The Leaving Year

by Pam McGaffin

  I pull on my old clothes, which have been cleaned, thank God. They only smell faintly of fish. Once I’m dressed, an orderly escorts me out to the hospital’s lobby and into a glassed-in waiting room that’s all bright colors, rubber mats, and plastic. A little girl, her blond hair sprouting from poodle barrettes, slides down a pink slide while a little boy climbs up a lime green cube with holes. This, apparently, is where I belong. If you’re not an adult, you’re a baby. Right.

  A woman, who I assume is the mom, looks up from her magazine as I take a seat next to the glass wall. From here, I can watch who comes in and out of the hospital’s main entrance or I can read. Next to me is a table with Highlights magazines and board books for the kiddos and several issues of Good Housekeeping and Reader’s Digest for the adults. The only current-events magazine is a Time with a graphic of a pointed gun next to the headline, THE GUN IN AMERICA. Hmm. No thanks. I think I’d rather read this Good Housekeeping article on Julie Andrews. I loved The Sound of Music. I pick it up and flip through the pages, which are mostly advertisements, and set it down again. I can’t read. I’m too preoccupied by the thought of my mother coming through that entrance. I watch as a man holds the door open for another man exiting on crutches, his right leg in a new, white cast. These people may be sick or injured, but they’re all free to come and go as they please. It’s a drag being underage.

  I force myself to pick up the magazine again. I don’t want to see her walk in. The article I turn to is by a lady doctor. “Maybe you’re not too fat,” it says. Ugh! Aren’t there more important things to write about? When I was on Nagoon, I didn’t think about my weight. I ate because I was hungry, and my clothes got looser and looser. Just get me through the day; that’s all I asked of my body. And it did the job, over and over again. Of course, now it aches something awful, but that will pass. My bruises and wounds will heal. When it comes to surviving, I’ll take strong over skinny any day of the week.

  So, I guess my trip up here wasn’t a total waste. I got strong. I met Jody. I put my relationship with Sam to the test. None of those things would have happened if I’d stayed in Annisport. If only I had a few more days up here.

  SHE sees me before I see her.

  “Oh, honey!”

  I look up to see her tottering through the door on heels that sink into the rubber-mat flooring of the family room. I stand and am immediately enveloped in a fierce, perfume-y hug that makes me wince with pain. “Ow, that kind of hurts,” I say, my chin denting her bouffant.

  “Sorry!” She releases me and I see a skeletal version of the mother I remember. I know the shock must show on my face because she looks away as if embarrassed. Her makeup can’t hide the dark circles around her eyes or fill in the hollows below her cheekbones. Her hair, I notice, has thinned and dulled under all that hairspray. She’s stylishly dressed, as always, but her pale green pantsuit hangs on her.

  She reaches up to cradle my face in her hands, shocking me with her cold fingers. She turns my head so she can examine the bandage there. “Do you have a headache? How’s your neck?” She holds me at arm’s length, eyes filling with tears.

  “I’m sore, but I’ll be okay. Really.”

  She comes in to hug me again, then remembers. Her hands stroke my arms as she pulls away. “Oh, Ida, I thought I’d lost you.” Her voice shakes.

  “I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. The woman sitting nearby is staring at us. We’re probably more interesting than her magazine or her kids. They’re in a corner playing with some noisy toys, including one that makes animal sounds. “Uh, do you want to go to someplace a little quieter?”

  “There’s a café nearby,” she says. “Are you at all hungry?”

  I feel like I could ask her the same question. “Sure.”

  She holds a finger up, asking me to wait a moment. She sets her purse down on the magazine table, fishes out a tissue, and dabs at her eyes and nose.

  THE café has epoxy-topped tables, like the kind dad used to make. These are covered in pennies—boring—but at least they give me something to look at besides Mom’s gaunt face. The waitress brings us menus. Mom says all she wants is tea and toast; I order a turkey club sandwich and a Coke. The waitress leaves, and I’m stuck trying to think of something to say. The pile of issues between us has been growing for so long—since Dad first went missing, and maybe even earlier—that I don’t know where to start. If I was as bold as Dena, or even Jody, I’d just start talking, but I’m timid old me.

