Chapter Thirty-Six

Hi Henry,” patrons called as Henry passed through the café.

“Good afternoon, Frank. Nora,” Henry nodded to his customers each in turn as he hurried through, not wanting to stop.

“Great day!”

“Yeah, it sure is,” Henry replied. “Enjoy your lunch.”

Henry loved the camaraderie of his business the most. He knew many of his customers by name, and they were like one big family to him. It was a beautiful fall day. The ascending sun had burnt off the morning chill bringing warmer temperatures with it. The slight breeze felt good against his face and slowly worked its way through his jacket and shirt. The sky was clear except for a jet taking off from the airport. A long white trail of vapour followed the jet as it rose upward then banked towards the west.

Henry hopped into his SUV, pulled out of the parking lot, and headed east towards Broder Street. He wished his Mom had answered the phone so she knew for sure he was coming. It always bothered Henry when his mother didn’t answer the phone. The building noon-hour traffic only added to his tension.

When he pulled up to the front of his parents’ house, the curtains were drawn open which was a good sign. His mother usually closed them at night and opened them again first thing in the morning.

He stepped out of his car and walked up the walkway and climbed the three front steps as he had done a million times before. The screen door wasn’t locked, but creaked open with effort. It needed oiling. Henry rapped on the inside door then turned the knob. It was locked. She always had the door unlocked for him, but then maybe she had forgotten that he was coming today.

Henry knocked louder. He pressed the doorbell longer than he normally would just in case she was in the bedroom or bathroom or something and couldn’t hear him. She still didn’t come to the door. He put his ear to the door and heard music.

“The radio is on and that’s why she can’t hear me.” He knocked harder and when she still didn’t answer, he reached into his pocket for the house key.

Henry opened the door and shouted, “I’m home, Mom!”

Willy Nelson crooned from the radio in the kitchen. Instead of the dill he expected to smell, the air smelled like something had burnt. His gut knotted. For one, his mother had never burned anything in her life, and two, his mother had always greeted him by now.

Something was wrong.

A hot flush of panic gripped Henry. His heart pounded and his body tensed preparing itself for…

“Mom, I’m home,” he called out, not wanting to startle her as he neared the kitchen doorway.

“Mom?” he yelled again just before he entered the kitchen fully expecting to see her standing at the sink as usual, but instead his eyes dropped to the floor in front of the sink where his mother lay, her legs slightly bent and apart, her right arm up over and behind her head, a paring knife still in her hand. Her eyes were open, staring straight up towards the ceiling. They were motionless and, yet, Henry expected them to turn and look towards him. But they were cold, vacant and deathly still. Her other arm lay across her chest and the elbow was tight against the cupboard door below the sink. She must have collapsed and just fell straight down.

Henry stood there in a state of shock. He was compelled to go over and feel her pulse or to listen for a heartbeat, but he couldn’t move. He knew she was gone. He did everything in his power to ward off the flood of feelings and thoughts rushing to his mind. He wasn’t ready to deal with what he knew was at hand.

Carrots and beets lay on the counter. The carrots were clearly drying out and beginning to warp. A few strands of dill lay towards the back of the counter and onion peels lay in a neat pile along with some carrot peelings as if ready to be picked up and thrown into the garbage. On the stove was the heavy aluminum pot his mom had used forever. The pot was completely black around the bottom nearest the electrical element. The knob was on simmer.

He walked over to the stove and turned off the knob. If there had been anything inside the pot it was nothing but black soot now. Henry reached up to the high window above the sink and opened it. He turned off the radio on the corner shelf and was overtaken by the deadly, still silence. How lonely Mom must have been some days all alone in the house.

He pushed the kitchen table further away to make more room to kneel down beside his mother. As he lowered himself he reached for the hand that rested on her chest and felt for a pulse. It was so stiff and cold he couldn’t move it.

“Oh, Mom, I love you so much.”

He bent over and kissed her cheek. It too was cold and had lost its softness. Henry sat back on his heels and looked at Mary. Her brown eyes, looked hazel in the light. It bothered him to see her stare straight ahead looking shocked; more likely frightened. So different from the warm, kind, loving look he was used to seeing.

Henry pushed her eyelids closed, hiding the windows to her soul and freezing in time her last thought and view of her beloved kitchen.

“There…,” Henry said, as he sat back again on his haunches. “You look asleep now…and peaceful.”

His mother had such a kindly face. Her hair had changed from dark brown to a mousy grey as white strands infiltrated over the years. She looked older, but still very pretty. There was such a special bond between him and his mom. They knew each other beyond the head level. They sensed what each other was feeling and somehow were always there ready to help and support. She knew him inside out and loved him as only a mother can love her child.

As he sat there on his haunches, he became aware of a faint lilac fragrance that seemed to overpower the burnt vegetable odour from the pot that filled the air. It reminded him of Jenny. She was gone too, yet the sweetness of the smell soothed him.

Where on earth could it be coming from?

His knees were getting sore and his legs falling asleep. He tried to pull the arm behind her head down, but it was too stiff and he couldn’t bring himself to force it down onto her chest.

