Up Ghost River (18 page)

“My dad, mostly.”

“He doesn't talk much.”

“Yeah, that's just his way. We sometimes call the wemistikoshiw the ‘noisy ones.' ”

“The noisy ones?” She sounded incredulous and lightly punched my arm.

“Maybe I shouldn't have said that.”

“Which ones in particular?”

“Not
one
of you.
All
of you.”

“So you damn us all with that praise.”

“
I
don't say that.”

“I bet you don't,” she said, and threw a pillow at me.

“Joan?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I show you how Pa tells Ma that he loves her?” I put my hand on my heart, then placed it on hers. “So you can feel it through my fingers.”

“Does this mean what I think it means?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I love you too, Ed.”

We slipped into an easy rhythm, meeting every day after work to escape to the land. The days ran together into months, until we got the news. I came home by boat from teaching in Kashechewan and went straight to her house as usual. She came to the door in her pyjamas, which was unlike her.

“Oh God, Ed.”

“What is it?”

“I went to the nursing station yesterday. I'm pregnant.”

I smiled. “You serious?”

“Of course I'm serious.”

“I'm a lucky guy. We have been blessed.”

“What do I do?”

“Let's have the baby.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We'll give the world a gift. The gift of life.”

“This was supposed to be my adventure!” she yelled.

“A baby is a great adventure.”

“Ed, you don't understand. I'm twenty. I don't have any job security and I'm not married.”

“Those are all good reasons to have it.”

“For God's sake. What are you talking about?”

“I'll marry you,” I said.

“What a proposal!”

“Sorry. That came out wrong. Joan, I love you. Since the first day I met you, I wanted you to be my wife.”

“Ed! That's not the point!”

“Well, what is the point?”

“You don't even have a ring!”

I reached into my pocket. I had an old chocolate wrapper and I began to curl it into a loop.

“Joan, will you marry me?”

Her anger broke and she laughed. “Are you serious? With this?” She held up the chocolate wrapper.

“Why not?”

“How am I going to show this to my family?”

“Tell them it's a sacred Cree tradition.”

“My dad is never going to fall for that.”

“Well, don't tell him until we get a real one. We'll get a gold one in Timmins next holidays.”

“Joan told me you're engaged,” Ma said. Joan and I were at my parents' house a couple of days later, where there were ten of us tightly packed around a kitchen table full of elbows and clattering dishes. I looked at Joan, trying to figure out whether she'd told them she was pregnant, too. I hoped not. Ever since Rita's death, Ma took the Catholic teachings very seriously, and I didn't want Joan to have to go to confession and go through the embarrassment of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

“It slipped out over school lunch,” Joan said, and looked at me apologetically.

“Does this mean she'll be an Indian?” Ma asked.

“Yeah. Status card and everything,” I replied.

“What's my Indian name?” Joan asked.

“Green Eyes,” Pa said.

“Really?”

“He's messing around,” I replied.

“I like Green Eyes,” she said.

“And she showed me her ring,” Ma said. “Lucky this isn't a Give Away ceremony, Ed. You show up with a chocolate wrapper, and
everyone would think you're too cheap.” At the Give Away ceremonies, Crees were famously generous with their gifts to the person being honoured.

“We'll get something better at Christmas,” I said.

“You could borrow mine.”

“Thanks, Ma. I think Joan wants her own.”

“We're proud of you, Ed,” Ma said. “As soon as I heard, I went straight over and told Father Daneau.” Father Daneau was new to Fort Albany, and he and Father Lavois were working alongside each other as the community priests.

“Ah, Ma. I wish you hadn't done that. We weren't planning to get married at the church.” I was angry, but like Pa, I masked my real feelings.

“What are you talking about? You're Catholic. Joan is Catholic. You're having it in the church.”

