Shelter

by Frances Greenslade

  Dear Maggie,

  I don’t have the same memories of Dad as you do. I always thought he saw you as kind of like a son (no offence). But me he didn’t get. Maybe because I was too girly. (I don’t think I’m too girly, but you do. Really, I’m just a girl.)

  I remember when we were little—I doubt you’d remember—we went to visit a friend of Dad’s. It was way out in the bush on a very rough road. We had fun getting there. There was a tree across the road at one point and Mom and Dad had to get out and move it. They were laughing and teasing each other and I held you in my lap. How old was I? Five? Six? I don’t know exactly. Old enough to remember it.

  The cabin was one room, smoky and dirty. Frying pan full of grease on the woodstove, flies on dirty dishes on a wooden box. Dirty clothes in the corner. There was no running water or bathroom. There were too many mosquitoes to leave us outside. I know because Mom tried, put us on a smelly blanket under a tree and we were attacked instantly. We both cried and she brought us in. The bed you and I sat on smelled like piss and body odour.

  After a while, a few empty beer bottles had been set on the floor by the woodstove, and the man, I forget his name, took Dad out to show him something. Something they had been talking about, I don’t know what. When they left, the man picked up the sack of beer and took it with him.

  Mom yelled after him, “Are you worried I’m going to drink it all while you’re gone?”

  And his voice came back, “You might just, Irene. You might just.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Mom said. I remember being surprised because it meant she was really, really mad. She’d only use the God curses if she was super-mad. I had no idea what had upset her so much. She paced the cabin, breathing heavily like she was out of breath. When I asked her what she was doing, she said, “Trying to calm down.”

  Then I spit up on the bed. I mean I barfed. All over the bed. I don’t know why. The man had given us some bread and jam. Maybe it was that.

  Mom said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake! Leave me in this shithole with the kids. I guess I deserve it.”

  And I started to cry. She picked us up, one under each arm and carried us out to the car and she held me and said, “Don’t cry. You’re my peach. You’re my beautiful, beautiful girl. You didn’t do anything wrong. Don’t cry.”

  I barfed some more, I think. Then she told me she was going to look for something for my stomach. I saw her come out of the cabin with the blankets bunched up and she shook them out and threw them over a bush. After a while she came out again and brought me a cup of weak tea.

  “I’m not squeamish but that’s a filthy cabin,” she said. “I boiled the water good and long. It’ll make you feel better.”

  I slept a bit and some time later, I heard the car start. Mom was in the driver’s seat. She drove, saying nothing, and Dad sang songs. Remember those pretty Irish songs he knew? There was the one about the belle of Belfast city—“I’ll tell me Ma when I go home”—Dad reversed the words and sang, “The girls won’t leave the boys alone.” And the one he called the fake Irish lullaby. “Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra, hush now don’t you cry.”

  I fell asleep again and woke up when the car stopped. I barfed some more and Dad looked over the seat at me. He was holding you. His lips were curled in a nasty kind of disgust. The look on his face made me cry. Mom was leaning in the back door and said, “Aren’t you going to help me?” Before he could answer, she slammed the car door and went in the house. Dad said, “She’s your daughter.” Mom didn’t hear him, but I did. He carried you in the house and left me there. I remember I felt sorry for myself, lying there in my own vomit all alone in the dark. I felt like it was a test. Would he come back and get me? I didn’t wait long, but it was Mom, not him, who came with a towel and a blanket and rough, angry movements. It stuck with me, Maggie. I’d seen this secret side of Dad and he knew I had. Any time we were alone together after that, there was that secret.

  Well, I was thinking about him because I was thinking about fathers. One of the girls here, she’s kind of funny, but also mean and mad, she tells the Tony Orlando and Dawn girls, “If you think any fuzzy-dicked guy cares half a crap about your babies, you’re so far gone there’s no coming back.”

  That makes the girls go quiet, but after she’s gone they say things like, “She’s just bitter. Who would want her? I can’t imagine what her baby’s going to look like. She won’t have to worry about her baby getting sold to rich people.”

