The Spawning Grounds (23 page)

JESSE REMOVED HIS
helmet and gloves and turned off the MIG welder. Lunchtime. He had skipped breakfast and was starting to feel it. He undid the buttons on the leather shirt he wore for protection and stepped out of the round, open entrance to the machine shed, to stretch and look at the winter landscape. Fog hung low over the snowy fields and obscured the hills on the other side of the river. A crow lifted from the roof and flew off, fading as it entered the low cloud.

He'd moved his equipment into his father's old shed and set up shop here, taking on work as he could find it from the mill and local farmers, something to keep him busy in the weeks following his father's death. He needed to keep busy. The familiar restlessness he'd experienced in bouts for most of his life had hit hard. In the evenings, he couldn't sit still long enough to watch a television show with Hannah and had to get up to smoke a joint outside, or to make a sandwich. He'd put on ten pounds.

Now he fidgeted with the buttons on his leather shirt, wishing for a smoke, but he had promised himself he'd cut down after Hannah started giving him the evil eye. So, a sandwich then. He'd bought himself some rye and smoked meat. A good mustard. A few cans of beer.

Jesse hung up the shirt and headed towards the house without his jacket, feeling the bite of January cold on his bare arms. It was refreshing after the heat of welding. He stopped outside the kitchen door. Gina's car was in her driveway, and Grant's truck was gone. He thought briefly of going over to see her, as he had many times these last few weeks. But she was a married woman and she had made her wishes clear. He would only make a fool of himself. Still, she had held his hand a little too long at Stew's memorial. She had looked into his face a little too long.

There was a smash, the sound of a dish breaking against the floor inside the house, and Jesse pushed into the kitchen to find Brandon poised to throw his mug too. A broken plate and disassembled egg sandwich was strewn across the floor.

“Whoa. What's going on?”

Brandon turned to Jesse with the cup still in hand and pointed in his sister's direction. “She poisons me!”

“He wouldn't take his meds this morning.”

“She put poison in my food!”

Jesse held out both hands and walked to his son slowly, hoping to calm him. “Hannah would never poison you.”

“Actually, I ground up his pills and put them in his sandwich.”

“Shit, Hannah.”

“Well, he refused to take them.”

Jesse ran a hand through his hair. “Look, Bran, you
do
need to take the pills. If you don't, you won't get better.”

Bran gestured with the mug still in hand, sloshing coffee to the floor. “These pills make me fat and stupid. I can't think. I don't know myself. I don't know what I'm doing. I sleep all the time.”

Jesse nodded. “Side effects. Just give it some time. If these don't work, then we'll talk to the doctor about switching meds.” Jesse took another wary step forward, thinking of Elaine when she got like this. She had been like a wild animal, impossible to reason with. She had hit him once. “You've got to be patient. The pills will make you feel better, over time.”

Bran's eyes shifted back and forth as if he were trying to follow Jesse's words and failing. Then he dropped his mug and held his head. “You imprison me! You keep me in this house. I go nowhere. I need to get out.”

He turned and strode towards the kitchen door, and when Jesse blocked that exit, he turned heel and headed for the dining room, intent on leaving the house by the front door. Hannah stepped in front of him. “Let me go!” he cried.

“You can't leave the house,” she said.

“Let me out!”

He pushed Hannah and, when she wouldn't budge, he swept the dishes drying on the rack to the floor. Jesse attempted to stop him, but Brandon pulled free again and again, grabbing and flinging whatever he could reach: the salt and pepper shakers, the box of baking soda Stew had always had at the ready on the stove to put out grease fires. Hannah jumped to the side as Bran overturned the old table and chairs and sent her lunch flying. Ceramic shards
and food spun across the floor in all directions. Jesse finally got a grip on his son from behind, wrapping him in a hug as Brandon tired. “Let me go!” Bran cried. “Let me go!”

Bran struggled in Jesse's arms, then suddenly became shaky, too weak to stand. Jesse leaned him against the wall and let him go, and the boy slid down and sat on the floor. Bran rolled his head back and forth, anguished. “Let me go!”

Jesse squatted beside his son. “Bran, look at me.” He held his son's shoulders but Bran yanked himself away.

“Don't touch me!”