The last time I was in church was a few months earlier. I hadn't wanted to go—hadn't gone since St. Anne's—but Ma kept on at me. We fought about it and she seemed to retreat, at least for a while. Then something in her hardened, and she decided that I was near eternal damnation, and my soul was corrupt, the usual garbage.

Good luck saying no to Ma. If you've ever tried to argue with someone who has raised ten kids and was carrying river water home before she could run, you know that you might as well argue with a moose. I blame the priests—we natives tried to let everyone have his or her own opinion, let a man have his freedom, mind and land, but Ma had grown more Catholic.

The service was uneventful until the Eucharist. I didn't pay much attention until after the girls had received Communion. A group of younger boys knelt before the priest. They shut their eyes and opened their mouths. Their tongues lolled expectantly. My hands started to shake. I felt faint, said “excuse me” to Ma, and went out for a smoke.

Damned if they'd get me kneeling before the Holy Father. I was angrier now that I was alone. I was not going to hold my tongue out like a dog.

“What happened, Ed?” Ma came out of the building when the service was over.

“Needed to pee.”

“You were shaking.”

“I had to pee bad.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Just leave it, Ma.”

“Ed. I'm worried about you.”

“I said leave it.”

Ma and I argued about the wedding location over the next few weeks. To be honest, it felt like trying to change the Canada goose migration route—lots of pointless, honking noise, and you followed them around and around before they took notice and fired at you with putrid green and white.

If you're hunting, you can't just march right up to your prey. They'd hear, or at least smell you. I decided to approach the discussion by staying downwind. That meant coming at the problem from an angle, so I worked on Joan. “Let's not have our wedding at the church,” I said one night when I was visiting her. I hadn't yet explained why—I was planning on telling her after the wedding and the birth, when things were more settled. No need to worry her when she was pregnant.

“Where do you want to have it?” Joan asked.

I shrugged. “What about in the open air? We could have a tent.” There wasn't much free space in Fort Albany.

“What if it rains? And how will we afford a giant tent?”

“We can save up.”

“It seems like a needless expense.”

“Joan, you're always telling me that you think the Catholic Church has a lot to answer for.”

“It does. But this is our wedding.”

Ma found out about my suggestion to Joan and didn't stay upwind. She went right to her target, straight as an arrow.

Our wedding took place at Holy Angels Catholic Church, a stone's throw from St. Anne's.

I had trouble dressing. I felt sweaty and jumpy, and didn't want anyone to see me, at least not right away. I kept thinking about the night before, when I had my first meeting with Joan's parents, Lloyd and Patricia Barnes. It hadn't gone according to plan. Sure, the meal at my parents' house with my nine brothers and sisters had seemed nice enough—Patty said she loved the huckleberry jam that Ma had made—but I still couldn't tell if her parents liked me. I asked Joan about it after the meal.

“No, you're wrong,” she said. “They liked you.”

“Did they say anything?”

“Not much, no,” she said.

“And they didn't mind that you're marrying an Indian?”

“Well. They were surprised. It was all a surprise, Ed. But they like you now.”

I stared at her. I sensed that there was more to it than that, especially given Alex's reaction. He had accused me of marrying out—of betraying my race by choosing someone white, and whiter than white, a blonde. I had told him that this was bigger than politics, and then I had stopped fighting about it and gone silent. It was a relief that someone would choose me after what had happened. That I could still have sex. All the pieces could come apart if I didn't stay with it.

Keep focused. That's what I had to do now. The buttons on my shirt wouldn't go into the damned holes. And my shoes—goddammit,
why were laces so slippery? Late and sweaty, I finished up and hurried to the church. I walked around the building and opened the side door a crack, peering at the expectant faces.
Where's Ma? Is Joan here? Is Mike coming? Oh God, that's him. Oh no, it's not. Is he here? Maybe he'd gotten word of my wedding and had flown in from Montreal
. My hands shook. I clenched them and counted silently. Open close. One. Open close. Two. My throat tightened. The fear spread downwards, as if there were a hot boulder pressing onto my chest. Breathing troubles. My mind filled with a dense flurry of voices. The floor and ceiling uneven, and swerving to meet each other. Too much was happening in that church. I backed away.

