CHAPTER 11: Part 1: Snow banks lined the sides of the roads
Katherine was nervous about seeing Clara, despite the fact that their phone conversation had been relaxed and easy. She had been glad when Clara had invited her to visit, but now she was uncertain about how to behave around her. She took a breath, picked up a bundle wrapped in florist’s paper, got out of the car and went to the door. Before she could knock, the door opened.
“Hello, Katherine,” said Clara. “Good to see you. Come in. How is the driveway? Not too slippery?”
“No problem.” Stepping inside, she passed the bundle to Clara. “Here. This is for you.”
“How thoughtful. Let me take your coat.”
“No, I’ll hang it on the rack. Go on and open it.”
Clara did, revealing a pot of white flowers dangling on tall thin stems among big green leaves. “Cyclamen,” she murmured. “Lovely.” She took the pot into the living room and put it on a wire plant stand in front of the large window, among several other pots of flowers, including other cyclamens, still wrapped in colourful foil paper.
Of course, thought Katherine, everybody would have given her potted flowers. Not very original of me.
Turning away from the floral shrine, Clara brightened. “Now come into the kitchen for some tea. I made some zucchini bread for you.”
“You shouldn’t have,” protested Katherine, following her into the kitchen. “I should have picked something up from a bakery.”
“Nonsense. I had nothing else to do.”
“Still, you should be resting, not worrying about entertaining me.”
“I’ve been doing nothing but resting for weeks,” said Clara with a frown, “and it seems the more I rest, the more tired I get.” She bustled about with teapot and bread board. She did a quick assessment of the cups and plates on the table, and reached for another of each. With alarm, Katherine realized that Clara was putting a third place setting on the table, but suddenly Clara’s face fell and she replaced the china. Then she smiled and sat down opposite Katherine.
What to talk about, flew through Katherine’s mind, and then her energy notched up one level as if she were doing on-air fundraising and had to keep the conversation flowing. “Is this a secret recipe you’ve had for years?”
“Hardly secret, but I’ve had it for years, all right.” Clara was slicing the loaf. “The zucchini’s from the garden.”
Katherine held out her plate with absolutely no appetite. “Looks delicious. From your garden, you say? How do you keep zucchini this long?”
“In the freezer. We grate it up in the summer and put it in bags in the right amount so that I just have to take it from the freezer and add it to the recipe. It’s the only way to do it. No mess.”
Katherine sipped at her tea. “It’s just a bit more work in the summer.”
“Harvest time is always a lot of work. Everything ripens at once.” Clara took a nibble of bread.
“I remember last fall your windowsills were filled with tomatoes.”
“Every fall. You think there’s no end to them. I’m inside skinning them, and Harry keeps bringing me more.” Clara put down her slice and reached for her cup.
Katherine felt an awkward silence and then attempted a neutral remark. “This spring you’ll have to plant a few less. Don’t make so much work for yourself.”
“That’s right. About half as much of everything, now that Harry’s gone.”
“That’s not what I meant,” gasped Katherine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to remind you.”
Clara set down her cup and looked straight at Katherine. “Don’t worry. You can’t remind me, because I never stop thinking about him.”
Tears pricked at Katherine’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I want to talk about him,” Clara said with clear dry eyes. “The worst thing is when people act as if nothing has happened, or as if he never existed. I want to be with his friends, with people who knew and loved him too.”
Katherine cleared her voice. “There must be a lot of people like that.”
“It’s surprising how people don’t want to talk about him. As if that will make me forget that he’s dead!” Clara shook her head.
Katherine flinched at the word, but then grew bold. “I don’t think that’s quite true, Clara. Didn’t you a little while ago start to set out a cup and saucer for him?”
There was silence a moment as Clara stared down at the table. “Now and then. With the routine things. And then I remember and it hurts again.” Suddenly she put both her hands over her face. “It’s the forgetting that causes the pain. I don’t want to forget that he’s dead. I don’t want to forget him.”
“How could you? That’s impossible.”
Clara took her hands away and looked at Katherine. “Oh, but I do. Sometimes I forget all about him. I’ll be doing something, going for a walk or something, and I start enjoying the day, and I forget all about him, whether he’s alive or dead.”
“That’s normal. You have to take breaks for yourself. You can’t sit around in mourning all the time. You have to live your life. Harry would want you to.”
“Yes, he would that.” Clara gave a weak smile.
Encouraged, Katherine went on. “Do you remember when you first showed me the puppies and Harry sat down with them and they climbed all over him?”
“And then one peed on his lap and he said he’d never do that again.” Clara chuckled. “And I said it served him right for thinking he was such an animal lover.”
“And he had to go upstairs and change his pants.”
“And I said why bother, because puppy pee is mostly clear water anyway. He was embarrassed. It came from never having to change a diaper.”
“Well I think it might have been Noodle who did it, because he did the very same thing to me once. But I never wanted to tell Harry because I thought it might make him dislike Noodle.”
