Nineteen June 1972
NINETEEN
The less the women came to give birth under the tree, the more determined Kiju became to teach me midwifery and healing.
That winter, after Paulina, I suffered through impromptu quizzes on herbs and salves, how to relieve pain and how to know where the pain was coming from and what it might mean.
John and I remained connected through our letters, a few each week.
My letters were carefully written in the neatest handwriting and I agonized over every word.
His letters were short and to the point, light on endearments, but I didn’t mind so long as the letters arrived.
And neither of us mentioned Kenneth. I saw John once in the late spring when his parents went on a trip to the city so his mother could see a specialist for an issue she was having with her feet.
They dropped him off in the morning and picked him up on their way back the next day after dinner.
Kiju let him sleep on the sofa. I was permitted to skip school that day, but we had to make ourselves useful, so we helped Kiju prepare the garden: rows upon rows of vegetables and herbs, a couple of apple trees and one lonely pear tree.
The pear tree was stubborn with its offerings, but the rest of the garden was lush with food.
“I didn’t think there’d be so much to do,” he said as we walked along two rows of carrots.
“Kiju says we need to be as self-sufficient as we can. And some of the plants are made into medicine. The ones she can’t find locally in the wild.
” I pointed to the edge of the garden, sectioned off with chicken wire, where Kiju grew her herbs, the ones for a sore belly, to relieve pain, to calm a crying baby.
“People pay her for those remedies. Or at least they used to. Not many people come anymore, but she still insists on making them.”
“Do you know them?”
“The medicines?”
“Yeah.”
“Some. I don’t know as much now as I used to.”
“Why?”
“Fewer people are coming for them, and no babies are being born at the tree, and that’s the main thing Kiju focuses on. Teaching me these things seems a little pointless sometimes.” I regretted saying that the moment it came out of my mouth.
“Aliet, it’s important to keep these things alive. My mother says we are losing our way.”
I knelt down in the dirt and started pulling the weeds that threatened to take over. “I know, but I don’t really have the time.”
“You have to make the time. You make the time for what’s important.”
John knelt beside me. Together, we moved up and down the rows, pulling weeds.
I assumed he was annoyed with me and refused to look in his direction, my gaze focused on the ground.
Then John started singing. He knew every word to every CCR song.
Before I knew it, I was singing along and the hurt I felt had disappeared.
I stood up to move to the next row and John grabbed me by the waist and we started dancing.
Laughing, I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me, and began singing so loudly that Kiju came out to see if everything was okay.
Once she saw us, she just smiled and turned back into the house, the screen door closing behind her with a bang.
In return for our work, Kiju cooked us a feast for lunch. Roast chicken with veggies, and strawberry rhubarb pie.
“So, John, are we going to be seeing more of you this summer?” Kiju asked.
I looked at John, waiting for the answer.
“No, I don’t think so. I might not get back until apple picking.
I gotta work in the woods with Dad again this summer.
” In a large family like John’s, everyone’s effort was needed to be ready for the winter.
For us, the Mi’kmaq, a lot of our work was done between April and October.
November to March was a quiet time, one for contemplation and spending time with loved ones.
It had always been this way, but even that was changing.
People worked hard all year round, and quiet time was becoming scarce.
“Any thoughts for the future?” Kiju asked.
“A few,” John answered with a wink to me.
“Aliet is thinking of nursing,” she said as she got up from the table to get herself a glass of water.
“Why a nurse?” John asked.
“I dunno. Kiju is kind of like a nurse.”
Kiju told us that my mother wanted to be a nurse, maybe even a doctor. She was good with the plants, good with making the medicines.
“When she was fourteen or so, she tried to sew up a friend after they’d cut their hand opening a can of soup.
She used fishing twine and a sewing needle from the friend’s mother’s sewing basket.
” Kiju looked over at me. “She was a smart girl, your mom, just like you. She put the needle over a candle flame to burn any dirt off it and used ice from the river to freeze it. It wasn’t a bad job, but she did have to go to the hospital in the end and have proper stitches put in. ”
“Do you miss her?” John asked.
“My mother?”
