Cardinal Divide

by Nina Newington

  “Her aunt was coming into town to see her,” Tanya says. “Judy. My kokum knew Judy’s mother. A good woman. Do anything for you. Judy sounds the same way.”

  “I’d say so,” Heather says, “sending a complete stranger bus fare half way across the country.”

  “She’s got money to burn now, Danielle does.” Tanya shakes her head. Glossy black hair swings from side to side. The blue streak’s growing out. “She’s always at the vending machines, that one.”

  Heather clicks ‘Send’ and shuts down the computer. “When are you on again?”

  She’s talking to me. “Tuesday.”

  “And you?”

  Tanya says, “Depends on Mum. Cathy told me not to worry. Laura’s finished with training. She’s eager for shifts.”

  Heather looks at me. “Have you met her, the new hire?”

  “I didn’t even know there was one. What’s she like?”

  “Ambitious.”

  “As evening staff?”

  “Foot in the door,” Tanya says, arching her eyebrows.

  Heather nods. “Be careful what you say around her. She’s well connected. Know what I mean?”

  “Another veteran?”

  “No, but good friends.”

  Chapter Forty Six

  THE LIGHT’S FLASHING on the phone when I get home.

  “Meg, this is Judy. Give me a call, please. I have a question for you.”

  For example, where did you get my number? Why did you lie to me?

  Too late to call now.

  “Judy? This is Meg.”

  A volley of coughing is followed by a couple of gasps. “Meg? Give me a minute.”

  I was sitting but somehow I’m on my feet, pacing in front of the picture window. My neighbours are getting into their cars, going to work. A few are walking small children to the school around the corner. Children the colours of jelly beans, padded and mittened.

  “Okay.” Judy still sounds as if she’s barely got enough air to speak. “Been sick. Why I couldn’t get into town at the weekend. I hope Danielle wasn’t too disappointed.”

  “She didn’t mention it.” No shit she didn’t. I sit down again.

  After another bout of coughing Judy asks, “How old you were when you showed up at that ranch?”

  “Ten. Or so.”

  “Ah.”

  “Could have been nine. Might have been eleven.”

  “Not six?”

  “No. Definitely not six.” I know I told her how old I was.

  “In 1968?”

  “September 1968.” Breathe. “There was a six-year-old child who went missing?”

  “Terri Bailey went off with her daughter. Everyone thought she must have gone to Vancouver. Get away from her boyfriend. But nobody saw her there. Not like she had money to rent an apartment.”

  “But her daughter was six?”

  “Yes.”

  “So. So that’s it?”

  “Well, I can’t say that.” Judy’s breath is short again. “She’s not the only woman disappeared. No, she’s not. But it’s her name comes up when I ask about a child. I’ve got a few more to talk to. It’s hard to get around, you know. This time of year.”

  “Can I give you some money for gas?”

  “No need of that. Not yet.”

  “Should I, should I send you a photo of me? When I was a child, I mean?”

  “Well. That might come in handy. I suppose.” She sounds doubtful. I wait. “So many children taken. It hurts, you know? Showing someone a photograph from thirty years ago. ‘This your baby?’ People want ... if it was more sure you came from here.”

  I don’t know what to say.

  After a moment she asks, “Do you have any—what do they call them—distinguishing marks?”

  “The scars on the backs of my legs from where I was beaten.” It comes out exactly the way I’m feeling which is that I wasn’t worth protecting.

  Judy sighs and the sigh turns into a cough. “Gotta go,” she says when she can talk again. “I’ll call if I ...”

  The phone goes dead. I didn’t get her address. But maybe I’d just as soon nobody was peddling around the picture of me when I was a kid. ‘You know her? You want her? Anyone going to claim her? No? Too bad, eh?’

  Chapter Forty Seven

  FLAT, GREY LIGHT, an icy wind, but people are still out and about. Snow’s trampled and dirty. We didn’t get as much as out at the ranch anyway. I’m going to have to apologize to Dad for that phone call. In person. We don’t do well on the phone at the best of times. Calling him a fucking coward. But what if they did ...? Okay. I’m not ready. Breathe. Traffic rumbles over the Capillano. Pigeon shit streaks the girders. In the summer electric golf carts whirr under the highway here, past the stands of willow. Is this it, the place Charlotte turned into Ben?

