by Joan Crate
Us? She was too surprised to say anything.
Sister Cilla stood up, just like she had never hugged her. “Come on,” she said, and they walked to Mother Grace’s office.
“Were you misbehaving in Sister Joan’s class, Rose Marie?” Mother Grace asked, her sharp blue eyes digging in and holding her.
“No.” She blinked away the blue, her heart banging. “I mean yes.”
Mother Grace almost smiled. Rising from her chair, she plucked a book from her shelf. “Follow me,” she ordered, sweeping from the room.
Rose Marie trotted behind.
Entering an empty classroom, Mother Grace pointed at the first front-row desk. “Sit,” she ordered, opening the book. “Catechism,” she said, and placed the book in front of Rose Marie. From the teacher’s desk a few feet away, Mother Grace snatched up three sheets of lined paper, a pencil, and an eraser. “You will copy out the Corporal Works of Mercy,” she said sternly, leaning over and sliding her index finger down the page. “Start here.” She creased the spot with her fingernail. “Copy as many lines as you can before I return in—let’s see—an hour. Do you understand me?”
Rose Marie nodded.
Mother Grace cleared her throat.
“Yes, Mother Grace.”
* * *
Back in her office, Mother Grace put the classroom keys back on the hook. This was the chance she was giving the child. She thought she had seen something in her: a quickness of mind and not just of body, a certain understanding that was beyond her years, those dark, inquisitive eyes darting everywhere. Oui, she could recognize acuity when she saw it. Perhaps. She sighed. Perhaps not. After all, Sister Mary of Bethany had been an intelligent young woman, one she had believed capable of redirecting her young woman’s passion to a deep and abiding love for the Lord, a practice she, herself, was more than familiar with. Mon Dieu, she had been wrong.
This girl, Rose Marie Whitewater, was not Sister Mary of Bethany, she reminded herself, not a young woman of twenty, but a mere child of seven, and one, she had heard from Sisters Priscilla and Margaret, who had difficulty sleeping. She knew from Sister Joan that the girl had an egregious lack of self-control. “Though her wild nature is accompanied by a good memory and a superior vocabulary,” Joan had acknowledged grudgingly.
No doubt Rose Marie had never been taught discipline or given religious training before arriving at the school. If she could not control her agitation and perform the task, or if it was more than she was capable of, ça ne fait rein. But if she could make herself sit still long enough to copy out at least three of the seven Corporal Works of Mercy before she had learned to print much more than twenty-six disconnected letters and her name, then clearly she had the determination necessary to succeed in the world. The Christian world.
Mother Grace rubbed an aching finger joint and smiled. The girl might have prospects. After all, she, herself, had been given an opportunity for a better life when she was young.
Mother Grace recalled how the Sunday before her thirteenth birthday, she had sat at Mass in the Église Jeanne d’Arc and noticed a young man looking her up and down with an intensity that had frightened her. As she glanced around at the farmers, labourers, and merchants, she recognized, for the first time in her life, the hard work, large family, and grinding poverty that most surely were her fate, and while the rest of the congregation rose to sing, she collapsed on the prayer bench and beseeched the Lord for rescue.
He in His mysterious way had provided. Dieu soit loué. First had come an unexpected endowment from dear Uncle Gabriel, who had witnessed her birth. She had come into the world suddenly, the story went. Her parents’ third child and first daughter, she had torn from her mother’s womb with such force and protruding limbs that Maman, washing dishes and speaking in comforting tones to her younger brother, doubled over as watery blood gushed from her womb.
Gabriel, the only one to witness the violent birth, was so shocked that he vowed to God that if He saved the life of his favourite sister and her emerging child, he would devote himself to His service.
Once he was ordained as bishop a mere thirteen years and one month later, Uncle Gabriel decided to remember the child whose traumatic birth had caused him to enter the priesthood. He had provided his niece with the means to receive a convent school education. He had intervened and changed her life. As perhaps God intended her to change Rose Marie Whitewater’s life.
* * *
How hard those strings of letters were for Rose Marie to form! She stared down at the lines, curves, and dots that meant sounds and pauses, but so many, all jumbled together in lumps!
