Lucy leaned back in her chair, hands folded in her lap. “They call us survivors.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think I survived. Do you?”
“I just don’t know. I am so tired, Lucy. Can I lie down somewhere for a while?”
“Of course. Go lie down on my bed. I’ll get you a quilt.”
Kenny walked down the hall, weary from last night’s binge and today’s memories of the Indian School. He lay on top of the bed and the smell of fresh linen was like a remedy. His whole body seemed to deflate as the tension eased and he drifted, listening to the sounds of Lucy cleaning up after their lunch. When she was done, she gently covered him with a quilt and lay down beside him. He took her in his arms, and they slept.
It was dark when the pain in his liver woke him up. It had been worse lately and his doctor had scolded Kenny, telling him his liver couldn’t take much more. He lay there alone. Typical of her, Lucy hadn’t woken him when she got up. He sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for the pain to ease.
“Coffee?” Lucy took her reading glasses off as he stepped into the kitchen.
“Sure, that would be great.” The kitchen was pleasingly warm and whatever she had roasting in the oven smelled beyond good.
“I’m just going to run down to the corner. I need some more cream for the gravy.”
“You want me to go?”
“Naw. Drink your coffee. I could use the air anyway.” She slipped into her jacket, hesitating, resisting the urge to turn the lock back and forth the way she would if Kenny weren’t there, counting the clicks before opening the door. It wasn’t that Kenny didn’t know. It was just that there was nothing he could do about it, so he left her alone about it. She gave him a quick smile and opened the door.
Kenny pulled the article in front of him and this time read the whole thing. He wondered where they went to school, or if he knew any of them from the logging camps or the east side haunts. He sat back, wishing for a drink.
He saw her through the distortions of the old leaded window before Kendra opened the door. He pushed his coffee cup away and rose to go back to Lucy’s room. He didn’t miss how her face dropped when she saw him.
“You still here?”
“There’s coffee.” He wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Where’s Mom?”
“She’ll be back soon.”
To his surprise, Kendra poured herself a coffee and sat down.
“Still raining?” He fiddled with the handle of his coffee cup.
“Yeah. I was at the Friendship Centre. I’ve been volunteering there, helping Clara. She told me I shouldn’t be so mean to you. She told me some other stuff too.”
“Oh?” Kenny had often wondered when she would start asking questions.
“You know, no one talks about it. About the schools. Not even Mom.”
“No point in it.”
“Clara told me you ran away. They roughed you up pretty bad, eh?”
He could see her struggling to find words after so many years of bad feelings. “Ancient history.”
“Look, I’ve hated you for a long time. Everything wrong in my life was about you. But I didn’t know all this. I just didn’t know. I can’t say anything will change. I still hate how you figure you can just drop in on my mom and then bug out whenever you feel like it. You think she has no feelings? But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for what you went through.”
Kenny looked up to see Lucy standing in the open doorway, quietly listening.
“It’s okay, Kendra. You have a right to be mad.”
Kendra pulled a flyer from her purse. “Clara asked me to give this to you and Mom.”
“I’m home.” Lucy spoke up as if she had just walked in the door. She put her grocery bag on the counter.
Kendra pushed her chair back. “I’ll finish getting supper ready, Mom.”
“Thanks, dear.” Lucy hung up her jacket and sat with Kenny, reaching for her reading glasses. “What’s this?”
She read the flyer and handed it back to Kenny. In large bold type at the top, it said: CALLING ALL SURVIVORS. It was a notice for a meeting of students from the Indian School. A lawyer was going to be there to talk about the lawsuit. Kenny looked at Lucy. She shook her head.
“I think we should go,” Kenny said.
“I don’t know, Kenny. Why pick at the scab?”
At the Friendship Centre, Kenny held Lucy’s hand as they sat listening to the man in the suit explain what was going on in the court case. The usual dirty tricks from the government, saying they had been trying to save Native lives, that it would have been hell anyway, even without the abuse. He looked at Lucy. “No surprises here, eh?”
