“Yes – well, the Levoys’ll take care of the lad,” Ruby said one afternoon. “And, if not, Dorval will – right, Dorval?”
Dorval shrank sheepishly into himself. One time, past summer, when he had too much to drink, he had taken a bolo swing at Ivan, and Ivan caught him so he wouldn’t fall. It was because Dorval had always loved Cindi, and had lost her. And that was the worst pain in the world. But Ruby now, and even Cindi, pretended that it had happened much differently, and that Dorval, being as he was from Montreal, could handle a man like Ivan.
“I don’t want him hurt,” Cindi said, as if she now controlled things.
Now, in the middle of summer, with this happy breed of people who cared for her, she reciprocated the ideas of others as if they were her own.
Most of all at this time she didn’t want to be censured by her friends. If she was suddenly important, she didn’t want to be not important.
Ivan was gone. She had had a string of men since she was sixteen. She was terrified to tell her mother she was pregnant again – but sooner or later her mother would find out.
“And then we won’t be able to help you any more,” Ruby said one afternoon.
“Oh,” Cindi said, looking up at the sun, as if she’d made an awful mistake. “You won’t?”
“I mean, it would make me some kind of Jesus laughing-stock now, wouldn’t it – keeping care of Ivan’s baby.”
(It was Ivan’s baby in this case.)
“Oh wow,” Cindi said, as if she’d made some pathetic mistake. Cindi used all the same out-of-date expressions she had learned eight to ten years ago and was sometimes surprised that no one else did.
“Don’t worry,” Ruby said, “I’ll take care of everything. I won’t let you down.”
It was not inherent in Ruby to forgo anything that was new or irreverent – and this is primarily what attracted her to abortion. What umbrellaed her concern was not so much that it would be right, but that it would be rebellious and gain attention. Like everything else Ruby did. And Cindi felt those feelings of importance, when she was with Ruby, that she’d only caught brief glimpses of in her life.
She remembered that woman with the short hair on the local TV show saying such kind things about her. No one ever, not even Ivan nor her mother, had talked so kindly about her before.
Perhaps what brought matters to a head was Ernie – that is, the forty-four-year-old friend of Antony’s, who had the mannerisms and demeanour of a teenaged boy, and something of the arrogance thereof.
He started to hang about with them, as a member of their group, singing Elvis, and flashing his money about. Every time he came down, Cindi would hide in the bathroom until Ruby got rid of him.
Finally, one night, Ernie approached Cindi as she walked along the road.
“I’ll take care of your baby, I will – I’ll marry you and take care of it.”
It was the only noble gesture Ernie could think of, and he had been thinking of it all summer.
He had been thinking of it since the night he was with Ivan and Antony, and it had blossomed into a full-fledged obsession. He had never made love to a woman. He knew nothing about them, but he had become obsessed by this idea that by being noble he would have a ready-made family – a relationship that just three months before seemed impossible for a man like him, whom people all his life had zeroed in upon and teased.
Something so noble produced a self-righteousness in him as he looked at her, his hair dry and blowing in the wind, his face nicked from a razor, and still weathering the leather jacket in the awful summer heat.
“I don’t have my baby,” Cindi said.
“What do you mean?” Ernie asked.
“I lost it,” Cindi said, “so please don’t worry about me any more.” And she reached out and touched his face. She held the hand to his face, as if he were a child himself. And then took it quickly away and smiled nervously. Then she turned and walked along the street.
“Here,” he said, “you need money” – and he tried to fumble in his pocket – “please,” he said, as she walked away, “take it.”
Ruby was furious over this intrusion into what was “her concern.”
“It’s not his problem,” she said.
There was a good deal of cynicism from Ruby and Dorval Gene that someone as “ignorant” as Ernie would try to help.
And, finally, a good deal of jovial laughter also.
The morning of the appointment, Ruby took Cindi to the site of her new house. They walked across the field, high with goldenrod and dandelions. Far down below they could see the highway and the river as it widened out into the bay.
