Short Story #1

Today's moodling is pre-empted by tomatoes, tomatoes and more tomatoes. It's spaghetti sauce day. Rather than leave you moodle-less, I'll share something I wrote in 2002, at the start of the MCWC (writing club) that my best friend and I formed. It's loosely-based on the life of a friend named Jean, God rest her. I still have her teapot, which now contains an aloe vera plant.

A Visit with Jean

I suppose you’ve come for tea.  That’s what we always used to do, isn’t it?…  You still have our old, cracked teapot?  I can imagine that wandering Jew would look nice trailing out of it.  I always loved houseplants.  See my china doll over there?  I made sure it came with me to this place.

Do you remember our teas during that storm that closed school for a week?  Father was away on one of his trips to Guadeloupe, and I was alone, looking through some knitting magazines, and the doorbell rang.  Who on earth would be out on this howling winter night, I thought?  I was afraid to answer the door, but I thought it might be an emergency, someone needing Father.  So I opened the door, but I wasn’t sure who it was until you peeled off your scarf.  25 below, and blizzard conditions, and you had come for tea.  I knew better.  I knew you had come to check on me.  We had tea every night that week, didn’t we?

Oh, I’m doing all right for an old lady.  This place isn’t so bad.  Madeleine comes to take me to mass every Sunday.  The food is good.  The people are nice enough, though Harold across the hall gets a little loud at times.  Sometimes Madeleine drags one of her grandkids along for a visit.  It’s nice having young ones around now and then.  No, I can’t complain.  Even if I had something to complain about, what good does complaining do?

If you wouldn’t mind reaching the tea from the top shelf there?  Thank you, my dear.  I’m just not as tall as I used to be…  No spring chicken anymore, either – I’m eighty-eight.  I’m sorry I didn’t know you at the funeral.  To be honest, there were a lot of faces I just didn’t recognize anymore.  You’ve changed quite a bit, though, in the last ten years.  Did you lose some weight?…  I thought so.  And your hair is going a little grey.  But I’m sure it was the little one in your arms that confused me the most…  Yes, let me see that picture.  Oh, aren’t they nice!  Hard to believe you have three of them already.  I guess I still think of you as a young lady schoolteacher.  I still think of me, sometimes, as a twenty-five year old, too.  But my body doesn’t let me get away with that illusion for long.

Do you take milk?…  I do, too.  It always tasted better to me that way, even when I was much younger.  It’s been a long time since I was twenty-five.  I loved my life then.  Yes, I suppose I’ve loved my life most of the time.  Back then I had a nice job at the Montreal Gazette switchboard during the war.  Bonjour, la Gazette!  Comment puis-je diriger votr’ appel?  I lived in a tiny little flat with another girl on the switchboard, a short walk from the office, and a two hour bus ride from my parents, God rest them.  I was in the Legion of Mary and did some work for Victory Bonds and had other involvements I’ve long since forgotten.  I’ve forgotten so much French since I came west, but sometimes I still think about answering the phone, Bonjour, la Gazette!  English?  I learned that at the convent school my parents sent me to; one of the nuns took the trouble to teach us.  But I’ve told you all this before, haven’t I?

I need to sit down, but if you wouldn’t mind, there are some lemon cookies in the third drawer there…  Yes, that one…  You’re right; it’s been a while since we had our evening teas…  Twelve years?  Well, time does fly, and it flies faster and faster as you get older and older.  My memory’s not so good anymore either, but I remember the first time I saw Joe at the Montreal train station like it was two minutes ago.  I was thirty-seven when I came to Alberta.  My parents had given up on their only daughter ever finding a husband, but they were pretty upset that I would go all the way to an unheard of place like Killam with this strange German farmer after having spent only two weeks getting to know him in Montreal.  They didn’t think my running off as a mail order bride with a man ten years older than me was such a good idea.  But my brothers talked to Maman and Papa, and told them I was a grown woman with my own choices to make.  Even without my parents’ blessing, I’d have gone.

I was far more concerned about Joe than about what my parents thought of me.  His four kids lost their mother when they were so young, and he needed a woman’s touch and help with the farm.  I liked Joe right away.  He wasn’t tall, but he was lean and dark, losing his hair when I met him, and almost like a billiard ball later on.  He was the kind of man you just knew was honest by the way he looked at you.  There was nothing hidden behind those eyes.  Good thing he didn’t have much of a temper – he’d have worn it on his sleeve!  He was quiet, he didn’t drink, he didn’t have anything physically wrong with him other than one missing finger, and I was intrigued by the thought of Alberta.  Those mountains!

