Chapter 8

Sara Jean came back outside in a tank top and cut-off shorts. The pale pink top disappeared against her skin. She sat on the ground, twisting her legs like a pretzel and pulled a box toward her without saying a word.

They worked silently for a while until she pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Do you know anything about the Edelburg Residential School?” she asked, looking up at him with watery blue eyes.

“Yeah.”

“Like what? Who was it for? Who worked there?”

Jess hesitated, not sure if he wanted to get into this with her. But she kept staring at him, waiting, so Jess walked over and sat on the ground beside her. “They were for Indian kids, to teach them how to be white.”

She grabbed a pile of photos from the box beside her. “I found these yesterday.” She leaned over to show him. Jess saw that the skin of her cheeks was lightly freckled. He’d never been close enough to notice that before. “That” – she pointed at a man, young, with slicked-back dark hair, smiling at the camera – “is my grandpa.”

Jess took the photo from her. Rows of Indian kids stood on the steps of a school. It was grainy, but he looked closely. Could one of the boys wearing stiff denim pants have been his dad?

Jess had hung out at the school. Now it was a place for kids to go if they wanted to get high or messed up. Overrun by rodents, weeds and graffiti, it loomed over a bend in the Deep River, a silent reminder of suffering for families on the reserve. The band had been asking to have it torn down for years, but the government hadn’t done anything about it.

“He taught at the school?” Jess asked.

“Yeah, I never knew till I found this stuff yesterday. Gam said he only lasted a year. He didn’t like how parents sent their kids away to the school instead of keeping them at home.”

Jess snorted in disbelief.

“That’s what Gam told me,” she said, straightening her back.

He shook his head. “Those kids were forced to go by the church or the government. Sometimes, the kids just got taken if the parents wouldn’t send them.” Jess scowled. Townies lived with their heads up their asses. “Kokum had to send all her kids to that school. My dad’s brother Phil died there.”

“Oh.” She put the photos back in the box.

Jess kept talking. “They used to try to beat the ‘savage’ out of the kids. Made them stand with piss-stained sheets over their head if they wet the bed.”

“My grandpa would never have done that.” She shook her head stubbornly, cutting him off.

Jess set his mouth in a smirk.

“He wouldn’t have done things like that,” she repeated, the colour rising in her cheeks. “It’s a dumb thing to argue about. Neither of us was there, so we’ll never know.”

Jess turned back to the garage and removed his shirt just to piss her off.