The lawyer was sure, though, that in the end the survivors would win. He said that anyone who wanted to start a case could talk to him privately after the meeting. Kenny raised his hand.
Lucy looked at him quizzically. “Really?”
The lawyer’s helper came over to Kenny and wrote his name on her clipboard. “I’ll call your name when it’s your turn.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Lucy, maybe if I can say what I need to say, things will be better. Maybe this is the way to get it out of me once and for all.” He looked at her and took her hand, stuck it in his jacket pocket and held it tight. “Maybe we could have a future if I could get over the past.”
She squeezed his hand back. “I don’t know, Kenny. I really don’t know.”
Kenny looked around the room and wondered who these people might have been as children. Had they been his friends? He thought of running into Wilfred at that Wenatchee orchard and wondered who else was here that he might know. So hard to tell. He walked over to the refreshments table and was reaching to pour some coffee when a tall man about his age came up and stood beside him.
“Uh, I heard your lady friend refer to you as Kenny. Is it you?”
“Well, I’m Kenny. Who are you?”
“It’s me. Howie.”
“Howie?” Kenny couldn’t put the two together, this man towering over him and little Howie, always hungry and scared.
Howie threw his arms around Kenny and he could feel the sobs, choked back but convulsing inside him.
“I never would have survived that place without you. You taught me how to find food in the bush. You were our hero, man. You actually escaped.”
“Yeah, finally.”
Lucy was chatting with Clara, so Kenny beckoned Howie over to a quiet corner. They pulled up a couple of chairs and sat, Howie shaking his head and wiping tears from his eyes.
Howie’s face was flushed with embarrassment when he looked at Kenny. “Sorry, man.”
“No need to be sorry. We were in hell together. I thought you died, man, when they carried you out that day all wrapped up.” Kenny felt sick to his stomach just thinking about it. “I was so glad when you came back.”
“I can’t thank you enough for showing me the best way to get down to the dock and to Uncle Charlie’s boat. I think I would have died there if I had stayed.”
“Yeah. Me too. Sometimes I think I did die, I’m just still walking around.”
“Well, I just got out of the pen a while back. Clara’s been helping me get back on my feet. She told me you might be here today.”
“Sorry to hear that. What happened?”
“I beat the crap out of Brother. Ran into him in a parkade when my mom and I had to go back to sort out some government paperwork. I just snapped. If my mom hadn’t come running, I would have killed him.”
Kenny slapped him on the shoulder. “Right on! He had it coming, that fucking freak.”
“He sure did. I almost did my whole bit ’cause I wouldn’t tell the Parole Board I was sorry I did it. It was a little weird ’cause just when I’d given up, the Board cut me loose.”
“Yeah, fuck saying sorry.” Kenny nodded in Lucy’s direction. “Do you remember Lucy?”
“Not sure. Oh yeah, was she the one—you two were always passing notes?
” Howie smiled.
“That’s her over there.” Kenny beckoned Lucy over and smiled, thinking of their self-conscious glances back then.
“Ah yes. Lucy.”
“Lucy, do you remember Howie?”
“Clara told me you were around. Glad to see you.” She shook his hand.
“Glad to see you two together.” Howie smiled at her.
“Kenny? Is there a Kenny wanting to speak to the lawyer?”
Kenny grabbed Howie by the shoulder. “Man, it’s so good to see you. Why not meet me at the Two Jays tomorrow morning? You know where it is? It’s right at the corner of Carrall and Hastings. We’ll have breakfast and catch up. Nine, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. That would be great.”
Kenny left him chatting with Lucy as he headed for the office to meet with the lawyer.
“I’ll wait for you, Kenny,” Lucy said, touching his shoulder before he walked away.
