Cardinal Divide

by Nina Newington

  “Whoa, whoa. One day at a time. Come on, breathe. Keep breathing.”

  The sobbing stops. She reaches for a tissue.

  “You have some options but right now all you have to do is sober up.”

  “I’m not killing my baby. That’s what you mean by options but I’m not killing my baby. I can’t kill my baby.” Her voice has risen to a wail.

  “Danielle, listen to me. Nobody’s going to make you have an abortion. Nobody’s going to make you do anything you don’t agree to.”

  The office door opens again. Jay collects the basket of sarongs then we hear her voice announcing ceremony.

  “Where’m I going to live?”

  Tell me she’s not looking at me hopefully.

  There’s a clatter outside then voices.

  “Fuck you.” The words are loud even inside the office.

  “Stay here.” I open the office door. Jay’s disappearing round the side of the dome.

  “Come on Mona darlin’, the beast is showing.” Geoffrey’s voice.

  A grunt then a chair falls over.

  As I round the dome Jay is saying, “You want me to call the RCMP? You’ll both be in remand.” She snaps her fingers.

  They’re in the cafeteria, Mona and Janice, facing each other, three feet apart, Mona’s face bright red, Janice’s eyes small and squinty as a pissed off bear. They’re both breathing hard. Jay’s blocking the doorway, arms spread out, a cluster of clients on this side of her but there are more clients already in the cafeteria.

  “Chief,” Jay says. “Council.”

  Eleanor and Don come forward.

  “Stand here, please. Don’t let anybody else go in.”

  She turns, sees me. “Where’s Danielle?”

  “In the office.”

  “Shit. Come with me.”

  Back behind the desk she pulls down the metal gate that covers the meds cupboard.

  “Danielle, go back to your room and stay there. Meg, lock the office, call the RCMP then find me.”

  “Come on, Danielle.”

  Jay’s already on her way back to the cafeteria.

  “Wha’s happening.”

  “Your room, now.”

  “Okay, okay. Don’t get your panties in a wad.” She snickers. “Tha’s Canadian for knickers in a twist.”

  “Go, now, please.”

  I’ve dialled the number by the time she’s lumbering down the corridor.

  “A disturbance?”

  “At Dreamcatcher Lodge. Two clients on probation.”

  “Civic address?”

  My mind goes blank. “Outside Stony Plain.” Fuck. I’m staring around. There’s another crash from the cafeteria then I remember, flip to the front of the log book, read it out to her.

  “How long?” I ask.

  “Officers will be there as soon as possible. Please stand by in case they have questions.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “Got to go.”

  In the cafeteria chairs and tables have been shoved aside. Peering between clients’ shoulders I see Janice and Mona circling each other, knees bent, arms wide. They’ve each got something in their right hands. Something that glints. Jesus.

  “Excuse me. Excuse me.” I get in closer to the doorway which Jay is occupying again, both arms spread out. “Hey Jay,” I say, loud and clear, “the RCMP are on their way.”

  Janice shows no sign of hearing me but Mona’s eyes flicker.

  “You hear that? You’ll both be spending the night in jail if you don’t step back and drop the knives,” Jay says.

  “We’re fucked already,” Mona says. She darts forward but Janice is faster than she looks. She steps sideways and then she’s behind Mona, an arm wrapping around her throat. Mona’s kicking and flailing but Janice’s forearm is against her throat. She’s lifting her off her feet. Mona’s gasping.

  “Oh Jesus,” voice behind me. “Do something. Fuck man.”

  Somebody pushes past me, ducks under Jay’s arm. Warren. He’s behind Janice. He swivels away from her, snaps out some kind of karate kick. It hits her back low down, off to the side.

  Janice screams, drops Mona, falls to her knees, gagging.

  “Mona, get over here.” Jay barks. “Warren, that’s enough.”

  “Everybody back,” I say. “Come on, move it.”

  “Chief, council, help us. Everyone to your rooms, now. Warren ...”

  “Fucking cops,” somebody says, then I hear it too, the siren.

