Page 3 of Who We Think We Are

“They called me a cold fish. Oh, and I was too tall and too bossy,” says Kate, pretending it never bothered her. “But enough of all this; why are you here?”

“We were going on a hike, remember?” says Suze. “No, of course you don’t. Never mind. I’ll take Coco and get out of your hair!”

“Sorry, Suze.”

“All good, my friend.” Suze heads out the door with the two dogs, tails wagging and running ahead of her. “Have fun working inside on this gorgeous summer day!”

Kate turns to Liling and Chun. “OK, let’s get this done, ladies.”

After a few hours, Kate stops. “This is taking way too long. I’m going to get another scanner, lunch, and cash so I can pay you. Also, you’re going too slow. Pick up the pace, and let’s get this done.”

Kate gets home an hour later and walks through the front door, arms full, with the scanner box and a bag of groceries looped over each wrist. Liling rushes forward to take the box from Kate.

Chun says, “Jake came home but then left again. He said he was going to Edmonton to work. Why does he go there to work? He left you a note. It’s in the kitchen.”

“Jake is an IT consultant. His current client is in Edmonton. You two set up the scanner, and I’ll get lunch ready.” Kate heads to the kitchen.

Standing at the kitchen counter, Kate rips open the envelope. “What now, Jake?”

Kate: I know we planned on me staying home for a few weeks, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.

We’re both too trigger-happy right now. I’m going to Edmonton.

Saves us the trouble of fighting and making things worse.

With both of the girls gone now, I’d love for us to really look at how we want to reconnect.

So much of our attention has been on them, and my working out of town all the time doesn’t help.

I don’t just want us to live parallel lives.

I miss you. I’ll come home next weekend.

Hopefully, we can spend some time together then. Love, Jake.

Thanks for deciding that for both of us, Jake . But he might be right. This probably makes things easier.

Kate texts Jake: “Thanks for the note. I agree with all of it. Have a good week, and see you next weekend. Love, K.”

She lays out veggies, dip, and sandwich fixings and calls, “Come and get it!”

While they make their plates, Kate says, “Let’s eat out in the garden.”

As they eat, Kate tells Chun and Liling a story.

“While we were sorting and scanning, I remembered something. When I was sixteen, GG, my great-grandmother, and I were going to sort her Holocaust letters. She was sitting at the table we’re working on today, and told me to get the boxes of letters from her closet and bring them to the table.

As I came down the stairs with a couple of boxes, one of them disintegrated, and the letters from both boxes fell all over the stairs. GG just laughed.”

Kate smiles at the memory. “She made me bring all twelve boxes down. I was being very careful because the boxes were falling apart. Once she had all the boxes, GG pushed them all off the table. They fell apart, and the letters flew everywhere. She just laughed again and told me, ‘If they’re mixed up, they might as well be good and mixed up,’ and that it would help me to slow down. ”

Chun and Liling laugh. Chun says, “Your GG sounds like quite a character!”

“She was. She just had me shove the letters into new shoe boxes,” Kate mimes air quotes, “‘willy-nilly,’ so here we are today, thirty years later, finally doing the sorting. But sorry, GG, not doing it slower.”

After lunch, and now that they have two scanners going, things start going much faster. The three of them work until early evening.

“I can order dinner if you’re hungry,” says Kate.

“I can hardly see straight, Miss Kate. We’ve been here for twelve hours,” says Chun. “We’ll come back in the morning, OK?”

“Sure. Sorry, once I get going, I never stop till I’m finished. See you in the morning. Eight again? Here’s your pay for today.” She hands them each an envelope.

“Yes, Miss Kate. Thank you,” Liling says. “See you in the morning.”

After they’ve left, Kate realizes she’s tired and bleary-eyed, too.

As she runs a hot bath, she gets a text from Suze with a picture of Coco and Max curled up on Max’s bed.

They look like a chocolate brown and white yin-yang symbol.

“Coco is staying here for a sleepover. Max doesn’t want her to leave, and Anne, Esther, and I are cuddled up watching a movie, and none of us feel like getting in a car to take her home.

Anne spent the whole day getting her classroom ready for school starting on Tuesday, and she’s tired. Enjoy time with your handsome husband.”

Oh God, I completely forgot about Coco. I’m off my game. Enjoy my time with Jake? Ha ha!

She replies: “KK. Enjoy spending time with your lovely wife and stunning daughter! As for my husband, he took off for Edmonton, saving us the trouble of having a fight! No cuddling happening here.”

After her bubble bath, Kate puts on some light cotton pajamas and props herself up in bed on her white cotton duvet and cushions.

