Sixteen February–March 1998
SIXTEEN
As the colder months closed in, there was an urgency that crept into my every day.
An urgency to memorize the cards, an urgency to prepare a place for the baby, an urgency to protect the birthing tree, to prepare it for something it hadn’t done in a very long time.
As the baby grew inside me and my grandmother spoke to me from the walls of the house, I knew that I needed to call upon my past to help me create my future.
It was strange to find myself back in that same town hall where I had watched my grandmother punch Mrs. Brown in the nose so many years before.
It was hard to imagine that I was now in my forties, given that the hall had the same scent of mould and even many of the same people.
The same rickety wooden chairs sat lined up in neat little rows, the same tables stood at the front, their age-damaged tops covered in plastic tablecloths from the Dollar Store, paisley patterned.
And the coffee could have been the same coffee that had been served all those years ago.
I kept my head down, and if anyone was watching, which I am sure they were, they would have thought I was reading the brown sludge that stained the bottom of my Styrofoam cup.
If I had looked harder, I might have recognized their disapproval, their pronounced frowns, now accompanied by jowls and layers of wrinkled skin.
But instead, I stared at the agenda, printed on plain white paper, the black ink stark against the white.
Agenda item number six, following the approval of minutes, the installation of a new stop sign and a discussion of the town’s contribution to the renovation of the Baptist church, then, there I was: Historical Recognition of the Birthing Tree.
I sat in the back row, my coffee in one hand and a speech I’d written in the other.
I watched as people wandered in, most because it was something to do in a boring town, others because they had no influence over their private lives so they sought their power at the town hall meetings.
A few were there because of genuine interest. Susan stopped at the door and looked around the room, nodded to a few familiar faces, before I whispered her name and she came to sit beside me.
She grabbed my wrist and squeezed, a boost of encouragement.
The meeting started with the humdrum reading of the agenda and the sideways glances in my direction. I waited patiently until it was my turn to speak.
“Mrs. . . .” The chair of the meeting looked in my direction.
“Ms., actually, and it’s just Aliet.”
“Ms. Aliet. Would you like to come up to the front and explain the agenda item?”
I didn’t correct him on my name. I knew from the shuffling of people in their seats and the hushed voices that they had probably already figured out who I was.
I set my coffee on the floor beside my chair, passed Susan sitting on the aisle and walked to the front.
In the back, Miriam leaned against the wall.
She winked at me and I took a deep breath.
“Good evening, everyone. My name is Aliet Paul, and I believe some of you may have known my grandmother.” I explained where we lived and there were nods of recognition, but no sympathetic faces.
“I am here because there is a tree down by the pond near my home. Some of you may be familiar with it.” Some of the older folks looked at the floor, the younger attendees sat clueless.
“That tree, a large oak, is where the Mi’kmaq, where we, used to give birth.
My own mother gave birth to me there. That tree holds a lot of important meaning for us, and I am here to ask that it be protected as a town historical site.
I went down there when I returned to my home, and I found it littered with garbage, beer bottles and cigarette butts.
I am here to ask that the town kindly consider protecting the tree from this kind of thing.
It holds historical, cultural and spiritual value for the Mi’kmaw community. ”
“For the few of you that live down near there?” He was an older man in jeans, his eyeglasses two decades too old, his eyebrows far too bushy.
“Yes,” I said, trying not to get angry so soon. “It has significance to us. And to some of you, I dare say.”
“Humph.” He snorted before taking a sip of his coffee. “Didn’t your own mother die under that tree?”
I wasn’t expecting this. I wasn’t expecting anyone to remember me exactly—maybe the individual, but not the circumstance of my birth.
“Why on god’s green earth would you want to protect the place where your own mother died? And needlessly, I might add.”
I can’t be sure, but I am convinced this was the same woman who had met the outstretched hand of my Kiju many years before.
“I am not here to debate the merits of the different ways women chose to give birth. I am here to protect a legacy of the people who have lived here since before any of you existed here.” I was trying to choose my words carefully, to get at least a few people in the room to agree with me.
I couldn’t show my anger or I would ruin my own cause.
“My family founded this town,” said someone.
