Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme (E-Journal, York University)

Mutala, Marion

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 73
“I can’t move the fridge,” she 
mumbled meekly.
“You can’t move the fridge?! Why 
in God’s name do you have to move 
the fridge?”
“To clean under it.”
“Oh, jeezus— You have to rope me 
into this somehow, don’t you. I can’t 
just come home at night and relax; 
you’ve always got something you want 
me to do. Something you couldn’t 
do by yourself because you were too 
weak, or you didn’t have the car, or 
you had your head up your ass and 
you couldn’t get it back out.
“Well, you got it figured wrong, 
missy. I’m not moving no fridge. Not 
tonight. You clean everything else up 
and I’ll move it tomorrow morning. 
You can clean under it then.”
He lumbered back up to his den. 
“Christ, it’s all through the house. 
What the fuck were you thinking? 
Can’t even wipe your feet….” His 
voice trailed away up the stairs.
She paused. She dropped the yogurt 
MARION MUTALA
It was really nothing
Was it the remote thrown through the tv that did it?
Naw, too drastic
Was it my birthday present concert ticket that you gave away to 
a brother you dislike?
Nope, too unbelievable
How about the hole in the bathroom wall or in the bedroom door?
Never, much too crazy
Or the constant fighting and bickering with my children?
No, way too childish
Or, how about my 11 year old calling 911
when you and my 13 year old
were fighting over what tv show to watch?
Never, too stupid
Tell me, what was it you asked?
Why are we divorcing?
After ten long years
What was it?
Really, do you need to ask?
Come on now, get real
Do you really need to fricking ask, hey?
The answer is quite explicitly obvious, you jerk
You figure it out,
I told my lawyer
It was nothing, really nothing
Nothing at all
Marion Mutala has a Masters degree in education administration and taught 
for 30 years. With a mad passion for the arts, she loves to write, folkdance, 
sing, play guitar, flower garden, travel, and read. Her two bestselling, award-
winning books, Baba’s Babushka: A Magical Ukrainian Christmas and 
Baba’s Babushka: A Magical Ukrainian Easter are followed by the soon to 
be released Baba’s Babushka: A Magical Ukrainian Wedding.
container back on the floor. She poked 
the pooling liquid with the mop. She 
pushed one of the mouldy pieces of 
bread into to it and watched the bread 
soak up the goo. Then, changing from 
her slippers to her shoes, she left the 
house to go to Sarah’s. She didn’t 
even stop to check her hair in the 
little mirror. She grabbed her purse 
and started moving. She walked out 
the screen door and off the porch. 
She walked down the steps, down 
the side path, across the yard. She 
turned up the sidewalk and walked 
away from the house.
What was it Sarah had said about 
walking away?
Esther Vincent likes to tell stories. She 
does so using photography, theatre and 
the written word. Her stories, photo-
graphs, articles and essays have been 
published in magazines, journals and 
anthologies. She has had eleven plays 
and three movement works produced 
for stage. One of her plays, Shafted, was 
published by Ordinary Press.
LISA DE NIKOLITS
SILENCE
your
silence
unnerves
me
have you
left me
again?
how many
times
can you
leave?
Lisa de Nikolits is the award-
winning author of The Hungry 
Mirror and West Of Wawa. 
Her third novel with Inanna, A 
Glittering Chaos, was released in 
Spring of 2013.


