Cardinal Divide

by Nina Newington

  Jay looks at me but it’s Laura who answers. “Working on her issues.”

  Chapter Eighty

  SO HE’S GAY. So he’s not going to be my boyfriend. I have a friend who calls up and offers to bring lunch.

  Thinking of Heather and Val’s soft sweaters sends me on a search through the plastic tub under the bed. I pull out the angora boat neck I bought in Val’s boutique a couple of years ago. When I had a real pay-cheque. My good bra. Silk undershirt. Or just the soft wool against my skin. Black jeans. Perfume?

  Meg.

  It’s not really perfume. A lemon verbena cologne. I brush my hair until the doorbell rings.

  Doug’s looking kind of spruced up himself, or at least he’s wearing a new plaid shirt and his hair’s a couple inches off his shoulders. Freshly cut. Brushed too.

  “Nice sweater,” he says, smiling down at me. Sunlight catches threads of silver in his hair.

  “Nice shirt,” I say and we’re just standing there, smiling at each other in the little glassed-in entry.

  Then he shifts the carrier bag in his hand and I step back. “Here, let me take that.”

  He takes off his boots and follows me into the kitchen.

  The tripe is mild and rubbery in the aromatic broth. The beef’s sliced thin, pink and tender.

  “This is the best pho I’ve had since I left Vancouver.”

  “How was the last shift?”

  “Interesting.”

  We help ourselves to seconds.

  “Did you hear what Brenda said to Laura?”

  Doug nods.

  I smile. “It’s not that interesting, is it?”

  He shakes his head, smiling back. “I’d rather hear how you felt.”

  “Different. We all went into ceremony. I really prayed. There were a lot of people to pray for. People I cared about. I felt grateful.” I shake my head. “It’s hard to talk about. Not hard hard, just difficult to find words for. I felt ... I am grateful to you for helping me get to that feeling. About being rescued. Even though I find it embarrassing.” I look at him. He’s watching me with his quiet brown eyes. “I was praying to accept my life as it is, including all the not-knowing, but it does feel good to have this one thing I know from before.”

  Doug opens his mouth, closes it again.

  “What?”

  “Well, I don’t know if I should go there.”

  “I didn’t say I was happy about not knowing.”

  He studies me. I meet his eyes. Hold them. I don’t mind, I think. I don’t mind him seeing me. And I have the odd feeling he’s thinking the same thing.

  “Well,” he says, “perhaps you were rescued.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When we were driving to your father’s place the other week, on the back roads from the Divide, I thought how far it was from anywhere. If you’d been on foot you’d have had to cross the river. If you were coming from the west. And from the east ...” He shrugs. “I wondered if someone brought you there. Dropped you off.”

  “Dumped me, you mean. Like a litter of unwanted kittens.”

  “Meg, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t ...”

  “No. Say what you were going to say.”

  “It was something you said about Manfred and Victor. When you were figuring out that they were a couple. I said they were lucky they ended up on your father’s farm and you said, ‘Too lucky.’ ”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “You showing up at the farm. Whether you got there by yourself or somebody ... somebody left you there, wasn’t it an incredible piece of luck that it was that particular farm?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What were the odds that the people would take you in? Treat you as an answer to their prayers?”

  I stare at him. “You mean it was someone who knew Mum and Dad? But why would they do that?”

  “To get you out of a bad situation?”

  Something’s balling up in my stomach. “Fuck. Why don’t I remember anything?” I push my soup bowl aside. Stand up. “Sorry. I need to move around.”

  He nods, worried eyes following me.

  “Want some coffee?” I ask.

  “Please.” He gets up, brings the bowls into the kitchen, goes back for the glasses.

  “I’m okay, Doug.” But I’m not. My heart is thudding. I grind the coffee, tip it into the French press. Then it’s as if a scroll’s unfurling in my mind.

