Through Different Eyes

by Karen Charleson

  Jasmine began to fuss. Brenda got her bottle ready. She fed and rocked her daughter gently, hoping that she would sleep. There were still no voices coming from the other room. She did not need to see her parents to know that they were sitting in the same positions as when she had looked in on them. She did not need to see them to know that they were unable to look at one another. It suddenly occurred to Brenda that they might be waiting for her to leave the kitchen and retreat to her bedroom upstairs.

  Eventually, she decided to take Jasmine out for a long walk instead. That would give her parents the time they needed. After all, it was a beautiful day. The westerly wind was steady, and just strong enough to keep away the fog and prevent the day from growing too hot. She gathered a few things for Jasmine and was soon ready. She made sure to shut the kitchen door loudly when she left.

  Brenda walked with her daughter down the trail alongside Nona’s house. Sure, let Nona think they had all been kicked out. What would that matter? She continued on toward the older part of the village; she passed the Band Office and crossed the softball field to reach the shoreline. A few kids were already swimming even though the tide was out. She walked the length of Village Beach. She watched the white-capped waves; it was one of those rare days when the biggest wind stayed offshore for a little while. On the beach, it was perfect weather for a picnic.

  She thought of giving Jimmy’s store another try. She would buy a juice box or something and sit down by the river. Brenda was already headed in that direction when she realized that she was bound to run into people. Fortunately, everyone she had already seen had been far enough away that she had not needed to stop and chat. People might have already heard about what Carolyn had done. News travelled fast in Kitsum, especially with someone like Carolyn driving it. That woman! No doubt she was already boasting about facing down Martin and forcing him to take “his” baby. Brenda looked back at the length of beach she had just crossed. There were only a few kids there and a couple of dogs. She sat on a log, and kept bouncing her daughter as though she were walking.

  Soon, Jasmine began to squirm. Brenda could not sit on the log all day. For about the hundredth time, she wished that Marcie was back home in Kitsum. She would have taken Jazz there in a moment. By now, she would have told Marcie the whole story. Her friend would have done her best to stop her from worrying about the situation too. She would have told her jokes or silly stories to make her laugh. The two of them would have watched Gabriel and Jasmine while imagining the two of them growing up together in Kitsum, just as the two girls had grown up together. Now none of that was going to happen.

  Brenda was walking past the school on her way to see her grandparents when she realized it was a weekday. Michael would be at work, and Monica would be alone. Impulsively, she decided to pay her aunt a visit. Besides Marcie, Monica was the one person she could speak with about everything that was going on at home.

  It was the first time that Brenda had visited Monica here. Even when her aunt had initially taken the job and the “apartment,” Brenda had not gone. She had been too embarrassed then, too acutely aware of her pregnancy to venture out of her own house. She nearly changed her mind when she reached the door, but Jasmine was on the verge of screaming and that strengthened her resolve. She quickly rapped twice. Maybe she’ll be out. Brenda had scarcely completed the thought when the door opened and Monica’s face betrayed its astonishment.

  “What’s wrong?” Surely Brenda would only have come to see her in the event of an emergency. “Is Ruby all right? The kids?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Nothing,” Brenda reassured her. “Everyone’s okay. We just stopped by to say hello. That’s all.”

  Monica burst into a grin and ushered Brenda and Jasmine inside. “Excuse the stuff all over the place. Sit down anywhere. I’m trying to pack.”

  Brenda saw that Monica’s place really was a mess. It was also even tinier than Monica’s descriptions. There were piles of books and papers and assortments of dishes and food in seemingly random locations. For some reason, the disarray relaxed her a little. She cleared off a kitchen chair and passed Jasmine to Monica. Before the tea had even steeped, she had told Monica about the bizarre incident at home.

  Monica’s eyes grew round. “You’re kidding?” She interrupted only twice, and each time, Brenda shook her head before continuing.

  “Wow,” Monica breathed once Brenda had finished.

  Then to make sure that she had understood it all correctly, her aunt asked her to repeat the whole story.

  “Holy cow!” Monica was still flabbergasted. “I’m glad you came here.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Brenda realized that she meant it. “I couldn’t stay at home. They wouldn’t talk until I left.”

  “No,” her aunt agreed. “They wouldn’t.”

  Brenda and Monica both made the same exasperated face. It was the identical expression that they used to make to one another when Monica was in high school and they had shared a bedroom. Brenda had only been young then — she had still been in elementary school — but Monica had always treated her as an equal, and never as a little kid. They began to laugh. Tension evaporated as quickly and completely as summer fog on its way out of the harbour.

