Tears in the Grass

by Lynda A. Archer

  Elinor needed this time alone, behind her eyelids, to gather her strength, to take in this so-called news of her daughter’s that had entered her body like a bolt of lightning. It was almost too much to bear. Even though her thoughts were never far from Bright Eyes, even though she had worked for weeks on the bison head, talked endlessly during the day to the budgies about Bright Eyes, she knew they were all efforts on her part to keep the child alive in her mind. Because in most parts of her body — arms, legs, belly, neck, and toes — she had given up on Bright Eyes being found.

  And there was more. She was afraid of what Bright Eyes might say. Why so many years had gone by and Elinor had made no effort to look for her? What kind of mother was she? How could she answer these questions?

  She let her eyelids flicker to show Louise and Alice she was still alive, to get a glimpse of what they were up to. When she didn’t see either of them, she opened her eyes fully and discovered Alice’s face within inches of her own.

  “What happened?” Alice asked.

  “A little too much excitement for the old ticker,” Elinor said.

  Louise told them what little she knew of Victoria through the letters. She handed the photographs of Victoria to her mother. If it was possible to caress and embrace a photograph, that was what Elinor did as she gazed at Victoria.

  Alice devoured the letters.

  Elinor was transformed by the news. Her eyes were open wider, her back straighter. She was more talkative and feisty. She said she had things to do. They must go to the valley, clean up her house, plant her garden, frame her drawing of the bison, go through her paintings to see if there were others Victoria might like to have. She wanted Victoria to feel welcome. And to meet Lillian and Mariah, Le Roy, Charlie — the entire family.

  “When does she come?” Elinor asked.

  “Very soon. A week or so,” Louise said. “It’s a long drive. And she’s getting on.”

  “Why doesn’t she come in a plane?” Elinor asked. “Tell her to take a plane.”

  “It’s all right,” Louise said. “I think she wants it this way. It is her choice.”

  “I need to get out to my house,” Elinor said, “tidy things up. She needs to come out there, where I’m comfortable, where I have all the memories.”

  “Let’s wait until she gets here,” Alice said.

  “I hope she’s got a fast driver,” Elinor said.

  The door to Elinor’s bedroom was ajar, the lamp on. Louise listened for a sound — a cough, a moan, the creak of the rocker. Hearing nothing, she pushed open the door. The blankets were thrown back, the pillows at the foot of the bed. Elinor’s heavy blue sweater and flowered head scarf were flung over the chair. In the half-light Louise marvelled at what the guest room had become: her mother’s valley home squeezed into one room. The space smelled of sweetgrass, tobacco, and the Chinese ointment her mother rubbed on her joints. Her rocker, shawl, and slippers faced the window that overlooked the back garden. On the little pine table, a box of matches, a pair of socks, pencils, a pad of paper, a small pile of stones, and the photograph of Bright Eyes as an infant, now framed.

  The chest of drawers was so stuffed that none of the drawers closed. The Dickens book was on the corner of the dresser. But where was her mother? It was late. Most nights Elinor was asleep by eight o’clock. Last night, the night Louise had told her of Victoria, Elinor had been up past ten o’clock worrying about what Victoria would want to know about her, how long she would stay, whether there would be enough time to tell her everything Elinor thought she should know.

  Louise didn’t find her mother in the kitchen with the birds or asleep on the couch. “Not again,” Louise muttered. Surely she wasn’t trying to get to her house on her own.

  Living with her mother the past few months hadn’t been all bad. Perhaps they had both changed: her mother a little less abrasive, opinionated; Louise, more ready and able to listen to what her mother had to say. She was surprised when she realized that she had started to look forward to finding her mother in the kitchen or beside the pond in the back garden when she got home from work. And on the days Louise arrived home exhausted and frustrated from a difficult trial, her mother seemed to sense that. She’d put on the kettle, tell Louise to sit down, take her shoes off. She’d present her with a dandelion, a sweet pea in a glass of water. She’d make an herbed tea that tasted like boiled cabbage, and she’d chat, ramble, meander through her life, her experiences from sixty or seventy years ago, or her opinions of what had been going on in the world in the last five years.

