“Yeah, I know, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen them and—”
She cut me off. “That’s not my fault. Don’t blame me for that. You made your own choices, Leo, and that was one of them.”
“I know that and now I’m deciding that it would be good if I could see the kids. Only for a brief moment, an hour or two. And then if it works, maybe I can start to try and establish a relationship with them.”
“God, Leo,” she said, her voice cracking. “You are really pushing it here. Really pushing it.”
“Yeah, but I felt I had to ask, even though I have no right to, I felt I had to at least do that.”
There was another long pause, much longer than the other one. I waited it out, said nothing, let her make the decision without any verbal input because if I campaigned further, she would feel pressured and it would end in an instant.
“I can’t make this decision right now. I can’t. It’s too big and important,” she said. “And I’m going to have to ask the kids. They’re both old enough to be a part of this decision, so you’re going to have to wait. You will have to wait for us to make this decision. And in the meantime, please don’t make any more calls about this until you hear from me.”
“I can do that,” I said, a little bit of hope rising inside of me.
“That wasn’t a request. I don’t want to hear from you at all until I get back to you. I want no passive-aggressive phone calls pretending to be about something else, you got that? And if I don’t get back to you, then the answer is no.”
* * *
She called me a couple days later. “There’s good news and bad news, which one do you want first?”
“The bad, I guess.”
“Okay. Eileen wants nothing to do with you. If you want me to quote her exact words I can but the gist of it is, No, thank you.”
“What did she really say?” I asked. I hate getting things secondhand or via heresay. Getting the actual quote is always the best.
“You sure?”
“Hit me.”
“When I mentioned your request to her she said, and like I said, these are her words and her punctuation: ‘No fuckin’ way. I can’t believe you’re even asking me such a thing, Mother. Not even if he was dying of some debilitating disease. I never want to see that prick again. No. Fucking. Way.’ Those periods are hers, in case you were wondering.”
“Jesus. Nice vocabulary on the kid.”
“You asked. And after she said all that, she stormed out of the room and we haven’t said much to each other since.”
“Sorry. Hope she won’t be mad long.”
“She’ll be fine. It’s just that the topic of you is a very touchy subject.”
“Again, sorry.”
“It’s a bit late for that. That’s just the way it is. Anyway, the good news is that Peter is okay with it. He’s a bit apprehensive but he wouldn’t mind seeing you for a bit.”
My heart rose to the ceiling. One out of two wasn’t bad and I felt that if I made a good impression on Peter, showed him that his dad had it all under control and was willing to be an important and positive part of his life, then maybe he could convince his sister to give me a small chance. The probability of such an occurrence was still pretty slim but I had won against worse odds, so I was positive. “That’s awesome,” I said with a bounce in my voice. “When can I pick him up?”
“First off, there are a bunch of ground rules and these are nonnegotiable. If you don’t like any of them, then too bad. Suck it up or forget about it. Understand, Leo, I’m very serious here, very serious, and there will be no negotiations in this area.”
“Okay, I understand. No negotiations.”
“The first rule is that at no time will you pick him up at this house or drop him off here. I will not have you coming to our house and disrupting our lives with your presence. Already you’ve created a bit of a mess and I don’t want it escalating further.”
“I can meet you guys anywhere you want.”
“Good, but before we decide on that, there are a few other stipulations. I will not, will not, you hear me, leave you alone with my son until I know for sure he will be okay and is safe. I’m honestly glad you are trying to get your life back, and truly hope that this time it will work, but when all is said and done, I don’t trust you worth shit, Leo. There is almost nothing you can do to gain back that trust, but at the very least I can try to help you create a relationship with your son.
“I know what you and your father went through and I see a lot of you as a little boy in Peter. He’s a great kid, bright, funny, and with lots of friends, and he’s done really well, considering the history of his family. But he always seems to be missing something, like there’s a tiny hole in his heart. God, it would kill him if he heard me talk about him in this way, but I can’t help it, I’m his mother and he’s my little boy.”
Her voice cracked and I could tell she was speaking through tears at that point. “That’s why he reminds me a lot of you, of a lot of those stories you told me about when you were a boy. It’s pretty obvious that your relationship with your father, or lack thereof, played a major role in them. And maybe if I can do something to help improve the situation between Peter and his father, then maybe I can help fill that hole a little bit.” It took her a moment to regain her composure, and when she came back, she was strong and unyielding.
“So while I’ll let you see my son, you’ll have to see him with me there first. There is no way I’m letting you take him out by himself until I believe he’ll be okay. Okay?”
“Sounds fair to me.” It was more than fair, I thought.
“So wherever we decide to meet, probably some coffee shop, I will be there with him and I will stay with him until both he and I believe that I can leave. At first I might move to another table nearby or whatever, but just be prepared for me to be there and for the possibility that you may not get any alone time with him. And that, as I said, is how it will be. None of this is negotiable.”