  Maybe it’s true, though. Girls have the babies and girls love the babies. A guy like John, he’s a decent guy, but he doesn’t want to know he’s a father.

  Hi again,

  It’s about one a.m. and I can’t sleep. Since I was awake anyway, I thought I’d get up and write to you. It’s raining again and if you didn’t know, you might think something was burning, the rain hisses and crackles like that. I’m sitting at my desk and I put the quilt around my legs because the radiator is cold. The ballerina lamp is on. When we get our house, I’m going to buy a ballerina lamp.

  I felt the baby move tonight. It felt like a butterfly swimming around in my belly. It started when I went to bed and I was lying still. At first I thought a bug had crawled across my stomach and I tried to brush it off. Then I realized what it was. It went on for about an hour, Maggie, like she was playing in there. It was so cool. You might be wondering why I say “she.” As I was lying there I sort of felt like she was talking to me. Not really talking, but you know. And she’s a girl. For sure. Bet you any money. Well, I have a 50/50 chance of being right—ha ha.

  Today I went to Mass. We don’t have to go, it’s optional. Sister Anne said she noticed that I don’t go, even though I checked off “Catholic” on the intake form. I told her Mom is Catholic, but she was pretty easygoing about it. Sister laughed, but she said if I wanted to, I could go. She said maybe I’d feel closer to Mom if I did. So I thought what the hell. Ha ha.

  Do you remember that little church in Duchess Creek that was so cold in the winter? I remember lying on the wooden pew, so I must have been little. It smelled like mothballs. And I was playing with Mom’s purse, opening and closing it because it made a nice snap. And a smell of spearmint gum came from it.

  The priest here told the girls we should say the rosary every night and one of the prayers should be the Act of Contrition. I doubt you’d remember it. The first part goes, “Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee.” I remembered it. I always thought of it as an exclamation, Oh My God! Kind of like Sweet Jesus! Or Bugger it! I am heartily sorry. And then it goes on about the pains of hell and whatnot.

  I thought I didn’t feel sorry at all, just sorry for myself, maybe. Definitely not for offending God. But right now, I do feel kind of sorry. And if I offended anyone, it’s her, the baby. She needs me to protect her and I act like I don’t even care about her. Don’t you think we’re kind of a bad design? Human beings, I mean. If there is a god, he was a little too casual or absent-minded or something. He should have thought to make sure we had maturity before we were able to reproduce, especially since, according to my biology class, human beings nurture their young longer than any other species. Like about eighteen years, Sister Rosa said, and everyone in the class gasps, as if we didn’t know—most of us aren’t even that old yet. But then I couldn’t help thinking about Mom and us. So I put up my hand and I said, “But not all mothers do it the way it’s supposed to be done and yet those offspring still survive.”

  “Meaning?” said Sister Rosa. (She’s this tall, thin nun, all business, no nonsense, cat’s-eye glasses, pixie haircut, and the way she speaks makes you think she’s on a tight schedule and she wants her answers the same, pronto.)

  “Meaning some mothers leave their offspring to fend for themselves sooner, kick them out of the house at sixteen, or even leave them in a basket on the hospital steps.”

  “Point taken. The community takes over, then. Without the human community, the baby in the basket would starve to death.”

  “But the s
ixteen-year-old wouldn’t. Or even the twelve-year-old.”

  “I get where you’re going with this, Dillon.” (She calls us by our last names.) Which was funny, because I didn’t even know. She said something about instinct and the debate in biology about which behaviours we could attribute to instinct. But I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about how when Dad died, it was like a flood that comes sweeping in and knocks you down. And you think you’ll just drop dead right on the spot. But you don’t.

  Which brings me to my recurring dream. I’ve been dreaming about tidal waves. I don’t know where my brain got the idea of tidal waves, but I must have heard it somewhere. They do happen on the BC coast. I think I remember Mom talking about one once and how the village had to move to higher ground.