Her tummy grew hot. She closed her eyes and tried to will the heat away, but instead it built, the fire worms itching and burning and crawling. She couldn’t stand it! She dashed to the door, turned the knob, and pulled. It didn’t budge. Again she turned the knob and yanked with every bit of strength she had. Locked.
She ran around the room. She smacked into the far wall. She ran back to the door, turned and pulled and kicked the door jamb. She beat her fists and stamped her feet. She jumped up and down and up and down until her legs were jelly and her eyes ran. She crawled to the row of narrow windows and pulled herself up on tiptoes to look outside. Already the sun was fading. A dark snake slid down the sky.
She went back to the wooden desk, climbed into the seat, and picked up the pencil. At first she couldn’t find Mother Grace’s fingernail line. She banged her head on the desk, but that made the sore spot above her left eye hurt. She looked back to the blotchy page, found her place, and started to print. One letter, two letters, a short word. She lost her place. She stood up, jumped up and down, then sat. Another line, her insides jiggling hot. She ran around the room. She picked up the pencil and started another sentence. Over and over, until the pencil felt firm in her fingers and forming the letters made the worms settle down and sleep.
* * *
After an hour and ten minutes, Mother Grace surveyed the clumsy letters pressed into the damp paper, its blue lines bleeding. Rose Marie’s seven Works of Mercy were more than she had expected. “Good,” she said, trying to keep a note of triumph from her voice. “Very good, child.” Rose Marie smiled shyly up at her, and, despite or because of the girl’s damp eyes and missing front tooth, she was charmed. Almost. “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” Sister Bernadette often warned.
“Off you go to class. Va t’en,” she ordered, but softly.
Once Rose Marie was gone, Mother Grace grinned to herself. Clearly the child could overcome her rambunctious nature when required. Now she would take her under her wing, helping her grow and flourish, just as God most assuredly intended. But timing was problematic. The school year was almost over, and there might not be much point in starting the necessary private lessons. She’d have to wait until September to work with the girl, missing precious months.
Unless . . . Rose Marie were to stay at St. Mark’s all summer. An interesting thought, and not one impossible to implement. It was likely in Rose Marie’s best interests to remain at the school in a stable, spiritual environment, both body and soul nourished. She would check to see if the girl’s home living situation had changed. Oui, she’d write a letter to the Charles Camsell Hospital in Edmonton and learn of Mrs. Whitewater’s condition.
Opening her desk drawer, she found she still had had two pages of linen stationery and a bottle of quality black ink. Perhaps things were finally falling into place.
15
The Mystery of Godliness
THE DORM WAS finally dark. Even the senior girls had finished whispering and were sleeping quietly, except for Abby First Eagle, who, as usual, made little piggy snorts. Unable to find the grey river and drift down it to sleep, Rose Marie opened her eyes. A hazy shape hovered at the foot of her bed, so she quickly shut her eyes again.
She smelled smoke. Raising herself on one elbow, she was ready to scream “fire,” to wake Taki and Martha and Maria and to run down the stairs and out the fron
t door, because that shadow sister must be trying to burn them alive!
Instead, a downpour of daylight. She sat up, letting it soak through her, warm and delicious.
“Mama!”
Standing over her, Mama held a braid of burning sweet grass in one hand. With the other hand she pushed smoke over her daughter, clean and warm.
“Oh, Mama, I been thinking of you.” She reached for that soft, familiar body, leaning into it.
“Nitan.”
“How did you get in the school, Mama?”
As Mama smiled, shimmering smoke blew through Rose Marie’s sparrow bones, washing her.
“Sinopaki,” Mama whispered, the name a robe of fresh air, and she heard her creek splash over smooth rocks at the edge of Mama’s voice. Just over Mama’s shoulder, on the bank, a breeze billowed the damp clothes hanging on the bushes to dry.
“We’re home, Mama.”
“Aa.”
“I love you,” she said, and Mama said it back in a way that was wide and warm and free as summer. Sunlight fell from Mama’s eyes, skittered over the surface of the creek, and flashed back at them. “I’m so glad you’re here!”
