Grandpère (16 page)

“I’m more than a real person. I’m a love machine,” he says, and we both crack up.

Once home, I decide it’s warm enough in the greenhouse to trust that the rest of the plants in the house can go out there to stay. I spend the afternoon traipsing back and forth with the bike and trailer, transferring all the plants. I plant the tomatoes and peppers right into the soil, and the rest stay in their plug trays, waiting to be set out in the garden. We have a bench at the back of the greenhouse, and they all fit on it.

I’m just finishing and closing up the greenhouse when Blue starts barking, and a strange car pulls up. A woman gets out and stands looking around. She looks as though she’s about to get back in, then changes her mind and starts walking toward the door of the house.

“I’m over here,” I yell, and she turns to meet me. I wonder if she’s a saleslady, but we don’t get many of them anymore. She has short hair, cut straight at about ear length. She’s wearing jeans, a sweater and sneakers and carries a bag over her shoulder. She appears to be about forty and looks kind of hard. She is very pale, as though she never gets outdoors, and is holding her sweater closed as though she’s cold.

“It’s Anzel, isn’t it?” she says, holding out her hand to shake. “You probably don’t remember me. My name is Jane. I was friends with Ben.”

As soon as she says her name, I instantly know who she is. How dare she drive into my yard and act as though she has a right to be here? I shake her hand but am instantly angry.

“What do you want?” I am kind of short with her.

“I want to talk to you, Anzel. Can we visit for a while?” Her voice is pleading.

I tell her to come in the house and we’ll have a cup of tea. She doesn’t look me in the eye but nods that she will, so in we go. I stay silent. The accusations are flying around in my head, and it’s all I can do to be civil to her.

I serve the tea and sit at the table across from her. I don’t need to be nice. She came here, and if she wants sympathy, she’s not getting it from me. The silence stretches. She’s looking at her lap. Finally she begins, “I owe you an explanation. This is the first time I’ve been back here since Ben died.” She is silent for a while longer, but I say nothing.

“It was a horrible time for me. I didn’t come around here because I felt so badly.”

“We all felt badly,” I say. “It was a hard time for all of us.”

“But you don’t understand.” Her voice goes all quavery. “It was my fault he died.”

“Nonsense. He died because he drank too much and thought he could still drive,” I say. It’s hard to accept even now that Ben would drink so heavily and climb in his car to drive home.

“I’d just found out I was pregnant, and I told him in the afternoon. We had a big fight. He said he wasn’t ready to get married or have children, and I told him I wouldn’t have an abortion. That’s why he was drinking. It’s my fault all of it happened.”

“Jane, you can’t blame yourself for what Ben did. He wasn’t a child anymore. It’s not your fault any more than it’s my fault. No one forced him to do what he did.” I can’t believe I’m saying this to her, but to carry around a guilty feeling like that is not right. People make their own choices.

“Everything fell apart for me that day,” she continues. “I never told anyone about my baby till after the funeral. Then I told my mother. She was so angry that she kicked me out of the house and told me never to come back. So I left and moved to the coast. I worked in a restaurant, waiting tables, till I was too big to do it anymore. Then I had a baby girl. I named her Angel.” She looks right at me when she says this, but I say nothing.

“Everything went well for us for a long time. I had a boyfriend, and he was like a dad to Angel. He made us seem like a family. But I drank a lot in those days, and he didn’t like it. Sometimes I stayed out all night and partied, but Robert got angry and didn’t like me much, and after a while he was there more for Angel than for me. One time I was gone for a few days. When I came back, he’d moved out and taken Angel with him. I found them, and he had to give Angel back to me. I made sure he didn’t get her again.

“Things got really bad after that. My friends were alcoholics and drug users, and I started using hard drugs. My life these last three years has been a blur. I wasn’t a good mother, and Angel pretty well looked after herself. I kept promising myself to quit, but I never lasted longer than a week. Then I was out looking for a way to get high again. Last winter Angel ran away, and I haven’t seen her since. At first I thought she must be dead. But she isn’t. I put myself into the rehab centre and got clean. While I was there, I was served a restraining order that means I can’t go near her. I can’t even find out where she is. All I know is that she’s alive.”

She starts sobbing while she tells me this. Anger and pity are warring inside my head.

“Why didn’t you come to us?” I ask her.

“My own family didn’t want me, why should you be any different?”

