Cardinal Divide

by Nina Newington

  A head banger.

  Banging her head until blood flowed. Banging her head on the white painted door jamb. Shrieking when Dad tried to stop her. Trying to kill the evil.

  Cane on the ground like a black snake.

  “Hey Meg.”

  I jump. Manfred’s peering at me from the side door of the shed.

  “Come on in, it’s cold.”

  “Oh. No, no thanks. Just wanted some fresh air.”

  “Victor was wondering, will you be around for supper?”

  “Yes, but I think I’ll cook for Dad and me tonight. Could you pass that message along?”

  Manfred’s face closes. “Of course.” He steps back inside and shuts the door.

  Shit.

  “Go ahead,” Dad says when I’ve poured us both tea. “Ask whatever you need to ask. Really.” He looks drained, sad.

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning, with you and Mum? Your version.”

  He looks surprised. Relieved too.

  He takes a sip then puts the mug down. “As you know, she was the cook in the lumber camp where I worked one season. Up near Revel-stoke. A younger, prettier cook than usual, according to the fellows.” A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “They all flirted with her but I could see she liked me. Couple of them teased me for being so modest. She let them know she personally preferred men with some decorum.”

  “She knew the whole time?”

  He nods.

  “How did you find out that she knew? Did she say something?”

  He picks up his mug but he doesn’t drink from it, just looks at me over the rim. “There was a spot in the woods where I’d go to bathe. A little spring lined with rocks. Traces of an old cabin. Spruce and pine all around. It was a good mile from the camp. She must have followed me. She stepped into the clearing. At least I was still dressed. She walked up to me and where a person would stop, say something, she kept walking. She pressed herself against me and she kissed me. On the mouth. I stepped back sharpish. Kept on backing up.

  “She looked at me. Those shrewd eyes, she looked at me and she said—I remember it to this day, the drone of flies in the clearing, moss that grew on the stones around the spring, light angling down between the trees—she looked at me and she said, ‘I know what you are. And I know what you are not.’”

  He puts down his mug, reaches for the pot, glances at me. I shake my head. He tops up his mug and adds milk before saying, “It was the moment I’d dreaded and there it was in the clearing with us, her knowing and me with nothing to say, just the memory of that kiss in my mouth. She said, ‘Come here.’ It was simple. It was so simple. All I had to do was to step through the angled shafts of light, step to her and hold her, but you have to understand I hadn’t touched another human being. Not that way, not ever. I stood there in the clearing and then, I swear it, my feet began to move of their own accord. I watched as they carried me across the clearing and into her arms. She smelled of gravy and cabbage and wood smoke. Nothing in this world ever smelled better.”

  He looks my way but he’s not looking at me. After a while he says, “That was Polly all over. When she made up her mind for something ...” He shakes his head.

  “Did she ever tell you how she knew?”

  “She just said she knew the first time she set eyes on me.”

  “And didn’t say anything to anyone?”

  “Polly,”—he hesitates—“Polly liked secrets.”

  I pour myself some tea but he doesn’t say anything more. “What was she like back then?”

  “Fun. She had a wild streak. I mean she was always thrifty. A hard worker. A planner. But she could kick up her heels. We’d go to all the dances. Every town with a community hall had one.”

  “You weren’t ...” I stop.

  “Weren’t what?”

  “Afraid people would find out. I guess I just assumed. The way you were when I was growing up. Sticking close to home.”

  He shakes his head, still smiling. “I used to worry. She’d say, ‘Put a sock in it.’”

  It takes me a minute. “TMI,” I say but I can’t help laughing.

  “TMI?”

  “Too Much Information.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I asked you. Besides, it feels as if you must be talking about someone else. You can’t be talking about the people who raised me.”

  Dad’s levering himself out of the Morris chair. I assume he’s headed for the washroom but when he gets across the room he reaches for his jacket.

  “Going out for a pipe,” he says.

  “Dad, it’s your house.”

  “Polly never liked the smell of it. I’m used to going outside for my smoke.”

