Norwegian Wood

Outside his mother’s room, Detective Ron Conroy took a deep breath before knocking. The care home’s white hallways were hung with poorly rendered oil paintings, fading photographs, and sagging Christmas garland, while the floor was scuffed and worn from too many years of shuffling feet. The air smelled of chicken soup, disinfectant, and pee, and maybe just a little of despair. At least that was the overwhelming sensation the Cedar Hill Care Home evoked in him.

It was five years since he’d seen his Mom at his father’s funeral here on Canada’s West Coast, and eight since the massive fight with his father that had left him estranged from his family. He’d planned to visit Mom more since his dad died, but his job with the Regina Police Department always seemed to get in the way.

Or at least that was what he told himself.

Five years he’d been losing himself in his work, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagued his soul. It hadn’t worked. It was only Christmas, and his sister’s phone call about Mom’s frailty, that had brought him here now. But did he want Mom to see him like this?

He slicked his hand back through his brindled sideburns and spiky red hair and knocked. No one answered, so he took a breath and opened the door.

The small room was just large enough for a single hospital bed, a TV stand, a dresser, and a rocking chair by a window. A closet and a bathroom alcove with no door made up the rest of the space. Favorite framed photos and paintings Ron remembered from home covered the room’s walls, and the bed held a coverlet that had long lain at the end of his parents’ bed. The rocking chair was one Mom had used for years, and she sat in it now, her head turned, gaze apparently locked on the late afternoon’s snow-covered woods beyond her window. The play of sunlight and shadow reminded him of the photos of the forests of Norway she’d known as a young child. She’s always promised she’d take him there one day.

“Mom?”

Her shoulders stiffened and then, slowly, slowly, her head turned toward him.

She wasn’t the strawberry-blonde woman he remembered from his youth, or even the woman with time-faded hair she’d been last time he’d seen her. Gone was the woman with the flaming streaks of red at her temples who had filled his childhood with tales of warriors, Valkyries, and gods from her Nordic heritage, while acting out the swordplay and brave acts. The past five years had stripped the last red from her shoulder-length hair so it hung in a thinning, nondescript gray-blonde. The gleam was gone from her eyes, too, and the flesh from her bones. But then her rheumy gaze settled on him and a dim light came on.

“Ron? Ronnie? RON!” She struggled out of her chair and he rushed to help her, catching her in a hug and burying his face in her straw-like hair, trying to swallow the emotions. She was — so small — no longer the Valkyrie he’d always thought her to be.

She held him away, surprisingly stronger than she looked. “It is you! You came. Sylvia said you might, but I didn’t believe her. She’s not always right, though she likes to think she is. Come sit down and let me look at you.” He’d come straight from the airport. Sylvia had said it might be better if he made his peace with Mom alone.

He settled her back in her chair, the sidelight from the window deepening the lines on her face. Then he carefully uncovered the bouquet he’d brought — cedar boughs, holly, and white chrysanthemum — and held it out for her.

“I remembered how you loved to decorate the house and thought you might need a little decoration here.” The room held only a couple of Christmas cards pinned to a corkboard on the wall.

“They’re beautiful.” She settled the arrangement on her lap. “I love the holly. And the flowers.” She tugged a chrysanthemum to her face and inhaled, then sighed. “No scent. Nothing in here smells good. That’s why I’m always opening my window. The staff don’t like it, but I don’t care.” She looked up at him and smiled. “The flowers remind me of your father.”

Her right hand fidgeted with her left, turning a ring that was no longer there.

Ron frowned, because he couldn’t imagine his mother giving up her chrysanthemum-engraved wedding band. “How have you been?”

“Oh …” Her pale blue gaze focused far away. “As well as can be expected. I miss my family, but I’m making friends.”

Ron took off his jacket. “That’s good, isn’t it? What do you do with your friends? Are there Christmas celebrations?”

Her brow creased. “Well …” then her gaze snapped into focus on him. “But you don’t really care about that, do you? A detective and all.”