Jesse held up both hands. “Fine, but you need to listen to me.” He tried looking Bran in the eye, but Bran wouldn't meet his gaze. “You feel this way because you haven't taken your pills. Either you take the meds willingly, or I will take you back to that hospital, where the staff will force you to take them. You understand me? That means injections, needles.”

“I hate these needles,” Bran said. “I hate this hospital.”

“Then take the damn pills.”

Bran finally stopped rolling his head back and forth and nodded. Hannah offered him the pills and a glass of water and Bran took them. Both Jesse and Hannah watched him swallow.

“Open your mouth,” Jesse told him.

Bran glared past Jesse, at the upturned table behind him, but opened his mouth. Jesse pulled back Bran's lip with his finger to make sure the pills were gone and Bran bit him.

“Fuck!” Jesse jumped up, nursing the finger. The imprint of Bran's teeth on his skin. His son had drawn blood.

Hannah stepped forward, putting herself between Jesse and Bran. “Can you stand?” she asked her brother.

He nodded, glancing at Jesse as if he now feared him. Hannah helped him up. “I'll tuck him into bed,” she said to Jesse.

Hannah spoke to Bran in a low, soothing voice as she guided him upstairs to his bedroom, taking control from her father as Gina once had when Elaine first fell ill. Jesse felt the same mix of gratitude and annoyance towards his daughter now as he had felt then towards Gina.

Jesse cradled his finger as he surveyed the damage. He turned the table upright and set the chairs back in place, but left the rest of the chaos scattered across the floor. Hannah could damn well deal with it.

He pulled down his stash from the top of the kitchen cupboard and rolled a joint at the kitchen table. He lit it and breathed in deeply as he heard Hannah thump downstairs. “He's already asleep,” she said as she entered the kitchen. “Do you hear how he talks?”

Jesse nodded. The distinctive, clipped accent of those who had grown up on the reserve. “So he spent too much time around Alex.”

“Alex doesn't talk like that. Bran sounds like he's learning English all over again.”

“Schizophrenics often struggle to communicate. Or don't talk at all.” Later in her illness, Elaine had sat in that captain's chair for hours, days, weeks, never saying anything at all, even in response to a direct question. “At least he
is
talking now. He hasn't in weeks.”

Hannah sat at the table with him and stared out the window for a time, her eyes clearly fixed on the reserve village, on Alex's house. She looked so tired. Beyond tired.
Shattered. Jesse elbowed her, offering the joint, but she shook her head. He shrugged and inhaled.

“We're not doing this anymore,” he said. “Bran's going back to the hospital until I can find some decent care for him.”

“You promised if he took the pills he wouldn't go back.”

“You're exhausted. It's obvious we're getting nowhere with him. If anything, he's getting worse. He's becoming violent. He could hurt you.”

“We'll talk to his doctor about changing up the meds, like you said. She told us it would take time to work that out. She said we'd have to experiment with different drugs.”

Jesse shook his head. “I've had enough.”

“What are you saying?”

“There's nothing to stop the sale of the farm now. I can't put it off any longer.”

“You're leaving?”

“Hannah, there isn't anything here for me now. And you need to go back to college. I'll make sure Bran gets the care he needs.”

“You need to stay here and be his dad.”

Jesse shook his head as he blew out a stream of smoke. “Today was the first time he talked to me in weeks. Some days I'm not even sure he knows who I am.”

“You're really just going to walk away?”

“I have a life, Hannah.”

“Just not here, with us.”

Jesse pinched out his joint and stood. “I can't do this right now.”

“You're running away, like you always do.”

“Whatever.”

“I hate you!”

Jesse turned and pointed at her, the joint still in hand. “I'm sick of you blaming me, judging me. I came back here. I paid the bills. I took care of things with Dad. I made sure he got good medical care. And I took care of things with Bran too. You think you can do better, then go ahead and try.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Fine. Go to it. I'm out of here.”

Jesse slammed the door and stood on the kitchen steps. Then he kicked the side of the old house, putting a hole in the tarpaper. “Fuck.” He took out his lighter and relit the joint and smoked as he walked to the orchard.

