Tears in the Grass

by Lynda A. Archer

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he said. “I’ve had enough. I thought you were dying back there. I’m so far behind schedule for this run I’m losing money. I’ve called the police, another expense out of my pocket, and in a few minutes I’ll call them again, after they’ve talked to your daughter and she figures out what to do with this nutcase mother of hers.”

  “Can you please help me down? I need to use the washroom.”

  “I don’t know if I can trust you. Are you going to take off? Well, actually, it’s no concern of mine if you take off. I’ll be free of you.” He slipped his huge hands under her arms and swung her to the ground.

  Elinor, hunched over, her knees stiff and sore, began inching herself toward the restaurant. Edward came alongside of her and slipped his arm under hers. He told her to thank his grandmother; that was the only reason he was sticking around. He’d never be able to face her if he’d abandoned someone’s grandmother at a truck stop.

  Elinor wanted to tell him she’d give him all the money she had and she’d tell Louise to pay for any expenses beyond that, but it was taking all her energy and breath just to get across the parking lot.

  Dinnertime, the restaurant was crowded. Truckers, families with young children, teenagers, and a couple of tables with priests — stiff white collars, black shirts and pants, blue and maroon sweaters. Damned priests. What were they doing there? Smiling, laughing, gobbling up pie. She wanted to tell all the parents to keep an eye on their children.

  From the jukebox in the corner, strains of that Elvis guy singing “Love Me Tender.” The smell of coffee, tomato sauce, and fried foods — onions, french fries, hamburgers. She wasn’t hungry.

  She didn’t look at the menu and told Edward to order for both of them, except that she wanted a pot of strong tea, and to keep in mind that she wasn’t very hungry. Edward told the waitress to bring two orders of ribs, mashed potatoes, and peas.

  “I’m sorry for getting so mad at you,” Edward told Elinor when she returned from the washroom. “You scared me there in the truck when you passed out. Have you got heart problems? Why isn’t your family helping you?”

  What was there that she didn’t have problems with? Elinor thought. “I don’t know what problems I have,” she said. “My doctors and daughter tell me but I don’t listen to them. There’s nothing to be done. I’m old. And I’ve only ever had one problem: my first child being taken from me. I had so hoped to see her before they put me in the ground, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. For sure I’ll be going into the ground.”

  The waitress slid two enormous plates of food onto the table.

  Elinor’s arm hurt; it was difficult to cut the ribs, so Edward did it for her. They were delicious but she had little appetite for them. The mashed potatoes were too dry and she found them hard to swallow.

  Edward pointed his knife at her, said he could eat and listen at the same time and he wanted to hear her story. This time he wanted the truth. He jabbed his knife at her again.

  Elinor waved at the toddler at the table next to them, a dark-haired boy with a forkful of spaghetti at his mouth and sauce all over his face. Her heart ached. Babies and young children were so precious. She didn’t know how to tell Edward what had been done to her. She’d never told Joseph, her own husband. But she was going to die soon. What good had keeping silent all these years done for her?

  In as few words as possible, she told him what had happened.

  “Why wait so long to find her?” Edward asked.

  Elinor shook her head, rubbed her palms in circles over the table. “I’ve asked myself the same question. I wish I knew. Scared? Stupid? Maybe I was afraid she wouldn’t want to see me.”

  She’d not tell Edward this, but deep inside she’d believed it was all her fault; she should have been strong enough to resist the man. Having the child taken from her was her punishment. One of the nuns told her that. Sex before marriage was a sin, they said in that church. She’d cried so hard she thought she was never going to stop. After doing such a horrid thing (according to the church), she didn’t deserve to ever see her child. Now she knew better, but it had taken so many years.

  “You don’t strike me as stupid. And a fearful woman doesn’t head off across the country with a stranger.”

  “I’ve gone from scared and stupid to desperate.”

  The telephone booth was outside. It was dark and snowing again. A gentle, wet snowfall that looked like it might continue for hours. Many of the trucks had gone from the parking lot.

  Edward dialled Louise’s number.