Of course it wasn’t easy.  I soon learned that my English wasn’t as good as I thought.  Joe’s children didn’t take to me very well – they were teenagers who didn’t want a mother by then.  And I knew nothing about farming!  The children made fun of me using English words I didn’t know.  They were always leaving things in a mess and a muddle, on purpose.  Their dad didn’t see it, or didn’t want to – he had to take their side – I think he carried a lot of guilt that they’d been motherless so long.  I tried to be happy, but it was a challenge.  Madeleine tells me now, usually on my birthday, that she’s sorry about how mean she was to me as a teenager.  We laugh about it sometimes.  The boys never did get over the fact that their dad remarried, though they still extend a polite courtesy to me.  I think Madeleine was just young enough to need me a little bit, and for us to learn to love each other.

Joe knew I was having a hard time, especially with the boys, and he tried to make it up to me when the children weren’t around.  I’ll never forget the time he came in from the fields after seeding was done, saying, pack your bags, we’re taking a little trip.  And he drove us to Jasper before sundown.  We stayed at a little bungalow on the edge of the river, and it was beautiful, to say the least.  We hadn’t really had a honeymoon, unless you include our short so-called courtship in Montreal, so we made up for it in two days in Jasper.  I fell in love with the mountains then, and the town.  Nothing fancy there back then, but unspoiled beauty!

Then it was back to the farm, and the children, and reality.  I wasn’t too crazy about reality, but I did my best with what I had.  That’s what life is about, isn’t it?  Joe wanted us to have our own baby, but it just didn’t happen, and honestly, I was relieved.  Being a farmer’s wife and the stepmother of three boys and one girl was enough to get used to.  I know that Divine Providence was smiling on me, though – I got to know Barbara, the wife of Joe’s friend Leo, and she helped me adjust more than anyone could.  Being a farm girl all her life, she knew the ins and outs of a farmer’s year and was pleased to teach me, too.  How to butcher chickens, how to make sausage, how to plant and tend a garden, cooking for the hands at harvest – she taught so much to this city slicker!  I think our relationship started out of pity on her part, but we ended up bosom friends.  She lost Leo three years ago, and found that really hard, poor girl.  She has arthritis pretty bad now and doesn’t get around too good.  We talk long distance some Sunday nights, and she visits when she comes to town to see her daughter.

Where was I?…  Oh yes.  Farming was in its boom time, and Joe’s boys were all able to buy land and do well enough, and get married and start their own families.  The boys all settled around Killam, but Madeleine met a boy at a dance in Delburn, and before I knew it, she was married off, too, living a hundred miles away.  To be honest, that’s when I came into my own, with those children out of the house.  I got used to the rhythms of farming, and I loved my life with Joe.  We often spent our evenings with Barbara and Leo and other couples in the area, playing cards and visiting.  Whenever there was a dance, Joe would try to take me.  He was a wonderful dancer!  And he made sure we visited those mountains at least once a year.  For our twentieth anniversary, he took me to Emerald Lake for a whole long weekend and surprised me with this lovely band of diamonds…  Yes, I think you’re right; they call them eternity rings now.

 

It was when I thought I couldn’t get any happier that the shock hit.  Paul found Joe unconscious in the field, and until we got him to the hospital in town, he was dead.  He died in my arms in the back of the pickup without me really realizing…  Heart attack, the doctor said.

You’ve probably guessed that Father was the priest in town then.  He was very kind and patient with us all through the days after Joe’s death, and made sure the funeral was done right.  He’d only been transferred to town the previous summer, but he seemed to know that I was the outsider in the family, and made sure that I was included in the funeral planning even though Paul, Ed and George would have excluded me.  Joe’s boys respected Father, and I was glad of that.

The boys were basically running the farm by then, and Joe had left it to them in the will.  Without Joe there, I had no desire to stay on at the farm anyway.  Joe left me with enough to be comfortable, though.  I probably could have bought a little house in town and still managed alright.  I thought about returning to Quebec, but after 22 years, there really wasn’t anything to pull me back there.  My parents had both died, and I’d been back for their funerals by train – and found I felt out of place.  But if I didn’t go back East, where would I go?  I didn’t know.  Thank heavens for Barbara – she made me come and stay with her for a few weeks, and told me that Elsa Gerber, Father’s part-time house keeper, was going to Stettler to help her daughter with a difficult pregnancy, so Father was looking for another housekeeper to fill in – maybe I could consider that.

I didn’t know Father very well then, being only a Sunday Catholic in those days.  Farm wives couldn’t exactly drop everything and take the truck to daily mass.  Barbara talked to Father about me, but I wasn’t too sure I wanted to fill that position.  Father knew what he wanted, though, and the second Sunday I saw him after the funeral, he took me aside and practically interviewed me for the job right there.  He decided I would be fine for the job, and that he wanted me to work for him full-time.  And I didn’t really argue because I felt I had been living on Barbara’s charity long enough.  I could work for Father instead, at least for a while.

