Uncle Gaston’s shack
This morning, I’m revisiting another childhood memory just for you. My father had taken advantage of the long Thanksgiving weekend to satisfy my brother’s request to see a bear, “a real one,” before the snow covered the landscape with a white blanket. Dad has asked Uncle Gaston if we could borrow his shack, in the middle of the woods, to get closer to nature. And real bears.
The family suitcase overflowed with all kinds of woolen clothes, heavy flannel nightgowns and felt linings for our boots. Every kid wore a parka buttoned up to the neck. We were squeezed together in the car and we couldn’t wait to arrive at our destination. Since there was no running water and electricity in the shack, Mom had prepared all our food and placed it in a cooler and large metal lunchbox so the shack wouldn’t smell heavily of food.
Dad finally put the car in park, Mom removed the littlest one from her breast and my brother jumped out of the car. We’d barely arrived, and my brother, believing it was his destiny, was already off to explore. “Wait for your father before you go in there!” warned Mom. The two men inspected the shack to ensure it was safe for us. Upon setting foot inside, we saw that the shack consisted of one large room with a wood-burning stove that had been cobbled together, probably by Uncle Gaston. The pipe, which was hanging loosely from the ceiling, ran outside from a hole in the wall above the only door. A tin pot with a lid that served as a rustic chamber pot sat in the corner. In the opposite corner, there was a double bed. The three children would be crammed in the middle, flanked by a parent on each side so that none of them would fall out in the middle of the night. The baby would sleep in a cradle that we’d borrowed from the neighbour. It would be secured to a chair and placed next to Mom’s pillow.
My sister had buried her head under a pillow, and I was on the floor on all fours, desperately rocking the baby’s cradle, trying to stop her from crying her lungs out and put her to sleep.
As the cabin grew darker, Mom started to pace more quickly. Walking back and forth in the shack, she raged against our father. How dare he go out without telling her first? Why had he taken his only son outside with him while night was approaching?
— “He wanted to check out the surroundings,” I calmly answered, although she wasn’t really asking me. “He wanted to be ready for tomorrow morning.” My words didn’t succeed in calming her. Mom was staring at the gun in its case, resting against the wall. “What if he needs it?” she whispered, worried.
Dad and my brother weren’t coming back. It was going to be a horrible night! After my little sister finally fell silent, our ears, despite being numbed by the recent screaming, caught the growl of a bear. Frightened, we clearly heard its claws against the door. Mom had picked up every last bread crumb that had fallen from the large, buttered molasses sandwiches we’d devoured before putting on our nightgowns. Terrified, she pushed the table against the door. She climbed on a chair and used her coat to cover the cabin’s only window and then she ordered her two daughters to join her in bed.
She told me she wanted to pray, but the words caught in her throat. Instead of reciting words, she swallowed large gulps of dread.
Her eyelids fluttered with fear. Her hands, quick to fall prey to her eczema, became inflamed.
I must’ve been around six and I knew how to write. In my childish mind, I thought about writing all over the walls before the bear, who was prowling around the shack, found a way in to devour us. Kneeled at the foot of the bed, Mom had stopped talking, but gesturing with her arms and hands, made it clear we were to stay nestled against her. I stayed in my mother’s arms for so long that I felt like I was in paradise despite the terror of the moment. The warmth of her body eventually calmed us and, without us even realizing it, sleep fell upon the bed like a quilt made of dreams. Perhaps it would lead us to a field of wild blueberries? Or to the beach on the Baie des Chaleurs? Or maybe to Aunt Hope’s place, where we were allowed to pat her sweet lambs?
At dawn, we were awoken by Dad. My brother was exhausted but excited too, and insisted on telling us about spending the night in a tree! My little sister was applauding him as if he had returned a hero. She wanted to see a real bear too!
Mom’s silence was the worst torture for Dad. It was harder to take than overt retaliation. The day after our return, like every Sunday afternoon, Dad would go back on the road, taking his travelling salesman’s suitcase and small soap samples with him. Thankfully for their marriage, he’d leave every Sunday to tour Gaspésie and return on Friday night. Like the Berlin Wall separating two sides, the weekly absence kept them apart, allowing them to both survive. Mom’s eczema-covered hands made her suffer and Dad’s heart marinated in sour brine. We children knew nothing about life, their lives, love or the comforts of a normal family. Their tears, which they cried in silence away from our eyes, except when we caught them by surprise, filled our home with sadness. The most painful part of it was their silence. A firewall that prevented us from knowing the worst of it.
Both our parents died in 1982. It was only then that I found out the reason for their heavy sorrows. As a young woman, Mom was in love with a young anglophone protestant. Her family and the village’s priest forbade her from marrying him, however, so she had to break up with the love of her life. My grandfather had nine daughters to marry. When he met the one who would become my father, he believed him to be a good man, clean, well dressed, someone who worked hard and, above all, was head over heels with his daughter, whose heart was shattered. Her father insisted, and my mother married my father. She lived a sad and melancholy life for the most part after their union. Very quickly after their wedding, she developed a severe form of eczema that ate away at her hands. My Dad, on the other hand, turned out to be the best of men, courageous, responsible and so completely enamoured with his frigid wife that the old men of the village would make fun of him.
I’ll end this letter by admitting to you that I didn’t do any better in matrimonial affairs. A hardened divorcee, I’m still looking for the balm that might soothe my wounds. I was also forced into marriage and I too put a dark veil over the lives of my young children by remaining in a marriage without love or affection. But I have hope. I have a lot of hope in my grandchildren who I’m certain will know how to liberate themselves from their ancestors’ misfortunes and build their own happiness as they wish.
Cora
❤️
