Newfoundland Stories (14 page)

Maggie knew what was at the root of her sons' bitterness toward each other. It was the piece of bottom land her husband had left at his death. It was one of the few arable fields in the area, and therefore a valuable piece of property. William had not designated an heir to this land, so it simply remained in the family as a place to plant a few crops. The trouble began when Charlie, nearing the age of twenty-five and about to be married, laid claim to the field. As the oldest son, he deemed it his birthright. Albert and Fred, not much younger than Charlie and contemplating marriage themselves, disagreed and challenged his right to the property. They argued that the field should somehow be left to the benefit of them all. Their initial arguments and attempts to resolve the issue failed, and their discussions quickly turned to hostility and recriminations. The tension escalated. Every time one of them passed by the field, the sight of it only served to drive the wedge deeper. Consequently, the field had been left fallow while the three brothers went their own obstinate ways.

While Maggie knew the cause of her sons' estrangement, she couldn't understand it. It was alien to her concept of family. To her, family transcended all grievances and counted above everything else. Bloodlines meant life-long love and connection no matter what transpired. On the few occasions when she tried to intervene, she had been gently rebuffed.

Maggie herself was not part of the estrangement, for each of her sons came to visit her on a regular basis, making sure to avoid each other when they came. Her daughters-in-law and her grandchildren visited her regularly as well. For that, she was grateful, but it wasn't enough. She wanted them all to be a real family again.

Finally, shortly after midnight, the kitchen had become too cold for her to stay, and she reluctantly made her way upstairs. She said her prayers, got into bed hoping that she might be able to sleep, and leaned over to blow out the lamp on her bed-table. She changed her mind. Getting out of bed again, she went to her bureau and drew out of its lower drawer an old scribbler, one in which she had been jotting down her thoughts for some time. The scribbler was her release, a channel when her grief simply had to have an outlet – like tonight. She wrote for a while and then laid the scribbler down on the bed beside her. She extinguished the lamp.

Maggie slept fitfully, waking frequently enough to hear the clock downstairs chime each passing hour. She tried to focus her thoughts on other, more pleasant things, but invariably, after a few minutes, they strayed back to her troubles. Then, just as the first faint light of dawn was easing into the darkness of the room, she felt tightness in her chest, then hard pain. She tried to sit up, but couldn't. She couldn't breathe. Suddenly brightness filled the room, and she cried out. Her body shuddered, and then relaxed. Maggie, at the age of sixty-eight, had drawn her last breath.

The next day, when Charlie's wife, Mary-Anne, noticed that Maggie's clothesline was empty on washday, they decided to check on her. Both felt uneasy, half expecting to find Maggie feeling unwell, but they certainly did not expect to find her dead. The coldness of her flesh told them she had lain there for some time.

“I'll go for the minister,” Charlie said. “Do you mind staying here with her until I get back?”

“You go on, I'll be okay.” Although Mary-Anne thought it would be better if he went to tell his bothers instead, she held her tongue. They'd find out soon enough.

While Charlie was gone she combed her mother-in-law's hair, washed her face, and tried to rearrange her clothing. It was then that she spotted the scribbler, which had lain concealed under the blanket. The dog-eared cover was creased and faded with age. The date pencilled in on the cover was September 16, 1938, nine years earlier.

She started to read. At first glance, the writing was illegible. Indecipherable spidery scrawls, like those of a small child, seemed to have been placed at random across the pages. Mary-Anne put down the scribbler and began to tidy up the room, trying to keep herself busy until Charlie and the minister arrived. Curiosity piqued, she picked up the scribbler again.

She studied the first page until eventually, despite the poor handwriting, misspellings, and the lack of capitalization and punctuation, she was able to make some sense of it.
life shoodnt be like this … cant stand it.
Mary-Anne was turning the page to read more when she heard the door downstairs open and the voices of Charlie and the minister. She tucked the scribbler inside her sweater.

Two days later, Charlie, Albert, and Fred buried their mother. Although they carried her coffin into the church together, they did not speak to each other. Indeed, during the entire waking period and the funeral itself, they exchanged words only when absolutely necessary. When Maggie was interred, the brothers and their families returned to their homes without even saying goodbye.

Over the course of the next few days, whenever she had a few minutes alone, Mary-Anne continued her perusal of Maggie's scribbler. Gradually the innermost workings of her mother-in-law's mind, documented over the years, became clear.
taring me apart … childern not noing there famly … my falt … killing me.

By the time she finished reading, Mary-Anne realized the depth of the woman's grief. Maggie had died of a broken heart. Her sons' alienation from each other had killed her. Mary-Anne was sure of it.

At the oddest times, passages from Maggie's scribbler would flash through her mind, nagging at her conscience:
sadness … dont no wut to do … wish the Lord wud jus take me.
Mary-Anne's heart was heavy with the knowledge that her mother-in-law had suffered in silence. What should have been her golden years had, instead, been a time of great sadness and torment. The daughter-in-law was torn by what she had read, and wondered what she should do. How would Charlie react if he knew? she wondered. Would he be angry or resentful? Would it make any difference?

She decided to show Charlie his mother's scribbler.

Mary-Anne picked her moment: Sunday morning, when everyone else would be in church. “I don't feel well,” she told him. “I don't think I can go this morning. Perhaps you can stay home with me.”

Charlie, although surprised, agreed.

When the children were sent off, she sat him at the kitchen table and handed him the scribbler. “Read this. It belonged to your mother.”

He opened it to the first page, looked at it for a few minutes, riffled through the rest of the pages, and handed it back to her. “I can't read this. It just looks like a lot of hen scratches to me. What is it, anyway?”

