“You will travel many different paths in your life,” she finally said, “and you will touch many people.”
I was puzzled by her words and a little disappointed. I’d hoped to hear something about a new bike or maybe a note from Norman Gardner, one of the cute boys at school I had a crush on. When I started to open my mouth to ask, she gave me a silencing look.
“I see a man with very dark hair and dark skin in your future. You will be too young when you marry. Be careful, Eva, he is not a good man for you.”
Grammie started to talk about paths again, but my mind was already engaged by the dark man who would be my future husband. Maybe it will be Norman, I giggled to myself. Maybe we’ll run away together and be happy forever.
From that day forward I talked to Grammie Brewer about fortunetelling and dreams every chance I got. Whenever she could find time, she’d help me decipher the clumps of tea leaves in the cups of those who’d eaten at her table. If the leaves shaped a ship, it would mean an adventure or good fortune. When Grammie Brewer saw a cat, it forecast misfortune or betrayal. Letters or numbers might indicate significant dates or initials of people who would affect the seeker. Other times if a path was shaped by the leaves and something was obstructing it, a blocked course was suggested. Just when I started to demonstrate a talent for unravelling the signs of the people who had left their futures in their cups, Grammie insisted I stop.
“Nothing good comes to those who keep reading the cups,” she told me. “That’s why I don’t like to do it anymore.”
But it was too late. I was already starting to “see” things I didn’t care to divine.
UNWANTED ATTENTION
When I was in elementary school, my mother’s father, George, was a regular visitor to our home, especially on weekends. He was still a drunk, and on those occasions my mother was, too. Dad never drank much. He said he didn’t care for the taste of it, but I suspect he just wanted to keep an eye on Mom. It was those disturbing visits that slowly began to erode my faith in the goodness of nature.
Some weekends I thought it might be different as I watched my grandfather, my mother, my father, and a few friends take up guitars, harmonicas, and fiddles on a Friday night. I appreciated the music, but it was the clinking of the bottles that terrified me. The poisoning liquor always seemed to twist the uplifting beat of the singing and dancing into angry brawls.
It was during this time, when I was about five, that I first found out men would be nice to me just for a touch of soft skin. I was already used to hiding my body from the lecherous gaze and searching fingers of an old family friend who dropped by a couple of times each month, but during these drunken parties there was nowhere to hide. So I pretended to be asleep when I couldn’t stand the exploring fingers of one of the guests who might come into my room where the bottles were waiting. Mine was the biggest of the two rooms, with an open space behind the door, a logical choice for storage.
I knew it had to be something to do with what was inside the bottles that made my mother change from a quiet housekeeper to a screaming, angry wild woman. Usually it was my dad who was given to furious outbursts. Mom seldom raised her voice. If she was upset, she’d go off to the bedroom and cry in silence.
On one such Saturday night the house was full of people, several with guitars, fiddles, and harmonicas. As all the instruments came into play, even our spoons were used to take up the beat. I loved to hear the music because I knew my mother would soon begin to sing in a voice that reminded me of June Carter’s from the country-and-western Carter Family.
Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes
Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes
Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes
I’ll never love blue eyes again.
Tucked under the bedcovers, I’d pretend Mom was singing that song just to me. She was a fine stepdancer, too. Her feet never seemed to tire when she danced to the reels and jigs our visitors energetically played. She’d throw back her head and laugh as she moved in rhythm to “St. Anne’s Reel” or old favourites like “Camptown Races.”
Dad would never dance. Instead he’d sit and play a mournful harmonica, or sometimes the Jew’s harp. Once in a while he’d attempt to sing along, but he had little confidence in his vocal abilities. I was the greatest admirer of his voice, especially when he sang about intriguing people like the sad Indian princess Red Wing.
On this particular Saturday night one of my father’s friends seemed to be paying a lot of attention to my mother. The two of them even tried a dance step together, but the man was too wobbly to pull it off. Watching my mom, I grew increasingly disturbed to see her laugh and joke with this man. When she wasn’t drinking, Mom never talked to anyone of the opposite sex who wasn’t related to us.
I turned my attention to my father and noticed a change come over his face. His usual stern look had stiffened to a sinister expression. When the music paused so everyone could refill their glasses, my father glanced over at my mother and called out in a loud, commanding voice, “What do you think you’re doing? Do you think I’m blind?”
“What’re you talking about?” my mother asked. But I suspected she already knew. She’d behaved that way before and my father had made the same accusations.
Dad ordered everyone to leave, and as they started to rise from around the kitchen table, he said, “I can’t trust you when you’re like this.”
My grandfather, not wanting to see the party break up so quickly, took my mother’s side. The argument heated up until the three of them shifted outside into the clear night air with the departing guests. A shouting match soon commenced. My father and grandfather stood with fists raised, hurling insults that seemed to have nothing to do with what was going on. My mother cried and yelled for them to stop while a few of the guests waited for things to settle so they could resume their drinking. That was when I went to bed. My little brothers were already sleeping soundly and hadn’t woken during the racket.
Eventually everything was quiet. The guests had reluctantly left the party. Later my grandfather slipped into my room. I felt his shadow in the doorway and sensed his breathing. I blamed the bottles for what was happening. The bottles changed people, gave them two different personalities. Sometimes I thought I might be the one who split into two people—one for the normal days and another for the grotesque nights.
The music in my head grew so loud that I couldn’t hear my sobs. I imagined I was inside a cloud that was going to carry me to a land where there were no men at all except maybe my father. And my father would protect me. He would be there to look after me. He would hold me in his strong arms, and the night and its shadows would shrink away from where they had lodged deep in my frightened child’s heart. I would marvel at his handsome face and his smiling eyes would save me.
The nighttime visitations continued—either my grandfather or friends of the family would find their way into my room. It wasn’t until I sampled the remnants of liquid in the bottles that I found a way to black out the fear and sleep peacefully. I was six years old.
After only a few sips, I felt safe and happy as I floated inside my cloud to another fantasy land, a big green thicket occupied only by my grandmothers and their cats, a place where small cocker spaniel puppies lingered with all the other forest animals. They would watch me with innocent, depthless eyes and speak to me in our own private language. When they were near, there was only the feeling of ample goodness. There stood the animals, unmoving and plain, the gentle, welcoming forest behind them.
BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIAN CHILD
When I was nine, I attended the Billy Graham Crusade in Fredericton with my friend Sharon and her parents, who belonged to the local Baptist church. I was nervous about facing the new experience, but my hesitation fled the minute I walked into the coliseum. A young, pleasant man and woman stood at the entrance, greeting people as they arrived. The woman had brown waist-length