  “So, how was your trip up here?”

  “I don’t like to fly.” Mom takes a paper napkin out of the holder and spreads it over her lap.

  “You flew?”

  She chuckles at the question. “Of course.”

  The waitress comes with her tea and my Coke. Mom opens a tea packet and drops the bag into the miniature pot of hot water.

  “I had to get up here as soon as I heard about your accident.” Mom’s hand shakes as she pours tea into her cup. When she tries to take a sip, her cup shakes so much I want to reach out and steady it so she doesn’t burn herself.

  This shaking, when did that start? I’m pretty sure I know why it started. Me. I’m the reason she’s lost weight and looks like she hasn’t slept in days. I’m the reason she got on a plane even though she hates to fly and spent money we don’t have to pay my hospital bill. Selfish doesn’t even begin to describe how awful I’ve been.

  Less than an hour ago, the only thing I cared about was going to see Trinity, so much so that an escape crossed my mind. I still desperately want to hear what Trinity can tell me, but not if it’s going to push my mother over the edge. And she looks perilously close to the edge right now. A meeting with her husband’s mistress, and maybe even Dad himself, probably wouldn’t be good for her nerves.

  The waitress comes with my turkey club and her toast. I’m embarrassed by how big my plate is compared to hers.

  “You can have some of my sandwich,” I tell her.

  “Oh, no thank you.”

  “I really am sorry, you know, that I worried you,” I tell the pennies in the table. “We can go home as soon as you want.”

  “You did put me through hell.” She bends down to find my eyes.

  “I know, I can see, um …”

  “It’s that obvious?”

  I nod.

  “My boss, the owner of the shop, is worried about me. She thinks I’ve lost two dress sizes, but I’m afraid to check.” She takes a small bite of her toast.

  I push the little pot of jam on the table over to her. She laughs, but it’s a weary laugh.

  “Why did you run away?” she asks. “I think I know, but I want to hear it from you.”

  “Actually, I didn’t really run away.” I search for the words I couldn’t find when I was talking to the nurse. “I ran to. There’s a difference.”

  “O … kay,” she says, inviting me to explain.

  I take a sip of my Coke. Okay, here goes. I just wish I had Trinity’s letter with me so I could show Mom I wasn’t acting on a complete whim. “I needed to find out about Dad. He was doing something up here besides fishing.”

  Mom clenches her jaw, but doesn’t say anything. I press on, telling her what I learned in the order I learned them. The Salty Dog and the Native Alaskan stories. Dad’s friendship with an ex-prostitute named Two-Bit. The note I found from T, who turned out to be Trinity. Our exchange of letters and the invitation to visit that I chickened out on at the last minute. I also admit to rummaging through Dad’s workshop, but not her bedroom.

  “Well,” she says finally. “I knew about the snooping.”

  “You did?”

  She nods. “But that’s beside the point, now, isn’t it?” Her mouth becomes a pressed line. “So, you’ve yet to see this woman, this Trinity.”

  “No, I mean, yes. That’s correct.”

  “And what would you hope to gain by seeing her?”

  I try to remember the reasons I gave Sam that day in the Filipino bunkhouse. The con
versation itself is a blur because we were drunk, but it helped me figure out why I was up here.

  “The truth. About Dad.”

  Mom closes her eyes. Her eye shadow has melted into two blue lines across her lids. When she opens them and looks at me, I see the pain that’s been accumulating there for years: The hard life of being married to a fisherman. The fights with her in-laws. The husband who didn’t come home. And now me.

  “Without the truth, it’s easy to assume the worst,” I add.

  “Hmm.” She gives me this quivering half-smile, like she’s going to break down any second. I have to look away before she does.