  26

  “Mom? Are you all right? Where are you? Can you speak up? I can hardly hear you.”

  Louise heard trucks revving up, her mother whispering, then a man, Edward, came on the phone and said they were just over the Manitoba border into Ontario. He was heading east, had a run to finish. As soon as he could find a motel for Elinor, he’d call Louise to tell her where she was staying.

  “Thank you. Thank you very much for looking after my mother,” Louise said. She hesitated. “How is she? Does she need a doctor?”

  “She may,” Edward said. “But first I think she needs her family. I have to tell you, if she was a child I’d be calling Children’s Services. How could you let someone so frail end up on the highway?”

  Louise knew she needed to let that one go. She asked how long before she’d hear from Edward. He said an hour or two; he didn’t think there was a decent motel any closer. Blinking away tears, Louise returned the phone to its cradle. Of course it was a relief to hear from her mother, but her voice was barely audible. She sounded so weak. That she had gotten as far as Ontario was a bit of a shock; she was one tough bird. Even so, Louise prayed they’d get her back home before something more serious set in. Or before she took off again. Something had propelled her to do what she had done. And probably she wasn’t happy with the outcome.

  John, in his favourite cardigan, the maroon one with the two missing buttons and a hole at the left wrist, sat on the couch, a thick textbook on his lap, student papers strewn about him. Whenever Alice looked at him, he had nodded off. Alice, shoes off, feet up on the footstool, was slouched in the wing chair with a book on her lap. She twirled a strand of hair, tighter then looser, and bit at the corner of her mouth.

  Louise, in navy velour pants, white turtleneck, and black vest, paced in front of the fireplace, then around the room. She glared at her husband and her daughter and then chastised herself. She jabbed at the embers in the fire, shoved in another log, stood with her back to the fire. Why hadn’t she gotten more information from this Edward fellow? At least the name of the trucking company he worked for.

  “How can you two just sit there? How can you concentrate on what you’re reading? It’s been four hours since I talked to her. He said he’d have her in a hotel in an hour or two. Maybe we should be looking into flights. Or two of us should just start driving. We’re going to have to go east, anyway.”

  “Are you sure they’re in Ontario?” Alice asked. “Maybe they’re in Alberta. Or maybe this guy doesn’t really have Gran at all.”

  “No, I talked to her. I know it’s her.”

  “Are you sure? Did you ask the person something only Gran would know?”

  “No, I did not. I think I know the sound of my mother’s voice.”

  Alice rolled her eyes.

  “I’m not always the lawyer,” Louise said.

  “Do you think this guy might want a ransom?” Alice asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  John slammed his book shut and dropped it on the coffee table. He slipped off his glasses, stared at them for a moment, closed the shanks, and placed them on top of his book. He said it was late; they should all go to bed.

  Louise said she was staying up; Alice said she wasn’t tired.

  John went to Louise, rubbed the top of her back and suggested she try to relax. Perhaps they had a flat tire, he said, or the motels were full.

  “Or Mom’s in some em
ergency room hanging on by a thread.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” he said. He kissed Louise on the cheek and shuffled to the stairs.

  Alice closed her book, stood at the fire for a moment, then went to the window. She didn’t want to think it, but prayed her gran would still be alive when they got to her. It was snowing again, large, fluffy flakes dancing in the street lights. She longed to call Wanda, but she couldn’t risk calling from her parents’ house. She didn’t know when she’d see her again. She’d have to go with her mother to Ontario, or wherever her gran was. What hope was there for her and Wanda? To always be hiding, skulking about, going to illegal clubs? She glanced at her mother, who was running a finger along the edge of the mantel.

  Louise examined the smear of grey dust her finger had collected. She rubbed it between her fingertips and scanned the jumble of photographs and souvenirs on the mantel. She ran the palm of her hand over the photograph of her granddaughter, Mariah. Her only grandchild. Mariah, in pink pants and T-shirt, was at the piano, grinning, legs dangling over the piano bench. Louise’s heart stirred. Such an imp. So bright. Too bad she lived so far away. In Ottawa. Had Elinor been trying to get to Ottawa?

