“Then my husband and I are going to adopt Marie,” said Kate.
“She’s safe then, with you?”
Kate nodded and smiled.
“Has she spoken yet?”
“No, sweetheart, she hasn’t. But that’s because she isn’t able to speak.”
Carey thought about this. “She has her own words, but they’re hard to understand.”
Kate nodded.
“You know Kate, Marie understands things in other ways. She likes it a lot when you make really funny faces.”
“That’s good to know,” said Kate, thinking briefly of Bart, all but standing on his head to make Marie smile.
“Maybe when you’re feeling better, you can come visit Marie,” Kate suggested, looking to Rosie for confirmation. She smiled back.
“And she could come here and visit me too, couldn’t she mom?”
“Either is fine with me honey,” said Rosie.
CHAPTER 52
My last lab with the film students was the first week in December. Truth be told, I was glad my teaching time was over and done with. Teaching, I’ve discovered, requires a lot of patience and I’m more of a doer. As I’d promised them in October, we had the no-holds-barred session on media treatment of my abduction and rescue.
It was interesting and instructive for me to listen to others discuss how, in the short space of a ten days, I went from professional, but careless woman who took chances and put herself in harm’s way—to street prostitute who managed to extricate herself from that life and into another but continued to sleep around, for free—to the final incarnation where I was miraculously wiped clean of stupidity, carelessness, victimization and questionable morals and emerged as Indigenous woman, badass superhero.
My students come from many corners of the world and race, gender and class bias are alive and well in every corner. These are my struggles too; always have been. And while my Indigenous heritage is a green light to a twisted few to wreak their own sick havoc on me, it is also my strength and my power. More so now than ever.
I no longer cover my stitch marks and have taken to combing my hair the way I always did, off my forehead. I got tired of hiding them—from myself and from the rest of the world. I want to remember how I got them and watch them disappear. I don’t want how I got them to haunt me for the rest of my life.
Lucas combs the papers and online press daily for news about that nasty crew. The body they were carrying out when I arrived at the trail was a girl named Georgina Carlisle. Carey’s mom doesn’t want her to know yet. Her healing is slow going, and the family is worried about how it would affect her. I am too. Personally, I found it devastating. They found two other bodies in the area: an adult woman and a male youth. They haven’t been identified yet.
The blonde guy hasn’t shown up in the news which has caused us endless speculation and me a lot of private worry. It doesn’t help that Jeri Fernice calls weekly to check up on me. She’s slick about it, but I think they’re worried about my safety because they haven’t caught the guy yet. We’re hyper vigilant now that we know he’s in the wind, but we haven’t noticed anything untoward.
Lucas noticed that Batlan was out on bail much faster than the others. Kate and him both think Batlan will be a key witness for the defense in the upcoming trial. It looks like they’re going to throw the book at all of them. I wish the book was heavier. Trial date is set for this coming March.
About a week ago, I got word that my application for the Telefilm micro grant had been accepted. I was stunned at first; I guess because some part of me didn’t think I’d get it, but that was quickly replaced with joyful delirium and my feet didn’t touch the ground for days. I wanted a big party to celebrate and started planning a feast. That’s as far as I got before I started to flounder. Lucas noticed and offered his help. Thanks darling. What would I do without you? We invited everyone and what a party it was!
Kate and I spent time together yesterday. We went for lunch and did some Christmas shopping. It was a real gift, because she has so little time now that Marie is part of their family. Kate and Bart are totally in love with her. She told me it happened on that Saturday night. The next morning, they decided over breakfast that they wanted to be her guardians.
I hadn’t planned to, not right then, but I found myself telling Kate everything. She held me in her heart, just like she always does. Once I got started, I couldn’t stop. She held me tight and we cried together. This was the second time and it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.
After, she insisted Lucas and I come to their new place for dinner. Bart was making lasagna and we both love it. They’ve moved to a two bedroom in the east end near us which is great, and they’re in the process of adopting Marie. It was confirmed that her mom died in Quebec a few years ago. As for her dad, no one knows and probably never will. If Marie can heal, it will happen with Kate and Bart. It was joyful and affirming for us to spend the evening with the three of them.
We’re in pre-production now on the film and both feet are firmly back on the ground. It’s exciting and a little overwhelming too at times, but I’m putting together a great team for this, including Miles, who came on board as Production Manager.
Tomorrow, Lucas and I are flying east to visit my family for the holidays and I’m looking forward to that. It’s been too long. We’re staying with my cousin Tanaka and her guy, which will be a lot of fun for us and great for them. They’re gonna love Lucas’ cooking!
It will be December in Ontario’s north and since this is his first time to cavort in that bracing a level of cold and snow, I thought it best to check what Lucas packed for the trip. It’s a good thing I did. I’m taking him shopping today for real snow gear.
I plan on spending a lot of time with my Nokomis. Looking back on our lives, I don’t think Effie ever kept secrets from me. It’s more that I just wasn’t listening close enough to what she wasn’t saying. There’s so much I want to tell her and so much I hope she’ll share with me, now that I’m a better listener.
THE END
I hope you enjoyed reading Blue Star. If you have the time, I would greatly appreciate if you could leave a review or a rating at your favorite eBook store site or on Goodreads.
Acknowledgments
West Sanctuary at University of BC Hospital in Vancouver, BC does not exist. Nokomis Effie’s home reserve, Greenwood Lake is fictional. If it did exist, it would be East of Thunder Bay, Ontario. La Perla Coffee Plantation does exist and continues to be owned by the Arenas family. I have fictionalized all members of the Arenas family, except the original owner, Ignacio Arenas. He was given La Perla for his part in putting down the Guatemalan peasant land reformation movement. He was killed by guerillas during the civil war. After his death, the Arenas family did ask the army to establish a garrison at La Perla.
Thanks to Ronald Wright for his insightful book, Time Among the Maya. He made it easier to get at the truth in plain sight and one of his stories suggested the plot twist that got Lucas Arenas and his mom out of Guatemala. In Antigua, Guatemala, I am grateful to A Maya guide for his honesty; he is nameless here for his own protection. Victor Porter of the Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons in Vancouver, BC, who gave generously of his time. Whitney Sedgwick was generous with her time and helpful with the questions I had about the field of counseling.
Thanks to Rea Gosine and Catherine Hansen, careful readers of early drafts of the novel. Michelle Fornasier read a later draft and helped me get to the heart of the matter. Audrey DeRoy, Anishinaabe elder and gifted singer, helped with Anishinaabe words, but more important, started me on the path to a much deeper understanding of how, in her words, “language is the culture and spirituality of the First Nations peoples of Turtle Island.” A special thank you to my daughter, Marcella Reay, who believed in me and this book from the beginning. Any mistakes are mine.
Books
Bearing Witness, Violence and Collective Responsibility, Sandra L. Bloom, MD, Mi
chael Reichert, PhD, Routledge, 1998
Invisible Chains, Canada’s Underground World of Human Trafficking: Benjamin Perrin, Penguin, 2010
That Lonely Section of Hell: The Botched Investigation of a Serial Killer Who Almost Got Away, Lori Shenher, 2015
The History of Childhood, Lloyd DeMause, Harper/Collins, 1974
Time Among The Maya: Travels in Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico, Ronald Wright, Penguin, 1989
About Valerie Van Clieaf
The author is a woman of European and Indigenous heritage.
Blue Star (previously published as End of Innocence) is her first novel and the first book in the Alex Desocarras mystery series.
Red Paint is book two in the series.
To learn more about the author, click here.
Val's Website
Blue Star Page 32
