Once the dishes are done and packed away, and my gear stowed, I dig out one of the hardcover notebooks I’ve brought along. A new page and a new pen; the pen feels good in my hand, comfortable between my fingers. The page is clean and I can smell the paper. I’m back under the pine tree, my back against it. Something draws me here. I don’t have to analyze it. It simply feels right.
I put the pen to the paper and begin:
The chair stands on three legs, the fourth broken off and missing. It defies logic, defies gravity. I wonder whether it was the chair. Is that the one? It had once been a pale shade of green that was common in the fifties. Now most of the paint is gone and the wood has turned grey with age.
Is that the one he sat in?
The words come in a purge, a pour of ink onto the page that feels almost like plagiarism. I am a fiction writer, and fiction writers create their stories with will and determination; we wrestle the text into existence. Writing memoir feels like I am stealing, simply recounting memories.
I review: The chair stands on three legs, a metaphor for Clifford, Dad, and Mom. Wonder if I should work that into the manuscript or leave it for the reader to figure out? I leave it for the reader.
Ink and paper, and place, and pine tree combine into cathartic pleasure, and before I stop for another coffee, pull the pot from the still-hot ashes, I have written over a thousand words.
I am okay. I might not be healed, but I have felt the beginning of healing.
I will go to the cemetery where we buried him yesterday, where the sand is still fresh from our digging. I will stand beside that mound covered in flowers, some still fresh, others made of plastic, and I will leave his hula hoop with him, his bubble maker, and imagine my brother travelling among the stars.
Acknowledgements
My sincerest thanks to Gregory Lyndon, who read the earliest draft and suggested necessary changes. To Stephanie Sinclair for her suggestions with the original manuscript. To Janie Yoon for her incredible insight. To Patricia Sanders for her keen eye. And to my wife, Joan, who became nearly as emotionally attached to the work as I am.
Harold R. Johnson is the author of five works of fiction and two works of nonfiction. His previous book, Firewater: How Alcohol Is Killing My People (and Yours), was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction. Born and raised in northern Saskatchewan to a Swedish father and a Cree mother, he is a graduate of Harvard Law School and managed a private practice for several years before becoming a Crown prosecutor. Johnson is a member of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation and lives at the north end of Montreal Lake, Saskatchewan, with his wife, Joan.
House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi’s commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada’s pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”
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