A Grandmother Begins the Story
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Synopsis
National Bestseller
Finalist for the 2023 Writers' Trust Atwood Gibson Fiction Prize
Five generations of Métis women argue, dance, struggle, laugh, love, and tell the stories that will sing their family, and perhaps the land itself, into healing in this brilliantly original debut novel.
Carter is a young mother, recently separated. She is curious, angry, and on a quest to find out what the heritage she only learned of in her teens truly means.
Allie is trying to make up for the lost years with her first born, and to protect Carter from the hurt she herself suffered from her own mother.
Lucie wants the granddaughter she's never met to help her join her ancestors in the Afterlife.
Geneviève is determined to conquer her demons before the fire inside burns her up, with the help of the sister she lost but has never been without.
And Mamé, in the Afterlife, knows that all their stories began with her; she must find a way to loose herself from the last threads that keep her tethered to the living, just as they must find their own paths forward.
This extraordinary novel, told by a chorus of vividly realized, funny, wise, confused, struggling characters—including descendants of the bison that once freely roamed the land—heralds the arrival of a stunning new voice in literary fiction.
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Print pages: 336
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A Grandmother Begins the Story
Michelle Porter
Tonight’s a party.
We’re celebrating those of us who just got here.
Even if it took a long time.
Well, by the standards of the earth, we just left. Which isn’t the way to count time up here. Bob’s always telling me that. Time’s all crooked up here, he says.
Bob’s going to make the music for everyone. Him and his band.
Soon, he’ll be walking through this tall grass with his bow and fiddle. Soon as the sun starts to settle into the grass for a sleep, soon as the light starts to slip away and the whippoorwills start to sing. He’ll play in that old cabin.
Everybody’s coming to hear Bob play. I’ll see everyone I haven’t seen since the old days.
What about my girls? I ask him. Velma and Geneviève.
Bob says, Mamé, don’t worry about that, the spirit world isn’t the place for worry. They’ll be here eventually.
Everyone comes here eventually, he says, and he makes me laugh.
He’s right.
And yet I want to look.
I’m new here but Velma’s been in the spirit world a while now. Bob says he’s heard that she plays down at the dance hall but he’s never been to a show. Says she only wants the music for company and that she doesn’t come around this way much and when he says not much he means never.
And could I just for a moment see Geneviève’s face again?
Still getting the hang of things here.
Anyway all these stories began with me, got started that first time I heard Bob’s fiddle.
It’s not about me, not anymore. It’s not like that. Up here the stories are us and we are the stories, every single one of them. Took me a long time to make my way here and now it’s almost my turn to be the stories—or to tell the stories, as we used to say before we passed.
They say everyone does it different.
Some tell late into the nights, some gather in the morning. Summer or winter, around fires or wood stoves, in cabins, teepees, or outside, whatever.
When it’s my turn, I’m going to bring everyone around an old wood stove, smell of a stew bubbling on top, the heat making our faces pink as the stories unwind. Can’t get enough of the telling. Which is a good thing, because if there’s one thing we’ve got here, it’s time.
Gramma called back not too long after—like about a week or something. I knew she would. You don’t call someone up to ask something like that if you’re the shrinking violet type.
So bio gramma called back and she said, I want you to get me pills. I know you know all about drugs. Sure, I said. Of course, I said. The drug that’s in the news, that’s killing people, you know it, right? There’s a few of them now, Gramma, you got to be more specific. The F-one, you know it! Yes, I said, I heard about it.
Get it for me, she said. I put on my business voice. I don’t know, Gramma, I got a schedule, you know, it’s packed. And let’s see now, I could maybe fit you in for a pre-consult? You know I like to meet the people I’m going to kill. Real customer service, me.
I didn’t ask you to kill me, she said. I want to kill me.
Anyway, Gramma, drugs aren’t my method. My creativity goes in another direction. Drugs are cowardly, don’t you think? My instrument is the knife. And then I got ways to get rid of the body. There’s where improvisation comes in.
Gramma got mad, as far as I could tell on the phone. She said, I’m wanting to kill myself and this is what you say to me? I said, You’re asking me to kill you and then taking away my creative control? I don’t work that way.
She hung up.
But this time she called back right away.
