Over Our Heads

by Andrea Thompson

  Miss Higgins said okay again, got in her car and drove away.

  Jenny’s Grandpa looked at Emma and Lester. “Don’t you worry, you two. Everything’s skookum.”

  Emma decided right then that she loved Jenny’s grandpa, and wished that he was her and Lester’s Grandpa too. On the way home, Jenny and Lester walked up ahead, and took turns kicking a tin can down the street. Emma dawdled behind so she could talk to Jenny’s grandpa. “Um, Jenny’s grandpa,” she started hesitatingly. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure, Emma. You can call me Jim. Or Big Jim, it’s up to you. So what did you want to know?” he asked.

  “Well, I wanted to ask you – how do you know for sure that you’re an Indian?” Emma asked.

  “Not Indian, Chinook.” Jenny’s grandpa replied.

  “Sorry,” Emma said. “I mean I know that you know for sure that you’re a Chinook, and Jenny knows for sure that she is because her parents are and stuff, but I’m wondering, for the kids who don’t have parents anymore, how would they know if they were Indian, and not something else. Like a Paki or coloured or something.”

  “Those are bad words, but a good question, Emma.” Big Jim looked serious for the first time since Emma had met him. He looked at Emma for a long time, then said, “Well, there’s no way to know for sure what someone is if they don’t know their parents, or where their parents are from. But my guess is that you’re not Chinook, or from any Nation, Emma. You may have some in your blood, who knows, but from the looks of it, you’ve got something else mixed in there too. People like you, in my language, we call them ‘Sitkum Siwash’. That means you’re a mix of different cultures. You have white people in you I think, and another part something else, maybe Black. Can’t tell unless you see the parents. And even then sometimes it’s hard to know for sure,” Jenny’s grandpa laughed.

  Emma was disappointed. She had hoped that she was at least part Chinook or some kind of Indian, even though it would make Nina be even meaner to her. Emma didn’t say much after that. It wasn’t that she was mad at Big Jim. He called her a name, but Emma didn’t get the feeling it was a bad name. As with Jenny, his eyes told her the truth.

  When they got to Emma and Lester’s house, the driveway was empty. Emma started wondering if she was going to get in trouble when Mamma Shirley and Just Jack came home. Emma thought about Just Jack in the garage that morning, drinking and crying, and wondered what happened to him at the trial. What if he got sent to the Pen? Would they be allowed to stay with Mamma Shirley? Then what would happen? The questions filled up all the space in her head, churning till her ears started to ring.

  Just then, Nina yelled out through the kitchen window.

  “Emma! Lester! Get your asses in here, dinner’s ready.”

  Emma looked at Jenny and her Grandfather. All the happy that was in everybody’s face before was gone.

  “Mesachie,” Big Jim said under his breath, as he nodded at the window Nina’s yelling had just come out of, his eyes looking dark like just before it rains. He looked at Emma and Lester, and said, “Keep on truckin’, you two.” Lester beamed at that one.

  Inside, Nina and Jamie Francis were already sitting at the kitchen table eating their mini-pizzas. Nina looked at Emma with a face that would have looked friendly if it had been on someone else.

  “Come and join us, Emma,” Nina said. “Lester, I made your favourite.”

  Lester smiled and sat down at the table, but Emma knew that something was up. Nina was never nice to anyone unless she had to be. Emma stayed quiet as she sat in her seat.

  “Cat got your tongue, Emma?” Nina asked. “Okay then, suit yourself.”

  “I’m done,” Jamie Francis said, put his plate in the sink and left the kitchen without another word. Emma started eating, picking the pepperoni circles off her pizza, giving them to Lester.

  “Oh, and by the way,” Nina said as she put her own dish in the sink. “If Shirley asks how you got home today, you tell her that I came to pick you up, okay? We don’t want anybody’s parents getting the wrong idea, do we?” Nina walked out of the room.

  Lester stared after her in horror, then looked down at his mini-pizza. Little drops fell from his face, and onto his plate. Emma didn’t want to lie, and knew that Nina was the one who’d get in trouble if they told the truth, but she didn’t want to get Mamma Shirley mad either. She was trying to decide what to do, when Jamie Francis yelled from the living room. “It’s him! It’s him! Just Jack is on TV!”

