The following morning, early, Lewis drove Norma to the bus station. Before they left the Retreat, he asked her if she was sure she didn’t want to say goodbye to the children. She stood in a light rain by the car and shook her head. She said that if she did that, she wouldn’t be able to leave. It would break her heart. “Tell them,” she said, “I love them terribly.”
“Are we supposed to stick it out here for the next month without you?”
“Oh, Lewis. I’m not leaving for good. I
will
be back.”
At the bus depot, saying goodbye, she had clung to him and at that moment he had experienced a loosening in himself and it had felt right to hate her.
That day he’d broken the news to Lizzy. He took her into his cabin and sat her down and told her that her mother had gone away for a bit. “She’s beleaguered,” he said. A light rain still fell, and though it had been mid-morning, it felt like dusk in the cabin, on the verge of darkness. Lewis was standing by the small table in the corner of the cabin, and as he talked he looked straight at Lizzy. “She’s gone to Chicago to stay with her sister for a while. Fish getting lost, that pushed her over the edge. She needs some time.”
“She couldn’t even say goodbye?”
“Don’t be angry, Lizzy. I know it’s hard, but don’t be angry.”
“Oh, no, why would I be
angry?
It’s always been all about
her anyway. But how are you going to explain to Fish that his mother is gone. Or to Everett and William. Don’t expect
me
to do that.”
“Of course not, I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m just telling you first because you’re older and self-possessed and strong. Okay? She doesn’t want to hurt you. She just needs some time, a safe place to push the pieces around in her head.”
“But
this
was the place,” Lizzy said. “Right here. That’s why we came
here.
What’ll we do now?”
“We have some time left here. We’ll wait here for her to come back. She will be back. She’s gone before and always come back.”
Lewis had been suddenly very tired, exhausted by his optimism. He thought of Fish. And William, who, ever since Fish got lost, was suffering terrible nightmares, waking up at night sucking for air and calling out, so that Lizzy had to come get Lewis to talk to him until he went back to sleep.
He went outside and walked through the rain and found the boys in their cabin. He sat with them and explained that their mother had gone to Chicago to visit their aunt Anna and she would be back soon. William wanted to know how soon, and Lewis said that he couldn’t be sure, perhaps a week or so. Everett had listened to this explanation, and then asked why they hadn’t all gone, and why his mother hadn’t said goodbye. It was a challenge, and Lewis ignored it. He said that their mother would come back refreshed, with a new view of the world. “This is a good thing,” he said.
The restaurant Lewis had chosen was attached to a hotel and there was an elevator that Fish had to ride up and down in before they ate. Lizzy and William went with him while Lewis and Everett sat and studied the menus. There was round steak with mushrooms and a salad. Everett lifted his head and said that that was fine. His eyes were dark and hollow from lack of sleep.
“We’re kings tonight,” Lewis said. He ordered a beer. Everett asked for a Coke. Lewis said that when he was a child he’d been taken to a restaurant in Vancouver, down by the harbour, and he’d ordered fish and hated it. “The head was still on the fish, imagine that, and it lay on my plate and I thought it was still alive. It was staring up at me. My father ate the eyes.”
“I know, Dad. You’ve told that story before.”
“Have I? Well. That’s why steak is safe. No chance of the steer landing hooves and all on your plate. I considered, for a time, when I was fourteen, being vegetarian. That lasted all of two weeks. My mother refused to feed me.” He studied Everett. “You miss her.”
Everett shook his head and said he was fine.
“That’s all right.”
Fish flew in, his brother and sister in his wake. He climbed onto the bench seat beside Everett, put his fists on the table, and said, “Chocolate milk.” Lizzy put William between her and Lewis. She was pensive, untalkative, and when Lewis tried to draw her out, she ignored him. They ordered and when the food arrived they all ate quickly and greedily, as if they had come on a long voyage with little food. When he was finished
eating, Lewis put his cutlery down, ordered coffee, and said that the ease with which the food had appeared and then been devoured was a delight. “A real delight,” he said again, and he tilted his head. “This is very nice, sitting here with my children.” He put his hand on William’s head and said that sometimes he failed to keep an eye on things and so he lost track, and he had every intention of keeping his eye on his children from now on.
