One day she came back to the Elsa after a walk and he was gone. He had left his tools on the deck, along with an opened, warm bottle of beer. She expected him back any minute. She thought he had gone to the store to pick up something for the boat. But night fell and the noise of the wharf rose and floated over to where she made her coffee on the Coleman and tried not to worry.
Days passed. In spite of her best efforts to keep busy, to pretend not to be bothered, her anxiety grew. She couldn’t eat, could barely sleep, and in the mornings, she threw up.
There was a doctor at the cannery in Namu. Irene sat outside the office for two hours and watched people come and go. Finally, she made herself go in. The doctor was a white-haired man, kindly. She told him she thought she was pregnant. He asked her some questions and examined her. He said a blood test would confirm it, but he was pretty close to sure already and by the time he got the test results back, she’d already know herself.
He called her dear. He said Dear, who are you living with here?
Irene was afraid to tell him.
He said he wasn’t there to judge her. He was seventy-five years old, something like that, and he’d seen it all. But he told her she was going to have to start looking after herself. She was too thin. He wanted her to put on a good twenty or thirty pounds. He told her she’d be okay to work for a few months, so she might look in at the cannery. He said, You think about yourself and that child you’re carrying. That’s all you need to worry about now.
She didn’t do anything right away, but as the days turned into two weeks, she realized that Emil might never come back. Her first job was mopping the floor of the cannery. But after a couple of weeks, when they could barely keep up with the volume of fish coming in, she moved to filling tins.
Each night, she returned to the Elsa, made supper on the little stove and wondered when Emil would come walking back up the wharf. The weather was turning and she knew she wouldn’t be able to tolerate the boat all winter long. She was dying for a hot bath. At the end of the day, her hands and feet were so cold, she had to boil hot water and soak them before she could get to sleep.
“Was it Jenny?” I said. “Was she the baby?”
“Let me finish, Maggie,” Rita said. Then more softly, “Okay? But I wonder if you can guess what happened next.”
Irene was making good money at the cannery. She decided to look for a decent place to live. On her next payday, she went to the general store and bought some dishes, pots, a cast iron frying pan, some towels.
She had put on a few pounds, but she wasn’t showing.
There was a redheaded man working at the cannery. His name was Patrick and he was as sweet as peaches. The older Indian ladies Irene worked with liked to tease him. They called him Salmonberry. He even blushed like one, they said. He’d made friends with some of the Chinese men who worked on the cutter. One of their parents ran a Chinese restaurant in town. At lunch break one day, while they sat outside catching the sun before it disappeared for the winter, Patrick invited Irene to come with him to the restaurant that evening. She hesitated about ten seconds, maybe fifteen. Not only had she not eaten in a restaurant for several months, and never in a Chinese one, she liked Patrick. When he smiled, her heart skipped a beat. Later, when the Indian ladies saw them together, they nudged each other and said, Two salmonberries. They belong together.
Rita stopped. We had both heard an owl calling, very close by.
I had been trying not to let Rita see I was crying. I didn’t want her to soften it for me. I wanted to know. But my breath had caught and I had to wipe the string of snot hanging from my nose.
“I often hear owls here,” she said.
“I know.”
“It’s just a superstition.”
“I know.”
“I’ll get you something for that runny nose.”
The night was clear. It was getting late, but pale purple light still showed in the west.
Two salmonberries. That was the story Mom and Dad told Jenny and me. Jenny was born in May 1959. So there was no way there could be another baby. It was Jenny. And Dad was not Jenny’s father. Emil, poor, romantic, beautiful Emil was Jenny’s father. I couldn’t imagine telling her.
Rita handed me a roll of toilet paper and a glass of water.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I hope I haven’t been mistaken, telling you all this,” she said. “It can’t be wrong to tell the truth, can it? I’ve always believed that.”
“Will you tell me about Dad? After they met.”
“I think you’ve heard most of it.”
She didn’t tell Patrick everything right away. She told him she was living on a friend’s boat, but looking for a place for the winter. He told her there was a nice little room for rent in the house he was living in. After they ate their chow mein, they walked over to see it. It was on the top floor and had a window overlooking a creek. There was a bed, a hotplate, and best of all, a private bathroom with a bathtub. Irene was so excited, she told Patrick she wanted to meet the landlady right away. She rented it to her that evening.
That weekend she packed her things into a child’s wagon that one of the fishermen lent her, and she hauled them up to the house. She left the Elsa shut up against the weather as best as she could. She considered leaving a note for Emil, but when she tried to write it, nothing would come. If he wanted to find her, she would be easy enough to find. The rest was so obvious, it didn’t need to be said.
She waited until October to tell Patrick she was pregnant. By that time, she had a sense of how he might react. She told him during lunch break at work. That way she didn’t have to answer a whole lot of questions. He was too nice to reject her outright. He was surprised, she could see that, but his only question was, What will you do if he comes back?
She said, I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.
That night after work as they walked home from the cannery, he asked her to marry him.
“And, as you know, she said yes.” Rita stretched her arms over her head. “Too much sitting.”