  I go into the living room. “I could tell you a story,” I say. “Maybe that’s all it is, but what if they were hiding the girl? They took her out of a bad situation, wanted to make sure her people couldn’t find her. They couldn’t take the girl themselves because the people would come looking for her. If they told Ben and Polly the situation then they would have to lie to the authorities. Whereas if they didn’t know, if the girl just showed up, they could do what they did. Tell the truth. It was such a crazy story ...”

  When I don’t go on, Doug asks, “Who are they? Are they ‘the friend’? From the other day?”

  I can’t breathe.

  After a moment he says, “It would all depend on you not talking.”

  “Well, I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

  “I know, and that was very convenient.”

  “You think I was doing that on purpose?”

  “No. Or not exactly. It’s just ...” He stares off into space, brows furrowed. “It’s too convenient. Not just that you couldn’t talk. You couldn’t remember. Even your own name.”

  “I didn’t make that up.” It bursts out of me.

  “No, no. That’s not what I mean.”

  “People do forget. Traumatic amnesia. It happens.” Inside, great black wings are spread, are beating. Beating at the walls. There’s no room ...

  Stop. Breathe.

  Not working. Hold my breath.

  I’m dizzy. Gasp for air.

  “What’s happening?”

  My heart’s pounding. Something’s coming, huge and black, filling all the sky. I gasp for air. I’m panting. I shrink to the ground. Doug’s squatting on the floor beside me.

  “What is it?”

  “I can’t. I can’t.” I’m sobbing and gasping. Dread twists every fibre. “Something. Something terrible. Jesus. No. No.” My voice is frantic. Pleading.

  Breathe. Let it. Let it come.

  “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.” A great black wave is curling above me. Is going to break ... I’m on my feet.

  Yes you can. Let it. Let it come.

  And I do.

  I stand there and the wave breaks and I breathe and the water fans out around me, wide and shallow. It ripples across the sand and I’m standing, breathing in the sunlight. Nothing happened. I open my eyes, look at Doug. He’s still squatting, one hand on the floor. His eyes are golden brown, clear.

  Nothing happened.

  He shifts and his knees crack.

  Nothing.

  “What just happened?”

  “Nothing. The thing I’ve been afraid of my whole life. It was nothing.”

  He stands up, stiff.

  “Um. I’m sorry.”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t. Please.”

  I nod.

  “Shall I finish making that coffee?”

  “Yes.”

  In the bathroom I throw water on my face. Dry it. Peer at myself. I look different. I feel different.

  Doug’s back on the chesterfield, mug in hand. A second mug steams by my chair. “Will you tell me what just happened?”

  I nod, sip my coffee. It tastes purple and rich, eggplant purple, almost black. Glossy. Black wings. No words.

  Try again. Like breaking through a paper wall. Okay. “This is going to sound weird. When you said it was convenient. That I couldn’t talk. Or remember. I got frantic. Something terrible was going to happen. The worst thing you could imagine. I think someone told me that’s what would happen. Convinced me.”

  “To keep you silent. Stop you telling.” Doug is nodding. “Ab
users do that.”

  “Yes. But this might be different.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It sounds crazy.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “The story. If a person ...”

  “You mean the person who ...”

  “Took me out of the bad situation ...”

  “Scared you into keeping silent?”

  “Like a spell.” My voice has slowed down. “If I talk. If I tell anyone who I am, where I come from, then this terrible thing will happen.”

  Doug waits then asks, “What terrible thing?”

  “The worst possible thing I can ever imagine happening. Something huge coming at me, cornering me, smothering me so I can’t breathe.

  “Jesus.”

  “I might have supplied that.”

  “From what had already happened to you?”

  I nod.

  “The wall I always hit in therapy. I’ve tried for years to get close to that fear. But I’d always panic. Today I stood there. Let it come.” I’m still feeling it, the wave rippling out over the sand, the sunlight. I look at Doug. “I think I’ve been trying to do that my whole adult life. Let myself feel. What I was so afraid of. Somehow you being there to ... to witness. Somehow it was possible today. Thank you.”

  “Do you ...” He hesitates.