“If your friends make you happy, I care about them. Tell me about them.”

Mom shook her head, then glanced out her window. A murder of crows or maybe ravens rose from the snow-laden trees. “Why don’t you see if the staff will make us tea. Maybe we can play cards.”

Her gaze seemed locked on the birds; he was forgotten. Dismissed. Sighing, he abandoned his coat on the bed and went out into the hall.

He followed the pale linoleum until it passed a nursing station and spread from the hallway into a large cafeteria. It had two walls of windows that were perversely set too high for seated people to see out of. Bright fluorescent lights beat back the late afternoon sunlight. His mother lived here? In this artless place?

Ron swayed and closed his eyes. His parents’ snug home had had many windows, warm wood walls, and a stone fireplace, the walls filled with photographs and his mother’s paintings. Growing up, the place had always smelled of Mom’s fresh bread, cookies, a roast of beef once a week at his father’s request. It had been a good home — until it wasn’t. The friction between Ron and his dad had been too much. Mom said they were too much alike. Both dour, introverted men not good with their feelings.

Well, she’d been right about that.

“Can I help you?” A tall male nurse stepped out of the nursing station. He was close to Ron’s six-foot-two, with a gentle smile, close-cropped black curls, and mahogany skin.

“I’m visiting my mom, Kate Conroy. She said someone might make us tea.”

The gentle smile spread. “You must be Ron. Your sister’s been talking you up for the past few weeks. Your mother’s been very excited you were coming. You’ll find tea fixings in the little alcove there.” He motioned to the side of the cafeteria.

“How’s she doing?” Ron asked.

That gentle smile again. “As well as can be expected. Her memory’s deteriorating.” He shook his head. “But she’s very sweet.”

“Always has been.” Ron choked a little on his emotions. “A great lady.”

The nurse held out his hand. “I’m Nate Stephens, the shift nurse. If you need anything, just ask.”

“Thanks. There is something. Mom isn’t wearing her wedding ring. Do you know where it is?”

Nate frowned. “She never takes that ring off — not even for baths.”

“Well, she’s not wearing it now.”

“Then let’s make that tea and go talk to her.”

Nate made the tea and put together a plate of iced shortbread cookies shaped like Christmas trees for Ron to carry back to the room.

Nate knocked once and opened the door. A blast of cold air greeted them.

Mom had shifted her rocking chair to one side and was on her knees by the open window. She jerked around when she heard Nate and Ron. A flutter of black feathers came from beyond the glass as a black bird swooped up to the sky.

“Oh, it’s you!” Mom smiled. Then her gaze caught on Ron. “Ron, how wonderful of you to come. This is my friend Nate. He’s a lovely man.”

“And how are you this afternoon, Kate? You must be pleased to see your son. He brought you that lovely flower arrangement.” Nate eased past her and slid the window closed.

For a moment she looked confused, until she caught sight of Ron shifting the flowers to make room for the tray. “I remember.”

Nate helped Mom stand and got her settled in her chair. “Kate, I notice you aren’t wearing your wedding ring.”

Mom looked down at her hands, both barren of jewelry. “I — I don’t remember taking it off.” She looked questions up at Nate, but then turned to Ron. “Did you take it?”

Ron caught her hands. “Mom, this is the first time I’ve visited.” What kind of son was he to not have visited for five years? “I asked Nate about it because I noticed you weren’t wearing it.”

“Oh dear.” Her hand fluttered up to her neck. Then she fumbled with her collar, looking down at herself. “It’s gone! It’s gone.” She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “How could it be gone?”

“What’s gone, Mom? What is it?”

“The necklace you gave me when you first started your job, dear. The one with the little flower.”

“It was a lily, Mom. The provincial flower of Saskatchewan.” He glanced at Nate. “I work for Regina Police — a detective.”

“Everything’s disappearing.” Mom’s watery gaze turned to outright tears and she covered her face.

Ron bent to catch her in a hug. “It’s okay, Mom. It is. Don’t worry about the necklace. I can get you another one.”

