Cardinal Divide

by Nina Newington

  Emmett waits to be sure she has finished then he turns to the board and writes, Eskwikan. “Thank you,” he says, turning back to her. “It is very important to hear this story. Would you be willing to tell it to a group of elders we are gathering together?”

  She nods, pleased.

  Danielle raises her hand. Her cheeks are pink.

  Emmett nods. “Go ahead.”

  “I want to know about the traditions of my people,” she says, Southern accent drawing out the words, “and I don’t mean to be disrespectful but the Bible, the Bible says it is a sin for a man to lie with a man.” She stops, chin sticking out. A few heads nod around the room. Don is looking at Emmett for the first time.

  After a good long pause Emmett says, “Jesus said, ‘As you do unto the least of these, you do unto me.’ He welcomed the outcasts, the poor, the prostitutes.” He looks around. “Until the missionaries came, our way was to accept. The Creator makes people as they need to be and we honour them as we honour the animals and the plants, the rocks and the stars.” Next to me, Cathy is nodding, her straight black hair falling forward to hide her face. “Who are we to condemn the works of the Creator?” Now he looks directly at Danielle. “We can love Jesus without taking on the hatred and the intolerance of the church.”

  “Hai hai,” Doug says. He looks hard and remote as a hawk. It’s the first time I’ve seen him angry.

  “Can I ask you a question, Meg?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is he really an elder?” Danielle’s sitting on her bed, as usual. Next to her Bible is one of the hard-covered notebooks the counsellors issue as journals.

  “Emmett? Yes.”

  “He doesn’t seem ...”

  “Old enough?”

  Danielle smiles at me, the wide smile that makes her face look like a flower. Behind her in the dark, snowflakes drift down. They collect on the windowsill.

  “It’s not just that. I talked to my aunt a lot. About my people. Our culture. She never said anything about the two spirit thing. She said you could be a good Christian and follow tradition. That that was how our traditions survived.” She looks at me earnestly.

  “I think I’m out of my depth here. Perhaps you should talk some more with Emmett. He’s willing to meet one on one with clients.”

  Danielle shrugs. “He’s entitled to his opinions. But I know my aunt is not in favour of that sort of”—she hesitates—“alternative lifestyle.”

  “What’s she like, your aunt?”

  “Spiritual. She’s very spiritual. She cares, you know? I mean, she wired me over three hundred bucks for the bus and she never even met me. Well, when I was born, for about a minute. She insisted on being with her sister in the hospital. Their mother was too trashed to bother. She’s only two years older than my mother but she was like a mother to her. That’s what Judy says.”

  “How many siblings does she have?”

  “Eight. I think she’s the only sober one out of the whole family. Except for me.”

  I take a deep breath. “I’d like to meet her. I was wondering ...”

  “Hey, she said she’d come into the city next time I go out on pass. Maybe you could join us. I’ll ask her.”

  Shit. “Actually, I was wondering if I could get her phone number from you.”

  “Maybe. I have to ask her. She’s kind of fierce about her number. She had to change it. People were calling her when they were trashed, calling from all over the country, yelling about her wanting a dry reserve.”

  “Oh. Of course. Well, I’d better get back to the desk.”

  Chapter Thirty

  THE GOLF COURSE has been taken over by dogs. People throwing balls and Frisbees. Children in bright colours running around in the snow. Not a lot of snow, just enough to change everything. Smoke stacks line the horizon, flares invisible in the flat white light.

  Then it’s on me, the feeling, nose pressed to cold glass, watching other families’ lamp-lit lives. Won’t someone notice I’m out here in the cold, the dark? Wanting what’s not mine. Nothing I’ve a right to. No people of my own.

  Come on. You were invited in. Welcomed.

  But the claw gripping my gut is old and strong.

  Feet, get me out of here. I half slide down the trail to the river’s edge. Wind hisses a scrim of snow across the ice. Somewhere beneath my feet fish flick through moving water.

  It grabs me the way a cramp grabs your leg. A moment’s warning then you’re gasping, fuck, fuck, fuck. It’s always been like this. It always fucking will be. I’ll only ever be on sufferance.

