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MISSING

By

Ivy Lynne Porpotage

Submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Fine Arts

In

Creative Writing

Chair: (& :::,, Richard Mccann ~ Dean of the College ~a~ Ztr7y Date 2008 American University Washington, D.C. 20016

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY °I 3 OS UMI Number: 1460504

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By

Ivy Lynne Porpotage

2008

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MISSING

BY

Ivy Lynne Porpotage

ABSTRACT

Missing is a collection of original stories whose characters, both imagined and real, struggle with dissatisfaction in their connections to others and bewilderment about their relation to the world. Some characters long for something that's been absent from their lives for years, like the narrator in "Elvis has Left the Building," who, after the death of her mother, seeks out the father she has never known. Some characters, like the narrator in "Couch Potato

Chronicles," yearn for an intangible source of fulfillment they can't quite identify, much less articulate. And other, more hapless characters simply flounder, unaware that what's missing is right in front of them. The roots of their emotional voids and ignorance are revealed through the journeys they take as they explore their past, present, and future lives-some recognizing and filling the empty spaces and others unwittingly moving on, undoubtedly destined to face what's missing again.

11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Professor Richard McCann, PhD and Associate

Professor Keith Leonard, PhD for their support, patience, and thoughtful feedback. I am also grateful to former Assistant Professor E.J. Levy for her early contributions to this work.

111 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iii

STORIES

YOU ARE THE MUSIC WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS ...... 1

EL VIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING ...... 13

COUCH POTATO CHRONICLES ...... 32

SEARCHING FOR FAIRIES ...... 43

GIOVANNI'S CELL ...... 59

NOWAKE ...... 66

AMOTHER CONVERSATION ...... 70

CHARACTERS ...... 74

NOVIE ...... 78

IV YOU ARE THE MUSIC WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS

Some people's lives have a sort of music. Mine has never been like that.

Sure, I've had musical moments-periods of time that are defined by the music that I listened to-but they are all in the past and seem to exist most prominently in memories of old boyfriends. It probably started with my college boyfriend

Ted, who had U2 vanity license plates on his Ford Taurus. He was my first boyfriend and a pretty good one at that. He was devoted and adoring, generous and kind, and eventually that seemed like too much for me. We couldn't harmonize. His range was too great or perhaps my vibrato too strong. He was giving more than I could return. Much as I love U2 myself, I still cringe when I hear "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Perhaps because the song is / infused with the ~elings I was experiencing in the emotional end to our relationship.

I started se ing Joey-my first love-about a year later. He was the most unlikely of boy riends and yet I fell for him with the impassioned drama of a cadenza. Our r lationship began during a hot Charlottesville summer when

1 2 I the Dave Matth~ws Band played a local club called Traxx. Joey talked to them after their sets id fancied himself an inspiration. But it was Sade-Lovers

Rock-that hep' ayed when we made love. The gentle and soulful odes still remind me of ~at summer and the encore I've been waiting for since.

I Shortly aft~r college, during a group retreat in West Virginia, I was I reintroduced t4 Keith, who had been a grad student while I was in undergrad.

We had friends/ in common. The attraction was immediate and obvious. So when he follo.jed me outside that first evening and kissed me under the bright white moon, it ~med only natural that Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" played on the tmtable in my mind as we danced in perfect rhythm to the

I sounds nature provided. I lost that song to him that night and though the relationship wt short, I've never gotten it back.

Perhaps a [ear later, I hosted an old friend interviewing for residencies at east coast med 1schools. John's feelings for me had never been a secret in high

I school. He war a romantic and had written me a sonnet-derived from the

I Occitan and It1lian words meaning little song-it was the only love poem I ever

I received. But jf-st like the volta in his sonnet, his visit took a tum when he

I played"Alonelwith You" by The Outfield, telling me the song makes him think

I I

I I

3 I of me, even tho~gh his fiana', Caitlin, thinks ifs hers. I realized then that I was

I experiencing ieone else's musical moment.

Several ye*s later, I met Tom at work. We got to know each other during a number of grot outings and found common ground in our affinity for sarcasm.

I He indoctrinated me into country music with his love for Junior Brown and the sardonic deligh~ he took in songs like "My Wife Thinks Your Dead." Strange I I considering his inability to see the satire in the face of his own relationship is what eventually led to our surmise. Somehow we could never quite get in tempo. I I I There hav, been no Teds, Joeys, Keiths, Johns, or Toms in my life for some time. Somewh¢re a long the line I retreated into my own day-to-day routine, I ignoring my n+d for human companionship. Though I continued to visit with

I my erstwhile £lends, I spent my nights in the company of the strangers on my television. It c uld be that I was trying to fill a hole in my life when I got Lola-

1 that I was looig for that music I missed. I just knew I wanted a dog. I don't think I got Lol~ to replace something. I didn't need to receive love; I needed to I give it. At Ieasj that's what I told myself.

I' 4

Lola has m y friends I don't know. She meets them trotting along the chain link fence body wagging, thick tail sweeping the air, offering a neighborly

"hello, I'm-happy-to-see-you." With her back legs planted on the ground, brindle-colored paws gracing the top of the fence, pink tongue with one black spot lolling, sh talks to the condo kids coming home from school, the work-a­ day commuters heading home from the bus, and the Fed-Ex drivers delivering

Ballard Design purchases to my next-door neighbor. Lola is a classic mutt-a mid-size combination of breeds I can't identify. And like most mix-breeds, she has a sweet an even temperament. The mailman claims she is the nicest dog in

Morning is her favorite part of the day. I hear her saunter into my bedroom, tags jangling. She sits down next to the platform bed, relieving a heavy sigh into my face with h r warm breath. It's the first thing I see when I open my eyes­ her face. The a arm clock with its blaring red letters is the second. 6:05 a.m. I reach over and my fingers across the top of her head and down her silky ear.

She licks my hand.

"Good morning, baby. You need to go outside?"

It's really forgone conclusion, but I ask the question anyway-more for my benefit than he s. She's the closest thing I have to a warm body next to me in the 5 morning and I take the opportunity to remind myself I'm not alone. The minute the question is jpoken, she heads toward the door, turning back only to make sure I am reallylgetting up. Rubbing my eyes, I walk to the stairs, where Lola stands patiently eyeing my movements. I almost trip over her as I take my first step. It's her cu~ and she retreats down the stairs in a smooth cadence I can't quite match. Sle'll be waiting when I arrive at the back door. I fumble with the lock then pull the door open and reach to push open the creaky screen door.

Periodically, I ~ance out the window and see her sitting in the front-most comer of the yard. The spot is now bare, no grass will grow there. She watches the kids approach the Jddle school across the street from all directions. Parents pull into the circula1 drop-off and yellow buses unload their cargo. Then she begins her a capella recital. As the cars retreat from the lot and approach the crossing guard dressed i her fluorescent yellow vest and black wool hat, Lola sprints- front yard to blck, parallel to the street, barking her goodbyes, I'll-see-you­ tomorrows, until she comes to the wall of rusty diamonds meant to confine her. I reprimand her from the back door to no avail. She reprises this measure until all the minivans and SUV s are gone. The once-thick grass carpet of her side-yard racetrack has llg since been replaced by a muddy path, scattered with chewed up slivers of stifks and wet brown leaves. 6

After this daily interlude, Lola and I take our morning walk. We head down the block past tf-e community center entrance and I begin to sing. I don't remember the ftrst time I sang to Lola, but I think she enjoys it, expects it even.

Sometimes I make up the songs as a running commentary of our activity; sometimes I baltardize well-known songs to fit the occasion. Even then, I rarely get past the firs~ line; I have a poor memory for song lyrics. So the songs have a beginning, rep,ated over and over. No middle or end. Today, I start with: We're goin for a walk, we're goin for a walk, we're goin for a walk, oh yeahhhh!

I We have a regular route around the informal track circling the soccer fields and baseball dikmond behind the school. We know the path well, and we know the dogs and ute people we can expect to see. Today, we come across the older gray-haired wlman in the red wool coat. She has two Jack Russell Terriers that shout at Lola in their yippy timbre as they approach, teeth bared like they intend to rip her aparJ. She isn't intimidated. But just as they reach a crescendo, she feels the need tp respond, and so the raucous exchange too has become part of the routine-a rrief sort of chorus to our morning march.

After their piece ends, I start up with my own. We all love the mellow puppy dog, the mellow puppyI dog, the mellow puppy dog. We all love the mellow puppy dog, 7 the mellow pupp~ dog, the mellow puppy dog. Lola looks back at me with what I am

I convinced is a smile.

I Sometimes1we meet Lola's friends on our walks. This morning a middle- aged teacher speaks up as our paths cross next to the school.

"Are you Jola' s mom?" Lola wriggles with excitement at her approach and I jumps up to offfr a slobbery kiss, ignoring my firm refrain-No Lola, down.

"Yes," I say.

"She's sue& a happy dog. We always see her when we walk by your yard."

I "She is a good dog." I bask in the compliment. I Just as Lolf is my reason to drag myself out of bed in the morning, she is my reason to comel home at night. She's at the door waiting for me, her tail wagging.

I come in and ~end down, wrap my arms around her torso, and squeeze. Then,

I from bended I

"Hi baby, li.id you miss me? I missed you so much."

I look fon~ard to her slobbery kisses and genuine excitement at my return.

I But that isn't af I come home too. As with most puppies her need to chew was palpable from the first day I brought her home. But, just as the annoying quirks in a significantl other eventually transform themselves into endearing qualities, I

I accepted Lola's puppy destruction. One evening after work, I was confronted by

I 8 a scattering of !redded pages. I came in through the kitchen and saw the first evidence, then ollowed the trail through the dining room and into the living room. I reachetdown and picked up the puzzle pieces of a single page. It was

Zeus-she had. estroyed the book of Greek mythology I had purchased at the library book sat. As I mounted the stairs I found Hera and Aphrodite. In the floor of my roo , Artemis lay at the foot of my bed. The hardback cover was on the floor next tl my night stand. The binding of the green woven cover was tom, the comer mar ed by wet teeth impressions. I opened it up. Pandora-she had left me with Pandora and what was left of her box.

On anothJ occasion I came home and failed to notice the blue on her paw and tongue as I hugged her. I set my bags on the dining table and turned to the living room. I ~oked on the breath of air I tried to take in. Blue ink spots splattered my jute rug in what might have been an excellent approximation of a

Jackson PollaJ painting. I marveled at the skill of it. Blue ink covering the entirety of my rug like a gymnast uses the entire mat for a floor routine. Not a single comer Jtouched. Olewed bits of plastic casing provide her signature move near the base of the metal coffee table. I've heard that you shouldn't reprimand a d4g unless you catch her in the act. I'm not sure I would have 9 anyway. She as just trying to tell me something-that she missed me, that she

After a bri f cleaning that day, we set out on our afternoon walk. We met one of Lola's m y boyfriends, Beau, as we approached the gravelly soccer field.

I didn't remem er Beau's owner's name. I never remember the people's names-only e dogs. I think of Bobo the clown when I see this dog with his oversized flop y ginger ears and black-lined grin. Lola and Beau exchanged kisses and then we were on our way. When I was sure we were out of earshot, I began my new st song: We're walkin and we're talkin and we're going for a walk, cause we like to Talk and we like to talk and we like to have some fun!

This is the righlight of the day for both of us. We are in the open air and spending time logether. Mostly we just walk, taking in the goings on around the school or in the neighborhood, but sometimes we run. That afternoon we turned

I the high cornerl that marks the edge of the fenced off grass soccer field at the far side of the sch+!. The path is down hill and it's easier to take it fast. As I sped up Lola did thd same. But when we reached the bottom, I didn't stop; I kept going-runnint faster and faster. Lola matched my speed until at the end of the field we both s~owed to a walk.

"Was it g+ for you, too?" I asked her, trying to catch my breath.

I i 10

I

Minutes latr another friend, a parent I presumed, spoke to us from atop a bouncy horse o the playground.

"Oh, do yt live on the comer? I see her everyday. What's her name?"

"Lola." I r sponded.

"No, like arry Manilow," I paused. "Copacabana."

"Oh."

"Whateve Lola wants Lola gets," she said, recalling Lola's 1955 Broadway musical names ke.

"That's ce tainly true." I smiled.

Llke most rogs, Lola likes to stop and sniff all along the route. My mother calls this "read g the newspaper" -checking out who's been where and what they are up to. Lola is a voracious reader and her frequent stops sometimes try my patience. I 1read that you shouldn't let a leash go taut when you are walking a dog. Pulling doesn't make them come towards you, instead they push away.

But sometimes I forget. I "Come on[baby, let's get a move on let's get a groove on, come on let's go," I

I said in an efi to prod her along. We're m111Jin and we're groovin and we're going for a walk. [

I

!

I 11

The next rning we had an appointment with the vet and ventured out an hour early. We didn't know what it is like on the path at 7:30 a.m., but the break in routine was ecessary. We made our way past the community center entrance, past e mulch-laden playground and the empty tennis courts. The sun was bright and the morning air crisp and still. I broke the silence.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey, you'll never kno dear how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away.

We were ot far from the parking lot when I saw him, a young man, in his early thirties cl d in a black nylon jogging suit, maybe one hundred yards behind us. He was tal and lean, with the kind of stature that said he knows what he wants. I didn' recognize him and wondered if he lived in the neighborhood.

turned the co er, and I pulled Lola's leash trying unsuccessfully to focus her attention back ~o our walk. He was getting closer, and I readjusted my grip on

the leash, atte~pting to get a firmer hold. Too late. She felt the slack in tension and took off, s aight for the man and his dog. She only wanted to play, but her exuberance w s misinterpreted. The man picked up his dog, and Lola jumped up barking he reply to the snippy dog. I was by his side in a matter of seconds, and just as I g t a hold of her leash he spit his words. 12

"You bette get your dog or I'm gonna kick him in the fucking head."

I was slow to process his words, but quick to reply.

"I just gra bed her, asshole."

"Fuck you cunt," he said as he set his dog back on the ground several feet

Lola and I tood there for a moment. I was stunned. My beautiful, gentle girl looked up t me with her cocked head, smiling with slightly pursed lips and a just visible to gue, her metronomic tail cutting through the crisp morning air.

What now? sh seemed to ask. I watched his profile grow smaller and smaller. I tried to shake 'm off and start again as we took a detour into the mismatched

Sears Bungalo s and brick colonials that pepper our neighborhood.