The sky was cloudy and grey, the ground covered in melting ice and snow. The church was a few yards from the spruce forest. I made my way there, the wet and cold seeping through my leather shoes. The muskeg was uneven and slippery, and I walked carefully so I didn't trip.

It was quiet in the forest. I stood next to the spruce trees or, as we call them, the Standing Ones. I felt their cold bark and breathed them in. They were the roots of life. Standing tall and providing food and shelter. Breathing, steadily and silently. I watched and listened to their silence. The icy air cut through the voices in my head, and when I looked up through the jagged branches I saw a faint sliver of light.

I glanced at my wrist. My watch wasn't there: I had forgotten it. How long had I been away? Ten minutes? Twenty? An hour? I hurried back the way I came.

I thought I'd slip in through the side door. I stood outside and listened through the wood. I could hear the sound of competing voices. A few deep breaths, the door ajar, and a sea of faces. Some people were still sitting, but many were standing and talking urgently. I saw my pa at the other end of the church and began to walk over. As people noticed me, they fell silent and stared.

Midway, I saw Ma and Alex walking toward me from the back of the church. I switched direction and began to walk toward them. I could hear my footsteps on the wooden floor.

“Where have you been?”

“Why are your pants wet?”

“What happened to your shoes?”

“Alex went to look for you.”

“We were waiting. Everyone was waiting.”

They stared at me with their worried eyes. Each anxious face made me feel worse.

“Please,” I said. “Where is Joan? I want to see Joan.”

“No, Ed,” Ma said. “It's bad luck.”

“Please,” I said, and pushed past her.

She was in the vestry, sitting in a chair, looking down. A loose strand of hair had escaped her veil and hung in her eyes. She was rubbing her thumbs together frantically like she was trying to remove a spot from her skin.

“I thought you walked out on me,” she said, and as she looked up, I saw her mascara was smudged.

“I went to see the Standing Ones.”

“The what?”

“The trees. I needed their wisdom.”

“On your wedding day?”

“I wanted to make sure everything was right.”

She shook her head. “I don't understand you.”

“I'm sorry. I needed things to be right.”

“Couldn't you have gone before?”

“I didn't realize it would take so long.”

“You embarrassed me.”

“I know. Can you forgive me?”

“Everyone was waiting.”

“I know. Please, Joan.”

“How can I trust you?”

“I just felt nervous, that's all.”

“Why are you so nervous? Are you afraid of making the commitment?”

“No, that's not it! There's a lot going on.”

“What's going on? The only thing that's happening is our wedding.”

“I panicked.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.”

“Ed, is there something that you're not telling me?”

“No … I … I'm scared I guess.”

“That's it?”

“Yeah, that's it.”

“Let's not have any secrets from each other. I'm scared too, you know.”

“You are?”

“Of course.”

“Why are you scared?”

“Because this is a big commitment.”

I wanted to hold her in my arms. “Please forgive me, Joan.”

She shook her head and was silent for a while. Then she stood and we went into the church together.

It was against the St. Anne's regulations for me to live with Joan, especially now that it was obvious we had broken the laws on fraternizing. Joan was officially an Indian, at least in the eyes of the law, which meant that she had to live in native housing.

We moved in with my parents. It was packed. Monday to Saturday, it was Joan, Ma, Pa, Marcel (five), Danny (four) and me in our two-bedroom house. On Sundays, Mary-Louise, Chris, Leo, Jane, Denise and Mike came home too. And on holidays, well, forget it. It was all thirteen of us packed into that tiny house. I was used to it growing up, but Joan found it hard, almost inhumane.

I tried to please her by bringing home lots of fresh rabbit and fish. That's what my pa had done for my ma when they were out in the bush and she was pregnant.