I looked down at the newspaper. God, I needed a drink. I always did when I thought about this stuff. Reminded me of St. Anne’s and Mike Pasko. Fuck, I shouldn’t. I’d already promised Joan that I’d cut down. Simone popped her head through the library door.
“A bunch of us are going to the Commoner.” It was the local student bar. “Wanna come?”
“No, I better not.” I had promised Joan.
“Come on. It’ll do you some good.” She was right about that one. I certainly needed a drink. “Don’t be a stickler.”
I looked at the article again and felt the hot anger spreading across my chest. It would be good to burn it off. Booze would do that.
“Meet you there in fifteen.”
“Where were you?” Joan asked that night, opening our apartment door.
“We were celebrating.”
“Celebrating what?”
“Our assimilation off the reserves!”
“What are you talking about?”
“We are now part of the White Man’s World!”
“Ed. Are you drunk?”
“Nah. It was just a couple.”
“It doesn’t look like it!”
“Why are you always on my case?”
“Because you promised you would cut down and you haven’t. You still drink almost every night.”
“I’m shorry,” I slurred.
“Sorry?! I don’t care about sorry. I care about you being sober.”
“Relax, Joan.”
“Don’t tell me to relax. It’s you that’s making me anxious.”
“Come on. Don’t be like that.”
“I’m going out,” she said.
“Where?”
“Just out.”
When she returned, I had sobered up. I told her that she was right and that I needed to lay off the booze.
“How can I believe you?”
“I promise.”
“You said that last time.”
“I know. But this time, I mean it.”
“How can I trust you?”
“I’ve been better, haven’t I?”
“You stopped for a little while. But now it’s the same again. You drink almost every night. I can smell it on you in the mornings.”
“Joan. I’m sober by morning. Besides, I had a rough day. There was this article in the newspaper about the treaties. I told people about it at the bar. Everyone was so mad. They all said, ‘that happened to me too.’ There were all these broken promises. And then we started to play this drinking game: whose reserve had it worse. If you couldn’t think of anything that the wemistikoshiw had done to make your life miserable, you had to drink.”
“Oh great.”
“Come on, it was just some fun.”
“Why do you have to focus on the negative?”
“We were just having a laugh.”
“You were out having a laugh while I was at home worried sick, wondering where you are.”
“I should have called.”
“No, you shouldn’t have gone. You promised that you’d stop drinking when you had insomnia. You promised me that you’d stop drinking when you were studying. This stuff scares me. We don’t have the money for you to go out drinking with your school buddies. You know that.”
“Look, I was out with my friends. I got carried away. It’s no biggie.”
“Yes. It is a biggie. You promised.”
“Yes, you’re right. I got carried away.”
“Ed. It isn’t fair. You were supposed to focus on your studies so you can get a better job, not carry on like a teenager.” I hung my head.
“You’re right.”
“Damned right, I’m right.”
“Look, I’ll make it up to you.”
“How?”
“Whatever you want.”
“What I want is you to come home after lectures, or whatever, and help me with Albalina.”
“Yes, of course,” I said.
Over the next few months, I stayed on the straight and narrow. I did my homework, and came home and helped Joan with Albalina. Started to catch up, and my marks went up, not by a mile—Cs to Bs—but by enough. We celebrated (with orange juice) all those things that make life worth living—Albalina taking her first steps, Joan’s youngest brother meeting his niece for the first time, Joan selling her first photograph. Joan said she didn’t mind—it was healthier. I was happy, happier than I’d been in years.
—
“Ed? Is that you?”
We were back in Peterborough, after spending the summer in Fort Albany, so that I could do year two of university. I shut the front door and went into the living room. Joan was watching TV with Albalina curled up in her lap. I sat next to her. It was The Brady Bunch. They should make that show up north with twenty kids, I thought. We watched in silence for a few minutes.
“Ed, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Yep,” I said, staring at the TV.
“I’m pregnant.”
“You are? Oh good,” I said. I was still thinking about the story arc of Fort Albany’s Brady Bunch, so it took me a few moments to come back to the present. “Great,” I added, trying to muster more enthusiasm. We had just returned from three months living with my parents, as we couldn’t afford to stay in Peterborough, and had to relearn what everyone on the reserve spends years perfecting—the gentle art of waiting. You wake up and you wait for the outhouse, get in line to use the river water, wait for your turn to use the stove and kettle, wait to use the household’s only frying pan. And that’s before you’ve gotten dressed. We’d learned about the economics of overcrowding in our courses at Trent, which somehow made the whole thing worse, like my childhood was a problem to be fixed. And if anything, the issue was getting worse, not better. I imagined myself returning home with two kids in tow, and living with Ma and Pa, and my nine brothers and sisters. That would make fifteen of us in that tiny house.
“Great? Is it really?” Joan said.
“Yes,” I said, trying to reassure her and myself. I pulled her closer, protectively, and kissed her shoulder.
“Are we going to be okay?”
“Yeah. Ya. Of course.”