I began to ing. L-0-L-A Lola, L-0-L-A Lola. But in that moment, I understood th t something was missing from my songs. Something that Lola with all her de otion and affection could not instill in them. My songs had no melody. ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

I've spent y life looking for my father in the eyes of strangers. At thirty, you'd think I'd have outgrown this childhood obsession, but my mother didn't set the best ex ple of rational self-awareness. She lived life like an adrenaline junkie-alway looking for the next big rush. Most of the time, it was a man, often a younge man. As soon as the excitement of the hunt was over so was her interest and sh 'd move on to the next conquest. In a way, it made me feel like I was the grown up and she was the child. Maybe that's why her impending death brought ut the child in me. Or maybe I just dreamed that part.

My mothe was one of those people who dominated any room she entered.

To other peopl , she was eccentric, maybe even a little trashy. To me, she was bigger than lif . She was everything I loved, everything I had, but at the same time I longed t be everything she wasn't. My mother didn't think before acting-she ju jumped right into the center of anything and everything.

Sometimes it as an exciting surprise. Sometimes it was a disaster. And this was the gift or e curse I carried with me into adulthood. I jumped.

13 14

The sun bl· ded me that morning as I sat in the sterile surroundings watching rerun of Bonanza. My neck ached from sleeping in a chair. I had dreamed about my father that night. Through the blinds, the morning light cast stripes on the all, and stillness inhabited the room. Only dust particles drifted in the rays of s nlight. Despite the heat, goose bumps rose to the surface of my skin. In most b ildings I knew, the space seemed to belong to the structure; bound by the r om. Here the room seemed to be bound by the space, as if it existed in a va um, absent the encumbrances of time and place. I realized this was not a spac that sustained life, and I knew it would be one of my last days

Though I hlad grown accustomed to the smell of sickness, the putrid odor of hospital food s l1 made me gag. I could tell breakfast was on the way. I looked at my mother's tenuous limbs lying limp against the crisp white sheets. Before me lay a worn who never sat still for more than a few minutes at a time. I went to the be and put my hand to her cheek. Her skin was taut and smooth.

Her eyes flutte ed open at the touch.

"Good mo g," she said in a raspy whisper. 15

"Are you lfte for school?" she asked. A sign of her oncoming dementia. She

I had already los~ the ability to control most of her bodily functions, but her mind I was just now st~rting to slip. I brought her a cup of water and helped her sit up. !

We sat for a feJ minutes and I held her hand as she acknowledged the new day.

I rememJro another day six months before, when I had sat in the same

I hospital holdinf my mother's hand before her second mastectomy.

! "Now we'~l both be flat chested," she had joked, expressing her distaste for

I the flannel shir~s she considered unflattering to my figure. My mother wore her I cleavage like Jester Prynne wore the scarlet A. I looked at her thinning auburn I hair, hair that Jsed to be long and thick like my own.

I "Stop zat ~ight now," my mother had said. A trace of her German accent,

I usually barely rerceptible, was apparent in the command.

I I "I don't 14-ow how," I said as the tears fell. And I didn't.

I can't say]that my mother shielded me from life's heartaches-she certainly I I didn't mean tof But when life got complicated, she just moved on. Staying in

I one place too l~ng was tantamount to a life of monotony, and to my mother that

I was as close toj death as you could get. I can tell you now, what she was really doing was roting away. I wanted to run away too. 16

Growing up with my mother, the only constants in life were the knowledge

I that we would1't be in any one place for very long and the black-and-white

television that ~e carted to each new town in the big blue Chevy we called

Gracie. And as1 with many children of single parents, that television became my I companion, m)f best friend. I watched TV with my many faceless babysitters

while my mother was out on her dates. I watched TV when I came home from I school and waired for my mother to get off from whatever new job she had

talked her wayI into. I lost myself in the world of television. What I saw on the

I screen became f Y reality. I turned inward and played out the situations of my

life in the company of my favorite TV characters, like another episode yet to air.

I turned fdur in 1963, the year that Kennedy was assassinated. I'm not sure

I if it was the impges of his children on the TV or just my own coming-of-age, but it was the yearlthat I noticed I didn't have a father like other kids. I "Where is my daddy?" I asked my mother.

1

My mothJr responded then and over the years with verbal ambivalence. I I But as I grew 1lder, I could see the muscles tighten in her neck and what looked like a flash of ~adness cross her face. 17

"Your fath~r made a sudden and unexpected departure from our lives," she would say. An~ that would be the end of it. Of course, the implication that he had left us on ~urpose didn't occur to me until much later.

In the abserce of any other sustaining father figure, I turned to the dads I watched on thjt black-and-white TV. I day dreamed I was the long lost daughter

Ben Cartwright never knew he had. I'd gallop onto the Ponderosa Ranch like I

I belonged there. He'd greet me and instantly know I was his daughter. In the

I summertime, I pictured myself strolling down the streets of Mayberry holding hands with Anky Griffith and sucking on a lollipop. When I needed advice, I imagined mysJlf on Mike Brady's knee listening to his words of wisdom.

I thought 4bout these television fathers as I looked /around my mother's attic after her death land wondered how this task would be different if I'd had a father to share it with. I reached for the box of tissues and, finding it empty, threw it across the rooj. Looking at the crumpled white p · e accumulated at the bottom of the stairs, I rished that the tissues could wipe away more than just my tears. I used the back of my hand to dry my forehead. The heat was getting to me and I

I twisted my hair into a bun. The air felt good against my neck.

I 18

I wished the attic exhaust fan would suck me in and blow me out in a million different pieces to nourish the earth outside. Then my pain would have meaning. There was work to be done. I tried to give it my full attention, performing it like I was on an assembly line. One box for trash, one box for

Goodwill, one box to keep. But it was hard to look at my mother's belongings as just things. They were like stray pieces from a board game-no longer useful without the board to play on. She had been in this house longer than any other that I could remember. Still, I was astounded at the amount of stuff she had accumulated. There were Christmas garlands with dusty pinecones that I couldn't remember her ever using. There was an old dresser she had started to refinish and never completed-the drawers with a light oak finish and the rest in the original cherry wood.

I found a porcelain doll my grandparents had sent for Christmas the year I turned three. It arrived in the package from Germany with a broken arm.

"It's just a thing" my mother had said, as if the statement alone should soften my private tragedy. She did that a lot-make statements that seemed to exacerbate a hurt instead of soften a blow. Considering her sentiment, I was surprised she had kept the doll all these years. 19

I picked u~ one of the last boxes in the attic and carried it down to my mother's room.[ The hinged box was covered in a mothball-scented beige flowered fabrid years of dust having settled on its surface. It seemed strange I had never seen [the box before. Fumbling with its clasp, I ripped a fingernail.

I "Shit." I I left the r1om and returned with a screw driver, then plopped down on the bed and pulled[ the box in front of me. The rusting metal pieces of the clasp seemed fused tpgether. With the help of the screw driver, I loosened them and pried the box o~en.

I reached ~ and pulled out a stack of Elvis Presley records. Peace in the I Valley, GI Blues( Loving You. The titles were unfamiliar to me and I didn't recall I my mother listfning to Elvis' music. She certainly never mentioned being an

Elvis fan and spe didn't even own a record player. In fact, I had a vague memory of her abrupt!~ changing the station when "Are you Lonesome Tonight" came on the radio as G~acie took us from small town Nebraska to the suburbs of Chicago.

I looked at thelforty-five single, "Love me Tender/Any Way You Want Me." It

I was signed by :Elvis. It had to be a collector's item by now. I wondered how

I much it might [be worth. 20

Looking back in the box I found that the records had concealed a yellowed envelope con~g a stack of photos. I pulled out the photos and gasped. ' There in black-rd-white, my mother stood between Elvis Presley and another young man.

"Oh my Gld," I said aloud, wishing someone was around to share this with.

I turned 1photo over. Friedberg, Germany, 1959. I thumbed through the remaining photos. There were several of Elvis and the same young man dressed

' in military uni+rms with big smiles and their arms around each other's shoulder. TheJe were other photos with the two among a larger group of Gls in formal miliJ attire standing in front of a tank. Another photo showed the

' group out of uform on some sort of playing field. The man in the middle held

I a football. Notj.e of the photos were marked with names, only the place and date.

Friedberg, Gerbany, 1959. !

I took a dT" breath Friedberg, Germany, was the town where my mother had lived wherit her father served as a German liaison to the U.S. military. It was

' the town wher~ I was conceived. My mother left soon after. An American friend helped her get ia job in the U.S. as a favor to my grandfather-or so she told me.

How coul1 she not have mentioned that she had known Elvis Presley? My mind raced. Grd, if there were ever a conquest for her to gloat about, he would 21

i have been it. I rondered what else I didn't know about my mother and reached back into the b~x. I removed a smaller velvet covered box with MI Hummel stamped on th1 top. It contained the reverse mold of the Hummel figurine that my mother kepf on top her jewelry box for years. It had been a gift to her from

I my father, the tnly thing of his that she'd kept. She told me she was keeping it for me, so I wo ld have a little piece of him when she was gone. The figurine was a young gi~l sitting on the ground with a large umbrella over her left shoulder. A laiel on the side of the velvet box titled the piece "Umbrella Girl." I I noticed a piece rf paper tucked in the edge and pulled out a deteriorating note.

The faded scri~t read:

To my raint day girl,

Whatever lffe may bring, you will endure.

Your rainy ay boy I ! If the note was from my father, what did it mean? What intimate moment did it refer to? Clearly, it said something about how my father saw my mother.

Someone who as strong, a survivor maybe-she would have liked that. Maybe that was part o the attraction -being with someone who saw her as she saw herself. Or ma~be, she didn't see herself in that way until later. 22

I stared out the window at the dreary day with my discoveries spread on the bed around me as e significance of the items started to take shape in my mind. I picked up a ph to of Elvis and looked at his face. His large wide-set eyes seemed to smil on their own. I glanced up at the mirror above my mother's bureau. My o brown eyes were similar-puppy dog eyes, my grandmother once called the . I looked back at the photo. Could Elvis Presley be my father?

My mothe implied that finding my father would be disappointing. Maybe that was becau e he was already dead. Maybe she'd come to the States to be near him. If so, then why did my birth certificate read 'father unknown'? Had he rejected her? There were so many questions and my desire to get answers became overw elming. My urge to see a father figure in the face of celebrity was natural for me; had been doing it for years. But I wasn't a child anymore and television fanta ies were no longer enough to fill the hole. I needed to know facts.

I spent sev ral of my lunch hours with a research librarian over the next

several weeks. ! ventually, I was able to identify the men in the photos. They had all served 'th Elvis while he was in the army. He spent six months at Ft.

Hood in Texas r basic and advanced training before being sent to Germany. 23

He'd been assi ed to the 1st Medium Tank Battalion, 32nd Armor Regiment,

3rd Armored "vision, Ray Barracks, Friedberg, Germany in the fall of 1958. The division had a ag football team pictured in one of the photographs I found.

The division w rked with tanks-the M-48 Patton Battle Tank to be exact. Elvis learned to driv , load, and shoot, but then served as a jeep driver and reconnaissance scout. He was promoted to Sergeant on January 20, 1960 and then released f om active duty on March 5 of that year. Three months after I was born.

Some of biographies claim Elvis had a relationship with an unknown

German girl, p obably more than one according to others. He wasn't exactly the wholesome fa er figure I had envisioned in John Walton or Andy Taylor. And he was certain! no Ward Cleaver. But he was a father. He had one child. I supposed ther could have been others. I wondered if my mother had been one of the many w men he'd charmed. Maybe he was the reason she'd lost faith in finding a lasti g love.

But of cou se there was a more reasonable explanation. The surface of my face grew hot d I closed my eyes as I considered the alternative. The other man, pictured ith Elvis was Walter Ackerman. Walter had trained with Elvis before his assi ent to the 3rd Armored Division. About the time Elvis was 24 being promote , Walter's military career had abruptly ended. He'd been given a medical discha ge from the Army in November 1959 after being diagnosed with

Schizophrenia t the age of twenty-four. For the next fifteen years he lived in a mental institu · n in upstate New York. Since then, he'd held a number of odd jobs and lived · group homes. He was currently living in home in Bradenton, just a few hour away. It was close enough for me to drive there.

It was a M nday morning at 11:00 a.m. when I watched Walter Ackerman walk out of his building. He didn't look anything like his picture, but I

recognized the insignia of the 3rd Armored Division on his sleeve. The camouflage co the wore had probably fit him well as an Army corporal. Now, years later, the coat looked like it was blown up around his body and his bald head seemed t float between the inflated shoulders.

Walter w ked on the sidewalk along Brockton Boulevard as trucks passed,

leaving him in a haze of exhaust. At Keller Park, he turned off the road and cut

across the rece tly trimmed grass. I parked my car and followed him on foot. It

was late Augu t, but the maple trees were still lush and children still wore

shorts. Walter didn't notice the children's giggles as he shuffled through the 25

middle of their makeshift softball diamond in his black combat boots. He

walked with s ulders hunched and eyes focused on the ground.

"There go s Uncle Fester," I heard one of the children say.

There was a resemblance. Besides being bald, Walter had dark eyes that sat

deep in the sha owed recesses of their sockets.

As he pass d the tennis courts, he shifted a black backpack from his right

shoulder to his left and looked up at the red brick building that stood before him.

I stopped and aited. When he reached the steps, he took them slowly, as if needing to giv each one proper consideration. A young boy with carrot-red hair passed him bo going to and coming from the book drop at the entrance to the

library.

It was qui t when I followed Walter in. He walked across the red-tiled floor

toward the sta'rs that led up to the second floor. Holding onto the rail with one hand and his b ckpack with the other, he took each step with the same care he had taken the teps outside.

"Hello, W lter," a librarian said as she came bounding down the stairs.

Walter lo ked up and nodded, then brought his eyes back to the floor. At the top of the tairs, he walked to the right, passed the periodicals and newspapers, d then turned left down a row of non-fiction books. He followed 26 the brown met 1 bookshelves to a hidden back comer of the library and walked toward a row o small study tables along the windows. After dodging a book cart between ai les, I caught up with him. He was looking at a table that was already taken.

"Oh my," e said as he approached the next table. He sat down in the chair without taking ff his coat and I moved to a table where I could watch him. I pulled several ooks from my own bag and pretended to read.

He brought his backpack to the table and pulled out a drawing pad and several loose drawings He sat stooped over the papers and took a plastic bag of colored pens from the ackpack. He moved the drawing pad to the side and placed the pile of loose dr wings directly in front of him, then turned them over one by one, giving ea a thorough inspection. At last, he pulled one drawing out of the pile and put th rest with the drawing pad. After untwisting the twist-tie, he removed ten p ns from the bag, placing them in an even row to the left of his drawing.

im use each pen in the order he'd arranged them on the table.

