Grandpère (17 page)

“Maybe next week. I’ll tell her next week when we go there and see if she wants to.” Then he starts in, “Ho, ho, the sexy man and the goo-goo eyes get together.”

I can’t think of a single rejoinder, so I just laugh along with him.

The next days pass quickly. I bake and cook. Grandpère is filled with glee, teasing me as everything gets done. “Is that for us, or are we saving it for someone special?” he asks. “Should we set out the silver?” And he says, “I hope he brings us lots of horses.”

“Go take your dog for a walk,” I keep telling him.

I watch him through the window. Blue walks sedately beside him, and the pup gallops circles around them. Grandpère seems spryer than he was last year, and sometimes he’s gone for several hours before they wander back into the yard. The pup sleeps for a long time after their walks, and he’s getting better coordinated. He asks to go out now, and we haven’t had any piddle on the floor for three days.

On Friday afternoon at about five, Jim arrives in his pickup. It’s an older truck, quite loud, but it’s clean and shiny; he tells me under the new paint the rust holes are all filled with body filler. “Had her since she was new,” he tells me. “Gone down many roads together.” He pats the truck as though it’s alive and can return his affection.

He looks really nice. He has on jeans, a soft plaid shirt and a leather vest beaded with rose vines up the front and a whole bouquet of roses across the back shoulders. He wears sneakers and a baseball cap, facing forward this time. His hair is braided and done up with leather lace.

He compliments me on every dish, and Grandpère keeps telling him what a great cook I am and listing my accomplishments as though I’m a prize horse he’s selling.

“All right, all right,” I say to him. “Enough already.” He’s embarrassing me but seems quite unrepentant.

After supper Grandpère decides to take the dogs for a walk, and Jim and I go out to the greenhouse with our coffee. We look at the garden along the way, and he seems interested in everything. In the greenhouse we settle down on the chairs in the potting room and talk about Jane.

“She came out here to talk to me. She thought it was her fault Ben died. But it wasn’t.”

“We don’t talk about the stories people tell in the meetings. But you already know her story, so it’s all right if we talk about it. Do you know where her daughter is?”

“Yes, we have her.” I pour out the whole story. “But I never told Jane, and I think right now it’s best left that way.”

Jim is silent for a while, then he agrees. “She seems like a nice girl, and I think she’s really trying to stay on the recovery path, but you never know. Addiction is strong, and she’s still at the stage where she could easily give in to her cravings. I know she’s had at least one relapse since she got out of rehab; it’s why she moved. I think I will sponsor her. She has a lot to live for, and I can help her out.” He nods to himself for a while, then says, “Come on. Show me your favourite place here.”

We walk up the trail to the lookout and sit down on the rock. The fields are all bright green with the new alfalfa, and the leaves are big enough to fill in the bush canopy. Everything everywhere is green and lush. Jim says he sees why it’s my favourite spot, and we sit in contentment, chatting away till dusk. He tells me he’s been single since his marriage ended in his early thirties. He says he’s wandered all over the country, even moved down to Texas when he was in his forties. He says he had a rough time of it for a while, but ever since he left drugs and alcohol behind, his life has steadily improved.

We are quiet for a while, then he moves closer and puts his arm across my shoulders, and I lean into him. For a time we just sit there, letting the peaceful surroundings fill us.

Jim gives me a squeeze, then says he guesses we’d better get back before Grandpère sends out a posse. That makes me laugh, and we hold hands going down the hill. I feel like a teenager, and when I look at him, he just grins. When we get down to level ground, he tucks my arm under his, and we walk close.

Grandpère is back with the dogs, and we play with the pup for a while, then put him in the cage and shut the door. We play a few hands of crib, and it’s nearly midnight when Jim says he should get home. The evening passed quickly; that’s the latest Grandpère and I have stayed up for a long time.

“You come back and see us soon,” Grandpère tells Jim as he’s leaving.

“I’ll be back. Thank you both for a wonderful evening,” he says as he puts on his shoes. I follow him outside. He hugs me on the step and kisses my cheek. “Thank you especially, Anzel. Thank you for trusting me.”

“My pleasure. Thank you for coming,” I say. “Any time you feel like it, drop by.”

I wave till he’s out of the driveway and dance back into the house. I really like him. Grandpère is still sitting up. “Pretty nice guy. He might be a keeper.”

“Oh Grandpère. I’m not fishing. But he’s pretty fine, eh?”