It was really nothing

Young, Lélia

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 103
de la terre la reç oit. Elle accueille le sol résignée. 
Il n’y a plus d’échappatoire, elle tranquillise 
l’aridité de ses sanglots
ravalés.
Les ambassadeurs de l’inouï ont envahi les eaux 
et les terres fertiles faisant de toute gloire des 
tertres de souillure sur lesquels vient s’étaler 
l’infantilisme.
L’aberration coince les mots de frayeur dans 
la barbe de nos pères. Les fils métastasés du 
cheval de Troie étalent leurs tentacules patri-
arcaux. Ils viennent sonner sornette et siffler 
leur cancer culturel. Leur nombre omnipotent 
s’attaque à la toison d’un monde désemparé.La 
tonte est piteuse.
Dépités, ils préfèrent la destruction de la main 
tendue à l’association d’une paix. Notre époque 
est criblée de harcèlement.
L’être est entouré de sable mouvant
Au nom de Dhimmi cherchant Tude
un soleil de plomb se met à geler
l’inconcevable sous son masque
étripe par le mirage la loi
C’est la collision champignon 
et guère le clou de la pièce
Le grotesque continue d’arborer
le pendentif de sa mascaraed
La mine patibulaire est démasquée
Le front haut à la larme alerte regarde
1’économie s’affaler
et les gens du peuple voir
la sueur perler sur le deuil de 1’effort
Le désarroi s’empare de 1’utopie
En face la désinformation cueille
la chèvre sur l’herbe  bleue de la peur
À force de complaisance
l’espoir part de New Delhi
L’humanité constate le supplice 
de la femme traquée dans l’autobus
et jetée au bas côté tel un rebus
C’est sur elle que s’élèvent les veillées
La comédie s’épanouit sur les murs de la médi-
ocrité arborée en étendard de la foi devant 
la correction qui muselle le pétale politique. 
Notre histoire et nos idéaux, notre drapeau  de 
femmes libérées et d’hommes pacifistes sont 
foulés aux pieds de l’inconnu qui entre masqué 
par l’entrebâillement de la porte.
Bon sens et émotion consternés, la femme au 
21è siècle se voit glisser vers la lame fanatique 
de l’ignorance mâle qui l’accule au rang de chat 
chinois à l’emporte pièce. La pierre ne lui est 
pas étrangère. Dans le trou, la tête haute, elle 
la reç oit jusqu’au sang. Aucune intervention ne 
peut la rescaper de la haine qui lui est infligée 
comme peine capitale. Le fléau dans l’épouvante 
LÉLIA YOUNG
La Lâcheté en pendentif
Lélia Young is an Associate Professor in the Department of French Studies, York University, in Toronto. She has written 
books of Francophone poetry: Entre l’outil et la matière (Le gref, 1993); Si loin des cyprès (Le cidhica, 1999); 
Aquarelles, La paix comme un poème (Le Marais, 2006); Réverbères (Le Marais, 2007); and I write these words/
J’écris ces mots (Inanna, 2013). Her book Langages poétiques et poésie francophone en Amérique du Nord was 
published in 2012 by the Laval University Press


La Lâcheté en pendentif

Thompson, Andrea

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 25
Driven by persistent Pagan roots
burrowing below both 
Celtic and African streams
my praise needs to dig deep —
bring the scriptures
down to earth.
As a girl, instead of church
or formal spiritual instruction
I was given free run —
Your people are Christian
but when you’re old enough
you can follow any tradition.
So I tried them all on
Ooooooommmmmmm…
BuddhismJudaismIslamHinduismmmm…
but never could find a single tribe 
to which I felt I belonged.
Instead, dug deep beneath 
to the source of the stream
that feeds the local watering hole
with universal energy.
Oya becomes kali 
Venus, Aphrodite
Inanna becomes Persephone
Isis becomes Mary.
An eclectic array of deities
simmering like spices 
in the cauldron of my psyche.
During the summer 
of the smash-hit romantic comedy
I keep finding myself 
repeating the words of the title
though never did see the movie.
There’s something about Mary.
There’s something about Mary when she finds me 
in the most unsuspecting places —
outside churches, yes of course
but also down the street
in front of the Portuguese lady’s house
you know the one who owns the corner store?
There’s something about the way she stops me
as I walk past a hospital named after her husband
sacred gardener saint — who tended her devotion.
Something in the way I am called
into her court-yard full of hopeful offerings
to stand perplexed before the plexi-glass 
of her concrete chapel
mingling with lingering blessings and prayers 
still dangling mid-air…
There’s something about Mary
when she finds me 
in the most unsuspecting places.
Amazing, the way I am wakened
when I tune in to her graces.
Quintessential female artist —
Western spiritual delegate —
Became vessel without protest —
Maternal anima incarnate.
Beneath blue veil and bared palms
a pantheon of Goddesses.
anDRea THomPSon
Revival
Writer and spoken-word artist Andrea Thompson has performed her work at venues across North America and overseas for 
the past twenty years. She is the co-editor of the anthology Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out,  author of 
the poetry collection Eating the Seed, and creator of the Urban Muisc Award nominated cd, One. Andrea is a graduate 
of the University of Guelph’s mfa Creative Writing program, and currently teaches spoken word through the Ontario 
College of Art and Design’s Continuing Studies department. Her first novel, Over Our Heads, is forthcoming in 2014 
with Inanna Publications.