  “Remember anything useful, like my name and address? No, but I know what just happened was real. Because it’s such a relief.”

  He nods.

  “It’s weird but I feel better. Solid.”

  His eyes stray to the mantelpiece. To the clock. Ten past three.

  “Which is a good thing,” I say, “because you need to go, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but I could make a call, see ...”

  I shake my head. “I’m okay. I really am. I need a little time to digest. Then I need to call Dad.”

  “Shall I give you directions now, to my place? For Thursday. You can come, can’t you?”

  WEEK SEVEN

  Chapter Eighty One

  “DAD, I’M SORRY about last time. That I pushed so hard about the name.”

  He looks straight at me. “You came very close to suggesting I kept Ben Coopworth’s secret for my own purposes rather than out of respect for his sister’s wishes. That was not the case.”

  Even though I’m standing and he’s sitting down, I feel about three feet tall. But I’m not. I’m forty-two, sober, willing to admit when I’m wrong. “You’re right. That was insulting. I’m sorry.”

  He nods. “Now sit down and tell me what’s brought you here first thing in the morning.”

  Out of the wind, the sun is warm on my face. I close my eyes. Somehow that makes it easier to ask. “Dad, do you think it’s possible someone you or Mum knew brought me here?”

  “Brought you here and left you? Why?”

  “Someone who was desperate to get a child out of a bad situation.” I sense him turning to look at me. “Someone who knew how much Mum wanted a child.” I open my eyes. He’s shaking his head. “Please Dad, think.”

  “Meg, this doesn’t make sense. Where did you get a story like this?”

  I made it up. I don’t say that out loud. But it isn’t crazy. I don’t know how to explain it but it isn’t. “Would Mum have told someone in her church?”

  “She’d never have told them that.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  He’s silent. Eventually he says, “I told Moira. But Meg ...”

  “Dad, please, humour me.”

  “Very well, but let’s go inside.”

  Once he’s settled in his chair I ask, “Did you tell Moira about Mum wanting a child before or after I came to the farm?”

  “Before.”

  “Was there anyone else you told?”

  “No.”

  “Will you tell me about Moira? How you met her. What you said to her. Every little detail. Please.”

  “Very well. The first I heard of Moira McFie, it was in the autumn of 1966. Or it could have been ‘67. The tannery in Drayton Valley had gone out of business. Old fellow couldn’t get any of the young men to work for him, including his own son. Pembina oil field was in full swing. Somebody told me about a trapper over by Rocky Mountain House, a woman no less. She’d tan hides so they came out soft and supple as rabbit skin. She lived out in the bush but she’d pick up and deliver hides on a Saturday morning in one of the bars in town.

  “So, one Saturday I slung a couple of bales of hides in the truck and drove down there.” He stops, stares out at the mountains though they’re hidden by cloud then looks at me. “I wasn’t in a good way. Polly’s drinking was bad by then. She hadn’t started banging her head but she raged, shrieking accusations, taunting me, and I, well I wasn’t in my right mind by then either.

  “I parked the truck behind the bar, tried to pull myself together. My plan was to get a look at the hides she’d already tanned before committing myself. Moira was where they said she’d be, in Happy Joe’s Bar and Tavern. The only woman. Her hair was wild and mostly grey but you could see it had been flame red once. The triangle of her cheekbones and chin somehow made your eyes settle on her mouth.

  “I tipped my hat to her, asked if she were the lady trapper who tanned hides.”

  “‘Trapper,’ she said, considering me, a little smile.

  “I met her eyes but only for a moment. I felt stark naked, standing there in that bar, her looking at me with those green eyes.

  “‘Moira McFie.’ She held out her hand.

  “It was smooth and cool. ‘Show me what ye’ve got,’ she said with a strong Highland lilt. She stood up and I followed her out.

  “She reached into the back of the truck, fingered hide and fleece. Nodded. ‘Drive me down the road a piece,’ she said.

