A Brother's Duty Read online

John woke up when the sun hit his face at 5:37. He roused himself and grumbled about remembering to keep the blinds closed but then he’d have to run the central air and he preferred the evening breezes. Maybe some good wooden Venetian blinds would work. He made a mental note to take a look next time he went into the building supply store. Or he could move back to the original master suite on the northwest corner of the house. If he could bring himself to sort through Rob’s things.

  A tiny tortoiseshell cat jumped onto the bed and began to chatter at him.

  “So, Smudge, what do you want?”

  Smudge responded with a polite meow then marched up his chest and began to rub her muzzle over his chin.

  “Did I forget to leave the cat flap unlocked again?”

  Smudge curled up on his chest and began to purr.

  “Oh, you heard me wake up and wanted some loves.”

  Smudge bent her head toward the scratching hand to nudge it down toward her neck. A blissful expression came over her face and she started to knead the quilt covering John’s chest.

  “If only human women were so easy to figure out.” He lifted his head and put a second pillow under it with his free hand.

  He’d tried most of the evening to put the memory of Lucinda Wilkinson out of his head. She was as prickly as a porcupine but anyone with eyes could tell she needed some help. That trailer needed to be raised a bit on one corner and that porch looked as though the right half was about to collapse. And surely she needed something more reliable than a sixteen year old hatchback.

  He shook his head. She didn’t want his help. No, that wasn’t what she’d said. She said she didn’t want to be anyone’s obligation.

  He would have to spend some time praying about what to do. It was the only thing Rob had ever actually asked from him since their father died. That last conversation via Skype was pretty serious. Almost as if he knew his number was about to come up. A wave of sadness for his lost big brother threatened to overwhelm him and he wiped at the moisture welling in his eyes.

  John lifted Smudge off his chest and got up to start his day. Maybe if he kept busy he wouldn’t have to think about his deceased party animal brother or a pierced and tattooed pregnant brunette. Maybe.

  Lucy woke to the sound of light rain drumming on the thin metal roof of the trailer. She eyed the clock balefully. 5:45. Tempted as she was to pull the covers back over her head for the fifteen minutes extra sleep before the alarm went off, her baby-constricted bladder was not going to let her.

  She turned off the alarm and lurched the five steps to the toilet cursing the necessity to get up before the alarm. Fortunately it was only a fifteen minute drive to the restaurant in Smiths Falls and her shift didn’t start until the diner opened its doors at seven.

  She let Bruno out onto the deck and ordered the reluctant dog to go into the wet yard to do his business. Turning a baleful eye at the rain and then at his mistress he decided that the rain was less threatening and ran to the shelter of a spreading oak tree. Lucy smirked and went back in to take a shower in the tiny bathroom.

  She dressed quickly in her pink and white polyester uniform then walked the few feet to the front of the trailer. As she took out a small pot from the cupboard, she heard the telltale thud of water slowly dripping onto the sofa. Suppressing her annoyance she quickly threw a towel onto the sofa, put on her raingear and stepped out into the drizzle to see what she’d expected.

  The tarp had come loose in the night. She sighed and quickly set up the rickety old ladder to climb up to get the corner of the roof covered before the sofa got soaked. Carrying a hefty rock up the ladder she smoothed the blue plastic tarp in place before weighing it down. She made a mental note to buy some rope to tie the tarp down properly.

  Carefully returning to the ground she saw Bruno watching her from his dry spot under the oak tree with a ‘you must be crazy’ look on his face.

  “Some help you are.”

  Bruno thumped his tail against the ground but made no move to leave his dry haven.

  She climbed onto the porch and called, “Are you hungry?” in a tone that Bruno correctly interpreted as having something to do with food.

  Lucy held open the door to let Bruno in then opened the dog food barrel next to the kitchen sink. “Remind me to pick up some more dog food, will you?”

  Bruno sat patiently in front of the refrigerator as she scooped two cups of dry dog food into his bowl then waited for her to fill his water. She moved aside and made a hand motion that released Bruno from his waiting pose.

  The radio news was the usual nonsense about politics and rumours of wars and overpaid athletes but she kept it on until the forecast was read. A mix of sun and rain with a high of 33 Celsius and a Humidex of 41. She sagged when she heard the temperature. Then she remembered it was payday and she’d get her first cheque today, even if it was for only eight days work. Tips weren’t that good at breakfast and lunch, not like working nights in a bar, but the owners knew that and paid a premium for the early shift. Maybe the Giant Tiger would have a cheap fan she could pick up. And maybe there would be a good chair at one of the thrift stores. A nice Muskoka chair or maybe a decent rocker for the porch. If there was enough room on the solid part.

