Saving Wolfgang, page 6
He sighed. “That’s the hope, and that’s why I go, because for people like me it isn’t easy to stop. But it helps to talk to other people who understand how difficult it can be.”
I thought about what Grandpa had said as I finished my cereal, but once again I couldn’t ask the question that was suddenly burning a hole in my head. I stood up to put my bowl in the dishwasher and finally plucked up the courage to spit it out.
“Grandpa,” I said. “Why is it so hard to stop? Why can’t you just…just do it?”
He looked down into his coffee. “That’s a hard one to answer, son.”
“Do you…do you think you can stop for good this time?”
He bit his lip and then let out a long, heavy breath. “I sure hope so.”
I wanted to ask him more, but Grandpa changed the subject before I had a chance.
“I’m going to go up to the cemetery this afternoon,” he said. “To visit your grandmother.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just waited for him to say something else.
“Today’s the day,” he whispered. He cleared his throat and talked louder. “Well, it’s been ten years since your grandma died.”
“Oh no.” I felt my cheeks start to burn. I hadn’t realized it was such an important date. To be honest, I don’t think about Grandma very often. She died when I was just a baby, and I never really knew her. “Sorry, Grandpa.”
“Well, your mum and I are going to go up to the cemetery to pay our respects, after she gets home and has a nap. It would be nice if you came with us.”
It sounds silly, but I was nervous all day at school. I felt a little like I was about to meet a new person. I know it doesn’t really make sense, but that’s how I felt. When I got home, Mama had already had her nap after working the night shift. She looked tired, with dark circles under her eyes. But she was wearing a pretty black dress, and Grandpa was wearing a dark blue suit. They both looked nice. I asked Mama if I should put on fancy clothes, but she told me not to worry. I dropped my backpack at the door, and we all went back out to Grandpa’s car.
It was cold outside, and when we got to the cemetery, I had to stuff my hands in my pockets as I followed Grandpa and Mama through the rows of crosses and headstones. When we found Grandma’s grave, Grandpa laid down the bouquet of flowers he’d been carrying in front of the white stone cross. He said nothing, but it looked like he was trying not to cry.
“We miss you, Mum,” said Mama as the first tear slipped down her cheek. She rested her hand on the cold stone cross and closed her eyes. “Every day.”
I felt bad for not feeling as sad as Mama or Grandpa. I didn’t feel sad at all until I started thinking about you, Papa. Tears started to well up in my eyes, but I didn’t want to cry, so I turned around and tried to think of something else, anything else. I looked out across the cemetery at the downtown skyscrapers and the Calgary Tower pointing straight up at the sky. Then I noticed a pair of people walking between me and the big buildings in the distance. It only took a second for me to recognize Clara. She was holding the hand of an old woman who looked like she needed help. They were walking slowly downhill toward the parking lot.
Clara didn’t see me at first, and for a second I doubted it was really her. She just looked so different. Maybe it’s because we were in a cemetery, or maybe it’s because the old woman she was holding hands with looked so stooped and frail. But Clara looked nothing like the tall, confident kid who commanded our classroom. She looked scared somehow. When the old woman stopped for a moment, Clara turned her head briefly and saw me. But she didn’t say anything. She just looked at me with sad eyes for a few seconds, then turned away and continued walking slowly with the old woman. I watched them until they were out of sight.
Back in the car we all sat in silence, Grandpa and Mama remembering Grandma while I thought about Clara. I realized the girl I see in school every day might not be the real Clara. And I wondered if I’d been so wrong about her, how wrong have I been about other people? And how many people are wrong about me?
Twenty-One
December 23, 1985
Dear Papa,
I know Grandpa doesn’t want to drink. I believe him. He did a good job for the first few months that Mama and I were here. Then he fell “off the wagon”—that’s what Mama calls it—and started drinking again. And then he quit again back in November. He was “dry” for more than a month. But when Mama and I came home yesterday after Christmas shopping, we found him soaking wet again.