“But I want that one. It was special because you gave it to me.” Her words were muffled against his chest.

Ron looked up at Nate. “Something’s clearly going on here. Both her ring and her necklace? Have you had new residents on the floor? Hired new staff recently?”

Nate shook his head, but his sorrowful expression showed what he thought of Ron’s suspicions.

“Sorry. It’s the police work. But there must be some explanation for Mom’s jewelry going missing.”

“There was a hair barrette, too, dear. And a small mirrored compact. There were other things, too, that I can’t remember.”

Nate crouched down to look Kate in the eye. “Maybe you put them some place for safekeeping?” He turned to Ron. “We’ll need to have a good look around your mom’s room, and check the shower room, too, before we start a full-scale investigation, but things do go missing from time-to-time, what with people’s memories. It’s why we discourage people from coming here with valuables.”

Ron nodded. “Just do what you can. Please.” And he’d hope the items were found because he didn’t want to spend Christmas conducting his own investigation.

Nate excused himself. Ron settled on the bed across from Mom. She looked out the window, her hands restless in her lap. Beyond the glass, the light dimmed, and more flakes fell, adding to the clots of snow already netting the trees. The crows or ravens or whatever they were were ragged black shadows winging through the storm.

“I love watching the birds, don’t you? They have feeders down below next to the building, but I can’t see them from here.”

“Do you know what kind of birds they are? I remember when I was a kid, you and Dad were always pulling out your bird book wherever we went.”

Mom screwed up her face, then tapped her head. “Darn this memory. It used to be good. All I know is there are little red birds, and chickadees and — and — and sister crow comes there, too.”

“Sister crow?”

“She’s a lovely, big black bird that sits in the snow watching the feeder. Then she’ll swoop in and steal all the food from the little birds and fly away yelling. The staff try to chase her away, but she aways comes back.”

“She sounds like a bully to me.” He’d arrest a person who did something similar.

“I think she’s beautiful,” Mom said.

* * *

The next morning Ron parked his rental car in the care home’s snow-ploughed parking lot. Sylvia had made excuses that she had too much Christmas baking to do, and Mom and Ron’s relationship still needed mending. The building hunkered beyond the ridges of piled snow, steam rising from its chimneys, cold sunlight glinting off the icicles fringing the upper eaves of the two-story concrete structure. Not exactly what he’d pictured Mom moving into when she sold her home, but Sylvia had said it was the best option available.

The wall of dark, snow-bound forest surrounding the place looked even more foreboding today. Not quite the Norwegian woods Mom had described when he was a boy.

Cold radiated through the car’s windows and Ron shivered. God save him from a similar fate when he reached his mom’s 89. That meant the system had 35 years to fix itself.

He climbed out of the car and inhaled. At least it wasn’t as frigid as the day before, but the coastal dampness made all his joints ache. Back home it was a dry cold.

Inside, he waved hello to Nate who was pushing an elderly woman’s wheelchair. “Morning. Any luck finding Mom’s things?” He’d tossed and turned last night, chafing at the discussion he’d had with his sister when he’d returned to her place last night. Sylvia had been adamant that Ron should leave the situation up to the care home to resolve. Mom was old. She could have left her things in her pocket when the clothing went to the laundry. Or the items could have been thrown away wrapped in one of Mom’s meal-time napkins or in one of the ubiquitous tissues she stuffed in her pockets. It was a shame, but there was little that could be done.

Ron wasn’t so sure. Stories about thefts by care home staff were everywhere. Nate’s kindness might be a cover for something less savory. Then again, Mom’s simple silver ring and necklace only held a sentimental value.

Nate shook his head. “We tore her room apart last evening and I left messages for the other shift supervisors to keep an eye out. I contacted the laundry, too. Sometimes they find things. I’m glad you’re here. Kate’s having a difficult memory day.”

Ron thanked him and went to Mom’s room, knocked once and pushed the door partially open. “You decent?”

“Of course!”