“Mum?” Fish asked.
“Oh, sweetie. You know she went away for a little while. Like a mother bird that’s gone out to look for worms to feed her babies. She’ll come back.”
“With worms?”
“Of course.”
Fish grinned and looked at Lizzy, who wrinkled her nose at him.
“You’re full of shit.” This was Everett. He was holding his fork. On his plate there was a pile of mushrooms that he’d scraped away from the steak. A smear of ketchup beside the mushrooms.
“Ev,” Lizzy said.
“Fullashit,” Fish said. He blew bubbles into his chocolate milk.
“Your words,” Lewis said. William was beside him, a stoic little boy, already thick at the neck and waist. He had his father’s hands, his father’s mouth. The boy got lost in the melee of the family. He was a listener; he observed and reflected. He would never act impetuously like his mother, he was too careful. Lewis looked down at him. “You okay?”
William nodded. He’d eaten a hamburger and taken out the pickles and lettuce and they lay on his plate. He had a tiny bald spot on the side of his head.
“What’s this?” Lewis asked and touched it.
William pulled away and put his hand over the spot.
“Size of a dime,” Lewis said.
Fish had unearthed
shit
and was using it to make compound words:
fullashit, cuppashit, forkashit.
Lizzy reached out and put her hand over his mouth.
Everett was angry.
“Ev,” Lewis said. He let the first letter of the name stretch out and then closed it down with a quick drop into the v, as if he had arrived at a dead end. The boy usually liked that.
This time he didn’t. He said, “You’re a liar, Dad. You always do that, make things up to make us all feel better.”
“Whoa,” Lewis said. “Not everyone’s fourteen or older here.”
“Fish? William?” Everett’s voice was quick and bitter. “They know Mum’s gone. They know she doesn’t love us. Fuck the Doctor and his stupid ideas.”
“Fuckthedoctor,” Fish said. He stretched for his straw and closed his lips around it.
For a moment Lewis was without words. He took a breath. Finally he said that their mother had not betrayed him or the children. “She loves you. Absolutely. No question. She just isn’t happy with herself. She went away and at some point she will miss you all so much that she will come back. Very soon, I think.”
“Jesus, Dad.” This was Lizzy, shaking her head in disgust.
Lewis ignored her. Then he said that it was a warm night and they would walk down to the wharf and look out at the lake.
And so they wandered outside, Everett following sullenly behind the group, and they walked down to the wharf and sat on benches while Lewis commented on the last remnants of the blood-red sunset.
“Look at that,” he said, and they all looked.
S
everal days later, in the evening, Lizzy walked out to the main road, stood on the shoulder, faced the oncoming traffic, and held out her thumb. The first car that came along picked her up. The driver was a woman who was camping at Rushing River and had come into Kenora for supplies. When Lizzy got into the car she tried to make her voice sound confident and assured, though she did not feel confident. When she saw the sign for Bare Point she asked the woman to stop. She thanked her and walked up the gravel road, past the houses on the reserve, and into the tunnel of trees that led towards the turnoff to Raymond’s cabin. It was nine-thirty in the evening and the sun was setting; she had an hour of light left. She would get to the cabin before dark and then later Raymond could drive her back. She missed him. She had seen him only once since Fish had wandered off. He’d come back the next day, and arrived to discover everyone in the Hall, gathered around the little boy. He had stood on the outside of the group and to Lizzy it seemed that he had been unwilling to share the joy, or that in some way he did not understand it. He had seemed weary and uninterested, and had disappeared before she could talk to him.
The road she walked on was narrow, and with each step dust rose and then settled onto her runners. Clouds of mosquitoes floated above her and occasionally some would find and circle her, and then rise again. She could hear birds in the bushes and other sounds that might have been made by larger animals. She did not think of fear, because if she allowed that, then anything might be possible in this place that was unknown to her. She heard a vehicle approaching, and as it came up behind her, she stepped down into the ditch to let it pass. It halted and from the driver’s window a man in a straw cowboy hat studied her and then asked if she wanted a ride. The man’s face was in the shadows and she could not see his eyes. She shook her head. She said she liked walking. The man, as if understanding her unease, removed his hat and she could see he was elderly. He said that his name was Joe and he lived on the reserve and he was going up to Bare Point. She could take a ride, or she could walk, it was her choice. She stepped up onto the road and came around to the passenger’s side and got in.
