In the last three weeks or so, beginning the last week of August, my life had been utterly destroyed. The loves of my life had literally been driven from me through the actions of one man, their father. A year of love and marriage was gone and it seemed there was no hope of ever getting it back. Riekie, my blonde wife of so much promise, had been driven away by acrimony. Carol Anne, my first love and my first wife, had been poisoned against me. Just when we were on the very brink of retrieving that, her father struck again, brutally, damaging her very soul in the process. Carol couldn't come back to us now, even if she wanted to. Carol was now irretrievably lost to me, and thus, Riekie was too.
Our rule was simple, based on our belief that it took all three of us to form the marriage. Losing one meant losing all. With Carol's soul damaged, we could no longer even hope, save for a miracle, and that item wasn't even in inventory.
After Riekie moved out, I had no direct contact with her. Her last letter told me if I called she would not answer or return my calls. If I wrote, she would not reply. I did write, but wasn't sure if she even opened them. I liked to think she did, because her leaving was not my doing, and in that last letter, she re-affirmed her love. I was devastated by Riekie's sudden departure, but could accept it to a certain extent because I knew that somewhere out there, there was a beacon of pure love that shone just for me.
My letters to Riekie always expressed my undying love for both her and Carol, and I tried to keep her up-to-date on what was happening. I didn't tell her about Bob Sr. trying to rape Carol. That would be too much for her to bear with her heavy university work load. I'm sure she would have felt guilt at not being there to protect Carol, but I think it would have happened anyway. Riekie didn't need that burden. I did tell her we came within a hair's breadth of reconciling but something terrible happened, and Carol was lost to us. Riekie never replied to my letters and eventually I stopped sending them
To add insult to injury, now the whole Scott family was moving away, ostensibly to put them closer to him, but I knew it was to get Carol away from me and to himself. Her only protection from him once they relocated, was my promise to hunt him down if he ever tried a thing like that again. He had appeared to take me seriously. Bob was watching him, and as they got old enough to understand, the little boys would too. They had seen what he did, and it scared them.
To be sure, though my life, marriage and love lay in ruins, I still functioned. I went to school and played football and worked with the cadets, but I was just going through the motions. The spark was gone.
The last week and a half of September, 1966 are a blur to me to this day. Most of the last quarter of that year except for a few notable points, is a blur.
I remember helping the Scotts pack to move. I remember Carol's haunted look; it's burned in my mind, my heart, my soul. My heart was broken, not by her, but for her. I simply DO NOT remember the day they actually moved. It is a total blank to me. One day the Scotts were in that house, the next day they were gone. For years afterward I avoided that street and that house. It's an office now, and I occasionally have business there. The interior is almost unrecognizable now, but it still haunts me.
Bob and I kept in contact by phone, but it wasn't the same. We didn't have the daily contact of school and our joint hobby projects, so our contacts were somewhat infrequent. Whenever we did talk, he gave me news of Riekie and Carol. Carol had recovered enough to more or less function, but was just a shell. She seemed to bury herself in schoolwork and had no social life. Dolly saw Riekie fairly frequently. The aunts didn't live that far from the new house in Don Mills, so Dolly was able to visit often. Bob said Riekie only came to the new house once when neither Carol nor her father were there. Riekie was doing well in university and seemed to be thriving. She didn't go out with boys, but did have a couple new friends she went to movies with occasionally.
In November, I got a call from Bob that shook my world again. Tante Kit, that beautiful, vibrant woman, was killed in a traffic accident. Did I want to go to the funeral? I hadn't seen her in over a year, but the connection with the Koorstis family was still strong in my heart, so I said I would. Bob told me to take a bus to Toronto and I could go with them. The funeral was to be held in the small town near the cottage, because she was to be buried in the cemetery where Oma and Opa planned to be interred themselves. We would all go together.