A half-hour later, Kenny stepped out of the office and headed for the men’s room. He barely made it into the stall before he puked. Why did the lawyer need to know all that? Kenny told him he was abused, but the lawyer said he needed details. More and more details. Kenny leaned over the toilet, his stomach in knots, heart pounding. He could smell Brother, leaning over him, hard against him, grabbing his hair. Kenny knew the pain in his side was his liver, but all he could think of were all those days of shallow breathing, avoiding the pain of broken ribs.
He heard Lucy calling through the bathroom door. “Are you okay, Kenny?”
Kenny left the stall, ran water in the sink and rinsed his face. “Yeah, be right out.” He willed his hands to stop shaking, but they wouldn’t. He shoved them in the pockets of his jeans so she wouldn’t see. “C’mon, Lucy, let’s get out of here.”
“Are you okay?”
“That was pretty awful, digging into all those memories.”
“Yeah. Figured it would be.”
They walked down East Hastings and Kenny led her toward the bus stop. “I’m going to go to my room tonight, Lucy. I think I need to be alone. I’ll wait for the bus with you.”
“Are you sure you want to be alone tonight?”
“Yeah. I gotta meet Howie for breakfast tomorrow at the Two Jays, so I might as well just stay downtown.”
They sat on the bench, holding hands, no words between them. Kenny wondered if she knew how much comfort she’d given him over the years. “Lucy.”
“Yeah?”
Just then the bus pulled up. “Well, here it is.”
The doors slapped open.
Kenny held her. Squeezed her and let her go. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Of course.” She looked at him with a question in her eyes.
She got on the bus. Kenny stood there until she found a seat and the bus pulled away. When he couldn’t see her anymore, he stepped through the doorway of the bar.
I awake the next morning and immediately something is different. The light. Like nothing I’ve seen before. I know I drank myself into a hole last night. For some reason, I feel like I am twenty years old. My stomach is calm and the pain in my liver that’s been a part of every morning for months now is gone. I can hardly wait to get my day started and to meet Howie for breakfast. But before I can stir, someone is opening my apartment door.
“Hey! What the hell is going on? Get the fuck outta here!”
My voice sounds strange and I am beginning to feel a little light-headed. I can’t seem to move, but at the same time I appear to be seeing things from every vantage point at the same time. Two men pull a stretcher into my room and now I am getting really upset, when out of the blue my mother is sitting next to me. Fear shoots through me like cold steel. My mother has been dead for years.
“Sshhhhh, Kenny, my boy, it’s okay. You’ve come to join your ancestors.”
“What?”
“Don’t look at those men. Look into my eyes.”
I try to reach for her, but a thin membrane stops me from touching her.
“Not yet, my son. Four days you must stay with your old form and then you will be free, with me and all the ones who have gone before. Look around us.”
As though her words have opened my eyes, I look around and find myself on the outskirts of a village. Men are fishing with their spears and cedar rope nets. Women are working at their fires. The Big Houses are boldly painted with our family crests and I am filled with a peace like I have never known. I look back and start to panic as the men with the stretcher zip the body bag over me.
“Son, just look at the village. Look at your home. See how plentiful it is. Look at the smiles and feel the peacefulness here. Don’t look back. Keep your eyes here. When the four days pass, you will be in your own longhouse with family and loved ones. But you have to walk the road of the past before you can fully enter the green grass world.”
As soon as she utters these words, I feel myself flying at breakneck speed through images of the Indian School, through the fields of Washington where I survived picking apples, through the coastal fishing grounds, the logging camps, the dish pits and grease pits and flophouses. I am holding Kendra when she is still just so tiny. I see Lucy, glowing and happy beyond words. Me falling in love with that fat baby with the shock of jet-black hair and blue-obsidian eyes. I am holding hands with Lucy in her kitchen, smiling and talking. Finally, I find myself standing in the corner of a room. It settles in. They’ve brought me here, the ones who took me from my room. There is a body covered in a white sheet, lying on the stretcher, and I know it is me. The fear has left me now. It is no longer me.
The door to the morgue opens and a man in uniform walks through. Lucy is with him. The man lifts the sheet.