  “Back then you were,” I say. “A cold wind’s come up.”

  “Funny thing,”—he’s patting his pockets for matches—“all the years not smoking ...” He snaps his fingers. “Gone like that. Besides, doctor says the more I keep moving around the healthier I’ll be.”

  “Bet she wasn’t thinking of you taking up smoking. But seriously, I don’t mind the smell.”

  He opens his mouth. He’s about to ask about my plans again. For the farm.

  “Is it alright if I stay the night?” I ask. “I don’t have to be at work until the day after tomorrow. Then I’ll be working a bunch of shifts in a row.”

  “Of course. You don’t have to ask. But you should probably let Victor and Manfred know. Or I will.”

  “Actually, I thought maybe I could make supper tonight. It won’t be as good, I know.”

  “That would be lovely. I’ll tell them.” He reaches for the phone.

  “Um. I already spoke to Manfred. When you were asleep. Sorry. I should have asked you first.”

  “It’s alright. I’m glad you’re here. Now I am going to go out for my smoke. Then we’ll see what we can scare up.”

  I call home while he’s outside but there aren’t any messages. Emptying the teapot, rinsing our mugs, I look at the flour bin. Dad built all these cabinets. Built the house and almost everything in it. The bin is hinged at the bottom. You pull on the handle and the top swings out. Inside is the old crock, a dusting of flour still in the bottom along with a couple of mouse turds.

  The front door opens. I hear the stick on the floor. I don’t need to look to see that it’s the ebony cane. Just because it’s the dark axle, you can’t throw it out, a perfectly good stick. I walk over to the pantry. The back left corner is where she hung it, by the deeper shelves. The shelves were always lined with jars. There’s only a couple left behind some tins of baked beans. I wipe one off, hold it up under the light. Hedgerow Jam 1997 in Mum’s careful script.

  “That was a good year,” Dad says from behind me.

  “Shall we make more, this summer?” I ask. It’s nothing I planned to say.

  “If possible,” Dad says.

  Suddenly I’m crying.

  “Oh Meg.” He pats my back.

  Shit. I turn and press my face into his shoulder. After a moment I hear him lean the stick against the wall. One arm wraps around my back. With the other he strokes my hair. I breathe the mushroom smell of him, the overlay of smoke.

  “I don’t want you to die too.”

  “Ah Meg.” Dad’s hand keeps stroking my hair.

  “Sorry. I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “I miss her too.” He steps back, feeling in the pocket of his cardigan. He passes me a handkerchief so old and soft the cotton is almost transparent. When I’ve blown my nose and wiped my eyes he asks, “What do you fancy for supper? I’d be happy with beans and scrambled eggs.”

  “Good thing,” I say after reviewing the contents of the fridge. “You don’t even have any bread.”

  Dad looks sheepish. “Check the freezer.”

  “Ah.”

  “I didn’t want to throw any of it away.”

  “Maybe there’ll be some lucky birds tomorrow.”

  Chapter Fifty Three

  “WHAT MADE HER stop drinking? How did
that happen?”

  Dad puts down his fork. I gave up on the mealy beans in their acrid sauce a while back. “There was a revival in Drayton Valley. It was in the paper. She wanted to go. Which was surprising in itself but I didn’t say anything. I dropped her off, went to see a man about a baler. Came back a couple hours later. Her face was shining. In the truck on the way home she told me she’d given herself to Jesus. Jesus had forgiven her. He loved her and she didn’t have to drink anymore. A week later she still hadn’t had a drink. I began to think maybe it would work. Then she told me Jesus was going to give her a child.” He shakes his head.

  “Jesus?”

  “His Daddy did it.” He hooks an eyebrow at me.

  I stare at him then I start to laugh. It’s not that funny. I stop as suddenly as I started.

  “But then damned if you didn’t show up. Out of nowhere. She knew what you were. A gift from God.”

  There’s a lump in my throat.

  “And so you were.”

  “Until I became a raging alcoholic nightmare myself.”