Please, please, I’m begging you.
Gramma, I got to meet you first, I said.
That’ll take too long.
What, you got a meeting with the ancestors?
I’m going to heaven.
Word is Jesus doesn’t let you in if you kill yourself.
That’s not true.
You so sure about that? You want to gamble?
I looked into it. That’s only if you’re Catholic.
You’re Protestant then?
It doesn’t matter what I am. The Lord is calling me to do this.
The God bit got to me, how Gramma could use God to purify what she was doing, as if there was nothing else God ever wanted her to do that she should have done, as if what she was asking me was okay. I said, What, God never wanted you to ask my mom about me before now, before you wanted to die?
I didn’t—
And now that you want to die so suddenly, God wants you to give me a phone call?
It’s not—
I’ll come see you. Make sure it’s you calling me, first of all.
Who else would it be?
How do I know I’m talking to you? I mean you could be someone setting me up to kill you. You could be my mom. You’re not my bio mom, are you?
Shut your mouth.
And then I’d go to jail. The headline would be weird: “Adopted-out granddaughter returns to kill gramma she never met.”
You’re being a shit.
We can explore that further in person. Or fuck off. Your choice.
John shook his head and said, Don’t go, babe.
Geneviève looked over at the old man in the old recliner, said, You’ll be here when I get back?
Don’t know.
Why you’ve got to be like that.
Just being honest.
John had always liked watching Geneviève.
She still knew how to walk into a room and suck the breath out of everyone, even when she was only wearing an orange muumuu and slippers. And she’d find the thing to get a laugh and she’d spread that around a bit.
The radio was on and he’d been watching how she moved one of her hands with the music but now the newsreader’s voice cut in and she dropped her hand back to her side.
The newsreader talked about the number of days they’d been without rain. The radio was at the far end of the living room on the old spinet organ that was right next to her upright, the one she’d bought with the winnings from a scratch ticket ten years ago, the only time she’d had that much money in her hand at once. She turned her back to John and crossed the room to turn off the radio. There on top of the organ she found everything she’d been looking for: her glasses, the piano music, the sash, Mamé’s statue, and the jar of ashes. She’d been planning to leave her tarot cards behind because all her readings had been coming out the same these days, ending with Death, but all of a sudden she had to have a deck of cards with her. From the half a dozen different decks next to her bed, she wanted the cards painted by that little Michif artist from Saskatchewan. The colors were muted and comforting. Maybe she’d left them in her side table drawer, there in a tin container with the artist’s name printed in green over the top, Audie Murray. She picked up the tin but it was larger than her hands and she dropped it, knocking the cover off and a card fell out, face side up. Staring up at her was Death, a painted skull surrounded by plant life.
You didn’t have to do that, Gen said to the cards.
She had to get on one knee to get the card and return it to the deck, pressing the lid back on tight. She scooped up another deck too, a faded pile of cards held together with an elastic, the Rider-Waite-Smith deck that she’d had since her mother passed on. Back on her feet again. Everything into her shoulder bag, and then she zipped it up.
She said to John, Don’t want you to be gone when I’m done with this.
Just take a seat here on my lap.
Can’t.
You always liked it.
I’d never get back up.
With one hand she gestured to the car she could see through the front window. It was packed and ready, waiting. Said, Out there I’ve got the rest of my life to live.
You’re eighty-one, babe. Not a lot of room for what else.
The radio came to life again. Geneviève frowned and her eyebrows pulled together because she was sure she’d just turned it off. Some low-pressure system moving in. She crossed the room again and pulled the cord from the outlet.
John leaned his head against the back of the recliner like they had all the time in the world. His woman bragged that she had the firmest bosom of any woman her age because she never took off her bra, said the support kept her going. She could switch from English to French to Michif and still remembered enough Cree to get by and she was a woman who wore heels around the house because, she said, she needed a boost sometimes, never mind if they made her feet ache. And him, sitting there in the chair, an old man who hadn’t been on a trapline in half a century, a man having trouble moving on even though the ancestors were calling him back home, a man who wasn’t sure he could wait around for her anymore.
You just better be here when I get back, John.
Got no control over that. It’s all you.
