A short fiction story about making life better

Aunt Clem was kneeling down, seeding her vegetable patch, when Stel drove up to her shack. Stel got out of her car and looked about the low ridge the shack stood on.

The grass had sprung up green and shiny after the winter. Beyond, the Rockies gleamed white in the far distance. The morning sky was cloudless deep blue and a clean, dry prairie breeze blew.

Stel looked from Clem’s tarpaper shack to her woodpile and chopping block, across to her storage shed and down the slope to the weathered latrine.

“Stel! Long time no see!” rasped Clem as she stood up. She stretched and groaned softly as her old bones adjusted.

“Auntie Clem! Haven’t been out here in a long while,” said Stel. “Looks about the same. You’ve still got your outdoor plumbing.”

“Yeah, my old lonesome shit house. I put real toilet paper in there now.” Clem chuckled and coughed slightly. “Down the rise, my well with the old hand pump. Guess I’m used to livin’ righteous.

I got a colour TV now. Watch it a lot. Reception’s good up here. Just with the rabbit ears, I get both channels real clear.”

Stel smiled. “Yeah, Auntie Clem. If you can do without it you don’t need it.”

Stel looked carefully at Clem for a moment and said; “Tommy said you wanted to see me.”

“Uh, yeah. It’s been awhile. You’ve been gone, travelling. We must have lots to talk over. There’s room for two on the old bench.

I’m just getting my kitchen garden in. I’m a little late with it… gettin’ old; hard to get down, now.

Old Topsie, her grave is right over there…”

Stel walked down to where Clem pointed. A yellow brick stuck endwise from a patch of disturbed, slightly raised ground. She pulled it up, brushed dirt from it, and walked back up to the rough wooden bench.

“Aw, Clem! You actually buried a dog like this, by yourself, in winter?”

“Not so hard. Us pioneer people know how to do these things, get it done.

She lived with me here after your momma died. She lived to be a pretty old dog. Must’a been near fifteen.

She died over a year ago now. Went real peaceful, middle of winter. We was sittin’ by the fireplace, she came over and licked my hand, then lay down at my feet. When I looked up next…gone.

I hope when I go, it’s as easy as that.”

Stel sat and handled the discolored yellow brick. After a moment, she spoke. “She would have been fourteen…about ninety in people years.

I think she lived a long, happy life. Thats what it’s about, isn’t it…? For people or dogs.”

Clem looked curiously at Stel. “Yeah, a good life for a dog.”

“Interesting choice of a headstone. A brick from that old fireplace she used for a doghouse. I see you saved some of those bricks to repave your door stoop.”

“Kept a few as a reminder. You know they knocked down your old house and yard, cleared it away, filled it all in. It’s cow pasture now.”

“Yeah. I just drove by there. First time I’ve been out here since I’ve been back in Canada.

Old Topsie Turvy. I think…best friend I had when I was a kid.”

“What was she, half sheepdog? Good sized dog. Real good natured. Shed like all hell…”

“Her momma was an Old English Sheepdog. Pure bred. Pedigreed, even. Daddy, Labrador, or mostly Lab… they thought. They let me pick her out of the litter.”

“Yeah, you was real fond of old Topsie. Even slept out with her, in that…brick doghouse.”

“Sometimes that was the safest place to be. I could be alone in there for awhile. They couldn’t reach me if I stayed way back.”

“What was that thing, really? It was a landmark…we never missed the turn into your…”

“I heard it was part of a smokehouse that the people who were there before us built. Like for smoke-curing meat. Poppa thought that was something foolish.”

Clem frowned. After a moment, she said slowly; “Your Momma wanted to talk with you before she died.”

Stel looked down and silently turned over the brick in her hands.

“I went over to your old house to take care of her, in her last days. She didn’t want to die in the hospital. It was pretty bad; she had bowel cancer, ya know. She kept askin’ for us to try to find you. You was in France…”

“Belgium. I’m sorry that was all left for you to deal with.”

“Oh, it’s alright, I guess…

Yer Momma said, well, maybe she was too hard on you. She should have cut you a little slack. She said.”

Stel gripped her brick tightly. “Yeah, a little more slack would have been a little less… But I really needed to be somewhere away from that…”

“Well, what did they really do to you? I know they was strict. Your father especially, he had some strong ideas about things.”

“Auntie Clem, I guess it isn’t so obvious to people brought up in your times, but people with those kinds of ideas, they are not good people.”

“You mean, back in the thirties? Well, back then times was hard. People had to buckle down and learn how to work, work their way out of it.”

Stel scowled. “I’ve had this kind of discussion with a few of my older relatives now. Even some younger people have those kinds of ideas. It’s like they want everything to always be bad and hard for everyone.”

“Yeah, times are a lot different now. It’s a lot easier for the young people. Some think it’s got too easy, people are spoiled…

You left home when you were fourteen, you found work, you had enough money to go travelling all over when you were eighteen. That’s when you went overseas, right?”

“I left in ’69. I’d just turned eighteen, right when they lowered the age limit. I could get a passport. I was in Europe four years, lived in three countries, never had any trouble finding good paying work. I could travel around…”

“Now yer back home. You’re plannin’ to go to the university, I hear.”

“Yeah. I’m finishing my high school equivalence. I can start university this fall.”

“Your folks didn’t think education was any good. You’ll be the first in our family who got through high school, never mind university.

But what do you do with that, when yer done?”

Stel thought a moment, resting the brick on her knee, and said; “I think education is a good thing by itself.”

“What are you goin’ to study at the university?”

“Sociology.”

“What’s that?”

