Through Different Eyes

by Karen Charleson

  She tried as best she could to hide her feelings from her niece, but the more Monica thought about Brenda’s news, the angrier she became. She was angry at her niece for foolishly getting herself into this mess. She was even more furious at this Michael person. He was older; he should have known better. It was that simple. How could he take advantage of her niece like that? It was not right.

  Compounding her outrage was a rapidly growing realization that she could do nothing about the situation. Her young niece was going to have a baby. She had absolutely no control over the situation. She had no real advice, answers, or solutions to offer. For a moment, she let herself imagine that she was back in the city. There were options in the city. Life was different there. The women she knew and associated with — they knew how to handle things. They would consider possibilities like adoption or abortion. In fact, they expected choices.

  Monica gazed down at the faded flowers bordering the Port Hope Hotel paper placemat. She would not even speak about such options in Kitsum. Why? She thought hard. Monica did not think she had ever heard anyone from home — not Ruby, not her mother, not any of her girlfriends — talk specifically about abortion. No one had ever told her that it was bad. Yet somehow, she felt guilty for even allowing herself to think about it.

  Brenda was sixteen years old and pregnant. On the long, slow drive back to Kitsum, Monica tried to concentrate on that fact, although it was a lot to take in all at once. Monica was twenty-seven years old and did not even seem to have the prospect of becoming pregnant ahead of her. Ruby had married Martin when she was barely twenty-one. What was Monica doing with her life? She could not keep thoughts of herself from mixing with thoughts of Brenda. Rather than talking, Monica patted her niece’s hand now and then. “It will be all right,” she found herself saying over and over again. She knew that she was trying to convince herself as much as Brenda.

  SIX

  Once Brenda had told Monica, waiting until it was time to tell her parents became sheer torment. The news loomed over her like a massive cloud threatening to let loose its impending downpour. This was true now; there was no taking anything back. Monica had promised to be with her, but her aunt had been firm about her having to do the talking and the explaining herself. The evening at home passed excruciatingly slowly, just as time always seems to pass when one is waiting for something momentous. Junior eventually left for basketball. Thomas tried to convince his mother to let him stay up an extra half hour and Brenda almost screamed at him to just go to bed like Becky and Millie.

  When all the kids were finally gone, and her mother and father were sitting quietly in the living room in front of the television, Brenda suddenly wished that at least one of her brothers or sisters was still downstairs. Her mother and father seemed to await Brenda and Monica. She wanted to run. “Did you tell them already?” Brenda whispered accusingly to Monica in the kitchen.

  “Of course not,” Monica answered. Brenda wished that she had.

  She walked into the living room so slowly that she almost doubted that she was even moving. The air seemed as thick as the salt water that surrounded her when she dove off the dock and had to kick and stroke to lift herself up, up, up to the surface. The living room was the same living room she had known her whole life, but tonight it was a foreign place. If Monica had not been so close behind her, Brenda would have turned and fled. Instead, she somehow made it to the small couch.

  Sitting there on that ugly couch, she was able to regain a smidgen of confidence. They had gotten that old sofa from their grandparents after Ruby had wrecked the other one. It was some small consolation. Her parents were not perfect either.

  Neither her mother nor her father looked up. They kept their eyes on the screen. Surely they knew that something was coming. Brenda no longer watched TV with them in the evenings; she had avoided sitting with them for months. Monica nudged her arm; she motioned with her head for Brenda to begin.

  “Brenda has something to tell you,” Monica said.

  Brenda glared at her aunt. Now her parents were obviously paying attention; any pretense of watching television was instantly forgotten. Her face was burning hot. There was no way out. In what felt like a single breath, looking down at her own feet, she told them. “I’m pregnant. I think over three months. I’m sorry. The father is Michael Clydesdale, but he doesn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  The words were the ones she had rehearsed. They were all that she could manage. They were the bare facts, the ones she figured that they would demand. Even without looking up at her parents she knew exactly how they were reacting. She knew that her mother, who must have suspected something, was crying. Brenda imagined that she would have hung onto hopes that her suspicions were not true, and that this was not the news she was going to hear. While her mother cried quietly into her hands, her father would be sitting frozen in his chair, staring blankly at the television screen. Her father must be furious. There was absolutely no doubt. Brenda knew that he would not have suspected at all. She was still his baby girl. He was completely and utterly blindsided. She knew that he would sit and stare for a very long time.

  Monica rubbed her back and held her hand. Brenda barely felt her aunt’s touch. No one spoke. When she could not stand the silence any longer, she pulled away from Monica and fled to her room.

  It felt like hours had passed before her mother and Monica came upstairs. They knocked, but did not wait for an answer to enter her room. She had left the door unlocked. Only the small lamp at her bedside was on; its orange shade gave the entire room the look of twilight on a clear winter’s day. Though she was curled up on her bed underneath a pile of blankets, there was no point to Brenda pretending to be asleep. She was still sniffling too much. Her mother sat on the edge of her bed, turned towards her, and held out her arms. All at once, Brenda was hugging her as though her life depended upon it. Ruby held her daughter for what felt like hours. There were no words.