  Tucked behind Mariah was a photograph from Alice’s graduation from teachers’ college. It had been a good day, everyone in fine form. Alice, so proud in her black cap and black gown with the purple-and-red trim, Andrew and Catherine standing on either side of her. Hands clasped, they were consumed by laughter. Just at the moment that Louise snapped the picture, John had said something (she couldn’t remember what it was), and the three of them had erupted. If it had been up to her, they’d have had only one child, but John was insistent on more. He was the third of five children and he’d loved the constant chatter, play, and busyness. Only children were spoiled and selfish, he said. He’d kept his promise that he’d do his share of changing diapers, wiping runny noses, helping with homework, packing lunches, shopping for shoes.

  Louise grasped the seashell Alice had brought from Mexico. Pink, purple, and taupe, the smooth curve of the hard shell fit perfectly into her palm. She rubbed it between her hands and it clattered against her ring. When she held it to her ear, an echo and gargling sound came back. At the base of the cavity was a pinch of fine sand. She yawned and sighed.

  Alice turned from the window. “Tired?”

  “I guess. This waiting and not knowing drives me crazy. It’s worse than waiting for a judge or jury to render a verdict.”

  Alice dropped back into her chair, picked up her book but didn’t open it. “What’s it like when you lose a case?” she asked.

  Louise gathered John’s papers into a tidy pile, tossed a sheet of crumpled paper into the fire, then plunked down into the navy wing chair opposite Alice.

  “It varies,” she said. “It’s always hard, but sometimes it’s worse than others.”

  The law, she said, could be an ass. The prosecution finds a bit of compelling evidence that sways the jury. A judge decides to make an example of your client. Or he instructs the jury to return a specific verdict when they might actually have found the opposite. She spoke of a case, not one of her own, in which the prosecutor went with a charge of murder, when it should have been manslaughter or less. It was clearly self-defence, but the prosecution argued that the kid had gone too far, didn’t need to kill his attacker. He was found guilty, and because of the murder charge he got a much longer jail term than if he had been found guilty under a manslaughter charge.

  “From what I understood,” Louise said, “the attacker was a madman. The kid shot him in the leg but he kept coming at him.” She shook her head, lined up John’s pencils, made the erasers at the end of the pencils even with each other. “The law is applied, but justice is not always obtained.” She stared at the pencils, then gathered them in a bunch and placed them on top of John’s papers.

  “What about you? When you have to fail a student? I know your father hates that.”

  “Me, too,” Alice said, “especially if the kid, and the parents, too, have worked really hard.” Often, she said, it was worse for the parents than for the kid. Most kids, she said, knew when they weren’t getting it like the rest of the class. They’d tell you how relieved they were not to be going on to the next grade.

  “A few times, even against the principal’s advice, I’ve shoved a kid ahead, thinking if she worked a little harder, she’d be all right. One girl I still remember. It was a disaster. She failed miserably and I felt so responsible, so guilty. I hate being wrong.”

  Louise smiled. “Yes, I know. I was so glad when you turned eighteen.”

  “What do you mean?” Alice said.

  “I could kick you out of the house then. You were of legal age.”

  “Was it that bad?” Alice asked.

  “It was that bad. It’s a good thing you had your father. I might have killed you otherwise.”

  “Come on, Mom. I don’t think I was doing anything worse than what my friends were doing.”

  “That was the problem — the friends. You seemed to be drawn to the ones who liked to race up and down Albert Street at midnight, run half-naked over the grounds of the legislative buildings, dump purple dye into the fountains. You and your so-called friends almost burned down the tennis club. What were you thinking?”

  “We were drunk. I never killed anybody.”

  “No, but you almost slaughtered any reputation I might have acquired in the legal community. Not just a little embarrassing to see the article, and photograph, in the newspaper. My daughter, in nun’s garb, and her friends stopping traffic on the Albert Street Bridge, refusing to let people pass until they contributed to your fund for … what was it for? Some church you didn’t belong to? Stray cats? Orphans in Africa?”