She looked hard at him, said, You hate that. Said, Ever since you started coming around, you hate that I’m the one that’s in control of this.
He said nothing. He damn well knew she hated it when he started with the silent treatment.
Useless to say anything to the man, so she sat down to the piano to play something he hated, an old show tune that always reminded him of his first ex-wife. He kept a straight face but she knew she was getting to him. He shifted in his seat and she had to stop playing to laugh at the both of them. One hand was in her lap, but the other hand kept fussing with the keys, just touching and not asking anything of them. She saw the twist of a smile beneath his beard, said, You’ll take care of my piano?
You don’t have to go, he said.
You’ll dust it every day. Maybe clean up the bottles, maybe.
You’re just fine, baby.
Don’t call me baby.
Baby—
I’m an old woman.
Okay but what about the dogs, he said.
Already in the car.
You don’t have to do this, that’s all I’m saying. You always liked drinking. Nothing wrong.
I never left them in a kennel before.
You always been good times.
I met you when—shit, I want a drink.
Geneviève sat down on the sofa.
Just one, said the man in the recliner.
I should.
Not a crime to feel good at your time in life.
Oh, listen to you talk.
Look at the sight of you. You’re shaking.
Just one, to steady my hands.
You won’t make it to that place without a drink. Nothing wrong with it.
There was a half a bottle of something on the side table and a glass holding onto signs of drink from the night before. She reached for it. She poured herself a drink. She tipped it into her mouth and her eyes closed. She sighed, relaxing against the sofa back.
Oh God, I needed that. I couldn’t face all this without just one drink.
You don’t have to stop at one, babe.
I know.
It’s time to get to the car, she said. Can’t leave Perkins and Lottery for long.
She stood up. The drink helped her put one foot in front of the other. At the front door she stood all quiet. She was a woman who knew how to stand in a silence that was louder than most people could shout.
John called out to her, Stay here with me.
She turned her back to the door and leaned against it. She said quietly, And me? What about my life?
He said nothing to her. The silent treatment again. Anger made her chest burn and her head spin. She repeated, What about my life? He said nothing.
She faced the door and gripped the handle. It opened and then she was outside on the concrete step and the door was closing. The sun beat down on her. The latch clicked. She let go of the handle but took hold of it again a moment later and opened the front door. She pulled the jar of ashes from her bag and leaned into the house as far as her hips and knees would allow. The whole time he didn’t say a single word to her and his silence pissed her off more than anything else. She placed the jar on the floor, just by the boot mat. Fucking asshole, she muttered. She cursed him out in English, French, and all the Michif she’d been given before her mother and father died and then she closed the door one more time.
She stood a full minute with one hand resting on the knob before she could bring herself to turn her head and look through the front living room window. The recliner John had been sitting in was empty. Only then, on that front step, could she admit that the recliner had been empty for eleven years now and she was still pissed with him about it. There was no way she could bring him with her.
She walked down the steps and up the concrete path to the car by the curb. It was a hard walk. With every step she wanted to turn back, and if not for her fury at John’s giving her the silent treatment, she would not have had strength enough to make it the whole way.
Bob’s not here yet so I stick my nose into my girls’ business the way he told me not to.
I can’t help it.
Velma’s up here in the spirit world and I shouldn’t have to think about her at all. But even though she’s up here, even though she’s telling stories with her music, she’s trying to forget. You can make yourself do that here for a long time, if you really want. So right away, I’m worrying about her.
More than I worry about Geneviève down there. Geneviève, now, she’s finding her way. Look at her now, she’s traveling down south in the direction of her healing. Isn’t it funny how we all think we know why we do a thing? She thinks she’s doing this for herself, but really it’s for Velma.
And then there’s Geneviève’s girl, my granddaughter, Lucie.
Oh my.
I see what she’s doing and I could fix it all up for her and arrange to have her move on to the spirit world the way she wants right now. But things up here don’t ever work out the way you think they will when you’re dreaming of it down there—and anyway she’s got to help Carter now.
Carter, my great-great-granddaughter. She doesn’t understand what that means yet, partly because I was gone before she was born, but I think she’ll do what she’s got to do. And maybe she’ll help her mom, my great-granddaughter Allie.