Mama held her until she drifted off to sleep.
* * *
On the way down for breakfast the next morning, she told Taki about the visit. “Everyone was asleep except me. Mama snuck in.”
“How did she do that, Rosie?”
“I don’t know.”
“You sure you weren’t dreaming?”
“It was real! Never mind, if you don’t believe me.” She stamped ahead of Anataki biting her lip against the sudden sting of tears. Mama had been at St. Mark’s. She had!
* * *
At the end of that week came the longest day. The following week, the students were herded outside after breakfast to await the yellow buses that would take them home.
Rose Marie was playing tag with the other first-years when Sister Cilla rushed up to her. “There you are. Dear, oh law, Mother Grace wants to see you. Come with me.”
As soon as Rose Marie entered the office, Mother Grace, her face pulled tight, motioned her to sit down.
“I just got a letter from the Charles Camsell Hospital, the sanitorium. I have some terrible news for you, chérie. God rest her soul, your mother has passed away.”
Mother Grace reached over and patted her hand. Rose Marie saw her do it, but she didn’t feel it.
“You won’t be getting a bus home today, chérie. There are other arrangements in place for you this summer.”
“No, I don’t think so, Mother Grace,” she said. The bump above her eye throbbed.
“I’m very sorry, Rose Marie.”
Now Mother Grace was coming around the desk towards her, stretching her hand out to pat her shoulder. This time she felt the woman’s palm right through her dress, and it was dry as a stale bread crust. A hankie squeezed into her fist.
“The buses are here,” Mother Grace said, looking out her window. “Would you like to go out and say good-bye to your little friends?”
“Anne!” She ran down the hall and out the front door.
The first-years were chattering in a group, talking about everything they were going to do that summer.
“Horses!” Taki yelled.
“Ride in my uncle’s car!” whooped Martha.
“You sound like a bunch of squirrels,” Rose Marie shouted at them.
“Come ’ere, Rosie,” Taki said.
She started to shake.
“What’s the matter, Rosie?”
“My . . . my mama’s dead!”
“Oh, Rosie!” Taki put her arm around her waist and pulled her close. “It’s like the worstest thing.”
Clamping her teeth down on her lip, she pulled away. “Have lots of fun riding your stupid horse with your stupid brothers!”
A few feet away, the doors of the first bus huffed open and the driver yelled, “C’mon!”
Anataki shifted towards it, glancing back.
“Just go,” Rose Marie cried. “I don’t care!” She turned and ran back to the school, up two flights of stairs, and into the dormitory.
Sister Cilla had already unlocked the shutter on the low window, but it didn’t want to budge. Rose Marie squeezed her small fingers into the crack and pried it, splintering the dry wood, and, ow, getting a sliver. Below, three buses sputtered down the road, away, far away from her. Sucking her finger, she watched the dust settle. It plugged her nose and clogged her eyes, making the world runny and sore. There had been buses and Taki and Mama. Things had been—and just like that—they were gone.
After a while of trying to see and breathe and suck blood from her finger and bitten lip, she spotted a plume on the horizon. It was coming towards the school. Forest Fox Crown’s truck! She pounded down the stairs, ran through the front door, and flew to the road as fast as she could go.
Squinting, she could make out Papa in the passenger’s seat, Aunt Angelique beside him, driving. She ran towards the truck, shouting. It ground to a stop just a few feet from her, and Papa jumped out. She flung herself at him.
“I’ve come to get you.” He wrapped his arms around her. “To take you home”—the words she had wanted forever and ever to hear.
“Oh, Papa.”
He crouched and spoke, his voice suddenly slack as an old rope. “Mama’s gone, Sinopaki. To the Sand Hills.” He hugged her tight, but she was too stuffed up with dust and sad to hug back. Papa kept talking, the words English and Blackfoot, all mixed up. Then he stood up.
“I’m going to see that Mother Grace. I have to tell her you can come up north to Aunt Katie’s house with me.” He held out his hand, and she grabbed it tight.
