about it. You know Mom. She just had things because she needed things to decorate with — it’s not like she really cared about any of this.” Margaret went over to the wicker knick-knack shelf and picked up a miniature of two frogs kissing with a heart between them. “I mean, she left you the condo so you could move out of that tiny apartment. Not to preserve crap like this.”

  Margaret said, “I know, I know.”

  She excused herself to the bathroom and ran the water. She stared into the mirror. In the reflection, she saw the picture of two kittens playing in a pile of yarn that her daughter had insisted the family buy her grandma as a housewarming present when she’d moved into the condo ten years before. Her mom had it framed, and with nowhere else for it to go, politely hung it in the guest bathroom. The paper had warped and discoloured from the steam of the shower. Margaret turned off the water and went back out to the living room.

  Anne said, “You can start small. Look at this stuff.” She gestured at a bookshelf. “There’s nothing here that had any meaning for Mom.”

  “But those are her books.”

  “Did you ever know Mom to read anything other than Reader’s Digest? These are just for show.” Anne pulled a book from the shelf and read, “The Classics Library, Don Quixote. Do you really think Mom read this? I mean, she ordered half of these off TV.”

  Anne sat down in her mom’s over-puffy armchair and looked at the spines. They were all matched sets, arranged by height. One series was on mysteries of the ancient world. Another was about the mysteries of the Far East. Another was mysteries of space. She remembered the commercials that had aired back in the eighties. “I guess so . . .”

  “Great. Let’s get some boxes.”

  Anne brought Margaret down to the underground parkade and together they got two armloads of flattened cardboard boxes out of the recycling bin. Back in the condo, they rebuilt them and taped the bottoms. Anne pulled all the books off the shelf and loaded up the boxes.

  She said, “Isn’t that better?”

  Without the weight of the books, the shelf had shifted slightly to the left. Margaret said, “Not really . . .”

  “Where are your books?”

  “In Mom’s room.”

  “Let’s take them out.” Anne pushed herself up and dusted off her knees and went into her mom’s old bedroom. She said, “Oh, Margaret . . .”

  The room obviously wasn’t used. It smelled stale, like her mother’s perfume under a layer of heavy must. Margaret had put the room back in order the day after she found her mom — putting clean sheets on the bed and vacuuming the trail left by the gurney wheels — and had only come in twice since. The first time to grab the jewellery box so Anne could pick out a few keepsakes, the second time to move in her boxes. They were stacked against the wall.

  Anne said, “This seems a bit weird. You’re going to leave it like this forever?”

  “I wasn’t comfortable moving in here. I sleep on the couch . . .”

  Anne left and came back with an armload of boxes. She said, “Let’s get this cleaned up.”

  Anne went into the ensuite bathroom. Margaret heard clattering and followed her in. Her sister was pulling things out of the medicine cabinet and dumping them into a box. The sources of the lingering smells — her mom’s hand creams, face creams, foot creams. All her little tonics to battle age. The strongest fragrance was her mom’s perfume. The scent had been discontinued years before; Margaret and Anne had gone in on buying her a dozen bottles so she would always have some. As Anne dropped a half-used bottle into a box, Margaret realized it had been a lifetime supply.

  “You don’t need to cry,” Anne said. “You can’t hold on to Mom’s toothpaste forever.” Anne tossed out an old toothbrush, then stopped. “I’m sorry.”

  “No. It’s the perfume. Mom loved it so much.”

  “Oh, yeah. The only scent she’d wear.” Anne opened the counter under the sink. “Here.” She handed Margaret an unopened bottle. “We don’t have to throw out everything. Keep the stuff that has a memory, get rid of the rest.” She pulled out five more full bottles and dropped them into the box. “But you don’t need them all.”

  It took two boxes and five minutes for Anne to finish emptying the bathroom. Anne dropped the boxes in the hall and said, “All right, let’s do the bedroom.”

