The Break

by Katherena Vermette

Houses built first for Eastern European immigrants who were pushed to that wrong side of the railway tracks, and kept away from the affluent city south. Someone once told me that North End houses were all made cheap and big, but the lots were narrow and short. That was when you had to own a certain amount of land to vote, and all those lots were made just inches smaller.

In the sixties, Indians started moving in, once Status Indians could leave reserves and many moved to the city. That was when the Europeans slowly started creeping out of the neighbourhood like a man sneaking away from a sleeping woman in the dark.

There is something about menopause, Cheryl thinks, everything seems to be coming around again. Old yearnings and memories come back, in dreams and in thoughts, all the time. She has spent hours in the night regurgitating random parts of her life, people long gone and choices long forgotten. Everything seems to be repeating, over and over. She drinks so she can sleep, or so she tells herself. But even in sleep, her ghosts all hunt her down, wanting her to look at them, remember them.

She likes to savour these moments. Like a sweet flavour in her mouth or the magic smell of her grandchildren, she breathes it in in long breaths. She always does this when she is trying to make good things last as long as possible.

His dad was a mean drunk. No, he was an angry guy and angry guys become mean drunks. His hands, permanently stained by menial factory work, would clench into fists after only one drink. If you didn’t look closely, you’d think he was only stretching out his hands, sore from early arthritis — flexing them after a day’s hard work. But Tommy knew better. His dad was only getting ready.

She sips more coffee and thinks of it. Her past. Hers. She knows what he meant, what he knows, what she’s shared with him in dark nights filled with memories and restlessness. She thinks of each time, every instance. One by one. It’s really the past. Not even hers. Just stories that really belong to other people but were somehow passed to her for safekeeping, for her to know, forever. Incidents. Situations. They roll by in her head, factual and unemotional.

Louisa is growing this way too. Cheryl knew it, as soon as Louisa said she was going to be a social worker. It’s the way she has to be. Hard. Cheryl’s never been good at being hard. She has to feel everything. She has to be free to be weak and wrong. Social workers can’t be wrong.

She dozes off and thinks of her wolves, the calm howling sounds that find her in the night and help her rest. She should make a painting for Emily. Emily with her baby face, Emily stronger than she knows. Cheryl will put a strong wolf-skin coat, black with only delicate touches of grey, around her little granddaughter to keep her safe.

Wolves teach humility — they teach that we are all in this together, all a part of the same whole. If something happens to one of them, they all feel it.

My body is only a memory. But sometimes, memories are the most real of all. And even though I am gone, you remember and love me. So really, there is nothing to envy the living.

I can see it, my aunty’s skinny body and her beautiful face, dirty and worn. She had this permanent rough look to her in the end like her skin was etched and carved into only one broken expression.

She knows Emily doesn’t want to be upset in front of these strangers. She also knows her girl can’t help it anymore. They are all like this, not their real selves anymore, more like shadows, turned inside out.

A storyteller once told me our languages never had a sense of time, that past and present and future happened all at once. I think this is how it happens for me now, all the same time. I think this also is why you don’t let me go, because I am still happening. None of us ever lets go, not really. No one has ever shown us how. Or why.

Then they are completely silent. The sun starts to shine on Cheryl’s face, and caffeine and nicotine buzz through her body, neither easing the pain. She closes her eyes to the bright warmth and tries to breathe it in. It’s one of those moments she wants to somehow forget and remember at the same time.

“My Kookom.” She looks at her grandmother, serious and straight. “Girls don’t get attacked in good neighbourhoods.” Kookoo looks right back, just as hard, no harder, even with her near-blind eyes. “My Stella, girls get attacked everywhere.”

“We are fighting. This is fighting.” My arms flail out to take in the whole scene, my mother, my sister, my niece. These tough women.

“You know,” she starts finally, “your aunt was telling me about blood quantum, ever hear of that? It’s how much Indian you are. She was saying how it was the white people who made a big deal about how much Indian you were, but Indians never cared as much. They welcomed all their family into the family, even if you were only half the same colour as them.”

“Same way you deal with anything, my boy. You just do. People are stupid. Your dad, that old lady, your fat partner — they mean well, in their way anyway, but they’re stupid. You can’t do nothing with stupid. Can’t fix it … You just go on being who you are. They can’t change you.”

“They’re your people, that’s why.” She smiles her shy smile. “I never thought of it like that.” “I know. That’s my fault. I’m sorry for that. I just wanted to protect you. I wanted you to have the best of everything. And in those days, that meant being white, so we were as white as could be.”

“I saw an eagle earlier. When we got here,” Cheryl says slowly. “Good.” Louisa knows what it means to see an eagle. “I knew she’d be here somewhere.” “Yeah, she is.” Cheryl sighs, feeling her mother around her, not wanting to let the feeling go. She looks up again, but the sky is still empty. Even the sun is leaving it.

“We’re fucked up but not fucked,” Paulina says, breaking the quiet that rested between them. And then before Cheryl can ask, she says, “I’m going to give up feeling so hopeless. Or at least, I am going to try to feel hopeful as much as I can.”