She opens her laptop and looks at the folder of scanned letters.

They made good headway today and will definitely be done tomorrow.

She doesn’t see any letters to or from Oma.

But there’s a sweet letter from Grandad to GG dated June 30, 1945.

Dear Mom,

I’ve told you a hundred times about Katrina Van Dijk, the beautiful Dutch girl I’m going to marry.

Well, tomorrow is the day. I’m sorry, but I can’t wait till I get home.

I want to stay with her now. I can’t leave England yet, and we need to be married to bring her home as a war bride.

It’s way harder if we’re engaged. We can have another ceremony when we get home if you want.

You’re going to love her. She is the sweetest thing, and she’ll fit right into our family …

“And so, the lie about why you got married in Holland starts, Grandad.” In a way, I can’t blame you. I sure lied to my mom. I still do, if the truth be told. It makes things easier.

I need to talk to someone about Oma, and there’s no one in this country I can do that with.

Kate texts her friend Mikelia in Denmark to ask if she can talk.

It’s 7 a.m. there, so she might be up. She is.

They agree to meet on Zoom. Kate arrives first, and when she sees herself, she runs her fingers through her hair, trying to make it look fashionably tousled rather than just messy.

“Sorry, it took me a few minutes. I made a cup of coffee. Good evening, Kate.” Mikelia blows on her cup of coffee, and the steam fogs her glasses.

When the lenses clear, she says, “You know, whenever I haven’t seen you for a while, especially when I see us side by side on the screen like this, I think back to UBC when people would tell us we look like sisters.

Tall, willowy, gorgeous, blonde, me with blue eyes and you with brown …

“Let’s not get too carried away,” Kate laughs. “Besides, you come by your blonde naturally. I pay good money for these highlights.”

“What’s going on, Kate? I can tell by your face that something’s wrong.”

“No use pretending nothing’s up,” says Kate.

Mikelia nods as she sips her coffee. Kate tells her about Oma, blurting out that she was in the Hitler Youth and the rest of what Grandad told her.

“Look, Kate, Oma was a teenager. There was a war. They had to make choices you and I can’t begin to imagine. And remember, I know Oma. She’s the kindest person alive. But still, I can see why this is shocking and upsetting for you. It would be for me, too. How can I help?”

“I needed someone to talk to. I don’t feel like telling Jake right now, and I can barely look Suze in the eye.”

“Why? What did you do to her?” asks Mikelia.

“Nothing. But somehow, I feel guilty.” Kate scratches her head and arms. “Oma and her family chose to be part of the Nazis. They didn’t have to; they chose to.

I’m a descendant of the enemy, the people who tore Suze’s family apart and killed six million Jews.

” Kate pauses and swallows hard. “I feel like throwing up again.”

“Did Oma kill someone? Did you kill someone? No. You have nothing to feel guilty about. In the end, Oma was part of the resistance, so something changed her mind.”

“I know. I’m so frustrated that Grandad can’t tell me more. They never talked about it after they decided to keep it a secret.”

“That’s the way their generation was: don’t talk about it and move on. I’ve seen it all my life.”

“True. Thanks, Mikelia. How are you doing? How’s Rikke?”

“Rikke’s doing well, but I sure miss her.

Who ever thought Kelli and Rikke, our little girls, would grow up this fast and be at uni already?

And why do they have to move away? It kills me that Rikke has gone to live with Alistair Payne in the ass.

He left when she was little, does none of the work of raising her, but now he gets to live with her.

I try to be happy for her, but I don’t want him to benefit. ”

“Cambridge was the draw, not him, but yeah, it does suck that he gets to live with her. Our children’s fathers can cause trouble and pain.”

“That’s for sure. Well, I better get going; I’ve got to get to work.” Mikelia works in HR at some Danish corporation; Kate can’t remember the name.

“Thanks for taking my call so early. I feel a bit better. I may go to Holland to learn more. We’ll have to see each other if I do.”

“Of course! If there’s anything I can do to help, I’m up for that, too. Take care, dear friend.”

“You too. Thanks again, Mikelia.” Kate ends the call. OK, now I think I can sleep. Except she can’t. Kate picks up her laptop and reads the letters for another hour or so. There’s no way she can focus on work this week. She sends an email to Bob Brown, the COO of Canamine and her direct supervisor:

Hi Bob,

I hope you’re having a good long weekend. I’m writing to let you know that we’ve had a family emergency, and I will be taking the week off.

Kate Hathaway

Chief Control Officer, Canamine International

Then, she finally falls asleep.