Thirteen July 1969 #2
Occasionally the bay brought chaos, thunder so loud it shook the house, lightning so bright it felt like midday.
Yet it didn’t frighten me. I would lie awake counting the seconds between the thunder and the accompanying lightning, trying to track its distance, trying to understand if the storm was closing in or wandering away.
The storm calmed me, made it easier to drift into sleep, and when I woke in the morning, the air lighter, the humidity broken, if only briefly, the world felt new.
Those are some of my fondest memories of my summer there.
Those and my long walks with John, our time spent eating fish and chips at a picnic table by the river, sitting by the river quietly waiting to catch a fish, lying out in the backyard, far enough away from the house to be able to see the stars without the interruption of light but close enough that Sally could holler out the window every ten minutes to make sure we weren’t doing anything she thought we shouldn’t.
I spent the first few days helping prepare the meals, taking the boys out for a walk or to play in the backyard so Sally could rest and tend to the youngest. John knew I was there, but he was out to camp cutting trees and wouldn’t be back until the weekend.
That didn’t stop me looking for him everywhere I went.
Big Ben was in and out, stocking the little store with bundles of kindling for when the colder weather arrived, visiting the Elders and getting their baskets and leather work to sell to interested tourists.
Each fruit and vegetable, as it came out of the garden, was bartered for or ended up in the kitchen, where it was canned and readied for winter.
Sally counted how much she thought she’d need to feed her own family and then put the rest in the little store.
It hadn’t opened yet, but when it did, in the fall, it would be fully stocked and ready for customers.
When Ben wasn’t stocking the store, he was down by the river with a fishing pole or out on the water on one of the boats, fishing for the local restaurants and to sell to other countries.
Sally still didn’t like him out there—too many men lost to the sea—and every time he left, she would say the Lord’s Prayer in English, in French to honour Ben’s father, and then, finally, in Mi’kmaw.
She said she really didn’t believe in any of it, but it couldn’t hurt.
And while he was gone, sometimes for days at a time, she would pace when she had nothing to occupy her hands, so I tried to keep her busy until he walked through the door, stinking of fish and sweat, with a bundle of cash in his hand.
I didn’t have to help out in the evenings and on Sundays, but I did when John was working.
Sometimes, when I was free, I would go for a walk by the river or sit out in the back and read a book, but mostly I liked to be of help.
It gave me a purpose. I’d only brought two books, so one day I was scanning the small bookshelf that sat along the wall, tucked behind a rocking chair.
The books were old, and many were tattered, their edges ripped or wrinkled.
“You feel free to take a book, Aliet,” Sally said. “I don’t have the time for books, not with all these boys. I used to like them, but now there’s just no time. Maybe when they are grown, but then I’ll likely be a busy Kiju.” She laughed and returned to peeling carrots.
I pulled each one out and examined it. There were a few old school readers, and I made a note to work with the second boy on his reading. A few Reader’s Digest collections and a thick old book called Legends of the Micmacs by Silas Tertius Rand. I pulled it off the shelf.
“That one was given to my father by a white man who thought he might like to have it,” Sally explained. “Isn’t it funny how people think. Giving an Indian a book about Indians written by a white man, thinking the Indian would want to read it.”
“Did he? Your father?”
“No. I don’t know why I even hold on to it. Those aren’t really our stories.”
“Why?”
“He was a missionary, Aliet. He changed our stories—not completely, there are still a lot of our stories in there, but many of those men and their ‘good intentions’ changed them to suit their mission.”
“Their mission?” I placed it back on the shelf and went to help Sally peel some potatoes for supper. Ben had killed one of the chickens earlier and it was in the oven roasting.
“To convert us, to take away our stories. To replace them with Christian ones.”
“Why?”
“Who knows what white people think, Aliet. Or why they think it. You’d be better to sit around a fire with the Elders or with the folks at the apple picking this fall and listen to those stories. Those are more real than that book.” She pointed her paring knife toward the shelf.
In the end, I settled on a few dog-eared Agatha Christie novels.
I knew that Kenneth lived up the hill, less than a mile away, but I was successful in avoiding him.
The past two autumns, he hadn’t come to pick apples, something about him being so behind in school he couldn’t afford to miss any.
Ben told me that he and his family rarely came into the village, they had everything they needed up the hill.
With this knowledge came comfort. I freely, and without fear, wandered the village, roamed down the narrow, rutted roads.
The main road from the east to the west ran through the town, so during the day you might see quite a few cars and trucks passing through, but in the evening it was as quiet as a church.
I liked to look in on the few shops that existed, the grocery store and a pharmacy, which also served as the clothing store and Sears depot for catalogue orders.
The small fish restaurant that only did takeout.
It had a few picnic tables, which looked out over the river.
Off in the distance, the bay. It was my and John’s favourite spot.
Whenever I visited from May through to September, Kiju would give me some change so I could get an ice cream, and later, when I was older, fish and chips.
John would stop by Ben and Sally’s place and pick me up on Fridays, fresh from the woods, and after a shower to clean the sap and stink off him.
“Fish and chips?”
“Of course,” I would say, and we would sit down at one of the picnic tables and John would go order.
Starting when he was fourteen, he had a job working in the woods in the summer, chopping winter wood for home heating, so he liked to pay.
I didn’t have a job, but Kiju would give me money, which I always returned to her because John wouldn’t let me pay for myself.
“It makes me feel nice to treat you,” he said as he placed my meal in front of me, grease soaking through the bottom of the paper plate.
The salty, yeasty scent of beer-battered fish and french fries was intoxicating—not as much as being near John was, but on an empty belly it came awful close sometimes.
On a grey day toward the middle of July, I walked down to the little post office to mail a letter to Kiju.
I’d been trying to invite her to join us, but her garden and her animals needed tending, so she stayed home, content to be alone.
She admitted that the quiet she thought she was going to dread ended up bringing her comfort.
And besides, she had written, that summer two babies had been born under the tree.
Apparently, a few women from the northern communities, an eight-hour drive from our home, who held on to tradition a little tighter, heard about Kiju and her skills at welcoming babies.
They travelled all that way and stayed at the nearby motel until it was their time.
The grief that Kiju had felt, that I had shared with her, seemed to fade away in those letters, in the presence of those women and their little ones.
She claimed these events to be the best tonic for a lonely heart—the first wail of an infant, the first look a mother gave her newborn, the tree.
After posting my letter, I stopped in to the pharmacy to buy myself some chocolate.
The store was cramped, with only enough room for one person to occupy the narrow aisles.
The fridge that held milk, juice, bacon, and eggs dripped condensation onto the tiled floor.
Towels, wet and smelling slightly of mould and Javex, sat under the door to catch the water.
Cigarettes and a few bottles of dark liquor sat at the back behind a counter.
An old sign informed customers of the medicinal value of whiskey.
Mrs. Comeau sat at the back behind the counter, dispensing gossip and everything needed to cure a cold and treat arthritis.
At the front sat Mr. Comeau, a stern-looking man with little square glasses, which he wore perched on the end of his nose.
When he spoke, he looked at you over the rims. It was a Tuesday just before dinnertime, so the store was nearly empty.
From somewhere I could hear a radio playing low, Tammy Wynette’s gentle twang.
I was browsing the small selection of women’s clothing at the back when I heard Mr. Comeau, his voice raised. I peeked my head around the aisle to see the owner yelling at a young boy.
“I know you stole it. Hand it over.”
The boy stood so still, his arms stiff against his legs. I heard him say in a shaking voice, “I didn’t take anything. I was just looking around.”
“Then where is it? It was sitting just there and now it’s not.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t take it.”