Broken Chain Part One: Seduction: Broken Chain, #1

For Gary

Chapter One

1953 - 1956

Brody Rivers

It was another restless night. Grandma Nellie started moaning just after supper, long before Brody crawled into bed. His grandmother’s bedroom was next to his and they shared a common wall. He’d often imagine her in the hallway, standing in front of his room; her thickly-veined hand reaching for his doorknob, her bony shoulder pushing against his closed door. On some nights her moans stopped after a few minutes. But on nights like this one, the ruckus would continue until the heaviness of sleep forced Brody’s eyes shut.

During the day it was easier to ignore her. His grandmother usually sat in an over-stuffed chair in the living room. Except on the hottest days, she’d be wrapped in a blue crocheted afghan, the covering pulled up to her chin—tucked away, like her delusions.

Brody’s mother usually steered him away from her. Why don’t you go upstairs and play with your toys, she’d suggest.

He’d lie on the floor of his bedroom, lining up his dominoes on his green braided rug like armies of soldiers and filling the cramped room with the guttural sound of artillery fire.

That evening, when his grandmother’s commotion started early, Brody went into the kitchen. His parents were at the table, his mother drinking tea, his father pouring his first glass of ale. As long as it was only one glass it was safe enough to ask him things.

Is Grandma crazy?

His father snorted and opened his mouth to answer but Brody’s mother shushed him. Then she turned to Brody. Your grandmother is addled, honey. That’s all.

Brody chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. She scares me, he said. Sometimes I think... He glanced at his father and let the rest of the sentence fade away.

His mother pulled him onto her lap and warmed him with a hug. Don’t worry. Your grandmother is harmless.

You coddle him too much, Annie, his father scolded. Then he turned to Brody. You’re afraid of your own shadow, boy. How do you expect to be a man when you grow up?

Brody slid off his mother’s knee and straightened to his full height. His father winked at him.

When the night swallowed the last remnant of light, Brody crept outside to sit on the damp grass. He stayed there, bracing against the night noises and trying to be a man.

Darkness released his grandmother’s demons. Brody had seen pictures of demons in the family Bible that his mother kept on the top shelf of the closet. They had red eyes, pointed tails, and lips pulled back from snarling, yellow teeth.

Sometimes his grandmother would ask someone to fetch the Bible so she could read a passage or two. One afternoon she left the Bible on the dining room table. Brody opened it to the pictures again. He was too absorbed to hear his father come up behind him. When a hand clamped down on Brody’s shoulder, he jumped.

His dad leaned down closer to his ear and said, Once those demons get hold of you, there’s no escape. Ya gotta be extra good.

Zeke! His mother entered the room, a dust cloth in her hand. You’re scaring Brody half to death.

I’m not scared!

His dad laughed.

Brody could picture those demons entering his grandmother’s body through the thin cloth of her nightdress. But he tried to laugh too. His father rewarded him by giving his shoulder a squeeze.

Several times he’d heard his parents discussing the old woman’s money. They used the word inheritance. He could tell, by their solemn voices, that money mattered. After these discussions, his father would grow quiet. Before too long he’d fetch his dark ale from the back porch again.

Even when his grandmother wasn’t moaning or wailing, Brody could still hear her talking as he passed by her bedroom door. Her words were rapid and high-pitched. Once when her door was ajar, Brody pulled in a breath and looked in at her. She stood staring into the mirror on her dresser, her blue eyes darting back and forth as if she was watching a show. Her eyes looked too large for her thin face, glazed over like they’d been coated with the varnish that his dad brushed onto old furniture.

Sometimes his father had the same look in his eyes. There were deep creases in his face and he’d mutter into the glass he held tight between his hands. When the dark ale took hold of him, Brody’s mom always moved across the kitchen floor on a whisper. She’d fetch his pouch of tobacco and rolling papers as soon as his father called for them.

Brody overheard his father say, I don’t want her staying under my roof, and he knew that her was Grandma Nellie. Later on, he asked his mother, Dad hates Grandma, doesn’t he? 

His mother smiled and said, Your father doesn’t mean it. He knows it’s a son’s duty to take care of his mother. You’ll do the same for me some day.

Brody tried to picture his mom wailing and talking to herself then quickly shook the image from his head.

The next day, he was helping his mother pick beans in the garden. Sweat trickled down his bare back. From early spring to autumn, he ran around outside half naked. By summer, his skin would be so brown that the patch of white beneath his shorts stood out like the first skiff of snow on the fields.

Grandma Nellie wasn’t always addled, Brody, his mother said. When your father and I were first married, Grandma was a nice woman. Took the time to embroider a tablecloth for us. It’s the one I use for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Grandma always said that I was good for Zeke. It’s only been since your grandfather passed on that her nerves got the best of her. His death drove her around the bend.

His mother liked the phrase around the bend. She used it to describe any kind of odd behaviour. Don’t know what so-and-so was thinking. She must be going around the bend. When it came to his grandmother, Brody figured the red-eyed demons waited there, hiding out.

He wondered if his mother would go around the bend if his father died. It didn’t seem likely. She had one of those faces that always looked pleasant. Most of the time, her lips were slightly curved as if she held onto a tiny smile. Her green eyes smiled too, a soft calmness in their depths that could soothe him even when his dad yelled at him or his grandma lashed out with her cane.