Town life was much easier on me than farm life.  I moved my few things into the little room in the back of the rectory, and started to cook and clean and care for another man.  No grown children to worry about.  At first there was a bit of talk about Father and me as I was only seven years older than him, but he said to just ignore it and it would go away.  He was right.  We settled into a rhythm, and it was quiet and good for my soul.  When I was young, I had thought about becoming a nun in a cloistered convent, but I was such a social butterfly that it was never a serious thought.  Life with Father was sort of like I pictured life in a convent to be, except I was still able to socialize.  If a parishioner invited Father out to supper, it was an unwritten rule that the widowed housekeeper would come, too.  Father and I were card partners in social gatherings.  It was almost like being married, except for having separate bedrooms and complete privacy from each other.

Sure, I missed the closeness of a physical relationship, but being Father’s housekeeper seemed to keep single men from approaching me unless there was some sort of emergency and they needed Father.  I was his receptionist, too.  Bonjour, la paroisse!  I was tempted to say sometimes.  The calls were usually for him.  My friend Barbara invited me out fairly often, and one day she told me that Elsa Gerber was back, but was happy to let me stay on as housekeeper as Father didn’t pay much for part-time work.  I was actually quite relieved.  I realized that day that I had become quite fond of Father and my life with him.

No, not that he was the easiest man to live with.  I’ve never met a man with such a mind for numbers, especially where money was concerned.  Having been poor as a child, he watched every penny.  He could tell you every price he ever paid for his antique cars, and lots of other things besides…  I’m not surprised he knew the price of your parents’ house – things like that stuck with him…  No, he didn’t pay me much, but with room and board as housekeeper, I didn’t need much to get by. 

With Father, things had to be done just so or his sarcastic wit would come out swinging.  I could always tell when I’d done something wrong by the way he’d go quiet.  Later I’d get the sermon.  He was real picky about some things.  Don’t forget to polish the silver.  Don’t buy apples from the Lucky Dollar; they’re cheaper at Stein’s.  Don’t interrupt him when he’s watching M*A*S*H*.  Make sure his laundry and mine aren’t hanging outside together or the neighbours might see.  Make sure it’s Earl Grey Tea after mass, and English Breakfast in the morning.  Don’t bother him while he’s restoring his Thunderbird…  I suppose you’re right, all men have their quirks.  I guess his weren’t so bad, really.  He treated me very kindly for the most part.  I have to admit I got a kick out of it when he took me around in one of his classic cars.  I felt like a teenager!

I learned to play the organ because of Father.  It was in Jasper that it started.  We were transferred there in 1980.  I was so happy!  I actually was living in those mountains, and not just as a tourist!  Even better was the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes at the side altar of the church.  She had such beautiful eyes, and a little smile always on her lips.  We became good friends, she and I.  I think she commiserated with me over my organ playing.  You see, there was no organist when we got to Jasper, so Father decided I should learn.  It bothered him that a big expensive instrument like that was just sitting there.  Playing it was a nightmare at first.  I had had piano lessons when I was a girl, but organ is something different.  You don’t play the organ the way you play “The Darktown Stutter’s Ball.”  You have to hold those keys down.

The first song I learned was the old Lourdes hymn, “Immaculate Mary,” for Our Lady.  You know the saying about teaching old dogs new tricks?  I got good at it eventually, but for a long while it wouldn’t have surprised me to see Our Lady shudder over at the side altar.  Some people complained that I had my own rhythm, and I suppose I did, but no one else came forward to play the organ for about three years, so they just had to put up with my rhythm.  Finally Dolores, a teacher from town, took over.  She was so nice about it, and we got to be good friends.  She even gave me some pointers about my playing.  For the most part, I lost my job as organist, which was fine by me.  Unless Dolores was away, and then I had to remember how to do it all over again.  I’m only glad that Our Lady and most of the tourists kept their smiles.  After we left Jasper, I tried to go and visit Dolores and Our Lady once a year, but I’m afraid it’s been nearly ten since I’ve been back.  Dolores still writes me, and says Our Lady is as lovely as ever.

When Father was transferred to Ponoka, my organ days were behind me.  They had enough organists there, and Father never wanted music at daily mass, so I was just the housekeeper.  I liked Ponoka, too – it was a little like returning to Killam.  Do you remember Millie Abt?…  She was one of my close friends there – she often came to visit Father and me, and she came to Father’s funeral, too.  There were a lot of people from Ponoka who came.  They proved what a good man he was, even though I know a lot of people in Ponoka complained about him, too.  Well, people don’t like change, and complained a lot about the way Father renovated the church, but he saved a bundle by doing most of the work himself.  I did try to tell him that the orange and green shag rug he installed in the meeting room was too dated, but it was a bargain, and he was so frugal that he wouldn’t listen to what he called vanity.  Millie told me that the first thing that they did after we left was get rid of that rug, and I wasn’t surprised.  I never did mention it to Father, though.

