In the months leading up to Sharanne’s twins arrival, Reverend Monica approaches Thanksgiving with mixed emotions about the road less travelled.
“You’re only supposed to get one baby shower,” Hilda McGuire whispered to Monica conspiratorially. “But, under the circumstances…”
Monica wasn’t sure exactly what the circumstances were. Second marriage? Twins? The passage of time. She didn’t press for clarity. One hour. She’d stay for an hour, and then find an excuse to leave. Many of the church ladies had knit blankets and booties and other handmade items, and the women gave each article its due praise as the gifts were passed around the semi-circle of folder chairs. Monica could appreciate the labour that went into these creations. Compliments flowed from her lips as naturally as breathing; she’d trained for this. She was the picture of serenity until a plain onesie landed on her lap. She lifted up the soft white cotton and tried to imagine someone small enough to wear such a thing. What an ordinary object, she thought. She didn’t even realize her eyes had filled with tears until Gilda Heins passed her a tissue.
“Thank you.” She passed the onesie to her left and quietly exited the room. A moment later, she ducked into her office to lie down on the couch by the window overlooking the ravine.
“Just breathe.” Crying over a silly undershirt with snaps! It was the surprise of it. Like finding a mouse in the kitchen cupboard.
It was almost Thanksgiving, but so far the frost had held off. Schoolchildren raced down the sidewalks their fall jackets tied loosely around their waists or forgotten on the playground. The warmth was a tease and Monica knew the darkness was coming. The days were getting shorter and the nights were getting colder. She sat up and stared at the telephone on her big oak desk. Laughter from the fellowship hall echoed down the corridor. Slowly, she picked up the phone and dialed a familiar number.
Jean picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”
Monica cleared her throat. “Hi. It’s me.”
“Hello, you. Darling, it’s been so long, you’re lucky I’m not dead.”
Monica laughed, but Jean picked up the whisper of a sob catching in Monica’s voice.
“When are you coming over?”
“How about tomorrow?”
“I’ll make an apple crisp and you can tell me everything.”
Winter 1989
Monica and Lorne had been married less than a year when they left the Valley one weekend to see Phantom of the Opera in the city. Monica had bought the tickets for Lorne as a surprise. They were constantly trying to cheer each other up in those days, after what happened in Midland that summer.
“It’ll be fun, get out of town…see the city,” she’d said. Lorne didn’t want to admit that he didn’t really like musical theatre and was happier staying home. They hadn’t had a big fight yet, and he didn’t want to break the spell. With each month that went by, he imagined they might somehow dodge the bullets that had wounded marriage No 1. So, instead of admitting he thought Maeastro was a little creepy, he’d hugged her, feigned enthusiasm, and said, “Road Trip!”
They debated whether to take Monica’s little hatchback or Lorne’s pickup, and settled on the car to save money on gas. Twenty minutes into the trip, they were still shivering.
“It takes a bit for the heat to kick in,” Monica apologized.
“It’s fine,” Lorne said. She could see he was determined for their weekend to start off well. He turned on the radio, but they were travelling in a dead zone and there was nothing but static until they got to the next town.
“We could just talk,” he said.
Monica nodded. They talked about their days in the evenings when they walked the dogs by the river, or in the mornings when Lorne brought her a coffee in bed. But right now she couldn’t carry on a conversation, because the snow that had been gently falling since they left their apartment was getting heavier, and she was having trouble seeing the road ahead.
“Was it supposed to snow this much today?”
Lorne admitted he hadn’t checked. He’d been too preoccupied getting Lois to cover the store and making sure Ella was settled at Sharanne and Chuck’s place. But it was October. What was the worst that could happen?
“It should be fine,” he said.
“Yeah.” Should be fine, Monica thought. That’s what they’d said in June, when the cramps started.
Twenty minutes later, Lorne offered to drive.
Her knuckles were white and her neck was stiff. “Do you think we should turn around?”
“This road is always bad in the winter,” Lorne said.
“But it’s not winter yet,” she protested.
“The plows haven’t been out, that’s why it’s a little…”
A moment later, they were in the ditch.
“…slippery.”
