~ ~
Ten days later China was still hobbling around the house painfully. As Sarah came in the door with a load of groceries, China was hanging up the phone.
“Christ almighty!” she complained loudly. “Sam wants me to go to the office and try to fix his answering machine. The frequent power outages on this god-forsaken island absolutely fry answering machines. I’ve told him countless times to forward his business calls to an answering service on the mainland. How can I possibly...”
“China, dear,” Sarah interrupted, “this is what you do when Sam calls and asks for the impossible.”
Sarah picked up the phone and then replaced in gently on the cradle.
“You simply hang up. He’s not in the house, he’s on the phone. How lucky can you be? Hang up. One would think that he’d at least wait until the stitches were out before he asks you to fix his life for him once again. If only one could get rid of every man’s foolishness by simply hanging up. If Sam calls again just tell him you love him and quickly hang up!”
Sarah glided gracefully into the kitchen as China held her belly in painful laughter. She had a nap and then took out her paints and tried various versions of the tulips, a bouquet from Karen. Sarah picked out her favourite version.
“This is the best one,” said Sarah.
“I agree, but why was it easier to paint this version? The others were more difficult. For some reason I felt more freedom when painting this one.”
“Because you didn’t try to paint the container. You just painted the flowers. Containers are very difficult to paint. They pull you down. They contain the flowers. They shackle the brush. Kind of like men.”
~ ~
China had the stitches taken out and the next day went for a slow hobble on the shore road. Sarah walked ahead and then waited for China to catch up. She preferred to walk quickly and then stop and wait rather than slow her stride to match China’s hobble.
“Sarah,” said China on one of the catch ups. “Now I know how a zebra feels trying to get away from the hyena gnawing at its genitals.”
“Yeah, like having a man attached to you at all times, without the pleasure.”
China burst out laughing and doubled over.
“Stop making me laugh. It hurts.”
“Nonsense, laughter is exercising your stomach muscles and that’s a good thing even if it’s painful. Speaking of painful, I’ll have to leave tomorrow.”
“I know. Don’t worry about me. I’ll survive, alone and in dreadful pain while you carry on with your glamourous life in the big city.”
“I’m not worried about your physical well-being. I’m worried about your mental state. Look, China, live with Sam or don’t live with Sam. Whatever you want to do is fine with me. I just want you to be happy.”
China felt like she’d been given the greatest gift of all as she watched Sarah stride towards the beach. There you are Sam, she thought, that’s what love is all about. This is what Sarah gives to me, what I give to her. This gift was earned, and once earned, it never had to be paid for again.
~ ~
Nov. 5/97
I miss Sarah. She’s always a part of my healing. She made me laugh. She laughed at me, trying to find a comfortable place on the couch, shifting pillows, legs up, legs down, legs crossed, lying down, sitting up. I spend my days believing a change in position will alter the pain, and it does for a while.
I’ve got one more sleeping pill and then I go cold turkey. The sleeping pills are more important than the pain pills that only make me hyper and sick to my stomach. During the day I can fight the pain by shifting and distracting myself. At night it becomes a monster in my room as I lay helpless on the bed begging for the oblivion of sleep. And then the sleeping pill kicks in and I go out like a light for five hours. Then I toss and turn gently for another couple of hours, placing pillows strategically, between my knees when on the side, under my knees when on my back, the scar still too tight and sore to allow full extension of my legs. Maybe I should do a how-to video on how to recover from an abdominal operation.
All the things they don’t tell you. Like bowel movements. How the hell can your bowels move when your intestines have been shut down by slicing, morphine, and codeine? They give you stool softeners, tell you to walk to get rid of the gas, then they give you painkillers with codeine that make you sick and bind you up. They don’t tell you that your first bowel movement will only happen after a laxative and long minutes of very painful pushing. But, oh the glory, the relief, when the earth moves and then you totter sweating and shaking to your bed feeling like you just gave birth again. No, on second thought, that video would never sell. Getting through an abdominal operation is definitely on a need to know basis.
~ ~
Three weeks later China picked Sam up at the ferry landing. She had surprised herself by actually enjoying the last few weeks of her convalescence, when the worst of the pain had eased. She’d felt peaceful, in an altered state. The operation had given her permission to concentrate on herself and make no demands other than eating, sleeping, walking, watching movies, and sketching. She had even put worry aside. True to his promise, Sam had transferred the two thousand to her savings account, not a penny more, not a penny less.
Sam hugged her gingerly and kept glancing at her nervously.
China decided to put him out of his misery.
“Sam, I’m grateful you put the money in my account, but I’m not ready to go through another move yet. Christmas is coming up and I need more time to heal before I can even think about a move. Let’s wait until spring. Okay?”
“Sure, whatever you think is best,” said Sam happily.
