CHAPTER 4

The day of Al’s funeral, it was raining and cold. Donna pulled a dress from her closet. Everyone in the Klassen family had found or bought new spring clothes to wear.

“Stupid Alberta weather,” Donna said to herself.

Gord came into the room. “Have you seen my tie?” he asked.

“Which one?”

“The navy blue, pale blue and black one.”

“Check Colton’s room. He was in here a while ago, looking for ties.”

Gord sighed. “I probably got something else. No one’s going to be looking at my tie anyway. They’ll all be looking at our faces, trying to see how we’re holding up.”

“It feels like it’s going to snow again,” she said.

“It’s June,” Gord said.

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time it happened,” she said. “And God might just hate us enough to make it snow.”

Not only was she crabby because she was going to Al’s funeral, she was crabby because her own parents weren’t able to make it. Her father had a series of medical tests he couldn’t postpone. He’d been on a waiting list for weeks. Donna wasn’t close to her parents. They lived in Victoria and rarely visited. Pam was the diligent, reliable daughter who kept in touch. Donna’s mother Joyce pretended everything was sunny and light, and she never told the truth about what was happening. When Donna had postpartum depression, her mother told her to buck up, brush her hair, put on her makeup and revel in her newborn daughter’s beauty.

Abby, who had become a bit stronger, told Donna she wanted them to have the funeral without her. That was the reason they’d waited so long before holding it. The Klassens wanted Abby to be strong enough to attend if she wanted.

“I know what a good man Al was,” Abby said. “I don’t need to celebrate him. I do that every day by myself.”

Abby could sit up, drink fluids and eat small bits of food. Normally she was a talkative woman who didn’t sleep a lot, but these days she just slept. When she wasn’t sleeping, she stared into space. When someone came into the room, she tried to smile at them, but it looked like it hurt her face, straining the patches on her cheeks where broken glass had left cuts and bruises.

Clay had taken some time off work to come back home for a while. He was a waiter at Earls in Edmonton. Gord was always bugging him to come back home for the summer to help out, but he said he could make good money in the city and he didn’t want to give up his apartment, which he shared with his roommate, Arjun. The two of them had been roommates for three years. Now that Al was dead and Abby wasn’t able to work, Clay might need to help out on the farm. Even though she didn’t think it would happen, Donna hoped he would quit his city job and move home for the summer. Colton was still going out a lot, but even he had been spending more time at home, checking everyone’s cars and making sure all the machinery on the farm was up to par. He’d tinkered with the farm vehicles since he had been small. Gord and Al always joked that if anyone found out how much machinery he had fixed when he was a child, they’d be reported for violation of child labour standards.

At the church, Donna and the rest of the family members filed in last, sitting at the front. The funeral was held at the same church Abby and Al were married in. Donna kept her head down. She didn’t want to see all those sad eyes and sniffling faces. She’d been on the other side before, knew how people talked when someone died. How people shook their heads and talked about what a shame it was, and how dear dead so-and-so deserved to live another twenty or forty or fifty years. How everyone pretended the dead was the best person who ever lived, when really they were an alcoholic wife beater who had been having an affair for fifteen years.

Donna glanced over at Pam, who sat with Linda’s parents. They’d arrived yesterday from Vermilion. Linda asked them if they wanted to stay in Abby and Al’s since it was empty. Linda’s parents were nice enough. They had a grain farm and a few cattle and hogs before Linda’s dad, Barry, decided he didn’t like running after things and sold all the livestock. Donna couldn’t stand the idea of them staying in Abby and Al’s house, going through their linens, taking baths in Abby’s pristine bathtub. The thought made her feel dirty and violated. This was Abby’s sanctuary, her palace. How could Linda let them stay there? Donna had been polite to them, but inside she seethed, even though she knew Abby probably wouldn’t mind. Gord told Abby the Eilers were staying in her house, but she’d just nodded, and asked if she could watch Wheel of Fortune.

Ray Sharp sat in the pew behind Donna. She turned around to give him a small smile. He put his hand out and she took it. The two of them held hands for a few seconds, and he gave her hand a squeeze. She remembered when Ray’s wife, April, had died and how broken he had been. Donna had brought him food. She couldn’t help him with the cattle, but she could stop by and make sure his house was clean and he had enough to eat.

Donna couldn’t remember the last time she had been to a Catholic funeral. Maybe the Catholics in this town had some sort of secret, because they never seemed to die. Donna looked over at Mabel Jacobson, whose husband had died a few years ago. She was sobbing into a handful of Kleenex. What did she have to cry about? She wasn’t close to Al or Abby.