  “Mona,” I say, “come to the office.” I take the knife from her. It was just one of the regular cafeteria knives

  Jay scoops up the other. Janice is still kneeling, shaking her head from side to side.

  Warren follows Mona and me toward the office.

  “Good job, man,” Joey says.

  The door alarm sounds. As we round the dome I see two Mounties walking toward the desk, heads swivelling.

  “The fight’s broken up,” I say. “Hold on. I’ll get ...” My voice trails off. “What do you need from us?”

  “I don’t want a baby. I don’t want a baby.”

  Breathe. Fuck. “Time to pray,” I say. “Ask for help. You don’t have to do this alone.”

  Fresh tears spill down the freckled puffy cheeks but then she sits up straighter on the bed, bows her head and presses her hands together. Her lips move. Jesus, she looks like a pudgy little six-year-old. I look away. “God. Creator. Whatever, help Danielle. Help her baby. Help Janice and Mona.”

  “Amen.”

  I open my eyes.

  Danielle’s gazing at me. “Thank you. I forgot. That’s what I have to do. I have to pray. I have to keep praying. When I’m praying I feel okay, you know? Like ... like I’m not ...” Tears well up.

  “Keep praying,” I say. I could say, ‘Jesus died for your sins.’ I could say, ‘You’re forgiven. Washed in the blood of the Lamb’. God knows, I know the rap. If there is a God, He or She has a hell of a sense of humour.

  There’s a knock on the door. “It’s Julie. Can I come in?”

  I get up and open the door.

  “Jay told me,” Julie says, looking at Danielle. Her voice has the smoker’s rasp but it’s gentle.

  Danielle’s eyes fill with tears. “I’m sorry. I let everybody down.” I wait for her to slide down into the morass again but she doesn’t. She just looks at Julie.

  “It’s a bastard,” Julie says, “this disease.”

  Jay’s voice crackles over the speakers in the hall. “Ceremony. It’s time for ceremony.”

  “Is it okay,” Julie asks, “if Danielle and I stay here?”

  “Yes. Come to the desk if you need anything.”

  The phone is ringing. Jay picks it up, mouths “Cathy” to me and goes into the office. I haul out sarongs, collect glasses and jewellery.

  Jay emerges as the blanket closes behind the last client. “Danielle in there?”

  “No. I gave Julie permission to stay with her in their room. Danielle’s calmed down but I figured she shouldn’t be alone. The Mounties took Mona and Janice?”

  “They didn’t want to but what the fuck were we going to do with them? More to the point, what was Harold going to do with them overnight? Counsellors will talk to their probation officers tomorrow. I laid it all out for Cathy. We’re cool on the Danielle decision but the rest ...” she shrugs. “Cathy was hot and bothered about Tanya. I think she knows Brenda is going to use this.”

  Chapter Sixty One

  THE PHONE JOLTS me awake. A dream slips away. I grope across the bedside table.

  “Meg?”

  Shit. I struggle upright. “Hello Judy.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Danielle? I really can’t ...”

  “What happened? I haven’t slept a wink ...”

  She breaks off. The coughing jag gives me a chance to swing my feet out of bed, scrape the sleep from my eyes.

  “I’ve got to have boundaries. I know I’ve got to have boundaries but ...” I can hear her gulping, trying not t
o cry. “I know the Creator will look after her but I have to know where she is.”

  “Judy, the reason I can’t answer questions about Danielle is because of client confidentiality.”

  “You’re her sister.”

  “I might be her sister. But think about what I just said.”

  There’s a silence then Judy says, “Oh. You mean she’s still ... if I call Dreamcatcher, ask to speak to her ...”

  “Or leave a message.”

  “She’ll call me back?”

  “That’ll be up to her.”

  “Will you see her? Can you tell her I ... I’m concerned about her?”

  “It would really be better if you called.”

  “How come she’s still there? She drank, right?”

  “You’ll have to ask her about that.”

  There’s a silence. Then Judy says, “There are no coincidences, eh? You coming to work at Dreamcatcher right when Danielle’s there. I was mad at her for giving you my number but hey, Creator’s got His plans for us.”