“Yep. Pretty fine,” he agrees.

The next day Jim drives in around ten in the morning. “You did say any time,” he says when he gets out of the truck. “All I could think of, when I thought about what to do today, was to come out here. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Today I was going to rototill the rest of the garden and plant out more of the starts,” I tell him, and he helps me do everything. He does the tilling and helps me plant out the little plugs. By suppertime the rest of the garden is not only tilled, it’s planted too.

He helps me make supper — lots of leftovers from yesterday — and a fresh salad. After supper I tell him to go and have tea with Grandpère, but he helps me do the dishes before he will. We talk and visit and play cards, and he seems like an old friend.

When he leaves this time, it’s my lips he’s looking for and not my cheek. I return the kiss with pleasure. A passion I thought was gone rises in me like a wave, and he leaves me gasping for breath on the step when he leaves. A glow stays with me long after his tail lights fade.

June starts with a week of rain. It sprinkles for a few days, and the flowers all look heavenly, then it pounds down for a couple of days, knocking the petals off the daffodils and tulips and spattering the other flowers with mud. Then it sprinkles for another couple of days. I can’t even step into the garden, which is boot-deep quicksand. I can see the carrots have germinated, and well. They are the hardest crop to start in this clay-based soil, but once they have popped through the soil crust, they’re hardy.

I don’t go to the home on Wednesday, one of the pounding rain days. I talk to Rose on the phone, and she says it doesn’t matter.

Jim has been out every weekend and some weeknights. Today he phones right after lunch to ask if it would be a good day for Bertie to visit. She’d looked forward to us coming there today and was sad we didn’t come.

“Sure,” I tell him. “Grandpère will be happy. I’ll let him know.”

When I tell him Bertie’s coming out with Jim, he goes right into the bathroom, combs his hair and scrubs up; he’s in clean clothes when he comes to sit at the table. He wonders if he should go out and take King for his walk.

“King can walk himself,” I tell Grandpère and turn King out of the porch.

Sure enough, he trots right across the yard to the edge of the bush before he squats. We are both proud of how smart that dog is. Blue puts up with him, but I notice that he’s never too far away from the pup. I think Blue is establishing who’s boss in the pecking order, and it’s a good thing, because King has doubled his size already.

“Should we get him fixed?” I ask.

“No need for that. It just makes them fat.”

“Grandpère, that’s an old wives’ tale. They don’t get fat because they’re neutered. If they get enough exercise, they stay trim.”

“Makes them lazy, then they don’t get exercise. Old wives knew some sense.”

How can you argue with that logic? The dog gets to keep his jewels. Soon King is back whining at the door to get in. His cage is in the mud room, and the room is living up to its name; a layer of sloppy mud has come in on the boots and drooled itself onto the floor on every trip in and out for days. We have a baby gate across the door to confine the dogs to the mud room. King runs indoors and settles himself in the cage. He’s happy to sleep for hours, and the rain seems to make him even sleepier.

Dinner is ready when they arrive, and everyone declares it the best meal ever.

“Are you going to be my fan club?” I ask them, embarrassed about all the praise. It was a good meal, but not exceptional.

“I’m a fan club of one,” Jim says. He comes over to the sink and hugs me and kisses me, right in front of Grandpère and Bertie, who laugh. That’s how things are going lately. It feels natural and right for him to be here, and every time he leaves, I look forward to him returning.

Bertie is a great guest. She is only eight years older than me, but I feel as though she’s a lot older. She’s grandmotherly, but like an old grandmother, not a young one like me, I say to the voice in my head that’s laughing at me calling someone else grandmotherly.

Jesse arrives a few days later after phoning to say he and Aaron are coming just for the weekend.

“Jessica?” I ask.

“Not this time. She has to work. See you Friday, probably around suppertime.”

Jim is there when Jesse and Aaron arrive — I want him to meet them — then he leaves shortly after Jesse arrives. After Grandpère and Aaron both go to bed, Jesse and I sit up at the kitchen table and drink tea and talk.

“It’s not going to work, Mother. Jessica and I are getting a divorce. We both want to. I don’t like who she is right now, and I don’t even think she’s been faithful to me. I don’t buy all the late nights in the office. It’s the only time her cellphone is turned off.” He sounds bitter.

“Did you go to counselling?” I ask.

