“Claude is gone,” the husband said with a matter of fact expression on his face. “I was afraid of that.” “He was sick for a long time. It was his stomach. He spent his last year in the hospital.” I told him that Claude had done a lot of work on our house and that he had extended our garage and put a new roof on it. “He was in the building line here in Canada,” the husband said. I noted how much the sister resembled Claude, the large nose, the way she never smiled. I showed her the last letter I had received from her brother. It was half in English and half in French, only a few lines on a small piece of beige paper. The sister was very interested in the letter. “I never knew my brother wrote letters,” she said. One of Claude’s stories came to me: “I remembered a curve up ahead that was icy when I drove through with the back seat empty. Now the car it was much heavier from the load of whiskey. The cop on the motorcycle, he was still behind me when I went into the curve. I touched the peddle just enough so that he would see my back lights go on. He must have pressed hard on his brakes when he got to that place. He did not bother me any more.” The husband’s voice brought me back to the present. “When we were married,” he said wistfully. “More than 50 years ago Claude took us to New York. It was in August and he drove us to the beach at Coney Island. We went swimming and sunned ourselves in the sand. Claude just sat on the boardwalk in his street clothes reading his newspaper. I think he was figuring the horses.” “I kept asking him,” the sister said. “Are you ready to leave? He just said, take your time, take your time and went back to reading his newspaper.” Alice looked at her watch. “It’s time to leave,” she said. “Do you remember when he lost his hair?” I asked the sister. “No,” she said. “I do not know about that.” “He never told you about the wolves and the bear and the fights and the fast cars?” “Non.” “I think maybe Claude exaggerated a little,” the husband said laughing. “No. He didn’t exaggerate,” I said. “It’s all true!” “I’m afraid we’ll have to be going,” Alice said, getting up. “We still have to visit my brother.” “Didn’t she remind you of Claude?” I later asked my wife. “You forget I never knew him.” “The way she never smiles – why did you rush me?” “You were beginning to argue,” my wife said. “Claude didn’t exaggerate! I can see it all happening. They never really knew him.” “And you did,” my wife countered. “His sister didn’t even know he wrote letters,” I said while picturing Claude sitting at the kitchen table sharing one of our long ago lunches: “I was done logging for the day and was walking home. I always took a short cut through the woods rather than to stay on the road. It was later than usual, almost dark. I cannot remember what detained me. In the forest it was even darker. “The stars were out but there was no moon and it was almost black in there underneath the trees, but I knew my way and had no trouble staying on the trail. There was a ravine I had to cross. Three logs lay from one side to the other so that a man could pass by taking extra long steps from one log to the next. I was coming off a small knoll. “The pine needles were like a rug beneath my feet as I jumped to the first log. I was about to jump to the second when I noticed a pair of eyes above the third log. They were more than six feet high. It was a bear. I must have surprised him by walking over the soft ground cover. He could have been on me in a second. “Instead the eyes remained there, frozen. No matter how I tried I could see nothing more. We looked at each other. I was hardly breathing. I knew he could hear my heart pounding. My legs, they wanted to run but that would have made him come after me. I was careful not to look away from the eyes. He just stood there, waiting. Time passed. Neither of us looked away . . .” “Terry,” Alice said as we drove along. “You’re so naïve. Do you actually believe those stories?” “Every word,” I answered. “He always gave an honest day’s work. That’s who Claude was. I can’t separate the stories from the man.” Terry Berkson is an author living in Richfield Springs.
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