  Well. Here it is on a plate. “Judy. I have a confession. I lied to you. Danielle didn’t give me your number.”

  “Where did you get it then?”

  “From her file.”

  “And you had the nerve just now to come over all hoity toity about confidentiality.”

  After a moment I say, “I’m sorry.”

  There’s a pause. “She knows you’ve been in touch with me, right?”

  “No.”

  “What’s the big secret?”

  Judy and Laura should team up. Throw in Tanya too. No avoiding confrontation here.

  “I don’t know why I haven’t told her. I should have.”

  “And now ...”

  “I’d prefer to check out this Theresa Laboucan first. I don’t want to get Danielle’s hopes up.”

  “Is that the real reason?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The truth will set you free. John 8.32.”

  “Meaning I need to tell her now?”

  Silence, then Judy says, “I’m not going to lie if the topic comes up but I won’t bring it up. Not in the next week.”

  “Thank you.”

  I hang up, shower away the reek of stale adrenaline, make coffee. While it’s brewing I check on the bread I started last night. The dough’s doubled in volume, dimpled and puffy. Danielle’s tear-stained face. Danielle, belly expanding, waddling down the street.

  I spread my hands on the surface of the dough. Press it back down. Sprinkle flour on the counter, scrape out the bowl. I fold and knead and fold, knuckling into the bread flesh. Flash of Warren executing his kick.

  The phone rings again. The phone never rings. I scrape dough off one hand.

  “Hello?”

  “Meg?” A guy. Manfred? “It’s Doug.”

  “Oh.” Sag of relief.

  “Bad time?”

  “No. No. Hold on.”

  Hands clean, coffee poured, I pick up the phone again. “Hi. Sorry. I was making bread.”

  “Want me to call back?”

  “No.” It comes out too strongly. Christ.

  “I just thought I’d call, see how you were doing. I heard you had a pretty intense night, you and Jay.”

  “You could put it that way.”

  “You okay?”

  There’s real concern in his voice. “I don’t know. Truth is, I’m pretty useless when push comes to shove. Jay, she snapped into action. I get sort of paralyzed.”

  “The way I heard it, you did really well.”

  “I did?”

  “Coming in, saying good and loud the Mounties were coming. Keeping Danielle out of the picture.”

  “Oh.” My voice sounds small. Pathetic, really. Doug doesn’t say anything. It’s a comfortable sort of silence. Leaving me room to say whatever I need to say. “It’s weird,” I say at last. “Since last Monday. There’s so much happening all at once. Like I warped into some other dimension. I don’t know if I’m having a spiritual experience or a nervous breakdown.” That’s supposed to be a joke but it doesn’t come out that way.

  “Want to have lunch?” Doug asks. “Take a walk after? I’m dropping the girls off at their other grandmother’s. Plus I scoped out a Guatemalan restaurant.”

  Chapter Sixty Two

  IT’S IN THE rough end of Chinatown which isn’t the best of neighbourhoods to begin with, a hole in the wall restaurant with six small tables and one long one. A pink and green hand-woven cloth spans the back of the restaurant over the cash register. Beyond the register an open doorway gives a glimpse of a home-size gas range and a battered wooden table.

  “For one?” A woman appears in the doorway, wiping her hands, dark hair pulled back in a pony tail, a roundish face, tired eyes.

  “For two, please.”

  I choose the table closest to the kitchen, and the chair with a view of the door. She sets two menus on the table.

  “You have eat Guatemala food before?”

  I shake my head. The door opens and Doug walks in. I nod in his direction. “He might have.”

  “Buenos dias,” he says to the woman and her face lights up. A volley of Spanish follows. Doug replies, smiling at her and then at me, pulling out the chair across from me. “Shall I order?”

  “Yes please.”

  He and the woman enter into a discussion long enough for me to study her face. She reminds me of something. After a minute the image floats to the surface: a pottery mask or was it a jug? Pre-Columbian. Mayan. The lips and eyelids pinched so they’re prominent. The poster for an exhibition at a museum in Vancouver. We were supposed to go see it as part of an anthropology class.

  Doug and the woman whose name is Irena wind up their conversation. She bustles off to the kitchen.