The air was still and hot, and they followed the fresh road the tractor had made.
“Well,” Ruby said, looking sideways at Cindi and then smiling, “how do you like all this?”
Cindi looked at the huge foundation, saw the lumber piled in rows near the road that had just been made, smelled the cement in the sunlight, and sneezed. Then she sneezed again. “It’s the biggest place I’ve ever seen,” Cindi said. (She was trying to be polite.)
“Well, it’s nice,” Ruby said, “but they are doing it wrong – and I told Big Clay, ‘Hey listen, you are doing this wrong,’ but I spose what’s done is done – hm?” Then she kicked a stone into the foundation as if to prove a point, dusted her hands together, and smiled.
Everywhere they went that morning – from the stable where she brushed her colt, looked at its hooves and immediately took on the look of a person who had been around a stable all of her life, to when she went to pay the bill at Jim’s Convenience and played the punchboard, wiggling her bum, to when she went back to the office and told Lloyd that some of the two by eights at the house were split – she became what she was doing, while Cindi followed her. It was as if she didn’t know Cindi very well – and wanted to impress her with how competent she was, and all that her own independent life offered her.
And everywhere they went Cindi went after her, smiling when people said things, and nervously waiting for the time to pass.
Then finally it was two o’clock – the time when Dr. Savard would leave the hospital and go to his downriver office.
For some reason, just before the appointment, Ruby was compelled to take Cindi shopping. She took out her credit card and bought her two dresses, a hat for summer, a new bathing suit, some underwear. When Cindi tried on one of the dresses, Ruby said, “There now, that’s the new you.”
She smiled at Cindi slightly, then frowned, as if this important decision was still painful, and then went over and hugged her. Dresses hung from racks behind them. She felt Cindi’s body melt into her, just as Cindi’s body melted into anyone she touched, with her tiny eyelashes blinking quickly, and her smile crooked.
Cindi was frightened. She was frightened of the room, and of everything immediately. She was frightened that she would do something, that her body would not look right. Dr. Savard was really a very tiny man, and she stood almost eye to eye with him. So both she and Ruby started to giggle.
He took her blood pressure, and made a joke. Many people said that Savard’s accent was soothing – he spoke in a very comforting voice and this reassured many people.
“Now there is no problem here whatsoever,” he said. “If you don’t want the child, that’s quite all right with us – no one here passes judgement upon you.”
“I’m ashamed,” Cindi said. And she giggled once more. And then held her breath when he looked up.
“Hm.” He looked up, as if he was puzzled. “Hm – oh – don’t be.” But one could tell he hadn’t understood why she said this.
He asked her how she was feeling, and busied himself asking questions that she tried to answer quickly.
She did not want to be frightened of things. And because they were supposed to like each other, they pretended to themselves that they did. But Savard in other circumstances would have had nothing to do with her. And Cindi knew this. So she had nothing to say.
This fear Cindi h
ad of everything around her persisted throughout the questioning. She just wanted to get it all over and go home. She disliked Dr. Savard when she thought she would like him. And she mistrusted his soothing voice.
Cindi, when she looked at him, sneezed, and then sneezed once more – and then again. “Dust,” she said. He smiled. She reminded him, in fact, of one of Fortune’s daughters who was always doing poorly in school. Outside his office there was a gravel lot that ran far away to an old road, with a cul-de-sac sign, the post of which had been painted green, and a long darning needle flew out of the bushes and in front of the sign, moving here and there in the afternoon light.
Then there were some trees also, little ones, their branches looking sticky and hot, and there was a feeling of humidity. The sun hit the front grill of his Porsche, which was parked near the window – he had parked the car at the back because near the front entrance the children would put their fingers on it.
Since Cindi was nearing the end of the first trimester, he might have sent her to Moncton – but because of what happened today, he pretended to himself not to think of it.