Donna had seen Al’s body at a small, private viewing at the funeral home. It hadn’t looked like him. The body was too small, broken and frail. Gord asked her if she needed a few minutes alone with the body, but she shook her head. As far as she was concerned, Al was gone the second he died. Donna hadn’t wanted the kids to see him and Clay was the only one who had asked. She allowed her oldest son to go into the room alone. When he came out of the room, he cried and she hugged him and smoothed his hair, reminded of the years when he was small and vulnerable. Now he was a tall man who looked more like his grandfather than his parents, with his reddish hair and broad shoulders.

Father Murray was talking about Al and what a strong family man he had been. What a pillar of the community. A man with a big smile and an easy laugh. He talked about Al’s height, the constant butt of jokes in town. People always compared him to Howard Keel, the actor who played the oldest brother on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. And Abby’s small size just made Al’s ­towering presence even more apparent. Donna could feel tears coming as she listened to Father Murray, so she distracted herself by looking at her family. Linda was crying, wiping tears away from her face with the corner of a Kleenex. She always looked so pretty when she cried, like someone in a movie, her cheeks rosy and fresh. When Donna cried, her nose ran. One time, after Gord comforted her and held her, (which he always tried to do when she cried), he asked her if she wanted a pressure washer for her face.

Craig was stoic, staring ahead, his body angled towards Linda. Chloe was on the aisle, on the other side of them. Donna couldn’t see her face without twisting and leaning. Clay was mimicking his uncle, staring straight ahead, face calm, eyes on Father Murray. Colton stared into space, eyes transfixed on the spot above the crucifix. Linda, on a night when she had had too much wine, said she sometimes stared at the cross during a boring sermon because the Jesus on the cross reminded her of Brad Pitt.

Now, she was scared to look at Gord. If she shared eye contact with him, one of them might start sobbing. The night before the funeral, he told her that he was scared of his own grief.

“Dad’s death hurts,” he whispered to her. “It hurts like a wound, like I’ve been punched in the chest.”

The two of them lay in bed, facing each other, the way they always did before falling asleep. This was one of Donna’s favourite moments, the minutes when they talked about the tiny details of their days, the things they had been too busy to tell each other in the years when Gord was out in the pasture tending to cattle, and Donna was wiping sticky fingers and cooking for everyone. When the kids were small, those conversations were even more precious.

“I’m scared of how I feel,” Gord said. The room was dark. She couldn’t see his face when they had these conversations.

“I’m not sure what we’re going to do on the farm. The border’s still not open. Dad would have a plan. Dad would know what to do.” He sighed and she could feel the ocean of worry between them. “We need to figure out new ways to work together. Need to figure out how to do all the things Dad did.”

Al took care of all the books and bank accounts. Gord had never even seen the books because his dad didn’t want anyone else to mess with his system. “I know what I’m doing,” Al said. “Don’t worry about it. Just keep on raising good beef.”

Craig hauled cattle and did carpentry work on the side. He’d been saving up to add a pool to the house, and for Chloe to go to school. He couldn’t read the cattle the way Gord could. Gord took care of the cattle, Al handled the business end of things, and Craig did his own thing and helped out with everything else.

When Gord admitted he was scared of how he felt, Donna knew the words he didn’t have the strength to say. He cried, turning away from her, putting the pillow over his head to muffle his sobs. She sat in the dark and patted his back, rubbing it the way she rubbed the backs of her children when they skinned their knees. This was not simply mourning for Al. This was the fear of everything that was going to come, the fear of change and the question of what would happen on the farm. And underneath it all, the uncertainty of mad cow and the whole border closure. She didn’t understand what that whole thing was about.

“I know the border is closed,” she said. “But I want you to tell me why. Did someone eat a mad cow?”

“Not here,” he said. “Not yet. But that happened in Britain years ago. People are worried it could happen in North America. And don’t call it mad cow. It’s bad for the industry. Call it BSE. You need to read the papers. Follow the news. This is important stuff. If you pay attention, you’ll see that Canada is being punished.” He had an anger in his voice that made her glad they were talking about this, and that he was thinking about something other than his parents. “They’re not taking our meat any more. Who knows how long this is going to go on? Just because of one damn cow.”

She listened to the passion and urgency in his voice, the voice of a man she had fallen in love with so many years ago. Then she leaned in and kissed his neck, and moved her kisses to his warm mouth and they tenderly but desperately made love, the way they had when the children were young, stealing a few minutes before one of the children woke from a bad dream, needing a drink of water. The whole experience, both the talking and the sex, calmed them both.

Now, in the church, Donna couldn’t bear to look at Gord’s face, but she grabbed his hand, held it tight and squeezed. His hand was a bit sweaty, but he squeezed back. She could feel waves of emotion coming off of him. People stood up to sing, Al’s favourite hymn, “Be Not Afraid.” Donna could hear Allyson’s soprano coming from the other side of Gord. Gord never sang; he had a terrible voice. But Allyson, that girl could sing. So could Chloe. Chloe was in choir when she was younger, but then she dropped out. The older she got, the more things she quit.