After an hour, alter stood up and threw a crumpled paper in the wastebasket behind him. en he walked back along the bookshelves, leaving his drawings at the table. 27

I decided t go over and take a peek. The drawing was upside down from where I stood, ut the face was unmistakable. It was Elvis Presley, wearing one of the tacky Li erace-style jumpsuits he was famous for in the 1970s.

I smiled a d sat back down at my table. I wasn't ready to forgive her, but I started to unde stand why my mother might have hidden this man from me. I heard a shuffli g behind me and busied myself with my things. Walter sat down at his table, fo sing on his last drawing and starting again with the first pen in the row.

Sometime ater, he drew the plastic bag from his backpack and put away all of the colored ens. After placing each of his drawings in a pile, he reached across the table for his drawing pad.

"Oh my," e said.

Walter ha dropped his papers on the floor. I looked down at them and saw that they were ll drawings of Elvis in different clothes. One outfit with a high collar was colo ed a bright shade of aqua blue, like the water at a dolphin show.

Another color 1 shirt opened low in the front showing off Elvis' bare chest.

He bent d wn to pick up the drawings and checked the time on his watch.

"Oh my," e said. 28

He stood p with his drawings and packed them away before slowly making his wa down the steps and out of the library. It started to rain as he approached hi building a little while later. He stopped and let the rain fall on him as it grew o a downpour. Dropping his bag to the ground, he raised his arms and look d up at the sky as if embracing an old friend. After a moment ~r two, he picked up his bag and walked into the building.

I waited a ew minutes and tried to gather my thoughts as I listened to the rain thump ag inst the roof of my car. I had no idea how his illness may have

ory, but he obviously still felt some connection to Elvis. Was his reality as obs red today as it had been at the time he was discharged? I knew there was a ch ce he wouldn't remember my mother, but I needed to talk to him - I needed to know him. I tried to prepare myself for the possibilities. I was just so close.

Opening y umbrella, I climbed out of the car and walked to the building.

The inside hal ay was dark with moldy spotted walls and a musty smell. A young man si · g at a desk just inside the door looked up.

"May I he p you?"

"I'm here o see Walter Ackerman," I said. 29

relative?" the man asked as I signed the visitor log. "Walter

doesn't get m

"Ah, no- ore like a family friend." I said. He pointed to Walter's room

down the hall n the right.

n his door and heard movement on the other side. He was slow

to respond.

Walter fin Uy opened the door, still dripping in his camouflage coat.

"Hello. Y u don't know me, but... well, I'm wondering if you can tell me

about some pe ple you knew when you were in the Army."

Walter re ained silent for a minute as he looked me over. Then he waved

way from the door.

"Sit down " he said pointing to an armchair.

Walter's rnishings were simple-a twin bed, a dresser, a short book case,

the armchair, d a black-and-white television turned on to the news. Three of

the white plast r walls were bare and white, but the fourth was completely covered, plast red with hundreds of colorful drawings of Elvis.

He walked to ·s dresser and poured a cup of coffee from an electric pot.

"Coffee?"

"Yes, th you." 30

"It's time f r the news," Walter said as he handed me the coffee.

Walter we t to the television and turned up the volume before sitting down on his bed.

I was take aback by his shortness, but continued to take in my surroundings. e afternoon light peeked around the edges of the vinyl shades

the buzzing fluorescent light above my head. The ugly lime­ green bedspre d reminded me of a 1970s leisure suit I once wore for Halloween.

Walter's bookc se contained piles of newspapers and old picture books of

At last he aid to me in a gruff voice, "What do you want to know?"

other recently died, and I've been going through her things. I found a numb r of photos of your division."

"He was · my division, you know," he said pointing to the drawings on the wall.

"Yes, actu lly he was in some of the photos I found. I wonder if you remember any ing about any girlfriends he had back then."

"He had a lot of girlfriends," Walter said smugly.

"I imagine so," I said with a smile. I wavered, then took the photo of Walter with my moth r and Elvis and handed it to him. "Do you remember her?" 31

His face w nt white and he hesitated. "Yes, I remember, but she wasn't his girlfriend."

"She wasn t?" I tried to remain unconcerned-but he did remember, he definitely reme bered my mother.

11 Absolute not," he said before excusing himself to use the restroom.

I looked at the photo again, hoping to see something new that would reveal the secret of th ir relationship. There was nothing. I scanned the room, thinking about my child ood and how I had come to this place on a lark to see this strange, dam.a ed man. The adventure had given me the sort of natural high that I imagined my mother would have appreciated. But I still wasn't sure what

I was looking f r, or for that matter what I had found. I started to think my visit had been a co plete waste of time when something caught my eye and I felt the sting of hot cof ee on my lap. A Hummel figurine sat perched on the dresser, opposite the co fee pot. It was a little boy sitting on the ground, holding an umbrella over ·s left shoulder. I jumped up to find a towel. Turning away from the chair I foun myself face to face with Walter. I hadn't heard him return.

He was staring at me.

"I thought you looked familiar," he said.

I realized en, I wasn't looking into the eyes of a stranger. COUCH POTATO CHRONICLES

I love my ofa. I wanted a red one when I was looking for new furniture last summer after arting with the mauve, leather loveseat and chair I had acquired from my moth r ten years earlier that were now covered with little nicks from my cats' claws. But, I'm not sorry I ended up with the soft, suede-like, royal blue, micro-fib r upholstery. It complements the primary colored accents in the white-walled r ing room of my rented duplex. The sofa fits perfectly between the wall and e landing to the stairs and is just long enough for me to lie on without my fe t dangling off the end. Comfort is important because I lie on it in a state of dubi us slumber after I let my mixed breed, black and tan dog, Lola, out every mo · g. That way I don't have to get out of bed a second time when she decides te minutes later that she wants to come in. But perhaps the best thing about m sofa is that it doesn't have removable cushions. There are no holes between cushions to swallow up a foot because the cushions don't fit together quite ·ght, no chance to lose pocket change or the remote, and no place to accumulate irt and breadcrumbs. Did I mention it's not a pull-out?

32 33

They really are 't as comfortable to lie on. My sofa is just the right combination of softness and firmness for sitting up or lying down.

Today, the words sofa and couch are interchangeable. I am just as likely to describe the mi~fiber clad piece of furniture in my living room as a couch, as I am to describe t as a sofa. However, the words did not always mean the same thing. The wo d couch comes from the French word couche meaning "a bed lair" or from coucher meaning "to lie down." Historically, the couch had only one raised end wi half of a back. Meanwhile, sofa from the Arabic word suffa meaning "long stuffed seat for reclining," referred to a piece of furniture with both ends raise and a full back.

It was ovet Christmas break when I really gained an appreciation for my sofa. I used it to wile away hours of bone-chilling winter days by napping and sitting back to njoy all that television has to offer in news and entertainment.

! One of those d ys, as I sat there with my eyes glued to the television watching

Ellen Degener s boogie down to some 1970s re-mix, my cell phone sounded off with its four-s cond ditty indicating I had a text message. I leaned forward and picked it up of the glass coffee table recognizing the number of a friend from my 34

graduate wri · g program. "You better be writing," it said. Writing? Are you

kidding? Why would I be writing when I could be enjoying this great sofa?

So, I know what you're thinking. I am some kind of couch potato. Guilty as

charged. The oday Show, Ellen, Days of Our Lives, why there's hardly reason to

get up off the s fa until well past noon. Well, maybe to eat. But guess what?

Yup, I do that n my sofa too. Now if only I were guy I could keep a bottle next

to the sofa to p ss in.

We've all een the titles: Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned from

____ (ins rt my cat, my dog, in kindergarten, etc.). And while we may be

skeptical abou such pop logic, there's the smallest bit of truth to these claims. In

fact, I've recen ly come to believe that Everything I Need to Know I Learned

from My Sofa. Semantics is important here, because I'm not implying that my

sofa is a teach , but a significant backdrop and vantage point for my schooling.

In the Sec nd Dynasty, furniture was reserved for royalty and high-ranking

members of so iety. Today, few American households lack some form of sofa or

couch, but the are just as likely to be found in the offices of prominent businessmen a d politicians. In 2001, former President Clinton purchased a

$2,800 sofa fro the Prague collection of furniture designer Christopher Ciccone 35

(Madonna's br th.er) for his new office in Harlem. In the same year, an eighty­

year-old leathe sofa became the source of a squabble between the Canadian

Parliamentary ress Gallery and the Parliament Hills acting curator as a result of

its exposure to egrading temperatures and cigarette smoke.

The first o my lessons from my sofa-politics. It was from my sofa last fall,

after hours of ection commentary, that I watched George W. Bush get elected

for a second te as the 43rd president of the United States. Not wanting to be

exposed to de rading commentary and second-hand bullshit, I had subsequently

avoided all tel vision coverage that required listening to him speak. So it wasn't because I want d to or because I had switched to it of my own volition, mind

you, that I fou d myself watching a presidential news conference in December.

It was because they interrupted my regularly scheduled program already in

progress. I do 't remember what was said, it wasn't what enlightened me

anyway. Wha I learned, while stretched out across my cushy couch, was that

the distance fr m my sofa to the television is such that the tip of my middle

finger is the ex ct size of George Bush's face. It was like a little puppet with

George Bush air. Bring out Cheney and Rumsfeld and I'll use a middle toe.

Oh, the fun ne er ends. 36

erica, the couch has a variety of cultural associations. It is

known as the sychologist' s favorite tool for getting to the heart of the

unconscious d in Hollywood as the place where young actresses stage their

first perform ce for casting directors. Teenagers make out on couches while babysitting nei hborhood kids. College students test their new found

independence ·th sexual escapades on their dorm room couches. Adults come

g day at work to collapse on the couch before starting dinner.

The secon of my lessons from my sofa-thrift. My mother taught me a lot

of things grow g up, and while the importance of being financially independent

was one of the , saving money was never her strong suit. This would seem to

go against con entional wisdom. After all, my mother was single and raising a

child on her o . Granted she got child support from my father, but I think she

was fairly for ate in her jobs. We lived in middle-class neighborhoods in

Colorado and oved from new house to new house whenever the mood struck

her. But, her g od fortune ran out after she moved to Florida when I was in

college. She w s laid off and then jobless for two years. When she did get a job,

it was at much lower pay than she had been accustomed to. She had to learn 37

how to live on 1 ss. As I sat on my sofa one evening talking to her on the phone

after the holida s, it occurred to me that I probably inherited this love of sofa

from my moth,r. I could picture her on the elephant-colored leather sofa where

she spent man~ of her waking hours, her coffee table topped with an empty

plate, magazint, nail files, a calculator, her bills, and the remote. She was telling

me about her u oming gall bladder surgery, explaining the hospital policy of

sending all r~oved organs out for pathology-a consequence of an ever I increasing sensitivity to a malpractice lawsuits. She should have known then

that her strate~ for thrift would be unacceptable.

"I told the doctor I just want to take my gall bladder home," she said.

"Why?" I ~sked, dumbfounded.

I "So I can +t it up myself. I already know it has stones, why should I pay for

a pathologist?'~

Why,ind.k.

I

I Couches ~lay such a dominant role in American culture that television

i sitcoms rarely ~ail to include them as prominent props. In the ever-changing I opening to Thd Simpsons, the Simpson family dashes to their couch while I undergoing a fariety of bodily transformations. The comfy sofa in Central Perk

I

i

I I J 38

! I provided a plaf to socialize every time the Friends cast stopped in for cappuccino. O~ Roseanne, the living room couch frequently set the scene for

domestic tribulltions and family meetings. I

The third Jf my lessons from my sofa-relationships. There is no better

I crowd to learn rbout relationships from than Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and

Samantha. Tw~nty- and thirty-something single women across the country shed

I a tear or two wren the popular HBO series, Sex and the City, came to a conclusion

! last year. And imY neighbor Shelley and I were no exceptions. Shelley had had a

rotten couple o~ weeks. She was fired the week before Christmas for I acknowledging that she didn't have any respect for a co-worker. But the job loss wasn't what gJt to Shelley; it was the realization that she wasn't where she I wanted to be i~ life. She is thirty-four and single and convinced that she should have been marhed about five years ago. We had become close friends in the six

I months I had f own her and not in small part because her refrains about men

! often echoed ~y own. The quandary of meeting men in a transient city that turns over wiJ the tide of each new administration had us both down on the I whole dating ~cene. I should have known better than to agree to a Sex and the

City marathonlthat Sunday. But I did, and we rented an entire season. Though I I

I 39 have passed thl days following a breakup comforted by the chaos of Carrie

Bradshaw's lovr life, Sex and the City hardly offers a realistic depiction of singlehood. With each episode, Shelley became more and more sullen. But it wasn't until Ca~ie, strolling down a Manhattan street in her three-inch Manolos, bumped into her next relationship on a street comer that Shelley exploded from the chaise that Ltches my sofa.

"They me1t men so easily, it PISSES me off!"

You said it, sister. I shifted my weight off the beige chenille pillow and sat

up on the sofa. I Clearly we weren't going to meet anyone sitting here on our keisters.

Formal se1ting is believed to date back to the Egyptians around 3,000 B.C.

Much of what is known about the history of furniture comes from its depiction in the remains of ~aintings and sculpture from earlier eras. However, thanks to the elaborate buri11 practices in some cultures, real pieces have been discovered in ancient tombs. Animal couches and a throne chair were excavated from the tomb of Tut~amen in 1921. In 2000, archaeologists discovered the ancient tomb of a highranking Chinese official in China's Shaanxi Province that 40 included a colo~sal stone sofa dating back 1,400 years. Cut from raw rock, the

I

two-ton sofa m~asured 2.28 meters long, 1.03 meters wide, and 1.17 meters high.

My fourth lesson from my sofa-religion. My dad, stepmother, and

I seventeen-yearT°ld brother, Tyler, were at my house for Christmas Eve this year.

We had finisheb. our dinner of steak, potatoes, salad, and Oreo pie and retired to

I the living rooI11f. We planned to attend a church service later that evening. My stepmother, D~se, the only one of us raised in the church, had been counting

I on it. Or so I ttj.ought. Tyler and I left to take Lola for an evening walk before the service. We refumed a half hour later, and I saw that my sofa had become I Denise's pew. She was stretched out, lying against my dad with her feet up. The

I television was pn and my dad, always the remote driver, muted it. Denise sat up.

"Will you r1YS be real disappointed if we don't go to church?" she said.

"I'm feeling aJtuny tired now." I I looked at my dad and my brother and laughed. I knew she was the only one who had Janted to go anyway.