“Sociology is the Study of Human Social Relationships and Institutions. I don’t think that makes much sense to you. About now societies work. How things can be improved.

When I was in Belgium, I was friendly with a woman who had a doctorate in sociology. She was a teacher. She’d written some books.

She was curious about this country. She also thought I should go to university, that I’d do well there.

What really interests me is how to get people in this country more interested in progress. They have a much more developed welfare state in Belgium …all over Europe. I don’t understand why so many people here think this is a bad thing. ”

“So you come back here to learn this…sociology… at the university?”

“I might have studied it in Belgium.

Really, Aunt Clem, I came back mostly because something didn’t work out in Belgium.”

Stel looked more closely at Clem, resting her brick on the bench. “I thought I was going to get married and stay in Belgium… but it would have been a big mistake.”

“Yeah, you don’t want to make no mistakes about that.”

“So, I’m back here for now. Closer to where I started from.”

Clem looked pensively down at Stel’s brick and spoke slowly. “Would you like to visit your Momma’s grave?”

“No, I don’t think I want to do that.”

“You know about your Father and his stroke. He’s in the nursin’ home in the city now. Can’t look after himself…”

“I don’t know if I’ll be visiting him either, dead or alive.

Has he ever asked about me?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, I’m the no-good daughter, the family disgrace, trouble maker…

Ah, really, Auntie Clem, I think maybe I just… I think too much about things.”

Stel looked silently down at her brick.

“Stel, I don’t think most of your folks are as down on you as you think. I think they’re ready to forgive and forget them things you did.”
6
Stel looked sharply at Clem. “I don’t need to be forgiven for anything. I need to forgive them. I can’t do that if they don’t admit that how they were like toward me was wrong.”

Clem looked down at the brick again, and was silent for a moment.

“I don’t see how I done nothing wrong to you.”

“Auntie Clem, you did nothing wrong to me. You gave me those speeches sometimes, I got them from everybody…

But I could count on you when things were bad, like no one else. You always had some hot grub for me, and a cot to sleep on.

Auntie Clem, I’m sorry about those things I said to you that time…”

Clem waved her hand.”Teenage rattle tattle. Forget all that.”

They were silent a moment.

Clem laid her hand over the brick. “Stel, I don’t agree with how your father talked. People should look out for each other. Jeez, I’ve looked after everybody else all my life. I hope somebody’s there to look after me when I get…,”

“You never had kids.”

“I couldn’t. Doctors said…,

I looked after a lot of other people’s kids. You know I buried two husbands.”

“You’re pretty isolated here. You have no car. It’s a half mile walk into town and the town is dying, only one grocery store left. You thinking about getting out of here? You must be near retirement.”

“I’m sixty five this November. My pension money from the govermint goes way up. The social people in town are helping me with the forms. It’s way complicated.

So I think this’ll be my last year here. I’m gettin’ letters from these land companies, want to buy this lot. It’s not worth much.

Don’t know where I’m gonna go. Social people are saying I should go to the city, get into one of them retirement homes.

Yer sisters, they say I shouldn’t trust govermint too much. Say those govermint run homes aren’t good.”

“None of them are inviting you to move in with them?”

“No, you know what they think. Once somebody’s too old to work, they shouldn’t become a burden on…”

“Poppa’s being kept alive by the government.

Auntie Clem, I don’t think you need to be in a nursing home for a long time yet. If you want my help I’ll help you. I can be a second opinion for you with the social workers, the government people.

I can help you find a place in the city. There’s plenty of new apartment buildings going up. Rents are low now.

I think you’ll pretty quick get used to hot running water and indoor plumbing.”

“Yeah. Be nice to have a few more people I can count on.”

Clem smiled as Stel patted her hand atop the brick. They were silent again.

Then Clem leaned in and looked earnestly into Stel’s eyes.

“I really hope you’ll visit your Momma’s grave. It’s only a few miles away.

She called out for you in her last days. We tried to contact you. We sent a telegram, tried overseas phone service; cost somethin’ fierce.

Call …declined…”

Stel closed her eyes a moment, then stood up. “Yeah, I guess I should do that.”

Clem beamed. “Okay, let me put my tools away and get my things.”

Stel walked back to Topsie’s grave and replaced the brick, long side down this time, brighter side facing front, and pulled away some grass. It stood out strongly against the green background.

She gazed at it, making it a memory, then walked up to her car.

“You got one of them beetle cars, with the motor in the back.”

“Yeah, this one’s got some miles on it. It’s great for getting around.”

Stel started the engine and Clem eased herself into the passenger side, coughing softly.

“You wear the seat belt.”

“Yes. Buckle yours up, please.”

Stel leaned over to show Clem how to buckle it correctly.

“Yeah, people make so much fuss about these things. Govermint makin’ ‘em buckle up the belt.”

Stel cranked her rusty beetle around and doodled down the slope to the gravelled ordinance road.

“Go through town, then up the number two road. Not far.

We should stop in town on the way back, so I can pick up a few things.”

“Tommy visits you often?”

“He drives out here, couple times a month, gives me a lift into town so I can buy stuff.

I hardly ever see your sisters anymore, their families. You seen them since you’ve been back?”

“I’ve visited them. I didn’t stay long.

Auntie Clem, I think we should forget about people who want to be mean and hard. Good people make things good for each other.

So how about we just try to help each other, as much as we can?”

“Yeah, I think it all works out better when people try to make things better for each other.

The hard people, sometimes they change their minds. I think maybe we should …forgive…”

“Yeah, maybe.”

They drove through the old town and up the number two road to visit Momma.

End.