  Alice laughed. “I forgot about that.” She stretched out her legs, jiggled them up and down, then stood at the fire with her back to her mother. “I guess I came by my outrageous behaviour honestly.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You ran away from home when you were, what, fifteen? Sixteen?”

  “That was different. Different times. You have no idea.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It was so long ago.”

  “You don’t like talking about it. I have friends whose parents never stop talking about the good old days. Not you.”

  Louise leaned over to rub at a spot on the toe of her shoe. When she straightened up, the yellow light of the lamp caught the side of her face, and Alice saw the lines at the corners of her mother’s mouth.

  “What happened when you left the rez?”

  “It’s not very pretty. You don’t want to know.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that, Mom. Presume what I do and don’t want to know.”

  “Fair enough. It’s not a good time to talk about it.”

  “It’s never a good time with you. Why is that? If we weren’t waiting for a phone call about Gran, you know I’d be out of here.” And in Wanda’s bed, she thought. “I bet you’d tell Catherine or Andrew if they asked.”

  “Not so. But let’s not have a thing about it now. They’ve never asked. You have. And I promise we’ll find a time.”

  “It’s not like we learned anything about Indian history and lives in school. Gran is always happy to talk about the past.”

  “That’s where we differ. I look to the future,” Louise said.

  “Gran says nobody ever goes forward without the ancestors, without their knowledge.”

  Louise sighed. “Maybe so.”

  “Are you going to call Le Roy and Charlie?” Alice asked.

  “I don’t know. We rarely speak.”

  “What if they’ve seen Gran on television?”

  “They’d call. Charlie would, at least. Le Roy’s another story.”

  “You don’t like him much,” Alice said.

  “When we were young he was funny, silly. He had a big heart. We found this injured hawk once, and he nursed that thing, caught gophers, frogs,
and mice for it to eat, until its wing had healed and it was able to fly again. It’s not so much not liking him as not liking what he does.”

  “Which is?”

  “The drinking. Non-stop. Mom doesn’t talk to him anymore, either.”

  “Sad,” Alice said.

  “Dad’s death, the way he died, was hard on all of us. But for Le Roy, it was as if he’d lost his will to live, to keep going. Slow suicide, I call it.”

  Louise glanced at the clock on the mantel. “It’s past midnight. Why don’t they call?”

  “Go to bed, Mom. I’ll stay up.”

  Louise crept into the bedroom. John had flung off the covers; his arms were crossed over his chest. Had his hair gotten greyer? Was he thinner? In the past few years he seemed to have less patience for the students who got into fights, the teachers who came to work without lessons prepared or tests graded. She took off her clothes and slipped into her nightgown.

  “Coming to bed?” John mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “Did he call?”

  “Yes. And no, he hasn’t called.”

  John yawned. “He’ll call. I’m sure he’ll call. Get some rest.”

  She drifted into sleep and dreamt of a car accident — her own. The driver she rear-ended coming toward her, furious at her for ramming his car, his beautiful car that he’d bought the day before. She wasn’t paying attention when she ran into him. She’s trying to explain herself, her preoccupation with finding her dog. He doesn’t believe her. He’s got a knife, says he’ll make sure she never sees her dog again after what she did to his car. She starts to run. She runs and runs and every time she looks back, the guy is behind her and getting closer. The last time she looks back, she recognizes the man. It’s Ian Scott.

  Alice tugged a blanket around herself and snuggled into the big armchair. She yawned and wondered if her mother would keep her promise. Had it been that hard a time? Had something horrible happened to her that was too painful to talk about?

  She thought she might drift off, get a few minutes of sleep, but her thoughts went to Wanda. Wanda was a night owl and was probably still awake. Alice couldn’t risk it. She couldn’t risk her parents hearing her talk to Wanda. But more important, she couldn’t risk tying up the phone lines if Edward was trying to get through. She curled tighter into herself, squeezed her thighs together, imagined them being enveloped by Wanda’s legs, Wanda’s tongue dipping into her ear, licking her neck. She was moaning with more imaginings when the phone rang.