Not one word had come from Emery or Darryl when Adam had arrived at the cozy two-bedroom log house. They also hadn’t said anything when he’d showered and dressed. And Emery hadn’t said anything before leaving for the church.
Now Adam rode shotgun while Darryl drove them to the workshop, who still hadn’t said anything. He stared straight ahead at the dirt road, wearing his customary black sunglasses. Bandit stuck her snout between the two seats, resting her paws on the console.
Adam petted the dog’s soft fur.
Darryl cleared his throat. “I know it’s not any of my business...”
Nope, Adam’s all-night disappearing act wasn’t anyone’s business.
“I just don’t wanna see you go through what I went through in July.”
“The deacon gave you a tough time?”
“Yeah. Sure did.” Darryl turned the truck onto Church Road. “Try understand, he’s had it tough. Another residential school survivor. He’ll share his story this morning. You’ll see why he is the way he is when it comes to Em, Jude, and Bridget.”
“She’s never been the kind of person who listens to her folks.”
“You nailed it.” Darryl chuckled. “When she’d come up here to visit, she was always getting into trouble.”
“She may do things that piss off her parents, but she’s a woman devoted to the church. I don’t see why this isn’t enough for them.”
“I wish it was the same way, too.” The truck rolled up to the church where Clayton Kabatay and his family continued to protest.
“Talked to Raven at the meeting last night. She made some good points.” Adam unbuckled his seat belt, something he’d never done until he’d met Bridget.
“They make a lot of good points,” Darryl said. “I used to agree with them. Preserving our culture is extremely important, but we can’t disrespect or try discourage another’s beliefs, which they’re doing.”
Darryl spoke the truth. Raven and her family were completely against the church, and completely against the Matawapit family.
“They really hate the deacon, huh?” Adam followed Darryl to the basement door beneath the car port.
“Hate is a kind word to use.” Darryl shook his head. “The Kabatays are beyond hate.” He opened the door.
They went down the four steps. The kitchen was to their right, the door shut, but the sound of pots clanging and women chattering carried to where they stood.
Adam passed on the coffee for now. Basil sat in the circle of tables before his big drum, ready to begin the morning prayer.
Bridget came in from the other basement door that faced the lake. She stopped. From where Adam stood, he spied red climbing up her cheekbones. At least the deacon wasn’t present. He must be upstairs, helping the priest recite Mass for the Catholic participants.
Darryl snickered. “C’mon.” He led them to where they’d sat yesterday.
Adam drew out a chair just as Bridget scooted by, barreling for the kitchen. She’d braided her hair in a tail falling down her back. White cotton shorts showed off the long legs she’d draped around his waist last night. He couldn’t forget the perky tits he’d sucked on, or her pussy he’d eaten until he was full. And how she’d thrashed and kicked while he’d held her thighs in place.
“It’s a good thing my father-in-law isn’t here.” Darryl again snickered. “If he saw the look on your face...”
Aww, for crying out loud. Adam was doing what he’d done last night—giving away his feelings. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just pick my tongue up off the table.”
Darryl slapped his hand over his mouth, but his body shook from being unable to contain his laughter.
At least someone was having a good time—at Adam’s expense.
Bridget vanished into the kitchen. She’d said no to Adam’s offer of a motel room. Maybe she was right. The mere sight of her had distracted him from what he should be concentrating on—the workshop and healing.
Time for him to get his act together. He had his son to think about, and a woman whom he’d hurt... terribly. A woman who deserved to only smile and laugh when she saw him. A child who could always count on him to be there.
He’d be that man. He’d be that father. He’d be that husband.
Nobody was getting in his way anymore. Not the deacon. Not The Hawk. Not his parole officer. Nobody.
The morning had been the deacon’s story of torment, anger, shame, and disillusionment after leaving the Indian Residential School. Adam could understand why the man protected his children—even into adulthood.
Nobody had been there to protect the deacon who’d lost his two best friends—one through neglect by the nuns and priests who’d refused to believe the boy was sick, and the other who’d run away in the dead of winter, preferring to face freezing temperatures over the safety of the little warmth the school had offered.
Adam couldn’t begin to imagine what had gone through the deacon’s five-year-old mind when he’d spoken about the Indian Agent accompanied by a RCMP officer showing up at the reserve, escorting the children from their homes, boarding them on a plane without an explanation, and taking them far away from the forest and lakes they knew, to be thrust into a cold, dark place full of cold, dark faces expecting complete obedience.
The worst part was, the deacon’s parents and grandparents had experienced the same school, the same misery, the same pain, the same terror, the same shame.
No wonder so many had turned to alcohol and drugs to wipe their memories clean of the horrors they’d suffered as children. No wonder they’d left the school at sixteen in utter defeat. They’d not only been stripped of their language and culture, they’d been stripped of love and compassion, and had their dignity stolen from them.