  Emma, Lester and Nina ran to join Jamie Francis on the couch, just in time to hear the announcer say that the trial was over, and that it was Just Jack’s gun who shot the chef lady at the beginning of the summer. The announcer said that they had footage from the courthouse that afternoon, and then the screen showed Mamma Shirley and Just Jack walking to the car. Mamma Shirley had her hard eyes on, and Just Jack looked like he was going to cry again. When Jamie Francis saw that part, he didn’t say anything. Lester went up to his room, watching Nina out of the corner of his eyes. Nina laughed, and looked back at the television.

  “Oh,” she said. “Now he’s in for it. Just Jack is gonna be in big trouble now. You can’t go around shooting people, you know. Just Jack is a criminal! They’re gonna throw him in the Pen, for sure,” she said, and laughed again.

  Jamie Francis turned away from the television and shot Nina a look like he wanted to punch her in the nose, or yell at her or something. But Emma knew that he was afraid of Nina, even though he never said so. Instead he went to his room and put on his Jimi Hendrix album really loud. You could hear him screaming along with the music. “Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?” It wasn’t singing Jamie Francis was doing, it was angry yelling and loud noises like he was moving all the furniture around.

  “Jamie Francis is a fag,” Nina said, turning of the television. “Everyone at high school knows it. I know you think he’s this cool guy, Emma, but you don’t know what goes on when you’re in high school. You can’t go around having a faggy name like Francis without all the other kids making fun of you. He’s gonna get his this year, you’ll see. I heard Brian Swanson say so in homeroom. He said, “That Francis kid with the bandana, he’s done for!” Nina said.

  Emma hated bacon-head Nina Buziak more than she had ever hated anyone before in that moment, and was going to tell her so, when Just Jack and Mamma Shirley came through the door. Nina and Emma looked at them, waiting for them to tell the two of them all about it, even though everyone already knew what happened, but neither Mamma Shirley or Just Jack said anything. Mamma Shirley didn’t even give Emma heck for walking to school without anyone in the morning. Instead, she just asked if they had eaten anything yet. Emma nodded, and Nina said, “Yes, I made mini pizzas for everyone.” It was like she wanted Mamma Shirley to be proud of her or tell her how grown up she was and what a big help, but all Mamma Shirley said was, “Good,” and then she went in the kitchen and started opening and closing the fridge and smashing pots around. She was making dinner for Just Jack and her, without telling anyone anything about the trial or the investigation or saying anything about the chef lady at all.

  Just Jack slumped down in his chair in the living room, and watched TV. He didn’t even yell up to Jamie Francis to tell him to turn his hi-fi down. He pretended to be watching Jeopardy, but Emma could tell he was gone.

  13.

  WITH EMMA BUSY SORTING the clothes in Grandma’s closet, Rachel went back to the dining-room table, which was covered with paperwork. Before Emma arrived to help go through their grandmother’s things, Rachel had made piles for the important papers like the deed to the house, unpaid utility bills, and letters from the insurance company. Rachel had created a filing system for her grandmother a few years ago. All her important documents had been given a slot in the neatly labeled accordion files that were left piled in the corner of the living room.

  Months ago, after she h
ad come to the house one day to help her grandmother write out the monthly checks, she discovered an unfilled prescription note and a cable bill in the folder marked “death certificates.” When she had confronted her, her grandmother had said, “Oh, Rachel, really. I’m ninety-six years old. I might pop off anytime now, and I’ll be damned if I spend my last afternoon sorting one little piece of meaningless paper from another.” The result was a jumble of documents, stuffed haphazardly into the accordion files. So, Rachel had to dump the contents of the files on the dining-room table in order to start over again. She knew Emma wouldn’t be any help. She wasn’t surprised when her sister made a beeline to the walk-in. Rachel couldn’t care less about hats and sweaters. The accordion files now sat on the empty dining room chairs, waiting to be properly filled.