Revival

Luce-Kaplar, Rebecca

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 39
L’auteure étudie la vie des femmes artistes et des écrivaines et 
se rapporte à leur biographie pour en faire des poèmes ou des 
récits.  Geraldine Moody,  la première  femme photographe 
dans  l’Ouest canadien à la fin du 19e siècle,  fait l’objet de 
son plus récent travail. Geraldine est la petite-fille de l’écrivaine 
emblèmatique la pionnière Suzanne Moody. 
At sixteen I borrowed a reel-to-reel tape recorder and 
dragged it to Edmonton to interview my great-aunt Emily 
who remembered escaping from Russia and emigrating 
to Canada. I still have that afternoon’s conversation, now 
digitized, where Emily’s voice with its rich rolling accent 
recollects when she was no older than I at the time of the 
interview, describing the family’s travels across the ocean 
and over half a country to live in the prairies—a landscape 
that was not yet a province. Before I heard the term “narra-
tive research,” before I knew that fascination with learning 
from other’s stories could be called “curriculum theory,” 
I was engaged in the work of understanding experience 
through the biographies and life histories of those around 
me. Now my studies often centre on story—how people 
understand their experience through literature and how 
they interpret those understandings through writing. 
While much of my research has been with groups of 
women across all ages, exploring different forms and 
technologies of writing (e.g., Luce-Kapler 2004, 2007, 
2008), it is in my biographical studies that I develop 
writing practices to bring to these collectives. I examine 
the lives of women artists and writers, developing responses 
to their biographies through poetry and narrative (e.g., 
Luce-Kapler 2003). The interview with great-aunt Emily 
signaled this nascent interest, which grew to include Emily 
Carr, Margaret Bourke-White, Kate Chopin and others, 
the most recent being Geraldine Moodie, the first woman 
to have a photography studio in western Canada late in 
the nineteenth century. Geraldine was granddaughter to 
the iconic pioneer writer, Susanna Moodie. 
Married at 24 to a distant cousin, John Douglas (j.d.) 
Moodie, Susanna had a peripatetic life as j.d.’s work in 
the Northwest Mounted Police took them from post to 
post across the Prairies and into northern Canada. Limited 
biographical information about Geraldine suggests that 
life with j.d. was challenging, the one constant being her 
camera. Only recently, thanks largely to the work of Donny 
White, has the full extent and quality of her photography 
has become known. What follows are five poems from 
my collection that speculate about her emergence into 
photography.
References
Luce-Kapler, Rebecca. The gardens where she dreams. 
Ottawa: Borealis Press, 2003.
Luce-Kapler, Rebecca. Writing With, Through, and Beyond 
the Text: An Ecology of Language. Mahwah, nj: Lawrence 
Erlbaum Associates, 2004. 
Luce-Kapler, Rebecca. “Fragments to Fractals: The 
Subjunctive Spaces of E-literature.” Journal of 
E-Learning, 4 (3)(2007): 256-265.
Luce-Kapler, Rebecca. “Thinking in Hypertext: 
Interrupting the Mindset of Schooling.” Curriculum 
Matters 4 (2008): 85-101. 
White, D. In Search of Geraldine Moodie. University of 
Regina, Canadian Plains Research Centre, 1998.
Composing: The Work of Geraldine Moodie
rebecca luce-kapler
40 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
Bloodlines
         (Brandon, 1880, 26 years old)
she searched the prairies for a trace
never having lived where the land
marks were unreadable
where the slight rise
of a hill did not remember 
carriage rides and sunday strolls
a circle of smooth white stones 
scorched patches of earth
the carcass of an animal
memory marked in rhythms
she could not hear 
  not England where she travelled
  garden paths, walking the palimpsest 
  of ancestral footsteps, ancient voices 