“I would never turn anyone away because they were pregnant. I would have cherished your baby for Ben’s sake.”

“I thought you would turn me away because you would know it was my fault Ben died.”

“Quit saying that. It is not your fault. Did you force him to make a baby with you?”

A hint of a smile crosses her face, quickly gone again. “No,” she says, and we’re both silent for a while. “In rehab they told me I had to make peace with my past. I guess that’s what I’m trying to do.” She picks up her bag from the floor, and fishes a picture out of it. She hands it across the table to me. I’ve seen it before, in the centre of a missing children’s poster.

“She’s pretty,” I say.

“She’s a really good kid. I wasn’t a good mother to her, I’m afraid. After she got to about eight years old, sometimes it seemed like she was the grown-up one. I wish I could have gotten straightened out before she ran away. I hope she’s happy. I would give anything to tell her how sorry I am.”

“Things have a way of working out,” I say. “What are your plans now?”

“I moved back here two weeks after I got out of rehab, and I got a job in the kitchen at the seniors’ home. Right now I’m staying in a room at the motel, but I need to find a place pretty soon. I couldn’t stay down south anymore or I would have fallen back into my old life. They have meetings here that I go to. It helps me remember the way I want to live.” She sits quietly for a minute, then says in a wistful voice, “Maybe Angel will come here. She always wanted to know about her father after Robert left, and I told her he used to live here. If she comes here, I want to be the kind of mother she deserves.”

I wonder if I should tell her where Angel is, but some part of me will not give her the satisfaction. If she’d decided to straighten out before it got so bad, they would never be in this situation. Anger is winning. Pity has to stay away for a while yet. “Well, you’ve made some good choices now. Good luck to you, Jane,” I say.

“Thank you.” She pauses for a bit. “I’ve been dreading facing you. I thought you’d be so mad at me. Over the years I imagined myself telling you, and in my mind you were a lot angrier. I loved him so much.” She starts crying again.

“If I was mad at anyone, I was mad at Ben. He was a grown man. He knew better than to do what he did. You can quit blaming yourself.” Here I am comforting her. In my imagination I was going to rip her apart if I ever saw her again — for Angel’s sake, not Ben’s — and here I am, patting her shoulder and comforting her.

Grandpère comes out for a cup of tea, and I introduce Jane to him. She remembers him from before and tells him she never imagined that he was still alive. Then she gets embarrassed, and tells him how good he looks.

“Old but good,” he returns, and we all laugh.

“I should go. I borrowed the car to come out here from one of the ladies at work, and I promised her I wouldn’t be gone long,” she says. “Can I come out here and visit again?”

“If you want to,” I reply. Then I tell her I work at the home on Wednesday mornings, doing the gardens.

“Are you the lady who’s planting the vegetables? They look really nice, and we’re going to use them in the kitchen. Some of those lettuces are nearly ready. Maybe I’ll see you there.” She puts on her sweater and leaves, patting Blue on the head and lighting a cigarette before she gets in the car.

I stand looking at the driveway for a long time after the car pulls out. Jane back in town. Wanting to be friends. Crap, what a weird situation.

“The Great Spirit has its own reasons for the way things turn out,” Grandpère tells me. He’s sitting at the table, nursing his cup of tea. “She seems like a nice person. Maybe it is good she came back here.”

“All these years she’s blamed herself for Ben dying,” I say. “She looks way older than she is.”

“Pretty hard life. It makes people old before their time,” he replies.

I make supper and we eat, but my mind is wandering all over. I decide to phone Angel after supper and talk to her.

She tells me she got an A in math and that she’ll be caught up in English and science by June. She chatters on for a while, then I break in and say, “Angel, your mother was here today.”

She is silent on the phone, then in a quiet voice, “Is she okay?”

“She’s moved here and has a job cooking. She went to rehab and says she doesn’t do drugs anymore.”

“Is she looking for me?”

“I didn’t tell her that I knew you or where you were. She knows you’re alive, but she doesn’t know where you are.”

“How does she look?”

“She looks fine.”

“Last time I saw her, she had sores all over, and she kept picking them till they bled.”

“Well, I didn’t see any sores. I think she’s making a better life for herself. But you, chickpea, shouldn’t worry. She can’t find out where you are, and if you don’t want to see her, you don’t need to.”

“I kind of miss her.”

