Page 26 of Whirlwind
“Black is fine,” he says, laughing again. Nightmare runs over to him, hopping on his lap. Tyson pets his head, and it hits me that I’m uncharacteristically comfortable with him in my house. He’s not exactly a stranger, but I don’t know him well, either.
I know Isla, and trust that she wouldn’t have had a relationship with him, or let him anywhere near her daughter, if he wasn’t a good man. Is that why I’m so comfortable?
Furthermore, why is he so comfortable? Why is he even here? With me and my dog on a rare day off.
“Why do you want to hang out with me today?” I ask, handing him one of the two mugs I poured. His has Krampus on it, minehas a giant octopus wrapping its tentacles around a pirate ship as if trying to sink it.
“Why wouldn’t I want to hang out with you?”
“Have most of our conversations been in the form of volleying questions to each other?”
“Have they?”
“Haven’t they?” I throw back.
“This right here is why I want to hang out with you, Kit,” he says, setting the manual aside and looking at me. He has a nice smile, it looks genuine and not forced. The kind that carries to his eyes. “Because you’re fun. You’re playful. With such a public job, like mine, there’s a lot of pressure not to let people down. When I have the chance to step away from it, I don’t want to take life too seriously. You seem like you don’t.”
“You don’t think I’m a serious person?”
“Is that what I said?”
“Repeat what you said, so I can be sure before I answer.” I don’t make the request to be funny or trite. It’s a genuine ask because I don’t always clue in to social cues properly.
“I said you’re playful,” he says. He reaches out to hold a couple of my fingers, gently rubbing his thumb over them. I don’t pull away. It’s not making me more anxious, just…more confused. “You’re also intelligent and curious. If I’m making you uncomfortable, tell me. I’ll stop doing whatever you don’t like, or I can leave.”
“I’m not uncomfortable,” I say, moving to sit on the opposite side of the couch. “That’s what has me confused.”
“Why is that confusing?”
“Because we don’t know each other. Yet here I am, being more myself than I am with most people,” I say. I’m careful with strangers, by default. When I’m in a crowd of people, Ifocus on what I’m doing and saying, not wanting to be strange or awkward. That’s not been much of a thought process this morning, though.
“I disagree. We know each other, we’ve known each other for years.”
“You didn’t remember my name,” I accuse, and his cheeks redden.
“In my weak defense, I had a lot on my mind that day. Any trade is hard; this one was a gut punch. I am sorry, though, Kit Ashcroft,” he says. “Is Kit short for something?”
“According to my birth certificate, no. According to my grandmother, it’s short for Kitpu which is Mi’kmaq for eagle. My mother shortened it at my dad’s request when I came out a girl instead of a boy.”
“Your grandmother told you that?” Tyson’s brow furrows.
“My mom wasn’t available to ask. She was gone before I was two,” I say. “She had traveled to Montana for a funeral and never came back.”
“What do you mean?”
“My father said she met someone there and decided to stay.”
“Damn, Kit. That’s heavy.”
“I was too young to remember any of it. And it wasn’t much talked about by my dad. He suspected she knew before she took the trip that she wasn’t coming back,” I tell him, trying to convey by tone alone that I don’t want an amateur therapy session about it. My mother wasn’t a presence in my childhood home. My dad didn’t keep pictures of her on the walls or lull me to sleep with stories of how wonderful she was.
As I grew older, I was able to ask my grandmother some questions about her, but her knowledge was limited to that of a mother-in-law who only knew my mother for a few short years.I’ve never known much about her, which means, I never grew much connection to her.
Sadly, she’s just a name to me…Nimii. A blank memory. Everything I know of her is a fantasy I’ve made up in my own mind. Often, I’ve wanted to look for her, but I’m not sure where to start.
I’m also terrified of what I might find. If she’s been living happily with a family full of healthy, well-adjusted children, how would I feel about that? I’m not sure I want to know. It’s one thing to have grown content without a mother you never knew. I imagine it’s something else entirely to know that she wanted a family, just not one that you were a part of.
“Your mother’s family is Mi’kmaq?”