He swung the door open and found the room strewn with clothing. Mom struggled with her winter coat, her feet still in slippers, an old black toque pulled over her hair. Through the window, new snow had started falling, swirling around the trees.

“About time you people arrived. I told you hours ago I want to go home. I can’t stand this place anymore.” She shrugged her arm into the second sleeve and stood there, wavering in front of him. “What do you have to say for yourself, or shall I call your employer?”

Ron sighed and caught her hand. “Mom, it’s me. It’s Ron, your son. I’m here for a visit, remember?” How could he tell her this was home now? “Now why don’t we get that coat off and we can have a visit and a nice cup of tea?”

“No!” She yanked away. “I want to go out. Sister crow is here, and I want to say goodbye before I leave.”

He remembered that fierce look from when he was a kid. She’d used it more than once when advocating for her family, and she’d always prevailed. “Why don’t you wait here a moment, and I’ll look for your boots. You can’t very well go out in slippers, can you?”

She looked down as if surprised she had feet. “Fine. I’ll wait here.”

Ron retreated down the hall and found Nate. “What do you think? I could take her for a drive … or maybe a short walk. I’ll bet the effort would make her glad to come back inside. And if she can see this crow she likes and the bird feeder, that might settle her, too.”

Nate looked doubtful. “She’s not too steady on her feet. She could fall.”

“I’ll have hold of her all the way.”

“I advise against it, but I can’t stop family from doing things at their own risk.”

Sylvia would have a bird if she knew what Ron was considering. It was one thing to go out in the summer, but this was shaping up to be a major west coast winter storm. But Mom was so adamant.

“I have to do this. Being a shut-in must rankle her. She was always an outdoors person. She and my dad had us out camping and hiking, even in winter. We’d hike up to cabins.”

Nate smiled and shook his head. “She’s not that person anymore.”

For a moment Ron was furious. It wasn’t kindness that created Nate’s smile, it was a way to mask pity and helplessness in the face of the inexorable march of age. Ron’s fists curled in frustration.

“Well maybe she still is.”

Ron returned to Mom. She sat on the edge of her bed struggling to slip her still-slippered feet into a pair of winter boots. “Here, let me help you.”

Buttoned and scarved and with mittens pulled up and toque pulled down, Ron led Mom out the care home’s locked front door. A blast of winter freeze scalded his cheeks, but Mom shook herself like a bird fluffing its feathers and raised her face to the morning wind.

“You can smell them, can’t you,” she said and nodded up at the gray sky. “They’re out there.”

“Smell who, Mom?” With his nostrils half frozen, he couldn’t smell a thing.

Her gaze was bright as she caught his hand in her mittened one. “Them. The birds. Other things. Wonder. There’s lots of things in the world, you know. Didn’t I teach you anything?”

He slung an arm around her shoulder. “Of course you did. You taught me the names of all the animals and more names of birds than I ever wanted to know.” He grinned down at her.

She gave a nod. “As long as you remember. Now come on. We’re out of there, and we have places to go and things to do.”

With a firm grip on his hand, she led him around the side of the care home, to a chain link fence and a metal gate that led into the back garden. Icy flakes swirled in the air. A flat, unmarked expanse of white covered what must be a lawn with scattered picnic tables mounded with snow. In a rear corner of the care home walls, a metal stand hung with two tubular bird feeders that pendulumed wildly in the harsh wind. Here and there, patients’ room windows revealed brightly colored Christmas snowflakes taped to the glass or Christmas twinkle lights flashing through the gloom.

Ron fumbled with the gate latch and pushed the gate open, but Mom refused to enter.

“I thought you wanted to see the bird feeders.”

The wind whipped strands of her faded hair across her face as she peered through the snow. “Why? There’re no birds there now. Sister crow is there.” She pointed along the fence line to the trees.

“But Mom, the snow’s deeper there. We should go back inside.”

“No,” she said, with that damned determined glare of hers. “I want you to meet her.”

“A bird?”