“Of course?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not working, and how can I know that your drinking isn’t a bigger problem than you’re letting on?”
“Come on, Joan. Everything is under control.”
The last time I had gotten really drunk was at the Commoner, but she kept bringing it up, as if I could turn back the clock.
“Ed, this is serious.”
“I know.”
“You can’t just keep having one more, one more.”
“Joan, please.”
“Please what?”
“Please stop reminding me that I made a mistake. Mistakes,” I corrected myself.
“Ed, this is a new life we’re talking about.”
“And you are a great mom.”
“But what about us?”
“We’ll be fine. I promise.”
June 1, 1972. My boy was born in Peterborough. Joan had been too pregnant to fly back to Fort Albany so we’d stayed on. He was a biggie, nine pounds, nine ounces. He was bald with bright black eyes. We had already chosen the name, Shannin. Joan’s maternal family was from Cork, Ireland, so we chose a name that means “wise river.” Now we had two river children to guide us.
“He looks just like you,” Joan said. “If you were bald.”
“He does?”
“Yes.”
“Is that a good thing?”
I remembered back to the way that I’d been shunted between different foster homes in high school. And being behind in all my courses after leaving the reserve. If he was growing up in a wemistikoshiw world, maybe it was better if he looked more like them.
“Yes, of course!” she said. “Come here.” She offered me the hand that wasn’t holding onto Shannin and I took it. “My boys,” she said.
I spent three y
ears at Trent University, but didn’t graduate. Joan got pregnant with our third child in my final year, and with the demands of taking care of her and our kids, and trying to catch up after the poor schooling on the reserve, well, I didn’t make it. My supervisor, Don, was nice about it. Said I could finish my degree remotely and no one would even need to know. Still, the failure made my face burn.
We moved back to Fort Albany. It was too expensive to fly our stuff up north, so we sold it or gave it away. The days passed in a rush of lists and goodbyes and then we were on a plane.
Ma and Pa greeted us at the airport with such excitement, as if we hadn’t seen them for two centuries rather than a few months. Ma was so happy to see the kids, and then Albalina wanted down and Joan, heavily pregnant, ran after her, and Pa took Shannin, while I helped Joan.
And then we were home, back at Ma and Pa’s house. I looked around and saw that they’d made a touching effort. On the kitchen table were all my favourite dishes: bannock, potato soup, moose snout, moose steaks and duck, and blackberry jam. Then, as if by telepathy, everyone began arriving at the front door: Alex, Mary-Louise, Chris, Leo, Jane, Denise, Mike, Marcel and Danny. Everyone was hugging us and we were eating and laughing.
“Did you hear that they’ve put a new satellite in Timmins?” Ma said. “Suzanne and Terri have both gotten their first TVs.”
“John Wayne,” I said.
“Huh?” Ma said.
“Bet they are watching John Wayne,” I said.
“I doubt it. There’s only one channel. CBC. Most of the time they watch the news.”
We were still waiting for a new house, so every day I tried to take Joan to my beauty the Albany. There’s an old Cree legend that you can see your future in the river’s water. Pa told me about it before I went into the residential school. It doesn’t happen right away. You have to spend a few days on the river. Gradually your mind empties. Slows down. Connects to the rhythms of the Earth. Kayamenta. If you’re lucky, you might have a vision or some deep insight.
“Whatyadoing?” Joan asked. We were sitting together on the blanket next to the river. Shannin and Albalina were both asleep, and in that rare moment of calm I had been staring at the water under the lazy light of June. I told her about the legend.
“So can you see your future?”
“No. I don’t expect to. We’ve only just got here. You have to spend a while letting go.”
“Here, let me have a go,” she said. She looked at the water for a few minutes. “No, nothing. Just water. And weeds.”
“Take your time,” I said, and I wiped her hair away from her brow. She gazed at the water and I watched her green eyes dance. My God, she was beautiful.
“Watching the water is so relaxing,” she said after a while.
“I know,” I said.
“This reminds me of the time you took me out on your boat. Do you remember that?”
“Which time?”
“The time when you first said the words ‘I love you.’ ”
“I thought that was when we were at your house, listening to the storm.”
“Oh yes. You’re right. The boat was the second time you said those words. I remember now. When you said it on the boat, I remember the water and the wind, and watching the way you navigated. I thought, this is the man I want to spend my life with.”
“You did?” I stroked her arm.
“Ed?”
“Yes.”
“My water just broke.”
“It’s a boy, over!” Joan said. We were in her hospital room in Moose Factory where we had flown after that beautiful day by the Albany. Joan was talking to Ma, who was on the radio phone. She paused. “Yes. We’ll be home in two days. Over.” Pause. “Yes. His name is Jassen. Over.”
I looked down at my newborn son. Jassen, from the Greek, meaning “healer.” He was lighter than Shannin, nine pounds five ounces, with alert brown eyes. He smelled so good, like breast milk and raw earth. I thought about what Pa had told me about newborn babies. He said that they were untouched by the pain and corruption of the world. That as they become aware of the world, we must teach them to open their eyes wide, to be unafraid of those around them.