Inside, Mother Grace was working at her desk. Her mouth folded when she saw Papa at her door.
“I’ve come for my daughter,” he said, looking down at her.
Mother Grace lifted her chin. “I’m sorry, Mr. Whitewater, but you won’t be able to take Rose Marie with you today.”
“What?” Papa stepped forward, so she did too, still clinging to his hand. He was Medicine Man. Blessed Wolf. Nothing could stop him.
Don’t let Mother Grace stop him, Rose Marie prayed to herself.
“I’m afraid, Mr. Whitewater, it’s come to our attention that you no longer have a proper home for your daughter. We’re very sorry about your recent loss. Great is the mystery of Godliness.” Mother Grace glanced at her, eyes softening as if she were doing something nice, not something mean, but when she looked back up at Papa her eyes turned to glass splinters. “It’s in the child’s best interest for her to stay with us at the school until . . . your situation changes. Naturally, you can visit every Sunday during the regular visiting—”
“No,” Papa interrupted. “She is my daughter. Mine!” He let go of Rose Marie’s hand and thumped his chest with his palm. Mother Grace winced. “You can’t keep her from me.”
Oh, her papa was strong. He would take her home for sure!
“That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Whitewater,” Mother Grace said in a low voice. In that moment, Rose Marie hated-hated-hated her!
She slipped behind Papa, peering out.
“What did you say?”
“I’ve discussed the matter with Father Alphonses, the priest at Hilltop who also presides over the Reserve. You must know him, Mr. Whitewater. In addition, I have written a letter to Indian Affairs and received a reply. I have instructions to keep Rose Marie here at the school for the summer. I can show you the letter, if you like.”
“Show me,” Papa demanded, stepping forward.
Mother Grace rustled through the papers on her desk, then stood, handing one to Papa. He looked at it, his eyes going over it one, two, three times. Rose Marie pressed harder into him.
“You have no right,” he said. A vein throbbed through his voice.
Mother Grace’s eyes flickered. “I have every right.” Raising her chin, she fixed him in her hard glass gaze. “It is my duty and the duty of the residential
school system to make sure our students receive adequate care.” Her words sounded clipped from her mouth with pointed scissors. “We would be remiss in our duties if—”
“Adequate care, eh? Beatings and sickness and self-righteous—”
“Not at this school, Mr. Whitewater. I don’t know what your experience might have been at another school, but here at St. Mark’s, everything is sanitary and—”
“She’s my daughter, and she belongs with me!”
“Nevertheless, I assure you that should your daughter be taken by you or anyone else, the authorities will be notified forthwith. Kidnapping is a most serious offence.”
Rose Marie took a backwards step from Papa, and another, but she didn’t rush. She wouldn’t do anything to attract Mother Grace’s attention. She inched to the door.
“She is my daughter!” Papa cried, his voice spraying a dark cloud through Mother Grace’s office.
Softly, Rose Marie stepped into the hall. She crouched. She would slip off her shoes and run soundlessly to the front door and down the steps to Aunt Angelique’s truck. She’d get inside and lie on the muddy floor. Then Papa would come out of the school, jump in, and they’d drive away.
“Rose Marie.” A hand pressed her shoulder. “Dear, oh law, what are you doing?” Sister Cilla asked.
After Papa left, his shoulders hunched, Sister Cilla held her by both arms. But as he swung open the front door to leave, she broke away, running after him. She could hear stupid, ugly Mother Grace and stupid, ugly Sister Cilla following her down the hall as she burst outside. The truck had started up, and she watched it toss dry stones and hot dust as it roared away, filling her up with grit.
Mother Grace came out and bent down beside her on the top step. “Chérie,” she said, “it’s for the best. I have plans for you this—”
“No,” she screamed. “I hate you!”
She ran inside the school and back upstairs to the dormitory. Finding her towel, toothbrush, and clothes gone, she thumped back down to the second floor and pushed into the room they kept her in when all the other kids were gone. The jail cell. Where that shadow sister used to live. Sure enough, Sister Cilla had already moved her things there, just as if she had known for certain, as if Mother Grace had told her to before Papa even came to the school.