  She wouldn’t let herself worry about the future too much. The trailer would be fine to live in until at least October but she’d have to get something before the snow came. Apartment hunting needed to be higher on her priority list. Maybe a customer would leave a paper behind that she could peruse but word of mouth would work better in Smiths Falls. Maybe one of the old guys who came for breakfast every day would have a lead for her.

  She put the kettle on for some herbal tea while she fished out the oatmeal to make herself breakfast. At least she got a good brunch at ten thirty when the kitchen shifted from breakfast to the lunch menu. These days she couldn’t face anything with fat until she was up for a few hours. No fast food egg muffins for a while.

  Briefly she wondered what Dr. Drake was doing now that she didn’t have anyone she could steal research from. She hoped that someone else would get the tenured job that just opened up. Lucy shook her head and tried not to think of that.

  ZZ Top’s Sharp Dressed Man started playing on the radio. Usually she got a flash of her ex-boyfriend from Queen’s when she heard it but this time the vision was of the nattily dressed John MacLeish.

  What was she doing thinking about Mr. Clean? She wanted nothing to do with someone like him. He was light years away from her usual type and he seemed to be one of those narrow-minded judgemental types. But his work clothes had been clean and ironed and she could tell that he’d shaved before he paid her that visit yesterday evening.

  Then she remembered that she’d forgotten to give him even token condolences on the death of his brother. She winced. She had better manners than that. And Dog had seemed like one of the good guys, even if Nick had been a grade A jerk. Then she remembered how lovingly Elaine had looked at Dog and felt even worse. She’d have to drop Elaine an email with her condolences.

  She finished her tea and shooed Bruno onto the porch where he found a dry corner to curl up in. A flash of gold lettering from under her rickety lawn chair caught her eye. It was the business card that John MacLeish had left. Printed in black on a background of a golden yellow brick wall was:

  MacLeish Construction

  Actons Corners Road

  Kemptville, ON

  John Allan MacLeish

  Master Mason

  Heritage Stonework and Custom Bricklaying

  There was a phone number and email address at the bottom. On the back there was a half transparent photo of a beautiful old stone farmhouse shaded by a majestic maple tree with the words restoration, renovation, and new construction printed on the right side. She remembered the big man and thought that he seemed very young to be a master craftsman.

  She thought about tearing the card in half but instead she tucked it into her purse and went quickly to her old Excel for the short drive to
work.

  John heaved the last bag of masonry sand from the truck into the shed beside the church with a sigh of relief and a brief prayer of thanksgiving that the threatening clouds had not let loose.

  “Well, Jack, that’s the lot.”

  Pastor Jack Sutherland smiled and said, “Good stuff. When can we begin the repointing?”

  John looked up at the wall with its network of hairline cracks. “When does the engineer give us his report about the foundations?”

  Jack looked sheepish and said, “He gave it to me last week. Sorry, I forgot that you needed to see it.”

  John took two deep breaths as he suppressed his irritation. Help me, Lord. I’m supposed to be cheerful when I’m giving back to you. “Can you give me the summary?”

  “It’s all good. The foundations have settled about a half centimeter since the 2001 inspection but there hasn’t been any measurable movement in almost three years. It should be good until the municipality tears up the road again in thirty years.”

  John examined the wall. About one brick in a hundred needed replacing and the diagonal crack that looked so ominous before now looked less troublesome. “The jobs my company is working on right now don’t need my active supervision. So until I line up another contract, I can work close to full time here. I’d like three to six helpers, if you can find them. But the more the merrier.”

  “What kind of people are you looking for?”

  “At least two need to be strong young backs to mix and carry mortar. The rest only need to be able to climb a scaffold and handle a mallet and chisel while they’re working.” John thought again.

  Jack nodded. “There are a couple of bored teenagers that are looking for something different to do. Their parents will thank us, even if they don’t.”

  John grinned, remembering his father’s cures for boredom. There was a reason he’d gone into general contracting and masonry rather than mucking out milking barns. Thank heaven his sister and her husband loved being dairy farmers. “They’ll still get bored quickly. Repointing isn’t like building a new wall. But I’d guess they’ll enjoy it for the first little while.” He paused, looking around the south garden. “If you can sweet talk Canada Brick into giving us the materials, I could build a wind fence to replace the chain link around the yard on the side. That’s less boring for the young guys because every hour you see some progress.”

