I nod. I don’t know what to say, who she’s talking to. White woman? Indian child?
As if she’s reading my mind she says, “You must remember something.”
I shake my head. “It’s in me somewhere, what I need to know. It must be. There’s no sign of a head injury or anything like that. But I can’t get to it. I’ve tried.”
“Perhaps you put it somewhere safe.” Judy says slowly.
“Like hiding the children in the bush?” I’ve never thought of it this way.
“Our culture. Now we’re trying to find it. Ever been to a sweat lodge?”
“Not yet. I want to though.”
“They have them at the place where you work.”
Is she deliberately not using the name? I’ve been told some people find it undignified. Gimmicky. But she used it on the phone.
“The prayers you offer in a sweat lodge, they’re powerful.”
She’s reaching for her coat.
“I’ll try that.” I’m trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
“I’ll ask around. I gave Danielle some photographs of her brothers and sisters. You could look at those.”
“The thing is, I can’t be her sister, not if her mother was fourteen when she had her.”
“How old are you?”
“Forty-two, give or take.”
“Four years older than me,” Judy says. “I don’t have an older sister but it doesn’t mean we’re not related. You and Danielle, you do look alike. She’s a good kid, eh?”
“She’s doing really well.” I hesitate. “That was pretty amazing, you wiring her the bus fare, just like that.”
Judy studies me a moment. “I was praying and praying on a sign in the sweat lodge. Asking the Creator, show me I should keep doing the work. For the reserve. In spite of all the crap I was getting. Next day she calls out of the blue like that. What was I supposed to do, hang up on her?”
She smiles, her round face opening just the way Danielle’s does.
“Give me your number. I’ll ask around,” she says. “I’ll call you if I find out anything. Meantime, you do some praying, eh? Tell Danielle I’m looking forward to seeing her next weekend.”
Chapter Thirty Three
VICTOR OPENS THE door. Over his shoulder I see Manfred sitting in the kitchen. Dad must be in there too.
“Hello, Meg.” Victor’s voice sounds louder than usual. “Come on in. We were just finishing lunch. Are you hungry? There’s cream of leek soup.”
I stalk ahead of him into the kitchen, not bothering to shed my coat. Survey the scene. Dad knows me well enough to look uneasy.
Victor brings the chair we keep by the front door now. He’s standing in the doorway when I say, “I wish you had not treated me like a fool.”
Dad looks as if he’s swallowed a goldfish.
Victor is watching Dad.
If anyone denies it, I’m going to scream.
Manfred looks up at me, sympathy in his brown eyes. “We should have told you when Ben told you his secret.”
“At first we weren’t sure how you were taking it,” Victor says.
Manfred shoots him a look. “We should have told you,” he says again, “but we were afraid.”
I turn to look at Dad. “And you didn’t tell me because ...”
He meets my eyes. “It wasn’t mine to tell.”
Fuck. He’s always been able to do this.
Victor puts down the chair he’s been holding. Dad leans back. Manfred puts both his hands on the table. “Shall we go into the living room?” he asks, standing up.
There isn’t room for all of us in the kitchen.
When everyone is assembled around the coffee table, I take a deep breath. “Okay, I’m really, really tired of being the one who doesn’t know when everyone else is in on the secret. So is there anything else I should know?”
There’s a pause. Victor and Manfred look at each other then Victor says, “Ben’s doctor ...”
“Knows.”
“We were worried, to be taking care of him ...”
“When you weren’t here ...”
“And no doctor.”
“So we talked to some friends ...”
“In the trans community.”
“Transgendered,” Manfred says.
“The doctor is?”
“Sympathetic.”
“A lesbian.”
“Okay.” I glance at Dad. He might be enjoying this. “So how did you meet Manfred and Victor?”
“The Edmonton Journal ran an article about a new centre that had opened up. On 111th Avenue. For gays and lesbians and transgendered and somebody else.”
“Bisexuals,” I say. “On the corner of 101st Street.” Bill and I used to go to the Vietnamese restaurant a couple of doors down. It’s a dusty little store front on a corner. Metal shutters they can pull down at night. Tiny rainbow triangle next to the door.
“You remember Betty. Her daughter was taking her in to the Royal Alex. Out patient. Once a week. They’d offered me a ride if ever I wanted. I told them I needed a change of scene.”
Dad standing at the intersection where 97th Street comes in, the little white figure flashing, counting down the seconds. Cars roaring past on either side. The thundering, brutal city. Dad on his way to the GLBT Centre.
He’s watching me, waiting. It’s weird. I’m not mad anymore. Not mad at all. “What was it like, deciding to go? Going?”
“Exciting.”
“Weren’t you worried someone would see you going in?”
“Senile old man,” he says, “confused about where he is. Besides, I don’t know a soul in the city anymore except you.”
“So what happened?”
“I pushed open the door. Stepped in. Little bell rang. Old man appeared. Not as old as me but old enough. Told me I was free to look around, I could borrow books if I wanted to sign up for that. If I had any questions to go ahead and ask.