  rising from old walls 
  not Ontario where gossamer threads 
  like the silk of a spider in morning frost
  shone softly etching a history in stone
      but here
buffeted by winds from unseen
mountains swirling grains of dust
dismantling the unattached
even the plentitude of stars
swallowed her in their bowl of light
Silhouette
                    (Calgary 1886)
Last light of the day she walks 
toward the shadow of mountains
imagining a camera behind her
framing her journey across the field.
For the past month she has had visions
in the night, stronger than dreams
where she watches herself stumble
through hallways, opening doors
that lead nowhere, climbing stairs
that dissolve into air. She sees the edges
of her life, a narrow maze that closes
behind her. Whatever angle she chooses
there are walls around her, directing her.
This evening, she is composing her body
outside. She thinks
burst of light that pierces
a lens. She thinks
tonight the dreams will be of sky.
Intimacy
       (Lakefield, 1890, 36 years old)
She read the thin book of instructions: 
  Kodak, No. 2: You Press the Button, 
  We do the rest! 
She can decide the aperture, open the front of the 
camera, 
change the reflex viewfinder. The largest stop 
would need 
sun on her back. A good place to begin in the 
spring brightness.
  hold the camera firmly against the body
  pause the breath for a moment
Just beyond the kitchen garden, she practiced. 
The Kodak nested between her hands, right against 
her belly
its nubbed body secured. The shoots of thyme
in the viewfinder, upside down, earth becoming sky.
She pulled the brass button up until the catgut 
string cocked the shutter
pushed the pin down, then turned the silver key 
one small twist
to roll the film forward, the next frame settling 
into place. 
  the most beautiful instrument ever
She would learn to trust this black machine, no 
bigger 
than her recipe box, revealer of wave and refraction.
She carried it close, walked beyond the meadow
to begin as she did for sketching, a search 
for the small delicate thing shining from a backdrop.
In a grove she saw the maple, no taller than her 
Douglas, 
leaves delicately green. She circled the tree, 
wondering 
VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 41
how she might capture its breathless colour. 
Remembered 
to find the sun, turned away from mid-morning 
glare, stared 
at the subject until her eyes lost the distraction of 
larger trees,
the spread of trillium, two chickadees dancing 
through air. 
Then she saw it: sapling maple branches showered 
in an aura.  
  hold the camera firmly against the body
  pause the breath for a moment
The sun moved overhead and beyond without 
her notice
as frame by frame she found her pictures: last 
year’s wild
grapevine wound through a split rail fence, the 
shreds
of an old beaver dam past the bend in the creek, 
patches
of sweet white violets with heart-shaped leaves. 
And the green—
fern, forest, lime and asparagus. Only when she 
came upon the road 
did she remember the slice of bread and butter 
wrapped for her lunch.  
She had lost the periphery, become the viewfinder 
of calm. 
The mark of her fingers imprinted on the body of 
the camera.
Gesture
   (Lakefield, July, 1890, 36 years old)
Every feeling waits upon its gesture.
—Eudora Welty
Nearly a year of letters
  My dear wife, I sit before a plate 
  of Eugenia’s mediocre cooking. Yet again 
  tough beef and salty gravy. I miss 
  your sure hands about the house…
And her replies
  With your stipend I keep a modest home
  and tend to the children. Melly has a piano 
   and a teacher, Douglas is learning to sing
  George seems drawn to the violin…
She does not write about the camera, the 
photographs
of the children next to hollyhocks, their summer 
swimming
her dreams of the prairie in humid Ontario nights
the life she lives without him.
