Five Little Indians

by Michelle Good

  Clara collected her belongings and walked out into the morning air, unable to shake the eerie feeling. Outside, she bummed a cigarette and a light, walked down to the little birch tree, pressed her hand against it and smoked.

  7

  Lucy

  Clara placed the swaddled baby into Lucy’s arms. Baby-girl’s tiny fingers flexed and stretched, reaching into the air. Lucy held her as close as possible, taking in every detail, every chubby wrinkle. Her hair, sleek and thick, lay soft and close to her head; her eyes, blue-obsidian. Hesitating, Lucy placed her pinky finger against Baby-girl’s, succumbing to the newborn’s grip, tears welling with a rush of love she couldn’t have imagined. Relief washed over her, warming her face pink. She leaned and kissed the baby’s sweet-smelling forehead, breathing in the intoxicating smell of the newborn, like a doe, imprinting her fawn’s scent, forever after recognizable, even at a great distance.

  Clara caught Lucy’s eye and smiled. “She’s gorgeous.”

  Lucy leaned back against the raised bed, face flushed with fatigued pleasure. “I still feel drugged. C-section is okay, I guess, but man, that anaesthetic. I’m out of it.”

  “Is that why it took so long to ask for her? The nurses were talking about you when I got here. Said you’d been awake for three hours, still hadn’t asked for her.”

  Lucy looked away. “You’re gonna think I’m stupid.”

  Clara laughed. “I already know you’re stupid, so what can it hurt?”

  The two giggled, startling Baby-girl. Lucy held her closer and she quit her half-hearted fussing. Lucy looked away again and blushed. “I thought they wouldn’t give her to me.”

  “What? You see? I knew you were stupid.” They giggled again, but this time Clara stood up and put her arm around Lucy and the baby.

  Lucy whispered, “Were we ever allowed anything good?”

  They sat in silence together, lost in a shared truth rarely spoken.

  Clara rallied first. “Let me hold her!”

  Beaming, Lucy handed Baby-girl over.

  The infant cooed and gurgled in Clara’s arms. “What will you name her?”

  Lucy shrugged. “Not sure yet.”

  It was about two months after she’d last seen Kenny when the nausea had worsened and become overwhelming. As she accompanied a new doctor on his rounds with the other nurses-in-training, the nausea hit again. Lucy knew she could either puke on the floor or run for the closest bathroom. Lucy ran, hand over mouth, gagging. Barely making it, she leaned over the toilet retching, careful not to splatter her uniform. For the third time that morning, she straightened herself in front of the mirror, checking for any evidence of vomit. She made sure her cap was fastened securely, took a deep breath and felt the nausea rising again. She pulled the door open and Mrs. Reynolds, the matron in charge of the trainees, stood in the hall, arms crossed, waiting for her.

  “Come with me, my dear.” The head nurse led her toward the staff lounge. Inside, Lucy sat on the edge of her seat while Mrs. Reynolds pulled a straight-backed chair in front of her and sat down. “The other girls are complaining that you are spending too much time in the ladies’ room.”

  “I’m sorry.” Lucy longed for the Manitou. She thought about the way Liz was always willing to switch a shift when she had to go to school. If Clara and Liz were in nursing school with her, they would have created a distraction; no one would even have noticed Lucy’s morning sickness. These white girls were different. Always quick to exclude her or fault her.

  “When are you due?”

  “I’m not sure.” Lucy closed her eyes, not even trying to deny the obvious. Another wave of nausea passed over her.

  “Ginger ale and soda crackers will help with that. Let’s get you to a doctor, get you sorted out. You know, of course, you will have to leave the program. At least until the child is born.” Mrs. Reynolds stood and put her hand on Lucy’s shoulder.

  Lucy jumped up from her chair. “But why? I’ve worked so hard to get here.”

  “Lucy, you’re unmarried. It would be unseemly. You will survive this. You can come back after the baby. Now, head off to the maternity ward and I will send a doctor. There are lots of empty beds up there right now. Just lie down and rest. I’ll let the girls know you’re coming.”

  Knowing any protest was hopeless, Lucy focused instead on Mrs. Reynolds’s kindness, her desire to ensure she was taken care of. She looked up at the matron, afraid she would cry. “Thank you.”