People were moving, filing out of pews, heading out of the room towards the church basement. Donna didn’t want to meet their eyes, so she looked down and admired the women’s shoes. Most of them wore sensible flats or high heels. But one woman wore flashy green open-toed sandals with bright orange toenail polish. When Donna looked up to see who the shoes belonged to, Rita Dennis looked back at her.

“I’m so sorry,” Rita said, and there was something in her tone and the way she looked Donna in the eye that made Donna believe her. “He was such a good man. I always liked him.”

Down in the church basement, a crowd of over a hundred gathered.

Mabel Jacobson was the first to approach. She leaned over, and hugged Donna tight. Donna inhaled the scent of cloying, old lady lavender. Mabel must have marinated in her perfume that morning.

“How are you holding up?” Mabel asked. “I remember how it was when my John died. It hurt so much I felt like I was going to die too.”

Donna didn’t have the words or the energy to say anything, so she just let Mabel hug her and tried not to get a headache from her perfume.

She spotted her friend Mary Anne across the room over Mabel’s shoulder and raised her eyebrows at her. Mary Anne nodded and started to make her way through the throngs of ­people.

“How’s Abby?” Mabel Jacobson asked. “I heard she wasn’t doing so great. Is she ever going to get out of there?”

This was a question Donna wondered herself. They still weren’t sure if Abby would come back to the farm. Before she could answer, Mabel prattled on, “And this whole border thing. Have you been able to sell any cows? You must be so worried about your money.”

Donna searched for Mary Anne again. She could see that she’d been sidelined by Rita Dennis. Rita would understand if Mary Anne had to bolt. She was a strange woman, but she’d get it. She’d done right by the Klassen family.

“This whole border is just a mess,” Mabel said. “Al would have hated it. John would have hated it too. Who knows how much longer this could go on?”

Mabel was a close-talker with sour, coffee-smelling breath. Donna had the urge to just turn on her heel and walk away. Could a person do that at their father in law’s funeral, or did they have to pretend to be nice, smile and nod along? She was debating this, when she felt a tap at her side.

“I need to talk to you in private,” Ray Sharp said. “Let’s go out front for some air.”

He took her hand, the same way that Al would have taken it, in a friendly way, like an uncle, and he led her outside, out into the hall. In the hallway, he let go of her hand and they walked past some bulletin boards, down an empty hallway. The only other people that Donna saw were her daughter, and Joe Chin’s son, Jeff.

“I could see she was bugging you,” Ray said. “I guess she’s forgotten what it’s like, to have everyone staring at you and asking all those questions. I remember that when April died. I just felt like I was on display. But you were one of the people who helped me through it. You didn’t ask too many questions. Just brought me those pies and cakes, and came over to watch tv. Sometimes you need quiet after someone dies. We can just sit here for a bit.” He patted her hand, and the two of them sat in silence on uncomfortable wooden chairs.

“We better go face the music,” Donna said after a few minutes. “I can’t just hide out and leave the rest of my family to deal with the hordes.”

“You’re going to make it through this,” Ray said as he stood up. “This’ll be over before you know it.”

Inside the hall, the sound system was playing Al’s favourites: Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers and Roger Miller. People talked and drank coffee out of Styrofoam cups and ate beef on a bun that was soft and tender from simmering in slow cookers for hours. Tables were covered with mountains of coleslaw, ambrosia salad, bean salad, potato salad and Jell-O with fruit in it. Some of the women brought homemade buns. There were matrimonial squares, cookies, rice krispie treats, Nanaimo bars, peanut-butter marshmallow squares. Plates of cookies covered every bit of the coffee service area at the back of the church basement. People laughed as they told stories about Al. He would have loved his own wake. Mary Anne stood beside Donna and didn’t leave her side for the rest of the event. She was able to deflect anyone else who wanted to come up and ask questions.

When the family had thanked everyone, they were finally allowed to leave. Al would be buried next to his parents, and the child Linda had lost. The burial was just for family members and they would be doing that tomorrow. There were spaces for all the family members in the family plot. Abby would be buried beside her husband. Donna didn’t like to think about her place in the plot. She didn’t mind being beside Gord or his relatives, but the gravesite had always bothered her because three churches loomed over head. Just her luck. A non-church goer, she’d be surrounded by churches for the rest of eternity. The church women and the Royal Purple promised to clean up. The Klassens piled into their vehicles to go home.

Donna closed her eyes, pretending to sleep as they drove back toward the farm.

“Can you turn up the heat?” Allyson asked. She was in the back seat of Gord and Donna’s truck; Colton and Clay were in Clay’s truck. Linda, Craig and Chloe had driven up together.

Donna closed her eyes and concentrated on the heat coming from the vents. The heat was something real, something that reminded her she was still alive.