  “I think you made somebody’s day.”

  “Imagine coming to Edmonton from Central America. Never hearing your language spoken. Hardly ever, anyway.”

  “Where did you learn Spanish?”

  “New Mexico. The communes were mostly near the old Spanish villages.”

  Irena comes back with a stack of warm tortillas and a small jug. “Salsa,” she says, setting down the jug. “Guatemala salsa. I make tortillas fresh.” She claps her hands lightly and I can picture the discs of dough she’s shaping. I nod and she smiles at me. It’s like the smell of fresh corn, the kindness she exudes. Doug is smiling too. Spanish flows around me again. I don’t mind that I don’t understand.

  The tortillas are sweet and earthy dipped in the thin tomato-y sauce, now and then a flicker of charred flour. “I’m not sure I’ve ever tasted anything that has so much of the feel of the hands that made it,” I say.

  Doug nods, his lips curving up.

  Irena appears with more food, setting the dishes down between us with a flourish. “Mas salsa, yes?”

  We hardly talk, biting through crisp fried crust to mild melted cheese, unwrapping banana leaves to inhale the steamed starchiness of corn and pork.

  Behind Doug, beyond the plate glass window, wind whisks grit and garbage down the avenue. Across the way a line is forming. The soup kitchen at the Native Church. The men, it’s mostly men, hunch against the cold. I glance back at Doug. He’s sitting there, smiling. “You’re good at enjoying things,” I say. I didn’t mean to say it aloud.

  “You are too.”

  “Am I? Yes, maybe. I learned that from Dad.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’s good. How about your daughters?”

  “They’re okay. The grandmother they’re staying with is great. Her son—the girls’ father—is a piece of work. So was their grandfather, by the sound of it, but she’s tough as moose hide, funny, loving. She’s been through everything—residential school, the whole nine yards—but she’s like an ancient tree. She grew where she had to, to get the light. Crooked, twisted, big crack in the trunk but her roots go deep enough to hold her steady.”

  He nudges the tortilla basket my way. I shake my head. He takes the last one,
tearing off pieces to wipe up the juices on his plate.

  After a while I say, “You were going to tell me about getting sober.”

  “I will but I want to hear about last night. I know the bare bones.”

  Irena appears. “It was good?” She’s smiling.

  Doug and I both wave our hands at the table. There’s not a scrap of food left.

  “Dessert? Coffee?”

  “Dos cafés, por favor.”

  Doug looks at me. I nod.

  When Irena’s taken our plates I say, “Jay was great but it was Warren who saved the day. Karate kick to Janice’s kidney stopped her in her tracks. Which could have gotten him sent back to prison if things had gone bad. But they didn’t.” I shrug. “I think we were all lucky.”

  “Including Danielle,” Doug says.

  “If getting pregnant by a john counts as lucky.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t know that detail.”

  “She wants to keep the baby.”

  “She’s got an aunt, right? On one of the reserves.”

  “Firestick.”

  Something in my voice makes Doug look at me.

  After a moment I say, “I’ve gotten into a mess. Jay thinks they’ll use last night to fire Tanya. But I’m the one who should get fired.” I tell him about the phone number and Judy and the reserve and Danielle’s uncle and Danielle drunk saying I don’t want to be her sister and Judy on the phone last night wanting to talk to me and Judy on the phone this morning.

  Somewhere in the middle of that Irena brought the coffee. When I’m done he puts his cup down.

  “So you drove out to the reserve.”

  “On Friday.”

  “And met all these possible relatives. How was that?”

  I shrug.

  He waits.

  Finally I say, “I shut down last night. Danielle, drunk, crying about me not wanting to be her sister. I don’t know. I don’t know if I am. If I want to be. I don’t see how I’m going to know. I thought I would just know. By instinct. But, shit. How am I ever going to know?”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Yes.” The word comes out as if I’ve been holding my breath. “I know a bit about finding people. Would you like my help?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  “So tell me if I’ve got this right: Danielle’s father’s name is Daniel Laboucan. He and his wife Lisa had a daughter your age who disappeared from sight when she was twelve.”