“Yes, we went separately, then together. Even the counsellor thought we should probably get a divorce. How bad is that?”

“Pretty bad,” I concede. “What will you do?”

“We’ll go to court and ask for a divorce. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is; all our property gets split fifty-fifty, and our pensions get split. We’ve agreed to joint custody of Aaron. Right now I’m not working, and she is, so I’ll get him in the day, and he’ll go to her place at night. She’s going to look for an apartment this weekend and should be moved out by the time we get home.”

I am shocked at the suddenness of it all. “Did you decide that or did she?”

“She did, but I’m glad, Mom. It’s driving me crazy, living with her. Maybe when we spend some time apart, I’ll like her more. We have to do this. I’m just sorry for Aaron. How do we tell him? He’s so little and he loves us both.” There is such pain in his voice.

“It happens to lots of kids now. You just have to love them through it. You have to make sure he knows it’s not his fault. His little world revolves around himself right now, and at first he’ll be pretty sure it was something he did. Just make sure he always feels safe, and he’ll just accept things the way they come along.” I can’t think of any other advice.

He sits forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees, with his head resting in his hands. He looks like a lost little boy. I sit in front of him and lean my forehead down to rest on his, then I hug him for a while as he cries. And so do I.

“One door closes, one door opens,” I tell him. It’s my way of saying life goes on.

“God, I hope I do better in the next room,” he says, and we laugh a bit, sniffing our tears away.

Chapter Twelve

On Sunday the company rolls in. Jim brings Bertie, and when the phone rings, it’s Jane. She wonders if today is a good time to visit. She says she bought a car this week but hasn’t driven it on the highway yet. “Sure, get in the car and drive,” I tell her.

Jim has sponsored her in their meetings and has told me she’s doing really well. “She’s a strong-minded girl. When she decides to do something, she does it,” he told me. “She’s kicking the habit cleaner than anyone I ever met. Still only one relapse so far — though it’s early, and most recovering addicts slide a few times before they master sobriety. As a rule they use most of their energy just looking after themselves. Full recovery usually takes years.”

So I am more kindly disposed toward Jane than I was a while ago — though I still think she is unfit to be anyone’s mother — and I don’t speak to her about Angel, nor do I intend to. I tell Jesse not to talk about Angel while Jane is around.

We have a pleasant day. As Jane and Bertie help me get lunch together, they joke around a lot, and I can see they are friends. Jesse and Jane are friends from long ago, and they talk a lot about the people they used to know and where they are now. Between them they know where almost everyone is; Jesse knows more than Jane, but she knows about a surprising number of them. “Sooner or later almost everyone from here passes through Vancouver for a while,” Jane says.

Everyone wants to see everything. Aaron loves the four-wheeler as much as Pierre does and we all get rides from Jesse. Aaron sits in front of him, his little hands on the handlebars. When I refer to it as a bike, Aaron says to me, “Not a bike, Gwamma, bike means two wheels. This is the four-wheeler.” He’s right, but I’m old enough to call it what I like. “Gramma still calls it a bike, love,” I say.

“Cwazy Gwamma.” He grins at me and shakes his head. So darn cute. We all start laughing, and he looks around puzzled, wondering what’s funny.

Jesse looks at the motor in Jane’s car, and she drives it over to the shop, where he tinkers with something under the hood. That reminds me, the battery is still in the snowmobile. Jesse says he’ll take it out, and Jane helps him by entertaining Aaron in the shop. Bertie goes everywhere with Grandpère, and Jim and I walk up to the lookout to be alone for a while.

“Jesse is sure a nice guy. Jane said all your kids are nice. I’m happy to see her here today,” Jim says.

“I see her at the home every week, but this is only her second visit out here.”

“It’s good for people in recovery to feel they belong somewhere. Work is good for that, it makes them interact with other people, and when the social urge is still there after work, family is best.”

“She’s not exactly family,” I say.

“If her daughter is your granddaughter, I’d say she’s some kind of relative of yours,” he tells me.

Well, I never quite thought of Jane as any kind of relative to me. But what he’s saying has some truth. I’ve claimed her daughter as kin, but not Jane. I narrow my eyes at him, to see if he is manipulating me, and he narrows his eyes and peers back at me. We burst out laughing. Maybe he is, but I don’t care.

