After River (29 page)

F
OR THE FIRST
time in over thirty-four years our family eats dinner together in the parlour. Before we all sat down we went into the sunroom and stood around Mom's bed and prayed with her. I held her hand and felt the strength return as, with her eyes closed, she began to repeat the rosary.

When we were finished Mom opened her eyes and pulled Boyer closer. ‘Now don't let them get all maudlin and morbid,' I heard her whisper. ‘I want to hear my family's laughter fill this house.'

At Mom's request the sunroom door is left open. I hope that even in her drug-induced sleep she will feel the comfort in hearing the noisy chatter of her children at the dining room table once again.

My brothers hold nothing back. They all sit in their same old places. The smell of the ocean radiates from Morgan and Carl's clothes, and mingles with the aroma of the farm that clings to Boyer and Stanley. I wonder what odours I bring to the table.

Gavin's wife, Cathy, sits next to me. It was so easy to like this self assured young woman. When Gavin introduced us earlier, she held out her arms and hugged me with no hesitation. I hugged her back and told her how grateful I was that she had encouraged Gavin to search for his birth parents. And that she had brought Molly to us.

‘More people to love Molly can only be a good thing,' she replied with a smile.

I can sense Cathy looking around the table now and appreciating just how many people that is.

As I sit and watch this family, old and new, interact, I notice a new glow on Jenny's face as she chatters uncharacteristically across the table to Gavin. There is an obviously eager, almost childlike, acceptance of this older brother. For a brief moment I feel a pang of regret that she was denied this gift for so long.

Jenny catches herself and takes a breath from her hurried words. She laughs, ‘Oh, just listen to me. I am a Chatty Cathy aren't I?' A look of confusion crosses her face as Gavin glances at his wife and they both burst into laughter. Jenny blushes beet-red as it dawns on her what she has just said.

‘Chatty Cathy, Chatty Cathy,' Molly repeats.

‘I'll probably never hear the end of that one,' Cathy laughs. And the laughter of a family ripples around the table joining Molly's giggles. Any awkward moments in the last few hours seem to have been smoothed over by this child's presence.

Molly sits between her father and Boyer. Earlier Carl watched as Boyer set up a makeshift highchair for her. He eyed the thick encyclopaedia under the cushion. ‘Uh-oh, better watch out,' he warned Gavin. ‘Boyer can get a little ambitious when it comes to words.'

Over the dinner conversation I hear the constant hum of the oxygen tank in the sunroom. My eyes stray every now and then to the open sunroom door. Even though she sleeps, our mother's presence fills the room. And my brothers oblige her every request.

As if no time has passed, Morgan and Carl hassle Boyer about the automated barn and the contractors who now run the farm. ‘Hands-off milking for gentlemen farmers,' Morgan teases.

‘Wish there was automated fishing,' Carl snorts.

The good-natured bantering goes back and forth throughout dinner, but it's obvious that Morgan and Carl are glad that the farm, although a scaled-down version now, is still intact.

I know they have accepted Gavin when they begin to tease him about his career.

‘Must be pretty nice, flying all over the world. Tough job, eh?' Carl grins as Ruth passes him another helping of chicken.

‘Yeah, but someone's got to do it,' Gavin accepts their teasing as easily as they deliver it.

‘Must pay pretty well too, owning your own plane,' Morgan adds.

‘Well, I don't exactly own the Cessna we flew up on,' Gavin replies, as he wipes up the milk Molly has just spilled. ‘I own a one-tenth share. So we get to use it a few times a month.'

‘A busman's holiday,' Cathy interjects playfully.

‘You love it, too,' Gavin says and Cathy smirks back at him.

I see satisfied smiles pass between Boyer and Stanley as they watch the exchange.

Suddenly, Molly tilts her head and studies Boyer's profile. I hold my breath as her chubby fingers reach towards his face. ‘That an owie?' she asks.

Gavin opens his mouth to speak, then decides against it, as Boyer leans closer to Molly.

When he is at eye level, Molly reaches up and strokes the mottled skin on the left side of his face.

‘What's zat?' she asks with a frown.

‘It's a scar,' Boyer tells her. ‘A long time ago someone wasn't careful with fire and my skin got burned.'

‘Oh.' Molly thinks for a moment then asks, ‘Hurt?'

‘Not any more.'

‘Good,' Molly smiles and satisfied turns her attention to the bowl of ice cream Ruth has placed in front of her.

‘Hey, where's mine?' Morgan asks, and once again Carl and Morgan fill the empty space with their kibitzing.

As I look around the table, I'm suddenly anxious for Vern to get here and be part of this. If he leaves tonight, he should be here sometime before tomorrow afternoon. Gavin and his family are planning to fly out at two o'clock. They will have to leave for the airport with Stanley before one. I am hoping Vern will arrive in time to meet them before they go.

