I’m not exactly thrilled when Lenny says he’ll come dump the dirty water with me. Dumping dirty water on me would be more Lenny’s style. “I can manage on my own,” I tell him.
“In this kinda weather, it’s better to go out in pairs,” he says, though I find it hard to believe Lenny is concerned about my survival. “Besides,” he adds, “I need to stretch.” He looks over at Tom and Jakopie, who are getting ready for another round of the bones game. “You two need some practice throwing bones anyhow.”
Tom and Jakopie just laugh when Lenny says that. That makes Lenny laugh too. I guess for Tom and Jakopie, Lenny’s just being Lenny. Maybe laughing him off is the best way to handle him. Lenny shrugs his shoulders and picks his parka up from the ground.
I’m carrying the pot of dirty water, trying my best not to spill any along the way. For some reason I think that what I’m doing is the opposite of what happens in that old fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel. Those two wanted to leave a trail so they’d be able to find their way home; I don’t want some crazy stalker polar bear knowing the directions to my house.
There’s one thing I never understood about Hansel and Gretel. Why did they want to go home anyhow? Their own dad sent them out into the forest to fend for themselves. In the fairy tale, the stepmother gets the blame, but it always bugged me that Hansel and Gretel’s dad didn’t stand up for his kids. If I were them, once I escaped from the witch’s clutches I’d have made a beeline in the opposite direction from where their dad and his new babe lived.
If I was with Chris now, I could ask him what he thought about Hansel and Gretel’s dad. Not much point, I figure, in mentioning any of this to Lenny. I bet he’s never read a fairy tale in his life.
“Did you do something to upset Geraldine?” Lenny asks as soon as we’re a safe distance from the tent. So that’s why he wanted to come dump the water with me!
“No, of course not. Why would I do anything to upset—” I stop myself. I’m blabbering like an idiot, and even to my own ears I sound guilty. “I didn’t do anything.” Now I’m making things even worse. I stop talking altogether. It’s so quiet now all I can hear is the sound of my own breathing.
“You have a thing for her, right?” Lenny asks. It’s a question, but it comes out sounding more like a statement. I realize there’s no point arguing with Lenny or pretending it isn’t true.
Just then I catch myself doing something really weird: I raise my eyebrows. Not on purpose. It just happens. I can feel them lifting and my eyes opening wider than before. Who knew body language was contagious? Next thing I know I’ll be covering my mouth when I laugh.
Lenny watches my face, but he doesn’t say anything. He walks a little farther, stopping in a narrow clearing. Lenny uses his heels to kick at the hard-packed snow. Soon he’s made a decent-sized hole. “Here,” he says, “you can dump the water here.”
I do as he says.
“You have to look out for a girl like Geraldine.” The way Lenny says this takes me totally by surprise. I expected him to make some stupid comment about titties.
“What do you mean?”
“She and her family have been through a lot.” Lenny shifts from one foot to another. I can tell he wishes we weren’t having this conversation. “Her big sister Sally had a boyfriend from down south.”
“So her parents didn’t mind her going out with a Qallunaaq?”
Lenny sighs. “Will ya quit interrupting and let me tell you what happened?”
“You could tell it a little faster,” I say.
Lenny’s eyes drop to the ground. “I can’t tell a story any faster than the way I do. You’ll just have to slow down and listen. If you want to know the story.”
“Okay, okay, so go ahead and tell me. Sally had a boyfriend from the south…,” I say, hoping that will prompt him to get on with it.
“The boyfriend, Jean-Guy, was a construction worker. He was up here on a job. Hung out with Sally every night after work. The Snowflakes even brought him winter camping sometimes. Real friendly guy.”
“Then what happened?”
Lenny glares at me.
I didn’t mean to interrupt. “Sorry,” I tell him.
“What happened is Sally got pregnant. And Jean-Guy went back to Montreal. He said he’d be back to help raise the kid, he said he’d send money, but he never did. It’s what some guys do who come here from the south. When Geraldine isn’t going to school or working at the Northern, she helps take care of that baby. It’s a boy. Sally wanted to call him Jean-Guy, but her parents said no way.”
No wonder Geraldine didn’t want to keep kissing me. Poor Sally. And I feel bad for the kid too. Geraldine’s nephew. He may never get to know his dad.
Down on the ground in front of me, the dirty water has already turned to ice.
“I don’t understand how a father could do something like that to his own kid,” I say to Lenny when we are heading back to the tent.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Lenny says. This time when he sighs, it sounds like he is very tired. “Lots of people up here don’t do right by their kids. Tom’s dad roughs him and his brothers up.” Lenny says it as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“He does?”
I think about how my dad moved up here and how I get the feeling he’s closer to Tarksalik and his students than he is to me. But I guess my life is good compared to Geraldine’s nephew, or Tom and his brothers.
Lenny seems to know what I am thinking. “You’re lucky to have your ataata. He’s a good guy.” From the way Lenny says it, I can tell he doesn’t know what that feels like.
“What about your ataata?” The second the words are out of my mouth, I regret asking the question. Lenny tenses up, and I back away a little from him. This time he really might hit me.
But Lenny doesn’t hit me. Instead he answers my question. His voice comes out low. But because I’m listening really hard, I recognize the tone of Lenny’s voice. It isn’t flat; it’s sad. Sadder, I think, than any voice I’ve ever heard. “I haven’t seen my dad since 1999,” Lenny says. “He was on one of his drinking binges when he left George River. My anaana says it was the best thing that ever happened to us.”
I know what Lenny is saying, but at first I can’t quite take in the meaning. Lenny hasn’t seen his dad for ten years? And his dad taking off like that—on some drinking binge—is the best thing that ever happened to Lenny and his family?
And I’ve been complaining about a dad who makes bad jokes and has an obsession with the weather.
I don’t know what to tell Lenny. But he doesn’t seem to be expecting an answer.
“C’mon,” he says, “we need to get back to the tent.”