At supper it seems as though Jane has come alive. She’s talkative and can hardly do enough for anyone. She jumps up and serves everything, takes our dishes to the sink and is cleaning up before we’re all finished. Grandpère is only halfway through; he might be making sure he chews every bite fifty times. He read that it’s good to do that so your body doesn’t have to work so hard to turn the food into energy. I tell Jane to sit and relax.

“No, you relax. I like doing this,” she tells us, so we let her go to it. She has the tea made and served by the time Grandpère is done eating, and Jesse says he’ll help with the rest of the dishes. We can hear them talking and laughing from the living room.

Jim and Bertie have to go right after tea. “Ten o’clock curfew. We don’t want to ruin Bertie’s reputation,” Jim says. He has to help Bertie into his truck, as it’s too high for her to just step in. Jesse says he and Aaron have to go soon too, and Jane leaves right behind Jim and Bertie.

“She’s really nice, Mom, just like I remember her,” Jesse says as she pulls out of the driveway.

“Nice is as nice does,” I reply.

“I know what happened was pretty bad. But the only thing people can do is try to do it differently the next time.”

“That’s true, Son.” I’m thinking that this kid is gaining wisdom while his life falls apart.

He grins, and what he says next startles me. “Look at your computer screen. Then let’s talk some more.”

I know right away what he means. The girls had put a screen saver on my computer that showed their three faces put together like a kaleidoscope, but it’s still obvious who the faces belong to.

“Did she see it?” I ask.

“Yes. I turned it on to show her the site where she can get parts at cost for her car. When the screen saver came on, she gasped, and I looked at her. She reached out and touched the screen. Then she just looked at me with a wide smile.”

I start swearing. I’m out of practice, so I end up repeating myself. If you’re repeating swear words, you need to stop. I add a couple of the more outrageous ones I can think of.

“Don’t freak out. Think about it. She knows where Angel is now. I think maybe she already did. She didn’t seem all that shocked and never mentioned a word more to me about it. I don’t think you have to worry about Jane. Maybe you should talk to her now, you know, now that we know that she knows what we know.” He gets all tangled up in who knows what.

“‘Oh! What a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive,’” I recite, and we laugh. I decide I’d better have a private word with Jane.

Grandpère stays home on Wednesday, but I agree to bring Bertie here for the afternoon. Everything at the home looks great. This may be the best-tended garden in central BC. I have made pea supports out of wood strips, and the peas are getting tall enough for me to start them up the bottom row. I worry that the wind will blow them over once the vines are heavy on them, so Jim brings over some wooden dowelling and helps me tie the tops of the supports together. Nothing less than a hurricane will be able to topple them now. He always tries to find something to do to help me while I’m at the home.

At lunch I tell Jane to meet me for coffee after work. She suggests the coffee shop at the motel.

We sit down at a table by ourselves, and I don’t waste any time on pleasantries. “Jesse told me you saw Angel’s picture on my computer.”

She looks down at her hands. “Yes. At first I was just shocked. Then I was glad. I knew she was safe somewhere. Jim told me not to worry about her, to get myself cured and prove I was able to be a good person before I tried to be a mother again. I hoped she came to you, but I’d lost that hope till I saw her picture. You don’t have to tell me where she is. But those other girls must be Darcy and Nadine’s girls. So I think I know she’s with them.”

“Do you know what happened? Why she ran?” I ask her.

“No. She didn’t leave a note or anything. She was gone when I got home. I’d been gone for a few days. I wasn’t a good mother then.” She starts quietly crying, and doesn’t look at me, just stares at her hands.

“Some guy came looking for you, and when you weren’t there, he raped her.” I have a hard time saying this — my words sound accusing — and she cries more.

“Who did it?”

“She said it was an old boyfriend of yours. She didn’t say a name.” My patience snaps. “Jane, you were about as irresponsible a mother as anyone could possibly be. Don’t think for a minute you’re going to get another chance until you prove yourself — to all of us — and don’t you dare try to convince her to come back to you. If you do, I will try to make sure you never see her again. Do we understand each other?”

She doesn’t look up or stop weeping, but she slowly nods.

I take a few deep breaths, sit silently for a few minutes and then continue. “She came to me, but then we saw her picture on the missing children poster, and she went with Darcy and Faith. Darcy married Faith three years after Nadine died, and she’s a lovely person. Angel is happy there. She’s doing really well in school, and she and Tammy and Sarah are good friends.”

“Does she know I moved here?” Jane asks.

“Yes, I told her on the phone.”