She pictures him at the boarding house, light gone
from the sky. One lamp on the table, just enough
to hold back darkness and no more. His hands
smooth the letters he reads while he has his tea
without her strawberry jam squares or thin
slices of toasted bread and clotted cream.
Sometimes she hears his slow precise sentences, 
the certainty of opinion as he tidies his moustache 
with the tip of an index finger. He brushes 
imaginary
dust from the shoulders of his red serge but is silent
about missing her attention to laundry. There are 
nights
she hears the whisper of his body next to hers 
and wakes
startled by the solitude, wondering if this is a man
she still could live with.
Rejlander’s Cat1
       (Battleford, 1895, 41 years old)
Saskatchewan Herald, Friday, 15 July 1895: Mrs. 
Moodie has opened her photograph gallery, which is 
furnished with an outfit of the latest and most improved 
kind.  Open Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, and 
at other times by appointment.
According to the story, Rejlander 
used his cat as an exposure meter
posing the accommodating tabby
on the sitter’s chair and staring at her face.
If the eyes were green with small slits of black
he chose a quick click of the shutter.
As the pupils widened, he added extra
time with the lens and if he saw only dark coins
rimmed in the small paring of colour,
42 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
he would put on his cap, throw 
the cat outside to catch a mouse 
and take a walk before dinner.
What did Rejlander do to keep his cat still?
Did he slip a small morsel between her paws? 
But I’ve never had a cat respond to such a bribe.
A dog, on the other hand, will sit still for hours
if you hold a liver treat to your cheek,
his long strings of drool dripping. 
Perhaps the cat just wanted to watch  
too full to mouse, too tired 
to jump down from the chair. Perhaps 
posing in the sun was her only quiet 
moment in the day.
I don’t know how Geraldine judged exposure
in her studio with blinds on the windows
a solid tripod for her camera and a steady hand 
with magnesium powder. But I do know 
she placed a blue vase of pink peonies 
upon a table flooded in prairie light. 
1Oscar Gustave Rejlander born in Sweden in 1813 
was a pioneering art photographer and an expert 
in photo montage. He collaborated with Charles 
Darwin on The Expressions of the Emotions in Man 
and Animals. He died in London in 1875. 
Rebecca Luce-Kapler is Associate Dean of Graduate Studies 
and Research in the Faculty of Education, Queen’s University. 
Her research interests focus on the integral role of literary 
practices, particularly writing, in the development of human 
consciousness and identity. Her most recent research involves 
senior-aged women reading and writing literary memoirs, 
investigating how literary practices can deepen learning and 
interpretation of experience. She published a collection of 
poetry in 2003, The gardens where she dreams.
SHeIla STeWaRT
Wash up as far as
   possible and 
down as far as possible and give
possible a lick too,
Mum and Aunt Ena chortled
in the hall between the bathroom
and bedrooms at Ena’s house,
Ballyaughlis, Drumbo Road,
Country Antrim, Northern
Ireland. No time for a bath or
shower, stand at the sink, wash up.
   Down the garden
with a bowl, pick raspberries, red
currants. Lunch of courgettes
fried in butter, wheaton and soda
bread from the oven. Whipped
cream sliding into berries, tart and tangy,
meets sweet and savage, everything
melts. As far as we can go in con-
versation, a poem, as far as the flight
from here to Belfast, as far as Ena
still alive,
   giving possibility
a lick too.
Sheila Stewart has two poetry collections: The Shape 
of a Throat (Signature Editions, 2012) and A Hat 
to Stop a Train (Wolsak and Wynn, 2003). She co-
edited The Art of Poetic Inquiry (Backalong Books, 
2012). Sheila is completing her Ph.D. at oise/ut.