What did they have to offer as parents when they had children of their own? Because of those schools, the adult children had no idea how to speak about their feelings, clueless how to love someone, much less parent their offspring, because they’d never experienced what parenting was.
Generation after generation this had happened, starting when the schools opened in the eighteen-seventies, ordered by the Prime Minister of Canada. Assimilate the heathens.
Even worse, they’d watched the pitiful land allotments they’d been provided by the Crown destroyed, whether through pollution when big businesses dumped waste into their rivers and lakes, flooding to build hydro-electric dams for towns and cities, or being moved to worthless land of bedrocks and swamps because precious gems were discovered on the reserves. The list went on and on, and this bullshit still happened.
A Catholic woman from one of the tourist camps who was participating in the workshop had said if anyone would have tried that with her, she would have called the police. Then she’d lowered her head, face red, realizing the police were enforcing what the government had ordered, so there’d be nobody she could have turned to in order to protect her children.
Adam clutched his coffee cup. He sat in a circle with Darryl and three other men. The group had been broken into smaller groups for sharing.
The deacon was leading Darryl and Adam’s group. Bridget’s father motioned at the stupid chair Adam had read about on the agenda, where he was supposed to speak to the dumb thing.
Even worse, Adam was first up to talk. What the heck was he supposed to say? Although he’d been sitting, lost in his thoughts, nobody had urged him to address the chair.
If the old-timers from the twelve-step group were present, they’d tell Adam to keep an open mind. Fine, he would. He stood.
The empty chair remained empty.
Before he could think, before he could try to piece together what swarmed through his mind, the words tumbled from his mouth, cold words, icy and stony. “Why’d you have me?”
In the past, Adam hadn’t wondered why his parents decided to birth children if they had no clue how to care for them. The deacon’s story summed up Mom and Dad’s desperation to try live a normal life, but inability to offer love and protection because of their own pain, misery, and shame. Their own hate, resentment, and disgust.
Through the spots in front of Adam’s eyes, Kyle appeared in the chair, asking the same question—Why’d you have me, Daddy?
Adam swallowed. The saliva wouldn’t go down, having turned thick and sticky.
He’d had Kyle for the same reasons Adam’s parents had him—someone to love. But they didn’t know how to love. Neither did he. He’d tried. Tried so hard. Fear had sent him back to the bottle, running from what he had no idea how to give or receive.
Busting heads and gangbanging had been easier. Easier to hate. Easier to crush people under his boot heel. Easier to keep feeding the misery. Easier to pretend he didn’t care.
I want to love, but I don’t know how to love.
Adam’s body shook. He tried to set down the coffee cup he still held that trembled in his hand.
“Here...” Darryl grasped the cup.
The anxiety pounded and thundered at the base of Adam’s neck, shivered and quivered up his spine, stretched and cawed, enclosing him like a thick cocoon, wrapping him until he couldn’t punch away the horror, couldn’t swipe away the distress.
Sweat slithered along Adam’s brows, threatening to invade his eyes. More sweat filled his armpits and coated his back.
He had to get out of here, try to shake the cocoon tightening around his skin. He needed a cigarette. Needed... something.
He turned and stormed for the back door leading to the lake.
* * * *
Bridget dashed from her spot at the coffee counter. She should have stayed in the kitchen with Mom. She shouldn’t have come out to replenish the refreshment table. Mom had warned this afternoon was a crucial time for the participants. From the previous Healing the Spirit, Bridget knew so, too.
She darted out the back door beneath the car port and scampered by the protesters who had the gall to call her insulting names, from traitor to half-breed. None of what they said mattered. Adam was in pain.
Once Bridget scurried down the path, she emerged from the brush to find him sitting on the big rock, trembling and smoking a cigarette.
Adam kept staring at the water, his eyes glazed over, as if he were somewhere else.
“Adam?” Bridget sank down beside him.
He turned. His dark eyes hardened. “I had no right having my son. This is all my fault.”
“What do you mean?”
“Angela...” Adam sucked on the cigarette filter. He blew a couple of smoke rings. “She wasn’t supposed to get pregnant. Was supposed to be on the pill. I should’ve kept it wrapped. Should’ve known the state she was in, she wouldn’t remember to take her birth control like she was supposed to.”
“But it did happen.” Bridget laid her hand over Adam’s thigh. His lethal quadriceps stiffened beneath her palm.
“Nope. We had choices. She wasn’t sure if she could go through with it ‘cause she knew she’d have to stop using.”
Bridget’s heart froze.
“I told her we’d be fine. A big part of me...” The apple in Adam’s throat shifted up and down. “A big part of me wanted my boy. Wanted to be a father. I had no right...”
“Why?”
“You know why.” He scowled. “I’m no good. No better than my parents. No better than my sisters. Lookit ‘em. Always getting their kids taken away. Choosing booze over their rug rats. None of us had any right becoming parents. We’re not fit.”