Mama noticed before I did. She was still fumbling with the car keys in her hand, as I closed the front door behind me, when she sniffed the air and said one of the really bad words I’ve never been allowed to use. She dropped the shopping bags and marched into the living room without even taking off her boots. I kicked mine off and jogged across the living room, getting my socks wet in the melting clumps of snow that Mama had just left on the carpet. I caught up with her as she stopped at the entry to Grandpa’s den.
“Really?” she hollered. “It’s almost Christmas, Dad!”
“Merry Christmassss,” he slurred before he took a long slurp of Scotch.
Grandpa put the glass back down on the desk with a bang and turned in his swivel chair to face away from us.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I slipped.”
“Slipped?” Mama sounded furious, and she stared daggers at Grandpa’s back. “Slipped? It looks to me more like you dove in headfirst!”
“I’ll stop,” Grandpa said. “I really will.”
Mama looked from Grandpa over to his desk and saw a pile of old letters. She picked them up and flipped through them, looking at the writing on some of the envelopes. When she looked back at Grandpa, she didn’t look angry anymore.
“It was today,” she whispered, “wasn’t it?”
Her face went red, and she stood there for a minute before turning to leave the room.
I didn’t look at Mama, but I kept my eyes on Grandpa’s back. I listened long enough to hear her climb the stairs and close her bedroom door behind her.
“Screwed up again,” he muttered to himself.
“Grandpa,” I said, but he didn’t reply. “Grandpa, why did you start again? Were you sad about the letters?”
“Gimme those!” he yelled as he swung around in his chair and snatched the letters from the desktop. “Those are none of your damned business!”
Angry Grandpa was back, but I wasn’t mad at him this time. I couldn’t be after seeing how Mama’s expression changed when she looked at the envelopes. She said “it” was today. What was it? And why had it made Grandpa fall off the wagon again?
I forced myself to ask. “Are those letters about the war?”
“Whaddya know about it anyway?” Grandpa was really slurring his words now. He almost fell out of his chair as he leaned over to open one of the lower drawers and drop the bundle of letters inside. “You don’t have a Clue, anyway! None of you kids have a clue! You don’t know what it was like, and you can’t Imagine it! They were eating flowers when we found ’em. Tulip bulbs, for Chrissake!”
Eating flowers? Who was eating flowers? I had so many questions, but it didn’t feel right to ask any of them. Grandpa wasn’t really talking to me. He was talking to himself, or to somebody I couldn’t see.
“They were starving,” he whimpered.
Then he closed his eyes and started crying. I watched him in silence and wondered if Grandpa was so sad because he had started drinking the Scotch again or if he had started drinking the Scotch because he was so sad. After a while I noticed he was snoring. So I stood behind his chair and tried to pull it carefully across the floor. Grandpa is heavy, but his floor is smooth, and the big brown couch in his den is only a few feet away. I managed to roll him up right beside it, then piled the cushions at one end of the couch and lifted one of his arms. I thought I was strong enough to lift Grandpa over to the couch quickly, but I didn’t realize how heavy he is! I tried to hold him, but the chair rolled out from under him as he tumbled onto the couch.
Then he sat up and opened his eyes and yelled. “They’re hiding in the school!”
I couldn’t breathe. The fear in Grandpa’s eyes terrified me.
But it vanished as quickly as it had appeared. He fell back onto the couch and was snoring again within minutes. As gently as I could, holding the back of his head in one hand and one of his shoulders in the other, I turned him sideways so his head was resting on the cushions. Then I took the green tartan blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over him.
I turned off the light and went to bed with so many questions swirling in my head—and a new sense of the awful memories Grandpa had to live with.
Twenty-Two
December 24, 1985
Dear Papa,
I don’t know if Grandpa slept on the couch all night or if he woke up and went upstairs to his bedroom. When I came down in the morning he was already in the kitchen, cooking up a big breakfast. Even before he spoke, I could tell Nice Grandpa was back. Dry Grandpa.
