The Search for Joyful Read Free Page B

one of them mimicked, “Phil, oh, Phil, Pocahontas wants you.”
    He looked at me. It was a long look. Then he turned his back, laughing.
    The public humiliation pinned me to the spot. I couldn’t walk away from the shame any more than I could walk away from the anger. I wanted to run, but I was chained where I was. I knew I could never tell anyone, not Mama Kathy, not Connie either.
    I had brought this on myself. I had forgotten I was Indian. Remembering released me, gave me strength to walk past my classmates looking neither to the right nor the left, my ears closed to comments.
    At home I got out the wolf tail and stared at it a long time. I hadn’t known who I was. Now I knew. I would braid wolf hairs into the friendship bracelet.
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I DIDN’T GROW up until Papa died. He wasn’t sick. Something broke inside him and we couldn’t get him to a hospital. It had rained for days and the roads had turned to muskeg.
    I heard his voice in muffled cries, hoarse and desperate, from the bedroom.
    When Mama Kathy came out she staggered against the door. I rushed to her, led her to a chair, and pushed her gently into it.
    â€œThe Luminal, Kathy. He asked for it. It’s in a small silver packet in the medicine chest.”
    â€œYes, Mama, I’ll get it.”
    â€œOh, God, the pain, Kathy. It’s terrible.”
    â€œI’ll get him the Luminal, Mama. It will be better.”
    She nodded, and I went into the bathroom, found it, and, filling a glass of water, took it to him.
    The covers were knotted into a corner of the bed. Papa’s eyes had glazed over like a sick cat’s, sweat rolled along his face, and his body was rigid. I poured some of the water on a towel and bent over him, wiping his forehead, murmuring as I worked. “I’ve brought you the Luminal, Papa. It will relax you.”
    He was in no condition to swallow anything. A spasm bowed his body and blood gushed, splattering the wall, ejected with the same terrible force that had taken over his body.
    I rushed to the bathroom for a clean towel, passing the door to my room. There, in the closet on the top shelf, was my guardian. I couldn’t see it, but I didn’t need to see it.
    â€œHelp me,” I whispered. “Help him.”
    When I returned, Papa was stretched out on his back, sleeping.
    I stroked his hand, his capable, strong-fingered hand. What good was his strength to him now? What good were dampened towels and Luminal, even if he could swallow it? What was needed was large decisive steps. Something had gone wrong inside. He needed stitching together, he needed an oxygen tent to help him breathe. He needed a hospital equipped to help him.
    His eyes opened. He looked at me and said in a voice that I bent to hear, “You’d make a good nurse, Kathy.”
    Those were his last words to me. Mama Kathy came in. Her red hair was pinned neatly back; she had taken hold. I relinquished my place.
    I went out and sat on the porch steps. Connie and Georges came and sat beside me. No one spoke. Then Connie gave a quavering little laugh. “You know what I was thinking? Do you remember, Kathy, when you were little, about five, I think? You use to spend hours making concoctions of dirt and grass, all mixed up with seeds and baking powder from the kitchen.”
    â€œI remember that,” Georges said.
    â€œDo you remember what it was for?” Connie challenged him.
    I knew. It suddenly came back to me. I was making a medicine so Mama Kathy and Papa would live forever. “It didn’t work,” I muttered.
    We learned it was peritonitis that took him, a burst appendix. Sergeant Mike looked after the whole province. If a job needed doing, there was Mike Flannigan of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to do it. He was game warden, inspected traps and settled disputes. He kept illegal drugs out of his territory and was responsible for immigration violation and sabotage. And when he’d time