“You’ll be here in the summer. Maybe you can see her then if you want to.”

“I think I want to. But I don’t want to live with her.”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it, then,” I tell her, and we talk for a while longer. Later I ask to talk to Faith and tell her about the visit.

“Poor Jane, what a load to carry all this time. It’s probably good you didn’t say anything. The restraining order runs out at the end of the month. I’ll talk to Darcy and child protection services and see what they think about renewing it. We have legal custody, so she can’t make Angel go with her. Don’t worry, Mother, nothing more bad is going to happen to our Angel.” She’s so matter-of-fact and unworried that by the time I get off the phone, I feel better.

Chapter Eleven

Friday night rolls around, and we’re waiting for Parker and Kristen to bring the new dog. We have a bag of dog food — special formula for puppies — and I bought some chew toys. We put the big wire cage that we used when Blue was a pup just inside the door, and I put a soft blanket in the bottom. I soak the dog food in a bowl and set it inside. When the new puppy arrives, we’ll be ready.

The kids left the city at noon and said they would arrive by dark. At dusk I’m getting up every few minutes and peering out the window to see if headlights are coming.

Grandpère laughs at me. “If you watch the kettle it never boils,” he says. “Sit down and have a hand of crib.”

We are halfway through the game, and Grandpère is way ahead, when Blue starts barking. I fold up my hand and put it back in the deck.

“Don’t want to get skunked, eh?” he teases me, but folds up his hand too, and puts the pegs back at the start.

As soon as the car stops, Cameron and Coby put the two pups on leashes, and they walk to the far side of the driveway, where both pups squat and pee in unison.

“Good boys,” the boys praise the dogs. Ezra tells them to undo the leashes, and the pups run back to the car.

“No, we’re here now, no more car rides,” Ezra says, pushing the pups away from the car. “Grandma, we should leave them out for a while, they never pooped all day.”

Blue is sniffing them all over, and though his tail is wagging, he keeps jumping toward them, and they seem scared.

“Should I put Blue in the house?” I ask Parker.

“No, they’ll be all right. We’ll just stay out here for a little while till they’re comfortable enough to do their business,” he says.

We watch them for a while. They’re not sure about Blue, but when he finishes sniffing them and trots across the yard, they follow him. At the edge of the bush he sits down, and they go their separate ways to find places where they can poop. They are little balls of fur, hardly bigger than the chew toys I bought.

“Their parents were both there when we picked them up,” Parker tells me. “They are huge dogs. Very gentle — they just sat there and wanted to be petted while the boys picked out the pups. The woman said they were very good watch dogs.”

“Our pup got sick in the car. He puked all over Mom, and she puked too,” Ezra says.

I look at Kristen, and she’s grinning. “Lucky I had extra clothes. I usually can clean up barf, but today Parker had to stop fast so I could do it outside. Don’t know what came over me.”

“Maybe you’re pregnant,” I say.

“No chance of that. I think it was the combination of the heat and the smell.” She shudders. “We stopped and bought some Gravol, but we were close enough to here that we didn’t give him any. But on the way back, he’s getting some before we leave.”

Both pups have done their business, and we go into the house. The pups are happy to be inside. They wrestle with each other and check out the house with a trail of boys following them everywhere they go. When the pups bite on things they’re not supposed to, the boys tell them no and move them along. I give the chew toys to the boys to give to the pups, and these distract them for a while. The little dogs are growling at each other and playing tug of war with the toys, and we’re all laughing at them.

“What do you want to name him, Grandma?”

“You have to ask Grandpère. He chose this dog.”

They look expectantly at Grandpère.

“What do you call him?” he asks the boys.

“We named ours Bandit because he has a mask and we called yours King. But Dad says you’ll probably call him something else,” says Ezra.

“King is a good name. It suits him. He can keep on being King,” Grandpère says, and the boys look quite pleased.

“They said we should keep giving him the same food, mixed up a bit with the other kind, if you’re going to change feed,” Parker says.

I show him the food I bought, and he says it’s a good kind. He takes a handful of the food they brought and mixes it in the bowl with the food I’ve been soaking. Coby spreads another blanket on top of the ones in the cage, and the pups go inside and curl up with each other, fast asleep and snoring in just a few minutes. We laugh about the snoring.

Cameron tells us they snore all the time. “They fart a lot too,” he says, and all the boys giggle.