Rolling her eyes, she started along the fence line toward the trees, moving faster than he’d expected. Ron followed, uncertain, beyond strong-arming her, how to guide her back to the care home entrance.

At least the snow was barely up to his ankles, and Mom’s snow boots came well up her shins. But the snow seemed to come thicker with each step toward the trees, and he hurried to catch up to her to make sure she didn’t fall. Where the fence turned right along the back of the garden, Mom stepped between two of the tall cedar trees and the shadows took her.

Damn. He shoved after her, snow dusting from the branches and down his neck. Mom was right in front of him in a small clearing but was already headed for what looked like a path through the woods.

“Mom! Wait!”

Apparently, she was on a mission. She tugged away when he caught her arm. She glanced over her shoulder, snow spangling her cheeks and catching in her hair. “It’s this way, Ron.”

At least she remembered who he was. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” She laughed like she had when he was a boy and ducked under a branch into the trail he’d spotted.

The trees were much bigger here, taller and thicker-trunked than the spruce and jack pine around Regina. Cedar and fir scents tinged the cold air as he followed behind her.

“Mom, we shouldn’t go too far. We’ll have to walk back, and you’re not that strong.”

“Strong enough,” she puffed, her breath visible and soured with coffee on the cold air. “We’re almost there.”

Almost where? Sure, the trail seemed to be widening — between the crowns of the trees, the late morning sky was heavy with clouds and falling snow. The trees seemed to peer down with disapproval. The cold had snuck beneath his collar with the snow. If his hands and toes tingled with cold, what must his mother feel with her lighter boots and mittens? He needed to get her back inside.

“Mom. It’s time to go home.”

She glanced back and smiled. Her flushed cheeks made her almost look young again. She threw back her head and laughed. “I thought you lived in Regina. You need to toughen up!”

The trail ended abruptly at a second small clearing, this one elongated like a ship’s prow. Tall cedar and fir trees fenced it in with a watchful presence like guardians. The wind swirled the snow, and the trees danced. Or at least swayed. Snow and shadowed branches conspired to form faces and horned helmets atop the trees. Cascading snow fell like long hair and heavy beards. Shadows became half-glimpsed armor and swords.

He tore his gaze away from the fantasy, but when he looked from Mom to the trees again, he couldn’t unsee the faces, the glitter of weapons. The groan of the trunks seemed like threatening voices. He was clearly tired — his imagination running away with him.

Mom waited with her head up, arms straight at her side. Snow had caught in her hair and on her lashes. Small white drifts had collected on her toque and shoulders.

Ron touched her arm. “Mom, we really should go.”

She shook her head. “She’s almost here.”

From the prow-end of the clearing came an explosion of wings, and a huge black bird croaked a call and swooped toward them. Ron grabbed his mother and pulled her aside, but the bird-crow-raven settled into the snow just in front of where his mother had stood. Fully three feet tall, and nightmare black, and with a beak at least six inches long, it tilted its head to peer up at them with beady, too-intelligent black eyes.

“Sister crow,” Mom breathed and pulled away from Ron. The bird stayed where it was, unnaturally tame.

Yell and scare it away? The bird could hurt his mother if it took off toward her. She could fall and break something.

The wind howled around them. Snow swirled and the creak of the trees increased. The tree-figures swayed and seemed to bow.

To a crow? The bird ruffled its feathers and seemed to grow. The wind stilled and silence flooded the clearing.

“Mom?” His voice was overloud.

She held out a mittened hand to him. “Come meet her.”

The crow peered up at him as Ron stepped up beside Mom.

“She’s not really a crow, you know. Her name’s Munin. She’s Odin’s raven. She found me after your father died. I’ve been feeding her ever since.”

For a moment his heart broke. Was his mother so desperate for something to love? It was his fault for not visiting. He’d left her and expected his sister to fill the void. He and Mom had always been close and then he stopped coming, all because of a stupid fight that didn’t even involve her.

“God, Mom, I’m sorry. I’ll visit more often,” he said into the quiet.