  Anyhow, I dream that a big wave has risen up from the ocean and surged through the city, everything’s floating, cars and trees, and it rises up right up the steps of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home for Unwed Mothers, and it sloshes in under the door, and keeps coming, washes across the polished hardwood floor of the foyer and laps at the stairs, one by one. I pull my blankets up so they won’t touch the floor, but pretty soon the water has risen so high the bed becomes unmoored and floats free. Night before last, the whole house listed and I had to hold on to the table leg to keep from washing out the window. Symbolism. If I knew what the table leg symbolized, maybe I would know what to do.

  To tell you the truth, I’m starting to regret that I came here. I’m homesick, and I don’t even know for what. Not for Bea’s house or our crummy little bedroom there, but it’s just this feeling of loneliness. Sometimes I think this feeling will never leave me. And I wonder if she feels it, wherever she is. She must think we’re okay. If she knew we weren’t okay, she would come back. We’ve been wrong, Maggie, up to now, to do nothing. We need to let her know we’re not old enough to be away from our mother yet. I don’t know anyone here in Vancouver and I’m surrounded by people who want something from me. They’re taking my blood and asking me questions about sex and writing down the answers and staring at me sadly with these eyes that try to appear non-judgmental, but are really just dripping with judgment. I can almost hear their private thoughts: dopey girl, I never would have, your bad choices, your type, your age bracket, your prospects, your failure to plan. Failure to plan is planning to fail. (Do you like that one? I find it catchy.)

  I only came here because I didn’t have time to make any other decision. I thought I owed it to Beatrice, because I had so disappointed her. But what can she do to me? Shame me to death? Do people die of shame?

  I will leave you with that deep philosophical question now while I go to bed and dream of floating out the window.

  Love xxoo Jenny

  Dear Maggie,

  Sorry for that downer letter I wrote last night. I think I was trying to avoid going to sleep because I hate mornings the most. I wake up and it’s all still true and I just want not to wake up, which I can do by not going to bed, if you get my drift.

  Are you sitting down? Probably, since you’re reading this. You should sit down, so you won’t fall down. Don’t be mad at me, please don’t think I’m a spacey, dopey girl, I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’ve decided that I’m not relinquishing after all. I’m keeping.

  What in the seven circles of hell??? (I just imagined you saying that, like Ted used to, so I wrote in your part so I’d feel like you were here with me.)

  So far I’ve only told Ginger and she’s thrilled and thinks we can get an apartment together, but I told her no, I couldn’t live in the city. I want to go home, wherever that is, somewhere up there with you and the coyotes and chickadees. No, I haven’t figured out a plan yet, since as I said before I don’t think there’s a big demand for typists in the Chilcotin, but the pioneer women managed with all their babies. I told Ginger she could come and live with us. I hope you don’t mind. You’d like her. She won’t anyway, so no harm in asking.

  If Robert can stop looking at my boobs long enough today, I’ll tell him. I have this feeling everyone is going to be disappointed in me all over again. More later.

  Hi again,

  Like I suspected, no one is exactly cheering my decision. Dr. Robert said, “Can I ask what made you change your mind?” I said, “Mother’s instinct.” He looked at me rather stupidly, I thought. (That’s Ginger’s expression.) He couldn’t think of anything to say for quite a long uncomfortable time. He tents his fingers when he’s thinking. He wrote something down. Finally, to rescue him, I said, “You wouldn’t understand it because you’re a man.”

  “True,” he said. Ha ha. But still nothing. And then, “So mother’s instinct, you say. And you see that as …?”

  “As the reason I want to keep my baby.”

  “I’d like to explore that a little further.” And blah blah blah, it wouldn’t interest you. But after a while, he said, “And in terms of a plan.”

  I have learned that his statements are meant to be questions. So I told him I didn’t exactly have a plan yet but that I had about five months left to figure it out.

  “These are big choices, Jenny. Big for anyone, very big for a fifteen-year-old girl.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  I was impressed by my own voice, very firm, very sure. The funny thing is that I feel so much better now that I’ve decided. She was the table leg. All along.

  Please write to me and, keeping in mind I’m not going to change my mind about this, tell me what you think.