I "It's just a1building," Tyler said emphatically. 41

I I wondere1 if that's what the children thought of the Tower of Babel, as their parents labore to reach God and the heavens. Not yet of legal age, Tyler's sensibilities wak the fine line between adult understanding and childish conceit. ! My brother is b6ilding his own House of Truth. i

Wherever ~ey are located, we often think of sofas as places to relax. But I sofas provide a place of refuge and solitude that can be both comforting and

disturbing. Fof owing the death of his first wife, painter and critic Sidney

Tillman wrote ff his new sofa, "Mine is the family seat (of just cme, now), a

I throne withou~ a court, from which, sans retinue, I behold my solitude."

My fifth llson from my sofa-companionship. Though I'd like to think I'm

le, there are certainly times when I wonder if I will ever find

someone. Wi my friends off visiting family in parts unknown, my family off to

Florida for a cJuple of weeks, and nothing to do, I spent a number of nights over

i the Christmas treak in my pajamas by 8:00 p.m., sitting on my sofa with my

grandmother'~ peach afghan draped across my lap. Now, I love Law & Order as much as the n1xt person, but such shows do little to cure one's longing for company. I

I 42

One night, s I sat there thinking how nice it would be to have someone next

to me to cuddl up with, pulling the afghan up to our chins, and not even needing to talk, I noticed the soft furry head under my hand. Lola was stretched out next to me, er feet hanging off the sofa and her head in my lap. And then,

as the televisio went silent for a moment I heard the low, rumbling purr of

Diesel, my nin year-old tortoise shell, who was curled up on the back of the sofa

next to the wal . I looked to my left and saw that Zoe, my eight-year-old grey

and white shor air, was also on back of the sofa at the other end, keeping a close

eye out for any sudden movement from Lola, who lay beneath her. As I took

stock of my co pany, Lola let out one of her unladylike sighs.

I couldn't hav agreed more.

I love my ofa. It isn't often a place of great productivity, but as I've come to

realize, produ tivity is not the only source of learning. I've heard that the couch

potato life is rse for one's health than smoking, but sometimes the couch

potato life isn' about exposure to cathode rays and obesity. Sometimes it's about

taking invento of life's less obvious lessons. I know what you're thinking. I

should turn of the television and pick up a book. Don't worry, I do that quite often. But gu s where I read? SEARCHING FOR FAIRIES

color of sadness. I can see it in the photograph. My thumb brushes the em ossed studio name as I pick it up. Maxwell, Glace Bay N.S. The child's name is ritten in cursive script along the bottom: "Emmie MacDonald at

7 yrs." She has a boy cut, her hair straight and cropped short; almost like she tried to cut it h rself. Except for the clothes, you might even think she was a boy.

She wears a sh rt dress of white cotton that hangs a couple of inches above her knees. It has el ow-length sleeves with scalloped edging. A single embroidered flower sits in e center of the neckline and a band of scalloped-edged white fabric is loosel wrapped around the waistline. Knit black tights cover her legs and she wears lack ankle-high leather boots with buttons up the sides.

The photo raph has discolored over time; the hues of brown and beige are dull and matte. Shadows in the folds of the floor-length curtain that serves as a backdrop sugg st a storm -dark murky clouds against a light grey sky. She stands next to chair with a short back of ornately carved wood and dark checked fabric. The chair is low to the ground, obviously for a child. In her

43 44 left hand she h Ids what looks like a photograph resting it on the cushioned arm of the chair. S 'snot a particularly pretty girl, but she is petite and not unattractive. er features are indistinct, except for dark inquisitive eyes and half turned up lips at say she's only smiling because she was told to. She holds herself stiffly, e aggerating the pose. There is someplace she'd rather be, other clothes she'd r ther wear. But, I think it's those eyes, eyes that seem like they'll bore right thro gh you, that make me see sorrow in her future.

The year ould have been 1915, probably not long after the death of her baby brother d shortly before the death of her father. She would have been living in the ho se on South Street at that time, four blocks from Town Hall and three blocks fr m Glace Bay Harbour. Though her father worked the mines, they didn't live in a ompany house. Instead, Emmie lived in her grandfather's house, a white o story Victorian, with her mother, father, and grandmother.

The house is still there today, I've seen it. But, I imagine little else remains the same. By 1 12 the Dominion Coal Company was operating sixteen collieries in Glace Bay d producing forty percent of Canada's coal. What was at that time a bustling industrial town is now little more than a tourist stop on the way from Louisbur to the Cabot Trail. The Cape Breton Miners Museum is all that is left to speak to at life. A visit to the museum includes a tour of an actual coal 45 mine guided b retired miners who "promise to entertain." So says the brochure. It de cribes the company housing and Miners' Village with words like charming, quain , and beautiful. But I've read about that life in my grandmother's journals and n ne of these words apply.

Emmie's g andmother, Old Granny, was a devout Scotch Presbyterian, who continued to s eak Gaelic despite the growing stigma associated with using the language. Em ie didn't know Gaelic, so they rarely interacted. But Old

Granny's prese ce was hard to ignore. She was a severe looking woman, with a sharp sloping ose, finely chiseled cheek bones, and eyes that sat far back in darkened sock ts. Emmie sometimes thought if she peeled away her skin, there would just be skull-no flesh at all. Her hair, parted in the middle, was pulled tightly against er scalp and wrapped in a bun at the nape of her neck. She always dresse in black with a white jabot at her throat that reminded Emmie of her baby broth r's bibs. Old Granny spent most of her time in the parlor, her knobby fingers busy with crochet needles or wrapped around the black leather bound bible sh kept close at hand. She had a habit of muttering to herself.

Emmie would sk her father what she was saying.

"She's tal ·ng about those fairies again," he would answer. 46

Emmie wa intrigued, she wanted to know more about the fairies, but he didn't elaborat . It could be that he didn't know any more, but more likely he didn't believe. he would realize much later that Old Granny was not

kindly mystical creatures that dwell in the remote forests of her storybooks, bu warding off dark spiritual beings with wicked intentions.

Old Granny sc ffed at Emmie's mother, breaking into a loud rambling of unintelligible ords that nonetheless conveyed her displeasure. Annie was a farm girl, lithe d fair, born on the eastern shore of the mainland, not far from

Mulgrave. She had come to Cape Breton looking for work and was hired as a housekeeper in the MacDonald house when Emmie's grandfather was still alive.

The job was a g od one and included room and board. But, it was the old man's son Roddy that sold her on it.

Roddy "R d" MacDonald was a small man, but he was kind and intelligent.

He talked to he about books, and though he was a laborer, he seemed to her rather refined. oddy, a red head, was given the name "Red" to differentiate him from the o er Roddy MacDonald's in Glace Bay. Annie married him within a year. He was a good husband. He adored their daughter Emmie, though he had hoped for boy. 47

Uncle Angus made the summer of 1915 particularly lively. He

was a stout m with wide shoulders and thick legs. Emmie laughed when he

pulled her ont is lap and tickled her cheek with his red whiskers. Sometimes

she felt bad for laughing; she knew her mother was still sad about the death of

her baby broth r Alfred. (After six months Annie still hadn't moved the crib).

But Uncle Ang s could make her laugh just by crinkling his nose. She loved

listening to hi play his bagpipes; he'd wrap his red lips around the brown

sticks and the laid bag would blow up like a balloon. The noise was funny­

like screaming onkeys, though she had never seen a monkey, much less heard

one. But too o ten, Uncle Angus was drinking Scotch, his bulbous nose turning beet red as he rgued with her father about the mines. Emmie's father had just joined the new union. Uncle Angus was a superintendent of mines up in

Newfoundlan . One evening, soon after he arrived, she heard her father's voice

rising in the ki chen; he was talking about cost of living, miner's wages, and coal

profits. But the only word that she could make sense of was poverty.

Emmie di n' t understand why things were so much worse for other families. But s e saw it. She saw the suppers that consisted of bread and tea.

She saw the di ty and worn clothes the kids wore to school. And she saw the 48 young boys, on y a few years older than herself, coming home from a ten-hour shift at the colli ry with blackened faces and hands.

e, don't you see, we're in the war now," Uncle Angus said. "The country needs

they're talkin bout a strike," her father said.

"Strikin won't o no one a lick a good," Uncle Angus replied. "Company can't afford to pay e workers any more an what they already do."

"Union sa s they'll back us."

"Don't ma e no difference, y'all go on strike, those families just gonna starve."

ilies starvin now," her father yelled with a slam of the door. He wouldn't be h me until late into the night. It seemed the brothers couldn't stand to be around o e another.

Emmie w s curious enough to listen to some of the arguing from another room, but she idn't want to be around her father or her uncle when they'd been drinking. Aft r she heard the slam, she knew Uncle Angus would make himself at home in the kitchen with his Scotch, so she took off to look for playmates,

Kelly, an old I ·sh Setter with a shiny red coat close at her heels. She liked to 49

I play with Georfe up the street, but she had to be secretive about it. Once when her mother foufd her playing with him, she dragged her home.

I "I don't wt.t to see you playing with those Catholic kids, Emmie," her mom

I said. "We just fon't mix with them."

I But Emmi1 knew that was stupid. She mixed with Georgie just fine. He was

I a couple years Ider, but she liked him cause he didn't mind playing with girls.

I Sometimes, ther' climbed up a big gnarly oak tree and spied on old Mrs.

MacGregor wh, lived across the way. Georgie said she sometimes forgot to close the curta~, so you could watch her getting dressed. i One day, ~ey were out by the harbour. The sky was grey and cloudy from ! the rain, diffus~g the sunlight. Not many people were around on account of the i weather. Em~e walked barefoot in the sand, scanning the ground and stopping

I to pick up a shtll every few steps. Storms always washed up the best shells. The

I I salty air and s1fell of rain only partially masked the stench of rotting fish as they approached thj wharf.

I Georgie cJlled to Emmie from behind the Moffat Bait Shack. "You gotta come see this,"1 he said.

I Emmie tip:toed along the wood planks, careful to avoid splinters. When she found Georgie )he was standing proudly with his pants around his ankles, as if

j 50 exposing his prtvates was the most profound act of bravery. Emmie looked down, then up ft his face. He seemed to be waiting for her to run and scream.

"So what,"j she said.

"Bet you never seen one of these before," Georgie said, smiling like he was showing off a fJrst place trophy.

"I seen myjbaby brother," Emmie said and then tiptoed away in search of the perfect sea fhell.

After witnLsing the argument with her father and Uncle Angus, Emmie and

Kelly made the~r way to Georgie's yard; he wasn't outside where she expected to find him. The tmall brick colored house didn't have much of a yard. She started kicking the dir, driveway with her black shoes, drawing pictures with her toe, hoping he might show up. Georgie's mother opened a shutter and stuck her head out the window to shake a rug. Greasy wisps of hair hung around her face, unwilling to b~ restrained.

"Georgie ron't be playin much anymore," his mother said, seeing Emmie in the yard. "He's gone up the colliery to work." Her face was haggard, her eyes swollen and re~. 51

Emmie wat disappointed. She didn't think Georgie could even lift a pan shovel, but she . upposed there were other things he could do. She'd have to spend more time with Peggy down the way. Emmie didn't think Peggy was very much fun, though her mother was always trying to convince her to spend more time with: Peggy. But Peggy didn't like to play outside; she liked to play with dolls.

Emmie defded to walk down the street to Town Hall. Sometimes some of the neighborhopd boys played ball in the empty lot next door. She decided it would be more[ fun to watch them than playing with Peggy's silly rag dolls.

Kelly trotted b~hind as she made her way past the clapboard houses with peeling paint and sagg~g porches.

They had jpst finished building Town Hall the previous year. When they got to the lot, Jere were no kids around. Kelly followed Emmie around the tall I

i stone building. I A group of trees ran along a quiet brook adjacent to the side of i the building. t.ie decided to search for Old Granny's fairies among the trees.

Kelly ran ahea to drink from the brook. Emmie circled one of the larger trees I

i and got down I her knees to look in a hole at the base of the tree, forgetting how angry her lmother would be if she got her clothes dirty. She had important

I business to att,nd to. 52

The hole as dark and she couldn't see into it. She was about to stick her hand in when s meone approached from behind blacking out the sunlight with his massive bo y. She turned around and looked up. A big man stood over her, his face dusty ith coal so that she could make out little more than the whites of his eyes.

doin down there young lady?" he said.

Emmie sto d up and brushed off her knees. As she looked at him in the light, she realiz d he was familiar. She had seen him talking to her father, but she didn't kno who he was.

"I'm look· g for fairies," she said.

"Fairies?"

"Yup, fairi s," she said, and then added "You're the biggest man I ever seen." He eru ted in a deep guttural laugh.

"You don' want to go looking for them creatures," he said, "and you better hope they don' come looking for you."

Emmie jus shrugged her shoulders and decided to head home. The air was heavy and a d se fog was rolling in off the water. 53

I'm careful not to get my fingerprints on the photograph. It's all I have of

her at this age a little piece of her history, my history. I want to know this little

girl. I look in ose eyes wondering what they witnessed. But all I have is my

memories of h and the stilted script in this old weathered journal.

By the end of the summer, Emmie's father was seldom sober. There had been two cave- s in two months, five miners dead. The company was refusing

to help the wid ws and Roddy was furious. Emmie and Georgie followed him

one day to the iner' s village. Barefoot children with dirty faces watched from

open doorway . The mothers pulled back curtains, so their voyeurism was less

obvious. They all knew what was coming. The company sent five men to evict

the woman fro the company house-her husband, one of those to die in the most recent ca e-in.

Emmie's f ther and two other men from the union had come to try and stop it, their stride ong and confidant despite their recent visit to the pub. Emmie and Georgie s them come out. Slinking along each block they hid behind fences and tre to avoid being seen. When they got close to the miner's village they were care 1 to avoid being spotted. 54

y men circled the doorway. The woman stood on the threshold,

one child pulli g at her leg from inside and another sitting at her feet, screaming.

As she picked p the screaming child, Emmie's father and the other two men

approached. T o of the company men turned to face them, putting their hands

out and wa · g them to stay back. Words were exchanged and then she saw

her father take step closer. The closest company man swung catching her

chin. He stumbled back and then gained his balance before

charging forw rd. The woman had backed into the house pulling both children

out of the way. Emmie made a movement forward, she needed to help him, but

Georgie grabb d her arm, pulling her back. She thrashed and screamed. He sat

on her. Shew tched as her father hit the ground face first, one man kicked him

in the abdome , another in the side. As he raised his head, a boot landed on the back of his nee . More kicks to his slacken body. His companions also down on

the ground, th company men turned back to the woman grabbing her by the

wrist, her othe hand clinging to a potato sack of belongings and now both

children screa ing, grasping at her dress. Her eyes were wide with fear, tears

crusting her c eeks. 55

Emmie's f ther spent nearly a week in bed, his face misshapen and purple, bruises down b th sides of his torso. According to the doctor he had three broken ribs. U de Angus was gone, headed back to Newfoundland to deal with his own miners It was probably better. Emmie suspected he would only make things worse. er father never realized she witnessed the beating. Neighbors came out of the r houses to help the men as soon as it was over. When Georgie let her up, Em ie ran-out of the miner's village, across the school yard, over two streets, pas Town Hall straight to her house, and then straight to her room

back. Emmie crawled into her bed, pulled the covers over her head and cried ntil she heard the men helping her father into the house.