Boyer pushes his chair back and gets up from the table. He goes into the kitchen and returns with the coffeepot. As he leans over to fill mugs he asks, ‘How long can you stay?'

I'm not sure who he's asking, but I answer without hesitating, ‘As long as she needs me.'

Across the table, my brothers and Ruth nod in agreement.

‘Good,' Boyer says.

S
OMEONE IS PLAYING
the piano. The familiar melody floats up through the hallway grates. It seeps under the door and into my slumber. I lie in darkness and wonder if I am still sleeping, if this music is part of a dream I've forgotten. Even though this is my second night here, it takes a few moments to remember where I am, to believe I am lying in the double bed of my childhood bedroom. My eyes focus on the illuminated hands of the alarm clock on the night table: fifteen minutes before five in the morning.

I got little sleep the first night Mom was home. I didn't care. Since she came back to the farm Mom has slipped deeper and deeper into that in-between place between living and dying. I wanted to be near her, and so spent most of the first night in her room. I only went up to my room when I had to relinquish my chair to Ruth. And even with Vern here last night I was reluctant to go to bed.

So much has happened in the last seventy-two hours. A lifetime caught up to us all. It will take time to sort it out.

Although Gavin appears to be taking it all with a quiet acceptance, I am sure it is a bit overwhelming. Boyer has given him the information about his paternal grandmother who is still alive. ‘Guess we'll be flying to Montana,' was Gavin's simple response to the news.

I am not surprised to learn that Boyer has kept in contact with River's mother all these years. I can only imagine how her life too will change with this unexpected gift.

Yesterday morning Gavin and I sat with Mom until Morgan came to be with her. Then we went for a walk together before Vern arrived. Aspen leaves fluttered around us as we stopped at the end of the log snake fence behind the back field. I waved at the house in case Mom was awake and watching us.

‘It's so beautiful here,' Gavin said as we strolled into the clearing by the lake.

I smiled as his gaze took in the mountains and the forests, still clinging to the last of autumn's colours. I looked around, trying to see through his eyes, to see this place without the lens of memory. A thin skiff of ice covers the surface of the lake. The forest has crept closer to the grassy place where Boyer's home once stood.

There's no trace of the old cabin now. A new apple tree stands in the same spot where the tree that had burned like a torch, signalling to my mother on that long-ago night, once stood. Planted there by some unknown hand, or raised from the ashes, it too has grown gnarled and twisted with age. A few stubborn apples cling to the unpruned branches; dried leaves click in the wind. Windfalls and decaying leaves litter the ground below; the dank sweet odour of fermenting fruit fill the crisp fall air.

In the morning sunshine, I pulled River's journal from my jacket.

Earlier I had taken it, along with the folder of poems, and gone to search for Boyer. I found him at his desk in the attic room. I knocked on the open door. When he turned to me, I held up the folder.

‘Stanley let me read these,' I said. ‘They're incredible. They really should be published. Can I show them to my editor?'

Boyer smiled and took the outstretched folder from my hand. ‘Oh, I think one writer in the family might be enough.'

‘I'm just a glorified reporter,' I said. I pointed to his folder. ‘Those are the words of a writer.'

Before Boyer could answer, I held up the journal. ‘And so is this,' I told him. ‘I found it in the room above the dairy. It's River's last journal. I think you should read it. His words explain what I should have told you about the night he and I were together.'

‘Natalie,' Boyer's voice is gentle as he opened the drawer to file the folder. ‘I don't need to read it. I came to terms with all that a long time ago.' Then he turned to me. ‘The problem was we all thought River was perfect,' he added. ‘But, like the rest of us, he was human. With flaws and frailties. I forgave him, and myself, a lifetime ago. Give the journal to Gavin. It will help him understand who his father was.'

I hesitated. ‘Yes, I intend to, but I just wonder if he really needs to know all this?'

‘If I've learned one thing,' Boyer said, ‘it's that secrets cause more damage than truth. Give it to him Natalie. He'll understand. He can handle it.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘You're right.' I turned to leave.

‘He's a beautiful young man,' Boyer called after me.

I stood in the doorway and smiled. ‘Yes, he is, isn't he? He looks so much like Dad and Morgan, doesn't he?'

‘No, Natalie,' Boyer said. ‘He looks just like you.'

 

‘This is for you,' I said when I handed the journal to Gavin at the late. ‘It was your father's.'

The few short pages would tell him more about who his father was than any of us ever could. It's all there, in River's own words: his
beliefs, his dreams, his sacrifices, and his loves. All of it told with the honesty that was River.

As Gavin took the journal it fell open in his hands. ‘That's your father,' I said when he pulled out the photograph.

He carefully unfolded the old black and white picture. ‘Which one?'

I looked down at the two beautiful young faces. I had forgotten how much alike they were.

 

It was easier to fall asleep with Vern by my side last night. He pulled into the farmyard before noon yesterday, had driven straight through. He made it in time to meet Gavin and his family before they left.