  “How long do you think I should wait?”

  “A month,” Monica responded, and they both began laughing all over again. “Seriously, Bren, I don’t know, but I’d give them the afternoon anyways.”

  They ended up enjoying the visit. Brenda and Monica took turns holding Jazz. They also packed piles of stuff into boxes and labelled them. When Brenda looked at the clock — it had been hidden behind a tower of books — she was surprised to see that it was nearly four o’clock. She stiffened involuntarily. As good as the afternoon had been for her and Monica, they no longer lived in the past. Things were different now. “When does he get back?”

  Monica almost whispered, “Soon.”

  “Well, Mom and Dad have had long enough.” Brenda rose to leave. Monica began to dissuade her niece from going, but Brenda’s sober look stopped her in mid-sentence.

  “Hey, why don’t you leave Jazz here? I can bring her over later tonight.”

  That was a good plan. That way, if things were still too weird at home, she could just head back out without worrying about where to take Jasmine. She nodded and murmured her thanks. Her priority for the moment was putting a safe distance between herself and the school before Michael showed up. She had bared enough of her soul for one day.

  When Brenda got home, she was surprised to hear her Aunt Kate’s voice coming from the living room. There was no sign of her mother or the kids in the kitchen.

  “Is that you, Brenda?”

  Ruby sounded okay. Perhaps things had been ironed out. She entered the front room.

  “Where’s Jasmine?”

  “With Monica, Mom. She’s bringing her back after supper.”

  “Supper, my God.”

  “Never mind, Ruby,” her father said. Her mother sat back down.

  Brenda saw that the baby — Dwayne? — was asleep on the couch beside her mother. Her father was still in the armchair. Aunt Kate sat on the small sofa, and Brenda sat down beside her. She was joining the conversation, whether they all liked it or not.

  “So,” Kate seemed to pick up where she had previously left off. “I will speak with Carolyn and Charmayne. They can’t go tossing a baby around like this. That would be abandonment, by both the mother and the grandmother. But I need to have a very clear answer from you both. Are you willing to keep him here for now?” She looked first to Martin, and then to Ruby.

  Brenda watched as her father nodded in the affirmative. Then she heard her mother quietly answer, “Yes, we will keep him.”

  After that, Kate rose to leave. Brenda sat where she was in stunned silence. This baby was staying. This baby who was her father’s child. He was — she had a difficult time with the words, even
in her head — her own brother. When her mother and father got up to see Kate out the door, Brenda went to sit beside “Dwayne” on the couch. He was smaller than Jasmine, that was for sure. She stared at his black hair, his little nose, and his one clenched fist that had worked itself out of the blanket. The baby boy slept on, still oblivious of her existence.

  TWENTY-NINE

  After Monica repeated to him what Brenda had told her, Michael made a hasty remark about people thinking that his family had problems. When Monica glared at him, he dropped the subject and played with Jasmine instead. He was certain that his daughter was already smiling at him.

  After they had eaten supper, Monica wrapped Jasmine in her blankets and left for Ruby’s. She was so busy going over in her head what had happened that she failed to see Charlie and Molly coming towards her. Usually, she was glad to see Charlie, but this evening she was not in the mood for neighbourly conversation. Charlie said that they were just going for a short walk. He talked about the weather in Kitsum and how much his kids were enjoying visiting their grandmother. Then, out of the blue, he changed the subject.

  “Look, my mom feels bad about what Carolyn did. It doesn’t help much, I know, but you should know that my mom tried to stop her, to make her see sense and think about what she was doing.”

  Monica nodded and smiled weakly.

  “Yeah, well…in case I don’t see you guys before we go, tell Michael I’ll stay in touch.”

  “I’ll tell him, and…” She was not sure what to say about Nona talking to Carolyn.

  Charlie seemed to understand. He was a genuinely nice guy. She was glad that she had run into him. He had made her less anxious, and had put her in a better frame of mind to see her sister.

  Instead of walking right into Ruby’s kitchen as she usually did, Monica knocked and called out. She waited for her sister to answer before she entered the house. Martin, Ruby, and Brenda were sitting at the table. It looked like they had just finished eating. The kids were not home yet. She passed Jasmine to Brenda and sat down on a kitchen chair. Charmayne’s child lay asleep in Jasmine’s crib. Monica could not help but stare.

  “Are you hungry?” Ruby asked automatically.

  “We already ate.”

  Brenda smiled over at her. “Thanks for keeping Jazz.”

  Monica watched her family and waited for someone to speak. There was an air of discomfort in the kitchen, and yet Ruby looked surprisingly in control. Martin mostly kept his eyes down on his plate.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow, Monica.” Ruby gave her a meaningful look.