“Yeah, I got that. But what if he wants you to go, but he doesn’t want to stay in the coffee shop? What if he wants to go somewhere else, like maybe see a movie or something like that?”
“As long as you tell me exactly where you are going, how long it’s going to last, and give your cell number so I can call you, that should be okay,” she said.
“And one final thing, if at any time you do anything stupid or cause my son to be hurt or threatened in any way, you will have blown your chance with him. If Peter feels even the slightest bit uncomfortable with your actions, then that’s it. We will no longer tolerate any connection or contact with you. I will tear up any and all checks that you send to us. I will change our phone numbers, and if you make any attempts to contact us in any way, I will go to the police and seek a restraining order against you. And if I’m in a really bad mood when that happens, I will go to your boss and get him to kick your ass.”
“That’s pretty harsh, Joan.”
“Tough shit, Leo. Let me show you how serious I am about this,” she said angrily. “As soon as your name appeared in a byline in the paper, I did some checking for myself and discovered a familiar name on the masthead, one Larry Maurizo, who I remembered from the paper in Olds. And that’s how I knew how you got hired. And when you called me about the kids, the first person I called was Larry and I grilled him about you. He remembered me, of course, and he was quite helpful answering all my questions without flinching. In fact, he was more than willing to help me.”
“Jesus Christ, Joan, you didn’t have to take things so far.”
“Yes I did,” she said, jumping in. “These are my children we are talking about and there is nothing more important and precious than my children.”
“They are my children, too—”
“No. They are not. They are not! You are only their father because we just happened to be married at the time they were born and you were around for a few years afterward. But when you left and never came back, that’s when you cease
d to be their parent. And when it comes to my children, I am highly protective of them, especially from their father.
“So I don’t really give a fuck if you don’t like the fact that I talked to your boss about you. And in truth, you should be thankful I did because until I talked to Larry, there was no way I was going to let you see your children. It was partly because of him that I’m going to let you see Peter. However, despite that, Larry is with me and agrees with my stipulation that if you fuck up in any way, you will lose all contact with them. I will protect my children at all costs. Make no mistake about that.”
Part of me was angry at Joan for going over my head and talking to Larry about me. It seemed like an invasion of privacy to bring my family life and its difficulties to work, hanging over me like an unreported crime.
At the same time, I was glad that my kids had someone like Joan protecting them. She could be tough, but she was also very loving. When you have kids, you are given no guarantee on how they will turn out, but with someone like Joan looking out for them, Eileen and Peter had a better chance than most. And that’s what I tried to focus on, that Joan was only protecting the kids, and I should be thankful for it.
So I apologized, and accepted all of her conditions. And we made plans.
23
“Leo Desroches,” I said, when the call came in.
“Mr. Desroches. We haven’t seen you yet at class and I got to wondering if you were just humoring me the other day.” The voice sounded familiar, a bit of the slur and dance on the words, but I couldn’t place it.
“I’m sorry. Who am I talking to?”
“The name’s Francis Alexandra. We met the other day at the Native Friendship Centre. You made a nice speech about your mom and then ran out of the room.”
My face heated up at that memory, and at the same time I recalled the elder who had offered me a cigarette later on outside. “Yeah, yeah. Mr. Alexandra, I remember now. Sorry that I didn’t recognize your voice.”
“Actually, if you could call me Francis, that would be much better.”
“Sure, Francis. No problem. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I seem to recall that during our nice talk outside the Friendship Centre, you mentioned an interest in attending Cree classes. And it’s been a few weeks and you haven’t attended yet so I was wondering if you were just humoring me.”
“Actually I believe it was you who expressed the interest in having me attend the Cree classes.”
He laughed, an easy, warm laugh. “Probably it may have been my idea in the first place, that’s been known to happen. But I do recall that you said you’d consider it and I was wondering if you had.”
I hadn’t. I had been so busy since that time that any thoughts about attending something like a beginning Cree class barely crossed my mind. And if it did, I probably just shunted it aside. I have never been good at big life changes or participating in activities that may compel me to rethink my life and my roots. When I was growing up, Dad was gone weeks or months at a time for exercises or whatever things the army did. And even when he was home, he wasn’t really there because he was usually drunk, passed out on the couch within an hour of arriving. Mom worked as a clerk at a major department store, and even though her presence was the key stabilizing influence in our lives, she was the classic codependent.
Also, because Dad was in the army and we were forced to move every two or three years, we were experts at packing up and starting fresh, at least physically. Changing our addresses was second nature but that came with a cost. In order to keep things stabilized in a world that was always moving, we all had to remain in the physical and emotional roles in which we were cast. Doing things like discussing our feelings or moving out of our expected roles would only upset things and create chaos in our world. We may have moved in time and space a hell of lot more times than the average family, but none of us truly made any emotional changes. We were, me especially, stuck in the same rut we grew up in. It was something we were just used to.