  Three days later, Lucy was still holed up alone above Chong Li’s. Despite a nearly empty fridge and the last roll of toilet paper, Lucy had not stepped out since coming home from her hospital training class. The sudden sound of pebbles landing against her kitchen window startled her. She jumped up, sure it was Kenny, and ran to the window, peering down to the street below. Clara, sodden with the late fall deluge, stood looking up at Lucy’s window. She wiped the rain from her face. “Open the door, for chrissakes, I’m gonna drown!”

  “Here.” Lucy tossed her key ring out the window to her friend. “Just come up.”

  Clara bounded up the stairs and burst into her apartment.

  “Where the hell have you been? I haven’t seen you in days! Is everything okay?”

  “Oh, I’ve just been here. Couldn’t handle seeing anyone.”

  “I was really worried about you. I went to the hospital to meet you and they told me you weren’t in the program anymore. What’s going on?” Clara leaned against the kitchen wall, looking at her friend, arms crossed, eyebrows furrowed.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Clara sat down hard on one of the kitchen chairs. “Kenny.”

  The girls sat, Clara’s hands cupped over Lucy’s as the news sank in. “Why wouldn’t they let you stay in the program?”

  “Because I’m not married. It wouldn’t look right.”

  “Well, when the baby comes, you can start again. It will be okay, Lucy. I’ll help you. Where the hell is Kenny? I’m gonna kill him.”

  “I haven’t seen him since that night he was waiting by my door. I woke up in the morning and he was gone.” Lucy sat with her head in her hands.

  “That asshole. He’d better hope I don’t get my hands on him.”

  “What does it matter? What was I thinking, anyway? Harlan was right. It doesn’t make a difference.”

  Clara handed Baby-girl back to Lucy to nurse. With that dreamy nursing-mother look all over her face, Lucy focused only on Baby-girl. “I’m going to name her Kendra.”

  Clara sighed. “After that bastard?”

  “I love that bastard. What can I say?”

  Clara sighed again and stood just as a crisply uniformed nurse strode into the room, all business.

  “Time for baby’s bath demonstration.” The nurse’s voice was both cheerful and unmistakably instructing Clara to leave. She pulled the privacy curtain closed, the hooks clattering.

  Clara shrugged and rolled her eyes in Lucy’s direction, then leaned in for a hug and kissed Kendra’s sweet-smelling head. “I’ll be back later. I’m gonna head to the Indian Centre for a bit.” She smiled over her shoulder at Lucy, Mama Lucy, oblivious to all but learning umbilical care and how to cradle a baby’s head above the bathwater.

  The next afternoon, Clara found Lucy in her room, sitting by the window, clinging to Kendra, her face streaked with partially dried tears. “What’s wrong? Don’t cry after that Kenny. He’s not worth your tears, that one.”

  Lucy swiped at her dripping nose with the back of her hand. “It’s not that. The welfare lady was here today. She said I have to prove I’m a fit mother.”

  “What the hell? How does she even know who you are?”

  Lucy just stared out the window, absently rocking Kendra, watching the cars like toys on the street below.

  Clara nudged her. “Lucy, snap out of it. What did she say?”

  “Maybe the nurses called her. I don’t know. Maybe they do that to all Indians.” Lucy started counting out loud. Clara knew of her need to count an
d order everything when she was having a hard time, but had never seen her do it out loud. “What if they take her? What if she ends up at the Mission?” Lucy’s voice rose with panic.

  Clara reached for the baby. “Lucy. Get dressed. We’re getting outta here.”

  Lucy stood, looking around the room, stunned. “But they said I had to stay for five days.”

  “Lucy! Move! Get dressed. What if she comes back? Our grandmothers had babies in the bush. You’ll live.” She carefully placed Kendra in the bassinet beside Lucy’s bed. “I’ll be right back.”

  Careful that no one was watching, Clara walked fast down the hall and slipped into the clearly marked supply room. She stuffed the small knapsack she used as a purse with all the baby supplies she could think Lucy would need and calmly walked back to Lucy’s room, smiling at the nurse sitting behind the nurses’ station. “Hey, is it okay if I take my friend and the baby out for a little air?”

  The nurse nodded absently. “Yes, that would be fine. Use the wheelchair, just in case.”