  The pastor imagined a brick walled courtyard around the space they were standing in. “We could let the guys play road hockey if we put good gates in the corners. One of the elders is trying to hit up the Sens Foundation to put in an outdoor rink in town. He’s supposed to hear back by tomorrow.” Jack looked at the space. “This would be as good a spot as any. Warm change rooms in the basement, good parking, and an opportunity for evangelism. I’ll let Archie know he can volunteer the space. Maybe we should see if we can put in a basketball court, too. I’ll see what the brickworks and our other donors have to say. And on nice days we could let the Sunday school classes meet out here.” Then Jack got a wry look. “If we can attract some more young families back to church.”

  The mention of children caused a flash of guilt over Lucinda Wilkinson’s situation. He needed to do more to help her. If she let him. John rolled his shoulders to relieve his tension.

  Jack caught the look. “Is something troubling you?”

  Too quickly, John said, “No. Not at all.”

  Jack raised an eyebrow. “Okay. You don’t have to tell me.” He pointed heavenward. “But I’d strongly suggest that you tell Him. He listens pretty well.”

  John had a surge of anger. “I’m not so sure about that, Jack. Rob should be on his way home to Edmonton this month with his unit.” He pointed across the lawns to the church graveyard. “Not be a tin of ashes in the ground over there.”

  Jack’s voice softened. “The Bible doesn’t promise that God will do what we want Him to do. It only promises that He listens and that he will help us cope.”

  John gave a nod then changed the subject. “How does Thursday evening sound for a gathering of the volunteers?”

  “That gives me two days to work the phones. Might be all right, especially since we’ve been talking about it for three months now. But it might have to wait until Sunday after service to get everyone together.” Jack asked, “How long should all this take?”

  “Assuming we get a crew of five…” He paused to think and calculate the number of bricks that needed to be replaced. “I think we should be done with the repointing on the south wall by the end of August unless we need to shore it up, but I don’t think we will because it’s still flat. If we get more people volunteering we can start work on the garden wall right away. That will go pretty quickly.”

  “I’ll talk that up when I call everyone. It will be much easier to get volunteers if we get the grant for the rink.”

  John had his doubts. There were only thirty or so people under sixty in the congregation and ten of those were under twelve. Mind you there were some pretty hale retirees and Phyllis Plunkett was a serious gardener. Still, he thought that they’d be lucky to have four committed volunteers but didn’t voice his concerns. “I’ll talk to the town to see what permits we’d need for the garden wall. I’m sure we’ll need at least one and I’ll make sure we have it by Monday. You can let me know if we get the grant and I’ll arrange the permits for that if need be.”

  Jack said, “Thanks. Say, if the younger volunteers do a good job, can you give them a good reference? Jason MacDonald won’t turn sixteen until September.”

  John thought about it for a second. “Yeah. I can do that. He’s a good kid and the MacDonalds are neighbours. If he works out and likes this kind of work, I’ll see what I can do to take him on next summer.”

  Jack got a serious look. “The MacDonalds don’t have a lot of extra cash and it will be worse this year with the drought. Jason will probably apply at McDonald’s or the Tim’s as soon as he turns sixteen.”

  “I’m not too worried. If he’s as level headed as he seems he’ll have no trouble getting a job. And I pay better than the restaurants do.”

  Jack said, “But your guys earn every penny. It doesn’t look like easy work.”

  John smiled agreement then looked up at the wall again. “I just hope we don’t find anything bad after we start work on this.”

  Pastor Sutherland clapped John on the shoulder. “Thanks again for doing this.”

  John shrugged. “I need to keep busy.”

  Jack offered, “You know…”

  John gave him a pointed glance. “If I need to talk to someone, Jack, you’ll be the first on my list.” Then he went to the tailgate and slammed it shut.

  Lucy sank onto the dry side of the built-in sofa, enjoying the breezes from the open windows and the new box fan on the miniature end table. She put her feet up onto the lid of the dog food barrel and wiggled her feet. Bruno briefly jumped over her onto the other side of the sofa but hopped down again when the moisture from the still damp cushion soaked into his belly fur.

  “Silly dog.” She pointed the remote at the small television trying to find something more interesting than game shows or pseudo-psychology talk shows in the five grainy channels. She pointed the remote again and turned off the television. She looked down the short length of the trailer to the unmade bed and thought about sleep but she knew she wasn’t sleepy, only weary and depressed.