Did Jassen know what was happening in my world? Would he be touched by my pain? I brought him close to my chest. No. I would never let that happen. I would teach him to open his eyes wide. To feel without being afraid. And with these lessons, he would stand tall.
A few months later, I got a message, via radio phone, from my old supervisor. Don was calling with a job offer. They were looking for someone to take care of the Native Studies students.
“You know what it’s like for students coming off the rez,” he said. I thought back to my time at university. How hard it had been to go from a dry reserve to a place where booze was everywhere. How I had to figure out how to be a parent while catching up with school. How we were always worried about money. How the band sometimes “forgot” to pay our tuition.
“Yes, I do.”
“We need someone who’s going to be involved.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well. We’ve had criticisms that the students are too far behind academically. Or have drinking problems. We need someone to manage that.”
“Manage that?”
“Help them stay on track. I thought that since you had personal experience …” He knew that I’d shown up drunk to a few classes when I first got to Trent. “You pulled yourself together, though. I need someone who can help them along a similar journey.”
“Thanks for thinking of me,” I said. “But I’m not sure I’m qualified.” I didn’t really feel I had been on any sort of journey.
“You’re exactly what we want. Aboriginal teacher. Good listener. Thoughtful. Smart. University graduate.”
“But I didn’t graduate.”
“Well, it took you a while. But you got there in the end. Your paper on cultural schizophrenia was excellent.” While in Fort Albany, I had written an academic paper to finally get my degree.
“What makes you think I’m the right person for the job?”
“You’ll be great.”
FIFTEEN
If you are driving to Peterborough from the northwest, along the Trans-Canada Highway, the first thing you notice is that the city has no rough spots. It’s not like Timmins or Kirkland Lake. Everything looks like it should be in a movie set about some old-fashioned town. Even the street names are taken from somewhere else: Edinburgh, Dublin, London. It’s like the wemistikoshiws arrived and got so homesick they dug up old photographs, and tried to make models of their past.
Our move down south was different this time. For starters, we were able to rent a three-bedroom house downtown on one of those streets where people have giant firs and spruces tucked onto their front lawns, and there’s still space for a garage. We had the whole house this time, so there was enough room for Joan, me, Albalina, Shannin and Jassen, and still we could have family members come and stay.
I was working at one of the best universities in Canada, doing something I loved: helping my people adjust to the demands of being down south. We got another car, nothing fancy, a blue Plymouth, and I could drive myself to work for the first time. It was a beautiful drive, along the Otonabee River, which starts sprawling and relaxed, meandering over marshland, and then rushes into white water as the channel narrows.
We were living the wemistikoshiw dream.
“Can you believe this guy?” Donnie said. Donnie was twenty-four, and one of my students in the Native Studies program. He had drifted between reserves, although he was initially from Manitoulin Island, Ontario. He gestured toward Don, who was at the front of the auditorium, delivering the same speech that Harvey had given to me when I started at Trent.
“What about him?” I said.
“Lecturing us about parties.”
I thought back to my time at Trent, and blushed.
“And he’s a white guy teaching Native Studies. He’s acting like he knows everything.
Telling us what to do.”
“He’s not so bad.”
“You the same then?”
“Me? God no.”
“You sure? I hear you have a white wife. And a wemistikoshiw job.”
“Yeah, well.” Pause. “I got lucky, that’s all.”
“So why did you marry out?”
“I …” Pause. “We fell in love.” He stared at me like he’d seen something he didn’t like. “Come on,” I said. “It’s not like that. I’m not an apple. I’ve seen some shit. I know what you’re going through. Really I do. Let me show you my old student hangout. It’s a great bar called the Commoner. I’ll buy you a drink.”
“You’re late,” Joan said, when I walked into our kitchen, where she was cooking dinner.
“Sorry. I was making friends.”
“Making friends at the bar?”
“Yeah, with one of my students.”
“You’re supposed to counsel them, not go drinking with them.”
“Joan. Please. I know what I’m doing.” I hated when she lectured me like this. It made me feel like I was seven and listening to Sister Wesley screaming in my ear. “I’m doing my job.”
Her eyes narrowed. “By going to the bar. Ed. We can’t go through all this again.”
“I know.”
“We have three kids now.”
“I know. We’re very lucky.”
“Please let’s just keep what we have.”
“We will. We will. Trust me.”
It was eleven p.m. when I got the call from my boss, Don. Everyone else in the house was asleep.
“Yes?” I said groggily into the bedroom phone.
“Sorry to bother you but it’s about two of the students, Sekwan and Donnie.” Donnie had gotten together with Sekwan a few weeks before. She was twenty-three and from Enoch Cree Nation. “They said they were in trouble. They asked for you. Can you go?” The drive between my place and Catharine Parr Traill College, which housed both native and wemistikoshiw undergraduates, took less than five minutes. I rang the bell. Sekwan let me in.
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