Close to the Heel

by Norah McClintock

“It was Jonina, wasn’t it?” She shoved me in the chest, which I wasn’t expecting. It threw me off balance. “You talked to Jonina about my mother, and she told you that my mother jumped, didn’t she? Didn’t she?” She shoved me again, harder this time, and even though I saw it coming, I stumbled and my foot slipped close to the edge of the rock.

  “Hey, Brynja, take it easy,” I said.

  “She didn’t jump! I don’t care what she told you. I don’t care what anyone told you. My mother didn’t jump. Someone pushed her.”

  “Okay,” I said. I kept my voice calm and quiet. “Okay.” I was holding my hands up in front of me to block her if she decided to push me again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  She was glowering at me, and for a moment I thought she was going to lash out again. Then her hands fell to her sides.

  “Just go away and leave me alone,” she said.

  Tears pooled in her eyes. Her shoulders slumped, and I couldn’t remember when I had seen anyone look so—what was the word?—stricken. No, that’s not quite right. I remember the look on the Major’s face when he showed up at the hospital where I’d been taken. I wasn’t hurt, not really. My fingernails were ripped and the ends of my fingers were bleeding from trying to lift a rock that refused to budge. My head ached from the impact with the air bag. And my muscles screamed at me, every single one of them, from the exertion I had subjected them to. But, really, none of it amounted to what you would call a real injury. Mostly I’d been taken there because I was in shock. And because they wanted to take some X-rays, just in case. Then the Major had showed up, just like Brynja’s father had. He was the one who made it official, who told me what I had been refusing to believe. Brynja looked like that now.

  “Look, Brynja—”

  “Just go.” She turned away from me and raised a hand to wipe away tears that she didn’t want me to see.

  I hung there for a moment. If I left her, what would she do? I remembered all the times I had thought about my mom and how she had lost her life to a rock that had missed me by no more than a couple of inches. Maybe not even that much. Somehow that rock had skimmed over the top of my head and come crashing down right into the driver’s seat. My mom’s seat. I thought about it all the time. I thought about it on the anniversaries of when it happened. I thought about it on my mother’s birthday and at Christmas. I thought about it at Thanksgiving and Mother’s Day. It came to me in dreams and nightmares. It changed everything—and I do mean everything—for me and for the Major.

  But I’m still here.

  I’m dealing with it. At least, I think I am—most days.

  I picked my way back down the rocky hill and along the path to my car. When I got to the parking area, I interrupted Johanna’s call and told her that Brynja needed her. I looked back just once, as I was turning the key in the ignition. Brynja was standing exactly where I had left her. She hadn’t moved at all.

  TWELVE

  I took my time driving back to the house. Einar’s SUV wasn’t in the driveway when I got there. I let myself in. Someone called from the back of the house and then appeared in the hall between the kitchen and the front door. Elin.

  “He’s been asking for you,” she said. “Please, come.”

  I joined her at the back of the house, where she stood aside to let me go into the old man’s bedroom. He was propped up against some pillows, his cheeks almost as white as the snowy linen.

  “David,” he said.

  I glanced at Elin.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “He’s been asking for you all afternoon. He says he has something to tell you.”

  “But I’m not—”

  “Don’t be afraid,” she said, smiling encouragingly at me. “He won’t bite.”

  “David,” the old man said again.

  I went in and sat down on the chair beside his bed.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Elin said. “If you need me for anything, just shout.” She disappeared from sight.

  I leaned closer so that the old man could see me clearly.

  “It’s not David,” I said. “It’s Rennie. I’m Rennie.”

  He said something in Icelandic. At least, I think it was Icelandic.

  “Are you okay, Mister…Sigurdur?” I asked.

  “Too many secrets,” he said. “They’re a burden to the soul.”

  “Mister, uh, sir—”

  “I want to tell you something before it’s too late.”

  Too late? What was he talking about?