The man didn’t say anything more, in fact he didn’t really look at her. Lizzy glanced at him and she saw that a finger was missing on his right hand and that his face had deep lines. She told him that she was thankful for the ride, and she hadn’t realized the road would just keep on going. The old man nodded at this as if what she had said had been well thought out and then offered for him to ruminate upon. He said, “Roads,” and he nodded again. They rounded a curve and he slowed and stopped before the lane that led up to Raymond’s
cabin. She got out and closed the door and it was only when he was gone that she wondered how he would know her destination. She climbed the grade towards the cabin, thinking that she had just had a dream in which an old man named Joe appeared and had given her what she wanted but not asked for. Raymond’s pickup was parked in front of the cabin. There was a car there as well and a dog lying beside the car. Lizzy said, “Hey, girl,” and walked around the dog and hesitated at the door, and then knocked. When it opened, Nelson was standing there, blocking the light from the oil lamp and his face was hidden. He said her name and then stepped back and she saw into the room where Raymond was sitting with two men. The two men were drinking beer and Raymond, when he saw her, raised his head in recognition but said nothing. One of the men, who had been speaking, stopped and looked at her.
“Hi,” Lizzy said. “I walked up.” She shrugged.
Nelson pulled her in and gave her a warm beer and introduced her to the men, Lionel and Gary. He sat down and lit a cigarette. No one spoke, and then finally Nelson said, “It’s okay, you don’t have to worry about her.”
She sat at the edge of the room, her bare knees touching, feeling that she was too dressed up in her short skirt and tank top, and also feeling that she was not trusted. She said, “I’m sorry, I can go.” Raymond said that she should stay. He would drive her back in a bit.
Then the man named Lionel turned away from her and said that they were a bunch of shit, you know, because they still weren’t getting anywhere and all they wanted was to identify
with the white man. “With his money,” he said. “Always knocking their ass off for money. For money. For money. This is why we need to organize. If we are going to get killed here, I want to know that I’ve asked for everything. I want to die right. I’m not just going to ask for a piece of bread and then get shot without even getting that much.”
The other man nodded and then looked straight at Raymond and said that big things were going to happen up at Anicinabe Park. “We want you to join us. Both of you,” he said, turning to Nelson.
Nelson, his feet resting on a chair in front of him, drank and didn’t respond. Lionel said that Judge Nottingham had to fucking go. That would be one demand. “And we won’t get any demands met until a lot of white people out there sit up and say, ‘Well fuck, look at that blanket-ass Indian. He’s starting to figure out where his head’s at and he’s starting to know what the fuck’s going on.’ ”
Raymond grinned and looked over at Lizzy. There was a wine bottle hanging from a rope above the table and there was a candle in the bottle. A moth banged against the bottle. Outside, the dog barked briefly and then stopped.
Gary stood. He looked at Raymond and walked outside, followed by Lionel. Raymond went out as well and Lizzy could hear Gary’s voice and then Lionel’s, but she didn’t hear Raymond say a word. Nelson was still sitting. He said, “You watch. Ray’ll get sucked right into that shit.” Nelson put his bottle on the table. He said, “And your brother?”
At first it wasn’t clear to Lizzy what Nelson was asking and she began to say, “What,” and then Nelson laughed and said
that he’d been lost when he was seven. “Ran around in the bush for three days, crying like a little shit. My brother Marcel found me and hit me across the head and called me stupid. Learned my lesson.”
The dog barked again, wildly this time, and then an engine started and idled, and finally there was the sound of their car driving off.
When Raymond came back, he motioned for Lizzy to come outside. She followed him and they got into the pickup and Raymond rolled down the window. The two of them sat looking out over the hood of the pickup into the darkness. Raymond reached out a hand and put it on her neck and pulled her close and she didn’t resist. Her head rested on his shoulder. Beyond the windshield, framed in the light of the doorway, she saw Nelson looking out at the pickup, and then he disappeared from view. As if this were a signal of some kind, Raymond leaned forward and turned the key with his left hand and in doing so she felt the movement of his body against her chest.