I took the bus and Dolly picked me up at the terminal. She was devastated by Kit's sudden death, and talked constantly about her. I hadn't seen any of them in over a month. When I met Carol, she still looked like Hell. She greeted me, but we had no other conversation that day. She retired to her room, coming out only for supper, and she just picked at that. Bob was Bob. We had a little fun playing with his latest slot-racers, really hot little numbers that were so fast they wouldn't take the curves in the track. The little guys were really glad to see me, and delighted in showing me their new room. Despite her grief, Dolly fussed over me like the prodigal son. Bob Sr. was cool, but civil. I felt strange and awkward and hardly slept that night. The new house was big enough they had a guest room, so I didn't bunk with Bob like we used to in the old house.
We drove to the town by the cottage the next day, all of us in the big wagon. Carol and I were forced to be in the same confined space for over two hours. She rode in the back seat with the two boys. Bob and I had the middle one, and of course Bob Sr. and Dolly rode up front. We arrived just in time for the service.
Needless to say, the funeral service was very sad. Oma and Opa looked very old. Having a child die before a parent is difficult to say the least, and I think it ages them quickly. Tante Pie and Tante Jo were obviously devastated, but Pie seemed especially inconsolable. Riekie went with the aunts. The only bright spot was when she saw me enter the church, Riekie smiled at me.
After the service, we went to the cemetery for the committal. We all gathered round the open grave. Whether someone of the family maneuvered us, or we did it unconsciously ourselves, Riekie, Carol and I found ourselves standing close together during the interment, Carol on my right and Riekie on my left, their usual positions before these bad times.
It was an extremely emotional time for everyone. Tante Pie was incoherent with grief, and had to have a chair brought for her because she couldn't stand. Tante Jo stood at her side, weeping, and held her tight. Dolly held her parents close, their bodies wracked with sobs. Carol and Riekie weren't in much better shape, Carol particularly after what she'd been through the last couple months
Without thinking, I slid an arm around each of them to offer support and consolation. Carol stiffened at the contact, but didn't move away. I pulled her a little closer to increase the contact, but she remained stiff. Her hand came up and grasped mine. She held tight, but never leaned into me and stared straight ahead. Riekie stiffened at my touch at first, too, but soon softened, and moved in closer on her own. I felt the warmth of her body next to me. She even leaned her head a little on my shoulder.
As the graveside service ended, Riekie broke the contact first, to go to the aid of Tante Pie. As she broke away with a small apology, she reached up, brushing her hand across my face. Her eyes were very sad. She kissed me lightly on the lips and murmured, "I love you." Then she was gone to attend to a completely distraught Tante Pie.
Carol maintained the stiff contact for a few more seconds then stepped away. She turned to face me, but wouldn't make full eye contact. She, too, reached and gave me a small kiss on the lips. I wanted to crush her in my arms, but knew better than to even try. She spoke softly, her eyes sad, haunted. There was no life in them, just pain, grief and despair. I'm sure the view from her side was similar.
"David, you're a good person, probably the best I'll ever know. I know you never cheated on us. I knew that before we left and wanted to make up, but something happened to change me. I'm not who or what you thought I was anymore. I'm changed, and not for the good. You deserve someone better than me. Please get on with your life."
"Carol Anne, I..."
She put her hand on my lips. We both had tears in our eyes, and not from the funeral.
"I know, David. Don't say it. I can't take it. It hurts too much."
"Then let me say this. Somehow, someway, you must at least make some amends with Riekie. You're still sisters, and you must repair that at least."
"I'll try, but we both need a little more time."
The trip back to Toronto and the rest of my stay until I left the next day were an agony for me. To have been so close to both of My Girls, My Wives, and yet so far away was almost too much to bear. I was left only with the bittersweet memory of two light, sweet kisses. If I wasn't before, Carol's words at the grave side left me totally crushed and defeated.
That was the last time I saw the Koorstis family, and the last time I saw the Scotts all together. I didn't see Carol and Riekie for another two years.
1966 drew to a close. Christmas that year was painful for me. Christmas Eve, the anniversary of our truest Old Ways wedding, I holed up in my room and cried myself to sleep, holding their old work clothes to my face. I could still smell them. And yet, even as I wept, I thought I could feel two beams of love shining faintly from the west, one a little brighter and purer; the other held pain.