  “It’s out there,” he said. He raised one thin hand off the quilt and pointed to the window. “I saw it. I knew what it was, and I rejoiced. I am ashamed but I rejoiced, even though I knew it was wrong. Help me.”

  At first I didn’t understand. Then I saw he was trying to get out of bed.

  “Help me.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, sir.”

  His face was red from his struggle to lift himself up off his pillows.

  “Sir, I—”

  “Help me. I want to show you.” He had got himself almost to a sitting position and was easing his feet toward the edge of the bed.

  “Elin!” I shouted.

  The old man’s thin legs poked out from under the covers and slipped to the floor. He tried to push himself up off the bed.

  “Elin!” I shouted again.

  He struggled to his feet.

  “I want to show you.” He was tottering to the window, pointing again, and I was sure he was going to fall over. I threw my arms around him to hold him up.

  A deep voice barked something in Icelandic.

  Einar.

  “What the devil do you think you’re doing?” he shouted. At me.

  “He got out of bed,” I said. “I tried to stop him.”

  Einar flew across the room, shoved me aside and took hold of the old man. Elin rushed into the room.

  “Einar!” She ran to the bedside. “What are you doing?”

  “He got up,” I said again, but no one listened to me. Einar and Elin got the old man back into bed and covered him up. He was breathing hard. Elin grabbed his wrist to take his pulse. The whole time she was doing that, Einar was yelling at her. Based on my experience with the Major, I’d say he was reaming her out for leaving him alone with me. They argued with each other in Icelandic until, finally, Einar stormed out of the room. I found him pacing angrily up and down in the living room.

  “It wasn’t her fault,” I said.

  “She’s paid to look after him.”

  “She was looking after him. She was with him when I got back. He wanted to talk to me.”

  “What on earth about?”

  “I don’t know. He thought I was my grandfather. He kept calling me David.”

  Einar stared at me as if I were out of my mind.

  “He has a photo,” I said. “From just after my grandfather crash-landed here during the war. He thinks I look like him.”

  “What did he want to talk to you about?”

  “I don’t know. He decided to get out of bed and that’s when I called for Elin. Then you showed up.”

  He was calming down. I guess seeing the old man out of bed had given him a scare, but he nodded now and apologized for yelling at me. I told him I understood.

  “I’m going to call his doctor,” he said. “And then I should get dinner started.”

  When I offered to help, he shook his head.

  “You’re still a guest here, and my guests don’t have to make their own meals. Besides, I like to cook. It calms me.”

  I didn’t know what else to do, so I browsed through the bookshelves in the living room, found a novel in English that looked like it might be okay, and took it outside to sit and read. From where I was, at the side of the house, I could see the old man’s window. I sure hoped he was okay. I wondered what he’d been talking about. What secrets did he mean? What had he known was wrong, and what did he mean he’d been happy about it? What had he been planning to show me?

  I
looked at the window and with my eye traced a path from it, trying to figure out what he had been pointing at. It could have been almost anything. From his window, the land rolled until it hit the sea. First there was the yard, then fields, then a stream, then more fields and, far, far in the distance just where the land curved, another farm. I opened the book and started to read. The story was okay, but not exactly gripping. I looked up again. This time I got up and walked back to the old man’s window. Elin must have drawn the shades because they were down now. I turned so that my back was to them and took another look. He’d wanted to show me something. It had been important enough to him that he’d got himself out of bed, which, from the way everyone had reacted, not only was not good for him but was also something he hadn’t done in a long time. And all because there was something he wanted to show me—or my grandfather.

  Yard. Fence. Fields. Stream. Fields. Distant farm.

  Distant farm? Who did it belong to? Had something happened over there? Had he seen something? What?

  Yard. Fence. Fields. Stream…

  Wait a minute, what was that hump of land out in the yard? It looked like a hill. I started to walk toward it, the whole time telling myself I was being ridiculous. The old man was clearly delusional; he’d already mistaken me for my grandfather.