  Last week Elinor talked about how it pained her when she’d hear about an Indian person living on the street, nothing to eat, nowhere to bathe. She’d ask herself, How can that be? When she was young there was food enough for everyone. Because everyone shared what they had and they looked out for each other. She chuckled, remembering all the foods they ate in those days: Rhubarb, wild turnip, and onion. So many berries. Strawberry and raspberry in early summer; chokecherry, pin cherry, and saskatoon berry later on. There were fish, ducks, partridges, and prairie chickens. And there was a time when they ate lots of gophers. They’d cut off the tails, because they got money from the government for them, then they’d hold the little fellow over the fire, singe off his hair, gut him, and fry him up. They were tasty, she said.

  Elinor told of the time at the school when a boy fell from a ladder, broke his ankle. The nuns insisted it was only a sprain, no need to get a doctor. The boy spent two weeks in the infirmary. They made him get up after that time. He couldn’t stand on that leg; he fell over and broke it some more. Finally, they called the doctor, who said the ankle was broken, in need of a cast. Elinor said in the time she had been at that school, four children had died. One had been sent home because he wasn’t learning fast enough. Elinor laughed, said she wished she had thought of that.

  Louise found her mother outside, squatting in the middle of the front lawn beside a small, smoky fire. Her arms were curved upward; she was singing in Cree. A clear, warm night, the stars of the Big Dipper overhead. Louise was grateful it was the middle of the night or her neighbours would be calling the fire department. When Elinor tried to stand up, she almost fell over, and Louise ran to her.

  “I knew you were there,” Elinor said.

  “What are you doing?” Louise asked, her arm around Elinor’s waist.

  Elinor said she was sending a message to Bright Eyes through the stars, in the smoke. “Telling her to take care, asking the Creator to keep her safe.”

  She said it was a beautiful night but all the street lights made it impossible to see the stars. “What’s the point of them?” she asked. “Damned waste. Everybody’s asleep, nobody out here cutting their grass, walking their dog, making dinner, so why does the city bother with them?”

  Louise supposed her mother had a point. They inched their way across the grass.

  “I think she’s coming tomorrow,” Elinor said. “Not a day too soon.”

  Elinor told Louise that the last few mornings when she awoke, her head was fuzzy like dandelion puff, her legs were stiff as fence posts, and she couldn’t move. She wasn’t sure if she was still at Louise’s or had passed over. But it wasn’t bad; she felt comfortable and warm. Joseph was there smiling at her. Philip was running and laughing, his fat fingers bulging with stones, a clump of sticks. She’d even seen her parents, who had been gone such a long time.

  They settled into the white wicker chairs on the porch and soon Elinor was asleep.

  Louise had never sat out on her porch at two in the morning. It was pleasant.

  Clouds had moved in, occluding some of the stars.

  Maybe Victoria was looking up at the same sky.

  33

  They pulled off the highway into the small half-circle of elm and maple trees, a strange oasis amidst the flat landscape of miles and acres of wild grasses, fields of wheat that ran to the horizon. The solitary picnic table was patrolled by a pair of black birds, necks jutting forward with each step. Squawk
ing their discontent at the new arrivals, they flew off, but not far. A breeze that came and went lessened the blazing heat that had been with them since early in the day.

  Victoria, in a white blouse and pale yellow cotton skirt with a motif of pink flowers, was glad for the stop. She found the prairie heat tiring, although, given its dryness and ever-present wind, not as fatiguing as the lingering, humid summers of southern Ontario. She rolled down her window, bringing in the scent of soil and grass, the constant buzz of crickets, the intermittent click of grasshoppers. She took a white handkerchief from a pocket of her skirt, patted the moisture from her forehead, cheeks, and neck.

  Gloria, her twenty-four-year-old driver and companion, had been a gem and completely undaunted by Victoria’s needs. Some days it seemed they travelled little more than a hundred miles. One day they didn’t get farther than the distance between the hotel room and the local hospital. Victoria had had trouble breathing in the night; she couldn’t catch her breath. They stayed on an extra day in that place for her to rest.

