Orphan

He is dead. His stain defiles.

This is the second of three short writings in a Bastard | Orphan | Exile sequence, culminating in a final essay of all three. The final composition is, ideally, polished and informed by readers. Thank you to those who provided commentary on Bastard. The span of the essays exceeds a half-century of my life. May it resonate with you. There are many family secrets, some discoverable.

I knew. I always knew. The depth - I knew not.

Like a rescuer reaching into rubble, my mother’s hand yanked me towards the plane. But this was no rescue. I recoiled, small arms stretching to the sobbing, fading visages of my Nanny and Poppy. Mercilessly striking like hollow-points the rain pelted my face, rendering my opposition to [my mother’s] decision moot. My young soul torn from the only family I ever knew, staccato-shattered. An unwilling orphan, landing into unwelcomeness in the family of the Presence. It was April 8, 1968. I was four.

From the Online Etymology Dictionary (https://www.etymonline.com):

orphan (n.)

• "a child bereaved of one or both parents, generally the latter," c. 1300, from Late Latin orphanus "parentless child" (source of Old French orfeno, orphenin, Italian orfano), from Greek orphanos "orphaned, without parents, fatherless," literally "deprived," from orphos "bereft."

• This is from PIE *orbho- "bereft of father," also "deprived of free status," from root *orbh- "to change allegiance, to pass from one status to another" (source also of Hittite harb- "change allegiance," Latin orbus "bereft," Sanskrit arbhah "weak, child," Armenian orb "orphan," Old Irish orbe "heir," Old Church Slavonic rabu "slave," rabota "servitude" (see robot), Gothic arbja, German erbe, Old English ierfa "heir," Old High German arabeit, German Arbeit "work," Old Frisian arbed, Old English earfoð "hardship, suffering, trouble").

With Mom cooking supper, the Presence drove me to swimming lessons at the YMCA. Again with the pouring rain; it’s called Thunder Bay for good reason. Never wanting to be alone anywhere with him, sitting passenger side with my gym bag meticulously between us, I stared out the side window with indifference. Unctuous “this” and “that” about me, about swimming, about nothing saturated the Pontiac Acadian. Despite existential discomfort, I prferred sitting upfront, temporarily forgetting the rusted, backseat floorboards perilously exposing young feet to passing asphalt. A 10-minute drive felt triple as I ached to unbind my bitted question, for him. Timing was everything.

That question, crafted by conviction after the schoolyard snowball incident two months prior, was risky. Asking beggared violence, the temerity to even ask likely inducing anger, an affront to absolute authority. The violence physical, emotional, psychological, financial. In prior years, worse. Timing was everything. The creaking, steamy Acadian, its aged fan failing to clear the the windshield, eased to the curb. The hollow words, “Have a nice lesson, I’ll be back in an hour to pick you up” answered with my pre-loaded jab “Who’s my real father?” Caught unexpectedly side-of-head, he slurred “I am.” Regaining his legs he straightened with resolve, decrepit fingers tightening around the steering wheel. Anticipating this precise answer, my uppercut landed firm, “Then why did you get married over two years after I was born?” The sound of silence proved telling. Pause. Pause. Pause. “Well, uh, we couldn’t afford, uh, to get married so, uh, we had to, uh, wait.” The lie committed, I exited wordlessly. It was May 3, 1973. I was nine.

I found myself at home briefly with Mom the evening of my exodus to university. The Presence and my half-brothers out grabbing a Gondola pizza, delighting in my imminent departure. Sitting at the kitchen table she asked if I packed everything for the train ride. The window of our solitude shrinking, I asked the same decade-old question, “Who’s my real father?” No distressed answer from Mom. No answer at all. No lie. She looked away with shaking hands, fidgeting nervously. Leaving the table speechless, she withdrew to their bedroom closing the door. Would she return? Would she see me off at the train station? Would I need to hail a cab, alone? Would I ever be permitted to return? No sound came from the bedroom in our tiny, slabbed bungalow. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. The sand grains of our solitude diminishing, the bedroom door opened. Offering a scrap of dot-matrix, bank paper scribbled with a name, she said, “His name is this, but he goes by that.” My mother’s respect for me exhausted, she never spoke another word on the matter. It was September 2, 1983. I was nineteen.

I came home during summers to play soccer, hang with friends, and work to pay for school. And to pay rent, an amount equal to their monthly cigarette addiction. I started to work at the mill, great money, shift work, man’s work. But he got me the job, so I owed him. I always owed him. In a fit of rage years earlier, after a regularly-scheduled pummelling, he stared down at me on the floor and spit, “If it weren’t for me you and your mother would be washing your clothes on the rocks back in Newfoundland. Never forget that.” The reveal in that entirely lost on him. If not lost, it was a sinister cruelty given his claim of being “my father.” That pummelling was December 1976. I was twelve.

I worked the same shift as the Presence through my university years, only once traveling alone in the car with him over those four years, even as I became too powerful to oppress. I biked to work no matter the weather. I wasn't loved. I wasn’t welcome. I wasn’t tolerated. I was endured. I biked. It’s freedom to this day cherished on every ride. I left home for good returning once for Christmas in 1988, my last Christmas ever with them. I was 24.

Endured is easily misinterpreted. Endured provided duplicitous cover to the extended families, the aunts and uncles, Nanny and Poppy back home, all sentries that he knew were watching. The unspeakable days over, this era was a slow, empowering, inevitable attrition for him. Once university was over, I would be gone. The attrition was darker: I was only ever leverage for him over her. Thinking I would protect her out of the deepest love, he knew THAT love would leverage me to endure the unendurable. Twisting my strength, The Presence manipulated my own failure of my mother. Causing her more harm than not being there, keeping her in line too. A useful innocent. She was trapped, unable to give me up, unable to love me. The Presence orphaned me from my mother, and she from me. I’ll never know her feelings on that, it remains a discussion verboten, even in her twilight. He is dead. His stain defiles. That disturbing realization shorted my very soul years later, a lightning bolt of awakening forcing a call to the “suicide line” one innocuous Sunday morning. The odious truth demanding a drive for a mandatory hospital visit else the cops show up. Else my children be awakened, jolted from their innocence of not knowing. It was April 2014. I was 40.