“Yes, that’s him. That’s Kenny.” Her voice chokes up. “Can you let me have a minute alone with him, please?”
“Sorry, ma’am, it’s a coroner’s case, we can’t let you touch him or be alone with him.”
“Well, can you please just step back? Show me some respect, please.” The desperation in her voice pulls at me.
The tears well in her eyes and her breath catches in quiet sobs. “Oh, Kenny, you are leaving me again.”
“Lucy!” I stand beside her and try to stroke her hair. “Lucy. Don’t cry.” She stands as close to the body as the uniformed man will allow, and she speaks to me.
“No one can hurt you now, my love. No more nightmares, no more heartbreak. You are free. Dance away, my love. I will never forget you.” She turns to leave.
“Lucy. I’m okay.”
She turns and looks at me, and for a moment I am sure she heard me.
As soon as the door closes behind her, I am off again, whizzing through time. Now I am sitting on the pebble beach by my mother’s smokehouse and once again she is with me.
“Do you remember, son?”
For a moment the priest with his flowing black robes and the RCMP officer with his yellow-striped pants and spit-polished boots hover near us, and then they are gone. “Yes, Mother, I remember.” Now I am in the boat on the open ocean. Then standing at her door when she didn’t recognize me after too many days and bottles had passed. Mother.
“Do you know I had no choice?”
“Yes. I know.”
“But I let you down, son. When you fought so hard to get home and I couldn’t crawl out of the bottle for you. My heart was so broken with you gone. But I should have been stronger.”
“I never held it against you, Mother. We all suffered. You, me, all those other children and their parents. I know.”
“Can you forgive me, son?”
“Yes, Mother, even though there is nothing to forgive.”
“Turn away from it now, son, turn to the village.”
I turn to the village again, and this time it seems closer. I can see the faces clearly now and the children are playing and laughing. How it should be. And then I am in the dorm at the Mission School, broken, crying in the night for my mother, but this time she comes for me. She sits on my cot and places my head in her
lap and strokes her fingers through my hair. Mom, Mom.
“Son, your friends are calling you. It is the fourth day.”
I turn, and they are all gathered in this place, high above a spacious lake. A line of drummers stand and sing a travelling song for me. I know my body is in that casket, but I care nothing for it. Lucy. Sweet Lucy has taken care of everything. My few friends are here, and there is food and coffee for all of them. My casket is draped in a beautiful Pendleton blanket and she is wrapping a set of clothes and a new pair of moccasins to go with me. She hasn’t allowed flowers. Just pussy willows and cedar branches. My Lucy always understands. She stands alone, her hands pressed against my casket, and I hear her again.
“My friend, my love, I don’t know why you have to leave me yet again, but I guess it’s not for me to know. I hope you know that this place in my heart will hold you forever. Dance free. I will join you soon.”
I stand next to her, catch her tears and press them to my heart.
I turn and find myself at the hearth, in the longhouse.
15
Lucy
It was a month since the funeral and a week since Lucy and Kendra had scattered Kenny’s ashes carefully in the shrubbery of their neighbourhood park, the one where the three of them had spent so many happy days. Lucy sat at the kitchen table, a steaming cup of tea in front of her. Next to it sat a bulging envelope with only a printed return address, no name. Kendra wandered into the kitchen in her pyjamas, yawning. “Good morning.”
“’Bout time, it’s almost noon.”
Kendra plugged in the kettle and then hugged her mom. “Quit being such a badass.”
“Quit using that language.”
“What’s that?” Kendra nodded toward the envelope.
“Not sure. Kinda scared to open it.”
“Want me to?”
Lucy nodded. “Yeah. Don’t tell me if it’s bad. Had enough bad for a while.”
Kendra gave her mom a quick hug and reached for the envelope. She sat across from Lucy and quickly slit it open with a butter knife. Kendra placed a thick document on the table, the amazement clear on her face as she read the cover letter. She laid it down on the table as if it were some delicate relic. She looked up at Lucy. “It’s about Kenny.”
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