“Can I read it to you?” Looking down at the scribbler, she read aloud, slowly, “I wish Charlie knew how much this is hurting me, but if I say anything they might all stop talking to me.”

Mary-Anne looked up. “Would you like me to go on?” She fully expected him to say he'd heard enough. Instead, he nodded.

“I wish with all my heart they could be like they were when they were little boys,” she read. Mary-Anne glanced up and saw tears running down her husband's face.

By the time she'd finished reading the last page, Charlie realized the depth of his mother's despair. How could he have been oblivious to his mother's pain and sorrow all these years? In the midst of her family, she had suffered so greatly, and none of them had known it. Worse still, he knew he had been the cause of it. And now it was too late, she was gone.

Guilt and regret, blame and responsibility filled his mind. He considered the piece of fallow bottom land that had come between him and his brothers, and in a moment of brutally honest reflection, acknowledged that ownership of that small bit of land had been unimportant. Despite slight for slight, hurt for hurt, the matter could have been resolved with a bit of give and take, but had, instead, been left to fester: ten years of animosity and hardheartedness. He realized, too, the wrong he had visited upon his wife and his children. Mary-Anne should have been able to enjoy the company of her sisters-in-law all these years, and his children's right to know and be friends with their own first cousins should not have been denied to them. Charlie felt shame and remorse.

Although he knew it might be too late, he decided he would try to make things right between him and his brothers. He would approach Albert first. Charlie didn't know what he would say, but hoped that, when they actually met face to face, the right words would come.

The following Sunday, when Charlie spotted Albert walking home from church alone, he decided this would be the moment. Apprehensive, he called to him, “Wait up, Albert. I want to talk to you.”

Albert stopped in his tracks but didn't turn around. Charlie walked round to face him and saw the question marks in his brother's eyes. Was there something else there too, Charlie wondered, wariness, perhaps contempt?

Having come this far, Charlie suddenly found it difficult to proceed. How could he swallow his pride and what could he say that would undo the wrong of the past several years?

Steeling himself, he forged ahead. “Albert,” he said, “Mother's death has made me realize how short and uncertain life is.” He paused to catch his breath. “It's made me see things in a different light. About the piece of bottom land, I can see now that I was wrong on that.”

He stopped, then forced himself to go on. “Maybe it isn't too late to fix it all up. What do you think?”

He saw the shock in Albert's eyes, and then, Charlie was certain, the faint hint of a smile. “Perhaps we could,” his brother replied. “Yes, perhaps we could.” And for the first time in nearly a decade the two of them walked along together.

“Albert, I'm thinking about building a bigger skiff and I need someone to go in on it with me. Interested?” Charlie added.

Later that day, they sought out Fred, and he, too, welcomed the chance to put the brotherly feud behind them. Indeed, his own feelings over the years had not been nearly as strong as Charlie's and Albert's, and he had often yearned for the opportunity for some sort of reconciliation.

A few days later, as Charlie and Albert were laying out the keel in the back cove, Fred showed up. “I heard you two were building a new boat.”

“Yes, b'y,” Charlie answered. “It's going to be a big one too. Plenty of room for three.”

The following spring, when the frost had gone out of the ground and the earth on Maggie's grave had settled, the family gathered in the cemetery to erect her headstone and plant flowers on her grave. It was a family project, one in which every member took part, all eighteen of them. When it was almost done, Charlie stood back with Mary-Anne, marvelling at the sight. Quietly he said, “When me and Albert and Fred were working on the boat the other day, we talked about the piece of bottom land. We've decided to sell it and split the money. It won't amount to much anyway, and that way our own quarrel will never be reopened by our children.”

He considered the newly planted rose bush on the grave. “I wish Mother could see this,” he said. “It's a shame she'll never know.”

Mary Anne smiled, realizing that, in death, Maggie had accomplished what she'd wanted so badly in the last ten years of her life.

“She knows, Charlie. I'm sure of it.”

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Feuds have torn families apart and destroyed them since time began. For reasons that are sometimes difficult to comprehend, once loving and caring family members become pitted against each other – sibling against sibling, parent against child. Invariably there is a family member who suffers greatly because of such alienations. In this fictional story, Maggie, a long suffering and grieving mother, is one of these individuals.

INDIAN KILLERS

N
onosbawsut watched in wonder as the whitefaces rowed his father, Ashsut, his sister, his two younger brothers, and many other members of the tribe out to the two mamashees
⁹
which lay anchored a short distance offshore. He too had wanted to go, but by the time he got to the tapathooks
¹⁰
they had already been filled and there was no room for him. He was enthralled by the mamashees' strange shapes, the long poles that reached skyward from their decks, and above all else, their immense size. He had never seen anything even remotely like them before. He hoped that when the others were brought back, he would also have the opportunity to go out to examine one of them at close range and be able to explore its interior. Having gotten over his initial inhibitions toward the whitefaces, he felt eager and excited, and the small axe he had been given as a gift felt good in his hand. Little did he realize at that moment that he was witnessing the initiation of the persecution of his race that would continue unabated for the next three hundred and thirty years, until he and his people were eventually vanquished from the face of the earth.

The Beothuk Indians, Newfoundland's aboriginal people, were doomed to extinction from the moment the Venetian explorer, Giovanni Caboto, stepped ashore, allegedly at Bonavista, on June 24, 1497, and claimed the New Founde Lande for Henry VII, the king of England. There is no suggestion that Caboto himself or any of his crew inflicted any harm upon the native inhabitants or intimidated them in any manner. Indeed, there is no firm evidence to indicate that they even encountered any natives during their brief stay there. It was the wave of Europeans that followed in Caboto's wake that would initiate the carnage and brutality that would ultimately see the Beothuk nation driven to extinction.