Earlier in the day, Savard had made a decision concerning a pregnancy. And he was convinced it was the right decision. A woman had so much fluid at seven months that her kidneys had shut down. Savard took her husband aside and said: “We can save the child but we can’t save her.”
The husband had just come from work. He had gotten a call that his wife had been taken to the hospital.
“Well, she won’t stay here,” the young man said, almost immediately. “She’s been to you before and nothing was wrong. And now yer tellin me – telling us – about it and everything,” he said, losing control, and looking about. “She won’t stay here – she’ll go down to Moncton.” And at the word Moncton, he broke down and started to cry, saying, “She’ll go to Moncton – she will – we’ll go to Moncton.” Savard did not know what to do.
He spoke in French to one of the nurses, who immediately began to rub the young man’s back tenderly. Savard did not think the woman would last an hour, and he wanted to save the child.
Just at that moment Dr. Hennessey walked out of the small supply room behind them. And Savard could not help but feel that the old doctor had been listening to everything and made his appearance just at this time as if on cue. “Well,” he said, looking down at the boy, “why do you want to go to Moncton? What in hell is there in Moncton – what’s wrong?”
Savard gave him the details about Brenda.
“Nonsense,” Hennessey said, “that’s little Brenda Corrigan – nonsense altogether.”
And when Hennessey said this, Savard felt he was being criticized because Hennessey did not like him. He felt Hennessey looked upon him as an enemy, who was “open” to “change.” There was something appealing in Hennessey – in his ability to remain unopened to change. Savard could recount a dozen times that Hennessey went contrary to opinion just because of pride.
“She went into shock in the case room,” he said softly, as if Hennessey would be won over by this.
“Well,” Hennessey said, “if you can’t help her, get an ambulance ready. Get – who will we fetch – Rose Wong – get Rosy Wong with her and we’ll send her down.”
And with that, Hennessey started to give orders to two nurses at the station across the hall, who were pretending to be busy with forms but who had been listening to everything.
Within ten minutes there was an ambulance, the R.N., Rose Wong, a driver, and Dr. Hennessey – and though Savard helped with all of this, prepared the woman who was twenty-two years old, he felt that it was a useless token, and that she wouldn’t be able to make the trip.
Just before Cindi had arrived, he had found out that the woman was now doing fine. And for some reason, people are irritated when they are wrong. “I’m glad,” he said. But secretly he was not.
Ruby felt she had to let Savard know that she also was here and so she continually touched, patted, and kissed Cindi. And Cindi kept saying, “Phew – don’t smother me Rube – go way.”
But suddenly when the procedure started Ruby started to laugh out loud and Savard looked over at her with the perplexed look of a young boy. Then she felt embarrassed by this and left the room. She shook, and felt cold and frightened. The idea of attracting attention to herself was gone. She sat in the waiting room. Suddenly, from behind the door, she could hear Cindi sigh, as if she was being hurt. Cindi sighed, and said, “Oh, oh.” Ruby put her hands over her mouth, and then she went for a walk.
She walked along the road to the Dairy Bar and bought herself an ice cream, and sat out on a bench in the yard. She waved now and then to some people who drove by whom she knew, and felt a strange sudden glee, which she tried to deny that she felt.
Cindi wanted to go home almost immediately. She kept looking out the window because she couldn’t look at Dr. Savard. No more anger had ever come over her than at this moment. She was angry with everyone, especially Ivan and herself.
“How do you feel?” he said finally. He was wearing a short-sleeved summer shirt. This, plus his tan, seemed to make a tremendous impact on her. He was reading a magazine at his desk. The first time he had asked her that question it sounded to Cindi very different. That was because the emphasis on the word “feel” was different – it had a very different meaning. This time, in spite of, or because of, Savard’s gentle way of asking it, it did not mean, how do you feel physically, but how do you feel in some other deeper more poignant way. And Cindi nodded, averted her eyes, and tapped her foot as if impatient with something. “Sure,” she said suddenly, “I’m fine.”
