Little White Squaw. Kenneth J. Harvey

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      Every summer we would all take a vacation. Usually we’d head for Nova Scotia to visit Bob’s relatives. I was always surprised by how they made me feel so welcome. I was convinced someone would eventually think Bob was crazy for marrying a woman with four small children. But no one ever made me or the children feel like imposters. It was as if we had always been part of the family.

      Bob’s maternal grandmother became one of my favourite relatives. She was shorter than I was, which was no small accomplishment. She stood under five feet but in no way lacked the confidence or assertiveness I found so hard to muster. The first time I met her was in Joggins, Nova Scotia. She was cooking dinner when we arrived and immediately stopped everything she was doing to give her grandson a big hug. Then she turned to me and said in a strong French accent, “So you Bob’s woman? I hear all about you. Nice-looking woman. Nice-looking kids. Come in, sit down. We gonna eat.” She came toward me, and I didn’t know what to do until she opened her arms wide. Quickly she hugged me and all four kids and was on her way into the next room with our coats in tow. She was in her mid-seventies but moved faster than I did in my mid-twenties.

      Bob and I were totally devoted to each other and to the children. We had a routine that began building my confidence and instilled in me a sense of security. We both worked and, in our free time, attended the kids’ plays, ball games, and swimming events. Bob watched all the hockey, baseball, football, and basketball games on television—every single game he could set his eyes on. And I did my chores around the house, had coffee with one of Bob’s sisters or my friends from work, or spent time dabbling in fortunetelling. Gaining more and more confidence, I reached out to one of the few areas of my past that I found intriguing. I started reading tarot cards. Once in a while I’d interpret tea leaves for a friend, but my real fascination was with the cards. I began by using a regular deck. I studied in a book what the different cards represented, but mostly I just analyzed the people. I would get a “feeling” I couldn’t explain and tell people secrets about themselves and events that were about to happen. My predictions were usually accurate and people started referring to me as the Gypsy Lady

      I never told Grammie Brewer, who was living in Fredericton at York Manor, that I was telling fortunes because I knew she’d have been upset. She’d given it up for good when she began attending Baptist church services, and she’d warned me years before that playing with the “other world” could only summon bad luck in the end.

      For entertainment Bob played baseball on the Black Watch field and hockey at King’s Arrow Arena. He was a great ball player, and I remember feeling proud to be his wife as I watched him slide into home plate to score the winning run or leap to tag a man out on second. He played hockey in the Industrial League with his two brothers and that was a rough division. Often there were fights on the ice and frequently Bob was part of them. Sometimes the fights would spill over into the stands.

      When Bob’s team played the club from the reserve, altercations in the stands were guaranteed. The guys from the Oromocto Reserve were crazy on the ice. Most of them would rather scuffle than skate. And the fans in the stands weren’t much different. Reserve girls were thrown out for attacking other fans in the bleachers. I would yell and cheer Bob’s team, but when they played the reserve team I sat a safe distance away and kept my mouth firmly shut.

      Bob and I bowled together on a team and we attended dances at the Oromocto Legion with Bob’s family every Saturday night. On Sundays we took the kids for a drive and stopped off to see Bob’s mother and father. It was a schedule I could count on until Bob’s drinking started to worsen.

      In the beginning Bob drank on weekends. He usually passed out and was never violent, so I didn’t complain much. When he began to drink after work and failed to show up for important events, like Jody’s Father and Son Bowling Banquet, I became unnerved, fearing the imposition of the past.

      Our regular Saturday nights at the Legion soon started earlier for Bob. Without me he played shuffleboard in the morning, steadily downing bottle after bottle of beer. By the time I joined him, dressed up for the evening, he would be ready to sleep it off.

      Before long I was drinking just as much as Bob. Parties and week-nights at the Legion displaced some of the regular family routine. The tender, caring man I had married slipped away as the bottle beckoned for more and more of his attention, and I mourned for his return. The mourning took the form of resentment. I resented Bob for showing me the good times, then robbing me of them. Inside my head, under the influence of a dozen or more beers, I believed I might be settling some score by encouraging other men to take notice of me.

      At first it was just casual flirtation. I sought the attention, the compliments. I was feeling empty again and despised that sickly feeling.

      The black hole inside me since childhood, which I had partially filled with Bob’s attention and now with alcohol, grew painfully larger. I needed constant diversion to keep me from being submerged in the old pain. Men encouraged that darkness to overshadow my life, I reasoned. But men were also the most logical choice to fill it again. I didn’t know any other way to feel adequate.

      One night, after drinking myself into a reckless state, I woke up in a strange apartment, next to one of my husband’s friends. I couldn’t even remember leaving the hotel lounge where a group from work had been celebrating the forthcoming Christmas holidays.

      Panic seized me as I thought about Bob and my kids. What time was it? Was this a weekday? Did I have to work? Did he? Oh, God, what would he say? What could I tell him?

      I checked my watch. It was 7:00 a.m., Saturday, December 23. I had time for an excuse.

      Dressing quickly without waking the man beside me, I looked at him and was overwhelmed with nausea. I hurried into the bathroom and threw up, cursing myself all the while. How could I stoop so low? What was wrong with me?

      I needed a drink, some toothpaste, a coffee. My hands were shaking, and I was trying to reason how I could get out of this mess without Bob walking out on me. I found a phone on the wall in the kitchen and called one of my girlfriends from work who had been with me the night before. Her groggy voice answered after four long rings.

      “Cindy, you’ve got to help me,” I said, huddling close to the receiver.

      “Eve, what’s the matter?”

      “I can’t talk now, but please, Cindy, will you tell Bob I spent the night at your house if he calls? I’ll explain later.”

      “Sure, sure, Eve. Are you okay?”

      “No,” I said, and hung up.

      When I arrived home by taxi, Bob was sleeping on the couch, three empty beer bottles on the coffee table beside him. I crept into the kitchen, shocked by the reality of seeing my children up and eating cereal.

      “Where were you, Mommie?” Jennifer asked. “Daddy was awful mad.”

      The older ones stared at me accusingly but didn’t speak.

      “Mommie was at a friend’s house,” I whispered, praying Bob wouldn’t wake up until I had my alibi down pat. “It was late.” I went to the tap for a glass of water, my throat sawdust dry. “I didn’t want to come home and wake you up. What did Daddy say?”

      “He said he was going to leave.” Tears began to stream down Heather’s cheeks. I drank the glass of water, unable to look my daughter in the eye.