  I almost turned back, when I saw that the little hill wasn’t a hill after all. I circled around it. It was a shed or a little house that had been built into the rock and was covered with grass, as if the land had grown over it. It had a sturdy double door made of thick planks. As I was walking toward it, I heard a car door slam. Brynja was back.

  She climbed out of Johanna’s car, waved goodbye and then stood for a moment on the driveway staring at me. When Einar appeared at the door, Brynja pointed to me. Einar came down the front steps and started toward me. Brynja trotted along behind him, a quizzical look on her face. I headed back to meet them.

  “How is he?” I asked.

  “How is who?” asked Brynja.

  “Your afi,” I said. “He wasn’t feeling well.”

  Brynja turned to her father, who assured her that everything was under control. The doctor was coming to see him this evening.

  “But what happened?” Brynja asked, a note of panic in her voice.

  “He was feeling ill,” Einar said.

  “He didn’t recognize me,” I put in. “He thought I was my grandfather.”

  Brynja said something in Icelandic to her father. She sounded upset. He put an arm around her, and his response had a soothing tone to it.

  “Let’s all go back into the house and have dinner,” Einar said. “Brynja, you can set the table.”

  She jogged on ahead. My guess: she was going to see her grandfather and the table could take care of itself.

  “I’m sure this isn’t what you bargained for when you came over here,” Einar said. “All this family drama.”

  “Stuff happens,” I said. “It’s no one’s fault.”

  He smiled, but there was a weariness behind it. “So I noticed you discovered a bit of our history.”

  Huh?

  “The turf hut,” he said, nodding at the grass-covered structure. “It’s what people used to live in, in the old days. With trees so scarce—well, virtually nonexistent—the old-timers built their homes out of rocks and turf, very much like some of your settlers used to build sod houses. The only difference is that your sod houses were very temporary. People lived in them only for as long as it took to build something more substantial. But here, people lived in turf huts for generations.”

  “Someone actually lived in that?” I said, staring in wonder at the small structure.

  “In that particular hut, no,” Einar said. “It’s been a storage shed for as long as I can remember. It’s filled with junk—stuff from the old days. I don’t think anyone has been in there in years.” He nodded toward the house. “Come on. Let’s go and have dinner.”

  I followed him into the house, but as I walked across the lawn, I couldn’t stop thinking about the old man and what it was that he’d wanted to show me. He had pointed in the direction of the turf hut. It was the only structure between here and the horizon, which meant it was the only thing he could have been pointing at besides the stream or the distant farmhouse in the meadow. But what secret could an old turf hut be hiding? Einar said that it had old stuff in it and that no one ever went inside. Had the old man stashed something in there? Was it something to do with the woman whose face filled the pages of my grandfather’s journal? The old man didn’t want me to show it to Einar or Brynja. He didn’t want me to tell them anything about it. But he wanted to show me—well, my grandfather—something. Something he had seen that was wrong. It had to be something about the woman. If so, what? I wondered. Boy, did I wonder.

  The meal that night reminded me of dinner at my place after my mother died. On the nights when the Major didn’t make it home until late or when he was on assignment somewhere, he left me in the haphazard care of Mrs. Fernie, the woman who came in several times a week to clean and, when I was younger, to make sure I did my homework. She cooked, too, and, when the Major couldn’t be there, stayed over, sleeping on a pull-out couch in the den. I liked Mrs. Fernie, even though she was a terrible cook. She had a boys-will-be-boys attitude to supervising me and never minded if I wanted to horse around with my friends or stay out later than my nine o’clock curfew, which she regarded as overly restrictive. The Major though—he was another story.