  CHAPTER 27

  Tell-tale

  A light piece of string, yarn, rope, or plastic attached to the standing rigging to indicate wind direction

  A cab deposits us in front of a big green house. Fortunately, Ketchikan is small enough that the cabbies don’t really need addresses. We just said we wanted to go to “the center for Native kids,” and he took us to the right place.

  There’s no sign in front. It just looks like a regular house with peeling white trim and a wraparound porch that’s slightly droopy in the middle. Mom and I get to the front door to find it propped open with a rock. Do we go in?

  “Well, are you going to knock or what?” Mom asks.

  My legs shake as my knuckles meet the rough painted wood of the door. What if Dad is in there? I knock once, twice, three times. There are people inside. I can hear them and see their shadows moving, but no one comes to the door. So Mom and I ease our way inside without dislodging the rock, and we find ourselves in what looks like a rec room, with games and tables on a paint-spattered floor.

  The walls are covered in posters, mostly of rock ’n’ roll bands. Two boys with their long hair in ponytails play an aggressive game of Ping-Pong while three girls sit at a card table sewing a button design onto a big piece of black felt. They strain to talk over the sounds of a boy playing a hand-held drum. An enormous, furry dog ambles over to us for a sniff. I pet his soft head, thankful that we’re not as invisible as I feel.

  I venture farther into the room, my body buzzing with the anticipation of a sighting. Either I see him. Or he sees me, or Mom, or this somewhat alarming bandage on my head. I’d rather be surprised, so I decide to study the posters on the walls. There’s Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, John Wayne, and some guy named Ray Mala who’s old-fashioned handsome. The note attached to the poster tells me he was the first Native Alaskan movie star, appearing in a 1933 film called Eskimo, billed as “the biggest picture ever made” by MGM. That surprises me, but not as much as the poster that shows how the state of Alaska compares in size to the rest of the United States. Set one inside the other, it spans the entire country, stretching from Florida to California. It’s so big you could disappear in it and never be found. Maybe that’s exactly what Dad did, because I don’t think he’s in this house.

  “Are you with First Lutheran?” The voice is too young.

  I turn around to find the boy with the drum standing in front of Mom.

  “No, I’m not,” she says.

  I step in. “Is Trinity here?”

  “She’s upstairs.” He points to some stairs in the back of the room and returns to his drumming.

  “Ladies?” The voice is too deep, but I jump anyway.

  It’s not Dad but a man with leather-brown skin and tattoos up his arms and neck who says, “Can I help you?”

  “Uh, yes, we’re here to see Trinity?” I say.

  “Right this way.” He leads us up the stairs. “Sorry, things are a little crazy around here. Potlatch tomorrow.” We walk down a hallway of doors until we get to the last one. He knocks and sticks his head in, then out again. “Go on in,” he says.

  A woman with long gray hair sits at a messy desk in a room cluttered with clothes and art supplies. Trinity. I hope my shock doesn’t show. I expected someone a lot younger. She’s dressed like a hippie—peasant blouse, knit vest, and a long cotton skirt that swishes around her legs as she walks around her desk. She greets us in turn, taking our hands in hers with a firm grip. I can’t help but stare at her many rings and bracelets, all silver, all with Indian designs.

  “Yakíei yee y·t · xwal geini. That means, ‘It is wonderful to look upon your faces.’ You must be Ida.” She turns to my mom. “And you the mother.”

  “Yes,” Mom says. “Christine.”

  “I had a dream you would come, but I didn’t think it would be by way of St. Joe’s.” She chuckles, and I realize she’s referring to the hospital.

  How did she know?

  “Life’s a journey with many bends and detours,” she says to me. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “So am I,” Mom says with a tight smile.

  “I don’t know how much Steve told you.” She looks at Mom, then at me.

  “Nothing,” we say at the same time.

  “Okay, well, how about I give you a tour?” She sweeps an arm around the room. “This is my messy office. I founded C-NAY seven years ago this June. C-NAY stands for Center for Native Alaskan Youth. Our mission is to connect Native Alaskan teens to their heritage through the arts—literature, music, dancing, you name it. Steve was one of our most ardent supporters.” Trinity bows her head. “We all miss him terribly.”