Sam surprised her by making love to her very carefully, tenderly, the way she sometimes wanted to be loved but had to go through a major operation in order to get. China felt a bit of pain and didn’t respond with her usual passion.
“Don’t worry Sam,” she said reassuringly. “I did feel a tremor of something other than pain, but I’m definitely not ready for a wild, tumultuous orgasm. Just the thought of it makes me cringe.”
“How much longer will it take to completely heal?”
“I don’t know. There’s no magic day when everything will be as it was. I’m amazed I’m not screaming with pain, considering all the chopping they did.”
“You don’t feel different to me.”
“Well, I’m glad you still want my poor scarred body. However, I can assure you that I feel very different to me. I feel like I fell totally apart and now I have to put myself back together minus a few pieces. You’ll just have to be patient.”
China left Sam in bed and went downstairs to poach salmon for his welcome home dinner. They ate salmon four times a week because after all it was free. Dried, smoked, baked, simmered, canned, poached, sauteed. A gift from the sea and the best of reasons for living on Grimshaw Island, the only reason other than sex.
~ ~
Something had happened to China. Something other than a serious operation. She felt it like a hole in her heart. Felt it like the empty hole in her belly. She was surprised that Sam couldn’t feel it when he was inside her. Couldn’t feel the change in temperature in her lips.
Her lust for Sam had cooled. Reason had reared its critical head. The pure, blind love she had felt for Sam in the beginning wasn’t real. It was only temporary and now she had to find a way to love him in spite of what she knew. Because, of course, in the beginning she didn’t know him. He only showed her the best part of him. China wondered if he would ever be what he once promised.
While reading an awful detective book, one of the many she had read during her quiet convalescence, she came upon an interesting theory. The only interesting thing in the book. The theory about “not necessarily lying.” There was even a great word for it. Confabulation. ‘Con’ meaning ‘with,’ and ‘fabulation,’ coming from fable or fabulary, meaning talk or discourse. It could mean just carrying on a conversation or constructing a fable. Or, it could be a type of story
constructed to impress the listener that was in fact a rendition of reality when the story teller was suffering from a memory defect. It was not limited to people with brain damage, like alcoholics. It could be a result of very poor self-image.
Sam didn’t look as though he had poor self-image. He had a very healthy, blustering ego but the careless charm he flaunted merely littered his path with the detritus of things undone. He stumbled through life, determined to sabotage himself and everyone else by not paying attention. He acted like a king who depended on his courtiers to take care of the stupid details for him. He had vision and in some ways he was brilliant, but he didn’t back it up with hard work and attention to detail, or honesty. You could count on Sam to come up with great ideas, but he couldn’t carry them to completion. He always impressed people in the beginning with his charm and his ability to make mundane events seem exciting. He loved living on the edge while China cowered in fear, waiting for the gust of wind that would topple them into the abyss.
The problem with China’s dreams and her reality was that she let other people in who weren’t dreaming the same dream. She chose to love Sam. Now, every day, she discovered many different things she had to do and learn about herself and him in order to live with that choice. Sam could have learned so much from her, but even though she was teaching frantically, she seemed to be the only one in the classroom who learned anything. Teacher, discover thyself?
~ ~
Jane called with the news that they had an infestation of ants in her apartment building. She told China what Tina had said.
“Mom,” Tina said. “Let’s move to China’s house right now and a lady who likes bugs can move in here.”
China laughed at the simple solution of a child. She hoped fervently that life wouldn’t grind her down. Already she had learned the lesson of being left by those she loved. Jane was the best mom in the world but Tina was greedy and wanted her grandma, her long-distance dad, and everyone else she loved all living in the same house in order to love her and dance attendance on her. Tina had a fierce heart and a temper to match. Jane and China were terribly worried about the teenage years. Tina had inherited her mother’s beauty but little of her quiet temperament. She was feisty, sensual, and a born performer and was bound to cause a lot of trouble, just like China.
Sam didn’t understand her intense connection to Jane and Tina. He thought she should let go and let them live their own lives. China decided not to remind Sam that as a father who rarely even spoke to his son, he had no say in the matter. How could she let go of someone who had lived in her body and therefore still lived there? Her cells remembered.
Her poetry came from the cells in her body when moments of clarity, pure and austere, seared an image forever with words on a piece of paper that no one else really understood. People feared poetry, and with reason. Spare, coded words too personal, too raw, making sense only to the poet and a few detective scholars.
Jane, now grown, was still small and fragile in her memory. China remembered the poem that came as she trudged for the millionth time back up the hill to her lonely apartment after delivering Jane to her father for the weekend. Two years of these lonely
footsteps.
Footsteps
A well-worn path
I tread tonight
between my silent thoughts,
A lonely repetition -
no need to see,
my footsteps ring
involuntarily,
A familiar chime
this sound of mine;
I know the shape of every tree
I've seen them bud
and flower, then flame,
Now I crunch them under foot,
I've felt the wind
that tosses my hair
and the glare of summer sun
I've heard the squeak
of hard-packed snow
and the rain has often come;
I know every seam
in the rough cement
and I lament the past
that brings me;
Two times four seasons have passed
and still I tread this weary path.