Maybe. It’s a lot to ask. There’s a lot on Carter’s shoulders and she wasn’t even raised with her own family. But she’s got the ability to burn, she does. I had it too. But only small fires for me.
Carter, from what I can see up here, she’s the one who could burn it all down, who could make things ready for the new growth to come on up, all green and tender again.
There are others I could check in on but I have to wait on that because here comes Bob over the knoll out there, across a spread of prairie grass and I know he’ll say not to poke around in these things, that it’ll never do any good. He’ll tell me that all my girls—our girls—will be just fine and they’ll figure everything out in good time. You’re in the afterlife, he’ll say. They’ll be here with you soon enough. Sometimes I think what does he know about these things anyway—he’s an old man, even up here, and his life has only ever been about the music.
Oh but he’ll waggle his eyebrows and his eyes will spark in that way that always makes my legs turn to butter and he’ll say, Let those girls down there alone, Élise, and come make music with me.
He knows I’ll go with him.
Bob doesn’t want to fool with the stories down there. Not his way. He travels around the spirit world from the bison trails to the teepee camps to the dance halls and to all those log houses, all the time carrying his songs in his chest and playing his fiddle crooked. Even up here they all want to listen all night long. And night lasts as long as you want here.
He’s coming to pull me away from looking below.
Here comes my Bob Goulet, and here am I, ready as ever to hear him tell me stories with the dance of his bow, and you know what, I don’t want to jig right now, I just want to set myself down in that old cabin over there.
They’ve all dragged most of the furniture outside to make room for the dancing. Only left a couple of chairs inside. People have walked here from all over, all kinds of families coming to gather, so many of them it will be packed tight from wall to wall. Me, I’ll find a chair right by the wood stove and wait for my Bob, get my ears ready for the tune of what he’s got to say.
Before her mama left for good, Dee would ask to hear the story of her birth. Her mama would tell it sometimes on clear nights when she let herself forget about the fences for a while, during those hours when Dee was allowed to press herself against her mama’s strong chest and press her muzzle into her cape. This was back when the days were getting shorter, before Dee’s first winter, before the buds of Dee’s horns had appeared, in the days when Roam had milk for her.
Roam always started by saying how she had walked her girl into life, how nine months pregnant and ready to birth, Roam tore through the fences and trotted all the way to the calm of the canyons. Dee would sigh and flick her tail and shift closer to her mother, wait to hear more. Roam would say that she’d found herself pregnant later in the season than anyone else, that all the other cows had birthed their calves already and that Dee was the last and, for that reason, the most important. Roam would say Dee began her journey into the world the moment they reached the shale and sandstone cliffs and how quickly Dee had slipped from her mother’s body, landing solidly on the earth.
It was midafternoon, Roam might say then.
The hottest time of the day? Dee would ask, wriggling a little in anticipation.
You wouldn’t stand up.
I wasn’t in a hurry, right, Mama?
Some calves get up right away but you? No way. You scared me.
I kicked the dirt.
You sure did kick up dust. I watched for coyotes. And bobcats.
You said, Get up, Dee? Right?
Uh-huh. And I thought about the fences here that would have protected you.
I liked dust, right?
You liked dust from the moment you were born. The way it sparkled in the sun, I think.
At this point in the story Dee would usually roll and kick the earth beneath them but if the story was being told late at night there would be no rising dust because the grass that was their bed held the dirt close.
I was safe, Dee would say.
The buttes and the monoliths all kept you safe.
You too, right? You kept me safe.
Yes. For an hour. An entire hour, my child. There was this magpie that started swooping over your head, so I stood right over you. I wasn’t going to let that bird peck your eyes out.
A magpie would do that?
I haven’t seen it but I’ve heard stories, little one. You weren’t worried though—you didn’t get up until a quail started calling across the canyon.
I wanted to see the quail?
You were curious, yes. You only got to your feet to greet the quail.
And that’s how I came into the world?
And that’s how you came into the world.
Sometimes that would be the end of the story. Other times Dee would prompt more telling and say, And then the humans came.
Then Roam would tell how they’d been together for two days before the humans showed up, separated mother from daughter and led Dee back up the trails out of the canyon to the truck.
I followed you out of the cany. . .
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