  Not for the first time she wished she had proper Internet access but there wasn’t a telephone line and she’d probably have to have a satellite dish to get something other than dial up. Her grandfather never wanted a phone out here and Bell would only string the line to the first pole at the other end of the lane. She was lucky that there was still power. Three of the fourteen poles had tilted sideways from winter ice storms but they were still holding on. For now.

  She reached into her bag to pull out the newspaper but stopped herself. She needed to figure out what she needed to get done first. She had a decent balance in savin
gs but she didn’t want to dip into it. She had enough for first and last month’s rent and all the baby things and a good cushion. With the rest of her savings and her frugal habits Employment Insurance would be enough to survive on until the baby was ready for day care in the spring. And if push came to shove she could sever some land or mortgage it. Furniture for an apartment wasn’t a problem. Her old roommate Zara had promised her all the furniture and housewares when she moved to Brisbane in December to start a three year post-doc.

  A smile came unbidden to her face. She hadn’t been correct when she said the only person who cared about her was the baby she was carrying. Zara had offered to let her stay in the spacious two bedroom apartment again, even with the baby. But when Zara moved out she wouldn’t be able to afford the rent on her own and based on her bad experience in Edmonton she wasn’t certain she wanted look for another roommate.

  The tears came unbidden as she was reminded of a career down the drain. She looked out the window over the kitchen sink at her forest. Her grandfather had started collecting biodiversity data on the old family homestead when he bought out his siblings in the 1950s. She’d followed in his footsteps, helping him to identify mushrooms, bugs, and plants and to catalogue the visits, nests and dens of the local wildlife in this three hundred acre wood.

  At least she still had all his original notebooks. She blotted her tears with the sleeve of her waitress uniform. It still burned that the new chair of the Biosciences department had taken a look at her piercings and tattoos and assumed that she was the untrustworthy one. When Dr. Mitchell had retired last spring it was a terrible blow. He’d been the last person at the university who had worked closely with her grandfather. The new chair was almost completely uninterested in ecology or botany and took Dr. Drake’s side because her climate change activism brought the university some good publicity and better grants.

  Even more galling was that Gillian Drake had been supportive and friendly until Dr. Mitchell’s retirement opened a tenured position. But Gillian was a little light on juried publications and had needed some papers with a wow factor to put on her C. V. So instead of asking Lucy and François-Denis to mine her grandfather’s data for something about mammal or bird populations that was more in line with her expertise, she stole Lucy’s draft thesis, split it into three papers and published them under her own name. Then she claimed that Dr. Eldritch had left his data to the university.

  When the department sent her a formal demand to present her thesis, Gillian had had the gall to ask, in front of the new chair who was visiting her office, “When will your draft be ready, Lucy? Your time is getting short, you know.”

  When she finally got up the nerve to challenge Dr. Drake the following week she was dropped from the program. All her research notes and files had been cleared from her carrel leaving only a few personal items. Gillian then claimed that Lucy’s originals were copies of her research and that without a submitted thesis she’d have to be dropped from the Ph.D. program. The memory made her blood pressure spike and a headache began to bloom across her forehead. With effort she took some slow calming breaths and said, in the direction of her abdomen, “Sorry, sprout. I forgot that you need me to keep calm.”

  Lucy got up wearily and walked the short distance to the bathroom to change. “I should have confronted her. Maybe hired a lawyer to get my hands on her ‘originals’. Right, Bruno?” She thought of the locked steamer trunks at Zara’s that were full of her grandfather’s field notebooks.

  Bruno thumped his tail on the floor as he watched his mistress carefully. “Maybe I should call Zara and arrange for a night out? How does that sound, Bruno?”

  Bruno got up and came over to nuzzle her hand. She stroked the big dog’s bony head. “I don’t know, sweetie. Two hours into Ottawa is a long drive when your bladder’s the size of a pea. It was hard enough driving here from Edmonton when I was only three months along. But I need a night out.”

  Lucy debated about having supper or a shower but the bed beckoned and she crawled under the covers for a short nap. Really.

  John opened the back door and walked down the short hallway to his kitchen to set down the first load of grocery bags. By the time he’d returned with the remaining purchases, Smudge had made it down to the kitchen from her sunshine spot upstairs and was chattering while rubbing against his ankles.

  “I’m happy to see you, too, Miss Cat.” He put down the bags and scooped the small animal onto his shoulder. Smudge sank her front claws into his collar and began to purr as she rubbed her chin against his ear.

  John deposited the bag of meat onto the counter and Smudge leaped off his shoulder to investigate. He picked her up again and said, “That’s not for you, Smudge,” then dropped her to the floor. She stalked off to investigate the other grocery bags with her tail high and twitching disdainfully.