He reached for a kitchen chair behind him and pulled himself up and onto it. The blood flowed freely again and his legs tingled.

“You were making my favourite soup especially for me, weren’t you?” Henry said almost expecting his mother to answer.

“You loved to watch me eat and enjoy the food you prepared. I think at times I even ate more than I should have thinking it might make you happier.” Henry smiled at the thought.

“This was your favourite room, Mom. I loved to come home and smell your cooking and see you stand there with your apron on. I could always depend upon it. You never failed, never once, except perhaps today, but I knew someday it would happen, not because of anything of your accord, but because our Lord wanted you and maybe some of your good cooking, too,” Henry added, as he looked heavenward and smiled.

He returned his gaze to his mother. “In a way, Mom, I’m happy you passed away in your kitchen. This is where your heart was. This is where you greeted Dad and me. This is where we usually talked and shared our concerns around your kitchen table. It’s good that this is where you left your heart behind.”

Just as Henry was about to straighten Mary’s apron which had flipped upwards when she fell, the phone shrilled startling Henry out of his wits. He looked up at the kitchen clock as the phone rang the second time, 1:30 p.m. He got up and answered the phone on the wall.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Dad, it’s Justin. How’s grandma?”

Henry didn’t know what to say. For the first time, tears welled up in his eyes. “Not good, son. She’s passed away.”

There was a long silence as they listened to each other breath over the phone.

Finally, Justin said, “I’m really sorry, Dad. Is there anything I can do? Do you want Jeremy and me to come…?”

“No, son” Henry paused to regain his composure. “I have to send for an ambulance and phone her doctor. I’m not sure what I have to do just yet.”

“Was she in her bed?”

“No, I found her in the kitchen. She was lying on the floor.”

“Geez…”

“Just look after the gallery. You and Shelly will have to look after the show opening. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“Yeah, sure, Dad. Don’t worry about a thing. We’ll look after everything, here.”

“Thanks, son. Good-bye”

“Bye, Dad.”

Henry hung up the phone then grabbed the phone book from the shelf beside it and returned to his chair. Then he remembered that she had written her doctor’s number on a list beside the phone. He stood and walked over to the phone again.

Henry dialed Dr. Morgan’s office number. He told them about his mother and they promised to make arrangements for a coroner to examine her and declare her dead. Once that was done, in the presence of a police officer, he was told, then he could contact a funeral home.

Henry hung up the phone and collapsed into the chair nearest him. He felt numb and helpless, the complete opposite of what he usually felt.

As he waited for the coroner, he began to wonder when she passed away. It must have been shortly after they spoke on Monday. She is all dressed, has her apron on, so it definitely was during the day some time. He further reasoned she passed away in the morning rather than the evening since the stove was on simmer and it also appeared that she had just started preparing the vegetables from the garden.

“She probably had a heart attack soon after she came in from getting vegetables from the garden.”

He got up and surveyed the counter. Soil still clung to the dried out carrots and beets, another clue that she died shortly after coming in from the backyard. He was glad she had a last look at the garden. It had given her much joy, too.

He went into the living room in search of her rosary and found the crystal beads that Dad had given her in a table drawer. He wondered if she had said her daily rosary before she died.

Back in the kitchen, Henry sat on the chair nearest his mom, bent over and rested his elbows on his knees.

“In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” said Henry, as he crossed himself with the cross at the end of the rosary, kissed it and began to say the rosary for his mother. The one she wouldn’t be saying, today. The beads sparkled as he slowly fed them through his fingers.

It was difficult to concentrate on the prayers alone as flashes of precious memories of his mother passed through his mind between almost every word. He made no attempt to focus on the words of the prayers alone. This was a rosary in dedication to his mother and for his mother. The prayers and the loving memories Henry held in his heart were one and the same.

As his thumb and forefinger worked their way around the beads, tears fell down from his drooped head onto his hands. The tears rolled along his fingers onto his mother’s beads and cascaded down towards the dangling cross, finally dripping from the end of the crucifix onto the floor beside her. All Henry could think about now was how much he loved her and how dearly he would miss her.

Just as he was again becoming aware of the faint odour of lilacs drifting up from his mother, he heard talking and someone coming up the front steps. With the back of his hand he wiped the tears still in his eyes, then he bunched up the rosary and put it into his pocket as he stood up to get the front door. A man in a dark suit and a police officer stood on the other side of the screen door.

“Good afternoon,” the man said as Henry opened the door. “You must be Mr. Pederson?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Doctor Freedman, and this is Officer Stafford. We got a call from Dr. Morgan’s office. I understand your mother passed away?”

“Yes, please come in, she is in the kitchen.” Henry walked into the kitchen and stepped aside allowing the doctor to view the body. The coroner went over to the body and knelt down, placing his bag on the floor beside him. He raised one eyelid and then closed it. He felt her wrist and raised it, not to take her pulse, but more so to determine how stiff she was.

Still staring at his mother, the doctor finally spoke. “It appears she had a heart attack and died on the spot. She has been gone for well over a day; we will be able to tell more accurately as to the exact time of death at the hospital.”