Beside me Vern stirs in his sleep. His body presses closer to mine. Yesterday afternoon, after he arrived, after he met Gavin, I led him to my mother's room. I thought she was asleep but her eyelids lifted when I made a hushed introduction to Carl, who was sitting at her bedside.

‘Mom, this is Vern,' I whispered and pulled him closer to her. He leaned down so she could see him.

She looked up into his face and smiled. ‘Oh, yes,' she said, her voice barely audible. ‘You're the one.'

Her lids closed and her face softened, became younger somehow, as she drifted off.

It was easy to see that my mother was now at peace. She did not struggle against the inevitable. ‘I'm ready,' she had told me last night.

Father Mac had come and gone. Mom would leave this world with the grace that had carried her through her life. In the end, she told me, she had what she prayed for, all her children and their families, finally together, in this house filled with memories.

Last night and yesterday we all took turns sitting with her, each of us cherishing the moments we knew could be our last with her.

As Vern and I sat together beside Mom's bed, I began to tell him my family's story. I watched my mother's face as I talked, convinced that even in her morphine-induced sleep she could hear each word.

After Vern and I went upstairs, he held me in his arms in the dark of my room and listened patiently while I told him more. Tomorrow I will begin to tell him the rest. All of it.

All day yesterday I watched him talking and joking with my brothers as if he had known them for years.
How easily he fits in
. I thought and felt a tug of remorse at having waited so long for him to know them.

Yesterday afternoon, while Ruth sat with Mom, the rest of us gathered around Boyer's Jeep before Stanley drove Gavin and his family to the airport. Vern and I stood arm in arm while Gavin belted Molly into her car seat.

Before he got into the Jeep, Gavin turned and asked me, ‘Do you ever get down to Vancouver?'

‘Vern and I drive down for a few days once or twice a year.'

‘Well, maybe you'll visit us sometime in West Vancouver when you're down,' he offered.

Vern squeezed my shoulder.

‘Yes, I'd like that,' I said. ‘And perhaps someday you'll come up to Prince George.'

‘I'm sure we will,' he smiled. ‘And when we're there, maybe you'll let me take you and Vern flying.'

I saw the quick sideways glance pass between Jenny and Nick. Morgan and Carl each gave a choked laugh. I felt Vern hold his breath before I returned his squeeze. ‘Yes,' I said. ‘Maybe I'll do just that.'

 

Downstairs the piano music continues. Like a lullaby the notes carry me to the edges of sleep. But the familiar song tugs at chords of memory and pulls me back. I know that song. It's the same one my mother used to play for me when I was a child.

Who could possibly be downstairs playing that old melody? Surely it can't be Mom. She can't have found the strength to leave her bed. But whoever is playing the piano now plays exactly as she had, with the same inflection, the same tempo, and the same love, as if the song was once again being played for me alone.

Lying in the bed of my youth, I wonder if I am imagining the music. Is memory that strong?

I ease myself out from under Vern's arm. Enveloped in darkness, I find my way into the hallway, and then down the eighteen steps that I still know by heart. I feel for the doorknob at the bottom of the stairway and open the door. Like a sleepwalker, I follow the music. Soft and haunting, the familiar melody lures me through the kitchen and into the parlour.

The gooseneck piano lamp shines down on the ivory keys below. Scarred hands move fluently across them. I lean against the doorway and watch my brother at the piano. I had no idea that Boyer could play, but then he's had plenty of years to learn, and she's had plenty of time to teach him.

The door to the sunroom is closed. Through the glass I see that the nightlight is turned off. The room is dark, quiet. No hiss from the oxygen tank rises over the gentle strains of the music that plays my mother home. I don't have to be told. And I don't try to hold back the tears that well up.

I wish I could say that the last words my mother spoke to me had
been enlightening, or a profound revelation. But I can't. I thought she was talking in her sleep as I leaned close to kiss her good night when Boyer came in to sit with her a few hours ago. I barely heard her. Her final words to me, the words I will take with me into the rest of my life, were simple–and they were enough.

‘Life is messy, Natalie,' she whispered from the fading fringe of consciousness, ‘but it all comes out in the wash.'

The last notes of ‘Love Me Tender' hang in the air now as Boyer finishes playing. From upstairs comes the sound of stirring. Soon the rest of the family will join us. And we will begin the process of sharing our grief. This time we will do it together.

At the piano, Boyer slowly turns around on the bench and his eyes find mine. For the first time I see, not the scars, but my brother's beautiful face. And I do not look away. I will never look away again.

A half-smile forms on his lips, but reaches beyond. It reaches up to his liquid blue eyes. Those eyes are the soul of my mother, in the face of my brother. There is so much I want to say, to tell him. And I will. But not now.

Now I smile back at him and say, ‘I've always loved that song.'

‘I know,' he says.