  Either Gloria was a good liar or this wasn’t her first trip travelling cross-country with a seventy-five-year-old woman. She said she’d had a great time of it, learning the history of mining in the area while Victoria slept and rested. That’s where they’d been stuck: Sudbury. The heart of Canada’s nickel-mining industry. Gloria had lunch on the main street in a Chinese restaurant and brought back sweet-and-sour spareribs and stir-fried rice that Victoria had eaten very little of. As long as she could remember, she’d always had a queasy stomach. Bland foods without sauces and spice suited her best.

  Gloria dragged the cooler and basket of food and dishes from the car to the picnic table. A short, slight woman with a wiry muscularity to her body, she wore blue cotton shorts and a sleeveless yellow blouse. Her blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She’d said little about her deceased twin, but there were patches of time when she was so distant Victoria worried about her. Gloria unfolded the tablecloth, shook it over the table, ran her hands over the cloth to push away the wrinkles. On her way to the water pump, Gloria called to Victoria, still at the car, and asked if she needed help. Victoria waved and said she was all right.

  Gloria grasped the end of the long wooden handle of the pump. When the handle barely moved she shifted her position, squatted, and pulled down harder. The pump squeaked, the handle came back up; she hung on and drew it down again. No water. She stood up, pulled down again. Still no water.

  She needs to get it going faster, Victoria thought, that’s what draws the water up. She’d not say anything and wait to see what Gloria was able to figure out. If Gloria was taller she’d get more leverage with the handle. Now she was getting the hang of it, pumping more swiftly, and finally, a trickle of water. With the next downward push a gush came, spilling beyond the pot beneath it, scurrying over the dry soil.

  Victoria pushed open the car door, grabbed her cane, and started toward the picnic table.

  The green rusted Coleman stove that Victoria had owned forever rattled and shook as Gloria pushed the plunger in and out of the fuel tank, building up the pressure to light the stove, to heat water for Victoria’s tea.

  Victoria thought she had gotten the better part of the deal, but Gloria seemed happy to be away from the sadness of the past three months — the sudden death of her twin sister in a boating accident. Gloria said she was getting a paid vacation across the country — country she had never seen.

  Victoria wondered if Gloria’s enthusiasm was left over from all the flag-waving and celebrations of two years ago: 1967, Canada’s one hundredth birthday. Victoria regretted she’d not gone to Montreal, taken in Expo, but it was during a time when she’d been unwell. She went there in every other way possible — television, radio, newspapers. A neighbour had gone and Victoria devoured her stories, pored over her photographs of the pavilions from France and Japan, Spain, England, and Morocco, with their sweeping buttresses, shiny silver and gold materials. Buildings with fountains and canals, spires and pagodas. Buildings in the round, like a giant globe.

  Halfway to the picnic table, Victoria stopped and looked back to the car and the highway. On a grid road parallel to the highway, some distance away, a truck travelling fast left a plume of dust, a tawny wake six or eight truck-lengths long.

  A croaky, singular note from a bird pierced the prairie silence. She located the songster on the fencing across the road. She walked a few feet toward the bird, hoping to get a closer look. Yellow breast, neck extended, the deep note burbled from its throat again.

  She’d been thinking of sharing her mother’s diary with Elinor. Perhaps her early jottings, the entries about Victoria as a baby and young girl, would interest Elinor.

  It was strange, Victoria thought, to know herself through her mother’s notes. As a baby, her mother wrote, Victoria had fed voraciously, as if there might not be another meal. She’d been fascinated by spiders and ants, worms in the garden. She’d watch them for hours, putting stones and twigs in their paths, watching how they overcame the challenges. She’d walked far sooner than other children and was soon climbing onto chairs and tables, jumping from fences. Her mother had written that Victoria loved to be outdoors and cried fiercely whenever she had to come in. A teacher, Victoria’s adoptive mother soon had Victoria reading books. Victoria’s favourite book, according to her mother’s notes, had been The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. Victoria adored the monkeys; she’d laugh and hop about like them.