“There you are,” he said when I came into the kitchen. “I hope you’re hungry.”
“I am!”
Pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup, bacon, eggs and orange juice. It was delicious. I had two full plates and was almost finished when Mama came into the kitchen.
Both Grandpa and I froze when she did, as if we’d been caught doing something bad and were waiting to see if we’d get in trouble. But Mama didn’t look angry. She just walked up to Grandpa and gave him a big hug. He hugged her back, but she was still hanging on, with her face buried in his chest, when he let go. Finally she pulled away and looked at the floor.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” she almost whispered.
“Well now,” he croaked, and it looked like he might cry before he stood up straighter. “You’re not the one who needs to apologize.”
She didn’t argue but sat down and ate the plate of food Grandpa put in front of her. Mama has never had much of an appetite. She eats like a bird, according to Grandpa. But that didn’t stop him from piling three thick pancakes, several strips of bacon and a large pile of scrambled eggs on her plate. Mama didn’t complain, though. She ate for a long time, and finally, when there was still half a pancake on the plate and most of the bacon, she looked like she might fall over and die. Grandpa rescued her with a big laugh as he took away her plate.
“You never could eat much,” he said with a chuckle.
Mama gave Grandpa a relieved smile. Then she looked uncertainly at him. “Since you’re feeling better…I was thinking maybe we could go to church this evening. To Midnight Mass.”
Grandpa smiled. “That’s a great idea, sweetie. It starts at eleven o’clock.”
I’d never gone before, but I liked the sound of it—staying up past my bedtime to celebrate right when Christmas Eve becomes Christmas Day.
I spent the rest of the day wrapping presents and playing hockey down in the park with Jimmy and Rolly. When it came time for dinner, I headed home. None of us were very hungry, so we just ate sandwiches in front of the TV and watched a scratchy old black-and-white movie called A Christmas Carol, about a miserable old geezer named Scrooge. At first I didn’t want to watch it. But I sat on the couch between Mama and Grandpa because it was Christmas Eve. After a while I forgot about the funny way the characters talked and the crummy black-and-white picture, and I found myself wrapped up in the story. When Scrooge woke up on Christmas morning and realized he was alive and could still help other people, he was so happy! But when I turned to look at Grandpa to see if he was smiling too, I noticed tears streaming down his cheeks. I didn’t want to embarrass him, so I turned back to the TV so he wouldn’t think I’d seen.
Later that night my interest in Midnight Mass had dimmed—I was tired, and it was cold. Still, we all put on our jackets and walked downhill to Christ Church. It was the first time I’d been to the church since your funeral. The place was filled with hundreds of people, and there was almost nowhere to sit. But we squeezed into one of the long wooden benches—they’re called pews in a church—and waited for the service to start. I wondered if Grandpa would cry in church, too, but he didn’t. Instead it was Mama who teared up, when we sang “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”
“Are you okay?” I whispered.
“The music makes me emotional,” she whispered back. Then she squeezed my shoulder.
I wanted to ask her more. Was she thinking of you, Papa? Missing you? Wondering if we will ever see you again? Does she believe in God? And if so, is she wondering why God let you die? Something about the music and the light and all the mystery of that giant church filled me with even more questions than I’d had before I went inside, but now I couldn’t ask them. I just had to sit there and listen and wait.
We didn’t get home until one o’clock in the morning. I’d never been up so late in my life. Mama told me to brush my teeth, then get straight into bed. That didn’t take long, but Grandpa was already snoring in his room when I turned out the lights and got under the covers. When Mama came to say good night, she sat on the side of my bed and kissed me on the forehead.
“Merry Christmas, Wolfie,” she whispered in the dark.
“Merry Christmas.” I yawned.
Now, I told myself. Now! Now was the time to ask some of the questions I’d had swirling in my head in church. But I was too tired, so they would have to wait. Then, as I was drifting off, Mama spoke.
“I know it’s been a hard year,” she whispered. “An awful year.”