  Or was it the 53rd Street bridge which was a streetcar bridge for as long as they had streetcars? I hurry back down the trail as if what? Somebody’s going to get to that coil of golden hair before me. Take it home. My stomach twists. I stop so suddenly someone coming up behind me almost runs into me. Woman with a Rottweiler on a leash casts me a not very friendly look. Dog too. I’m freezing my ass off looking for the place where Charlotte became Ben.

  Seventy years ago.

  I walk out onto the footbridge, out to the middle of the river. To the east smoke stacks poke at the sky. To the west, the city glitters. I look down. Through the gaps between the planks the ice-covered river is far below. It’s not really that high, this bridge, but I’m dizzy. Scared. Breathe. Don’t look down until my feet are on solid ground.

  Except there isn’t any. That’s the whole fucking deal. What do I really know?

  ‘What’s your name?’ He pointed at himself. ‘Ben.’ He pointed at me and waited.

  ‘The child is cold and hungry and filthy, Ben. What does it matter what her name is?’ I can hear Mum’s voice.

  The hair on his head was thick gold fur. He looked at me for longer, river in springtime eyes. Suddenly he was standing over me. I flinched. He stepped back. The woman was at the stove. She lifted the lid on a black pot, stirred with a long wooden spoon. A warm brown smell reached my nose and my mouth filled with spit but I was watching him. He kept his hands down, moved slowly away from me.

  It wasn’t in the story Mum told, that flinch. I’ve been over it a hundred times in therapy. My body was expecting something my mind doesn’t remember. Won’t remember.

  After I ate the man went out. The woman took me to the washroom. She ran water in the enamel tub, pointed to my clothes. Her eyes were dark brown but sparkly, like a day so cold and sunny the air flashes with tiny rainbows of light.

  Before the man went out, she said to him, ‘God always answers.’

  He said, ‘Polly, Polly. She’s probably lost. Someone is probably worried sick right now.’

  I kept my eyes down when he talked.

  In the washroom I do what she wants. I pull off the tattered sweater, slip off my shoes. She’s waiting. Watching her I step out of the brown pants I’m wearing and my underpants, pull off my T-shirt. She nods toward the water. I turn to get into the tub, hear her suck in her breath. The water is hot. It stings the back of my legs. I sit stiffly in the water. She kneels beside the tub, dips a cloth in the water, rubs it on a bar of soap and holds the steaming cloth out to me. I take it, rub it over my cheeks, my forehead. She nods, her sparky eyes never leaving my face. She reaches out, touches my hair at my forehead. I lean back slowly and the water laps over my shoulders. It reaches my hair. I want to close my eyes, slide down until the water is warm all around me but I can’t. I can’t close my eyes.

  Very slowly she stands up. ‘I’ll be back,’ she says, ‘with some clean clothes.’ She starts to gather up my clothes from the floor. Something must have showed in my face because she stops, puts them down again. When the door clicks shut and her feet walk away I close my eyes, slide down the back of the tub until the water covers me.

  I jerk back up. A door o
pened. Footsteps. Two people. Not hers. The man and someone else. Then I hear her feet hurrying back to this door. The handle turns and she slips in with something red and white in her arms. I see her looking down at the water. It’s brown and scummy. There’s a twig floating in it.

  She hangs the dress on a hook and opens out the towel she’s carrying. She holds it out like frayed white wings. I step out of the tub and she steps forward, wraps the towel around me. When she sees I have a hold of it she steps back. I dry myself carefully, including my hair, then I put on the dress. The sleeves hang down over my hands but she’s brought safety pins. She fastens the cuffs around my wrists so all the material balloons out around my arms. The dress hangs down to my ankles. It has a shiny red belt which she fastens around my waist. Even on the last hole it is loose.

  She holds out her hand to me and I put my hand into it, which is another moment I’ve dealt with in therapy, that I knew to do that, that somehow once there must have been someone I trusted because I did it simply, without thought.

