Somewhere North of Where I Was

Memories

My first memory is of our house burning down. I was two-and-a-half. Mommy had me by the arm and was dragging my butt down the stairs. My baby sister, June, was cradled over her other shoulder. We’d been ripped from our beds, groggy from sleep, not comprehending what was going on. My head jerked around as Mommy shook me with every step, kicking at my legs trying to get my feet to stay underneath me. I couldn’t understand why Mommy was being so mean to me. My throat stung from the smoke, and the baby was screaming louder than Mommy. Eddie was playing outside. Aletta and Edwin had been watching TV in the living room and ran outside. Mommy was angry and panicked, but she got us all out.

Daddy was fishing back in the woods when the fire started. We didn’t have a phone, so Mommy left me, Aletta, and the baby with Eddie and Edwin, and jumped on the motorbike that was parked in the dooryard to go call for help. Uncle George was the only one with a phone and he was a mile down the dirt road at the bottom of the hill. By the time she got back, there was nothing left of the house but ashes.

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A tattered photocopy of the old newspaper article beckons, shuffled among the paper memories scattered on my desk. The picture is a black-and-white grainy image showing my mother crouching, cradling my baby sister, June, who was only two weeks old. I am there, and so is Aletta, my sister, who was three-and-a-half. She and I are standing in bare feet amidst the rubble. I am staring down at our baby sister in my mother’s arms. My curly hair is shoulder-length and neatly brushed; my pudgy face is hidden. Aletta is squinting towards the photographer. Looking at that picture, I wonder what was going through his mind as he snapped the shot. Did he get us to pose? Was he thinking of the best picture for the story? What picture would best draw public sympathy? The story even made the Amherst Daily News. It was a big deal in 1975, for a story from the small town of Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, to make the paper in Amherst. Home Destroyed by Fire - Harrison Settlement. The sub-caption reads Yesterday’s Home.

If the public only knew the stories, the sordid, sad memories that lay buried in the debris. I know, being the age I was, I shouldn’t have been able to remember what had happened. However, for many years it became a recurring nightmare that haunted me. I would jolt awake, still shaking from having my ass kicked down the stairs, until, one day, years later, I asked my oldest brother, Eddie, about it. He was the one who first noticed the flames. He had been outside playing in the dirt and, running in, he’d screamed that the chimney was on fire. I told him of my dream. He confirmed that was exactly how it happened. He couldn’t believe I had remembered as much as I did. Some memories just stay with you.

Dad worked at C.E. Harrison and Sons Lumber Mill, and, the next day, a crew from Harrison’s showed up with all the lumber and materials we needed for Dad to build us a new house. We stayed with relatives while the new house was being built. With the help of Dad’s brothers and every capable man in the Harrison Settlement and Parrsboro, it only took a month to build. The new house had running water and a tub, which we shared at bath time. It even had a toilet that flushed if you poured a bucket of water down the bowl. We weren’t allowed to flush, but we had fun watching Mom filling the bucket from the tub and pouring it into the toilet bowl. I couldn’t understand how all of that toilet paper and poop could go down the little hole. Sometimes the toilet became so plugged that we weren’t allowed to use it. We had to go outside and use the outhouse near the shed. It was smelly and gross, especially on the hot summer days, so I learned how to pee with the door propped open a little to let a breeze in—when there was a breeze. The house was a lot smaller than the one that burned. It only had one floor and no stairs to climb, except for the ones we used to go in the front door. I learned how to count to four by climbing those stairs. They were narrow and rough, and when I used my hands to help me climb, I got splinters in my fingers, but there was always someone there to help pull them out.

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Less than a year later, Mom left Dad in a rage, which ended with the new house being nearly destroyed. Mom decided to leave Dad when she suspected he was having an affair with our teenage neighbour, Barb. Dad told her she wasn’t taking June and that if she tried to take her, he would kill her. Mom didn’t fight. She didn’t love him anymore. She just wanted out. On Saturday morning, Mom arranged for her brother Freddie to come and get us, but he couldn’t come until Monday morning. Mom started packing our stuff.

Daddy, not knowing when he would see us again, wanted to spend some time with us. He took the five of us, and Barb, to the beach where we had fun in the sand and got our toes wet in the water. It started getting dark, but we didn’t want to go home. Daddy suggested we go to the drive-in movies. The drive-in was a special treat, and we all agreed. I tried to stay awake to see the movie. I tried to see what Barb and Daddy were doing under the blanket in the back of the van. Barb was laughing and giggling, and seemed to be having a lot of fun. I didn’t understand why they didn’t want me to snuggle under the covers with them. I was tired, cold, and just wanted some of the blanket. Daddy just kept telling us to watch the movie and be good.

