Grandpère (4 page)

“Just the same, just the same,” he answers. He doesn’t say any more.

The summer goes by quickly, and before we expect it, the first September snow flies. The blossoms on the hanging baskets are frozen solid with all their colours intact, crowned by delicate powdery snowflakes. The air is frosty, and snow covers every surface, making everything look clean and sparkling in the fall sun. How dazzling it all looks. I love the first snowfall of the year.

The sun melts the snow to a muddy glop by afternoon, but frost has killed all the tender plants in the garden and the yard. I fall into harvest mode, making a list of the things I have to do before freeze-up. At the top of the list is firewood.

We have an electric furnace, but in the cold weather nothing throws warmth like a wood stove, so we need a fair pile of firewood. Often my sons cut wood for us during their visits. This year they were cutting up the slab pile on the sawmill landing; all I needed to do was get it to the woodshed. They had offered to haul it, too, but it’s a chore both Grandpère and I like doing.

We take the four-wheeler with its trailer. It doesn’t hold much, but with a few loads a day we soon fill the shed. Today we go for four trips, heaping the slab chunks so high that the trailer tires go half-flat. Grandpère tells me to go ahead and do what I want while he finishes piling it. None of it is heavy or needs to be split, so I go to the greenhouse to salvage what I can.

The tomato plants stand taller than I do. None of the green ones show that transparency that means frostbite, although the vines are quite limp and look kind of sad. I pick the tomatoes, for they will ripen one by one in the house all fall, supplying us with fresh tomatoes till Christmas or better. Peppers, cucumbers, zucchini and squash all need to go into the house. I go back to get the four-wheel bike, sure that the trailer must be empty by now. The dogs have been whining at me for the past half hour, and now they run ahead of me.

To my surprise the trailer is still quite full. No sign of Grandpère. The dogs are standing by the edge of the porch, looking at me. I say, “What’s wrong, boys?” But as I get closer I see what’s wrong.

Grandpère is lying in the wet grass, his hat on the ground beside him and his jacket open as though he’s sleeping in the summer sun instead of in a puddle of wet grass and mud. I just stand for a moment looking at him, breathless, wondering if he is dead. Then I notice that his chest is moving. He’s waking up. I go to help him up, wondering if he’s had a heart attack or a stroke and what I should do.

He gives me such a blank look that I am immediately scared.

“Who are you?” he asks me. I’m still wondering how to answer that question when he asks in the same wondering tone, “Where am I?”

Now I know I can’t answer, so I help him up to the house and into the bathroom. He keeps asking where we are and calls me Clementine. Then he calls me Annie. I answer to both. He’s so wet and muddy that I tell him to take off his wet clothes and I go get him some clean ones. While I have been gone, he’s made no move to undress and has wet his jeans. I help him undress, the first time ever, and he makes no resistance till I try to help him get the clean ones on.

“These aren’t mine,” he tells me. Scared that he’s lost his mind, I tell him that they are my husband’s, and that Lorne wanted to lend them to him. He lets me help him get dressed, telling me the shirt is mighty nice and it was mighty nice of Lorne to lend it to him.

I’m shaken but ask him if he wants a cup of tea. Why do I always think a cup of tea will fix things?

“Yeah, Granddaughter, I think I do,” he answers. Within an hour he remembers who he is and where he is, and everything is just as though it never happened. I ask if he remembers fainting, and he just looks puzzled. “I was piling the wood.” His voice trails off and he looks as though he can’t quite connect all the dots.

Quickly I change the subject. I want to finish the wood and get the stuff from the greenhouse, but I don’t want to leave him, so I putter around in the kitchen and make supper early. He has a healthy enough appetite, and after the meal I feel a little better about leaving him to nap in his favourite easy chair.

He’s gone to bed when I get back in the house, so I take the phone to my room and call my friend Rose, a registered nurse who has worked at the retirement home for a long time. Rose is what I call a real healer; she’s not just an RN, she’s skilled in healing touch, massage and reflexology and keeps learning new methods of healing. She is amazingly gentle and good. She is one of my soul sister friends.

Rose tells me not to worry, it was probably just a mini-stroke, which the very elderly sometimes have. The brain quickly reroutes the memory, and minutes later they are fine. It may never happen again or it may happen lots. It’s the big strokes that kill, she says, and it seems to be as good a way to die as any. One day you’re fine and the next you’re gone. She is very matter-of-fact about this, and I feel comforted by the time we say goodnight.

In the night I get up three times and stand at his door, listening to see if Grandpère is okay. Each time I am reassured by the gentle snoring that comes from his bed. In the morning he is his usual self, and I tell myself that he worked too hard yesterday. I vow to myself that I won’t let him do that again.

The fall days get progressively shorter and colder, and we spend less and less time outside. Every day in the early afternoon we go outside to feed the chickens and get the eggs. I bring in a wheelbarrow load of wood for the stove, and if the weather’s nice, we go for walks. We don’t walk together; he goes too slowly for me. The old dog always goes with him, and the young one comes with me. Often I’m home before he is.

The evenings are long, and after supper we play crib — usually four games — then settle down to our own pursuits. He whittles little chunks of wood into bird and animal shapes, and I braid rugs, knit, bead and quilt.

Tonight I’m braiding a rug. This skill was passed down over generations from the European grannies; it calls for four strands of rag strips woven together into a circle or an oval. I reflect that the old grannies would be pretty happy today with the fabrics and colours in front of me.

Grandpère says, “Get your book, and I will tell the story from Louisa’s father.”