  Together we stepped out into the living room. The sound of voices came from somewhere out of sight. The woman held my hand tighter and we walked into the kitchen. The man with gold hair was standing by the door with another man, a man with wrinkled copper skin and black hair pulled back smooth over his skull. From under a jutting forehead dark brown eyes studied me. There was a scar like a W under one eyebrow. He said something I didn’t understand. He waited. I watched him. His eyes were puzzled. In English he said to the first man, ‘I don’t know her. I’ll ask around.’

  ‘Thank you, John,’ the first man said.

  The second turned to leave. A black braid hung down the back of his denim shirt.

  The woman’s hand relaxed. I slipped my hand out of hers.

  ‘Better?’ the man asked me. After a moment he pointed to a bench by the woodstove. ‘Have a seat,’ he said. I sat in the corner made by the bench and the wall. The woman took a knitted shawl from the back of a chair on the other side of the stove. She offered it to me but I was warm now. I shook my head.

  She and the man looked at each other. The man nodded at the door into the living room. I watched them walk across that room to another door. When he opened it I saw the corner of a bed with a blue and white and yellow quilt. They went inside and the door closed. Their voices were like wind in a spruce tree.

  Back home I unlock the door, pull off my boots, walk straight through to the bedroom. I take off my jeans, stand with my back to the mirror, head twisted round. Like pale branches against a darker sky, the twig thin scars reach across my calves and the backs of my thighs. How many thousand times have I done this? As if, in the exact right light, at the perfect angle, I would be able to read them.

  WEEK FIVE

  Chapter Forty Eight

  “LAURA, THIS IS Meg. You’ve met Jay.”

  Laura’s honey blonde, possibly with help from the bottle. Shining, healthy hair, clear skin, deep brown eyes. “How are you doing?” Cree lilt. Five foot six, trim body of a runner. Maybe ten years younger than me.

  “Good. You?”

  She nods, a little smile on her sculpted lips. They’re not quite so perfect as Tanya’s or Eleanor’s, the lips, but she’s a beautiful woman. A beautiful Native woman.

  “Have a good shift guys,” Cathy says. “I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

  “The safe doesn’t lock?”

  “Not in living memory.”

  Laura puffs out her cheeks then expels the air. “And they haven’t fixed it because ...”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Want some coffee?”

  “Where’s Jay?”

  “Supervising the clients while they set up for the AA meeting. There’s an open meeting here once a week.”

  “Down in the gym?”

  The tide of visitors retreats, leaving a scum of Timmie’s cups. Some who signed in haven’t signed back out. Which doesn’t mean much. “I’m going to take a perimeter walk,” I say. Jay nods. Laura doesn’t offer to come with me.

  I push open the back door, nod to the smokers and set off around the corner. The wind buffets me. I breathe deeply for the first time all evening then smell something familiar. Rounding the next corner I see two slight figures and a glowing tip.

  A head turns my way. “Shit.” A guy in a black hoodie races off around the building. The one holding the joint turns away. Perfect black ringlets.

  “Ash.”

  She turns to face me, nothing in her hand now. “Oh, is it time for ceremony?”

  I just look at her.

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. Who was that with you?”

  “I don’t know.” She wraps her arms around her skinny body.

  “Let’s go to the office.”

  She doesn’t move.

  “Come on, Ash. I know you’re standing on the joint. Let’s just get this over with.”

  She starts crying, tears dribbling down her cheeks, mascara running.

  Visitors and clients linger around the desk, chatting and laughing.

  Jay watches Ash and me.

  I nod once then point my lips at the corridor to the bedrooms. Jay glances around, sees Ash’s room-mate in one of the clusters and, looking back at me, nods.

  “Let’s go to your room first,” I say to Ash.

  “What happened?”

  “I caught her smoking weed with some boy. He took off.”

  “Visitor?”

  “I think so.”

  “She denying it?”

  “No. I’ll fill you in later. I told her we’d come and get her when we were ready to do the paperwork but she shouldn’t be in her room alone, should she?”