It all happened in slow motion, her tires caught in the soft shoulder, and she couldn’t steer back onto the pavement. They got out to have a look. Could they push it out?
“We need chains, or a mat,” Lorne said.
They had neither. There were no other cars on the road. It was silent except for the wind and the snow. She should have been prepared. The pickup would have never got this stuck. Why did she insist on driving this tin can?
“Come on,” Lorne said, taking her hand. “We’ll go to the next farmhouse and see if there’s a tractor that can pull us out.”
They walked along the road, taking their overnight bag with them, huddled together against the wind. Ten minutes later they arrived at a mailbox. The laneway had a foot of snow in it. They debated continuing on, but Monica’s teeth were chattering, and they couldn’t tell how far the next farm might be. A light glowed in the front room but everywhere else there was only darkness. The snow was falling so heavily now, it was hard to see the civic. They took a chance. Five minutes later when they knocked on the door, Jean Lafontaine took a chance on them.
“Visitors!” she exclaimed, opening wide the door to her homey kitchen. It smelled like cinnamon and apples.
They explained what had happened, and Jean nodded as though a snowstorm in October was the most natural thing in the world. Her countertop was covered in upside down mason jars, full of pink applesauce.
“You’re wet. Take off those coats and put them by the fire,” she said. “The we’ll have a bowl of crisp and you can tell me where on earth you were headed to in this weather.”
They obeyed and soon Jean wrapped wool blankets around their shoulders. Lorne explained that they were heading to Toronto for the weekend. Jean was unimpressed.
Her neighbours had already called to check on her, a few farms had lost power and the police had closed the roads. Their car wouldn’t get towed until morning; dozens of other vehicles had slid off the road, just like Monica’s. Like it or not, it looked like they’d be staying the night at Jean Lafontaine’s.
“Why would you want to leave the Valley to go to the Big Smoke?” she asked. She wasn’t unkind, just curious.
Monica hesitated. She looked at the older woman’s eyes staring back at her.
“We were sad and needed a break,” Monica admitted.
Lorne looked into his empty dessert bowl, and without asking Jean filled it up again. She got some cream from the fridge and Monica noticed the door was covered with pictures of children. In fact, pictures of children were everywhere, held in place by banana stickers, thumbtacks and a magnet that read ‘best teacher ever.’
“Want to tell me the story?” Jean asked.
And it turned out, they did.
In the intimacy of a quiet country kitchen, while a wood stove warmed their frozen limbs, they recounted how that summer they’d rented a cottage near Midland and how it had rained the entire weekend.
“We just walked around the town, browsing the shops and getting soaked,” Monica said. “What’s with us and bad weather, eh?” she smiled at Lorne, who continued the story.
“We stopped for hot chocolate at a little café by the water when Monica became really pale.”
“I didn’t want to believe what was happening,” she said.
Jean nodded, as though she’d heard it all before.
“We didn’t tell anyone we were expecting,” she confessed.
“And because nobody knew, the two of you have suffered alone,” Jean said.
“One of my tubes burst.” Monica wiped at her cheeks with a fist.
Lorne put his arm around her. “I thought she was going to die.”
“But after a week, I was fine,” Monica said. “And at least we have Ella.”
“Who’s Ella?”
“Lorne’s little girl.”
Jean sat back in her rocking chair and folded her hands together. “You’ll have to start at the beginning.”
Monica helped herself to seconds.
Jean Lafontaine came to visit Lorne and Monica later that fall, and Monica made Jean’s farm a regular stop on her way to the city when she went to check up on her sister or attend a conference. Jean was old enough to be Monica’s mother, and Monica let herself be mothered. A few years after the October storm, Monica and Jean were walking the fencerow behind Jean’s farm and Monica asked her if she’d ever wanted children. Lorna and Monica weren’t trying, but they weren’t not trying either. Ella was eleven and life has settled into a predictable, happy rhythm.
“Children are a project best taken on with a partner,” Jean took a piece of grass and sucked the sugar from the stem.
“And you never found a partner?” Monica felt like she was crossing a line, but she forgot her training for a moment, curiosity trumping manners.
Jean’s eyes twinkled, and she looked into the distance at her barn and her overgrown wildflower meadows. “I’ve had good companions along the way, darling, but not the kind one raises a family with.”
