Back in the house, Johnny asked about the cabin they would call home during their three days of riding. Al was pleased. “It’s a nice place. A guy I work with on some surveying contracts owns it. It’s fully equipped, even has a freezer full of food in case you forget something. Nice woodstoves and propane heat for when he isn’t there. We should cut some dry wood while we’re there, if you don’t mind lending a hand. He has an old double-track snowmobile and a big sled. We can throw in a few old coats, so we don’t have to use our riding gear.”
Johnny was happy to cut some firewood. It was part of the experience and made such a trip even more fun.
“I’ve been going up to this place every year a few times for quite some time. We’ve got games, snowshoes, and lots of other stuff up there. If the weather goes bad, the trip is still just fine.” “We cleared a place for choppers to land, and once last year a pilot buddy who was on the way to retrieve a broken snowmobile dropped off a bucket of fried chicken, still warm! That was cool.”
Johnny could definitely understand how good the greasy food would taste during a day of riding. He was looking forward to the trip.
After a nap, they set off for some shopping of their own and to meet for a family lunch.
Boxing Day in Canada always involved huge sales and an amazing quantity of commerce. Johnny usually avoided shopping on that day, but this year he was content to go with Al and see the sights.
They were planning to meet Joanne and Mary in Kelowna and did a little shopping of their own on the way. A snowmobile dealer was blowing out old stock and they bought some discounted parts and accessories. Johnny found a two-up seat that fit Mary’s Ski-Doo and would make doubling more comfortable. Al’s big score was a spare hood for his Polaris, along with a windshield and graphics kit.
“Now I can roll my machine, and it won’t hurt so bad!” he quipped.
They laughed at themselves, joking all the way to the restaurant, and Johnny wondered aloud if there were more snowmobile dealers in the area.
Lunch had an element of hurry to it, since the ladies had not made as much headway as planned through the sales. While waiting for their meals to arrive, the men proved to be just as excited about their morning’s activities and were duly teased and congratulated on their purchases.
Both Al and Johnny were mildly concerned when the women’s purchases filled the leftover space in the rear seat of Johnny’s pickup, and they found the dusty snowmobile parts they had so carefully purchased relegated to the space under the snowmobile deck.
Chapter 32
While Johnny and Mary were spending Christmas in the Okanogan, Terry’s holiday was becoming stressful and lonely. She had flown to Saskatchewan to be with her family, but it no longer felt like home. Terry was enjoying her work for the Banks in Vanderhoof and had rented an apartment near the river. Work kept her busy, and while thus occupied, she didn’t spend as much time thinking back on her November ordeal. She had met with a psychologist as recommended by the RCMP, but she had not followed up with further counselling.
Now, in an unfamiliar, empty house while her mom was away on a Christmas cruise, the weight of loneliness and fear came crashing down, reality setting in. Her brothers were working, taking advantage of the holidays, their growing oilfield service company benefiting from the high fees charged during a time when so many employees wanted some time away from work. She missed their steady presence.
Christmas morning had been enjoyably chaotic, celebrating with cousins, aunts and uncles. The cousins near her age were all married and had small children. They had been delighted that Terry joined them for a Christmas brunch and gift exchange, but they had their own routines and holiday stresses, and by mid-afternoon on Christmas day had all disappeared. Terry helped her aunt clean the kitchen and vacuum the living room, and then she took a drive.
She missed Isaac La Crosse. He had quickly become a friend, and then more than a friend. He had invited her to live with him, and though she did spend many weekends at his house, she preferred to keep her own apartment. Isaac was sometimes cynical, but loyal and trustworthy. He listened, not speaking until she asked for a reply, then usually making her laugh with his perceptive and sometimes irreverent opinion. She thought of calling him but knew he would be spending the day with the complicated family he normally avoided in a good-natured but decisive way.
She also missed time with the Amunds who had become good friends. Johnny had a reassuring presence, and she had appreciated the work he had done in a few short weeks to help the company run more efficiently. Mary was kind and her inner strength and no-nonsense manner helped Terry feel secure.
Now, away from her friends and familiar work community, Terry felt her level of anxiety rising. Just the thought of connecting flights through Calgary made her nervous. What if Joseph was in the airport? What if her picture had been circulated to those Joseph worked with? If the RCMP could share information in their investigation, then why couldn’t the criminals do the same?
Criminals. It was strange to even use the term. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Why should she be wrapped up in this whole mess? The tears started, a mix of fear and anger in liquid form.
Terry had stopped at the liquor store on the way home, having noticed her mother didn’t have much on hand. She poured a glass of wine, then funneled it back in the bottle and opened the Baileys. Instead of feeling warmed and comforted as she sipped the sweet liqueur Terry was slammed with waves of depression and fear.
She remembered being homesick as a child when waking early at a birthday sleepover, a crushing, gray feeling of loneliness and abandonment. Looking around the unfamiliar house, Terry hadn’t known how much worse this could feel as an adult.
“Come on, Terry!” she said, downing the small amount she had poured in a coffee cup. She looked through the cupboards and found a heavy tumbler. “That’s better.” she said, pouring a generous amount of the syrupy drink into the proper glassware.