She patted his hand, but her concentration was on Munin almost as if they communed.

The bird croaked. Then it ruffled and preened its feathers. Quill-edges flashed blue-green-gold in the muted light, and something silver glittered. The bird shook its head and leapt to the sky with a rattle of feathers and a final croak. The wind rose, the snow fell, and the world seemed to shudder as the bird disappeared.

Mom knelt in the snow and pulled off a mitten to dig in the powder. Ron crouched beside her, his knees popping, as she grabbed his hand and unfolded his fingers. Into his palm she placed a silver ring chained with engraved flowers and a chain carrying a single lily bloom. She curled his fingers over them and stood. “These are yours now.”

“I don’t understand.” He shook his head. “How could that bird …” But he knew ravens and crows were collectors of shiny objects. “Why … how did you … Birds collect shiny objects. They don’t return them.”

“Because I asked her to, silly.” Mom’s eyes glittered when she looked up at him. “You’ve been caught in mundane detective work for so long, you’ve forgotten all the magic found in the world. Munin collects memories. My ring, my necklace. I don’t need them anymore, but I asked Odin to give them back to help you remember. Munin brought them for you as a Christmas gift.”

She gave him a hug and started back the way they’d come, her head bowed now and a slump to her shoulders. Ron hurried to catch up but glanced back once. The faces and horned helmets still crowned the swaying trees, but as they bowed, the image faded until they were simply tall cedar and fir.

He put his arm around Mom and she sagged into his warmth as they followed the trail back to the chain-link fence. The wind blew harder, and snow had already filled their tracks. They picked their way up the side of the care home to the front entrance, where he punched in the entry code, and they stumbled inside into the lunchtime scent of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.

On the second floor Nate caught up with them. “A good walk, Kate?”

She gave him a dazed look and then looked at Ron.

“We did,” Ron answered, the ring and the necklace still burning his palm.

“We kept some lunch warm for your mom. We’ll bring her a tray,” Nate said. “She looks done in.”

With a nod, Ron led Mom back to her room and helped her out of her coat and boots and settled her in her rocker. She was shivering, so he pulled a blanket around her shoulders.

“We shouldn’t have stayed out there, Mom. It’s too cold. Not even to retrieve your ring and necklace.” He set them on the table beside her chair.

“No!” She closed her eyes and frowned in concentration. Then her eyes flashed open and tears glittered on her cheeks. “I told you. They’re yours now. There’s so much in them—years of memories, but I started losing mine when I lost your father. So these are yours. As my memory fades you have to remember for us both. Better you than Odin. That’s why I asked him to have his memory bird bring them back. May they make you happy again like they kept me happy over the years.”

Exhaustion seemed to take her. When the tray came she was too tired to eat so he spooned soup to her almost slack mouth and saw the effort it took for her to swallow. How she had found the strength to walk in the woods he’d never know. When she refused to take any more, the staff helped her into bed and Ron sat with her until she slept.

When he stood to leave, he intended to leave the ring and necklace behind, but then thought better of it. Instead, he found Nate and told him Mom had found them again and that Ron would keep them safe for her. He didn’t say anything about Munin or Odin or the Viking trees. He still didn’t know quite what to believe.

Instead, he went out to his rental car and sat inside as the snow swirled around him and the wind rocked the car. He should get going before the roads were impassable. Everyone knew west coasters didn’t know how to drive in snow. Instead, he pulled out the ring and necklace and placed the small ring on the tip of his little finger.

A surge of warmth ran through him, along with a memory of walking with his mother and father through a leaf-dappled woodland glade, his mother pointing out an owl on its nest in the crook of a tree, his father swinging him high so he could see.

He slid the ring off and squeezed it tight in his palm, the memory still bright in his mind. The gift of memories, his mother — his parents had given him.

The wind shuddered around the car and tore at the trees. They bent and swayed, and he made a promise to visit the Norwegian woods his mother had grown up in. And to bring her back his memories when hers were gone.