  Brenda had expected a barrage of questions, but she did not get them that first night. Instead, her mother urged her to try to get a good night’s rest. Monica brought her a glass of water. She did not expect to sleep, but shortly after her mom and aunt left her room, she drifted off. She woke in the morning to discover that it was just past ten in the morning. No one had called her for school, even though it was the last full day before the high school broke for the Christmas holidays. Everyone must have been very quiet getting ready that morning for her not to have heard a thing.

  Her mother seemed happy to see her when she went downstairs. Her father was gone and so was Auntie Monica. After the previous evening, it was a relief to be in a quiet kitchen. Ruby started cooking her breakfast. While the eggs were frying, she asked about setting up a doctor’s appointment. The questions after that were not many and they were asked gently, one at a time. Was she going to keep going to school? When she vehemently said no, her mother did not argue. Brenda did not need to bring up the way the white kids — and some of the teachers — would snicker at her behind her back. Her mother knew that. When did she get pregnant? Brenda answered that it had to have been in late August because she remembered having her period around the middle of that month. Her mother did not pursue things further.

  Brenda figured that her parents had talked between themselves. Maybe they had not discussed things the night before when her dad was still too angry, but they had definitely talked in the morning. Early, she figured. Her mother and father would have gotten up extra early although they had probably not slept much the night before. They would have sat at the kitchen table, sipping coffee. Not even Monica would have been present. Between them they had decided things. Brenda was not sure what all those decisions were, but her parents had definitely come to conclusions of their own. By now, they knew that there was nothing they could do except be supportive and kind. They had talked and then her father had gone down to his boat. She suspected that he would spend a lot of extra time working on the Queen in the coming week
s.

  SEVEN

  While Monica and Ruby had been reluctant to talk much about anything that morning, Rebecca, Millie, and even Thomas had been full of excited chatter. It was the day of the annual Kitsum Elementary School Christmas Concert. Listening to her youngest nephew and nieces, Monica learned about the incredible amount of work yet to be done to set up for the evening’s festivities. They needed parents, Becky and Millie said pointedly, to come to the school and help.

  As her nieces had directed her, Monica showed up at the school’s main entrance shortly before the first bell rang. She easily spotted the principal, as he was the tallest person around. She had heard about Gary Ashton from Ruby and the kids over the past few years, and she felt like she knew him already. Extending her hand and introducing herself, Monica told him that she had been enlisted by her nieces and nephew. Gary laughed and told her that she could start immediately.

  Monica spent the first part of the morning making the concert programmes on the office computer. Gary had handed her a scribbled draft, which she had typed up with fancy fonts and colours before adding some holiday clip art. Then she printed the five hundred sheets he had requested. She knew that nearly everyone in Kitsum attended the annual concert and that every adult got a programme. It felt good to be preparing something that was actually going to be used. And, she could not help thinking, it was a good day to be out of the house too.

  When the programmes were finished, Monica went to the gym where boxes overflowing with Christmas decorations sat on the lower bleachers. A freshly cut bushy pine tree lay on the floor. She was thinking that she was never going to be able to do all the required decorating by herself when the recess bell rang. First a few, and then a lot of kids, noisily entered the gym. Monica began asking questions. Within minutes, she found out that many of the students had very clear notions of what needed to be done. Older girls began hanging bells and angels along the walls. A young girl who looked barely old enough to be attending school told her that the stars always went on the far walls. An older boy informed Monica that the Christmas tree went in the front corner. He and the group of kids beside him appeared to know exactly how to put it up. She did not even have to direct; once the tree was standing, the kids began hanging sparkling ornaments and wildly colourful garlands.

  Monica strongly suspected that Gary delayed ringing the bell to end recess. The students were so happily involved with decorating that it seemed heartless to stop them. When they finally did have to return to their classrooms, Monica only had to put away the empty boxes and hang a few missed items.

  Gary offered her half a sandwich from his own lunch bag and a cup of stale coffee from what looked to be an overused coffee maker. She declined the beverage, but ate the sandwich. She was still chewing when he asked her if she was able to help in the afternoon as well. Monica nodded. She was genuinely happy to stick around, even if she was the only “parent” volunteer in sight. She would be sure to ask Becky and Millie about that later at home.

  Against one wall of the small staff room stood stacks of oranges in boxes. Covering the entire span of countertop were piles and piles of nuts and candies and packages of brown paper bags. Into each lunch bag, one of the teachers explained to Monica, went two mandarin oranges, two candy canes, a handful of peanuts, another handful of mixed nuts, a couple of chocolate Santa Clauses wrapped in foil, and two handfuls of assorted candies. The task that Monica initially saw as so simple took her all afternoon. She remembered the sheer thrill of receiving a Christmas treat bag as a child at the old Kitsum hall. The warmth of the memory stayed with her as she filled bag after bag. She had never thought before that any effort went into preparing them. Comparatively, she could not recall a single instance of having done anything at her Vancouver job that seemed as worthwhile as filling those bags with treats for the kids.