I forced my heavy eyelids open and waited for her to continue.
“But we have to be strong for Grandpa. I don’t want to be mad at him anymore, Wolfie. I’ve spent too much of my life being mad at him, and I don’t want to do it anymore.”
“Okay,” I whispered back. “Is it true he wasn’t very nice to you or Grandma when you were growing up?”
She sighed. “Yes. He was drunk or angry or both. But I remembered last night that there are reasons he wasted so much of his life drinking alcohol.”
“What reasons?”
She waited a while before answering. I watched her face through half-closed eyes. “They’re things you shouldn’t have to worry about right now. But I hope you’ll believe me, Wolfie, when I say your grandpa saw things in the war—terrible things that no one should see. His regiment helped liberate the Netherlands. There was a famine. People, children, were starving, and…I’m not sure anyone could be okay after what he went through. But he’s trying so hard for us, and I want to help him. We all need each other right now.”
If Mama said more, I didn’t hear it. My eyes had fallen shut and the day was done. I was finally, completely, asleep.
Twenty-Three
January 11, 1986
Dear Papa,
I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while. I’ve spent most of my time since Christmas either playing hockey with Jimmy or having fun with my favorite Christmas present—a tabletop hockey game. Grandpa gave it to me, and I just love it, even though neither of the two teams are the Calgary Flames. It has the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens—not sure why they’d choose those ones, but it doesn’t matter. I play it every morning before school and every evening after dinner. I’ll play with whoever wants to—Grandpa, Mama, Jimmy, Rolly. It was a good holiday…better than I’d expected.
But I still miss you, Papa. I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing you.
Twenty-Four
January 24, 1986
It’s not true! It can’t be true, it just can’t!
But why would Grandpa lie? He didn’t sound like he was lying. And Mama didn’t argue with him when he said it.
They didn’t know I was listening because they didn’t know I was home. I had just come back from school and was only stepping inside the house for a minute to drop off my backpack before going over to Jimmy’s. I heard Mama and Grandpa talking in the kitchen, and it sounded serious. So I stood at the door quietly, trying to listen.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself, Christie,” Grandpa was saying in a kind voice. It was Nice Grandpa. Dry Grandpa. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Mama said something back to him, but I couldn’t hear most of the words. Just something about “if only I’d…”
“But it wasn’t your fault, sweetheart,” Grandpa replied.
Mama said something again, but she was still quiet and now she was crying.
“I know how hard this is, Christie, especially because he committed suicide, but—”
Suicide. Suicide…
Grandpa kept talking, but I stopped listening. All I could hear was that one word echoing in my head. It couldn’t be right. I ran upstairs to my room and closed the door as quietly as I could. I didn’t want to talk to Mama or Grandpa. I wanted them to stop talking and take back everything they’d just said. I fell onto the bed and buried my head in the pillow. I could feel my heart pounding. I listened for a minute, trying to hear over the blood rushing in my ears, to make sure they hadn’t followed me upstairs. They hadn’t. It was just me, alone with my awful new thoughts. That word. Suicide.
But wait, I thought. Maybe it means something else. Maybe I’ve had it wrong all this time. Maybe, I hoped, it didn’t mean that terrible thing after all. I looked across the room at the shelf, stuffed full of old books. Mama had put some Hardy Boys and Judy Blumes in there for me to read. But there must have been a hundred other books. I hopped off the bed and knelt in front of it, scanning the titles for what I needed. It only took a few seconds to find it—Collins Canadian Dictionary.
I sat down cross-legged and opened it on my lap, leafing frantically through the pages until I landed on S.
suicide
1. Variable Noun
People who commit suicide deliberately kill themselves because they do not want to continue living.
My stomach dropped, and I felt like I might throw up. So it was true. I didn’t want it to be true. I could barely believe it. But my ears had heard the word, and now my eyes had confirmed what it meant. I finally had my answer. Papa committed suicide. Papa deliberately killed himself because he did not want to continue living.