She ran through the satellite programming on the television and watched the end of a Christmas movie. She cried, finding the conclusion to be consoling, no matter how predictable. Another Christmas movie was starting, so she ordered pizza and settled in for a marathon.
Hours later, she ordered another small pizza from a different company and tuned to another channel. She put on her comfy pajamas and brought a pillow and sleeping bag out to the living room.
“The Christmas Carol” would be playing in several minutes, and while she knew the story, she couldn’t remember ever watching the movie. Before the movie began, there was an explanation of the history of the story and how it affected the world when it was written so many years ago. According to the well-spoken narrator, this 1951 version was considered to be the best movie produced of Dickens’ story.
Terry was hooked, and it seemed the elderly announcer was looking right into Terry’s eyes when she said in her perfectly modulated accent. “And just as Charles Dickens hoped would happen, his work began to turn the wheels of cultural understanding. We hope your life will be changed as you view this classic film and Charles Dickens’ missive of hope will stimulate the Christmas message of love, forgiveness and change deep inside you.”
Terry sat like a small child, cross-legged on the floor, riveted to the screen. Sipping red wine and nibbling pizza throughout, she sympathized with Ebenezer Scrooge and willed him to make the right decisions. She sobbed at the depiction of poverty and the Cratchit family’s despair. She cursed Scrooge for his cold-hearted treatment of others, and then cried for him to change and become a whole person. She wanted wrongs to be made right, and for the pain to go away.
An hour and a half later, Terry was ready to hear the narrator’s closing statements. She was emotionally spent but somehow clean inside. It seemed she was so close to a solution to her problems. Was this real, or just a result of the gripping story touching her in a state of emotional confusion?
While Terry was still alone, the fear was not so bad at the moment, and she felt a kin
ship to the old Scrooge and wished she could have joined him at his nephew’s party. She turned the volume down but kept the same channel tuned, enjoying the now-familiar voice of the narrator as she introduced another classic. Terry curled up on the couch with a pillow and sleeping bag and fell asleep.
Chapter 33
The loaded SUV was on the road early for the seven-hour drive to Fernie, the multiple cup holders all in use.
Johnny was always amazed at the distances within his own province. “So, from Vanderhoof, which is the geographical center of British Columbia, Mary and I drove nine hours to your house. Now we’re driving another seven hours toward the southeast corner of the province.” He checked on his phone. “Okay, from Fernie in the lower east corner of BC to Atlin in the upper west corner is listed as over twenty-nine hours driving. And that’s, uh, that’s about the same distance as driving from Seattle to Chicago.”
The conversation turned to travel and the location each would like to visit within the province. Al said, “For years I wanted to visit the Okanagan. Now that I live here, I want to visit Vancouver Island. BC has it all!”
After an hour of conversation and stories, they agreed that Vancouver Island was of common interest. They promised to consider a drive up the length of the huge island and maybe do a fishing trip out of Campbell River sometime in the near future.
The SUV was pulling its load without issue, Johnny noticed, which was reassuring as they had some hilly country to drive through. So far, the roads were well plowed, sanded and salted.
Mary and Joanne had been talking in the back seat, but they were napping now. Al looked over and grinned.
“I feel like a little kid!” His grin was contagious. “We are so excited to take you guys up here. I think you’ll just love it.”
“Thanks. It means a lot to us both.” Johnny checked the back seat. The women were sleeping soundly, tired from a long day of shopping. They had been gone over fourteen hours and had come home happy, both with their purchases, and their growing appreciation for each other.
“Al, you’re a good dad to Mary. Thanks, it really means a lot.”
He was embarrassed, realizing he was repeating himself.
Al just nodded. “I know I can’t make up for past wrongs. I pretty much deserted Mary and her mom, you know. But I am trying to do things differently now. Every day I wake up and think of Mary and I pray that she has a good day.”
His eyes were on the road, on the line of traffic ahead of them.
“I have been praying for you, too, Johnny. Does that seem strange or weird?”
Johnny thought about it. It was out of his realm of experience, but not really weird. He knew people believed in God, and prayed, but had never really considered Al to be that kind of person.
“You know, Johnny, when I moved down here, I was really a mess. It wasn’t just my partying, although that was pretty bad at the time. It was how I felt inside or tried not to feel, hard to explain. I just had no purpose at all, besides work and weekends. I had been pretty successful in business, but was so darn empty inside, I didn’t even know who I was.”
He grinned crookedly.
“Talking about serious stuff is tough, about snowmobiles we can chatter away like,” he glanced guiltily in the rear-view mirror, “uh, squirrels!”
He went on. “You mind if I just try talking and not worry too much if it doesn’t come out right?”
Johnny nodded. “Yep, you said it. It’s hard to talk about important things.”
“Okay, so I sold out and moved down here. I gave my ex-wife a big settlement,” he grunted, shaking his head, “so I wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore. My motive was selfish, but at least it was a good thing I did. I thought I’d party, do a little work, and that was all, I had no plans. Nothing. But then, living in a new place, a nice house, good weather, well, I realized I just had no clue what I was doing. Like, why buy furniture if you have no friends, and how do you party by yourself, you know?”