  Okay, so Dad’s obviously not living here, unless Trinity is lying. But she seems really sincere. If he is still alive somewhere, she’s either not aware of it or she should get an Academy Award for best actress.

  Mom makes a sound like a soft moan. Is she agreeing? I can’t tell. I’m just glad Trinity can’t read my thoughts as I try to switch my bordello-mistress assumptions with this reality. She leads us back downstairs. “Things aren’t usually this chaotic. Well, I take that back—they are—but this is a bit more than usual. Potlatch tomorrow.”

  “Yes, the man who showed us in told us,” Mom says.

  “That’s Russ, my program director.” She tilts her head for us to follow her. “I’d like to take you to the new long house first. It’s only a short walk up the hill from here.”

  Mom casts a doubtful glance at her shoes but doesn’t object. Minutes later, as she minces her way up the steep, narrow road, she has that grim set to her jaw that says she’s out to prove herself. I walk next to her, matching her pace, while Trinity strides ahead.

  Finally, the road dead-ends in a mossy clearing. A tall totem pole marks a gravel path that leads to a large, rectangular, brown building. The air here smells new, like it was born of rain and cedar trees. Of course, that’s what they used. The wood was carved and planked and painted with Native totems in red, black, and white.

  “This pole here is what you’d call a family ancestry pole,” Trinity says looking up. “It represents the first boys and girls to come to our Center.”

  When she starts talking about the master carver and the ceremonies they had to make the pole authentic, my thoughts drift. I’m more interested in the totems on the pole. My hand can’t resist touching the smooth rounded surfaces of their features. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I sense more than finely carved cedar and paint. I sense spirits.

  “Some of the kids knew which clans they came from,” Trinity is saying. “But those who didn’t know chose their totems, or rather the totems chose them. They went on spirit walks and thought about those who came before.”

  She points to a beaver. “This boy is going to study law so he can come back to help his people. Beavers are said to be creative and very determined, capable of constructing fine arrows. Lawyers are kind of like that, don’t you think?”

  I shrug. “The only totem I really know is Raven. Dad used to tell me the creation stories.”

  “Ah, yes.” She points toward the top of the pole at a bird figure with a long black beak that looks like a grin between two piercing oval eyes. “There’s our Raven. What we’re trying to do here,” she continues, “is give these young people something they can believe in. They took their time choosing the totem that be
st represented them. Their totems became a source of pride.”

  She points to a round, white face that’s vaguely feminine. “Now the girl behind this moon, she had a habit of running off at night. Her grandmother brought her to the center, didn’t know what to do. Getting involved in this pole project helped her discover her path. The moon is the earth’s guardian at night, but her own nighttime wandering stopped. Her grandmother told me later that she came home too tired to do anything but eat and go to bed.” Trinity chuckles. “I still hear from her. She says Jody is doing well. Wants to go to college.”

  “Jody?”

  Mom and Trinity both turn to me, surprised. “You know her?”

  “I-I just saw her. We were roommates at the Nagoon cannery.”

  “It is a small world. How is she doing, anyway?”

  “Okay. Good. But she still wanders off occasionally.”

  I shoot Mom a look, telling her I’ll explain later, though she already knows about my accident. A wave of sadness passes through me. Red Beard and his friend clearly weren’t the ogres I thought they were. I never got the chance to thank them, or Jody, for rescuing me. I didn’t even get to say good-bye.

  “That girl has an independent streak a mile wide. Something tells me you share that in common.” Trinity winks. “I hope you two can stay in touch.”

  “Yeah, so do I.” Then it dawns on me. “She must have known Dad!”

  “Everyone knew your dad,” Trinity says. “He only visited a few times each summer, but the kids had a great time with him, and they all wanted to go out on his boat.”

  I get a pang of jealousy thinking about him sharing himself with others. Those times on the boat, hearing about Raven and the stars. I thought that magic was for me and me alone.