  Clara strolled into Lucy’s room like nothing was wrong. She pulled her pack open for Lucy to see. She grinned. “Indian School skills.”

  As terrified as she was, it still made Lucy smile.

  Clara pulled the wheelchair from the corner and motioned for Lucy to sit in it. “Just do it!” She took the baby from the bassinet and placed her in Lucy’s arms and then covered them with a blanket, placing a hospital gown over Lucy’s shoulders so as not to raise questions. Clara wheeled her right by the nurses’ station, the nurse smiling at such an attentive friend, down in the elevator, out the front door and all the way home. An hour later, Clara had dumped the wheelchair blocks away and was helping Lucy calm an aggravated and hungry baby.

  “What if they find us?” Lucy gently rocked the baby, trying to calm her.

  “Pfffft. They don’t care enough.”

  Lucy giggled just a little and placed Kendra in the cot, swaddled tightly and buttressed by the only two pillows in the apartment. “Sometimes I just love how pissed off you always are.”

  Clara rolled her eyes. “And besides, I gave them a fake address when I signed you into the hospital.”

  “Why the hell did you do that?”

  “Just in case.”

  They looked at Kendra. Kendra would not become a case.

  When she’d been forced to quit the nursing program, Lucy was cut off the meagre training allowance that paid the rent and little more. During her pregnancy, she had no choice but to leave the apartment above Chong Li’s and move her few things into Clara’s tiny studio suite. Clara slept on a mat on the floor, Lucy on the slightly more comfortable cot. Since getting fired from the Manitou, Clara had found her way into the black market salmon trade, acting as middle-woman between Indian fishers and white buyers. She didn’t make much money, but sometimes, if the buyer was stupid enough, as some were, she could grossly inflate the price, and these occasional windfalls kept the wolf away from the door. There were other little perks that came with living under the radar. Someone at the Indian Centre told her she could get welfare, but that white lady with the long nose and that pinched look on her face was more than Clara would put up with. She’d rather make a buck this way or that. There would be no grovelling.

  Even though the sun was only a little low on the horizon, the terrifying day took its toll. Lucy lay down next to Kendra, and Clara fell asleep in the armchair before she even knew she was tired.

  Through the night, Lucy woke at the slightest mewling from the baby, nursed and changed her, drifting off with Kendra at her breast. Clara had moved to the mat on the floor during the night, but when morning arrived, she was gone. Lucy shook her head, wondering how she had not even heard the door close behind her. She attended to the baby and did a careful scrub of the already-spotless kitchen. She bathed Kendra in the kitchen sink, her one arm resting between baby’s neck and the hard porcelain, the other dousing the cooing girl.

  Clara returned at midday to find Lucy frantically trying to calm a screaming Kendra. Lucy looked at Clara, panicked. She rocked the baby faster and faster, desperate to calm her.

  “What’s wrong? Whaddo I do?”

  “Jeez, stop rocking her so hard, you’re freakin’ me out.” Clara dug through the basket where she’d dumped all the stuff they’d brought home from the hospital. She grabbed a little booklet with a picture of some rich white lady giving her baby a bottle. Do’s and Don’ts: Feeding Your Bundle of Joy. “Here,” she said, “gimme the baby. You read.” Clara started rocking the baby, trying to stay calm.

  Lucy flipped the pages, reciting headings: “Formula . . . Breast Milk . . . Bloating . . . Gas . . . Gas! I bet she has gas.”

  “Okay, genius, but what do we do about it?”

  Lucy flipped another page and was visibly relieved by the illustration of a mother burping her baby. “Hand her over.” She took the baby from Clara’s arms and carefully turned her, laying her against her shoulder, and rubbed her back gently as the baby wailed. And then the baby burped so loud and deep it froze Clara and Lucy in position for a second or two before they both howled with laughter. Lucy continued massaging Kendra’s back and she emitted a few more pint-sized burps.

  “Holy, she sounded like some big beer-guzzling guy,” Clara said, still giggling.

  Lucy smiled, shaking her head, relieved to have Kendra finally settled and dozing. “Hey, can you wipe the puke off my shoulder?”

  Clara sat down and rustled through her bag. “I have limits, woman.”