I was relieved to know that Dad had known. I didn’t want to think of him being fooled. I didn’t want to think there had been that secret between them all those years.
“The rainy season had started on the coast, so they went to Williams Lake shortly after. Irene was glad to be back to sunshine. Patrick got a logging job and he was away quite a bit. But he was there when she had the baby. When Jenny was born, Patrick said, Another salmonberry. Irene told me that was when she knew she loved him.”
Rita went in the house. She was gone for quite a while. When she came back she had two glasses and the berry wine. She poured some for each of us and raised hers.
“To …” she began, but then she choked up. We clinked our glasses and sat looking out at the night and wondering where she was.
[ THIRTY-ONE ]
WHEN MOM’S STATION WAGON pulled into Rita’s yard Saturday morning, it was Vern who was driving it.
“Who’s that?” Rita asked, her voice teasing, as he stepped out of the car and smiled at me.
“Vern!” I almost ran to him.
“Uncle Leslie had to go clear a rockslide somewhere. He asked me to pick you up.”
“You got your driver’s licence,” I said.
“More or less.”
Rita gave us the lunch she had packed and made me promise to call her.
“I will,” I said, but as I waved and smiled, I felt relieved to drive out of her yard.
“You look pretty comfortable behind the wheel,” I said to Vern.
“Thanks.”
“How long have you been driving?”
“About two weeks. I had to get to work.”
“How come you’re not at work now?”
“I’ve got a few days till they need me again.”
He also looked good, in his white T-shirt and worn corduroys. His skin had darkened from working outside and the muscles of his forearms were taut as he held the wheel.
&n
bsp; “When do you have to be back?”
“Next week,” he said.
We drove the Nakenitses Road with dust flying up behind us and a cooling breeze from the open windows. Vern put the radio on and the rhythm of the road made me sleepy. When we got to the stop sign at the crossroads, I said, “Let’s go to Bella Coola.”
“What’s in Bella Coola?”
“Maybe someone who knows about Mom.”
“I’m game,” said Vern.
“Really?”
“Sure.”
“Should you ask Uncle Leslie?”
“I know what he’ll say. So not asking will save time.”
“Will he ream you out?”
“Doubt it. Unless we don’t come back. Just jokin’.”
“I’ve heard the road’s kind of hairy.”
“The Freedom Road,” said Vern.
“Have you been on it?”
“Oh yeah. On it, up it, down it.” Vern giggled.
“Are you nervous?”
He started to sing. “I’ve been everywhere, man. Breathed the mountain air, man, travelled I done my share, man. I’ve been everywhere.” He giggled some more and so did I. “No, not nervous at all.”
“Maybe we should stop and eat lunch first.”
“Good idea.”
Vern pulled the car to the side of the road and we got out. The sun was hot so we made our way down the ditch to a rail fence that was shaded by fragrant pines. Perched on the fence, we ate the egg sandwiches Rita had made for us. Something large was walking down the highway, coming our way.
“I hope it’s not a bear,” Vern said.
“Are you afraid of bears?”
“I have an average, normal fear of bears.”
“Lightning, bears … I wonder what else you’re afraid of. Look, they’re horses.”
“Phew,” said Vern.
Two horses walked single file and riderless along the side of the road, heads down, as if they’d been travelling all day and were getting tired. One was a bay and the other was a beautiful brown and white pinto. They were sleek, well cared for horses with combed tails. They stopped parallel to us and observed us, then munched some grass, and moved on.
Across the road in the distance, mountains rose up blue and snow-topped and a small blue lake interrupted the green of the meadow. Vern noticed it at the same moment I did.
“It’s probably full of weeds.”
“But it looks so tempting.”
We straddled the rail fence and ran for it. As we got close, our feet sank in the boggy ground.
“It’s mucky,” Vern said.
“Yeah, but the water looks nice.”
“I dare you.”
“What’ll you give me if I go in?” I said.
He laughed as he took hold of my shoulders. “My admiration?”
“No way,” I said and grabbed him around the waist. We struggled into the shallows and then we both went down.
“It’s cold!” Vern yelped.
“I’m wet,” I said, pushing myself onto my hands and knees.
“That was the idea.”
“Your idea,” I said and tackled him again.
Reeking of muck, and snuffing boggy water, we struggled out of the lake and picked our way through the meadow and back to the car.
“That was refreshing,” said Vern.
“I have a change of clothes.” I smiled at him. “Do you?”
“I have my dirty laundry I was taking to Uncle Leslie’s. You won’t mind if I put on my dirty work jeans?”
“Go right ahead.” I laughed.
Vern and I changed on opposite sides of the car. It felt good to stand for a minute with the sun on my bare damp skin and to know that I was with Vern, driving west as far as we could go. I looked over and he was looking at me.
We left the plateau at the same place a large roadside sign read, Chains must be carried by ALL vehicles.
“Does that mean us?” I said.
“It’s just in winter. Chill out, Maggie. Vern George is at the wheel.”
Another sign, just after the other but bigger: Steep grade ahead. Test your brakes.