“I’ll take that as a warning, and I won’t let him climb my lap when I visit.”
“Good. I want you to come out and see the house.”
“I’d like that.” They faded into a comfortable silence, and then Clara offered more zucchini bread. Katherine declined. Not wanting to leave Clara just yet, she asked “So where do you go for your walks with all this snow?”
“All around the property, on snowshoes.” Clara’s face brightened. “Would you like to go for a walk?”
Katherine couldn’t refuse. “But I don’t have snowshoes. And I’ve never used them.”
Clara was energetically bustling around. “You’ve got to have snowshoes in the country. You can use Harry’s. And you can wear his mukluks, even though they’ll be too big for you. It’s not that critical with snowshoes. I mean we aren’t going far.”
Soon Katherine found herself bundled up against the cold and outside the back door, watching Clara buckling up the straps of the snowshoes for her. “Lucky thing that there are extra holes so we can tighten them to fit you,” Clara was saying. “I can see which holes Harry used. But this should do fine.” She straightened up and stepped onto her own snowshoes, sliding under the toe strap and tightening the ankle strap. “Now we’re ready. It’s just like walking. Forget that you have them on. Let your toe go down through the opening, and let the snowshoe tail drag on the ground. You have to walk with a slightly wider step than usual, but that’s all. Just ignore them. Shall we go?” She adjusted her wool hat and stepped out, following a trail filled with new snow. Her beaver tail snowshoes made great wide tracks a couple of inches deep.
Katherine took a breath and followed. At first it felt like dragging a wet towel with each foot, and she made extra wide strides. But she looked at Clara ahead of her, and noticed how she lifted the snowshoe over the wide part of the resting snowshoe, so she modified her stride and felt it get easier. Irma ran ahead and occasionally off the trail, leaving deep narrow tracks that showed how effective the snowshoes were at holding them up. It felt amazing. One step in this snow without them would mean sinking up to her calves at least, making walking an exhausting struggle. But they seemed to skim over the snow like water spiders on a still pond. The sun sparkled on ice crystals; Clara’s tassle swung from her hat. Katherine heard her own breathing and the swoosh of her clothing rubbing, and began to relax. Soon she forgot about what she was doing, and walking began to feel automatic and natural.
They seemed to take the same route that they had on her first visit to Sunrise last July, and a few times since. Only last July, Katherine thought. So much has happened since then. They wound up the path to the pond, past trees and bushes heavy with snow. The pond was a thick white duvet edged with dead bullrushes and the bare branches of low shrubs. At both ends of the pond the ice was open on black water. There was the sound of water flowing gently beneath the ice at the runoff.
Clara went toward the spring end of the pond and pointed to the snow. Katherine came up beside her, noticing her pink cheeks and alert expression. “See those tracks? That’s the heron.” Katherine looked down at distinct, large, three-toed tracks exactly as if a child had drawn them in the snow. “I didn’t think they could overwinter here, but we’ve had a heron in winter for years. Sometimes I even see it here at the pond. It flies up when it sees me, but it’s such a heavy bird that it takes some time to get airborne. The first time I saw it, it was screaming at Irma. Surprised her enough to give it time to get in the air.”
Suddenly a little bird zoomed close by in front of them. “Oh yes, you want something, do you?” asked Clara reaching into her pocket. And right before Katherine’s amazed eyes, a tiny black-capped bird landed on Clara’s outstretched hand and picked something up in its beak and flew off. “Chickadees,” said Clara. “They love peanuts. See?” For suddenly there were more fluttering around them, although they only landed one at a time on Clara’s palm. “Do you want to feed them?”
Dumbly, Katherine nodded and pulled off her mitten. Clara put some peanut halves on Katherine’s hand and she stretched it far out from her. A chickadee hovered in the air in front of Clara and she stepped away. It seemed that they would not land on her hand at first, but then the first bold one took a chance. Katherine gasped at the unusual feeling of the sharp little claws, the weightless creature balancing on two little legs. It stood there a moment, one eye turned to Katherine as if studying her, then pecked at a peanut and in a flurry took off. “My goodness,” breathed Katherine looking at Clara and beginning to relax her arm.
“Look, there are more coming,” said Clara.
And they fluttered around her hand, seeming to compete for the next landing. She began to notice their sweet singsong as they perched in branches around them, waiting their turn. Her palm became a regular landing strip as one after the other settled for a second to grab a peanut and then disappear in a flurry of wings. Katherine felt time drift away. She wanted to stay there forever, having the birds land on her hand. Such an astonishing connection, to feed wild birds like this.
After a few moments Clara said “Let’s go on. They’ll follow us. We can feed them again later.”
So they continued, going further into the forest. Cedars grew densely here, and where in the summer they were muggy with mosquitoes, now they were beautiful in their bright green colour topped with puffs of snow. And the smell was fresh and cold and almost minty. Katherine inhaled as deeply as she could, feeling freshness filling her lungs and almost making her lightheaded.