“I thanked him. Started looking at the bookshelves. I admit my heart was pounding but”—he shrugs—“I pulled down a few books. At random, you know. Then I noticed the shelves were labelled. African-Canadian, First Nations, Lesbian, Transgender. Titles caught my eye. The Manly Hearted Woman. The Well of Loneliness. He hooks an eyebrow at me. There was a bulletin board in the back. Lots of fliers. One down low with a fringe of numbers. None of the tabs had been torn off.
“Gay male couple, discreet, hard-working, clean living, seeks a quiet country spot to put a trailer in return for working around the place.
“I reread it. Thought, that’s a long shot. Trying to picture any of the ranchers around us welcoming a gay couple to set up house. Then it hit me.” He glances at me. “I wasn’t used to Polly being gone, you know?”
He falls silent. His eyelids are drooping.
“So what happened?”
“I took the number, borrowed those two books. Wrote down a false name. And address. I had the feeling the guy at the desk knew what I was doing but he didn’t ask for I.D., just put the books in an old grocery bag.” Dad yawns. “It was time to get back to the hospital. Meet Betty and Jeanette.”
His eyelids droop. After a minute his head tips forward. Victor and Manfred are watching him too, their faces tender. Other than the baldness, they really don’t look alike at all.
“We didn’t know,” Victor says.
“We had no idea.”
“When we met him ...”
“He told us his wife had died recently.”
“We did think ...”
“Sometimes men who’ve been closeted their whole lives ... It’s their chance.”
“The only place we put up our ad.”
“We met there. Went for coffee.”
“Then he invited us out to look at the farm.”
“We were worried.”
“That sign on the church ...”
“If a couple of men moved onto his land.”
“Worried for him as well as us.”
“We were the
ones suggested ...”
“He thought it was a good idea.”
“We asked what we could do in return.”
“He told us about you.”
“What a good daughter you were.”
“But two hours drive away.”
“And he’d been having symptoms.”
“What kind of symptoms?” I lean forward.
“Dizzy spells. Low blood pressure, it turned out.”
“We said we’d be happy to drive him to doctor’s appointments, or anywhere else he needed to go.”
“That was when he went to make another pot of tea. He refused our help so we sat there. Looking out at the mountains. It was a bright sunny day. Almost spring. They were majestic, the mountains. And this house, it’s so calm and settled, you know?”
“We could hardly believe it might come true. Our dream.” Victor’s eyes are a clear pewter.
“It didn’t seem so bad, to pass as brothers, if that was what it took.”
“Not everyone would believe it, perhaps, but nobody could say we were flaunting our sexuality.” Victor glances at Manfred. “But you felt there was something else.”
Manfred nods. “We were trying not to get our hopes up. Eventually Ben came back in with tea and slices of toast, all carefully buttered. A pot of marmalade.”
“When we all had our tea he said, ‘There’s something I should tell you. It’s a secret and it has to stay a secret or I won’t be able to live here anymore. Do you understand?’
“He knew we did.”
“‘I don’t want to answer a lot of questions but I’m going to tell you what you need to know. I was born a woman. I am a woman, I suppose. But I’ve lived as a man for seventy years’.”
“We were gob-smacked,” Victor says.
“It wasn’t what we thought he’d say, that’s for sure.”
“I started to laugh.”
“I joined in,” Manfred says, “and then he started laughing too. He laughed until tears were coming down his face.”
“When he stopped he asked if we knew Twelfth Night?”
“‘Not well’.”
“‘Read it again. You’ll enjoy it’.”
“One of a kind,” Manfred says.
“An inspiration.”
On cue Dad lets out a frilly little snore. We all look at him.
“More than anyone I’ve ever met, he’s lived life on his own terms.”
“Has he told you the whole story?”
They shake their heads.
“We asked but he wanted to tell you first.”
“He told us that right away, that he was going to tell you.”
“But he told you first. He trusted you without even knowing you.”
“It wasn’t you,” Victor says.
Manfred gives him a look. “He was worried,” he says, “it was too soon after your mother’s passing.”
“What did you mean,” I ask Victor, “it wasn’t me?”
“He wasn’t sure about your boyfriend.”
“But I broke up with him months ago.”
“Meg,” Manfred says, voice gentle, “he was afraid you’d reject him. How we reacted, it didn’t matter. Not by comparison.”
“Did he say that?”
“No, but it was obvious.”
I look at Dad and he’s a blur. Tears are about to spill down my cheeks. But they don’t and I go on looking at him. There’s a tension around his mouth. He’s too still. The others are looking at him too.
Victor grins. “I said to Manfred after we met him at the centre, ‘It’s not fair, a head of hair like that. What happened to male pattern baldness?’”
Dad’s eyelids flutter then he’s looking around, yawning, patting his mouth until he sees the smirk on Victor’s face. He glances at me and has the good grace to look sheepish.
Chapter Thirty Four
“YOU MIGHT BE here for the night if you don’t leave soon.”
To the east the sky is perfectly clear but that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve flown over this place. The land is flat for two thousand clicks then it starts to crumple. This is where prairie bangs into mountain. It’s a complicated place, weather-wise.