  When it was just the Major and me, dinner was a dismal affair. The meal was always perfectly balanced and excruciatingly nutritional. We had our protein, our carbs and our veggies. Lots of veggies. Stuff like broccoli, spinach, kale, Brussels sprouts. Fried foods were out. Sugar—forget about it. A meal for the Major wasn’t about the food. It was about fuel designed to power a soldier. And it was consumed to the rhythm of the Major’s knife and fork chinking against the dinner plate at precise bite-chew intervals, punctuated by an occasional irritated “Eat it before it gets cold, Rennie.” The Major never talked about his day—everything he did was cloaked in confidentiality—and I sure didn’t talk about mine. Anything fun I did he would have disapproved of, and anything bad I did, any trouble I got into, he’d hear about soon enough without me having to confess. I couldn’t wait until he’d set down his knife and fork and tell me to clear the table and wash the dishes, which he did every night, even though I did exactly that, every night. I used to wish the words would appear above his head in a cartoon balloon, so that I could grab them and ram them down his throat.

  The meal in Einar’s kitchen that night wasn’t much better. Sure, the food was different—grilled fish, boiled potatoes and mushy canned peas. The faces around the table were different. Brynja kept looking anxiously through the door at her grandfather and, if her eyes accidentally met mine, made it clear that she wished I wasn’t there. Einar, like the Major, ate in silence until, I guess, he remembered I was there. Then he asked how I had amused myself all day. When I said I’d just been sightseeing, Brynja scowled at me. Einar didn’t notice. The meal broke up when the doorbell rang. Brynja raced to answer. It was the doctor. Einar and Brynja followed him into the old man’s room. I made myself useful clearing the table and doing the dishes, just like at home.

  I was in the living room, the same less-than-gripping novel in my hand while I stared out at the back of the turf shed, when the doctor came through with Einar. They were talking in Icelandic, but their somber voices told me that things were not well with the old man. After Einar showed the doctor out, he turned to me and said that our trip would be delayed by a couple of days.

  “My father-in-law needs to go to the hospital for some tests,” he said. “He’ll be transported there tomorrow. I’d like to see how that goes before I take you out. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “If you want, I mean, considering the circumstances, I could find someone else to take me.”

  Einar shook his head.

  “I signed on to do this. It
means a lot to Sigurdur that you’re here. He thought highly of your grandfather. I’d like to do the job if I can.”

  I nodded, but really I wished he would pass the assignment on to someone else. What did it matter who took me to the interior so long as I did what my grandfather had asked me to do? And the sooner I did that, the sooner I could say goodbye to Brynja and her attitude.

  “Let me see how things are after we get the test results,” Einar said. “Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  I couldn’t get to sleep. I kept thinking about the old man, the journal with its sketches, and what the old man had wanted to show me. About my grandfather, too, and his journal, and the letter he’d left for me. In it, he’d written that he’d always suspected that Sigurdur knew something about the woman who had saved him, but that he was uncomfortable when the subject was raised. But now, here Sigurdur was talking about something bad that had happened. Talking about too many secrets too. He wanted to get at least one of them off his chest. He wanted to tell the one person he thought he could trust. The only trouble was, that person was dead.

  I didn’t know about my grandfather David McLean until after my mother died. It happened one night, maybe two weeks after the funeral, after all Mom’s friends had stopped coming over all the time with food, after the whirl of decisions to be made about the funeral and the service and the burial site, after the Major’s relatives (who had adored my mother) had all returned to Quebec, and after Grandma Mel, as stricken as the Major, had boarded a plane and flown back to Vancouver. It was a quiet night, with not a sound in the house because the Major forbade television on school nights and didn’t think a person could study with the radio on and had refused to get me the iPod I’d asked for at least a dozen times. I was sitting at the dining-room table staring blankly at my history book. He was in the living room, reading some reports. And the phone rang.

  I answered.

  I could tell by the voice at the other end that the caller was an old man. He wanted to know if he had reached the residence of Major André Charbonneau. The husband of Suzanne Timson Charbonneau. I had never heard my mother referred to that way, but Grandma Mel’s last name was Timson, so I said yes. Then he wanted to know to whom he had the pleasure of speaking.