  Walk. Just walk.

  I knew it was a bad idea, letting the want get started. Dad coaxed me into it. Me, suspicious as a wild animal, him patient, luring me on. But it was there in me already, the wanting. Must have been. He just saw it, knew how to work it, the way he knew with the dogs how to bring out what was in them already. If I could cut it out of myself this moment I would. The wanting longing hungry fucking child. I can feel the blade, carbon steel, honed for the job. Flesh of my flesh. Fuck. Why I drank. Kill the fucking longing.

  If you had succeeded you’d be a psychopath.

  Only thing Lip-tooth ever said that got my attention.

  Drink until I didn’t want. Drink until I despised the wanting. I’d have killed it if I could.

  You’re still trying to manage your pain. What happens if you feel it?

  ‘Universe ends. Of course.’

  Poor old Lip-tooth. She tried.

  Stare across the river. Wish the coyotes would sing. It’s ebbing, the bad feeling. Helped, thinking about Lip-tooth. Does that mean I need yet more therapy? Can’t afford it on Dreamcatcher wages. ‘If you had succeeded ...’

  Always felt like weakness, that I couldn’t kill the hunger.

  A good failure? Like getting beat by booze.

  Across the trail ahead of me something’s shuffled the snow. Look up into the bush that crowds the hillside. Fresh yellow wood. Poplar stump gnawed to a point. Thrash of twigs dragged over the bank. Patch of dark water rifts the river’s icy surface. Beaver, silver bubbles trapped in his coat, glides through tea-coloured water, towing the branches down. Down to the secret lodge.

  Chapter Thirty One

  VAL WAVES ME over, squeezes my hand hello as the meeting begins. I close my eyes for the opening prayer, inhale subtle perfume. Musk under something lemony and fresh.

  ... and the wisdom to know the difference.

  Val doesn’t dress up for the meeting, she’s just incapable of dressing down.

  Looking round, people catch my eye, smile and nod. I guess it’s been a while. Doesn’t take long for me to forget I have a place I’m always welcome. Oh boo hoo. As if I’m living some terrible outsider life, me with my house and job, a father who’s not some crazed alcoholic monster. Even if he isn’t ...

  I take a deep breath, let it out.

  Val murmurs, “Good, isn’t it? I come in sometimes, sit down and it’s like I didn’t notice until that moment how much baggage I was carrying.”

  I smile, nod, my eyes on her hands, big knuckles, long, square-tipped fingers, the thick bone of her wrist. Deep voice. For a woman.

  Is she?

  Does it matter?

  Wish I could say no. That I’m not wondering what’s between her legs.

  The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.

  It washes over me, the familiar cadence of the preamble. Whoever is reading is smooth. No stumbles. Newish guy. Jean. Métis. Handsome as Marlon Brando. He isn’t reading. He’s got it memorized.

  I let my eyes slip sideways. Small breasts. Prominent cheekbones. The upswept sixties’ hairstyle Val favours. My Jackie O. look. We got sober in the same meetings. She was a couple of years ahead of me. Exotic Val, father Ethiopian, mother Ojibwe. Grew up in Toronto but the tide of booze and drugs took her west, dropped her in Edmonton. Where she stayed. Selling French perfume in a Glenora boutique. For all I know, she owns the place by now. I’ve never consider
ed that she might be trans. But she did remind me of Dora. Same dignity. Not that Dora wore suede soft as butter. Downtown Eastside they’d have had it off her back in a minute.

  The topic’s letting go, turning it over. A particular it. Or all of it. Give it to God.

  Dear Dora,

  I’m tangled in a stupid lie.

  I don’t even know if I want to find out what kind of hell-hole I came from.

  And I’m still mad about the brothers.

  I can see why they’d be scared. I know what Mum’s fellow believers were like. It’s not that. It’s being the one who didn’t know.

  And thinking I was the one in the know with Dad. Feeling special. While all the time they were watching, knowing. The brothers. Who aren’t. It’s like a splinter I can’t get out.