  “No.” Jay picks up the phone, hits the intercom button. “Chief and smudge person to the front please. Visitors, it’s time to go. Thank you for coming. Don’t forget to sign out.” She hangs up the phone, looks at me. “Word’ll be out any minute. We need to get them into ceremony as fast as possible. Three of us on meeting night.” She shakes her head. “You, me and someone with all the finesse of a bulldozer. She’s down for ceremony, right?”

  I nod. “Where is she now?”

  “Supervising clean-up in the gym. You good on the desk?” Before I have a chance to reply Jay’s heading off down the corridor toward the bedrooms. And Mona’s steaming toward her. She walks right up to Jay, blocking her. “What the fuck?” she says, face crunched up and flushed.

  Jay doesn’t give ground. She’s a couple of inches taller and twenty pounds heavier but Mona’s got that stringy redhead ferocity.

  I can’t hear what Jay says but Mona says, “I don’t believe you.”

  Jay says something and Mona’s face sags. “Silly bitch,” she says and turns away.

  A couple of guys turn to look at her then at Jay. “She talking to you?” one of them asks.

  “Nope.” Jay turns, catches my eye but I don’t know what she’s trying to tell me. She heads on down the corridor.

  You can feel it like a swell, the disturbance. The clients are murmuring among themselves as they line up, glancing my way but nobody asks me outright.

  Laura comes around the dome, herding a couple of sullen young men in front of her. She takes off her necklace, wraps a lime green and navy sarong around her jeans and steps into the line between the last woman and the first man.

  Jay doesn’t appear in the corridor with Ash until the blanket has closed. Shannon’s on the bench with a couple of other women. They watch Ash and Jay approaching. When Shannon opens her mouth Jay puts a finger to her lips, tipping her head toward the dome.

  I open the gate and Jay ushers Ash into the office. She’s repaired her mascara. Her face is impassive under the mask of foundation but she’s shaking.

  “Hello?” Someone at the front desk.

  Shannon. “Is Ash okay?” she whispers.

  “Later,” I say, nodding at the dome. Shannon hesitates then goes back to the bench. I stay out front, doing the paperwork to release Ash’s meds. After a
while the office door opens. Jay sticks her head out and nods to me. Ash is inside, standing, holding the phone, listening.

  After a couple of minutes she slams the receiver down. “She can’t come and get me. No gas in the car. No money. Just excuses.”

  “Call Harry, eh?”

  Suddenly she’s crying. Not just crying, sobbing. Jay closes the office door but I can hear anyway. “Fuck, oh fuck. I always fuck it up. Anything good ever happens I fuck it up. I’m so fucked up.”

  Jay says, “You can reapply in thirty days. Come back. If you’re ready, come back. You don’t have to go all the way down this road. You’ve got a real talent there.”

  The weeping subsides. “Here you go, hon.” That’ll be Jay handing her the box of tissues that lives on the desk. I can hear the cadence of the Lord’s prayer inside the dome. Eventually Ash blows her nose.

  An hour later she’s still sitting up front, scant belongings in a nylon duffel bag next to her, other clients milling around, looking sombre. Meagan is crying.

  Harry comes in at last. A slight silver-haired man, he greets Ash and Meagan, Shannon, James, a couple of others by name. “Ready then?” he asks Ash. There’s no harshness in his voice.

  As they’re walking toward the door Jay opens the gate and steps out. “Hey, Ash.” Jay holds out her hand. Ash takes it. “Take good care, okay? And come back when you’re ready. Thirty days, all right?”

  Ash nods but doesn’t look at Jay.

  “Take care,” I say.

  We watch them go. “I don’t know how Harry does it,” Jay says. “Heartbreak a minute.”

  “He seems okay,” I say. “Not weird.”

  “Haven’t heard anything. Probably would have. We get a lot of Off the Street kids.”

  “I hate terminating people.”

  “It doesn’t get any easier, eh? Such a friggin’ waste. Turns out Mona really does have contacts. She was lining up an audition. Fuck. Poor kid. Calling her Mum. Mum’s trashed by nine in the morning. Ash left when she was fourteen. She was going to see her next weekend. First time in five years.”