She spent everal days by her father's side, not wanting to let him out of her sight. But he w s growing cross with her clinging.

"Why don't you go outside and play," he said. "Take that dog with you."

Emmie di as he suggested, but moved like a slug.

give me some peace!" her father yelled.

walked out. Kelly followed her down to Georgie's house. He wasn't in the y rd again so she walked around the edge of the house, thinking she would take a peek in the windows. She heard the shouting before she even looked in. 56

"Goddam woman!"

"Please don't," she begged.

It was the kitchen window; Georgie's mom was cowering by the stove as his father approached her, hand raised. Emmie nearly felt the sting as his hand struck the woman's cheek knocking her back into the stove. He grabbed at her clothes, ripping the bodice of her dress until her breasts were bare, exposed.

Emmie slunk down along the wall, turning her back against the rough red wood.

She looked up and saw Georgie standing a couple meters away, mute and staring.

Emmie's father was still in pain, but they couldn't afford any more rest. Her

mother wrapped bandages tight around his chest. He was back at the mines, beholden to the company for his livelihood. A relative calm came over the

house. Old Granny was giving Annie a break, after she cared for Roddy all

week. Annie was back to her regular housework, and Emmie was preparing to

start the new school year.

Her father began working the eleven to seven shift, so she often found him

sitting in the kitchen in the afternoons. Other union men had been coming

around; they had long conversations over whiskey. Their meetings had an air of 57 preparation. Emmie became anxious, the image of her father, nose to the dirt with a boot against his neck appeared in her dreams. She'd wake with a start, crying out. Annie didn't know what to make of the nightmares. Emmie didn't tell her about them, only said she was scared.

Several weeks after the incident, Emmie woke again.

"Mama, Mama - Papa's calling me," cried Emmie as her mother rushed into the room.

"What's wrong honey," said Annie.

"Papa's calling me," Emmie repeated, tears welling at the bottom edge of her eyelids.

"Papa's at work," Annie said. Then stayed, holding Emmie, rocking her to sleep.

Glace Bay was quiet, except for the sound of early-rising gulls. The sun was just peeking up over the harbour. Three men from Dominion Coal Company dressed in dingy overalls approached the white clapboard house on South Street with heavy boots. One man stepped up to the door and knocked. Annie, tried to climb out of the bed without waking Emmie, but was unsuccessful. She was a light sleeper and heard the knocks too. Annied opened the door dressed in her 58 nightclothes. Emmie peeked at the visitors from behind her. She recognized the big man from Town Hall right away-the man who told her not to look for fairies.

"Mam," he said pulling the hat from his head and holding it in front of him.

"I'm afraid there's been an accident."

I take another look at the girl in this photo. I feel her eyes staring back at

me. She turns to look down at the photograph in her hand. What does she see? GIOVANNI'S CELL

Mon Cher Jacques,

They tell me speculation about my whereabouts was currency in the Left

Bank bars for the short time I remained in hiding. No doubt you followed the story and saw my pale grey face pasted across the front page of the papers the morning after I was captured on the barge. I hope I do not live in your memories as the dirty street urchin I must have appeared to be. By now, you will have read about my depraved act in all its revolting detail. Though I have begged the God

I disavowed for mercy, I do not write to you expecting sympathy or forgiveness.

I do, however, believe that you may be the only friend I have left on this earth. I regret that I will never again share a cognac with you in a Montpamasse cafe. It seems God has other plans for me and all I can do is wait for the coming of the knife that will reunite me with my dead son. It's a dismal fate, but one I can accept so long as someone knows I am not the monster they have painted me to be. Though, I must confess, I am wretched and my stink has little to do with the garbage they found me living in. I say I am wretched because I am a hypocrite.

59 60

It would be easy to blame my descent on David; he gave me plenty of reasons to be bitter. But now, all I feel for him is pity. David shared my bed as he shared Hella' s, but I do not believe he really gave himself to either one of us. I do not think he is capable of truly giving himself to another. David lives life by taking; he had Hella, but he needed to take from me, to weigh his feelings, to know for sure. And after all this time has passed, I doubt he is any more certain of his feelings. Hella is his refuge from his own desires. He wants to believe that she is his intended journey in life and I was merely a side trip, but he has it backwards. Hella was always the detour. He continues to believe she is the fountain that will wash him clean. He doesn't yet realize it's the garments he hides behind that make him dirty. I can't help thinking about how things might be different, if only he had stripped them from his body before he came to

France. We might have really had a life together. Our happiness might have been lasting. But things aren't different and I must say I can hardly blame him. I came to Paris to escape an anguish that threatened to swallow my sanity. But when I left Italy, the anguish followed unbidden. So too David imagined an escape when he left America for Paris, but his shackles came with him. They were so much a part of him; he paid them as much mind as the shirt on his back.

Now, I fear, they are fused to his skin, never to be removed. And me, I see that 61 my anguish swallowed my sanity anyway. So as I await my fate, lying naked in this cell each night, I know David is locked in here with me. He will not come back to me, but neither will he ever find home. He will never understand that true love is dirty.

There was a time when I despised Hella, but I feel a certain kinship with her now. David was a stranger to us both; he lied to us both. He can't truly be with anyone if he can't be with himself. Eventually, she will learn what I have.

David's only concern is what he wants, not who he wants. He needs to be a man; he needs to be above le milieu. He feigned an open mind, ingratiating himself with the Latin Quarter tapettes, but hid his prejudice about as well as he hid the traits of I' americain. David swims against the current of his identity, believing it threatens to drag him under, when really it would carry him to safety if only he let it.

That's the root of my hypocrisy-that I too needed to feel safe. And I looked for that safety in others. You were right not to continue to give me money, for I had fallen into the depths of desperation with the boys from Les Halles. I had taken advantage of your generosity one too many times. I needed money to survive, but really I was yearning for a place to feel safe-the way I felt safe with

David. You were kind at a time when I was vulnerable and I treated you badly. 62

I treated you with the same cold deception that I attribute to David. You opened your home and yourself to me and I took from you without giving anything back, telling you I would return when I did not, telling you everything was fine when it was not. I was not over David. You must have known that. At times it was as if I had left my body and was watching it from afar-falling and falling and falling. And I could do nothing to stop it.

Safety-that's what I took from David, a sense that I could have a life without anguish and sorrow. I realize now it's too great a burden to place on another. When he was gone, I looked to you. And then I turned to the boys of

Les Balles to watch over me. I cannot bear to be alone Jacques, I don't know how to do it. So when I ran into Guillaume on Boulevard Saint-Germain-des­

Pres and he offered me my job back, I thought it was a chance for a new start. I should have known better. I knew what he was, I knew who he was, but I clung to my ceaseless hope.

Guillaume called me to his bar a few days later to discuss my employment.

But, when I arrived in his office, he had other things in mind. You know how he is. I wanted to tum around and walk out the door, but I had no money and no one to lend it to me. So I closed my eyes and imagined I was somewhere else, with someone else. It wasn't enough. When I awoke hours later, drowning in 63

the silks and perfumes of his bed, and saw the jeering smile on his face, he

suggested he would have to think over my future prospects as his barman. I

cannot think of how to describe what happened next, other than to say that

madness came over me. I had wanted for so long for David to change my life,

but it was Guillaume who was my definitive moment. I will spare you the

grotesque particulars of my final minutes with Guillaume. The only forgiveness

I seek is from God. But, I want to tell you how I got to such a state to commit this

heinous crime. You did not see how Guillaume treated me the day he fired me.

But I have already told you, he acted as though the world had spat on him and

he took it out on me. The lewd comments and loathsome questions he asked me

would make you blush. It was degrading and I wanted to vomit. So I walked out of his office into the bar. He followed me, yelling that I was a thief. I never

took from him, as I'm sure you well know. Had I stolen from Guillaume, I'd never have had need to ask you for money. He must have been humiliated by

some jeune gan;on and felt that he must cede the burden of his debasement to another. I could not believe what he was doing to me in front of the entire bar.

All those boys looking at me with the disgust and contempt they save for the silly old queens they meet in the cabarets of Pigalle. I couldn't stand it. I struck 64 him in my rage, but even after I was thrown into the street, I had only vague imaginings of revenge. I had David then and believed I would be all right.

I think about them both as I sit here in the depths of this lightless city. My cell lies in the dank subterranean grottos on the left bank of the Seine, not so far from the bars we once frequented. In some ways, the cell is not so different from the small room that I shared with David in Nation. He scolded me for burying myself for so long in that room. I wonder what he would think of this room, if he would think it better suits me. Sometimes in the shadows of the dirty streaked stone walls, I imagine I see a couple walking together in a garden of roses, but then I blink my eyes and they disappear among the sepia tones of brown and grey. The earthen floors are hard and unforgiving. There are no windows to assume the likeness of prying eyes and so also no natural light to provide clues of the encroaching days. But the apparitions of strange looming shapes appear to me nonetheless in the fitful candlelight that occasionally seeps in through the judas of the heavy door. The only clues I have to the passing of time are the periodic visits of the dark lifeless guards with their garbage bins of slop.

You would think after living among all the garbage of this city that my sense of smell would be deadened, but it is the pungent odor of human waste in this 65 cavern that is almost too much to bear. Still, being in here is not like the torture I endured in the days when I knew David was about to leave me. My anxiety was tempered only by the hope that he would come back, that he would realize that we belonged together. But now, in here, there is no hope of a future, much less his return; and in a way that is a relief.

But you will of course see him again and he will be changed. He will return to Paris, his innocence and confidence gone. But he will continue to search, never being quite certain how to reconcile the desires of his body with the expectations of his past. They say the death of the child is the birth of the man, but I believe David will forever linger somewhere in between. I thought of this the last night I lay next to him listening to the syncopated pounding in his chest.

He could peel the flesh from his bones and still not be certain that what lies beneath is truly a man.

David may never understand the love that he missed out on. But you

Jacques, you know what true affection is. Though I may never again see a sunrise, I know who I am and because of that I am free. Buvez un cognac pour moi.

Votre ami,

Giovanni NO WAKE

I throw the bow line onto the green weathered dock and make my way back

to the cockpit. My dad throws the aft line and steers us into the narrow channel.

I take the covers off the navigation instrumentation and see that the wind speed is already ten knots. I am thankful I wore multiple layers. As we motor through the no wake zone, I look for the familiar ospreys that nest in the top of the

channel markers. But the spring and summer homes for these migratory raptors are gone. The birds have left the bay for warmer climes.

The cold air makes my eyes water and my cheeks feel chapped. We approach the mouth of the West River leading into the Chesapeake Bay, and I rise to unclip the navy blue canvas sail cover. The gulls have shit all over it; we need a new rubber snake. I roll the cover over itself from the mast towards the end of the boom and then fold it in half before throwing it down in the cabin.

As we pass the channel entrance, my dad turns off the motor and steers the boat into the wind. I take the ties off the sail and feed the head into the groove of the mast. Pulling the halyard hand over hand, my dad raises the sail while I feed

66 67 the luff into the mast to keep it from jamming. The wind catches the sail and my dad reaches back for the tiller.

"You better come back here and keep us in the wind," he says.

These are some of the only words we exchange on these day sails-so used to each other's moves, the boat, and the water. I know when my dad will tack, when I need to let out the halyard and duck for the boom. I know my dad the sailor.

My dad is also a Marine, a Vietnam vet. I know that he is reverting to his military days when he let's out a loud "HOORAH!" But, I don't know my dad the Marine. I don't know what he experienced; I don't know what he saw as he scouted the rainforests of South Vietnam. I don't know how many people he killed. He's never much talked about it. The Purple Heart and the Bronze Star

Medal that hang among the other medals in the small, glass display box on the living room wall offer limited information.

I know he was injured-shot in the leg. I know he was awarded his Bronze

Star for combat heroism against an armed enemy. And I know he was part of the

1st Recon Battalion. But, I don't know how those experiences shaped the man he is today. He isn't your stereotypical Marine. He didn't raise me with the iron- 68 fisted discipline of a regimented soldier. He isn't a social conservative and he doesn't vote for Republicans. And I don't even think he believes the United

States should have been in Vietnam back then.

He entered Vietnam in 1968, the year of the Tet Offensive. It was the same year as the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. I wonder how much he heard about the events that took place. I wonder if he knew about the protests and riots. I wonder if he felt the deep split in himself that was then being experienced by the Democratic Party. I wonder if he was better prepared for what he would face, less shocked by what was going on than he might have been had he entered earlier.

As far as I know, he's never dealt with the posttraumatic stress disorder experienced by so many Vietnam veterans. But I doubt that means it didn't take a psychological toll. I'm sure my father saw abusive behavior towards civilians and prisoners of war; I'm sure he watched his buddies die. He was on the front lines. But if he re-experienced these atrocities in his nightmares, I don't know about it.

In 1971, when he returned to the United States, my dad went to Glacier

National Park by himself-to decompress. When he re-entered civilian life, he took up sailing and he's been doing it for more than thirty years. Watching him 69 now, the wind blowing through his thin graying hair, and his eyes hidden behind the Ponch-style sunglasses he keeps on the boat, I wonder if he's still decompressing, if this entire bay is my father's no wake zone. Perhaps I know him better than I think. After all, I am helping to keep us in the wind. AMOTHER CONVERSATION

English muffins with peanut butter is my mother's morning addiction, always accompanied by hot tea with milk. Today she had the newspaper spread across the surface of the Formica table in our 1970s-era kitchen. I watched as she tilted the chipped yellow creamer and the milk rushed into the tea spreading like the white cloud of Hiroshima. I was afraid our conversation would end in the same way, an enormous explosion.

Only two weeks ago my twin sister, Jamie, told Mom she was pregnant.

Jamie and I had been living at home since we graduated from separate colleges three years earlier, hoping to save some money. She had moved in with her public defender boyfriend four months ago and despite his law degree, my mother took advantage of every opportunity to belittle his job and their future as a couple. Her behavior towards my own boyfriend, Gary, was only slightly less caustic.

"Mom, I've got some big news for you," Jamie had said.

"Oh, here it comes," Mom responded with a sigh.