English

Composing: The Work of Geraldine Moodie

Patriarca, Gianna

16 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
C’est une une jeune Italienne qui explique à sa grand-mère 
pourquoi elle ne s’est pas encore mariée. La grand-mère elle, 
a été mariée deux fois, une fois par amour, une autre fois 
à cause de son veuvage. La jeune fille lui répond qu’à son 
époque, on s’attendait à ce que la vie pour les femmes était 
dans le mariage.
“Ma, why you no get marry, you such a nice girla, nobody 
wants marry to you?”
That’s the standard greeting I get from my grandmother 
every time I appear at her front door, steel gray and deco-
rated with an assortment of sticker-type pictures of angels 
and saints courtesy of her local church, and a Canadian flag, 
courtesy of the neighbourhood city councillor. They are all 
carefully pasted to the solid, impenetrable, intruder-proof 
door of her modest semi-detached, two-storey house on a 
one-way street in Toronto, just east of Ossington Avenue, 
south of Dupont.
My grandmother had always wanted a new crimson 
door with a bright and shiny gold knob, but my mother 
insisted that it would make an unflattering statement about 
those who lived in the house and the neighbours would 
never stop talking. Red is my grandmother’s favourite 
colour, gold her favourite mineral or metal, Saint Teresa 
her favourite saint and I am, without a doubt, her most 
cherished female grandchild.
My mother, her only daughter, is the official Swiss guard 
on regular duty now that my grandmother has reached 
her mid-80s, spending most afternoons taking care of her 
needs, shopping, housecleaning, banking and performing 
other domestic routines while my grandmother spends 
more and more time reconnecting to her catholic identity 
My Grandmother is Normal
gianna patriarca
listening to Radio Maria, reading religious magazines, 
and baking her amaretto cookies for the rosary group 
every first Friday of the month. Grandma’s internal clock 
is set for the daily viewing of the Eucharist on Vision tv, 
which is often broadcast either in French or Latin and she 
is now comfortably bilingual in the responses, preferring 
the Latin because it takes her back to the days in Italy 
when all her prayers were learned in Latin. When the 
mass is over she switches to rai international television to 
reconnect with her original language. This phenomenon of 
spiritual re-birth has happened in the last ten years or so 
and I imagine it is a preparation and a type of indemnity 
for the inevitable realities to come. She has on occasion 
tried to lead me toward her spiritual inspiration, wanting 
me to join in her appreciation of the “holy,” but as much 
as she tries I resist it with a sincere politeness that seems 
to appease her. 
Her delight in the utterly mindless programming of 
rai International Television is a little more disturbing.
Before I take off my coat or hang up my purse or remove 
my shoes or even put my arms around her to say “hello,” 
grandmother asks me the same question, which is really 
less of a question than it is a sad, painful affirmation of 
my unfortunate state of spinsterhood. My unexploited and 
unappreciated feminine charms going to waste, as the clock 
ticks away, are a constant concern for my grandmother 
and a very real reason to devote a decade of prayers to my 
needs every time she says the rosary. That is the reason 
I visit only on absolutely necessary occasions or on the 
feast day of Saint Teresa and bring her a dozen red roses. 
Yes, roses are my grandmother’s favourite flowers. My 
grandmother’s name is Teresa. 
VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 17
I love my grandmother and would never entertain the 
thought of a mockingly smart response to any of her ques-
tions, of which there are laundry bags full, each with an 
undercurrent of my unrealized state of womanhood, but 
there have been moments when visions of grand-matricide 
have flashed appetizingly in my head.
I don’t know why she keeps asking me the same thing 
over and over when I am almost optimistic she really knows 
the answer but somehow she needs to play this game that 
allows a certain pretence into the assumed normality of our 
my grandmother he can find that anywhere, the rest is 
provided by us. 
The fact that my brother is 35 and still living with our 
parents does not trouble her at all. It is true that my mother 
still waits for him to come home, launders his clothes, and 
no matter what the hour, she is prepared to cook whatever 
his heart desires. All this is completely acceptable. 
This inevitable contradiction in my grandmother’s 
character and behaviour towards our gender can appear 