“Mom,” said Jane. “Dad said that I could use some of his points for a visit.”
“That’s wonderful!” said China happily. “I’m sure we can scrape together enough to pay for the seaplane from Halifax.”
“No, he’s paying for that too. It’s my Christmas present from him. Do you think you’ll be well enough to deal with me and Tina for Christmas?”
“Ridiculous question!” replied China quickly, her eyes filling up with grateful tears for her ex-husband. She made a mental note to send him a thank you note. “I can’t wait. How soon can you be here?”
“Tina finishes school on December 20th. What time does the seaplane get in?”
“It leaves Halifax at two-thirty so if you get an early flight out of Toronto, you’ll have plenty of time to make it. You’d better book it right away.”
“I will. I’ll call you with the details.”
“I can’t wait to see you, sweetie. Christmas was looking like a dreary affair. We wanted to go to Newfoundland but the finances are still in rough shape.”
“I thought Sam made good money this year.”
“There’s a big difference between what Sam says and reality. He thinks eighty thousand is a lot of money, and it should be since he pays no tax, but he spends a lot on travel, hotels, etc. Also, half of that goes to Larry. Not to mention all the bills that piled up the first year we were here and he made half that amount.”
“I get the picture. Don’t worry. We’ll be there soon to cheer you up. Tina wants to talk to you.”
“China?” said Tina in her lovely, husky voice. “I’m coming to see you and Sam.”
“That’s wonderful, darling, but I have a favour to ask you.”
“Okay,” said Tina.
“Don’t bring any ants.”
“No way! The terminators are going to kill them all.”
“That’s great. Okay, my love. I’ll see you soon.”
They went through the goodbye song. Tina didn’t like goodbyes.
“One, two, three. Bye, I love you, hugs and kisses. Bye!” Then China had to hang up first because Tina didn’t want the responsibility of breaking the connection. China hung up and hollered out loud with delight. She could feel the accelerated healing in her body with just the thought of the warm hugs and kisses she’d receive from Tina and Jane.
~ ~
People Of The Lie
China spent the week joyously preparing for her guests. Sam was relieved that China was happy and absorbed and not focused on his transgressions. He spent a lot of time at the village office taking care of local politics and preparing Bear’s campaign for Chief Councillor. Sam didn’t want to run himself. He preferred to manipulate behind the scenes. Sam had already gotten revenge for his aborted clan leadership. He didn’t have to do much. He just waited patiently, let everyone think he was beaten, and then a few words here, a bit of poison there, and all of a sudden, Sam was the Chairman of the Grimshaw Treaty Association.
The former Chairman, one of the dissenting Chiefs at Sam’s Thunder Ceremony, was found to have a conflict of interest due to being on the Board of Directors of the huge white logging company that was negotiating with the GTA for logging rights. Sam’s nemesis, Dan Black, was now in jail and Sam had done nothing except agree to represent the plaintiff, Dan Black’s niece, who had accused her uncle of sexual assault.
Sam came home in a rage. He had spent the day in court listening to Dan Black’s lawyer trying to defend years of brutal assault by dear old Uncle Dan because he was loaded drunk at the time. The fact that he had given up the booze ten years ago and was now a fine upstanding citizen didn’t wipe out the reality that he had raped his niece, Sharon, regularly from the age of ten to fifteen. Probably the only reason he then stopped was because Sharon stopped him herself, with a knife. Sharon was now twenty-five, had been in and out of psych
iatric institutions for several years, and she was now ready for retribution.
“China,” hollered Sam, “Where’s that book?”
“What book?” asked China as she descended the stairs and headed towards the kitchen.
“The one about the lies.”
“You mean “People of The Lie?” asked China, reaching for a saucepan.
“Yeah, that one.”
“I gave it to you to read Sam.”
“Oh, well, maybe I gave it to someone else.”
Sam paced nervously around the kitchen floor. China stopped her dinner preparations and turned to Sam with interest. She wondered if Sam was having a breakthrough. Perhaps the therapy sessions were working.
“Did you read it?” asked China expectantly.
“Yes. I’ve got an example in the courtroom. Dan Black actually believes that he’s telling the truth when he says he never touched Sharon.”
“Don’t most criminals insist they’re not guilty of their crimes?”
“Yes, I suppose, but Dan is now whining for a circle sentencing.”
“Don’t both parties have to agree to it?”
“Of course. Dan has to confess and then the village council will consult with Sharon and then decide if Dan gets tribal law, or white man’s law. But the arrogant son of a bitch wants a guarantee of a circle sentencing before he’ll admit to the assault.”
Liar Page 15