  “Don’t worry. I got you some of the good stuff.” He picked up the bag of canned goods and fished out a stack of pop top cat food tins. Smudge began to chatter again as he put a tin in each hand. “Do you want chicken or salmon tonight?”

  Smudge cocked her head to one side but seemed to focus on the tin of salmon delights in his left hand. “Salmon it is, then.”

  He got out an old bowl and dumped the contents into it. Smudge jumped onto the counter to get a better look but John picked her up and took her and the food to her feeding corner. While she started nibbling daintily at her food, John picked up the water dish to refill it.

  The livestock taken care of, he put away the rest of the groceries then began to divide the sausages into individual servings for himself. The Christian radio station was playing some lively music that he didn’t recognize. He kept one ear out for the name of either the song or the artist but the DJ didn’t mention it. Typical, he thought.

  With the sausages in the freezer, he got out the ancient K-Tel patty stacker that he’d lucked into at a garage sale and made a dozen three ounce hamburger patties with half of the family pack of burger. The rest he put to one side while he fetched the big Dutch oven from the cupboard. He wondered if Lucinda was eating properly then muttered out loud, “She’s not my problem.” Smudge looked up from her meal then returned her attention to her food when it was apparent that her human servant was not talking to her.

  For the next hour he chopped and fried the base ingredients for his all-purpose pasta and chili sauce while a small seafood lasagna was baking. Every now and again his attention would return to Lucinda’s haunted face and aging trailer, wondering what he could do to help.

  Ruthlessly he tried to consciously listen to the radio rather than remember her face with its conflicting anger and vulnerability that both disgusted and fascinated him. He redoubled his efforts in the cooking but the heat was starting to affect him. After a half hour he succumbed to temptation and turned on the central air conditioning to cool down the kitchen. He wondered if Lucinda had air conditioning in the trailer remembering his sister complaining about being too hot all the time when she was carrying the twins.

  By the time the six o’clock news came on the radio, all he had left to do was to transfer everything to his big slow cooker and let the sauce simmer overnight to meld all the tastes together.

  He served himself half of the lasagna with some store bought coleslaw and brought it into the relative cool of the dining room to eat. He finished half of his supper when his eyes lit on a picture of Rob in his dress uniform taken just after his promotion to master corporal.

  A surge of sadness and anger overtook him. He desperately missed his brother. Despite the eight and a half hour time difference, Rob had managed to talk with him via Skype at least twice a week, usually emailing him to stay up late so they could talk while Rob was having breakfast. In the three weeks between Nick’s death and Rob’s they spoke every day, sometimes twice. They’d patched up most of their differences in that three weeks but it wasn’t the same as doing it in person.

  It had been very difficult. Rob had been suffering from acute survivor’s gu
ilt and was trying to make sense of Nick’s death. John had accepted Jesus in high school but Rob didn’t really think seriously about it until Nick died. He and Rob had talked for hours about faith and accepting Jesus in their lives. Mostly it had been him talking trying to help Rob understand why it was so important to accept Jesus as Saviour and how it had helped John when their mother died. He hoped he’d gotten through to Rob in time.

  John put his head down and prayed for the strength to carry on. Rob had decided that he would quit when his twenty years were up and was looking forward to going back to school. The two of them talked about what courses he could take if he was serious about joining MacLeish Construction. John needed either a good administrator or a good hands-on supervisor. Rob didn’t know if he was better with his brain or his hands but he was going to see if the army would let him train for a civilian trade when he got back from Afghanistan.

  John let his mind wander upstairs to the original master bedroom where Rob had moved most of his personal things when he’d been transferred from Petawawa to Edmonton. He still didn’t have the energy to go in and deal with the leftovers of his brother’s too brief life. Tears trickled down his cheek as he examined the proud clean shaven face in the photo.

  John wiped his face and smiled sadly as he tried to imagine Rob with a full beard. Rob said that he was going grow a beard starting the day he left the Forces. There was an old picture from before he enlisted when he’d tried to grow one during the high school hockey playoffs but it was the patchy beard of a teenager. John turned his attention back to his now tasteless food as he let the sadness and tears come, wishing with all his heart that he’d gotten a chance to hug his bearded brother at least once.

  He cleared and washed his dishes and wondered what he was going to do with the empty hours before bed. Maybe Jack was right, he thought. Maybe I do need to have a serious talk with God. And maybe he’ll give me some advice about how to keep my last promise to Rob.

  Chapter 3