When we retired to Red Deer, Father seemed a little lost at first…  True, his life in Ponoka got to be almost like a retirement at the end, but I guess not having the responsibility for the Church day in and day out left him feeling antsy.  That’s why he built the chapel in the basement of the new house.  And he took on leading a couple of pilgrimages to Guadeloupe.  Las Vegas and Guadeloupe were his favourite places to travel, but especially Guadeloupe.  He loved the Mexican people, and was so delighted to discover the small Spanish community in Red Deer.  That’s where he found Josie to come in and help me with the housework.  I just couldn’t do it all anymore.  Because of Josie, Father started saying daily mass in the basement in Spanish, and before long, we had a dozen of her family and friends showing up for mass every day.  Did you ever get a Christmas card signed Padre Antonio?  He signed all of them that way…  No, I don’t know why he called you Mitzi – especially since your name is the name of Our Lady in Spanish.  Maybe you didn’t look Spanish enough in his mind.  Another one of his quirks, I guess.

My eightieth birthday party was the biggest surprise of my life!…  Father sent you an invitation too, did he?…  I’m not surprised.  Father rented out a small hall in the Black Knight Inn and invited some of the people we both knew from Killam, Jasper, Ponoka and Red Deer, all behind my back.  He often took me out for supper to the Black Knight, so I didn’t have a clue until I walked into the room and everyone shouted “SURPRISE!”  You could have knocked me over with a toothpick.  It was a wonderful party.  I’m sorry that you missed it.

Father didn’t complain much about the effects of aging.  I don’t think he thought much about getting old.  He did make sure, though, that he had a plot here at Mount Calvary and I had reserved the one beside Joe in Killam cemetery.  Once in a while Father would ask me if I had any special requests for my funeral.  Those were always short conversations because I never did, other than Immaculate Mary as one of the songs.  I always assumed I’d die before he did, and he’d do just the right thing for me like he did for Joe and so many other people we’d buried.  I think he thought I’d die first, too. 

The stroke came after Father had had the flu for about a week.  He woke up one morning feeling worse than usual, so I called Ed, his nephew, to come and take him to Emergency.  I had no idea that he would never return to the house, or that he would never speak to me again…   Yes, I suppose it was better not to know, but I felt so sad, having taken everything for granted up till that day when the stroke hit.  Had I known, I’d have talked with him more that last week, or gotten his family in to visit more, or…  You’re probably right; he just wasn’t up to company.  But I still think I could have looked after him better those last few days he was at home.

Ed and the rest of the family were very kind in looking out for me while they settled Father into the nursing home.  They helped me to find this place before they put the house up on the market, and Ed drove me to see Father every Sunday up until the week he died.  I’m not sure if Father really knew I was there, all those visits.  He just pushed his walker up and down the corridor with a blank expression, or sat in his lazy boy chair, drooling.  It broke my heart.  I wondered if he still was thinking about the cost of the first church he had built, or the time he guessed the exact score of the Grey Cup game and won fifty dollars from George Dewald.  I got too sad, talking to him and him never answering, so I started bring books to read to Father.  He had loved westerns, so that’s what I read.  I got to like them too.  I also took out his photo albums once in a while and showed them to him.  It was hard to tell, but I think he was trying to smile those times.

It’s so hard to believe he’s gone.  I think his passing took a lot out of me; I’m so tired now…  I was his housekeeper for 24 years.  That’s as long as I was married to Joe.  The funeral was nice, wasn’t it?…  Yes, so many of our friends were there, and the priests who used to come for supper.  Wasn’t Father Karl’s homily nice?…  He always was a good preacher.  Father was his mentor, you know.  It was all so nice, in spite of the fuss about the Last Post.  Millie told me that the newspapers picked it up.  I still don’t understand why the priest at the church refused to let Father have the Last Post to play him out.  He was a military chaplain, after all, and probably would have liked that…

I’m sorry, my dear… but I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave… so I can have a little rest…  I guess that’s what happens when you get old…  I’m ready to fall asleep in this chair, but it’s been so nice to visit with you.  Next time you come, bring your girls.  I’d love to see them…  Forgive me for not getting up to see you out.  Yes, I’m fine… I really am…  Father’s death was such a great loss… such a loss…  He’s up there now, looking out for me…  I guess now it’s his turn…  I guess it’s about time… they both look after me… both of them…