Ten June 1997
TEN
I’ve come to understand that Kiju was right.
I hope someday I can claim some of the wisdom she so graciously carried.
I do hold on to memories too hard. I hold them like a person gripping the edge of a roof, feet dangling, the street far below.
I hold on to those vague thoughts, those moments of time that come in and out whenever they please.
I battle my own mind to keep them, to avoid them getting lost in grey matter.
I hold on to them so fiercely that sometimes I fear I will never be able to live in the present.
And while Kiju was gone, Susan had stepped into her shoes and liked to remind me. And now there was Miriam.
“She prefers the comfort of a man in her memory to the comfort of a man right in front of her. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Susan said to Miriam the first night they met.
I had them both over for wine and pasta.
Susan held her wine up to the light. I wasn’t sure what exactly she was expecting to see.
“She had a great love. Did she tell you about him?” Susan placed her glass down, a little too hard.
“No, but a great love is a good thing to have, and so many don’t get a chance. I’ve yet to have one, but I’m hopeful he or she is out there somewhere.” Miriam grabbed a piece of the leftover focaccia, covered in garlic butter.
“His name was John.”
“She’s just getting to know us, Susan, let’s leave some of the skeletons in the closet.”
But Susan could not be stopped, fuelled by memory and red wine.
She went on to tell Miriam about John, about our childhood, the time we got lost in the woods, the letters I still had.
I was glad for Susan. It wasn’t a story I think I could have told myself.
And when you hear it from someone else, there is a distance between you and the memory.
It becomes less intense, less all-consuming.
I could appreciate it more, appreciate the time we had together, instead of focusing on the time we didn’t.
“He was a good guy,” Susan said quietly.
“Maybe it’s time for you to head to bed. You can sleep with me. Miriam, you can stay in the other room. None of us should even think about driving.”
“Agreed,” Susan said as she got up from the table. She flopped down on my bed and I helped her get into one of my nightgowns. I’m sure she was asleep before I even left the room. I grabbed the wooden box from under the bed on my way out.
“Sorry about her. You don’t need to know all that. It’s in the past.”
Miriam was at the stove putting the kettle on for tea. “Camomile?”
“Yes, please.” I set the box on the table. “This is the box that holds all my grandmother’s knowledge. She left it to me, and it sits here, unused. You don’t know this, but I don’t know what my mother looks like. These are the only photos of her.”
I handed Miriam the two photos, the one of her as an infant and the one where she is turned away.
“When I came home after Kiju died, I’d hoped that I would open this box and a photo would appear, but it wasn’t meant to be, I guess. I even checked under her bed and in every nook and cranny I could find. No photo.”
Miriam was good at saying the right thing and also good at saying nothing at all when the situation required it.
She let me drift into memories of my childhood, waiting for me to break the silence.
I reached in and took the knife, my grandmother’s knife, and held it.
I noticed that it had started to tarnish after being ignored for so long.
“This is the knife, the one my grandmother used to cut the cord. It was only ever used for that one purpose. She told me once that it would be mine. I had to earn it or I would inherit it.”
I passed it to Miriam and watched as she held it, using the tip of her finger to trace the word we’ji’wet, impressed onto the leather. She held it as if it were a relic, her touch almost religious.
“It’s beautiful.” She handed it back to me.
“It’s been passed down for so long we’re not really sure when it originated. The blade and the leather have had to be replaced, but the wooden handle is original. The tree holds our stories, but I think this knife could tell a tale or two.”
“The tree holds your stories?”
“That’s what my grandmother always said. The birthing tree holds our stories, connects us to home, to nature, to family.”
She stood to pour water into waiting teacups, and the scent of camomile drifted across the room. “I wish I had the history that you have.”
I snickered at the fact a white person was saying this to me. She turned around, a look of horror on her face.
“Oh my god, no. I didn’t mean that. I know the cruelty . . . Jesus, Miriam, shut up.” She stopped, teacup in hand, and I started to laugh a little, and she smiled and handed me the cup, a silent I’m sorry and a silent You are forgiven exchanged with the tea.
“So.” She paused. “Returning to the night we met. Ever think about taking up the practice?” she asked as she sat down.
“That’s a discussion for another night.”
“Just keep it in mind. You’re a nurse, it seems to make sense to me. You have the knowledge, and we could use more midwives. The demand is becoming untenable. Women are starting to take birth back.”
In the other room, Susan moved, the ancient bedsprings reminding me of those connections to my past. Kiju wanted me to learn the recipes, to help the sick, to welcome new generations just as she had.
I held the packet of recipe cards tenderly in my hands.
I brought them to my nose and inhaled the scent of the pine box where they’d been hidden away for so long.
But somewhere in the back of my mind, where the scenes dwell, I could smell the pungent scent of mushrooms steeping on the stove, of lavender being infused for oil.
“It’s a big question for a wine-addled mind.” I tried to laugh it off, but as I placed the knife back into the box, I could hear Kiju’s voice telling me the medicinal properties of the willow tree.
I’ve always been unable to think for myself without the ghosts of my past having their say.
And as I sat in my childhood kitchen with Miriam, I could hear Kiju telling me that the beets weren’t quite ready to be pulled, that the chicory was finally ready to be dug out and dried, that the juices of the chicken in the roaster were still too pink to be done.
I could hear John ask me to dance, I could hear him singing CCR at the top of his lungs, the long sigh as he pulled himself away from my lips.
I could hear him telling me that life was too short to stay stuck.
I could hear my mother, but since I had no idea what her voice sounded like, it was more of a whisper, a soft breeze just before the rain, full of anticipation but hesitant.
She would whisper to me in the place between asleep and awake and tell me that she was sorry, that I needed to live the life she never had the opportunity to.
That I needed to find my way back to who I was, that I needed to open my heart, I needed a fierce love.
Then one quiet evening in June, a man walked into the emergency room requiring stitches. William—not Bill or Will or Billy, but William—came into my life, and perhaps she had something to do with it, pushing and prodding from the spirit world.
“I don’t like the shortened versions of my name. They sound either too old or too young. William just sounds like a name of a person, no matter the age.”
“Okay, I’ll make sure to always call you William.” I smiled and finished wrapping his hand, the skin newly stitched back together after an accident, a hand caught in a machine but pulled out before too much damage was done.
“Always?” He grinned.
“Sorry, just making conversation.” He was almost finished. In ten minutes I would be on to another patient, and William would be another person to forget when I left the emergency room that night.
“Would you like to make more conversation, maybe?” He tilted his head like a boy coyly asking for another cookie. His smile was wide and charming.
“I think you might be too young for me.” I laughed, trying to dismiss him.
“I look young. It’s a blessing and sometimes a curse, like right now.”
Turned out he was six years older than me.
But he looked so much younger. His hair had no grey in it, still dark as molasses.
His arms were strong, and his dimples added to the illusion of youth.
He was thin but not skinny, bulky, as my grandmother might have said.
He reminded me a little of Big Ben. I thought I could see the same kindness about him.
“What did you have in mind?” I think it was the dimples, they put me at ease.
“The pub? After work?”
The doctor came into the room carrying a tetanus needle. William rolled up the sleeve, and the doctor, without discussion, poked it into his arm. William winced but tried to cover it up with a smile, a failed attempt at masculinity. This tiny vulnerability was endearing.
“I’m off at seven,” I said, before taping the last of the bandage and leaving the room.
To my pleasant surprise, the rest of my shift went quickly. A migraine, a broken finger caught in a car door, and a couple of cases of a nasty flu that seemed to be making its way around the town.