“Would that be all right, staying the night?”
“Of course. You don’t have to ask. Shall we take a walk while we can?”
I wait outside while he finishes putting his boots on.
It’s warmed up, the way it does when snow is coming. The dead grasses by the machine shed are tawny brown, dun, bleached gold. Soon the land will be white and grey and dark green. My eyes keep travelling back to the grasses, as if I’m afraid I’ll never see them again. As if everything might change forever.
I could tell Dad what I’ve done.
I could wait, see if it comes to anything.
We make our way around the field, skirting the frozen ridges of ploughed earth. There’s no wind, the trees hushed, expectant. We both walk out to the lip, look down at the river frozen below, every pebble in the shallows collared with ice.
“There are beavers,” I say, “in the river valley near my house. Down past the golf course. Felling young poplars, dragging them down to the water. River’s frozen clear across but somehow they’ve kept a patch open.”
“They’ll do that,” Dad says. “I don’t know how.”
I have the feeling I had the other day, about the lodge under the water where the beavers live. A whole other world, alive and out of sight.
“I suppose,” Dad says, “the river will go on carving itself deeper and deeper.”
Dad’s stretched out on the chesterfield, sound asleep. I call my voice-mail then switch on the little alabaster lamp on the bookshelf. Scanning the spines I think about Dad and Victor and Manfred in this room, laughing until they cried. Years of secrets like wrapping paper scattered across the floor, the three of them shining in each other’s sight. I pull out The Complete Shakespeare, take it into the kitchen.
The small, relentless flakes of a serious storm tap at the windows. Somewhere in Act Three I’ve lost track of who’s who in what disguise. Instead I’m picturing Judy meeting Danielle next Sunday. The first thing out of her mouth is going to be, ‘So you gave someone my phone number when I asked you not to.’
‘What are you talking about? I didn’t give your number to anyone.’
‘Well, how did she get it then?’
‘Who?’
‘Meg’s her name. She works at Dreamcatcher.’
‘Meg? Meg called you?’
‘She got my number from someone.’
‘Wait. She did ask me for it. I said I had to ask you first.’
‘Then where did she get it?’
‘It’s in my file. I put you down as my next of kin.’
‘She took it without your permission?’
‘Why did she call you?’
‘You don’t know? She didn’t mention that she’s looking for her birth family?’
Fuck. Just fuck. How the hell am I going to get out of this?
Everything stops for a moment then my mind gets going again. But I’ve learned. This much I’ve learned. Go back to the hiccup. The little pause. Breathe. Wait. What’s happening here?
I know, the way I almost always do. How am I going to get out of this? That’s addict talk. Sober self says, Take an inventory. Have you done something wrong? If so, admit it. Promptly.
Shit.
Call up Judy, tell her how I got her number.
No.
No?
No.
Everything’s gone quiet inside.
Then pray for willingness.
And if I won’t even do that?
Remember your last drink.
This is crazy. It’s not that big a deal. I’ve made far harder amends than this.
Chapter Thirty Five
THE KNOCK ON the back door makes me jump. Victor stamps his boots on the stoop. Snow clings to his eyelashes. “Come on in.”
He hands me a wide basket with a brown clay cassero
le in it.
“Thanks, but really, come in. I want to ask you a question.”
He takes off his toque, shakes the snow away. Fresh flakes settle on his bald head. They melt as he steps inside and shakes off his boots. He looks into the living room. Dad’s still asleep.
I put down the basket, lift out the casserole.
“Stuffed cabbage leaves,” Victor says. “There’s sour cream in the fridge. And homemade sauerkraut, only it’s a little more like kimchee. What kind of bread did you bring?”
“I didn’t, but I expect there’s still some of the rye I brought last time.”
“Perfect.” He eyes me.
“What did you make of Twelfth Night?” I ask.
Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t that. He grins, shakes his head. “I think he thinks we shouldn’t take it all so seriously.”
“I got as far as Act III. I thought I was going to find some kind of key but really it’s a goofy farce.”
“Ben said once that when you get old, comedy creeps back in. Even Shakespeare outgrew tragedy.”
“The difference between tragedy and comedy is a sense of proportion. I impressed the shit out of an English teacher once, repeating that. I thought it was Dad’s idea but I guess it comes from someone famous.”
“He was trying to get us to read The Tempest.” He shakes his head. “Manfred tried. I think we’re philistines.”
“Not where food is concerned,” I say, putting down the casserole and lifting the lid.
“Stuffed with ground pork and hazelnuts, plenty of onion. Parsley, garlic of course, a dash of soy sauce.”
“So where did you learn to cook?”
“I worked in a butcher’s in Gastown, making sausage. Good sausage. That’s where I met Manfred. He liked my sausage.”
I can’t help it. The laugh snorts out. He grins.
There’s a noise from the living room.
“Hello, Ben,” Victor calls.
“Be with you in a minute,” Dad calls.
We both listen to him shuffle and tap across the floor toward the washroom.
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