“Sure thing.” I go and get it. “Fire away.”

He closes his eyes and begins, “Louisa’s dad came here from Manitoba. He could read and write and had more education than most people. He looked completely Indian, but he was half-white. He spoke mostly French. His wife had been English, but he blamed the English for the deaths of her and his other children. I don’t know that whole story, but sometimes when he was drunk, he would cry for her and them and curse the English. He came west with Louisa and Francine when they were about ten and eleven.

“He built a house beside the old Fort, made a garden spot and planted it. They built a deer fence with poles and in the hot days packed water for it. The first winter they had enough extra to trade. Many people in town depended on that family to have enough food to get them through the winter.

“Louisa’s father got a wife from up north, and she came to live with them. She and the girls would go to the Catholic church, but he would never go. He said the Catholics and their god betrayed his people. Over and over. This is his people’s story.

“His ancestors were from France. They came with the army to fight the British, three brothers in the same unit. They fought beside the native people, then they left the army and moved north by Three Rivers. They married native women and made their own village.

“The part of the family that Louisa’s father belonged to worked in the fur trade and pretty soon came out west to Manitoba. They were fine horsemen, those Métis. They loved to hunt the buffalo.

“They brought the church with them. They were all Catholics. They called the priests Father. They trusted the priests would represent them to God and to the government. But something went wrong, and by the time Louisa’s father was a young man, the buffalo were all gone, and the people were in hiding. Some lived with the tribes, and some, like Louisa’s family, lived in the settlements in the northern States. The men were afraid for their lives and for the safety of their families.

“After some time Louisa’s father and mother decided to come back to Canada, but enemies found them and killed her mother and brothers. Louisa’s father just kept coming west till he felt he they were safe. He said he had a pardon, but it was a useless piece of paper. He never threw it away, though, because he showed it to me. He would only speak of it when he was drunk. Sober, he never told anyone anything.”

Grandpère opened his eyes and looked at me.

“Do you see, Anzel, everybody’s story is the same. It is like all the people were children once in their innocence, then they were taken over by empire builders. It doesn’t matter if it is an empire in heaven or an empire of land, each one needs people. When we give away our power, it’s not good. When you are following someone else’s vision, you can’t be your own person.”

It’s a topic we agree on. My husband was Irish, and the same sort of story came down from his family. They were starving when they immigrated to Canada. Lorne’s family was scornful of those who wanted to get rich, calling them down for not knowing what enough was. Never in need of a handout, Lorne was proud that he could provide for us, letting me be a stay-at-home mother and buying us our forty acres in the woods. He is still providing for me on my pension; I get a widow’s benefit.

“You know, there is something that I’m glad of,” I say. “We’re pretty free, you and I. We don’t have to go to work anywhere, we get plenty from the gardens and we live pretty well on what we get.”

“Yeah, well, you just remember that taxes are coming up, so you better save a little for that.”

He’s always reminding me to save up for bills, it’s a habit from living with Esther, his second wife, who would consistently spend more than they had. She loved bingo and gadgets, and she must have owned every electrical kitchen appliance known to mankind. She was never above phoning and asking for loans to cover the power bill or the car repair. I don’t think Grandpère ever knew how much we loaned her for keeps.

But as he does more and more lately, he answers my thought. “I know you sent Esther money more than once. I want to thank you for that. She was kind of crazy for a long time.”

“No need to thank me. You helped us too when we needed it.”

“But Lorne repaid me every cent.”

“And you’re repaying me for everything I ever gave and more by making my life here good,” I say.

He gives me a smile. “I’m not so much help around here now. I think it won’t be too long before this old body goes to sleep the big one.”

It’s the first time he’s brought this up since the day he moved in. He told me then that he was an old man and he might die any time, and if he died, he didn’t want a big fuss made. At the time I just laughed him off, but now I want to know what he wants.

“When you die, I will take care of things. What do you want me to do?” I ask.

His reply startles me. “I want to go the old way. You make a log pile like a nest, and you line it with moss. You dress people in their best clothes and give them gifts to help them get to the spirit land. You say your last words, then you light the fire. When the fire gets low you heap more wood on it till the bones turn to ash. Then you take whatever is left and you put it in a box. You take it to a spot they liked and leave it there under another pile of sticks.”

“You know that’s illegal. You can’t just bury people wherever you want,” I say.

“When has legal ever bothered you so much?” he asks. I laugh, for I am fond of saying there are so many laws a person can’t help but break two or three every day just by accident.

“I’ll think about that,” I tell him and change the subject. “I think I will have the kids home for Christmas this year.”

“That would be nice. I haven’t seen all of them together for a long time. It might be the last time. Anzel, I am serious about my going. I can’t bear the thought of this old body going to strangers who will poke and prod and try to find out why I died. I will die because I am an old man, and I want to go the old way.”

He is not going to let me off the hook. “Have you picked out a spot?” I ask him, half in jest.

“Yes, I started building the pile at the sawmill. I wanted to have it ready in case I didn’t make it through the winter. But it isn’t big enough, it takes a lot of wood to send a person to the other side.”

I think about his long walks in the fall. So that was what he was doing for such a long time out in the woods. The thought of the old man building his own funeral pyre makes my eyes fill with tears.

“Don’t be upset, Granddaughter. I am at peace with death.” He reaches over and pats my knee. “Nearly all the people I have known in my life are there waiting for me.”

“I am not crying because you will die. It’s the thought of you out there piling sticks for your own grave that bothers me. No one should have to do that. Don’t do it anymore, please. When the time comes, I will do what needs to be done.”