baffling but it is totally natural and I have learned to 
She has been without a man, a husband, for over thirty years and for the 
past twenty-five of those she has filled me in on her theory that it is a very 
real improbability that decent, honest, and exceptional men exist in this 
world. She has also assured me that their participation in the universe is 
overestimated and in most instances completely not necessary.
totally peculiar family. Nothing about my grandmother 
or anyone else in my familial tribe is normal, but then 
what is normal? Is there a family in history who can ever 
claim the honour? 
I am fortunate that my grandmother has a wicked sense 
of humour and she does not take offence when I mimic 
her questionable sanity as I play charades with her advice, 
her concerns and her God. She laughs easily and with a 
real need to share the joy that is in her. She also embraces 
me constantly and I have now learned the hugs are not 
just a demonstration of affection but a way to get close 
enough to slip fifty dollar bills into my pockets. Just in case. 
My grandmother has buried two husbands. I never met 
either of them because they exited the planet years before 
I was born while she was still a relatively young, attractive 
woman. She has been without a man, a husband, for over 
thirty years and for the past twenty-five of those she has 
filled me in on her theory that it is a very real improba-
bility that decent, honest, and exceptional men exist in 
this world. She has also assured me that their participation 
in the universe is overestimated and in most instances 
completely not necessary. The fact that my grandmother’s 
God is a man never enters the discussion.
Of course, all of this disdain for the male gender does 
not apply to her beloved, perfect nephew, my brother, who 
is her first grandchild, a gemstone, a remarkable young 
man beyond any imperfection, resembling Michael the 
good angel and therefore impossible to criticize. He is, for 
my grandmother, flawless. She has never asked him when 
he will marry because there is no need for him to marry. 
Between my grandmother and my mother he has no real 
need for a wife, except perhaps for sex, and according to 
tolerate it without any spite toward her or my brother. 
They are after all just a little bit insane. 
My grandmother’s first husband was short, the second 
was tall, one had a moustache and black wavy hair, the 
other did not. She has pictures of both husbands on either 
side of her bedroom wall where they hang quietly in the 
ordered little world my grandmother has created inside 
her modest house for the last thirty years. She dusts the 
pictures daily with a handkerchief she keeps folded by her 
night table. The handkerchief is only for the photographs 
of the two men that hang on her wall. The third man 
hanging on a cross over the headboard of her bed she 
dusts with a feather brush. 
The tall one’s photograph is on the right. He was my 
grandfather and I can see something of me in the serene 
look of his young face with his receding hairline and 
large brow. His slightly crooked eyes with the sad droopy 
eyebrows are unmistakably the same as mine. He was 
gone five years before I came along but when I look at 
the photo he does not appear to be a stranger, perhaps 
because I have spent so many years in this room, we 
have come to know each other. Sometimes when I am in 
grandmother’s room and we are chatting while I help her 
with some totally irrelevant chore like folding nightgowns 
and sheets or ironing pillowcases I become as inquisitive 
with her as she is with me.
“Grandma, tell me something, why did you marry these 
two men?”
There is always a long dramatic pause before she attempts 
to find words to give me an answer. She could have been 
an actress. She prepares her round little body to stand firm 
and proud, she clears her throat and places her fingers 
18 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
through her Magnani mane, still thick and well coloured 
and after a couple of deep sighs she begins telling me how 
striking she was when she was young and how the suitors 
of her day would not leave her alone. She had many to 
choose from as she recalls,“I was too beautiful not to marry, 
so many want to make me their wife, so many, but I choose 
the first one because he love me.”
Her cheeks darken with a blush as she turns to look at 
the picture of the man with the moustache. If the first 
one had not died, she would have been a fine lady in a 
fine house. If the first one had not died she would have 
lived a pampered life. The first one was from a family 
of merchants, well established in commerce and highly 
