Grandpère Read Online Free Page A

friends.”
    He seems unaware of the emotions swirling around me. He yawns and says he thinks he will catch a nap. I take my notepad to the office and fire up the word processor. But I cannot type. I make stupid spelling mistakes and soon I quit. I go out into the garden and crawl along the rows, pulling up weeds. Inside I am seething with emotion. I feel that a firm foundation has crumpled, as though who I am has been compromised. I try to tell myself that it doesn’t matter, but right now it does. It matters to me to know who I am. I feel this has changed who I am at some basic level.
    With difficulty, I make myself think of other things. I try to notice the birds singing and to feel the heat of the late afternoon sun on my back. I think of my children and their children, and again I am overcome with the feeling that this has changed who they are. Lorne and I had five children, every one of them with blue eyes — not surprising with my blue-eyed Irish husband’s genetics, even less surprising now. I must be truly distracted, for I find I’ve pulled vegetables along with the weeds.
    Giving up on doing anything useful, I take the dogs for a walk. There is a hill behind the house with a path to its top — we call it the lookout — where I scattered Lorne’s, my parents’ and my two lost children’s ashes. I always feel at peace when I sit up there. As we climb, the mosquitoes buzz around us, but they are the fat lazy ones that hatched recently and they don’t bother to land or bite. At the top of the hill is a smooth rock. I like to sit on it and admire the view. Today it is especially pretty. The light green of the new poplar leaves contrasts with the dark spruce and fir. The dead pines stand purple against the horizon to the west, and the dark green patches interrupting the forest in every direction are hay fields. Far off to the east, a tractor drones around a patch; from here it seems to be plowing.
    Sitting on the rock, a peace comes over me, and I say firmly to myself that it does not matter. What makes a family is love, not genetics. I repeat this every time I think of Grandpère, and by the time I am ready to go down to make supper, I am calm.
    After supper I decide to do some baking and make an apple crisp and a rhubarb-strawberry pie. The rhubarb has gotten very large, and the strawberries are just getting ready. We still have strawberries from last year in the freezer, and I remind myself to make them into jam pretty soon.
    By the time I am done, Grandpère has gone to bed. I decide to finish typing his story and now I can do it quickly. The house is clean, and the guestrooms are made up for the kids’ visit. My oldest son Clint is coming for the weekend with his wife Patty. The new baby is their fourth child, another boy. They were hoping to have a girl, but they knew for months it was a boy. They showed me the pictures from the ultrasound and pointed out his tiny balls. It is a marvel to me still that we can take pictures of babies in wombs. It seems to take away some of the anticipation of birth, but at least I knew what colour to knit the sweater.

Chapter Two
    In the morning Clint, Patty and the boys arrive in a new car. Clint is very happy about it being a four-wheel drive and he shows it to me and Grandpère.
    “Do you want to go fishing today, Grandpère?” he asks.
    “I sure do,” Grandpère answers. They go to the shed and get the fishing gear.
    “We can take the car right to the river.” Clint is excited. He is very handsome with his long, dark hair tied behind his head in a ponytail. He is tall and slim and has an easy smile.
    He asks the boys if they want to come. The two older boys, Ryan and Jayden, want to go, so I take them into the house with me to make a picnic lunch. We make tuna fish sandwiches and put together a bag of tiny baby carrots, and I send one of the pies. Patty throws in some juice boxes and some packets with cheese and crackers. Then the boys climb into the back seat