  On top of the pile was a letter from Veterans’ Affairs about her grandmother’s Benefits for Survivors, money that the government sent every month to widows of service-men. Rachel’s grandpa was already dead by the time she was born, but she’d heard some stories. Grandpa had been in the RCAF, stationed in England during the war. Back in the old days, when Rachel was a kid, before Mom became Wanda, Grandma had told the two of them that she didn’t know what had hit her when all of a sudden all these young Canadian boys in their crisp foreign uniforms filled the streets of York, replacing the local boys who had gone off to fight.

  “We were all going out with the Canadians back then,” she’d told them. “They’d have these dances on Friday nights. That’s where I met your grandfather. Oh, he tried to get away, though! He asked me to dance, and once we were out on the floor he stepped on my foot. Oh, he was really embarrassed, like.” Whenever Grandma told the story, her Yorkshire accent would thicken. “I just laughed and said don’t worry. Everybody knows that Canadians can’t dance. You should have seen his face! He was beet red, and tried to storm off the floor. But I wouldn’t let him. Grabbed his hand and made him dance with me again.”

  Whenever Grandma had talked about what it was like to live through the war, the same stories had flowed out of her. She told them about the ration books, and how everyone needed to carry identity cards. She told them that since nobody had any money, it wasn’t a big deal. Things were the same for everyone.

  “None of the girls could afford stockings, so if we were going down to the dances or the pub – we always had shandy or a glass of sherry back then – we’d draw black lines on the back of each other’s legs. And every once in a while the air-raid warden would walk down the street yelling: lights out, lights out!

  Rachel had asked if she was scared, if she remembered being afraid of getting blown-up. Grandma had said no; it wasn’t like that back then.

  “To tell you the truth, it was kind of exciting,” she said. “We had a bomb shelter in our backyard, you know, our family. And one night your Grandpa and I saw a plane break open in the sky. It happened right in front of us. Enemy aircraft, it was. After that, whenever your Grandpa had to fly out on a mission, he would tip his wing as he flew over the city. That was his way of telling me I didn’t have to worry about anything. Your Grandpa was always looking out for me, he was. He was a good man, no matter what anyone says. And that’s that.”

  Rachel tried to imagine what it would look like to see a plane break open right before your eyes. What it would be like to be that girl from Yorkshire, and to get on a ship and sail halfway around the world to start a new life with a man you married because he had looked good in his uniform. It was unfathomable

  Underneath a two-year-old phone bill, Rachel found a postcard of Rosie the Riveter, with her red headscarf and flexed muscle under the words “We Can Do It!” Rachel laughed out loud, then covered her mouth.

  “Your grandfather used to call me Rosalyn the Riveter,” her grandmother would say proudly to anyone within earshot. “Us girls, we did our part while our boys were away. Everybody had a wartime job, unless you were a cripple or something. Your Auntie Dolly worked for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. They did office work in the hangars. And there was another one, another group for women. What did they call it again? They looked after the fields while the farmers were away. I was with the girls in the munitions factory. We did counter-sinking. You know, with that machine that punches holes in things for the screws to go into. I know it doesn’t sound very interesting, but we used to have a laugh, us girls. And the heels! You should have seen the heels we wore in those days. That’s why my feet are so bad now. It was all for the boys,” Grandma had said with a laugh.

  There were more photos under the postcard. Rachel fanned them out on the dining room table, pushing the rest of the papers aside. There were a few of her grandfather in uniform, standing alone or with a group of similarly dressed fresh-faced young men. Rachel looked at his face and tried to feel something. She could see a little of Wanda in him, around the eyes. His uniform looked sharp, though. It gave his young, rebellious stance an air of purpose. Grandma had said that was why she married him. “He was always very sure of himself,” she said. “Sure, he ran around with other girls sometimes, but he always came back to me,” she told Rachel one afternoon, after a glass of sherry. “You don’t understand. It was different in those days,” she said, taking a long slow sip. “Everything we did was for our boys.”

  14.