By the time we got home, it was late, later than we had ever been out. I woke up when we pulled into the driveway. All the lights in the house were on. Mommy appeared in the doorway, followed by Barb’s mom, Caroline, and Daddy’s brother, Billy. All hell broke loose. Mommy ran to the van screaming, Where the fuck have you been with my babies? What the fuck are you thinking staying out until one in the fucking morning? She opened the door and started grabbing at us, wrapping us in big hugs as she screamed curses at Barb and Daddy. She got us into the house and pushed us down the hall towards our rooms. She turned back to Daddy and Barb, who had followed us in. Daddy called Mommy a fucking lunatic, and told her to calm the fuck down. Barb agreed, Yeah, Adele. We were only at the movies. Calm the fuck down.

Mommy snapped. She went crazy. We didn’t go to bed. We stood, paralyzed, watching the whole thing play out. Mommy grabbed a knife from the counter and lunged at Barb. Uncle Billy caught Mommy and talked her into putting the knife down. Uncle Billy was about six feet tall, and Mommy was only four feet eleven inches, and ninety pounds soaking wet, we used to hear her brag. It wasn’t hard for him to hold her back. All the grown-ups were screaming at each other, and there was a lot of swearing. I heard Daddy scream at Mommy that Barb was more of a woman than she would ever be. The screaming and the swearing got worse. It seemed like they didn’t even know we were there. Or, if they knew, they just didn’t care. They were so caught up in their craziness and screaming, it was as if we were invisible. I was scared and crying. I thought that Eddie and Edwin would protect us. Usually they jumped in whenever there was a fight. This time was different. They were just as scared as I was. My body shook as we stood there watching helplessly.

Something strange happened then. I wasn’t in my body anymore. I could feel it but I wasn’t there. I was outside of myself, watching all the emotion and anger happen to someone else. That’s where my three-and-a-half-year-old self stayed. When you’re a little kid and your grown-ups are trying to kill each other, you don’t stay in your body. You watch from a safe place so the hurt can’t touch you.

Daddy slept in the van that night. Caroline took Barb home and Billy stayed with Mommy. We didn’t see Daddy the next day. A creepy calm came over the house and Mommy. Mommy was back to the same, quiet, loving mommy she had always been. No one said anything about the night before. She explained that Uncle Freddie was going to come and get us, and that we were moving to PEI. June Bug was going to stay with Daddy. We listened and didn’t argue, just in case she went crazy again.

That night, Daddy came back and took June Bug down to Barb’s for the night. Freddie was going to pick us up early in the morning. No one wanted June Bug to see us leaving without her. Daddy spent the night at the house so he could spend some time with us before we left. He slept in his and Mommy’s bed. Mommy slept with us.

In the morning, Mommy woke us to give us our baths and get us ready for Uncle Freddie. She plugged the drain with a tattered facecloth and ran the cold water into the tub. Then she boiled some pots of water to pour into the tub to make the water warm. While Mommy was giving Edwin his bath, he asked her if she knew what Barb and Dad were doing in the van the other night.

No, dear. What? She asked.

They were playing whoopee under the blanket.

Mommy told Edwin to get out and dry himself off. We had all been running in and out of the bathroom, asking Mommy all kinds of questions about PEI. Mommy left the bathroom and headed for her and Daddy’s room. We followed her. We saw her yank the covers off Daddy. Daddy bolted awake, grabbing at the blankets.

What the fuck? He yelled.

As small as she was, compared to Daddy, Mommy was able to grab him by the hair of his head and his underwear and drag him to the floor. Daddy scrambled into a ball up against the bed, then jumped to his feet. He started to move towards Mommy and I thought, Oh God. He’s gonna kill her! Mommy was in his face, screaming at him that he was a fucking whore-master and a bastard and a fucking cocksucking motherfucker. Daddy scrambled out of the house. Edwin followed. Edwin must have gone for help. Before long, he came back with Aunt Joyce, who lived just down the hill. She was going to stay with Mommy until Uncle Freddie got there. Mommy was sitting at the kitchen table having a smoke when Joyce came in. We were all huddled next to her, rubbing her arm, and telling her it would be okay.

It was a long wait for Uncle Freddie. He was late. The longer she waited, the angrier and more irritated Mommy became. She smoked cigarette after cigarette, and tapped her fingers on the table between every one that she smoked. She sat in the chair by the window with one foot tucked under her and the other propped up on the chair. With her other hand, she twirled her curly brown hair. My mom had thick, wild curly-brown hair and she was always twirling it. She’d tie it in knots and pull the knots out again. For some reason, it drove Daddy crazy. He always made fun of her for doing it. I remember all that day and the night before, her curly hair stood straight up all over her head. Her fingers were orange from all the smokes she had lit and put out.