No way would Bridget let Adam go on a pity trip. Not after he’d come this far. “The past is the past. This is the present. And you’re doing everything you can to change your life for your sake. For Kyle’s sake.”
“The deacon talked about the biggie—not having any idea how to love someone. How to receive love given to him. Why’d you think I started drinking again?” He tipped the brim of his cowboy hat. “I had no clue how to love you. What to do with the love you gave me. I’m incapable. The schools made sure we’d never figure out how to give a damn about anyone other than ourselves.”
“That’s not true,” Bridget fired back. “You loved me in a way nobody has before. You love Kyle. You’re his father.”
“It takes more than firing your jizz into a woman to be a father.” Hate blazed in his eyes, flashing up like a storm raging over cold, black water. “I was never there for him.”
“You are now.”
“Am I? I’m not gonna be there tomorrow. I’m here. He was upset about it. Crushed. Again, I let him down. If not for you, he’d hate me.”
“Yes, if not for me. Did you ever think...” The bottom dropped out from beneath Bridget. Oh Lord, I’m supposed to show Adam how to love and receive love. Emery’s right. God always has a plan. His plan was for me to become a part of Adam’s life. To help him heal the way Mom helped Dad heal.
“Did you ever think all of this was meant to happen?” Bridget’s heart churned into overdrive, rattling against her chest. “You left Winnipeg to try to make a better life for you and Kyle. You came to the career fair to see what your options were for post-secondary schooling. We met. We were meant to meet. God willed this.”
“Did He really, kwe?” Adam stared at her. “I forgot all about a career when I saw you. Forgot about everything. I mean everything.”
“I’ll never forget how the two of you looked...” Adam’s shoulders wider than bridges, his get out of my way lazy strut as the crowd scampered to give him a wide berth, and his overpowering presence had left Bridget quivering in her seat at the display table. A man with ruthless dark eyes, but a child on his hip, a toddler cuddled around his daddy, held by a big hand on his tiny rump. Adam and Kyle had tugged at Bridget’s insides, summoned her from the table, commanded her to approach the man with the street-tough handsomeness and smoldering testosterone.
“It was God,” she whispered. “It was God.”
“It wasn’t God. It was lust.” Adam snorted.
“Lust?” Bridget sputtered. “How can you say that?”
“It’s true. I took one look at you and thought, walk it over here, honey.” Adam shook his head.
Bridget had to remember Adam had been inexperienced at his new life at the time. Naturally, he’d let his crotch goad him. “You were a perfect gentleman.”
“Kwe, what else was I s’posed to be? You were a lady. Y’know how many ladies I’d known before I met you? None.” His words reeked of disgust. “The only women I knew were just like me. I wasn’t gonna take you to a bar and get drunk.”
“Try to remember you were starting a new life. I didn’t expect you to take me to a bar. You took me for coffee.”
Adam’s lips tugged at the corners.
Bridget breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe she was talking down his anxiety, or whatever was making him fidget. He had the familiar look in his eyes, one she hadn’t recognized at the time but understood now. Fear was creeping up his spine, and a man like Adam had no idea how to handle fear, an emotion he wouldn’t own up to because of what his parents had put him through, because of what he’d learned to hide on the streets, because of what he’d learned in jail and prison.
Life had taught Adam in order to survive, he had to strike first or be struck down.
“I understand now why you drank.” She laid her head on his thigh. When he petted her hair, the apprehension creeping up her back vanished. “You were scared. You told me you didn’t know how to give or receive love, so you did what you’d learned to do since you were a child.”
He kept petting her hair. “Kwe, you deserve a man—”
Bridget sat up, anger erupting in her chest. “Quit feeling sorry for yourself.”
Adam swatted at his hat. “Woman, you like telling off men, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t, but I’m not going to let you talk yourself back to your old life. You’re strong—”
“Strong?” Adam faced her. “Why’d you think I call you kwe? I told you how our people revered our women. Inside each of you is strength rooted to the earth ‘cause you’re tied to the earth. Woman is earth. She’s strong. She perseveres.”
He licked his lips. “She reaches inside a man and shows him...” His voice grew softer, soft enough to feather Bridget’s warm flesh. “Shows him how to be gentle, be kind, be thoughtful. The earth nurtures us and gives the Anishinaabeg life and strength. Woman is earth. She does the same for a man. His strength comes from her. Comes from her... love.”
Bridget kept stroking his thigh. With the birds singing their songs and the waves lightly lapping at the rocks, where they sat was silkier than a lullaby.
“Kwe...” Adam’s voice shook. “Kwe...” He cleared his throat. “Kwe...” His hard thigh muscle contracted under her palm. His jawline quivered. “Kwe... I’m... I’m scared.”