  The woman who’s sharing now, she’s a dancer. Goes around the powwows. “The dance, it’s not me. It’s coming through me, you know? I have to let go. Let it come. It’s in my blood, eh? I have two girls. They love to dance but they’ll never be Fancy dancers. They don’t have the blood.”

  She has a sharp face, Beth. Sallow with high cheekbones. Jet black hair gathered in a bun. I saw a poster once of a Flamenco dancer, how she stood, chin raised. Proud, I thought. That’s what proud looks like. Fancy dancing the Cree Flamenco? Is that sacrilege?

  What about the daughters whose mother is so proud and so certain they will never dance like her? Blood thinned by their father’s whiteness. Some of the others look away when Beth is talking. But it’s A.A. Nobody argues with her. When she’s done, she passes. Newfie Joe talks about the bad old days, sleeping out in the river valley in the summer, shelters in the winter. On my morning walks I glimpse the camps sometimes: tarps draped over fallen trees, meagre belongings in plastic bags. How he thought he was in charge of his life when all that was left was making sure he had enough booze to get through the day. “More guts than a ten cent fish.” He looks around the room. “Less brains.” People laugh. “One day a guy volunteering at the soup kitchen du jour looks me in the eyes, he asks, ‘Is this the day, Joe?’ I say. ‘Yes.’

  “Everything changed.” He shakes his grizzled head, snaps meaty fingers. “Just like that.”

  “Thousand times a person could ask me that question, I’d tell them to f--- off. That day I was ready.”

  It’s always redemption. The fact that you’re here, telling the story. To a roomful of people who listen, who laugh with you at the worst, the craziest stuff. Who know what you’re talking about. Know the way I do, hairs standing up on my neck, my arms, when the moment comes.

  I don’t share. Can’t think where to start.

  “Got time for a cup of coffee?”

  “Sure,” Val says. “I’ve just got to talk to a couple people.”

  “See you at The Second Cup in ten? I need to feed the meter.”

  And I don’t feel like milling about, chatting.

  “What’s happening, sistah?” Val sips chamomile tea.

  “Not too much. Working at Dreamcatcher. Shit pay. Good work. Checking in on my father. How about you?”

  “Good. But tell me how you really are.” She smiles, even milk white teeth, pale pink lipstick. “I haven’t seen you around much lately.”

  She means at meetings.

  “Like I said, I’ve been spending more time with my father. Working extra too.”

  “Working in the addictions biz,” Val says, “meetings can come to seem like work.”

  “I know. But it’s not that. Honestly. I do have a question for you. You know a woman called Judy in the program, lives out on one of the reserves in the foothills, Edson way?”

  “Judy L.,” Val nods. “Been sober four or five years. All fired up to save the reserve. That the one?”

  I nod. “What’s she like?”

  Val considers the far wall of the café a moment. “Nice woman. Hard life. Oldest daughter. Alcoholic family. Feels responsible for everything and everyone.”

  Val’s done a lot of Adult Child of Alcoholics work. She’s watching me now, waiting.

  “I can’t really tell you the details. Client confidentiality. But. You know my story, right? Well, people say I look just like her niece.”

  “Judy’s niece?”

  “Yes. So I thought I might call her up. Judy. See if I could visit. See if ...” I shrug. Val’s looking worried. “That’s the problem. I don’t know what I’m hoping for.”

  “You need to find them, eh?” Val’s voice is husky.

  I nod.

  After a moment she says, “You know I had a daughter when I was fifteen? There isn’t a single day goes by I don’t think about her. Sometimes I picture her deciding to find me.”

  How could I have forgotten? “I’m sorry, Val. I did know. I didn’t mean to put my big foot somewhere so painful.”

  She’s shaking her head. “It’s okay. It is what it is. I’d just like her to know that I love her. That it was never about indifference.”

  It drives right into me, that word.

  “My turn to hit a sore spot?” Val asks.

  “Indifference. It’s where I always end up. In relationships. I end up not caring. Like I don’t know how to stay connected.”

  Val doesn’t say anything, just watches me. Deep brown eyes. The longest, most elegant neck. Now I’m seeing the woman in her I can’t imagine how I thought she might have been born a guy. Or how I forgot she gave birth to a daughter.