New Year's 1967, was no better. The previous New Year was one of the happiest times of my life. From that time on, those two holidays, until I married and had kids, were the saddest in the calendar for me, but I still felt those faint beams of love from the west, too. Someone else was remembering with me, I think. There were other times I felt those beams: my birthday in particular. Once or twice a year, it would just be one. A certain date in June always found me extremely sad.
1967 was Canada's centennial year. The whole country was excited and busy. All the activity helped me muddle through. The cadet corps was as busy as could be. We made a trip to Expo 67, the Montreal World's Fair. We had visits from several dignitaries including Prime Minister Pearson for whom we mounted ceremonial guards.
In the spring, Bob phoned me out of the blue. That had become a pattern. Since Tante Kit's funeral, we had really toned down the phone calls, and only called each other with either big news or occasionally on the spur of the moment.
Bob had big news. They were moving again, this time to Fort ChurchillManitoba. Bob Sr. had accepted a position directly with NASA. It wasn't the Apollo programme, but rather their high altitude and aurora borealis research project on the sub-arctic. They were moving to the polar bear capital of the world. As it turned out, Bob Sr. did very little in FortChurchill. He did go to work for the Apollo programme, and left the family basically stranded in the North while he lived and worked in Florida. Bob was happy for the move, looking at it as an adventure. To me, it put the kids totally beyond my reach. Bob said Carol was doing better, but still spent most of her time in her room.
In the summer, I went to Barbados on the cadet Commonwealth Exchange, that huge feather in my cap for RMC. Once again, I got a superb course report and evaluation. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and the training. I wrote home every chance I got regaling the folks with tales from the tropics. There was no drinking age restriction in Barbados. As a result, I developed a taste for booze that would later come to haunt me — not seriously, but enough to make me think.
My friend Roy Searle went to Jamaica on the same programme. We spent some time together at CampPetawawa during our three week period before we moved out. Roy showed me several pictures of a very happy Patty, his family, and Patty's father and stepmother. There were several of both families together. Roy said he and Patty were getting married as soon as they graduated from high school next year. Her folks were going to help them financially until they finished college. Like me, Roy was going the ROTP route, but he was doing it through a civilian university so he could be near Patty. He said he owed me a huge debt, and someday he would find a way to repay it.
Academically, my Grade 12 year went better than it should have, considering the emotional trauma I'd gone trough at the beginning. When I was home, I immersed myself in the books. It helped me not to think too much. As a result, I once again made the Honours Society. I wouldn't be quite the scholar Riekie was, but I did OK.
Mom was true to her word. She found a healthy coven in a nearby city, and resumed her studies and training as a full priestess. Dad continued to work the farm and as a guard at the nearby penitentiary. Val and Heather were both traumatized by the loss of Carol and Riekie. Heather never could understand how her new sisters could be taken away just like that, and continued to love them and refer to her lost sisters. Val was pissed off with them at first, but eventually forgave them, and like Mom, never gave up hope we would find each other again someday.
Grade 13, my last year of high school began in September 1967. The workload was tough, but I did pretty well. When it came time to send out the university applications, I was only going to send out one, to RMC, but the guidance counselor suggested I send out more. He said nothing was guaranteed, so, following his advice, I sent one to Ryerson as well.
Ever since I broke up with the girls, my life was empty except for cadets, school, and my family. I didn't date or go out with the crowd. I functioned, and even appeared normal, but I knew I was just an empty shell going through the motions.
The fall of 1967, I became friends with another boy in my class, and we became very good friends. Because I had my driver's licence, I began driving my sister Val to her various social engagements. Rather than return home only to have to go back a few hours later, I started hanging out with her crowd. Val's friends were having a Christmas party at the home of one of the girls. Val had met my new friend Wayne once or twice, and asked me to bring him to the party to even up the number of boys and girls. Long story short, Val captured Wayne under the mistletoe and the rest, as they say, is history. They're still happily married.