"I'm pregnant," she said.

70 71

"Boy, are you stupid."

Their voices incrementally increased in decibel as they tossed alternate jabs,

Mom slinging jarring insults about my sister's choices and my sister hurling accusations about Mom's lack of support.

Such was the typical conversation with my mother. I picked up Blackie from the checkered vinyl flooring in a vain attempt to comfort myself. The cat considered it torture. My mother always had cats and they were all named

Blackie. They all hated me. Actually, they didn't like anyone except Mom. I think Mom felt the same way.

As I sipped my orange juice, I racked my brain for the appropriate opening.

I could tell her that the job market was really hot in San Francisco. No, the job market sucked everywhere, and she knew it. Maybe, I'd just be coy and ask her what she thought about San Francisco.

"So Mom," I said, "what do you know about San Francisco?"

She barely glanced up from the crossword of her carefully folded newspaper. "I know it's cold at night," she replied.

Well, that got me nowhere. Perhaps I should just tell her the good things that I know. "I've been told that the city is absolutely gorgeous," I offered.

"Mmm," she responded not looking up at all this time. 72

"And there are so many things to do. Oh, and the food, I've heard that there are some really fabulous restaurants."

No response. I wiped a sweaty palm on my terry cloth bathrobe as the cat squirmed in my other arm. What now? Ok, maybe I should approach this conversation from another direction. "So Mom, tell me what it was like when you first moved to Denver from Miami," I said.

"It was cold," she said.

I felt heat rise to the surface of my face and remembered a class that had been offered by my college, "Conversing with God." I obviously needed something a little more basic.

She'd already finished one piece of toast and her milky tea was almost gone.

My voice wavered, "Mom, Gary and I are thinking about heading out and seeing some new places."

"Well take a coat; it's cold," she said, as though she was taking part in another conversation altogether.

I pictured myself slapping her in the face like Cher to Nicholas Cage in

Moonstruck. Snap out of it! I wanted to yell. I looked down at the white knuckles of my hand gripping the cat and let her go. She jumped from my lap, 73 scratching the exposed skin of my legs with her back claws, and landed on the floor with a thump. Now Mom was finished with her breakfast.

As she carried her plate and tea cup to the sink, I spoke to her back, "Gary got a new job and I'm moving to San Francisco with him next month."

She carefully placed her dishes in the sink and tucked the newspaper under her arm. As she turned sideways to face me, I took in a deep breath.

"I know, your sister told me yesterday," she said as she walked out of the kitchen.

A wave of relief spread through my body loosening my taught muscles. I looked at the nearly full glass of orange juice sitting in front of me and drank the rest down in a single gulp. CHARACTERS

"They always have all this food, but there is always something missing,"

Eric said as he examined the spread of snacks laid out for the cast and crew at the small Del Ray coffee shop that was serving as the set. He was fidgeting with a I clamp attached to the pocket of his baggy jeans.

"What's missing?" I said, from the overstuffed sofa, where I sat with my laptop, looking up at the fruits, vegetables, nuts, cheeses, cookies, and other finger foods.

"Cheese and crackers," he said. "They have all this cheese and no crackers."

"There are Goldfish," I said pointing to the dish with the little rainbow­ colored, baked crackers.

"I don't trust those Goldfish," Eric said. "There are too many colors."

Eric, a DC native, was a skinny Hispanic kid with a crew cut, tattooed forearms, a pack of cigarettes in his back pocket, and a sly smile that exposed the precocious child still living inside.

74 75

"Penelope, did you know that Eric doesn't trust the Goldfish because they are multicolored?" I said, watching as she put makeup on Tina, one of the production assistants.

Penelope, a petite twenty-something with frizzy blonde curls and darkly lined eyes, wanted to be a make-up artist. She was volunteering her time, as we all were, for the experience of working on a film.

"I don't either," Penelope said. "They look like dog food."

We had been at it for three weeks now, sixteen to twenty hours a day, and had slipped into the easy conversation of long-familiar friends. We learned quickly that working on a film involves a lot of sitting around and waiting.

"They have dog food over there," said Tina pointing to a bucket of dog biscuits the coffee shop proprietors had set aside for dog owners. Tina was a recent New York University film grad with short black hair and Coke bottle glasses that never left you wondering where she was looking. I admired her enthusiasm; she exhibited a total lack of cynicism seldom seen in Washington, and probably a prerequisite for anyone with a real future in film.

"I don't think I want any," said Penelope.

Eric twirled his gaffers tape in one hand and picked at the nuts with the other. "I wish there was mustard," he said. 76

The director and DP were busy on the other side of the shop setting up a shot in which the used book store owner and aspiring stand-up comic protagonist, who faces the communication barriers of his strong South American accent and stage fright, runs into his love interest, the uptight princess business school friend of his best friend's wife, who is just getting out of a long-term relationship with a successful motivational speaker. The premise was good, but the obvious stereotypes left the characters lacking in depth.

"They had two things of mustard the other day," said Penelope. "Maybe the mustard is in the cooler." The cooler was sitting next to the clothes rack where I had carefully organized the wardrobe for the scenes we were scheduled to shoot that night.

"I haven't seen the mustard," said Tina as she examined herself in the mirror with the makeup she'd have never worn of her own volition.

"Why are they looking for mustard?" I said, my fingers still on the computer keys as I glanced around the room, looking for inspiration.

"I guess for the pretzels," said Tina. My eyes settled on Eric, still perplexed by the food options.

"You're giving me that look," he said.

"What look?" I said, turning away. 77

"That look like I did something," said Eric.

"I'm sure you did," I said.

"What are you doing?" said Penelope, turning the conversation on me.

"Talking to your internet stalker?"

I nodded, turning my attention back to my computer screen.

"You are," she said, her mouth gaping into a wide smirk. "Are you having cyber sex? Don't bother Amy; she's busy with her internet lover." Eric and Tina laughed absently, still waiting for something to do.

"How many more scenes do they have?" Penelope asked, not really expecting anyone to answer, as she got up from her chair and plopped down on the sofa next to me.

"I'm going to smoke," said Eric walking toward the door.

"I guess I'll watch the door," said Tina.

I put my fingers on the keys and typed out a title-Characters. NOVIE

If we cannot name our own we are cut off at the root, our hold on our lives as fragile as seed in a wind. - Dorothy Allison, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

Of course it's a cliche to refer to someone as being larger than life. But I believe we all come across such people in our lives. Maybe a person whose work we admire and whose talent we perceive to be limitless. Or maybe it is a person who has touched our lives in a way we hardly understand and can barely begin to describe. My Grandma was this type of persona. She remembered her childhood in such detail you'd think she was talking about something that happened yesterday. When she was nearly eighty years old she would tell me stories about growing up in Nova Scotia-Novie as she called it. I don't recall my childhood in quite the same way; my memories have no story. They are snapshots in time, a beginning, sometimes an end, but generally no middle. For instance, I remember the house in Burke, Virginia where I lived when I was five years old, and the way I got up early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons.

My cat, Rugby, would sit on my chest kneading imaginary dough with her paws as I lay on the sofa. But, I don't remember what it was like living in that house

78 79 with two parents that were still married. I don't remember what it was like to be a family-and now really, that's exactly what I needed to remember the most.

All of five feet two inches tall during her life, Grandma looms in my snapshot memories-unrealistically large and casting a long shadow. Now, as I head north on 1-95, having left Virginia just a couple of hours ago, I try to string together these snapshots into my own story of family. I suppose that is part of the reason I am making this trip, hoping to fill in the blanks and figure out exactly what family means. Grandma and Granddad took me to Novie as a little girl, but of course I was young and remember very little about it. Now, facing an uncertain future, I had decided to make the trip alone.

I knew the test was accurate, but I pretended for a moment that it was a mistake-that everything in my life was the same-as if that little blue plus sign hadn't assigned me an alternate destiny even before I saw the doctor. I had left without telling Sam, without telling anyone. I told myself it didn't matter. No one else needed to know until I decided what to do.

I felt my eyelids become heavy. It seemed like I had been driving for days, though I had only left Virginia a few hours earlier. Thinking about my 80 destination, my mind wandered between the stories I had been told about

Grandma's life and the current reality of my own.

I arrived at Aunt Martha's in Danvers, Massachusetts around 8:30 p.m. having called to announce my arrival just a few hours before. I'm sure my lack of notice left her cursin2:" at the oolice monitor she still keensnn in the kitchen. 81 famished I was, Martha told me about her plans to head to Martha's Vineyard with some friends the next day.

"So," she said, "you can help Jim set up for his birthday barbeque." I turned to Jim, who said he was just having a couple of friends over and shot me a wink that suggested the number was probably a bit higher.

Martha is my great aunt, Grandma's sister-half sister really, and considerably younger. Grandma was nineteen when Martha was born to my great grandmother-my Nana-and her second husband, Mel. Despite this age difference, Grandma and Martha were close, and they share several similar characteristics, not the least of which is a sharp tongue that often leaves me feeling like I'm walking on eggshells in her company. She is also one to carry a grudge, and she seemed to have one directed towards my father and I since

Grandma passed in 1995. Neither he nor I had determined the reason and she's never volunteered. At times she has been cool towards us, and though she was generally hospitable during my visit, tension still lingered under the surface.

Jim, who is really my dad's first cousin, is closer in age to me. And although he was turning thirty-nine, he still lived with his mother. If you didn't know them, you'd never guess that Martha and Jim are mother and son. A former body builder, who has lost the muscle over time but not the weight, his hulk is 82 contrary to his mother's petite frame. Where she's a homebody, enjoys listening to local news, and spends her time writing letters, he listens to bluegrass, plays the banjo in a band, and takes road trips on the Harley he built from parts. And yet, here they were, thirty-nine years later still together, still family. And while I couldn't quite imagine still living with a parent at his age, it gave me a strange feeling of hope to know that he did and that they had made it work for so long.

Jim works in the school system as a computer specialist and, lucky for me, was enjoying a lighter work schedule for the summers. He made the trip to

Nova Scotia every year and knows the family well. He told me about Martin and

Ethel, some of the relatives I planned to visit in Nova Scotia. The two siblings are cousins of Grandma.

"My dad says they are pretty quiet," I volunteered after scraping up the last crumbs from my sandwich. I was a little worried about what I would say to these people, since I too tended to be quiet when just meeting new people.

"They aren't so quiet once they warm up to you," Jim said.

They live in Hadleyville, Nova Scotia, once home to many of my Hadley ancestors. And like Jim, they still lived in their childhood home.

"Neither ever married," Martha said, ''but Ethel has a daughter who lives in

Halifax." 83

I wanted to know more, but Martha left it at that. There had to be a story there, but I knew what Martha left out was probably not subject for conversation, at least not with her.

"They like to have a good time," Jim said in his thick North Shore accent.

As Jim named the Hadleys he visits on his trips, I realized I was going to need a cheat sheet to keep them all straight.

"Esther and Abraham, who live in Cape Breton, are also interesting characters," Jim told me. "Esther is very religious. I remember visiting her and hearing her pray aloud as she went about her cooking. And Abraham, he also keeps himself busy. They didn't marry until Esther was nearly fifty; I think they met through their church."

Religion had never really been a part of my life, but I knew it had been for

Grandma. I don't think all of my Canadian relatives are quite as religious as

Esther and Abraham, but they are certainly more so than my American relatives.

Grandma and Granddad didn't go to church on a regular basis, but she made him go on holidays. I have memories of attending services on Christmas Eve­ always at a Presbyterian church-whenever we visited with them at that time of year. Also, my parents never had me baptized, which my dad has said was a 84 bone of contention for Grandma. I guess these instincts were part of her Nova

Scotia heritage.

"If you visit one of the Hadleys, you must visit them all," Martha warned.

"Word travels fast and they may feel slighted."

Apparently, Jim rode into Hadleyville on his motorcycle during his last visit and was spotted by the mail carrier who stopped off and called Martin to let him know Jim was coming. By the time Jim got to the house, Martin was already outside watching for him.

"Life is simple there," Jim said. One year during his visit, Martin invited him to a wedding.

"I didn't have any nice clothes, so I wore my best Marthas and bought a collared shirt. I expected to be underdressed, but when I got there some men were dressed in their overalls with white shirts."

The contrast between what Jim considered a simple life in Novie and what I considered his simple life here in Danvers struck me. My trip seemed more and more like a journey back in time, back to an earlier generation. I guess that was the point. Maybe if I saw where I came from, or at least where part of me came from, it would help me figure out where I needed to go. 85

"Martin and Ethel went crazy at BJ's Wholesale when they came to Danvers a few years ago," Martha says. "I'll call Ethel and find out what they could use."

I told them I planned to head to Maine on Monday and would take the ferry from Portland to Yarmouth that evening, stay at a hostel in La Have on Tuesday, and get to Hadleyville on Wednesday. I didn't mention that this all depended on the constitution of my stomach and bladder and my hope that they wouldn't slow me down.

Jim told me his father was from La Have. I had never realized his father also had Nova Scotia relatives, as Martha had met her husband in Danvers. He had died when Jim was quite young, so Martha had raised him as a single mother most of his formative years. As Jim talked about La Have, it struck me that I might have more in common with Martha than I had ever considered. I think being a single mom is part of the reason she and Grandma had such a strong bond. Grandma and Granddad were snowbirds and traveled north from Florida every summer. They spent much of that time in Virginia to take care of me while my dad worked, but they also made the trip to Danvers nearly every year. I think they were a big help to Martha, and Granddad became somewhat of a father figure to Jim. 86

Granddad had been good egg. That was the kind of thing Grandma would have said. She had described fathers that way in a speech she gave in her

Toastmasters club. It was one of the things she kept in a journal I was carrying with me on the trip.

I think the best thing that ever happened for man or woman is Adam being created with an extra rib. From that rib Woman was created and on down through the ages man has lived happily, or scrappily as the case may be. Man has tamed the cow, the horse, and the dog and has used them for his own purposes. But Woman he has not tamed.

As far as I'm concerned, men fall into several categories. First is the grandfather, then fathers, the boy friend, the lover, the would-be lover, the great gift to all womankind, the husband, and finally the sons. Grandfathers are usually pretty wonderful-both kind and helpful. If you were a little girl who suffered with cold feet, a grandfather would always be there to extend a large warm hand to warm those tiny toes.

I don't remember Granddad warming my feet, but he too looms large in my snapshot memories, and not just because he was a big guy. Granddad had been there to help fix my swing set, to take me fishing, or to buy me a treat on our trips to the Post Exchange at Cameron Station. But I don't think it was the things that he did that made him special to me, it was the being there.