  After a while I say, “I don’t think I’m going to be able to make a relationship that works until I know where I came from.” Concern shadows her face. “I know. I might never find out. It’s not like I’ve got adoption papers. But I have to try. I was wondering, do you have Judy’s number?”

  “I do but I need to call her, ask if it’s okay to give it to you.”

  “Oh, well, don’t worry. I can get it from Danielle. The niece.” I stand up. “Better get going. Good to see you.”

  “You too. Call me. Anytime.”

  Chapter Thirty Two

  SHE LOOKS EXACTLY like the photograph in Danielle’s room. Except she’s dragging an oxygen tank behind her.

  “Meg?” Her smile reveals the gap between her front teeth. She’s short and plump, her eyes a clear hazel, steady on my face even as she sits down. After a moment she nods.

  “How do you like your coffee?” I ask, standing.

  “Double double,” she says. “Please.” She reaches for the purse she has set on the table.

  “My treat. You drove down here.”

  “Had to get my prescription anyway.”

  She watches me go to the counter, order coffees and a dozen Timbits. I feel like one of Dad’s ewes at the auction.

  “Tell me the story,” Judy says when I sit down again.

  Christ, she doesn’t go in for small talk.

  She waves a hand at the tank parked by her chair like a small, obedient dog. “I run out of juice.”

  “It’s a very long shot,” I say.

  “So this ranch where you showed up, no papers, no memory, nothing. How far is it from Firestick?”

  “About forty kilometres.”

  “Did they go to the authorities, the people who took you in?”

  “Not right away. My father wanted to but ...” I shrug.

  “They didn’t think you might just be lost?”

  “I had scars on the backs of my legs. Older ones and some more recent. From being beaten with a switch, I guess. That’s what my mother said.”

  It’s not like being in some therapist’s office, sitting in Timmies with Judy, wind blowing empty coffee cups around the parking lot. Grey, cold day, fluorescent lights not much better. Neither of us has eaten any of the Timbits. Now we each reach for one. I feel completely naked and weird. Not just me, Mum and Dad on display too.

  I take a sip of coffee. The way Judy waits is different but I can’t put a finger on why. After a moment I say, “My mother was sure God sent me. That I was meant to be there, with them. She didn’t really care how I
got there.”

  Judy nods as if she understands this.

  “My father did ask around. The first person he talked to was a Cree man called John who worked on the ranch sometimes. He came from Firestick.”

  “What was his last name?”

  “Smith.”

  Judy shakes her head. “What did he look like?”

  “Craggy face, puckered scar on his eyebrow. He wore his hair in a braid.”

  “How old?”

  “In his forties, I think. It’s hard to tell when you’re a kid.”

  “And that was nineteen sixty ...”

  “Eight.”

  Judy is nodding. “John Yellowknee. He was my aunt’s cousin.”

  “He spoke to me in Cree. At least that’s what I think it was. I didn’t recognize it.”

  “Or him?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Your foster father, what did he ask John?”

  “If he recognized me. If there were any children missing from the reserve.”

  For the first time there’s colour in Judy’s face, a flush not just in her cheeks but across her forehead.

  “And what did John say?” Her voice is harsh.

  “Not that he knew of. He’d ask around.”

  “Nineteen sixty-eight. You’ve heard of the sixties scoop?” Before I can answer she goes on, “They shut down the residential schools. Just grabbed the kids off the reserves instead. Said we were unfit. Too poor. Too Indian.”

  Her eyes are glittering like the lumps of coal I’ve found in the riverbank.

  “Just took them away. Gave them to other families. Didn’t we want our children to have a better life?”

  She stops, the colour draining back out of her face. What’s left is ashen, empty. Her eyes are grey caves. She sucks on the oxygen. I drink thin coffee.

  After a bit, her chin goes up. The glitter is back in her eyes. “We got smarter. Someone heard they were coming. The social workers. Child catchers. Families would take their kids, go into the bush. Live the old way. Course then they could get you because the kids weren’t in school.”