  Margaret stood in the doorway. There were drawers full of her mom’s clothes, a closet full of coats. On the wall there was a painting a teenaged Anne had done; it had hung in every house her mother ever owned. Beside it, a decorative plate that said Mexico on it and some hand-painted masks, probably from the same trip. And a photo of her dad, standing in front of their old house, looking like he was in the middle of saying, “Have you taken it yet?” Margaret felt tears coming on.

  Anne said, “Maybe I should get started in here. You work on the living room.”

  Margaret agreed.

  She sat in her mom’s chair and took stock of the room. Maybe the chair would have to go, but that could wait until she found something better. The couches were all good, and the side tables. She liked the lamps too; her dad had made them out of wood-stained popsicle sticks. They looked like fire watchtowers. Margaret wanted to hold on to those.

  The TV cabinet had a shelf of vhs tapes; those could probably go. They were all classics — Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Fred Astaire musicals. Now that she thought about it, they’d all been bought by her, as presents, for her mom.

  She stacked the tapes neatly in a box and moved down to the next shelf. A collection of miniatures from the trip Anne and her family had taken to Disneyland: the Cheshire cat, an Alice with both arms broken off, the Mad Hatter. Anne was right: they were just decoration, with no real attachment to her mom. They could go. Margaret went into the kitchen and pulled some newspaper out of the recycling bin. She wrapped each piece carefully and put them all in a box to be donated. She looked into the box and thought she’d made a good start.

  Anne said from the hall, “I’m done.” There were stacks of boxes behind her. She came into the living room and looked at Margaret’s two half-packed boxes. “That’s it?”

  “It’s just . . . it’s hard.”

  “Come on. None of this stuff is Mom. None of this stuff is our memories. Mom wasn’t sentimental about things. Remember how she threw out all Dad’s stuff the week after he died?”

  “That was awful.”

  “It did seem a bit quick. But she knew she had to move on. And she’d want you to, too.”

  “It’s just, it’s her stuff.”

  Anne went over to the wall and said, “This is a shellacked puzzle of the Kremlin. Do you really want to keep it?”

  “Not really,” Margaret said. “But Mom made it, and she hung it up. She must have liked something about it, you know? It’s a little piece of her.”

  “I never once heard Mom mention Russia. She just needed to hang things up, so she used what she had.” Anne took it off the wall and put it in a box. It curved, cracking along the middle. “Trust me, she wouldn’t want you to hold on to this.”

  Anne went through the living room, pulling things off the wall, clearing shelves of knick-knacks. Then she did the same in the dining room. She slowed down when she hit the china cabinet full of family photos — the grandkids in sports uniforms, at graduation, s
taged family shots. Anne looked them over then said, “We have copies of these,” and started clearing them out.

  They found twenty photo albums in the drawers under the cabinet. Anne said, “Oh boy,” and piled them on the dining room table. Anne flipped through one, Margaret another. Anne dropped hers into a box.

  Margaret said, “Shouldn’t we keep these?

  “What’s the point?” She was flipping through another. “Do you need three hundred photos Dad took of this rock in Ireland?”

  “That’s the Blarney stone! Dad’s great-grandpa grew up near it.”

  “Well, if you forget what it looks like you can google it.” Anne dropped the album into a box. “We don’t even know who these people are.” It was true. After retirement, their parents had taken to going on group vacation tours. Their dad had bought his first camera then. The photos were all of strangers, poorly framed scenery shots, or their mom standing in front of buildings looking like she was either about to smile or had just finished. Almost all the albums were from the last decade of her dad’s life. The photos from before had already been divided up, and there were no photos from after; their mom hadn’t cared for photography.

  Anne dropped the last of the albums into a box, then ducked down to pull out something. She said, “Look at this.” It was an old black-and-white photograph of their parents. They were in a fake jail, gripping the bars. A wax-work police officer stood beside them. Her mom was smiling, having a great time. Anne said, “Dad looks like he’s asking if the picture’s been taken yet.”

  Margaret laughed. “He was always so impatient with people.”

  “That’s probably where I get it from.” Anne laughed and then looked down at the photo for a long time. She said, “Can you scan a copy for me?” and wiped her eyes.