The boys are all going to sleep together in the big bed, so we say goodnight, and just like the pups, they’re asleep in no time.

I haven’t seen the kids since Christmas, and Parker and Kristen haven’t even met Angel yet, but we’ve kept in touch over the phone, so they know what’s going on. I tell them about Jane coming here, and they agree that it was right not to tell her we have Angel. “Let’s just wait and see if she really has turned her life around. Rehab isn’t all that successful, from what I have heard,” Kristen says.

“I always liked her when she lived here before. She was a really nice kid, and I know Ben thought the world of her,” Parker adds. “What kind of mother would have kicked out her daughter because she was pregnant? What would you have done if Nadine had come and told you she was pregnant?”

I can answer that question easily, because that’s just what she did. I remember coming into her room where she was sitting on her bed, crying. When I asked what was wrong, she said, “Everything. I’m pregnant, and Darcy isn’t even finished school, and he wants to get married, but I don’t want him to quit school, and it’s ruined everything.” Darcy was in his second year of university, and Nadine had been working in the grocery store while he went to school.

I sat beside her, put my arms around her and told her it didn’t matter. “You can stay here and have the baby. There’s plenty of room.”

Lorne had come in and was standing by the door of her room. “A baby in the house would be pretty nice,” he said, and came and sat down on the other side of her, his arm around both of us. “Don’t worry, princess, this baby must have wanted to come awfully badly. They don’t always come just when it’s convenient.” He’d caught my eye over her head and winked. I was sure he was remembering me telling him Clint was on the way. We weren’t married yet either at that time, although before another month passed, we were. We just went and got married by the justice of the peace. Grandpère, Esther and Lorne’s parents were the only ones who came to the ceremony, and after we spent two nights in a motel, he moved into the house that my brothers and I shared after Dad and Mom died.

Nadine stopped crying. She said she’d been afraid to tell us, but if we were happy about it, she would try to be too. Darcy had different ideas about that, though, and insisted they get married right away. He said he was lonely in the city and would probably be able to study more with Nadine there to cook and clean. By the time Tammy was born, they’d made a home there, and Sarah was born the following year.

Parker and Kristen are looking at me expectantly and I realize I’ve been lost in my memories. “Nadine did get pregnant, and your dad and I were happy about it, and so was Darcy,” I tell them. “I don’t know Jane’s mother, but what she did was wrong. She has only robbed herself. Babies are a blessing, and she is poorer for not having her daughter or her granddaughter.”

“Are you going to tell Angel?” Kristen asks.

“I already did. I phoned her on Wednesday, the night after her mother came out here. She sounded like she kind of missed her.”

“What a weird year. Just when things settle down, it seems that something stirs everything up again.” Parker is turning philosophical. “It keeps things interesting though, eh?”

We have a great weekend. King and Bandit tumble and wrestle and gallop everywhere after us. They pee on the floor indiscriminately as soon as they’re in the house, and the kids tell me the pups are paper-trained. I tell them King has to be bush-trained. So we get into a routine of feeding and watering the pups in the cage. After they eat and have a sleep, as soon as they wake up, we put on the leashes and take them to the edge of the bush, where they go to the bathroom. As soon as they squat to pee, we unhook the leashes and praise them. At night we lock them in their cage.

Kristen is a real fan of the cage. The puppies like it, and it gives some control of what a pup can chew in the house. I have a smaller plastic one, and I send it with them when they go. The weekend passes too quickly, and before we know it, they’re packed in the car and heading home.

King whines softly on the leash beside me. Now that his foster family has gone, he pays more attention to Grandpère and me. Blue still maintains a dignified distance but wags his tail when King sniffs him from end to end.

I’ve been able to serve fresh salad from the greenhouse, and so much spinach is ready that I decide to pick a big bag and take it to the home on Wednesday. I take the pup with me to the greenhouse and teach him not to jump in the beds. He’s a quick learner and a sweet dog. If I’m sitting still, he comes over and flops at my feet. When I’m walking around, he follows along. He’s clumsy and falls over his own feet a lot, but he doesn’t mind us laughing at him. When he follows Grandpère along, he tries to chew on the cane. “Quit that,” Grandpère tells him and gives him a little whack with it.

When we go to town on Wednesday, we lock the pup in the cage on the deck out of the sun. Grandpère doesn’t need to be talked into coming. He’s ready first thing in the morning and comes to the breakfast table with his town clothes on.