So even considering learning a new language or “getting in touch” with my Aboriginal roots would be a huge step. I imagined myself at the Cree language classes, being the only adult in the room, surrounded by the little Crees, with their straight black hair and their smiling, dark eyes, giggling and whispering to one another as all kids do when someone does something stupid, especially an adult. I would be more comfortable reading a book at home or sitting in a casino, playing cards.
“Yes, ever since we talked that lovely fall afternoon, I’ve been watching your work. And I must admit you have been busy,” he said. “The story on that poor young prostitute was very compelling. Quite sad but compelling. I know little about journalism and writing but in my opinion you are a fine writer.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.” And I did. Normally when people comment about a story in the paper, even a positive one, they have some complaint about it: something was missed, they were misquoted, or if they weren’t misquoted then their words were taken out of context or they didn’t truly mean what they said when they said it. It was rare for someone other than another journalist to say something positive about the actual writing.
“Yes, but about the Cree classes? Any chance of you attending in the next little while?”
“You know, learning a second language at my age, I don’t know, I don’t think it’s in me.”
“You never know till you try.”
“Yeah, that’s probably true but they keep me pretty busy here.”
“I’m pretty sure they must give you time off now and again. And besides, it might make a good story in your capacity as the new Aboriginal issues reporter.”
The guy was relentless, just couldn’t take a hint. His idea for the story was not bad, but at the moment I really didn’t want to probe myself and make it part of a new story. There was no way I was ready for that kind of thing.
“You know, Francis, I think I’ll just come straight out and say, although it does sound intriguing and it would probably make a good story, I don’t think I’m ready to attend a Cree class right now. Let’s just say, life’s a challenge at the moment. Maybe later but not now.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that,” he said, and if he was disappointed I couldn’t hear it in his voice. “I understand. It’s tough for people who were not raised in an environment that was open to their Aboriginal culture. They tend to choose well-trodden paths. Either they completely submerge themselves in it, accept everything they can about Aboriginal culture and, in a sense, reject their Western upbringing as being wrong and harmful. Or they’ve consciously or unconsciously bought into the concept that being native is something to deny and be ashamed of. They resist and reject anything to do with their Aboriginal heritage because of that. Or they feel they aren’t native enough to be allowed to accept these new things.
“But one thing most people forget is that just because they are accepting this new side of themselves, it doesn’t mean they have to reject the other side. And even though they haven’t been raised in traditional or stereotypical native situations like living on a reserve or with parents who were open about their culture, it doesn’t mean their Aboriginal experience is less valid than the experience of those who have. It’s just another part of the whole Aboriginal experience.
“So maybe learning a new language like Cree may not be the right first step for someone like you,” he went on. I was going to say something about how this wouldn’t be my first step in being exposed to native culture and life, because in my past there had been some other experiences, but I didn’t feel like explaining myself at the moment. So I let him continue. “But I think there might be another way, one that doesn’t involve as much commitment as learning a new language but one that can be as powerful.”
I sighed, knowing that I had to give this guy something or he would never let me go. “I won’t have to dress up in any regalia, dance around, or do anything like that?”
“All you have to do is sit there,” he said, adding, “an
d be open to whatever comes your way.”
“No one will be asking me how I feel about things?”
“No. You only have to share your feelings if you want to. No one will be asking. In fact, if you don’t want to say anything, you don’t have to. Silence is fine.”
My first reaction was to refuse. But I knew if I did, Francis would call me again and again. And if I kept refusing, there was the possibility that he might call Larry and complain. And I didn’t want Larry on my ass. The only way to deal with this was to accept the invitation and see what happened. If it was interesting, I could move further. If it wasn’t, I could say I tried, but it wasn’t my cup of tea. “Okay,” I said, a touch of reluctance in my voice. “I’m in.”
We set up a date on the weekend. He wanted Saturday but that was the day I was meeting Peter. So we made it for Sunday.
24
I forgot how Joan could always take my breath away. She wasn’t what one would call a classic beauty, she didn’t have the Botticelli features, didn’t have the alabaster skin, a cute button nose, or all the accoutrements that men are told defines beauty. If you focused on her features individually, her wide eyes, her small mouth, her tall, big-boned body, you wouldn’t look twice. However, if you took in the whole package, it was something to write home about.
She also had a presence, a charisma, created by her keen intelligence that caused almost everyone to watch her as she entered a room, even though they had no idea why, since she didn’t possess the lean glamour of a supermodel or the hourglass figure of a centerfold model.
So when we started dating, there were a bunch of other men hovering around, teachers, a lawyer, a car salesmen, and a district agriculturist—typical small-town professionals—and they still attempted to be part of her life when we became an official couple. They cornered her at parties, asked her out for coffee after school, pretended to be her friend, and all the time she was oblivious to their attempts to upgrade their friendships. It was only after we got married that she realized the truth, because, one by one, her old male friends disappeared.
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