  Monica returned to the school gym early that evening. Not only did she double-check the decorating job; she also casually watched and listened for other people’s reactions. It was during that pre-concert time, before the bulk of the parents and community members had arrived, that Gary first approached her about working at the school after New Year’s. One of the teacher aides — he explained quickly while fastening a student’s “antlers” to her headband — was leaving. He did not know Monica’s plans, but he wondered if there was any chance that she might be interested in the position. To her own amazement, Monica found herself telling Gary that she would seriously think about it, and that it all depended on whether or not she decided to stay in Kitsum. It was the first time she had admitted aloud to anyone that she was even thinking about staying.

  “The job’s yours if you want it,” Gary said. He explained that he would be gone over the holidays, but back in Kitsum on January 2nd. She could let him know between then and the start of school. He would keep his fingers crossed.

  Maybe it was the job offer and the confidence in her that Gary so readily expressed; maybe it was having spent most of the day helping set up for the Christmas concert; maybe it was the enthusiastic hugs and proud comments from Millie and Becky and Thomas; whatever the reason, Monica enjoyed the Kitsum Elementary School Christmas Concert very much that year. It had been too long since she had last attended. Saul had always managed to delay their arrival home until after the concert was over. He did not understand why she wanted to watch kids — most of whom she did not really know — performing plays and other presentations that often were somewhat incomprehensible. He did not find any attraction in listening to “silly” Christmas carols. These things bored him, Monica supposed.

  Kitsum Elementary School had opened in 1967. She had been nine years old and just beginning the fourth grade. She remembered the day clearly. Even though she was certainly old enough to walk to the school by herself, especially since the first school building was within sight of their old house, her mother had walked there alongside her. Her father, she recalled, had been out fishing. A lot of parents were at the school that morning. It was a big deal, a huge deal. It was the first year for longer than anyone could recall that all of the school kids had not left for the residential school down south. Only in retrospect was Monica able to realize how much effort many of the parents and others in Kitsum had put into getting that first school established. The arguments with the Department of Indian Affairs alone would have deterred — and did deter — many other communities. DIA funded the residential schools, but they were not in the habit of “handing out” funding to communities they did not consider capable of operating their own schools. After years of argument, Indian Affairs had finally given Kitsum a small amount to “try out” the school idea. It was an amount that would have made any other school district in the province laugh, sneer, or cry. The funding was meant, Monica could see today, for one thing only. They wanted to ensure that Kitsum Elementary School did not succeed.

  DIA was wrong. Parents and Kitsum community members were not going to give up. The school was a donated two-storey house. Walls were removed and replaced. New washrooms were outfitted. Desks, books, and supplies were shipped in on the freight boat from town. Most of the stuff, Monica remembered, was second-hand. Everything was new though, to people in Kitsum. It was that day, at nine years old, that Monica had decided to do well in school. She had not told anyone, but she had made a silent promise to herself that she would be a good student, good enough that she would never have to go back to the Indian Residential School ever again.

  It took a few years for many of the Kitsum kids to begin attending. Some of the parents, she recalled, were skeptical at first, or afraid of the warnings from the priest about what would happen if they did not continue to send their children to the church-run residential school. That old priest, Father John, had thought nothing of threatening hellfire and damnation. He had also told more than a few parents that the RCMP and social workers could take their children. She was lucky; Monica had known that for a long time. Her parents were among those who fought the hardest for the
Kitsum school. They had refused to be bullied by Father John, just as they had refused to be shoved aside by Indian Affairs. There was never any doubt that she would be one of the first students enrolled at Kitsum.

  It was easy to reminisce here at home. In Vancouver, there always seemed to be something else going on, something more important than merely stopping to think. From her perch on the bleachers, Monica spotted Martin and Junior in the gym doorway. A minute later, Ruby and Brenda followed. She was instantly relieved that her niece had come. They were still early enough to get good seats up front where they would be able to hear almost everything, even from the very shyest children. Monica nearly skipped over to join them. Brenda looked less miserable than she had the evening before. She had taken the time to French-braid her hair. Maybe, Monica thought, she felt better now that the whole stress of telling her parents had lifted. Brenda gave her a tight-lipped smile. That was something. However, Monica saw that she also seemed distracted; her attention focused on the doorway. She was waiting for this Michael person, Monica figured out quickly. She followed Brenda’s frequent glances. Yes, she would like to see this guy herself.

  Shortly after seven o’clock, Gary Ashton stood in front of the packed gymnasium to welcome everyone. Brenda was still twisting in her seat every few seconds, trying to see the door. Silently, Monica urged her niece to not let the disappointment ruin her evening, to just never mind this guy who was causing her so much worry.