“Does she hate me?”

“No. She wanted to know how you were.”

“Will I ever be able to see her?”

“Jane, you’re doing everything right. Jim says you’re determined to make the rest of your life count, and I believe he’s right. If you continue doing things right, there’s no reason you can’t be part of her life again. The restraining order runs out at the end of this month, and maybe I can ask them not to renew it.”

“Would you do that?” she asks, the hope in her voice evident.

“Yes. I will.”

“Oh Anzel, it’s all I’m hoping for. I love her so much. It’s for her I’m cleaning up my life.”

“Jane, you’re cleaning up your life for yourself. What kind of life was that for anyone?”

“A bad one,” she replies with a bitter laugh, but her tears dry up, and she looks at me with a weak smile. “Anzel, I will do anything, anything, to see her again.”

“Just keep doing what you are doing. It seems to be working pretty well,” I say to her, patting her arm.

I pull out some pictures we took in the winter and spring. There’s one of Angel sitting on the porch with Blue and Duke, one of her in the greenhouse, turning the soil with a shovel, and another with her cousins, standing in front of the tent when they had their camp-out. Jane takes them and studies them intently.

“Can I keep them?” she asks.

“I printed them for you. They are yours,” I tell her, and she tucks them into her apron pocket.

“Thank you, Anzel, thank you for this.”

I leave her and walk back to the home to pick up Bertie. I have promised her a visit to the farm this evening, and she’s waiting by the car when I get to the parking lot. Jim comes over and tells me he’ll be out after work and will give Bertie a ride back in the evening.

“Don’t make supper. I’ll bring pizza from town.”

“Sounds great. I haven’t had pizza for a long time.”

“See you then.” I wave at him and see him in the rearview mirror, waving till we’re out of sight.

Bertie is in great spirits. “I love coming out to the farm. It’s such a welcome break from this place. Not that it’s so bad here, just kind of boring.”

She has brought a bag with wool so she can sit and crochet while Grandpère whittles. They have become great friends, going for long walks together and inspecting all the plants in the garden and greenhouse. She knows a surprising amount about gardening; she says she used to keep a small garden. When they walk, she takes King on the leash. He is well-behaved for a puppy, which is a good thing, because he’s already a very large puppy. They’re teaching him to be calm and gentle when he’s on the leash. I love watching them. They walk along slowly, stopping and chatting every few feet. She holds onto his arm, and Grandpère points to things with his walking stick. She waves her other arm about as she talks and every once in a while bends down and pulls a weed or straightens out a plant. My gardens have never had such care. They’re out of sight on a walk when Jim arrives, and I meet him out at the truck. He’s brought two large pizzas. We put them in the oven and wait for Grandpère and Bertie to return.

“I talked to Jane today. I told her where Angel is,” I tell him.

He grabs me in a big hug and kisses my face all over. “You really are an Angel,” he says. “What do Darcy and Faith think about that?”

“I haven’t talked to them about it. I told her only because she already knew. She saw a picture of Angel on my computer screen when she was here on the weekend.”

Jim’s eyebrows go up into his hairline. “Maybe you should have talked to them first.”

“I’ll phone them later on tonight. I just told Jane for her own peace of mind. She still can’t see Angel till the restraining order runs out. I told her she won’t get her daughter back anytime soon.” 

“That is good,” Jim says. “She needs to learn to look after herself first. I have a good feeling about this.” He dances me over to the couch. We haven’t slept together yet, but the kisses we exchange promise that it’s only a matter of time. He awakens urges in me that I had thought were only things of memory. I am flushed and excited and sorry to break off when we hear the old people coming back to the house.

We put a surprising dent in the pizzas for supper, then we play crib till it’s time for Bertie and Jim to go. I pack up the rest of the pizza and send it with Jim when they leave. He says he’ll be out on the weekend and kisses me goodbye. I tell him to bring an overnight bag, and he grins and makes wide eyes at me.

“I will at that,” he says, and we stand there for a while, grinning at each other.

“Come on, you lovebird, I’ll be late and they’ll kick me out of the home,” Bertie says. We all laugh as Jim helps Bertie into the truck.

We watch till they are gone from sight. Then I go into the house and phone Darcy and Faith. The girls are already in bed, so I talk just to Darcy. I tell him about Jane coming out here on the weekend, and how she saw the picture, and then tell him about our talk in the afternoon.