  “She prayed for you, every morning and every night. When you got sober, well that was more proof.”

  “And she stayed sober?”

  “Never touched another drop.”

  “And she stayed married to you all the while they were preaching about the Homosexual Abomination?”

  “When Polly believed a thing was God’s will, there wasn’t anything would change her mind, whether it was you being meant for us or whether it was us being married.”

  “Were you actually married? I mean legally.”

  “In front of a Justice of the Peace in Rocky Mountain House.”

  Which brings me back to that whole question. But I’m not going there. Not right now. “Have you ever felt you needed to be saved, Dad?”

  Dad considers his half-empty plate then shakes his head. “Can’t say I have. Not like that. I’ve felt guilty, ashamed, afraid, but not as if I was damned unless some power redeemed me. What about you?”

  “I went to church with Mum but it didn’t really take. It felt like he was using it, the preacher, hammering away at how you were lost without Jesus, a hopeless sinner.”

  Dad nods.

  “It probably wouldn’t have that much power unless you already believed you were bad.”

  “And you didn’t?”

  “Not like that. Defective, maybe, but not damned. I just don’t expect to be wanted. If I’m part of a group I feel as if I’m there on approval. They might send me back. So I always have to prove I’m good enough to keep around. Apparently lots of adopted kids feel that way. Which doesn’t change the feeling. I have to watch it, what I’ll do so someone will keep me around. And what I’ll do when I can’t stand feeling like that anymore.” I glance at him. “It took me a while to figure this out. I wanted your approval so badly, and I hated wanting it. Hated caring what you thought. It felt ... it felt like such an entrapment, to care.”

  I’ve been staring down at the table, trying to find the words but something makes me look up. He’s sitting there, half eaten plate of beans pushed back. There’s light pouring out of his eyes. I don’t know how else to say it. Beams of golden light are streaming from his eyes. They reach me and wrap around me and I’m in a bright bubble of his seeing. Held in his gaze.

  Wow. I never felt anything like this. With that thought the eye-beams fade and I’m sitting across from my father, the turquoise Formica table between us.

  “What just happened?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t feel anything different?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing I can put into words.”

  His eyelids are drooping.

  “Take your nap, Dad. I’ll wash up.”

  Standing in the kitchen, my hands in warm water, the weirdness of the last couple of days hits me. Not the information about Mum because somehow I knew. Not the specifics but I knew she felt in desperate need of salvation. Felt the strain in her that shouldn’t have been there if she truly felt saved. I think perhaps she was always searching for what I just felt from Dad. To sit in that golden light, knowing you’re acceptable as you are. Loved as you are. The eyebeams of God shining on you.

  Don’t mock it.

  Okay, this is what’s weird. It’s like I’ve shed some kind of rind. Become porous. Porous to portents. Everything swollen with significance. Something I used to feel, taking hallucinogens. Because they strip away the screens of habit. A sacrament, Dora called it. Peyote. The Ghost Dancer’s sacrament. Respect it. Welcome it. Let it take you. Let it break you. Dora holding my head while I puked. The wave curling higher and higher. Let it. Let it.

  Let what?

  I pull the plug. Greasy water twists down the drain. In the living room Dad is snoring.

  Poor Mum. Poor Dad. Only it never is poor Dad. Somehow he gets things right. It takes people years in Al-Anon to figure out it was nobody’s fault.

  I take a fresh pot of tea through to the living room. Dad’s still sound asleep.

  Steam curls up from the hole in the teapot lid. When first I came here I watched to see which way it flowed, as if it would tell me something I needed to know. I wasn’t much more than a pair of eyes, watching from the shadows. They went about their business, practical people, these strangers, and slowly I made out the sense in their motion and it comforted me, the precise way the woman moved around her kitchen, the quiet economy of the man as he hung his jacket, pulled off his boots. He smelled of horses, the slant of sweat over warm grain, and something greasier I didn’t recognize. I watched from the bench against the wall, the woman glancing at me now and then, looking away as quickly.