  “She smelled of smoke, wood smoke and tobacco, both. Neither of us said a word. It looked as if we were heading back across the river but just before the bridge she pointed left. We took a rutted track as far as the truck would go.

  “‘Would ye help me carry them?’

  “I hesitated, surprised. From what I’d heard, nobody even knew where she lived. Besides, we hadn’t come to terms. But I nodded, swung her the first bale, hefted the second. When I settled it on my shoulder I looked around. She was gone.

  “‘Here.’

  “I jumped. She was behind me. I looked down. She was wearing moccasins now, the boots nowhere to be seen. We wove through spruce and fir for several minutes. She must have been in and out of there at least once a week but I couldn’t make out a track. At last we settled to a straighter course and I could see the wear in the ground. We can’t have been far from the river, the trees tufted with old man’s beard, moss underfoot. Then moss rose up in front of me, moss on wood shingles. I made out a low doorway. She set the hides to the left and I did the same.

  “‘Come ye in.’

  “I took off my boots. Light filtered in through a single window. Well, you’ve seen the place. I’d been in enough cabins in my travels with Dorothy I knew more or less what would be where. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have seen forty years earlier.

  “‘Have a seat,’ she told me, pumping fresh water into a bucket. The gush and squeak of that pump brought Dorothy to mind so clearly it was as if she were standing in front of me.

  “Moira spooned tea into a pan on the stove. We didn’t say a word while the water came to the boil. Without asking she put sugar in my mug before passing it to me. We sat some more, each clasping our mugs with both hands, spurts of flame visible through the open drafts.

  “‘I don’t care for it,’ she said at last, ‘going to town. But I don’t fight it.’

  “She sounded less Scots than in the bar. One hand let go of her mug. There wasn’t much light but I could see the fist she made. ‘I fight it, it has me, yes?’ Head tilted to one side she studied me, eyes like moths fluttering over my face.

  “Slowly I nodded.

  “‘I let it be ...’

  “Her
hand unfurled, palm up. She spread her fingers. They were long, tapering. ‘Everything passes. If I let it.’ Now her eyes were steady on mine. ‘Live by yourself in the bush,’ she said so softly I leaned forward, ‘you can go mad. Live with anyone else in the bush, you can go mad that way too.’

  “She waited, her silence then a pool of still water. Like a deer, I lowered my head, drank it in. I drew that water deep and deeper. Every cell sang in the relief of it.

  “I thought it was just her. Drinking. But now it’s me.” My voice startled me.

  “After a while she said, ‘I was married to one the booze owned. There was no end to his thirst. He could vow by everything sacred. An hour later be drunk again.’

  “What happened

  “‘I went mad myself. Angry, all the time. Fast as I could pour his drink out, he’d find a place to hide more. One day, I was behind the door, spying on him. Nothing but a little shack, me hiding behind the door. Suddenly I saw myself.’

  “‘What did you do?’

  “‘Started laughing. He dropped the bottle. It rolled across the floor, spilling all the way.’

  “‘What’s so funny?’ He was scrambling to pick it up.

  “‘I stepped out from behind the door. Couldn’t stop laughing. Then he was laughing too.’

  “Did he stop?

  “‘Drinking? No. But I stopped hanging my happiness around his neck.’

  “‘What happened in the end?

  “‘I found my own peace.’

  “‘To him?’

  “‘He hung himself.’

  “I opened my mouth.

  “She shook her head. ‘There was a lot he had to deal with. In himself.’

  “‘That must have been ... What was that like for you?’

  “‘Sad.’

  “She said the word so simply, and somehow I understood. ‘It didn’t have to do with you?’

  “‘No.’

  “That was when I told her I couldn’t give Polly what she most wanted in the world which was a child. I didn’t care if Moira guessed why. It was such a relief to tell someone. And then, when the words were in the air between us, I could see how we were both doing it, Polly and I. Hanging our happiness around each other’s neck. She blaming me for the drinking. Me with ... with my own unhappiness. Moira didn’t say a word but the quiet came back into me then.”