All of a sudden, Mommy flew out of her chair and landed on her feet. Everyone jumped. There was a moment of silence. No one said anything to her. We just stared, frozen in place. She marched to the cupboard, grabbed all the cigarettes, and threw them all over the house. She yanked open the fridge and threw everything from the fridge onto the floor. She dumped everything out of the cupboards to the floor and counter. She took the food and the milk, ripped everything open, and dumped it all over the floor. She ran to the bedrooms and took all the shit buckets and piss pots and threw them all over the walls and the beds. We were huddled against the far end of the kitchen. When Mommy was done, she calmly came back to the table and sat down. There. She’s more woman than me? Let her clean it up.

No one said anything. When Uncle Freddie arrived, he walked in and took one look around. Before he could say anything, Mommy said, Don’t ask. Just put our stuff in the car and get me away from here. From the time we left to the time we hit the New Brunswick border, we sat in the back, watching our mommy. Too scared to speak to each other, we only nodded or glared when Uncle Freddie looked into the rear-view mirror to ask us a question. The only words Mommy spoke were, I will not look back. I will not look back. She said them over and over until we got out of Nova Scotia. Then she turned to Uncle Freddie and asked him for a smoke.

Switching

Over the next three years, we were handed back and forth between our parents. My memories of these moves are sporadic at best. With the help of journals and accounts from other people, my brothers, and my mom, I have been able to put the pieces in chronological order.

On June 7, 1976, Mom moved to PEI with four of the five of us. She was three months pregnant with baby number six. Dad adopted the fourteen-year-old Barb as his new girlfriend. Dad was twenty-nine. Six weeks later, Dad and Barb broke up. Dad tried to keep June Bug, but he couldn’t get anyone to babysit her while he was at work. Everyone was mad at him and told him to take the baby back to her mother where she belonged. Mom thanked him politely when he dropped off the baby. When he stood there, looking for her to invite him in, she politely told him to turn his arse around and go back to Nova Scotia.

That summer we were living in a trailer park just outside of Summerside. Uncle Freddie had done more than come and get us. He had bought us a house and set us up in a place with furniture and an electric stove that worked and a working toilet that flushed. It was on a paved street with big humps on the road. Mommy called them speed bumps and said that they were to make sure the cars didn’t go too fast down the street. Aletta and I would lay on the bumps in the hot summer sun with the top of our heads touching, and wonder what daddy was doing back in Nova Scotia.

Mommy got a new boyfriend. His name was Glen. He was tall and had long, straight black hair, and a moustache. He wore big reflective sunglasses. Whenever he came over, Mommy made us go outside to play because we were too loud, and she didn’t want us to bother Glen. Uncle Freddie didn’t like Glen, and Mommy and Uncle Freddie did a lot of arguing over Glen. Mommy made us promise not to tell Uncle Freddie if Glen came over, even if he asked.

Mommy and her new boyfriend spent a lot of time together. They partied and drank together, and he would take us for drives in his car. We had to be really quiet in the back seat, because Glen got cranky when kids got too loud. One day, Uncle Freddie came to the door, and he and Mommy got into a loud shouting match. Mommy owed Uncle Freddie a lot of money, and he told her that he didn’t want Glen hanging around because he was bad news. She called Glen. He came and got us, and helped us look for a place in town. We left the trailer in the middle of the night. I remember falling asleep in my bed and waking up on a hard floor, fighting to stay warm because Aletta had pulled the blanket off me. Our new home was what mommy called an apartment and we had to climb stairs to get to it. There was a nice lady who lived in the apartment below us. I would visit her and she would give me as much Kraft Dinner for lunch as I wanted. We could also walk to visit Mommy’s sister, Aunt Arlene, who lived not far from us on Autumn Street. Aunt Arlene was always happy to see us, and she and Mommy spent a lot of time drinking tea while we watched cartoons on her TV.

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That fall, my oldest brother Eddie started school in Nova Scotia at the Halifax School for the Blind. Eddie had always been what we called off in his behaviour and in the way he looked at or talked to us. He’d get really close to our faces when he was talking or he’d put his fingers over his eyes all bent up, like he was trying to block the light. In school, he ran into walls and smacked into people until, one day, the teachers decided to have him tested. We found out that he was blind, which explained so many things. It was the reason why he never saw most things the same as the rest of us. At the school, where Eddie lived with other kids who were blind, he was able to sleep in a warm bed, and have three meals a day. Eddie would come home often on weekends and breaks. Mommy didn’t have to pay for it because it was free.

Abbey Glenn

We were living in the small apartment on Heckbert Street in Summerside when my baby brother, Abbey Glenn, was born just before Christmas 1976. Nine weeks later, Mom, exhausted and heartsick, realized she couldn’t do it on her own. Not alone with five kids. She got a drive back to Harrison Settlement and dropped us off with Dad. For Mom, at least Dad had a house and, a job. We were better off with him. The baby died two weeks later.