I had fun with Val's friends, and although I had lots of offers from some very attractive young ladies, I remained celibate.
Bob phoned occasionally from FortChurchill but the phone service to there was sporadic, partly caused by the strange experiments the high altitude people were doing. We wrote a bit and he kept me posted. He phoned Christmas day, and we had quite a long conversation. Riekie was doing very well at U of T, and would finish her pre-med training this year, then on to full med school at the same university. She was on the honours list constantly. I was proud of my brilliant wife and asked Bob to pass it along.
Bob said Carol had suffered a setback in her emotional state during the move to the North. My suspicions aroused, and thinking I might have to go hunting, I asked if Bob Sr. had anything to do with it. Bob said, "No, only insofar as he made us move here and then stranded us while he moved to Florida to work on Apollo." He said Carol thought he'd moved them to the North just to punish her, and had cried in her room for three days straight before the move and for a week or more after. She finally settled in, though, and even seemed to enjoy the isolation of winter on Hudson's Bay. I asked him to wish her a Merry Christmas for me.
He did me one better and put Carol on the phone. We said hello, and exchanged Merry Christmas, and a little news. She said she was completing her Ontario curriculum by correspondence. FortChurchill didn't have a high school as such, and Manitoba only went to Grade 12. I told her I was applying to RMC as planned and it looked good. My course report from the previous summer was excellent, and so far my Grade 13 marks were well above minimum requirements. Still I was overjoyed just to hear her sweet voice. It was still a little lifeless, but I heard more inflection than a year ago.
Bob said the little boys weren't so little any more. Iain was doing very well in school, and Sandy seemed to thrive in the North (Sandy fell in love with the North and made it his life. In the words of Robert W. Service, he heard 'The Call of the Yukon.'). His mom was making the best of a bad situation, he said. She hated the isolation, especially in the winter, but had become active in the community.
Bob's call at Christmas was the last until the following fall. We still wrote occasionally, but I didn't hear much from him.
The winter of 1967-'68 was a hard one. We fought continuously to keep water on for the cattle. Dad was getting frustrated and said this was the last year for livestock. From now on it would be strictly cash crop. In the spring we sold off all the cattle and we never had a head of livestock on the place again until I took up breeding and raising Canadian horses many years later.
In April, the university acceptance letters came out. I got accepted to Ryerson first, but I wasn't that interested or prepared. I was counting on RMC and the military to pay my way through school. Finally a letter arrived from Kingston with the RMC crest on the envelope. The letter was short and to the point: 'We regret to inform you that your application has been declined.' There was no explanation and the letter clearly stated there was no appeal.
I went into shock and total mental shutdown. The one thing that had kept me going and focused after losing Carol and Riekie had been my long-standing goal of RMC and a military career. With this last blow, I finally came apart. I lost interest in everything. Cadets meant nothing anymore. I still went more out of habit than anything. My CO had me on the carpet a number of times for ragging out juniors over nothing. When he found out I'd been rejected by RMC, he sympathized, and even tried to find out why, but got stone walled.
I gave up on school and when the final exam results were posted, instead of being in the top ten percent where I usually was, I was in the bottom. Because my RMC hopes had been tied so closely to the girls, that old pain resurfaced and I went into a deep depression over them again. I'm afraid I drove my parents to distraction.
Dad finally had enough of my moping and tempers. He forced me to get myself together enough to fill out the OSAP application for a student loan and grant. He and Mom dug into their savings, and we got the first semester's tuition to Ryerson paid. He also made me get a summer job with the local National Park, so I could make some money to live on. My tuition may have been paid, but I still needed a place to stay and food on the table.
My summer job turned out to be better paying than I thought, and was also very interesting. If I'd had my wits about me, I'd have focused on it as a possible career alternative, but still lost in the depths of my self-pity and loss, I didn't think of it. Years later, after a myriad of false starts, I was back at it, and I'm still there.
By the end of August, ready or not, I was on my way to Toronto to my distant second choice in post-secondary education.