The landscape before him was a grey wash, the cloud and low-hanging fog indistinguishable from the snow beneath. The churning river was the only horizon. Winters in this narrow valley were heavy and dark. He felt he would suffocate under the weight of this one.

Across the road Gina stepped outside with a bucket of ash after cleaning her wood stove. Her sweep of black hair covered her face as she bent to toss the ash over her garden plot. Embers in the ash, catching oxygen, lit up, showering the air with light before they hit snow.

When Gina straightened, she saw Jesse watching her. Jesse waited for some gesture, some invitation from her, but she only stood there. Finally she turned and carried her ash bucket back into the house.

AS HANNAH CROSSED
the slushy road to Gina's yard, Spice, Stew's mare—Gina's mare now—whinnied in recognition and trotted through snow to the gate of her enclosure. Hannah scratched her forehead and rested her face on the mare's neck, taking in the familiar smell of her. Other than Abby, Spice was the last of her grandfather's animals left in the valley. Jesse had trucked the rest to auction.

Hannah turned as she heard the crunch of Gina's boots.

“You know you can take her out for a ride any time,” Gina said.

“I don't ride anymore.”

“You should. It would be good for you.”

Hannah gave Spice a last scratch and stepped away from the horse. “She's yours now.” She glanced at Grant watching them from the window. “I wouldn't want to impose.”

Gina paused as she registered the emotion on Hannah's face. “How you holding up?”

Hannah shrugged but felt on the verge of tears. “Okay, I guess.”

“And Brandon?”

Hannah looked away, to her home where Bran slept in his bedroom. She had chosen his naptime to talk to Gina, but she still had to watch from here. Bran took any opportunity to run away. “Not so good. That's why I'm here. I wonder—shit.” Hannah wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, crushing her tears. Then she looked directly at Gina. “Am I the reason you stopped coming around, to help us out? I mean, I know I was rude a lot of the time.”

“Oh, no. Hannah, it wasn't you.” When Hannah looked back at the house, her lip trembling, Gina asked her, “Hey, hey, what's going on?”

Hannah shook her head, and rubbed her face with both hands, trying to pull herself together. “Jesse's leaving,” she said.

“Did he say when?”

“He wants to put Bran back in the hospital. He says he'll leave as soon as that's set up. He has a doctor's appointment tomorrow.”

“I'm not sure what you want me to do.”

Hannah hugged herself tighter. “This is so hard for me, you know, asking.” Begging. “Could you come over again, give us a hand with Brandon? Maybe if Jesse didn't have to help out so much he'd stay. Or if he does leave, maybe I could keep Brandon at home, if I had help. When the farm sells, Bran and I can find a place.”

“That would be a decision you'd have to make with your dad,” Gina told her. “He has custody.”

“Jesse just wants to leave. Could you talk to him for me? I could take care of Bran myself, if I had help.”

Gina looked back at the bungalow, where Grant still watched from the living-room window. She fiddled with her engagement and wedding bands. “Spending time at the farmhouse would cause certain issues for me at home.”

“So you aren't going to help.”

“I didn't say that.”

Hannah turned from Gina, feeling sick to her stomach. She scanned the blackened supports of the old bridge, the dark windows of the reserve houses that dotted the thin strip of lowland on the opposite shore, and found Alex keeping watch at the tent over Samuel's grave up on the benchland. He had fished the protest signs out of the water at Dead Man's Bend and set them up around the tent:
O Canada, Your Home on Native Land
. The gesture was senseless now, Hannah thought. The crew couldn't cross the river until the new bridge was built, and construction on that wouldn't start until spring. Yet Alex kept vigil over the grave.

“You're in love with Alex, aren't you?” Gina asked, following her gaze. When Hannah looked away, Gina added, “It would be hard, you know, to be with him, hard to fit in. I tried to go back as soon as I was old enough to leave my foster home. I felt like I didn't belong in their tidy, sterile world. But it took only days to realize I no longer belonged on the reserve either.”

“Alex and I aren't seeing each other. I managed to fuck that up.”

“But you do love him.”

Hannah didn't answer. The question made her angry. She glared at Grant watching them from the window until he moved away into the shadows. She turned to Gina as the pieces fell into place. “You were seeing Dad again, weren't you?” Hannah asked. “Grant figured it out and you broke things off with Dad. That's why you haven't been around.”