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I remember that morning waking to a blood-curdling wail and Barb’s sister, Patricia, screaming, Oh my God! Oh my God! Bernard! The baby’s dead! The baby’s dead!

All hell broke loose in my young world as the grown-ups started screaming and running around me. Patricia came running out of Daddy’s room and into the kitchen.

Clips of frantic dialogue made it through the chaos. I don’t know. He just wasn’t breathing.

Come on, baby, please. Please. Please.

Oh God no! NO. NO. Nooooo!

I snuck a glimpse of him in Barb’s arms in the rocking chair.

What does it mean, ‘he’s dead’?

I don’t remember the response.

Barb’s mother, Caroline, came to look after us. I stood on the step as Barb carried Abbey Glenn gently to the car and carefully ducked inside. I saw the top of his hairy head and stole a look at his sleeping face before they took him away. My first experience with death was quiet, gentle, and chaotic.

Abbey Glenn was only three months old when he died. I only knew him for a very brief part of my childhood. Since he had very little to do with me or my world, it’s fitting that the only thing I remember about him is his death.

What I discovered decades later were the circumstances surrounding Abbey Glenn’s death. The events that led to the bone-crushing guilt and grief my father carried to his deathbed. Versions of the story are distorted according to which parent told it. Dad said that Mom dropped us off with some story that she didn’t have a stove and needed to go find one. She said she’d be back later to pick us up. When she didn’t show up again, Dad was forced to look after us. It was March and cold, and Dad had five kids to feed and care for. He had to quit his job. We waited for Mom to come, but she didn’t. The baby, according to Dad, was malnourished and sickly when we arrived. Barb wasn’t living with him. She was still in school, and lived just over the buckwheat hill with her parents. Every day, she and her sister, Patricia, would come up over the hill into Dad’s house and get some smokes from him while they waited for the bus. Patricia found the baby dead.

According to Mom, from the get-go, Dad swore the baby wasn’t his. He accused Mom of sleeping around with Frenchie, a guy she’d talked to on the two-way CB radio. Frenchie, it turned out, was a fifteen-year-old kid who had met my mom once to see if she was as tiny as she had claimed to be. By the time Abbey Glenn was born on December 23, we were all living in the small apartment in Summerside. For three months, Mom juggled a welfare budget and six kids. Although Mom was with Glen at this point, she was pretty much on her own. Looking at her options, she decided that a life with our father would be better for us. After all, he had a home and a job and, while Barb was just a kid herself, at least there would be two parents in the house. In March 1977, Mom handed us back over to dad. Abbey Glenn was three months old. That day, Mom went to her friend Joyce’s house in Amherst, and went on a two-week drunk. Joyce woke her up with the news that her baby was dead. Mom’s numbness got her through the few days surrounding the funeral. Her hatred for Dad grew.

My brother Edwin’s account holds the strongest truth for me.

The official cause of death was crib death. Different people had different ideas about why he died. He slept in the dresser drawer stuffed with blankets. He didn’t have a crib and he slept on his back. Everything pointed to crib death. I was in the room when Patricia came up to wait for the bus to go to school. I thought it was Patricia who checked on him and screamed first. When I looked at Abbey Glenn in the crib, his eyes were open. That’s what got all the screams. There was no confusing him with a sleeping baby. That, of course, brings crib death into question because his eyes should have been closed if he had died of crib death. They weren’t. That’s not something I am going to forget, him [lying] there, eyes wide open. I don’t know what killed him, if he choked on something or what, but he didn’t die of crib death. It’s speculation really as to any of the guilt from Dad, but it was intense. If I had to make a guess, the guilt was a little closer to home than a petulant argument about who was the father. He heard the baby that night and rolled over and went back to sleep or something. Worse, he wanted the baby to die, until it did, of course. Then it sunk in and he just never had anyone to talk to. If you want me to be honest, Abbey was better off. He wouldn’t have made it anyway. I call these the Tideland years now. See the movie Tideland and you will get what I mean. That’s what I meant by Abbey being better off. He wouldn’t have made it through the Tideland years.

Somewhere in the middle, under all the mixed-up versions, lies the truth. I’m taking shelter under an umbrella of truth; whatever that truth may be, Abbey Glen never would have survived the Tideland years.

Regardless of the details and, although he had taken in the baby with the rest of us and finally admitted Abbey Glen was his, Dad had to contend with the demons that followed the death of his youngest son, while still having to care for the five of us. Some skeletons are best laid to rest.

The Tideland Years.

My memories of the times being shuttled back and forth from Nova Scotia to PEI are vague,