He nodded. Kiju took plates to the sink and snuck out the back door.
“I don’t know. I think sometimes I do, but I wonder if I miss her, Maggie, or just miss having a mother.
Either way, and whatever you want to call it, I do think about her and sometimes I get angry with her for dying and never telling anyone who my father was.
I mostly wonder if my life would have turned out differently if she were still here. ”
I reached up to touch the white line of damaged skin that travelled down my face. John brought my hand back to his, leaned over and placed a soft kiss on my scar.
That night, John asked Kiju if he could take me to the little diner in town.
He showed her the savings from his work in the woods and she gave her blessing.
The diner was attached to the hardware store.
It wasn’t much of a place, but it was the first time I’d been out for dinner with anyone besides Kiju.
It was a Monday, so there weren’t many people in the diner. A few old guys sitting at the counter eating their burgers or liver and onions, something my grandmother loved but I was never made to eat. We took a table at the window so we could enjoy the dusk.
John pulled my chair out for me. “I saw a movie where the guy did that. I guess it’s polite,” he explained.
The waitress brought us the menu, one page with small writing.
She took our drink order, two Coca-Colas.
It was a drink my grandmother never let me have since she didn’t know what was in it.
She didn’t trust it. It was fizzy and hit my nose and made me sneeze.
The sweetness was almost too much for me, but John assured me I would get used to the taste.
We decided to share a plate of fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy.
John ordered a piece of apple pie for dessert.
“Aren’t you tired of apples?” I joked.
“When I have to bend down and pick them up or climb a ladder and bring them down, but when they are in a pie, I could never get tired of apples.”
The food was greasy and delicious. The pie was tart and the ice cream that came with it was smooth and sweet, with a hint of cinnamon.
We left the diner full and happy. We were rounding the corner to take the long walk back home when I saw a few of my classmates walking toward us.
They weren’t people I was friendly with, but we knew each other.
The school I went to was small, and we were in almost all the same classes together.
“Hey Aliet,” one girl, Deborah, said.
“Hey.”
They looked quickly from John to me and back to John as we walked past.
“Not friendly with those girls?” John asked as soon as we were out of earshot.
“I just know them from homeroom. Susan’s my only real friend.”
“And me.”
“And you, I suppose.”
He reached over and pushed me gently.
As we walked in the in-between—in between day and night, in between warm and cold, in between child and adult—everything was perfect.
Before we reached home, I took him to see the birthing tree.
The sun had set, but the sky held on to the last of the daylight.
The trail had started to grow over, nature making her way back to where humans rarely went these days.
Grass had begun to push through the dirt, wild rose bushes leaned in, begging to be noticed.
The town’s attempt at getting people to walk the trail didn’t appear to be working.
I prayed that Kiju hadn’t seen the overgrowth, and made a note that I should come and clean it up before she did.
I did not want her to go quiet again. When we got to the tree, I knelt in front of the two strong roots where women became mothers.
I caressed the roots, the bark worn smooth in places by weather and birthing women.
“Beautiful,” John said behind me.
I looked up into the leaves. “It really is.” I stood to face him.
“I meant you.”
John pulled me close and kissed me.
“So much of our history is there, under this tree,” I said when we parted.
“I was born here. Did you know that?” John said.
“No, I didn’t. Kiju never told me.”
For some reason this made me incredibly happy, the thought that we’d arrived in the world in the exact same place. That somewhere in this tree, our stories might actually touch.
I wrapped my arm around his and cuddled into him as we turned and headed back toward home.
The next morning, I was forced to go to school. Kiju put John to work stacking the winter wood. His parents had stayed in the city to catch up with family and weren’t going to arrive until dinner.
In homeroom, as I rushed to finish my homework for the next class, Deborah approached me.
“So, that guy you were with, is he Chinese or something?”
I choked back a laugh. “Um, no.”
“He looked Chinese. Where’s he from? I don’t recognize him, and I know everyone around here.”
She smelled strongly of perfume, the heavy floral kind that older women wear, and I remember thinking that it didn’t suit her. She stood straight, her hands linked in front of her, waiting for me to answer.