The doctor took out a form and placed it on the kitchen table then asked about Henry’s mother’s name and other vital statistics.

“Well, that will be all for now, Mr. Pederson, you are free to call an ambulance or funeral home to come and get your mother.”

Dr. Freedman extended his hand to Henry with a look of sympathy on his face and nodded. The police officer who had stood in the doorway the entire time now also approached Henry and extended his hand. They shook hands, just a brief glance; no exchange of words. The bang of the screen door announced their final departure.

Henry walked over to the kitchen table and looked up Speer’s Funeral Home in the phone book. They informed him they would be over immediately.

He returned to his mother’s side, knelt down, and put his hand over hers. It was very cold and seemed bluer than when he first saw her. All the warmth was gone from her skin, but not from the memories Henry steadfastly now held onto. He needed the support of memories and the strength they would give him to do what he had to do. Yet, at the same time, Henry shut down the feelings associated with those memories, at least for now to prevent him from completely breaking down.

He stood up and tried to visualize what the attendants would do when they came in and how they would remove the body. Henry pushed the kitchen table even further away to give the attendants as much room as possible.

He recalled the time he had witnessed the removal of Anna’s body. How the attendants had entered the bedroom, unzipped a green vinyl bag, and laid Anna in it. It was a very cold scene and one which he still recalled from time to time.

A vehicle pulled up out front and two men got out. The attendants did pretty much what he’d seen the attendants who had taken Anna had done: they pulled out a stretcher and a vinyl green bag from the back of the ambulance.

As the two men climbed up the stairs, Henry held the door open for them.

“She is in the kitchen,” Henry directed from the rear then followed them. The attendants laid the stretcher beside his mother and unrolled the green bag on top of it. It was already unzipped. Henry recalled how the attendants placed Anna’s body into the bag and decided he didn’t want to carry the memory of his mother being placed in it.

“I’m just going to step out back while you get Mom ready. Thanks for coming so quickly”

The attendant at the head of the stretcher looked up and nodded. They were just getting ready to lift her onto the open bag on the stretcher when Henry turned and walked out to the back door landing.

He looked up at the bag of clothes pins in a white cotton bag hanging from a clothes line. He remembered his mother hanging out the clothes and how she loved the fresh smell of clothes drying this way rather than in the electric dryer in the basement. He smiled as he thought about how stiff the clothes hanging outside would get late in the fall when the weather cooled and how clothes such as long underwear or nightgowns would keep their shape when removed from the line then collapse as they warmed inside the house. He loved to watch this happen and just loved the fresh, clean smell of the clothes.

His eyes wandered down to the garden. She loved her garden and spent so much of her life out there. He visualized her working in the garden as he’d seen her do so many times growing up. The very first row of her garden was always a row of annuals; she loved the beauty they gave off and was a reflection of the love she had for her garden. She always said that this row of flowers was meant to offer a bouquet to the garden for the food and nutrients it gave to them every summer.

What a beautiful offering. So typical of Mom’s sensitivity to everything around her.

All the rows were devoid of weeds and very neat and straight. The tomatoes and peas were near the fence and each plant had a stick for the vegetable to climb up on, a practice she had learned from Mrs. Goronic next door. Henry looked over into her yard.

Mrs. Goronic had died many years ago and the house was purchased by a young couple. Half of her yard was now lawn and the other half garden, but not at all the way Mrs. Goronic had it. There were so many weeds it was hard to discern what vegetables were there. Oh, how she would weed her garden. He remembered only too well carrying out the weeds she pulled to the back lane for her and the nickel she’d paid him for doing so.

He smiled. Those were the days, so many memories. And that’s all they were. Just memories.

“Mr. Pederson.”

Henry turned to see one of the ambulance attendants standing at the back door.

“We have your mother in the van and will take her to Speer’s Funeral Home now.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Is there anything else we can do?”

“No, that will be fine.”

The man turned and walked back into the kitchen. Henry followed.

Henry looked down at the floor where his mom had lain. He pictured her lying there. So many times he’d wanted to visit more, call more, but he was always to busy with matters he considered more important and he had never made the time. Now it was too late, time had run its course. There would be no more of those precious moments to visit and chat and just sit with each other.

He had taken for granted a treasure he foolishly assumed would be with him, forever.

He met the attendant’s gaze, as he looked up. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, thank you.” Henry nodded.

He extended his hand to Henry. “I’m sorry about your mom.”

“Thank you,” Henry said, fighting to control the tears working their way to the surface.

Henry felt a little uncomfortable with the considerate thoughts of a person who’d never known either him or his mom. Like the exchange with the police officer before, Henry and the attendant shared a brief glance before he turned and left, the screen door banging shut behind him.

Henry stood in the kitchen momentarily then walked to the front door and watched the ambulance pull away, carrying his mom. She would never come back to her home again. Henry would never have thought that when he arose this morning he would be confronted with such a scene as this. He never realized death was so near.

But, as the Lord sayeth; man knowest neither the time nor the hour when He will call.