  Soon enough I’d follow her like a bottle lamb, out to the barn for eggs she piled, warm in my hands. Out to the garden. The first time she dug potatoes she must have seen my eyes widen, the red tubers rolling free of the dirt. She looked at me and I came and squatted beside her, running my fingers through the cool, crumbly soil until they met difference, roundness. We piled the potatoes between us. She threw a sack over them. A few rows on we wrapped our fingers in fading leaves, tugged onions from the loose soil, left the round bulbs in their brown paper skins to lie in the sun. “To cure,” Mum said. “So they’ll keep.” Even at the beginning, when she didn’t know if I understood, she talked to me, giving me the information I might need to feed myself in her world.

  Mum. The first words I spoke. I asked Dad, ‘Where’s Mum?’

  I followed his eyes. Turned.

  ‘I’m here,’ she said. Her eyes were shiny.

  But somehow by the next winter my allegiance had shifted. I’d follow him out to the barn, break open the bales he tossed down from the loft, spread the flakes of hay among the mangers, eager sheep shoving each other aside, upper lips twisting forward. We’d stand, side by side, watching them eat, his big loose hands resting on the rail. The sound then of munching in the dusty air, sweet with dry grass, sharp with the reek of winter bedding. Motes dancing in the light that slanted in from the high gable window. As the winter went along the sheep grew wider until there was scarcely room for them in the barn. We’d stand in the frigid air and watch and they’d watch us, ears forward, jaws working, the sound of steady chewing.

  The snoring has stopped. I look across at Dad.

  “You’re smiling,” he says.

  “I was thinking about the barn in March. It might be the most contented place I’ve ever been. A flock of gravid sheep chewing their cud. Light from the door shining through their ears so they all looked pink.

  “At school, when they were badgering me to talk, that’s where I’d go in my mind, to stand next to you in the barn, and I’d pretend the teachers were the sheep, their mouths moving and moving. Just the sound of chewing.”

  He grins. “When I was young and I had to go to church, I’d turn myself into the oak post at the end of the pew. It was carved, the top, into a wheat sheaf. It was very old and dark. I’d imagine b
eing that wood. Feel it as my flesh. The grain of it. When the sermon was over my mother would have to elbow me to stand up for the hymn. I’d still be in my tree-ness.”

  “Did you miss them?”

  “I missed,”—he pauses—“I missed my little brother. But my parents and my sister, I missed the idea of them, of a family, but no, I didn’t miss them. The first time I heard about cuckoos, I thought, ‘That’s me.’ It was a dirty trick the cuckoo parents played, sneaking their eggs into other birds’ nests. The cuckoo chicks were too big, too hungry. Wrong. I suppose that’s what I felt the most: wrong. I didn’t even want to be like the others. I certainly didn’t try. Mostly I daydreamed about how, when I was old enough, I’d live on an island and catch my own fish, build my own house. I’d eat raspberries and trout and hazelnuts and read all night if I wanted to. Or I’d live in the Arctic with my sled dogs and hunt caribou and moose and make pemmican. Or I’d go to sea. Which might end up with me being stranded on a South Sea island. It wasn’t until I was about thirteen that it dawned on me that women didn’t do any of those things. Not on their own, anyway. My sister was always talking about getting married. What she’d wear, how handsome her husband would be. I never had the slightest interest.” He shakes his head. “So no, I had no regrets.”

  He walked away. He just walked away. It’s like being on the water, looking down to the bottom, seeing the shadow of a fish flit past. Not the fish itself but the shadow.

  “That was what we couldn’t give you.”

  “What? Sorry.”

  “Extended family. You know. Grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. Would you have liked that? “

  “I don’t know.”

  “I see now we’d turned inward even before you came. Polly’s drinking, I suppose. And then, well, once you were here, if anyone had found us out, they’d have taken you away.”

  There it is again, that flicker. The shadow of the flick of a tail.

  “I don’t think either of us could have borne that.”

  “Mum walked away too, didn’t she, from her family?”

  “Not the way I did. She stayed in touch with her brother Frankie.”