Ruby returned with ice cream for them.
Savard didn’t seem to know what to do with his ice cream. He squinted as he held it, with a napkin about the cone, but didn’t take a lick. Nor did Cindi want hers, until Savard said it might be good if she ate it. They spoke, all of them, about the variety of ice cream flavours now available, and teased Cindi when she said she liked vanilla. All the talk was appropriately low-key.
Then Savard locked the office and they went outside. The day had turned windy, and small typhoons blew about the parking lot, scattering dust and sand.
They all stood together talking, and Savard smiled at Cindi. But she felt the smile a half-hour before was much different.
The sun was falling on the trees in back of them and Cindi was shivering, her ice cream melting on her dress.
Ruby was excited, but when Cindi looked at her and smiled clumsily, she didn’t look back. Then for some reason she started to curse and swear over nothing at all, turning for some reason violently angry that her car wasn’t clean.
Armand Savard was the thirteenth child of nineteen children, and the only one who saw high school or university.
His father worked himself to death, and looked like a ghost at forty, and they ate porcupine all one summer and gave their money to the Catholic church. This is what Armand remembered about his youth.
He trembled whenever he told this story. All his brothers and sisters in the tar-paper shack in summer, while Mr. Bellia stood at the door in his suit, and asked his father to take some friends of his from Sherbrooke fishing out in the bay.
He saw his father smiling without a tooth in his head, and his mother pregnant and sitting on a chair in the corner, while the whole dusty little kitchen smelled of flies and rancid butter. And contrasted to this, the bay looked so blue and clean outside their door.
Sometimes, walking home in the summer, there would be beautiful smells of food coming from the house. His mother would be baking bread for the Feast of the Assumption.
Savard hated these memories, and he was ashamed of his family. He never drove his Porsche there, and he never took his wife there. He was also frightened of his older brother, Fortune, who was a drunk. But it was Fortune who knew that Armand was ashamed of them, and he couldn’t look Fortune in the face.
Fortune, one time, brought him over ten bottles of pickled herring that his wife had done, and then h
e found them in the dump the next week. Fortune never spoke of it, and when Armand spoke about how good the pickled herring was, he looked over Armand’s right shoulder into the distance.
Fortune had paid for Armand’s education. Armand, on the surface, became a meticulous and sophisticated teenager – the kind that only an Acadian can be, with a worldly outlook even though he lived in a shack – while his sisters got married at sixteen and seventeen and his brothers worked in the woods.
He married a woman from Sackville, and he had always felt superior to her, and, as people noticed, superior to women in general. They had four children.
Fortune was a huge, ignorant man, who had hardly learned how to read and write, who was frightened to go into restaurants, and yet Armand had secretly always looked up to him and tried to impress him.
Armand remembered a group of English kids one day had surrounded him at the beach, and how Fortune had come over and had willingly taken the beating to protect his younger brother. And though he was ignorant and went to church just like his father and mother, and blessed himself every time he passed the big church down river, and had his wife bake for the Feast of the Assumption – just like his mother – Armand always felt that he had to prove himself to this man, who so willingly had taken a beating for him when they were youngsters, and had paid for his first suit in 1966.
No matter what Armand did, he could not impress him and the fault lay in the fact that he tried to impress him, with talk that Fortune did not care about or understand. Fortune would only shrug, and even pick at his nose with the flat of his finger and stare morosely about, as if wanting to be impressed left him disappointed.
Fortune didn’t understand things about his brother. He didn’t understand about the pills he gave out – Fortune never had a pill in his life – or the operations. But he still thought the world of his brother.
One day he was told that his brother performed abortions, and all the young women would go to him and have them.
It was a spiteful old woman who had no children of her own, who had always hated their family, who told him, but Fortune was upset. He went home and asked his wife about it. First he had to know what an abortion was. His wife told him.
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