  Love xxoo Jenny

  [ TWENTY-THREE ]

  I DID WRITE TO JENNY. It wasn’t my finest moment. She didn’t keep the letter, thank God. She ignored most of what I had to say, which included, if I remember right, the phrase “give your head a shake.” But she kept what she could use. That meant taking my advice about talking to Sister Anne, who I saw as my sensible ally.

  Sister Anne surprised me by not trying to talk her out of it. I expected more from her, a persuasive argument. But instead she told Jenny, “Inform yourself.” And this became Jenny’s motto.

  Then Jenny changed her mind about John and wrote to him care of his parents’ house in Williams Lake. She made it clear that the only thing she really needed from him was money. She said she would pay him back. John got the letter eventually. He was in Northern California, picking fruit, washing dishes and playing saxophone and piano in bands wherever he could find them. The first cheque he sent was for $200. “Don’t say you’ll pay me back,” he wrote. “I don’t want you to.”

  Sister Anne also took Jenny to write the test for her beginner’s licence, and then she took her out for drives in the evening. Jenny told me she practised parallel parking down in the shipping yards, between some big containers.

  “I drove down Granville today!” she wrote in one letter and drew a little happy face beside it.

  You can’t die of shame, Jenny. If you could, I’d be dead. Christmas was coming and what I should have done was go to Vancouver to be with my sister. Bea was taking the bus to White Rock to spend the holiday with her sister.

  “If you want to come along with me on the bus, I’ll buy you a ticket,” she said. “The home will allow visitors for Christmas.” I didn’t ask her how she knew.

  “No,” I said. “I’ll stay here. They need me at the gas station.” Not true, of course. I was just too mad at Jenny for deciding to keep the baby to make the sacrifice of a riding a bus for twelve hours with Bea. And also too worried. I carried around the constant hope that Mom would pull up in front of Bea’s house with her grin and her strong legs and her kiss. My fourteenth birthday had passed without word from her. But Christmas seemed like a time when she might come. We needed her now more than ever and if there was such a thing as mother’s instinct, maybe she would know. I was afraid to be away and miss her. She could slip away again, not knowing that we weren’t okay.

  “Suit yourself,” Beatrice said and went about pulling her little white suitcase out from under the bed, wiping the dust off it and f
olding clothes I’d never seen her wear in a neat pile on the couch. Beatrice had two sets of clothes she wore all the time, navy stretch slacks and an off-white cardigan or grey stretch slacks and a green cardigan. But it turned out she had a closet full of other things: pastel pantsuits and crepe blouses with bows and paisley scarves. She talked to herself as she packed. She had started doing that soon after Jenny left, little things like, “It could use dry cleaning.” And “Where did I leave my umbrella?” It irritated me, but then everything she did irritated me, even the condiments she kept in the fridge but never used. Ancient relishes, mint sauce and HP Sauce—they must eventually go bad, like after three years. She put her suitcase by the door two days before her departure.

  I should try to think of something kind to say. I should be more generous, but I was happy to see her go. Having someone else’s house to yourself is not the same as having your own. Still, a stifling cloud of rage and unspoken accusations lifted from me the moment she was down the steps. I made hot chocolate and watched Get Smart with my feet on the coffee table. I smoked a stale cigarette, one of Jenny’s. There was no alcohol in the house. I thought briefly that it might be fun to get some, then I decided it would involve talking to people, so I dropped the idea.

  All the snow had melted over the previous week. Everyone who had come through the gas station said something about it being a green Christmas. But I didn’t mind. I didn’t want it to feel like Christmas at all. Then the morning after Bea left, Christmas Eve, it started to snow, so light that three customers in a row said, “Is that snow?” and I said yes, as if I was the authority. By noon, when the flakes were coming down like apple blossoms, I had to listen to every second person say that they guessed it would be a white Christmas after all.

  I kept expecting Mom to drive in. Every crunch of tires on the gravel made me look up. Why I thought she would come to that gas station where I happened to be working, I don’t know. I suppose I thought someone would have told her.