I take a ten-pound bag of sprouted potato eyes and flats of zucchini, pumpkin and butternut squash. The trees are budding in earnest. The leaves are out on all the shrubs, and you can’t see the forest floor anymore. The arnica is in full bloom, and the dandelions are starting to put on their sunshine show. It’s so warm that I put the back window down partway to enjoy the spring air.

At the home lots of the people are outside already. The garden beds are looking fine. There isn’t a single weed in any of them, not even in the ones I haven’t planted yet. All the seeds have germinated, even the carrots.

“Who’s been doing all the weeding?” I ask.

Bertie answers, “We’ve all been doing it. Well, not all, but whoever wants to just pulls a few when they go by. I show them which ones are weeds.”

“Show me your hands,” I say to her.

She holds her hands out, and they’re stained brown from the plant juices and the dirt. I laugh and show her mine. Bertie’s hands look good compared to mine, but it’s still obvious that she’s pulled a lot of weeds. I give her a hug. She feels stiff for a second, then hugs me back. A quick squeeze, then she backs away. I don’t think women have hugged her much.

She and Grandpère start talking a mile a minute, and I take off to find Rose. “How’s it going over?” I ask.

“Everyone is impressed. It’s great to have the lettuce and chard started like that. Six-inch-high lettuce on the day of planting was great. Those garden beds are the best looked after in this whole town. Bertie puts in so much energy that they should be spectacular.”

“Maybe I need to invite the old folks to come home and look after mine,” I tell her.

“Not the same. No pride of ownership,” she tells me. “Besides, I’d get in trouble if I sent the old folks out to a labour camp.” This sends us into gales of laughter, with much speculation as to what the charges could be. She comes with me, and we’re still laughing when we get out to the garden.

Jim is there and has brought all the plants from the back seat. He’s just as good-looking as I remember, and he tells us there is nothing nicer to see than two pretty women laughing. Oh, he’s a big flirt, but I get a warm glow just being around him.

Grandpère and Bertie, walking side by side, are discussing where to plant. Grandpère knows the plan that we worked out at home. We plant nine zucchini in three groups of three down the centre of the bed. The butternut go at the ends, and the two centre spaces get two pumpkins each. I tell Bertie to just let them spill over the edges and to use the garden blanket for these ones now as frost will hit them the hardest.

By lunch we’re all done. We’re served outside again, and Jane is one of the servers. She seems efficient and greets some of the old folks by name. When she comes to our table, she’s smiling and pleasant. “I hoped I would see you today. This is very nice, Anzel,” gesturing over at the raised beds.

“I can’t take all the credit. Jim here built the beds, filled them and hooked up the watering system. We’d better give him some credit too.”

“Hi, Jim. You know I give you credit too.”

“And I deserve it, girl. Nice to see you here, Jane. Is everything going well?”

“Yes. This is a good job, and I like it here. But I’d better get moving. I don’t want anyone to have to chase me down with their chair to get a meal.”

She laughs easily, smiling at us, and away she goes.

“How do you know Jane?” I ask Jim when she’s gone back into the kitchen.

“I just met her. She comes to the meetings. I might become her sponsor. I’m just getting to know her.”

“The drug meetings?” I ask.

“Yes. Once I was where she’s at now. I cleaned up my life, and it helps me to appreciate it more if I can help other people out. I’ve been going to the meetings every week for over twelve years now. How do you know Jane?”

“She lived here when she was younger. She was my son’s girlfriend.”

“You’re Ben’s mom?” he asks in surprise.

“Yes.”

“Oh my God, how the world turns,” he exclaims. “Say, we need to talk. Privately. Do you want to come and have coffee with me in town after I get off work one night?”

“Why don’t you come out to the farm? You can come for supper on Friday if you want to.”

“Sure, that would suit me just fine.”

We grin at each other. We’ve just made a date. Weird.

On the way home Grandpère talks about Bertie. “She shouldn’t be in that place. She is pretty capable. She just didn’t have anyone to help her and she was lonely. She tried staying with her boys, but she felt uncomfortable there as though she was intruding. She offered to go to the home, but she hoped there was someplace else that she could go. It’s pretty boring there for her.”

“Jim is going to come here on Friday. Maybe he could bring her along for a visit,” I tell him.