Monica understood in that moment that Jean belonged to a generation where matters of the heart were private. If Jean had a secret romantic past, the memories would go with her to her grave.
“I didn’t run off with a priest, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Jean said, when Monica was quiet.
She was thinking maybe a fellow teacher. “I’m sorry I was being nosy.”
Jean waved her hand in the air. “Never mind. But people are going to ask you about children. One makes assumptions.”
“I told you about Midland…”
“You did. But you have another tube that still works fine, darling.”
Now it was Monica’s turn to pluck a blade of grass. “Maybe.”
She thought of all the women in the Bible she preached about. Barren Sarah, barren Hannah, barren Elizabeth. She looked at Jean’s life —her horses, her heirloom tomatoes, her heritage chickens, and she looked at herself—her friends, her community, Lorne, and she didn’t feel barren at all. Her life was full. And yet the question nagged at her. The possibility of a child, the possibility of her life being better, fuller, bigger. This fear of missing out surprised her in the strangest moments, like a field mouse darting across the path on a sunny day.
“What does Lorne say?”
Monica smiled. “I think he’s had enough of Nature making parenting decisions for him.”
Jean put an arm around Monica. “Eventually Nature will make her choices for you, too.”
Monica met women who were anxious about their biological clocks, their diminishing eggs. They lamented in her office about men who didn’t want to commit, who were nervous about the financial strain, who were afraid of making the same mistakes as their parents. Monica listened, and empathized, but she didn’t feel the same angst. She would be happy for Nature to close the door for her, so she could stop doubting and live her life without second guessing herself.
They arrived back at the farmhouse and Jean put the kettle on.
“I don’t think I could have been present for children the way I was present for my students,” Jean said. And then, with the self assurance of someone who knows herself well, and not the slightest hint of arrogance, she added. “I was a very good teacher, content in my classroom.”
This was the closest Jean came to giving Monica direct advice
“Still…students graduate, and move on, and have their own lives. They may remember you, but they don’t drop in unannounced for a bowl of apple crisp. You understand?”
Monica nodded. Jean pulled her into a hug and Monica leaned her head on the older woman’s shoulder knowing she’d found someone who understood the grief of two good roads, and choosing to take a less travelled path.
And now it was October again. An October of beautiful fall colours, just enough frost to make the apples sweeter and the air crisp. No sign of snow in the forecast. Monica was taking a nap after her sermon and later that afternoon they were expected at Chuck and Sharanne’s for dinner. Lois had cooked a 30-pound turkey and Ella had made sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping. It was the last holiday they’d celebrate together before the babies arrived in December.
At three o’clock, when Knox came into the den to wake her up, Monica looked up to see Lorne sitting in his easy chair going through old photographs of Ella as a toddler.
“I was so young,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Monica sat up and rubbed her eyes.
There it was again. Like a mouse darting across the floor. The tiny whisper of doubt. Knox put a paw on her lap and Wesley broke the rules and licked her face. She got up and changed into a new denim dress and brushed her hair out. Suddenly, she heard the back door open and a familiar voice call out.
“Yoo hoo!”
Monica rushed into the kitchen.
“Jean! What are you doing here?”
She smiled. “Nice to see you, too, darling!”
“No, that’s not what I meant—”
Lorne walked in. “I invited Jean to join us for dinner. You know I don’t care for Sharanne’s pumpkin pie.” He grinned, smelling the apple crisp Jean had set on the counter.
Jean excused herself to use the washroom, leaving Monica and Lorne alone in the kitchen. He smiled at his wife who’d been without parents on the holidays for more than a decade and still looked a little lost sometimes.
“I thought you could use a bit more Jean,” he whispered. “Because of the onesie, and everything.”
“How did you know I needed this?”
He smiled. “It was either phone Jean or get tickets to a musical.”
Monica laughed. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
When Jean walked back into the kitchen she stood for a moment watching Monica and Lorne, remembering the night two kids appeared in her kitchen, how alone she’d felt when it had begun to snow and she had that huge apple crisp and no one to share it with. Crossing the floor, she wrapped her arms around them both. She shouldn’t be surprised by joy after all these years. And yet she was.