  Once the baby was asleep again, Clara motioned Lucy into the tiny kitchen where they could talk quietly without waking Kendra. Lucy whispered, “What’s up?”

  Clara reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out two cards: a driver’s licence and a Social Insurance Number.

  “Who is Carey St. Marie?” Lucy looked at her friend quizzically. “And why do you have her ID?” Clara flipped the driver’s licence on top of the SIN and made a face. “That’s you!” Lucy grabbed the licence and started at Clara’s picture. “What the hell?”

  Clara looked skyward with a feigned angelic eye roll. “I told you there are perks to being a criminal.”

  “You’re not a criminal. You just sell fish for people.”

  “Tell it to the judge.”

  Lucy grabbed Clara’s sleeve and pulled hard. “Anyway, what the hell?”

  “I got a set in the works for you too. Should be ready tonight. You’re my sister, Bunny St. Marie, with a baby girl Honey St. Marie.”

  “What for? I don’t need this. I have ID.”

  Clara sighed. “Lucy, sometimes you are so damn dense.”

  Offended, Lucy looked away. “Give me a break. I just had a damn baby.”

  Clara gently pretended to throttle her. “Look, we’re going to the welfare office tomorrow. You’re my sister-in-law. Your husband died while you were pregnant. I’m here to help you with the baby. We’re going to get on welfare.”

  “What? You hate those welfare people.”

  “Yeah, well.” Clara motioned to the baby. “I love her more.”

  They struggled through several meetings with the welfare witch but were eventually approved to each receive welfare. Clara let her landlord know she was moving and found out she was about to be evicted anyway for having Lucy and the baby there. A woman at the Indian Centre gave Clara her used stroller, and every day Lucy and Clara, with the baby in tow, would head to the library to scour the classifieds for a house to rent. They were often rejected on sight when the landlord saw two Indian girls and a baby. Even when Clara told them the welfare would pay the rent directly, they were brushed aside.

  “I don’t want any trouble here,” one prospective landlord told them.

  Clara bristled, tired of rejection after rejection. “What kind of trouble? We have a baby, for chrissakes.”

  Lucy tugged at Clara’s sleeve. “It’s okay, um, Carey. Who wants a jerk for a landlord anyway?”

  “Yeah, your loss!” Clara spat out he
r words, and when out of earshot she exclaimed, “What the hell was that?”

  “I’m growing a pair. I’ve got a baby to protect.” Lucy raised her chin.

  Clara laughed. “Right on, woman, right on.”

  Finally, two and a half days before they were due to vacate Clara’s suite, a landlord agreed to rent them a small two-bedroom house on Frances Street, just sixteen blocks from Hastings and Main. They walked from room to room, Lucy making sure neither the baby nor her clothes touched any surface. They signed the papers and the landlord handed over the keys, reminding them it was rented as is and not to expect him to be running over to fix this and that.

  Once the landlord was out the door and down the stairs, Clara looked at Lucy. “Probably couldn’t find anyone else who would take it.”

  The house was filthy. The paint was chipping off the walls and garbage was piled up in the small enclosed porch. The old claw-footed tub was in good shape but for some rust stains, but the rest of the bathroom was filthy and stank. Lucy gagged and headed for the back door to get some air. She looked back into the house at Clara fiddling with the loose knob on the bedroom door. “How the hell can we even clean this with Kendra? I can’t even lay her down anywhere.”

  Clara looked up, smiling, and spread her arms wide. “Hey, it’s our palace, our home sweet home. We’ll figure it out.”

  The next day, they packed up their meagre possessions in Clara’s suite, leaving everything there in boxes, and headed for the Indian Centre. They made it for lunch and enjoyed soup and fry bread washed down with strong tea. Lucy watched Clara chatting with her friends who volunteered at the Centre as well as the friends she’d made with the people who dropped in for a meal, some advice or just the company of other Indians. For a moment she was jealous of Clara’s confidence and ease with other people, but then she looked at Kendra, asleep in the ratty old stroller, and everything else seemed trivial.

  Clara straddled the chair next to Lucy and smiled. “I got a whole gang together who are gonna help us with the house. I promised them a few beers and some Chinese food in return for their help.” She pointed out a young man with shiny black braids and a buckskin vest. “That’s George. He’s the one I told you about. He has a car.”