  The yellow-breasted bird flew off and Victoria continued to the picnic table. A soft breeze swept over her face; the tablecloth puffed and sighed with the bursts of air. The water in the pot had begun to mumble. Victoria sat down and unwrapped one of the sandwiches: ham with mustard. She had never cared for mustard. She rewrapped the sandwich and opened another. Chicken. She liked chicken and immediately took a bite.

  The lid on the pot began to rattle. Where was Gloria? Victoria preferred that Gloria deal with the hot water because Victoria’s hands were unsteady. Another minute and the water was sloshing out of the pot, sizzling onto the blue flame. Victoria called Gloria. No answer. She stared at the stove, the circle of blue flame buzzing beneath the pot. She turned the black knob; the flame went out and the water calmed. This was unlike Gloria, not telling Victoria where she had gone, when she would be back. Not that there was anywhere to go around here, only the vast expanse of the plains on every side. She had no idea whether there was a town ten or a hundred miles away. Gloria had taken care of all the navigation, but she did point out the signs to Victoria as they drove along: Wawa, Sudbury, Manitoulin Island, Dryden, Winnipeg. Victoria especially remembered Manitoulin Island because her father, a physician, had worked there one summer when Victoria was four or five. She remembered the sweet taste of the maple sugar the Indians brought to her father as payment for his help. And the haw berry jam her mother made. The red haw berries tasted like overripe apples. Victoria liked the jam better when her mother combined the haw berries with blueberries. They lived near a river, and when her father wasn’t working they’d go fishing in the wooden rowboat that she’d helped her father paint green. Almost every time they went out they’d catch something, perch mostly.

  Manitoulin Island was the first place Victoria had seen Indians. She’d asked her father who they were and why they looked so sad. Her father took a long time to answer. He said a lot of them were sick, not well. When she asked why that was, he said he didn’t know.

  The wind was blowing harder now. Beyond the highway and fields, churning slate-grey clouds and dark panels of cloud — rain? — extended to the ground. A paper cup clattered and tumbled end over end across the parking area. They needed to pack up. Where was Gloria? A burst of wind swept Victoria’s hair across her face. The waxed paper from her sandwich flew off like a bird. Fingers of wind slipped under the tablecloth, and it billowed up off the table. The trees swayed and swooshed.

  Victoria hurried to return the plates and napkins, sandwiches, and raspberries to the basket. Sh
e hated to toss the hot water but didn’t see what else she could do. She walked to the edge of the picnic site to look beyond the line of trees. She called Gloria again, asked her to please come. Drops of rain grazed her arms and face. The mass of dark cloud, like an angry monster in a children’s book, loomed closer and larger.

  She rolled up the tablecloth, tossed the hot water, and closed up the stove. Pushing against the wind as if she was walking uphill, she started for the car. She kept her head down, trying to protect her eyes from the bits of dirt, grass, and leaves that swirled about. She tripped over a clod of earth and almost lost her balance. She dumped the tablecloth and stove onto the back seat, returned for the cooler. It was so heavy and bulky, she had to drag it a few feet at a time. She could feel the wetness across her shoulders, down her arms, specks of rain on her face. The massive cloud bank was almost overhead. As much as she loved the fresh scent of rain, that sense of cleansing that was brought to the hot air and the dry earth, she didn’t fancy getting drenched.

  She left the cooler and dashed to the car.

  It took all her might to get the car door open, so strong had the wind gotten. Within seconds of the door closing, the sky unleashed itself. A torrent rushed over the windows, clattered on the roof like snare drums in a marching band. Not rain. Hail. Tiny white balls bouncing off the car, jumping up from the ground. A blanket of white appeared within a few minutes. Victoria could barely see beyond the hood of the car, but she caught a glimpse of Gloria running, then stopping to pick up the cooler, striding in the downpour.

  The trunk of the Chevy banged shut, then Gloria was in the driver’s seat, water dripping off her nose, chin, hair, her clothing soaked through.

  Victoria fumbled in her purse and passed a handkerchief to Gloria. “Don’t think this will help much.”

  Gloria gasped thanks and pressed her face into the purple pansies embroidered on the white handkerchief. She patted her arms and neck, said as soon as things let up she’d get a change of clothes out of her suitcase.