Vern looked at me. He made an elaborate show of pumping the brakes. “Brakes—functioning. Gas tank—on half. Oil—present, as far as I know. Everything’s copacetic.”
The blue mountains that lay ahead were wilder, more remote than the ones we were used to. The snow on their tops was such a vibrant white, they looked pretend, like a magical land lay at the end of the road.
“No turning back now,” Vern said.
To the south, the mountains repeated themselves to the limit of our sight. There seemed to be no habitation in there, no roads, no towns. The forest thickened, spruce and firs with shreds of black moss caught in their branches, interspersed with ponds and bogs. A small black bear was eating by the roadside. Vern looked at me pointedly, but didn’t comment. A light rain began to dot the dusty windshield. We had begun our descent.
Along the roadside, wild roses bloomed luxuriantly and we cracked the windows to catch their scent and the hint of rain. We crawled along. The edge of the road, which dropped off into trees and canyon, was less than a car width away. The road was built for escape, a way to get out when the rain and the mountains were getting to you. It must not have seemed necessary to have two lanes. Maybe the road builders had ploughed through in a frenzy, not thinking about the traffic that would eventually have to travel back in.
A pickup truck was approaching.
“Oh boy,” said Vern.
“Just stay on the inside,” I said.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere near that edge.”
Vern tucked in close to the mountainside to let him pass. The truck was thick with mud, and the driver waved and went on, leaving us alone again. Moments later, we drove into the rain.
“Shit,” said Vern under his breath. Then, “Fear not, Maggie! Vern George is in control.”
“I’m not afraid,” I said.
“Good, because you shouldn’t be afraid. What’s there to be afraid of?” He kept his eyes straight ahead as he talked, and his knuckles were pale with tension on the steering wheel. “Besides the fact that we’re sliding down an eighteen percent grade, five feet from plunging into the abyss? I’m not afraid either. It’s all downhill. Nothing to it.”
I smiled at him, though he didn’t see it. I had the strangest feeling, not fear, but surrender, like the road was swallowing us, our tires barely clinging to earth. I was grateful to Vern, in this car, in the rain, him cracking jokes.
Our windshield wipers moaned as the downpour came full force. The road became a slime of mud. The tires slid more than rolled. Vern pumped the brakes and steered to the inside. There was no need to touch the gas pedal. He did everything he could to slow us down for the curves.
“Smells funny,” I said.
“It’s the brakes.”
“Should we stop?”
Vern laughed weakly. “I don’t think we can.”
There was nowhere to stop anyway, and if we did stop in that mud, we might not get going again.
It was hard to tell how many feet deep the canyon was, maybe a thousand, and how many rusted-out car bodies might be at the bottom.
“How deep is this mud?” Vern asked.
We were creeping along so slowly, I opened the door to check. We were about six inches deep in thick sticky ooze, being sucked downhill by gravity. “Deep enough,” I said.
We could see the height we were at, hills and mountaintops at eye level. We went down and down, and then the road spit us out into a broad green valley with trees towering over us and the mountains so close. Vern pulled over and dropped his head to the steering wheel.
“Holy shit, I wish I had a smoke right now,” he said.
He began to giggle. Then we both giggled ridiculously till tears streamed down our faces and the adrenalin had been evenly shaken throughout our bodies.
“I don’t ever want to drive that road again,” sa
id Vern. He looked out the window. “This looks like a pretty good place to live, right? We can just stay here forever.”
We had driven back into sun. Vapour rose from the road. Everything looked incredibly green and vibrant and I didn’t want the day to end.
We drove along Highway 20, looking for a good road. When we found one that looked promising we took it. Deeper into the woods, the land rose up and closed in around us.
“Bear shit,” said Vern, pointing ahead of us. “We’re not alone.”
We stopped beside a scree that left a little room for us to pull off the road. A stream ran beside the road, and there looked to be a path leading into the forest.
“Want to see where that goes?” I asked Vern.
“Looks like up this mountain.”
“We might find berries.”
“And the source of the stream. Maybe hot springs.”
We set out, the path quickly disappearing among the thick trees. We kept going, climbing gradually and steadily. Moss and rock and huckleberry bushes, their delicate leaves catching the sunlight. I tried a berry but it wasn’t ripe enough yet. The trees thinned and the wind picked up. Coming out onto rock, there were just a few scrubby trees to break the wind. We had been breathing heavily with the effort of climbing and when we stopped, I had the feeling someone was watching us. We sat looking down on the tops of trees, as the wind swept over the rock. Animal paths wound through the bushes.
“There’s something eerie about this place,” Vern said.
“Maybe it’s the wind.”
“Yeah, maybe. Let’s get out of it.”
Back down in the trees, the wind seemed to grow even stronger, but it was high in the treetops, which were beginning to sway wildly. We weren’t paying a lot of attention to retracing our steps and we found ourselves walking in swampy ground with tall ferns growing from rotting, moss-covered stumps. Through the wind, I thought I heard a voice call out a single word.
“This terrain isn’t familiar,” said Vern.
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