“So here I was, in the beautiful Okanagan, in an empty house. I started doing some odds and ends, some surveying contracts, seeing new country. And it’s like I couldn’t stop making money but had nothing or nobody to spend it on. I thought of traveling; but, a trip to Mongolia wouldn’t make anything better.”
He shook his head, freshly shaved that morning.
“So, I went to church. On a Sunday morning, I walked into the closest church and took a seat. A couple people said hello, they all sang some songs, an older guy preached for a while, and that was that. When the meeting was over, everyone just disappeared, no one looked happy, they just left. I don’t know, I guess I was hoping for some encouragement, you know, like you see in the movies, the nice priest sits down, knows what to say, gives some hope.
“Well, that didn’t work, so I went out and bought a boat. I mean right then. I just drove up the street and here was a guy putting a for sale sign on a little Glastron GT-150. I had always wanted one of those, so I paid the guy three grand and away I went, proud owner of a little speed boat with a big noisy outboard. I stopped at home for my fishing gear and a cooler of beer and went to the lake.”
Johnny listened, staring through the window at the unfamiliar landscape.
“So, I was having a great time, even caught a few fish and then got pulled over by the RCMP. They do a pretty good job on the lakes here, lots of people on the water in the summer. Well, I was pretty well bombed when they pulled up. Needless to say, they gave me a free ride back. One of the officers even brought my boat in for me.”
He glanced over at Johnny. “I had successfully hidden one cooler up under the front of the boat. Unfortunately, it was the one with the fish in it, and when I paid the fine and picked up my boat a few days later, the whole impound yard smelled bad. The boat was pretty much unusable for a couple of weeks.”
“But going to church and buying a boat on a Sunday morning changed my life. When I paid my fine, guess who was working in the government office? Yep, Joanne, no ring on her left hand. A week later I asked her out.”
He stabbed a thumb toward the back seat. “And then I started feeling like I had something to live for. But that’s only the beginning. I want to tell the rest when Joanne is awake.”
Johnny was curious. “Just keep going. I would like to hear more, and they might sleep for hours. You saw them drag themselves out of bed this morning!”
Al grinned. “Okay, but she will have details I forget, always helps me out. So, I met Joanne, and it’s summer so we go to the lake and are hanging out by the water and these people come by handing out flyers for a concert that evening. I was too busy watching Joanne, who seemed interested, and said she liked music. I didn’t pay attention to what the concert was but told the people we would be there.
“I dropped her off at her house so she could change and get ready. I drove home to get lawn chairs from my living room and a blanket and stuff. When I got back in the truck, I read the flyer. What I agreed to attend was a church concert of some sort. I had never been to any concert, sort of ambushed by the new experience, I guess. At first, I was mad and wanted to back out, but figured who cares, I’m going with someone, we can always leave.”
“When we got there, it didn’t sound like the church I had been to weeks before. The music was actually too loud. We found seats away from the speakers.” He looked over at Johnny, “Oh, this was outdoors at a park. We got seats away from the speakers and settled in. I mostly listen to country music, and this rock and roll they were playing reminded me of high school. Joanne was enjoying it and said hello to a few people she knew from town.”
Johnny saw Al check the mirror and guessed it was easier to talk without the women listening. Al saw Johnny watching him and smiled again.
“So, I sat there, basically thinking about Joanne and how I really liked her. The bands changed and wouldn’t you know it, the next one was more my style of music. Up until then I hadn’t even listened to the words, but they played this song that caught my attention.
In fact, I’ll play it for you pretty soon. I didn’t understand all the words, you know how you hear a song for the first time, but I felt drawn to the song.”
“Johnny, I think it was a combination of a beautiful evening, the excitement of meeting Joanne, the hope of being loved… I don’t know. Whatever, it suddenly seemed like all the emptiness I had been feeling probably had a solution. I had hope for the first time in a long time.”
Al drank from his coffee cup, then ran his hand over his smooth head.
Johnny was curious. The Al he had known years ago was a very different man than the one he was riding with today. The man he had known when he first met Mary was brash, smooth, seemed confident, and had no time for Johnny or even Mary. They had gone shopping together the day before, shopping! And it had been fun, relaxed.
“So, what happened?” Johnny nodded toward the back seat. “Obviously, you got together…”
“Well, remember that church service I went to the day I bought the boat? This seemed very different. The people at this concert seemed pretty normal, if my idea of normal is normal.” He grinned at his own humor.
“So, the first thing we had in common as a couple was attending a concert put on by a church. So, the next week, I asked Joanne if she wanted to go to church with me. We attended the church that put on the concert, and it was different than the boat day church. Kids were running around, people talking in the lobby, the pastor had to ask people to come sit down, and then said it was a good thing everyone was enjoying each other, because that is what the church really is. That’s all I remember from that Sunday, and still don’t completely understand, but ever since, we go to the church meetings quite often, and we met many of our best friends there. Joanne went through a marriage breakup too and had only been in town for a year or so, so didn’t know people here either. We gained a new set of friends together.”
Always a Brother Page 17