I thought about Sam. I wasn't sure which of Grandma's categories he would fall into. He was not my husband, or even my boyfriend. He was the friend of a 87 friend. We had been at a party, drinking red wine and later, vodka martinis. He was attractive and I was lonely. We stumbled out of the party together at 3:00 a.m. and I took him home. In the morning, he left giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. It was oddly formal considering the intimacy we shared only a few hours earlier. I could hardly imagine giving him my news; much less imagine him as a father. And maybe he wouldn't be a father; maybe he wouldn't be involved at all.

I woke around nine the next morning-a little later than I had planned. I was finding it harder to get out of bed in the morning and I was usually still

tired. I chatted with Jim as he prepared the marinade for his pork ribs and then went for a jog around the neighborhood. I loved the old homes, some big and

some small. They had such character compared to the newer neighborhoods I

grew up in. I imagined they were filled with families that had spent their whole

lives in the North Shore, like Martha and Jim. It was the kind of community in which everyone knew everyone else. For better or worse, it was the sort of community I longed for. Having had my parents divorce when I was five and

then moving from new house to new house in the suburbs of Washington DC, I

.never really knew that kind of life. 88

When I returned to the house, I went and showered in the basement in Jim's bathroom. Martha only took baths, so the upstairs tub wasn't outfitted with a proper shower curtain. A bath actually sounded nice, but it didn't seem appropriate in Martha's house. We picked up some subs and a case of beer before heading back to the house to meet Sarah, Jim's girlfriend of five years.

Sarah was my age and a school teacher. I met her during a previous visit. She had also grown up on the North Shore, in Revere, and her accent was just as

thick as Jim's. My dad and I liked to speculate about whether she and Jim would ever get married. It was hard to imagine Jim moving out of his mother's house at

this point. I'm not sure why, but I sort of hoped he would. I guess in wanting that kind of relationship for myself I wanted it also for others.

"I think she's more serious than he is," Martha had told me once when I asked her about the relationship. I wasn't sure whether that was wishful

thinking on her part or the reality of the matter.

She had also confided to me that Sarah sometimes spent the night, which she

didn't like. I wanted to laugh, but I just nodded with empathy I didn't quite feel.

The guests started arriving at the barbeque around 6:00 p.m. and I wandered among them in between bouts of nausea and trips to the basement bathroom, joining a conversation here and there. As I had guessed, the guests numbered 89 about thirty and the case of beer Jim and I picked up was a mere supplement to the keg that was delivered late in the afternoon.

Martha showed up at the end of the barbeque and I was grateful for the excuse to sit down and relax. After visiting with all the guests, she and I looked at some photographs I found among Grandma's things. I didn't know who most of the people were and I hoped she would. She knew some of the names, but I suspected I'd have to get the rest from the folks in Novie. We made plans to go to BJ's the next day.

The next morning we drove to Gloucester so Martha could show me the new

Fisherman's Wives monument. Martha's father, Mel, was a fisherman and he and Nana had lived in Gloucester when Martha was born. The monument was not finished yet, as the base of stone blocks that would bear the names had not been installed. The statue, however, was done. It was a woman with one child in her arms and another at her side, all looking out to sea. It stood just down the block from the Fisherman's monument, which shows the names of the local fisherman lost at sea.

As we walked along the wharf, I imagined Grandma taking these same steps as a teenager. She hadn't been happy about moving to Gloucester. 90

I was sixteen and I really hated that move. Mom and I missed Roxbury, but we made new friends. My newest friend was Edith. Her parents owned a clothing store on Main Street. Edith and I discovered basketball together and wanted to attend every game. The games were held in a gym at City Hall and after the game they had dancing. Our interest in basketball was not as great as in the dances. I guess we danced every weekend. One night I met and danced with the greatest dancer I had ever been with. We met every week for a while and always danced together. He was a very ugly young man, but such a dancer. His name was Fred Lovely. After that winter, I lost track of him.

The summer of 1928 was a really fun time. As soon as I had dinner, Edith and I would go to the beach. There was a fleet of Navy ships in the harbor and we had lots of fun with the sailors. They would be in swim suits so nobody knew we were with sailors.

I had my seventeenth birthday and soon after I met Bill, a Naval Chief Petty Officer. He was very nice looking, but twelve years my senior. He knew how to flatter and make you think you were his whole world. The following June he persuaded me to elope. We went to Kittery, Maine and were married by a very old minister in his living room. My honeymoon was a horror, as I was completely innocent. The day after my marriage, I hated everything about marriage, including Bill. I knew there had to be something people did to have babies, but I guess Bill was not a gentle lover. In those days, sex was not supposed to be enjoyed by women. Of course the facts of life were not discussed by your parents or at school. When I had my first period at eleven, my mother said, "You will have that every month and don't let a boy touch you." Then she gave me some napkins.

I wondered if she had strolled along this path on her way to City Hall or her trips to the beach. She had experienced adolescence, married, and lost her virginity in a few short years. I was sad her first sexual experiences had been so disappointing, and although the obvious sexism of that time set me aflame, I also 91 envied the innocence. There was simplicity in the life she described that was almost storybook.

"This was one of Ruby's favorite places to go when she had come back home to Nana after leaving Bill," Martha said. Grandma had stayed with Bill through several military transfers and the birth of two children. But he was not quite as charming a husband as he had been a suitor.

"Everyone told Ruby that he was wrong for her, but she was stubborn and wouldn't listen."

So stubborn in fact that she didn't leave him until after her stepfather Mel, one of the most vocal critics, had died. Once she did leave, she brought my

Uncle Neil and Aunt Jess back home to Gloucester. Nana was already having a hard time of it alone with her own young child and then Grandma came along with two more. It wasn't for long though. Bill came to Gloucester within three weeks. He waited until he saw Martha leave for school and Nana for work.

Then he came in the house and snatched Jess and Neil and took them to North

Carolina.

"Jess told me once that she cried all the way to Connecticut," Martha said.

But that wasn't all Bill had in store for Grandma. He also burned her naturalization papers, which she had left behind, and then called the authorities 92 to report her as an illegal alien. Fortunately, Nana worked for a lawyer who helped them get copies. Despite her own tribulations, disappointment, and even disapproval, Nana had been there to help Grandma get back on her feet.

"That was a very difficult time for Ruby," Martha said. "I don't think things really improved until she met Frank." But that was some time later, after she left

Gloucester and moved to DC.

By the time I was twenty-five, I was left alone with the children, so it was back to work again. I had a wonderful friend in Washington, DC who wrote and asked me to come visit her for a while. So, I was like "The Man Who Came to Dinner," I just came and stayed on and on. At this time I was still a British subject, so I got a job with the British Government in Washington, the Royal Air Force Delegation, and worked on the famous Lend Lease in 1941 just before America entered the war. I felt so badly on December 7, and I recall seeing the counter girl at the cafeteria the next Monday crying, her tears falling into the mashed potatoes.

One night a friend invited me to the NCO club at Bolling Air Force Base and that's where I met him--Frank. I thought he looked like my type and guess he thought the same thing as six months later we were married. We had to get married as we were getting so little sleep-Street Car. In 1945, little Frank was born and now everything was complete. When Frankie was two weeks old, I was called to District Court and sworn in as an American Citizen. The welcoming address was given by Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt and she made me feel so important.

Martha took me to the first of two houses they lived in. This one was on

Alpine Court and it was the house they lived in before the war. The house is right next to Governor's Park, which is the highest point in Gloucester. You 93 could see the main part of town, the wharf, and the Fisherman's monument where we had just been. But it was the sea that captured the landscape and gave the place its beauty. After visiting the second house on Chestnut Street, we got back in the car and drove to the Oak Grove Cemetery on our way of Gloucester.

Martha's father was buried here, though Nana was not.

"Why isn't Nana buried with your father?" I asked Martha.

"When Nana died, the cemetery was in disrepair and I didn't want to bury her here. I bought a plot for her in Essex, though she would never have wanted to be buried there. She never liked the town."

Martha checked on the pansies she had planted at Mel's headstone in the spring. They were still blooming. I had always sort of considered burial a waste, but as Martha busied herself with the flowers, I realized there was something to be said for what it offers those left behind. Martha had a place to come and remember her father.

When we got back to the house, we found Jim and Sarah in the yard. Jim decided to cook up some left over pork ribs and Martha and I let him serve us as we told them about our day. After dinner, Jim showed me photos from his last several trips to Nova Scotia, so I was able to put faces with the names. Martin and Ethel looked younger than I had imagined. 94

On Monday morning, I woke up and tried to quickly shower before Martha got home from her doctor's appointment. Too late-she got home before I was done. We ate bagels and cream cheese and then headed to BJ's to buy some goods for the Nova Scotia relatives. Martha had called Ethel the night before and had a list of potential gifts to pick up. Instead of walking through the mammoth warehouse and picking these items up along the way, Martha chose to find things in the order they were on her list. Consequently, we crisscrossed the store multiple times. After filling up the cart, she decided she needed to write down what everything cost. Again, we crisscrossed the store looking at the prices of the items already picked up.

"Why don't we split the cost?" I suggested as we retraced our steps.

"No, I'm not doing it for that," she said.

Not doing it for what? I wasn't sure what she meant. Did she not want me to spend any money? No, it soon became clear. She wanted the stuff to be specifically from her. I stopped, dumbfounded as she pushed the cart onward.

So what was I going to give them?

She must have sensed that I was wondering about this because she began picking through the cart, grudgingly, pointing out which things I could give them. So I bought certain items and she bought certain items. It all seemed a bit 95 ridiculous to me, though she indicated she was doing so because they have put

Jim up so many times. I didn't understand why that required that we give separate gifts, but when we got back to the house, she started separating the items into boxes for each family, separate from my items of course. We went outside to load them in my car.

"Why don't you put this here and that one there," she said. Now she wanted to tell me how to pack the boxes in my car. I'd had enough. I quickly put the stuff in the car in a manner that would still allow me to fit my bags and get to everything easily.

As I drove north, I thought about the trips I had taken with Grandma and

Granddad as a child in one of several RVs they owned over the years. When we traveled in the RV, I always slept in the top bunk that folded down over the driver and passenger seats. It was not the most comfortable sleeping arrangement for an adult, but as a little girl I thought it was a great hideaway. It was just my size and gave me a birds-eye view of whatever Grandma and

Granddad were doing down below. If I was sneaky I could bring Toots,

Grandma's cat, up with me to snuggle, though she'd really have rathered I didn't. 96

Our evenings at various campgrounds usually included a game of Kismet.

If I was lucky, I could get Grandma and Granddad to play two or three games before they would shove me up to bed. During the day, as we traveled, we passed the time playing other games. Grandma liked to tell me stories about

Canada and then quiz me. She'd asked me to name all of the provinces and challenged me to spell Saskatchewan. I remember being so proud when I spelled it right. Grandma was also impressed or at least acted so.

The next day, I maneuvered my car through the Portland streets, busy with rush hour traffic, and finally reached the place where I would later drive aboard the Scotia Prince. I pulled into the far left waiting lane behind a black Acura SUV with dirty mud flaps, put the car in park, and rolled down my windows. I pulled my hair into a rough pony tail, glad to have it off the back of my neck.

Tilting my seat back, I flipped off my sandals and stuck my feet out the window.

I looked at my cell phone sitting in the passenger seat, thinking I should call someone, but not really wanting to. I remembered how Grandma had reacted to the call my cousin Deana had made nearly ten years earlier, with the same news. 97

It had been December. The warm weather and fruit filled orange trees

always seemed a sharp contrast to the season, but it was Christmas. Grandma

and Granddad lived in Tampa, Florida at that time, a place that drew retirees like

deer to a salt lick. The table was brimming with the traditional Christmas fare:

turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. Granddad made sure I

was looking as he grabbed a raw Vidalia onion from the table and took a bite like

it was an apple. He smiled as I crinkled up my noise and let out an "ooooooh

gross." Just as we sat down, the phone rang. Granddad was already seated and

an impatient frown spread across his face. Deana was on the phone calling from

California and Grandma answered.

"Boy are you stupid," Grandma had said into the phone.

Grandma didn't always say what people wanted to hear or even what they expected. She called it like she saw it-a spade was a spade. I've sometimes wondered in the years since what she thought was stupid about Patti being

pregnant. Perhaps, she reacted that way because Deana had only been married a few months. Or perhaps, she was seeing herself in Deana and reacting to what she might have considered to be her own poor judgment. 98

Though I had hired a cabin for the overnight trip, I did not sleep soundly.

The ferry swayed and creaked with the shifting currents. I lie awake thinking this is what it must feel like to a baby inside its mother's womb. The ferry arrived at Yarmouth in mid-morning and though I wasn't well-rested, I immediately hit the road heading east. I was grateful for the quiet empty roads.

I felt like Grandma was with me and at times I thought I could actually smell her as well; her Lilies of the Valley perfume still lived in my subconscious. I thought

I might be experiencing a moment of clairvoyance-the kind Grandma claimed to have had. It was probably the hormones. My memories of Grandma were still scattered about my mind like dry leaves, each one floating in and out with the passing breeze.

In the mornings, Grandma's toast, spread first with a layer of cream cheese and then topped off with a layer of marmalade, was always accompanied by hot tea with milk. As she tilted the creamer, I would watch the milk rush into the tea spreading outward into a white fluffy cloud before it disappeared.

Only a few such clouds were in the sky as I pulled into to La Have that afternoon, just before the close of the check-in time at the hostel where I had made a reservation. I arrived just in time and was pleasantly surprised at how quaint it was. The large building housed a bakery on the first floor and the 99

hostel on the second floor. The hostel consisted of four bedrooms, a kitchen, a

bathroom, and a huge common room with a big picnic style table, as well as bookcases and a piano. I had the entire place to myself and picked the room

with a double size bed, so I could stretch out.

I asked the proprietors for a recommendation on a restaurant and after

getting myself a little lost, found the small cafe they had suggested. It sat on the

edge of the water and I ate my meal of lobster chowder and a salad outside

overlooking the small bay and the little houses nestled along the winding road

that followed the lay of the land as it met the water.

I decided to splurge after my dinner and got a big scoop of maple/walnut ice

cream for dessert. As I walked toward the bay, a flock of gulls took flight from

several large boulders near the waters edge, roaring with the clattering sound of

an Indian war party. When they were gone, a single lone gull stood on the

craggy rocks singing out with the cry of a child-one left behind. A wave of

goose bumps spread across my skin.

Back at the hostel, I tried to relax, but my stomach knotted with anticipation.

I wondered why I was feeling nervous. I couldn't tell whether it was the thought

of my impending motherhood or my preoccupation with connecting with

Grandma by visiting her past. My emotions had been up and down for days, 100 and I seemed to be experiencing a downturn. I questioned my emotional capacity to be a mother. I was lonely and it was hard to reconcile that fact with the knowledge that the people who were in my life would undoubtedly be there.

