Pulling the stories of Backstage at the Garden of Eden together. Some of the central character, Grace’s backstory. Comments & questions welcome.
Part 1: Uncle Jake, The Legend
Grace rolled the cigarette around her mouth with her tongue, squinting at the world from beneath the brim of her hat.
She’d watched her Uncle Jake do this as a kid at a family reunion. An estranged uncle, only spoken about in whispered conversations as though he might overhear. But he never did. He was never there. Not except that one summer stay when she was nine. He was as lean and mean as they used to say. Scrawny like a stray. He squinted at her from under his bent cowboy hat.
“What’re you lookin’ at kid?” he growled.
She was terrified. This man was a legend. They’d met a few times when she was a baby apparently, but she didn’t remember. He smiled out of the corner of his mouth revealing a few missing molars. His face bunched with leathery wrinkles. He was her mum’s youngest brother, but you couldn’t tell his age. He seemed both like a young colt and a wolf with yellowy eyes. Athletic and stealthy, observing all of us talking animatedly trying not to stare. Except her. She just sat staring at him. Wondering if all the stories were true.
She heard thunder in the distance and turned her head to squint in the summer sun. The hot, humid air collided with the cool lake. The air was energized, dangerous. The women moved about nervously like hens in the yard. The men puffed and scratched the dirt as though they might crow the dawn at any moment. Uncle Jake’s wolf eyes followed them as he tipped each beer back, draining them like he might die of thirst. He placed the empties in a row in front of his lawn chair that slung low, inches off the ground. His skinny knees pointed in the air like the letter M. After a half-dozen or so beer, he stopped to roll himself a cigarette. Unfurling the package of tobacco and the papers, he balanced it all on his dirty jeans, carefully plucking the stray tobacco and returning it to the package before he expertly rolled and licked the edge of the paper, twisting one end like saltwater taffy. He stuffed the rolled end in his mouth while he put away his tobacco and found his silver lighter. It looked like an antique. It made the whole process look more impressive. The final flourish with lighter and flint brought it to life. He leaned in and lit his creation giving off a flash and puff of white smoke like a magic trick. He leaned back and look a long, satisfied drag on his cigarette, burning through half of it in one pull.
He looked at her staring, still, and smiled, “You want some kid?” as he offered her the cigarette. He laugh/ coughed as she pulled her knees up to protect herself from his inappropriate offer. She didn’t move away, she kept her eyes on him as the thunder grew closer.
Part 2: Summer Storm
The breeze was picking up. Lightly at first, small gusts lifted the napkins on the picnic table. It had been a long hot day giving way to the late afternoon shift in the weather. The oppressive heat like a convection oven with the mounting gusts. Napkins now tumbled away. Grace watched, not interested in chasing, in this heat, a plate as it found its side and rolled like a wheel toward the lake. Thunderheads stacked in the sky like ominous whipped cream over the cool smooth lake. The waves lapping more insistently on the shore. The rhythm more beats per minute. Grace felt the pressure building around her. A sudden gust exploded the neat arrangement on the table. The picnic was ruined by the pressurized air. It swallowed her up.
“Look at what you did. Can’t you just be nice for once? Why does it always have to end up in a fight! God damn you! You’ve ruined it!” Her mother’s voice punched through her silent world.
Uncle Jake fell over the table as he swung at his sister while she screeched at him. He lunged and she leapt back. Their childhood reflexes returned. Grace sat transfixed. Plastic cups and paper plates flew in the air along with the plastic knives and forks weaponized raining down around her. She kept still. The Kool-aid ran down the side of her leg.
The plastic tablecloth twisted in Uncle Jake’s hand and trailed him to the ground like a red checked sinkhole. He laid on his back laughing, covered in Kool-aid, cake and picnic debris. Jake laughed as he laid there looking at Grace. Grace stared out at the sky over the lake. The thunderheads had disappeared, the storm blew over. It was replaced with the calm again. The heat remained. The oppression remained. None of the respite after a real storm. Her 9th birthday ruined. No one seemed to notice. Uncle Jake licked icing off his bony fingers before he passed out.
Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash
Part 3: The Time Before
They were squished together in the Oldsmobile. Uncle Tyler and his new girlfriend, Charlene, were piled in the backseat next to 7-year old Jake and his sister, 9-year old Jillian. “There’s no need for seatbelts,” Grampa Hartley said, “we’re packed in so tight, nobody’s goin’ anywhere.” He said glancing over Gramma’s shoulder and a wink to his daughter, Jillian and Jake’s mother, who was crushed up against the door in the front seat. The bench seats allowed more folks to cram in. Their dress clothes getting rumpled by the close quarters and the clouds of dust from the gravel road. “Keep ‘er b’tween the ditches” was Gramp’s motto in those days and for the most part he was successful.
The service had been somber. The adults thought Jake and Jillian were too young to understand. The adults whispered, drank and cried. This was a terrible day. Almost as bad as the day it happened. The ambulance had wailed all the way to the farm. Neighbors ran to see what had happened. Pa screamed and cried over their older brother, Andrew. He lay terribly still covered in a blood soaked sack. Mother had fainted dead away and Mrs. Waitrose from across the road was fanning mother’s face.
Pa had let Andrew drive the combine. Andrew had been working the field by himself. He’d climbed down for some reason and left it running. When Pa got to him, he was past saving. The first born son, a spitting image of Pa. Kids grew up helping on the farm. At 11, he was probably too young to drive the combine and he was definitely too young to be left alone. But he was tall for his age and could reach the pedals. Pa would play that over in his mind for the rest of his life. He’d wake screaming and no amount of liquor made Andrew’s mangled body rest in peace.
Mother packed up Jake and Jillian and moved to town 6 months later. She couldn’t look at Pa and she couldn’t live on that farm anymore. Looking out the kitchen window out over the field that day, she saw him fall into the metal teeth of the reel.
Pa hung himself the next fall, on the anniversary of Andrew’s death. Jake grew up believing that they could have saved Pa. He developed a deep seated resentment of his mother and most women. He dropped out of school and hung around with the kind of characters his mother disapproved of. Jillian took after her mother and held back love from the people around her in fear that they would leave her like her brother Andrew and Pa did.
Jillian married at 19 and had back-to-back pregnancies. The demands of motherhood, especially of two babies was challenging. She suffered from postpartum depression and had a great deal of difficulty connecting emotionally to her children, especially Grace, the second child. Jillian’s husband, Dwayne, was a long-haul trucker who left the child-rearing to Jillian. He was a good provider and when he was home, he played with the girls while Jillian caught up on housework.
Grace was born sickly and developed colic. Grace’s older sister, Mercy was robust and playful. She smiled and giggled while Grace cried and whimpered, in pain. Jillian locked Grace in her bedroom after she hit her the first time. The lack of sleep, the stress of two babies and the crying left Jillian in a fog. She cried herself to sleep holding Mercy while the Grace screamed in the bedroom. She was too afraid to look in on her. Grace was wrapped into the bars of the crib when Jillian opened the door the next morning. Things went well for a while.
Dwayne called her from somewhere on the road to say he’d send two months rent but he wasn’t coming back. She “wasn’t a fit mother”. He never sent the money. Jillian tried to take him to court for child support but, “Yuh can’t get blood from a stone,” her lawyer said. Dwayne had sold his truck and disappeared.
Jillian took in laundry and babysat other people’s children. She scraped together the rent each month and kept a roof over their heads. Food was basic and affection scarce. Grace continued to be a sickly girl compared to her sister, Mercy. Jillian started to tell Grace, “you remind me of your father”. It was not a compliment. Grace hardly remembered her father. A faded photo of her on his shoulders was all that she had. Her cubby hand was pushing his John Deere cap over his eyes and a beard covered the rest of his face. It was the perfect photo of someone who never wanted to be found.
Grampa Hartley’s death brought Jillian’s extended family together just before Grace’s 9th birthday. Someone suggested they combine the funeral and her birthday on the same weekend, “while the family was all together”. Grace had never had a proper birthday party so she was happy to share the attention. Folks were coming from all over the country, even Grace’s mother’s infamous brother, Uncle Jake.