As he grew older, his mother’s cinnamon hair and pale skin reminded Brody of something exotic, someone from a distant land who smelled of sea water and purple heather, even though she had lived in Canada all her life. Still, Brody loved the word Scottish. He claimed it as his own, his connection to a better world.

On his father’s side, Brody had Indian blood. Algonquin. His grandfather was half-Indian, with an Algonquin father and a white mother. Their original name was Clear Rivers, but they’d changed it to Rivers to fit in. His father talked about these things when he wasn’t in the cups.

Brody had seen pictures of Grandfather Gus. He didn’t look like an Indian. Even in black and white photos, Brody could tell that his hair was a light shade of brown. With his small, turned up moustache and long sideburns, he reminded Brody of the minister, the one he’d listen to on the rare Sundays when his family attended church. Reverend MacIntosh sweated like a lathered-up horse when he reached the height of his sermon. Brody imagined that Grandpa Gus must have sweated too, that he had that same sour smell that clung to the minister as they filed past him to leave the sanctuary.

Everyone in Granger’s Crossing said that Brody had the Indian look just like his dad did. Brody had high cheekbones and thick black hair. He’d inherited his mother’s moss green eyes though— proof that he was Scottish.

It felt like his family stayed on the fringes of town, just like their house— a small, white frame structure at the end of a dirt street. The street started off wide then narrowed into not much more than a laneway by the time it reached their place. The house needed painting. Some of the rotting boards beneath the windows should have been replaced. There was a picket fence out in front, with a gate in the centre of it that was always falling off its hinges. His mother tried to fix it, but whenever the wind picked up, it sagged again.

A few of their neighbours were close enough that they could speak to his mother as she pulled weeds in her small rectangle of garden. The friendliest ones were Elsie and Vern Pepper right next door. The Peppers were also near enough to hear his grandmother’s ravings at night, especially in the summer-time when the old woman’s window was open.

Can’t you quiet her down, Annie? Elsie asked after one of his grandmother’s all-night spells. Vern needs to get up for work in the morning.

Vern worked at the hardware store in town. He was a burly man with arms bunched up in muscles and a greasy shadow of stubble on his double chin.

Annie sighed. I try, Elsie. I try.

Elsie patted his mother’s hand and clucked her tongue.

Brody’s father worked in town too, when he could manage it. Mostly he did handyman jobs but Zeke was a carpenter by trade. He’d once been in construction but there wasn’t much building going on around Granger’s Crossing in the fifties. So he took odd jobs—fixing broken furniture or patching roofs. After he’d replaced the bannister on Widow Langley’s staircase, Brody’s mother had laughed and teased, Since you’re so good with your hands, Zeke, think you could fix that old gate of ours? She said it like she didn’t really expect him to do such a thing.

He swatted her on the behind and called her sassy. I’m saving my hands for something else, Annie. She shot him a sly smile and pressed up against him a little tighter.

Brody liked those moments. They made him feel like the wailing and the drinking didn’t really matter. But then his dad would sit down at their table and pour a glass of dark ale. And Brody’s mom stopped smiling.

When it was all over, Brody would still remember those days in detail. Sometimes he’d wonder if he imagined them. But he figured that it happens this way—people pull out memories, especially painful ones, like they’re re-discovering a box they’ve hidden away in the attic long ago. All these things happened before he was old enough to start school. He hadn’t yet realized that his home life was strange. With no playmates, there was nobody around to tell him.

Without much to do, his make-believe world ruled. He’d sneak through the house on his spy missions, peeking around doorways then crawling through rooms to hide under chairs and tables. Sometimes he’d notice his mother smirking. If his father was home, and he caught sight of Brody, Zeke would bellow, What in hell are you doing? But as long as his dad didn’t use his I mean business voice, the game could continue.

Elsie Pepper’s daughter Bonnie was close to Brody’s age but they didn’t play together. She sat out on her front porch during the good weather, cradling a ratty-looking doll in her arms and talking baby gibberish. Brody thought she was dumb. When he was really bored, he wanted to call out to her and ask her to play tag or hide ’n’ seek, but he was pretty sure she wouldn’t.

One afternoon Elsie sent Bonnie over with a freshly baked pie, after Brody’s mother came down with the flu. Bonnie refused to step inside their house. She stared past Brody’s shoulder with enormous, rounded eyes. As he moved to take the pie from her hands, a floorboard creaked beneath him. She cried out then scurried off like the mice that ran across their kitchen linoleum in the winter-time.

He formed his opinion of girls from Bonnie Pepper, decided that they were weird and skittish. Brody couldn’t imagine ever liking any of them, not until they grew up and turned into women like his mother.

After a while he replaced the villains in his games with Bonnie. He’d hide on the other side of the maple tree that hugged the fence between their yards and peer out at her. Then he’d aim his forefinger at her head, his thumb poised to prime the weapon. If Bonnie turned around and caught him targeting her, she’d clutch her doll against her chest and race into the house, calling out to her mother. Mom! He’s doin’ it again! Make him stop!

Elsie Pepper didn’t do a thing about it.

Brody often heard her laughing with his mother while they talked together on either side of the backyard fence. Elsie liked kids, even seemed to like Brody.

Grandma Nellie didn’t. When Grandma was wrapped up in her afghan, she’d watch him closely as he passed by her living-room chair.

When I was your age, she couldn’t stand to have me around either, his father told him. "Yelled at me, hit me with her damn switch. Called me a hellion. But