Sometimes, I just wasn't sure that was enough. I tried instead to think about the day ahead. I hoped to make an early start in the morning.

As I drove the next day, I thought about the time Grandma had spent living in Hadleyville. She had only seen her mother a couple of times since her father died and they left Glace Bay on Cape Breton Island.

I enjoyed my farm life and didn't miss my mother at all, as I was completely spoiled and pampered by Granny. I had fields offlowers to pick, good food, lots offreedom, and always plenty of cats and kittens. But, by the time I was twelve, mother decided I should come to the States.

She spent her Hadleyville days in a one-room schoolhouse, just steps away from her Granny's house and the roadside general store where she sold milk and eggs. I imagine she passed the afternoons with her classmates, who were also her cousins, playing hide and seek in the graveyard of the Hadleyville Church, hiding behind gravestones bearing the names of her ancestors, racing through thigh-high grass trying to avoid the deer flies, or chasing porcupines up trees.

She hadn't wanted to leave, but her mother had come back for her with a new husband, intent on taking Grandma to the States. Her Granny traveled with 101 them to Roxbury, Massachusetts, staying for a short time to make the transition easier. But, I don't think it was easy.

It was July 1923. I was a few months past eleven and I was leaving my home. Dear Granny was going with me to the States. Everyone in Nova Scotia had heard of the magic of the United States. Everyone was busy and had plenty of money.

This journey had been planned all winter by way of letters from my mother. A few years after my father died she had remarried and we were invited to come live with them. I didn't want to go. My stepfather was a...

That was all. She had never finished the entry. I wondered what she had intended to say about her stepfather and what it might reveal about their tenuous relationship. She had been at odds with him about her marriage, but I also knew he had been good to her and I sensed that she had respected him.

I passed through Guysborough, the closest town of note to Hadleyville, the next day high on anticipation. As I drove in on the one road that runs through

Hadleyville, I expected to recognize Martin and Ethel's house from the photos

Jim had shown me, but of course it wasn't that easy. I drove the mile or so of the two-lane road and looked at the homes on either side. Nothing looked familiar, so I turned around and made another pass. I must have seemed impatient, because a car ahead of me pulled aside to let me go. I stopped beside the car and rolled my window down to ask the graying gentleman driver for directions. 102

"Do you know where Ken Hadley lives," I asked him.

"I sure do. I'm Martin Hadley," he said.

"Oh, I'm Lucy," I said.

"Follow me."

I followed him back to a small two-story clapboard house that I had passed

twice. I had been looking for a red house, but learned later that Martin had painted it since Jim's last visit. The house was now a dark blue and sat on

Hadley Loop, which included three houses and the small Hadleyville Church.

As we pulled onto the driveway, Ethel came out of the house and waved.

She and Martin both introduced themselves and offered to help me unload. The main floor of the house had a living room, a kitchen, and a small guest room.

The bathroom was attached to the back of the kitchen, which was probably the

only option once they added plumbing. Ethel set me up in the small guest room

at the back of the house, which had room for a bed and not much else. After unloading my car, we sat down for some lunch, or dinner, as they called it.

Martin and Ethel traded stories about Grandma and her own Granny-or Susie as they knew her. Ethel remembered a story she had heard from another cousin.

"Old Susie sat in the rocking chair with Ruby on her lap. Ruby was admiring her

grandmother's ring and touching it with her tiny little fingers. Susie told her, 103

'You can have this ring when I die.' Ruby looked at her grandmother and said,

'Die now Granny."'

I laughed remembering a similar incident from my own childhood.

Grandma and Granddad stayed the summers at my dad's when I was there for my six-week visits. The tiny, one-story, three-bedroom home my dad had purchased after my parents' divorce really only offered two bedrooms and a meager office, and Grandma and Grandad preferred having their own space, so they stayed in the RV in the driveway. I loved going over to the RV and spending time with Grandma-poking through the drawers and figuring out where she kept stuff. I especially enjoyed going through her jewelry. My favorite piece was a ruby ring, both because it was my birthstone and because

Grandma's name was Ruby.

"You can have that ring when I die," she told me. But one day when I was visiting with Grandma in the RV, I threw a temper tantrum about something I'm sure was inconsequential.

"I guess I'll just have to give that ruby ring to my other granddaughter,"

Grandma said.

I was so mad I stomped out, slamming the door of the RV with all the indignation my six-year-old body could muster. Grandma must have been 104 amused when I came knocking less than an hour later, sulkily asking if I could have one of the tangerines she had brought from Florida.

The next morning, I woke up and had breakfast with Ethel. Martin had gone to a doctor's appointment. Ethel had made us eggs and bacon. I'm not crazy about bacon, but I ate it not wanting to appear ungrateful. She also gave me toast and juice, the most amazing fresh strawberry jam I had ever tasted, and of course tea. We had tea at every meal, just like Grandma used to and I drank it just like she had with milk and sugar.

Later that morning, Martin walked me around his property and to the plot

Granddad had purchased from him many years ago. He had planned to build a vacation home there, but the dream never came to fruition.

My head was spinning as Martin detailed all the people in the neighboring homes and their family relationships. I was related to them all, even if distant. I couldn't imagine living in a place where everyone was family. As it was, all of my more immediate family was spread across the United States from

Massachusetts south to Virginia and Florida and out west to Minnesota and

California. I grew up only ever really knowing my first cousins and even them I 105 saw only once every ten years. It wasn't the kind of family connections I would wish for my own child, but it was something I had little control over.

Ethel showed me Martin's garden in the afternoon and offered me a

"cooler." Actually, it was a vodka/fruit drink that comes in a bottle. I was thirsty but told her I wasn't. I was glad she didn't seem to think anything of it. I showed her the photos from Grandma's album and she helped me identify some of the people, including her daughter Marilyn.

"Marilyn is married now and has a good job in Halifax," she beamed.

"Maybe you can meet her during another trip."

"I'd like that," I said. "So did you ever marry?" I asked already knowing the answer, but hoping to nonchalantly spur another subject.

"Oh, no," she said. "Ethel's father wasn't interested in being a dad. He moved away when he found out I was pregnant."

"Oh." I wasn't sure what else to say. "That must have been hard."

"Well yes, but we did okay." She spoke with a candor that surprised me, but indicated she had long since come to terms with her circumstances. "Martin was such a big help. He was really more of a father to Marilyn than an uncle." 106

I wanted to know if she had thought about not having her baby. I wanted to

know how she handled all the questions and how she knew she was making the

right choice. But, I couldn't ask her these things. I wasn't prepared for the

natural question about why I was so curious. I wasn't ready for her brand of

candor.

The next day, I had made plans to visit Esther and Abraham in River

Bourgeios on Cape Breton, before heading to Glace Bay. River Bourgeious was

only forty kilometers away on the opposite side of Chedabucto Bay and the Isle

Madame. I was looking forward to the time alone on the road and to maybe

make some stops. But, it wasn't to be. Martin was trying to be helpful and told

me I should follow him to the bridge that leads across the Straight of Canso to

Port Hawkesbury. He was afraid I would get lost, which I appreciated though

the thought wasn't quite so concerning to me. Sometimes I needed to get lost.

Sometimes getting lost helped me figure out where I needed to go.

I followed Martin to the bridge, but instead of turning around and returning to Hadleyville, he stuck his hand out the window and motioned me to continue to follow. And so, I followed him all along the Fleur-de-Lis Trail to the N. Side

River Bourgeois Road, where Abraham just happened to be waiting for me to 107 direct me to the house. Martin stopped his car and got out to say hello to

Abraham before giving me a hug and hopping back in his car. Abraham had both bright white hair and a bright white smile.

"It gets a little confusing once you get to this crossing," he said. "I didn't want you to get lost." Ahhhh.

I followed him along Grand Gully Road to his house, which sat atop a small hill overlooking the bay. The view was breathtaking and the homes spread apart such that you had to walk at least half a mile to a neighbor's. All the homes were different-not creations of some master developer, but of their owners or their families. It was so different from the neighborhoods I knew.

Like nearly everyone I had visited on this trip, Esther came outside to greet me as

I pulled up to the modest house with a front yard full of blooming flowers. She was a tiny, slightly hunched woman with long white hair tied in a bun on the back of her head and she wore a black apron around her waste.

The minute I walked in her home she started telling me stories about

Grandma, Nana, and Grandma's Granny. Unlike Martin and Ethel, Esther

seemed to require little warm-up time. She invited me to sit down, but didn't sit

down herself. Instead she busied herself in the kitchen, at the kind of old- 108 fashioned black stove I had only seen in the movies. I felt awkward sitting alone while she bustled around.

"Can I help?" I offered.

"Oh, no. I have it under control," she said. And so I sat and listened.

Abraham had stayed outside to work in the garden-he told me later-so Esther and I could get acquainted.

Esther's father was my Nana's brother and he had died when Esther was only twelve. Her mother had been left with four children to raise on her own.

"We had it rough," she said, "but it brought us closer together. I remember your Nana sending boxes of Martha's clothes to us from the States. They were better than what we could buy at the time in Nova Scotia and we looked forward

to those boxes every Christmas."

I knew things had been tight for Nana, raising Martha alone, so I was

surprised to learn she had been able to help Esther's family. I guess she just found a way to manage.

"I reminded her about it later in life and told her how much it meant to us.

You know what she said? She said, 'Did I do that? Well, thank God.' My father called her his religious sister." 109

Abraham came in to see how it was going. Esther had some more chores and asked him to take me for a walk. I quickly realized he was just as talkative as she. We walked down along the road towards several neighbor's homes but then cut through some brush toward the shore. Abraham pointed to a big house that sat atop a high point for the area. The house was about three times the size of any of the others nearby.

"Farley Mowat lives up there," he said.

"He does?" I asked.

Abraham was pleasantly surprised that I knew who he was talking about.

"He owns all of that land over there."

We walked down to the water, where several old lobster pots and bouys had washed ashore. I decided to take one as a souvenir. It was the old fashioned kind of lobster buoy seldom seen anymore. It had apparently been abandoned, no longer considered useful by its owner. But to me it was beautiful and a perfect reminder of my trip.

Abraham told me that he and Esther were moving to the "Senior Citizen" in

Guysborough, an assisted living complex near town. Abraham and Esther met through volunteer work, he told me, and got married at fifty-five. I wasn't sure how old they were now, but I guessed late seventies to early eighties. I was 110 surprised at their plans to move because they seemed so full of life. And Esther certainly had no problems managing her house.

"We want to be closer to family," he said.

When we arrived back at the house, Esther had a spread of trout, scallops, beets, relish, string beans, and bread. I had no problem finishing off both my first and second servings. Esther continued with her stories and told me she had worked as a teacher when she was younger.

"I made forty dollars a month and paid fourteen dollars a month for board.

Then I sent fifteen dollars home to mom," she said. "That was they way it was back then; we all did that."

I knew she was right, that's the way it was at that time. But it wasn't just about the time; it was obviously about this family, her family, my family. They had all faced circumstances beyond their control and yet they moved ahead.

Maybe it wasn't about making the right choice. Maybe the choice is just that, a choice. The right and wrong come into play with what you make of that choice.

Esther had waited to marry until much later in life. Whether this was a choice or not, I wasn't sure. But that seemed less important than the fact that she was happy. 111

Before I left the next morning, Esther raced around the house looking at her belongings. She pulled a red glass sugar bowl with gold trim from her china cabinet.

"We're getting rid of it all anyway," she said. "There won't be room in our apartment. This is part of a set my father bought. I gave your Grandma the butter dish years ago. And this was a dish from your, hmmm. I'm not sure."

She handed me a glass stemmed sundae dish as she muttered to herself trying to determine how I was connected to its original owner.

"Thank you," was all I could muster.

"This came from Janie, who got it from Alfred, who was your great great grandfather, and he got it from his mother. So I guess this came from your great great great grandmother."

I was floored. I had never had anything that had passed through so many generations of my own family.

"Are you sure you want to give these up?" I asked.

"Oh, yes. What am I going to do with them when I'm dead?" I tried to smile at her humor, but I felt numb.

A little while later as I was packing up my car, Esther handed me an envelope. 112

"Just a little gas money," she said.

"You really don't need to do that." I appreciated the gifts. But I was also realizing the gifts weren't the priceless mementos I would take away from this trip.

"Oh, I know, but I did it for your Grandma and I want to do it for you. Your

Grandma told me 'We're not hard up' when I gave her gas money, but I wanted to do it. I told her I wasn't doing it for that."

She wasn't doing it for that. It was a familiar phrase and my mind went back to Martha. I thought she was concerned about the gifts from BJ's being solely from her. But maybe it was something else. Maybe she really did just want to be able to share something with people who mattered to her because she could. I still wasn't sure why I couldn't be a part of that. Maybe because I hadn't experienced life in the way she had yet. Maybe because I didn't understand yet that family is about what you create, not what you have.

Glace Bay was celebrating its one-hundredth anniversary and signs were posted everywhere when I drove into town that afternoon. That means Glace

Bay had only been established ten years before my grandmother was born. I drove around the town just looking, letting the streets take me this way and that 113 way. In a place I expected to be somewhat empty and forgotten, the downtown streets were busy with activity.

Eventually, I found myself back on a street I had already seen and I stopped at a small general store and asked for directions to South Street. It was just a few blocks away, so I decided to walk. I found the large weather-beaten, white clapboard house at the end of a quiet street just off the main street through town.

It was bigger than I had imagined-this house of twelve rooms where Grandma was born.

Once a very well dressed and impressive lady traveling through a small town in Vermont stopped and commented to an old native, "It certainly is amazing to think that Calvin Coolidge was born in a small place like this."

"Well," said the old fellow, "his mother just happened to be here at the time."

Well, my mother happened to be living in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada, at the time I was born. From what I'm told, we had a very nice life there until I was four years old and my father died. He was a very learned man and a great scholar. On his death, we were left with a wonderful library full of books, but the most important book of all was empty, so mother took me to my Granny's farm and went to the U.S. to earn her fortune.

The most important book of all was empty. I hadn't been sure before what she meant. As I stood looking up at the house, I realized Grandma's story had been ahead of her. I had been hoping to find my story by filling in the blanks of 114 snapshot memories from my past. But blanks are themselves just snapshots without context. I had to make my own story.

As I looked up, I saw a little girl in a window of the house with her thumb in her mouth and her arm wrapped around a blanket. She looked back at me, eyes wide with curiosity. I put my hand to my stomach and smiled at her. My family was waiting for me.