Life Goes On

Life does go on. And it did in Lower Rollo Bay in the 1960s.

I left off my last chapter alluding to my mother's return to Rollo Bay, but may I start out with a side bar, please.

My mother loved people and she craved a social life, so I can guess that she loved the Black Rafter, which was always crowded. Since this writing, friends have also volunteered information on other events that took place there, like some wedding receptions and graduation affairs. I was thrilled to hear of it!

In later years I also learned that it was very likely that my mother was unfaithful to my father.

There was also mention made that Jeannette was bullied into leaving us with Momma, that Momma somehow forced my mother into giving us up without a fight.

What a big steaming pile of bullshit.

I'd like to meet the person who could have taken my children from me that easily.

The fact is that no one, including my father even knew that she was pregnant with Darrell. So since she'd already left Butch and me behind, she had no need of returning to PEI to give birth to Darrell, if she suspected that Momma would force her to leave another baby behind. She simply could have quietly had him in Labrador and either kept him and raised him, or placed him for adoption. No one here would ever have known.

But she didn't. She knew Momma would fall for it again, and keep another baby. So she came back to PEI just in time to announce another delivery was imminent.

Darrell was only 10 days old or so when she flew back to the Air Force base. She promised to work hard and send money, and possibly save enough to move back to look after us.

But a couple of years went by, with a sparce letter now and then. Sometimes a parcel would arrive with chocolates and some socks and stuff, I seem to remember.

So imagine Momma's surprise when she took a phone call one day from Jeannette asking for a ride home from the Charlottetown Airport, she was coming for a visit! Well, by now I was a little over 7 years old. Someone, I suspect my Uncle Everett nicnamed me "Nosey", so like any 7 year old, I guess I liked listening in on adult conversations. But please, if you're a kid and all the grown-ups start whispering and muttering, aren't you supposed to be nosey? But I was so excited to know my mother was coming home!! Like any little girl, I missed my mother and wanted to be with her. I even thought she might take me with her, I was so used to her appearing and then leaving.

And so it began. The whispers. My aunts, having dropped in to visit Jeannette on her rare unexpected trip home all huddled in the kitchen. The teapot was on the old wood stove and Momma was working on a pack of smokes, because without question my mother brought cartons of Camels from the American side of the base. Momma loved them.

I could clearly hear "Momma, Jeannette looks like she's pregnant....." from one of my aunts.

"No. She's not. She came to see the kids." was Momma's response.

But the cat was out of the bag now.

They approached my mother and she had to admit to a rather obvious pregnancy. She was here as part of her game plan to have yet another baby, leave it with the others, and go back to Labrador. Except this time the baby wasn't a Chaisson, as Billie had been dead 2 years. It had absolutely no ties to my grandmother. Jeannette had had a brief affair with a very young American soldier from the U.S. side of the Base and my half brother Michael was the result.

But somehow yet again, she coaxed my grandmother to take another child to rear, with the same promises to go back to work at the Base, send money home, and someday move back. So now, Momma was almost 60, and rearing 5 grandkids. She never drove a car and had to depend on family or neighbors to get her around when she needed it. Souris was a long ways away if you needed groceries or a doctor and there was no way to get there. Poor Momma.

I remember killing myself crying when it sunk in that my mother was leaving again. I was all curled up on a couch in a tight little ball when the time came. She was crying too, and I remember her pressing a $20 bill in my little hands. As if that would somehow make me stop crying, and make me feel better. I didn't know what money would do; I was 7, and in was 1964. And again, her hands were so soft, I remember that so clearly. It was hard to accept that she didn't want to take me with her, I was little but I wasn't deaf. In that tiny house with no room, bursting with too many children and adults, it was hard to ignore the arguing and pleading and cajoling that went on day and night. Momma was wearing down.

During a quiet time, over a game of cards, words were spoken that I guess swayed Momma into thinking maybe Jeannette wasn't cut out for mothering. In her singsong French voice I heard my mother remark to Momma "Nova's getting hard looking."

The card game was over. The visit was over.

And little did I know it would be the last time I would ever see my mother.