Gina paused before answering. “It's not that simple. Jesse needed to step up, to take care of you and Bran on his own. If I was there, he wouldn't. You know he wouldn't.”

“Dad had other affairs back then, you know. There were other women before you, and one while you were together.”

Gina breathed out slowly, purposefully. “I know,” she said. “I was married too. Jesse and I both had our reasons for hooking up.” She paused. “I wanted a child.”

“But you never had kids.”

“No.”

“Dad wasn't just screwing around on Mom. He betrayed Bran and me too. He broke up our family.”
You
broke up our family, she thought.

Gina shook her head. “He wasn't trying to leave
you
then, Hannah, any more than he is now. Taking care of someone so sick—losing someone you love to madness—that can destroy you. Maybe he made the wrong choices then, just like he is now, but he did need something—someone—to help him through your mother's illness. I shouldn't have to explain that to you, especially now.”

“But after she died, Dad should have stayed. He should stay now.”

“Of course he should have stayed, and I agree, he should stay now. But not all of us can cope. Jesse is a brilliant man. He could have done anything he wanted. When we were all still at school, everyone thought he'd end up at university, rather than in a trade. In my experience, the really smart people often have the most trouble coping with the terrible realities of the world. You must have felt like running away many times over this last year. I imagine you feel that way now.”

Hannah straightened her back. “I can cope. I had to, with Grandpa. I have to now.”

A crow landed on the tin roof of the house and clattered to the edge to peer down at them, ducking a cluster of electrical wires. Hannah had once seen a crow land on an electrical transformer in town and get zapped with the pop of an explosion, like a gun going off. The crow had dropped dead, smoking, to the street. Black feathers fluttered down after it. Terrible. Darkly funny.

“Did she love me?” Hannah asked Gina, still looking up at the crow.

“Your mom? Oh, Hannah, of course she loved you.”

“Just not enough.” Not enough to stay. Jesse didn't love her enough to stay.

“I know how hard all this is for you. Losing your mom, your dad. Now Stew and Brandon. You must feel abandoned. Orphaned.”

Hannah swung around to look directly at her. “Don't throw your counsellor bullshit at me. You have no idea how I feel.”

“Stew drank,” Gina said. She didn't ask. She stated it as a fact.

Hannah paused. “Yes.”

“He drank when Jesse was a kid too. My own mother drank and later turned to crack. That's how she lost custody of me. Neglect. Neglect of herself, mostly. My older brother lived on his own and would have taken me in, but family services put me in a foster home up the valley, with a white family. The Tomlinsons. Remember them? Janet and Phil?”

“I didn't know about your mom,” Hannah said. A flood of embarrassment rose up from her chest to her face.

“Well, gossip rarely crosses that bridge.” Gina lifted her chin to the burned remains of the old wooden structure. “After the Tomlinsons took me in, my mom phoned, wanting to see me. She was usually stoned when she called. She turned up at the door once, stinking of booze, and Phil turned her away. The Tomlinsons were good people, naïve in their way. I was embarrassed, for myself, for my mother, for the Tomlinsons, that they had to see her like that. Then Mom died of an overdose.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“So I do know something of what you've been living with. I should have come to help you much, much sooner. Maybe I should have continued to help after Jesse and I—” She stopped short. “I should have talked to you before stepping back. But you didn't want me there.”

“It wasn't your problem.”

“I should have made it my problem.”

Hannah looked back across the river, to Alex and the pictograph on the cliff face above him. “You and Dad never got back together, after Mom's death, I mean?”

“Oh, no. How could we after that?”

“Do you regret…” Hannah hesitated as she thought how best to ask. Did Gina regret ending her relationship with her father? If Gina wanted children, had she ever wished to take Hannah and Bran on, as her own?

She glanced up to meet Gina's keen hazel eyes, a hand-me-down from some white ancestor. This woman who might have been like a mother to her if circumstances, if Gina's choices and her father's, had been different. Gina said, at last, “You look so very much like your mother, like Elaine did when we were all young.” She put a hand to Hannah's cheek as if she knew how Hannah might have finished her question, as if her past was visiting her on this late winter day.