“We’ve been here over a hundred and fifty years,” said another.
“Yes, I understand. And you have monuments to your history. I’m asking for one for mine.”
The crowd started to whisper, to talk amongst themselves. In the din of covert conversation, I couldn’t hear anything. I tried to read faces, but they were hiding behind their hands, their purses, the paper agendas. They wanted their ignorance to be kept between them.
“She’s not asking a lot. She just doesn’t want people drinking beer down there, having parties. There needs to be a small gate around the tree so people will be kept out. That’s all. And maybe a plaque,” Miriam said, standing tall at the end of the aisle.
“You,” someone said with derision.
“Yes, me.” Miriam went back to leaning against the back wall.
Susan stood. “I think we need to acknowledge this important part of our history.”
“It’s not our history,” someone in the back said, just loud enough for everyone to hear.
The conversation grew loud with so many voices, but their faces said it all.
“Well, thank you, Ms. Aliet. You have given us something to think about. We will get back to you with our decision.”
I was dismissed.
“Thank you,” I said as I folded my paper with the speech I didn’t use. I stopped beside Susan, who passed me my purse and followed me out.
“I needed to get out of there,” I stammered as the door closed behind us, the conversation inside blunted by glass and metal.
Miriam was close behind. “They’re old morons, never had an independent thought in all their lives. Ignore them.”
“They are never going to agree with this, will they?”
“Probably not, but you never know. Let’s grab dinner.” Susan took my arm, looping it in with hers.
“That was the same woman who Kiju slapped, wasn’t it? Mrs. Brown?”
“This is a story I need to hear,” Miriam said as we walked into the night.
“I’m pretty sure it was. It would’ve made a nice piece of town history if she was hit by two generations of your family, but I’m proud of you for keeping your cool,” Susan said.
I heard Kiju’s voice reminding me that any type of violence is wrong, regardless of how much the other party might deserve it.
After green tea and some hot wings at the pub, Susan and Miriam both agreed to come by the house on Saturday night. I would cook, Miriam would make her famous coffee cake, and Susan would bring sparkling apple cider, alcohol free.
Miriam arrived just before six. The sun had set and I’d forgotten to turn on the outside light and I heard her trip up the stairs.
“Shit.”
I opened the door to see her sitting on the top step, holding a pie, intact.
“I saved the cake!” She handed it to me and got up, uninjured. “Smells good in here.”
“Moroccan chicken with couscous.”
“I bet that’s the first time this house has seen something like that.”
I set the table as we fell into comfortable conversation. Before Susan arrived, thirty minutes late due to her son’s high school basketball game, Miriam and I talked of the future.
“Still thinking of taking up the mantle? Especially now, since you are going to experience childbirth yourself in just a few short months.”
The baby kicked. I’d had a sonogram the week before and sent a copy to William, who called as soon as he received it.
“If I did, it would be on my own terms. And I would follow Kiju’s practice, the birth stories, the burying of the cord, the songs. And it would be reserved for our women. Those who want to reclaim what was taken from us.” I rubbed my belly.
“So you have thought about it?” She gleamed.
“Maybe I have.”
Just then, Susan stumbled through the door, my pregnant brain having once again forgotten to turn on the outside light.
The dinner turned out better than I had expected.
We laughed at shared memories, and made new ones.
Susan and I wandered down memory lane, our middle-aged minds remembering things differently, arguing over whose version of events was more likely to be right.
We told Miriam about our misadventure in the woods, the last time Susan, John, Kenneth and I had been together as friends.
After dinner, a pot of tea steeping in the middle of the table and the dishes stacked by the sink, the fire warm and the wind gently caressing the house, I absent-mindedly reached up and traced my scar.
“How did you get that scar?” Miriam asked.
Susan turned to her and shook her head, and Miriam’s face fell.
“Sorry.”
The air was thick with anxiety.
“It’s okay. I can talk about it now. When we were young, Kenneth was angry at the world and decided that I was the source of his anger, and I guess in a way I was.”
“You were not. He was an evil bastard. And I won’t hear you taking any of the blame.”
I explained to Miriam exactly what happened, her face a mixture of sadness and anger.