  Monica jumped up at once. “I better get going,” she said. No one argued.

  She had almost reached the door when she heard Martin’s voice. “Monica, tell Michael that I want to have a word with him sometime. No rush. So make sure you tell him that too — there’s no big rush.”

  “Okay.” Monica had answered without turning around. She had no idea what Michael had to do with any of this. She brushed aside her burning curiosity and stepped out of the house.

  The sun had already gone behind the mountain. It would be dark in half an hour. The summer days were rapidly shrinking. Monica was glad for the walk home. She strolled leisurely, taking a detour along the ocean front to breathe in the salt air. A trace of the afternoon’s westerly wind still lingered.

  THIRTY

  Charlie was leaving Kitsum in less than a week. He reminded his mother about the open invitation for her to return to Hartley Bay. He and Molly, he had repeated firmly, were very serious. They wanted her to stay with them. The kids wanted her. None of them were going to stop asking.

  They did not expect her to give up her home in Kitsum. They just wanted her to spend the school year in Hartley Bay. Charlie would bring her back to Kitsum by June, or earlier if she wanted. He made it sound so simple. As though Nona could just pick up and leave everything for nearly an entire year. The whole idea had struck Nona as preposterous. She was sixty years old, for heaven’s sake. Why was Charlie being so insistent?

  Martin had not been out fishing. Nona knew that the season was winding down, and that it was almost time to put the gillnet drum on the Pacific Queen again for fall fishing. She also knew that Carolyn’s grandchild had now been at the Joe residence for five full days, and that Kate visited daily. Monica was in and out with Brenda’s baby, once with Michael, and the other times by herself. Old Peter and Susan Joe had been over to visit. Ruby and Brenda were often out in the yard, and the kids played around the house frequently. There had been no sign of Carolyn though. No sign at all.

  It looked like the baby boy was there to stay. Brenda appeared to be on better terms with her aunt and her baby’s father. Martin and Ruby appeared okay. The whole Joe family seemed to be holding together and keeping on as normal, even after everything that had happened.

  Maybe Charlie had been right. Things had a way of working out in Kitsum.

  Charlie, Molly, Harry, Jen, and Maureen were going back to Hartley Bay. She would have less than a week to get ready. Well, what if she could manage it? Her son and daughter-in-law were right there to help her. The three of them would be able to store away her stuff for the winter. Some of her belongings would be musty when she returned, but those things could be aired out. She could safely leave the key with Martin and Ruby and they would check on the house as often as she wished. Nona really had no excuse to stay home. Still, she hesitated.

  The next morning at breakfast, her youngest grandchild asked her a question. “How come you don’t want to come home with us, Grandma?”

  Nona did not answer. She saw the hurt look on Maureen’s face. Still, she said nothing.

  The words she wanted to use were stuck inside her mouth. She could not quite get them out. Charlie and Molly stared at her.

  “Well, I can’t just sit here all day,” Nona finally muttered. “There’s lots of cleaning and packing to do, on account of our needing to leave so soon.”

  Charlie stared at her, open-mouthed. Then his smile grew larger and larger.

  “Grandma is coming to Hartley Bay with us,” he told his children.

  Nona swore that the smile did not completely leave her son’s face for the rest of the week.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thank you to Karen Haughian, publisher of Signature Editions. Without your vision and belief in Through Different Eyes, this book would not exist.

  Thank you to Garry Thomas Morse. Your insights, advice, and solid editing made this a much stronger novel.

  Thank you to my husband, Stephen Charleson. The ways of seeing and knowing the world that you have opened up for me continue to keep me amazed and grounded.

  Thank you to the beautiful people and loving families of the West Coast. You are truly inspirational.

  Thank you also to this place I am honoured to call home: A-yi-saqh, Hesquiat Harbour. I cannot imagine having written from anywhere else.

  For so much, a-tiq-shitls see-hilth (I am grateful to you all).

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Through Different Eyes is Karen Charleson’s first novel, although she has published three science textbooks with McGraw-Hill Ryerson and has had numerous articles and essays appear in such diverse publications as Canadian Geographic, the Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Sun, and Canadian Literature. Karen holds an MA in Integrated Studies from Athabasca University. She is a member through marriage of the House of Kinquashtakumtlth and the Hesquiaht First Nation on the mid-west coast of Vancouver Island. She is a mother of six, as well as a grandmother. Along with her husband, Karen operates Hooksum Outdoor School in the traditional Hesquiaht territories that they call home.

 

 

 
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