  AFTER THE INVESTIGATION, everything in the house on Columbia Street changed. Just Jack never did get thrown in the Pen for shooting the chef lady, but he didn’t go back to work at the piggery either. He didn’t go to work anywhere. Mamma Shirley hardly bothered to talk to him at all. When she did, she’d say that he was a lazy, no-good bum. She had to say this to him at dinner, because he didn’t get up with everyone for breakfast anymore. He stayed in bed till Mamma Shirley was gone, and he was still in his housecoat and track pants, with his hair all standing up all over and his chest fur sticking out, when they all got home from school.

  Sometimes, after dinner, Just Jack would go out for the night and Mamma Shirley would put on her Elvis record and play it so loud the windows rattled. Some nights Mamma Shirley stayed in and watched Happy Days with Emma and Lester on the couch, and some nights she packed up her pink suitcase and wheeled it around the subdivision, to sell Avon makeup to all the neighbour ladies. Mamma Shirley said she had to keep an eye on her inventory because Nina had slippery fingers, so when she wasn’t using it, she kept the suitcase locked in a trunk in the garage.

  Nina said that Avon was crap for raisin-faced old ladies. Nina didn’t have a lot of makeup, but she said that she didn’t give a rat’s ass, ’cause she had good skin, and only needed lip-gloss, eyeliner and mascara. In the mornings, and after dinner, she put it on fresh, making her lips look slick and gooey, and her eyes caved in and sneaky, like a raccoon.

  After a few months like that, things changed. Emma starting noticing that as soon as Mamma Shirley left to go sell Avon, Just Jack and Nina would go out together in the car without saying goodbye. One night, they were still out when Mamma Shirley got home, and didn’t come back until long after everyone went to bed. The next morning, Mamma Shirley paced in the kitchen, stirring her coffee like she was mad at it, until Nina got up and came down for breakfast.

  “Hey!” Mamma Shirley said as soon as Nina walked into the kitchen. “Where were you last night?”

  “None of your damn business,” Nina shot back, her eyes still puffy and smudged with black eyeliner from the night before. She pushed past Mamma Shirley, and put a slice of bread in the toaster.

  “Yes it is my business!” Mamma Shirley yelled, popping the bread back up, and standing in front of the toaster, so Nina couldn’t pop it back down.

  “Okay, Jesus,” Nina said. “If you must know, Just Jack took me out for driving lessons.”

  “Driving lessons?” Mamma Shirley said, blinking like there was something in her eyes. “But you’re too young. You won’t even be able to get a learner’s permit for at least another year.”

  Nina lau
ghed. Not a happy laugh, but the one that meant that she thought everyone was an idiot, except for her. Then she left the kitchen, shouting behind her, “Keep your fucking toast.” Mamma Shirley gave her a dirty look as she left the room, and was about to yell something after her, when Just Jack came in. Mamma Shirley started talking to him instead, telling him that he shouldn’t be taking Nina out in the car, because she was too young, and it was illegal.

  “That is if this whole driving lessons story is true, which I’m really not sure about at all,” she said, pouring Just Jack a cup of coffee like she always did in the morning, though this time, she held on to his cup – like it was a hostage.

  Just Jack rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and rubbed his head. “What the hell else do you think we were doing?” he asked. And then said, “Do you think I could just have my coffee now, Shirley? For God’s sakes, I try to help the girl, do a good deed, and all I get is hassled.”

  Mamma Shirley looked down into the coffee cup. She looked like she was going to get mad again for a minute, then she looked like she was going to cry. But instead, she said, “Sorry Jack. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Just Jack took the coffee cup out of her hand, and Mamma Shirley left the kitchen to go get ready for work. Emma went upstairs too after that, to get ready for school. Nina was in their room, looking at herself in the mirror, rubbing her makeup off with cotton-balls and baby oil.

  “You should be nicer to Mamma Shirley,” Emma said, before she could stop herself. “Even though she pretends to be happy, she’s really not, and when you’re mean to her it makes her cry when she’s alone in the bathroom.”

  Nina wheeled around and threw her hairbrush in Emma’s direction.

  “Can you shut your trap for one second?” She yelled after it.

  The brush flew by Emma’s head, and left a dent in the wall.

  After that, Emma didn’t say anything when she saw something bad happening. Instead, she became a frozen statue, invisible, silent, dead. Possum.