respected in their village and she would have inherited 
much property in due time. But he died before he could 
give her children and without children there was no claim 
to position or property. 
“In my time the women … we marry … we make 
children … we become good wife, good mother, that’s 
what we do.”
There is a look in her eyes that is unconvincing, faintly 
distant, as if she might be trying to talk herself into believ-
ing her own words, or perhaps hoping that I will accept 
them without any further questions. I know she married 
the first one for love, so she says, the second she married 
because the first one died. It was the second who gave her 
the children but not the indulgent, lavish life. 
“A young widow no good in my days. For the womens 
in that time with no husband you don’t got nothing in 
the life, so you find the husband and you make the life.”
The second one brought her to Toronto, gave her the 
children and a house that was less than fine. It’s the same 
house where the photographs now hang, where my mother 
was born and where I played as a child among the knick-
knacks and photographs. It is the same house where my 
grandmother waits for my drop-ins, where we sit on her 
bed and flip through memories in between folding laundry 
or making pots of espresso which we drink as if we never 
had need to sleep again. 
It is this house she will leave to my brother and me when 
her time comes, her simple and unpretentious legacy, her 
gift to us. She will leave us this house so we will remember, 
on occasion, that she once existed. 
But I do not know what house I will live in, or whom 
I will share it with. I don’t know what I will remember 
if I live to be her age or if I will ever have children of my 
own. I cannot tell my grandmother my dreams because I 
know they would upset her. There are truths and desires in 
my life that have no words or prayers she will understand. 
I am as much a casualty of my time as she was of hers. 
But now, in this room with her photographs and mem-
ories I will remain the granddaughter who could not find 
a man to make her a wife, and hope, while we fold sheets 
and iron pillowcases and talk of her lovers who hang 
dust free on her pale blue walls that she can feel in her 
old, settled heart how much I love her and that I need so 
much more than a man, or even two, to “make the life.” 
Gianna Patriarca is an award-winning author of eight books 
of poetry and a book for children. Her work, adapted for stage 
and radio, is featured in numerous documentaries. Her work 
is taught in universities in Canada, the United States and 
Italy. She was runner-up to the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry 
Award, shortlisted for the Bressani Prize, and in 2010, she 
was the first recipient of the Science and Cultural Award 
from the Italian Chamber of Commerce. In 2009, an Ital-
ian translation of her first book, Italian Women and Other 
Tragedies, was launched in Italy. She is currently working on 
a short story collection, All My Fallen Angelas, stories about 
Italian-Canadian women. She lives in Toronto.
Joanna m. WeSTon
In another Time
they fire-bombed
the cities
rose petals
fell from your
bruised hands
when I remember
stories of gun-smoke
I breathe
the scent
of Christmas roses
my hand in yours
on the beach
dune grass blows
where young women
grew roses
Joanna M. Weston is married with two cats, multiple 
spiders, a herd of deer, and two derelict hen houses. 
Her middle-reader, Those Blue Shoes, was published 
by Clarity House Press. Frontenac House of Calgary 
published her poetry collection, A Summer Father. 


My Grandmother Is Normal

Bernabo, Alexa

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 75
Une bonne d’enfant des Philippines 
pleure la perte de ses enfants qu’elle a dû 
laisser chez elle pour travailler aux Etats-
Unis afin de leur procurer le nécessaire 
Elle remarque le contraste entre sa vie 
et celle de la femme dont elle garde les 
enfants et qu’elle est arrivée à aimer. 
My name is Diwata Navarro. I am 29 
years old and I am from the town of 
Abaga in the Philippines. Since I was 
a child, I have learned that there is 
one marker that has set out my entire 
path in life. This thing that I carry 
around with me is often seen as an 
uncontrollable curse that places me 
at the bottom of the pyramid in all 
aspects of life. It makes me a target 
of discrimination, of inequality and 
of subordination. I am a woman, 
a description that tends to make 
the harsh realities of my situation 
acceptable to the world around me. 
When I was twenty, I was married 
to a man who I thought loved me 
very much. He was sneaky; at least 
going into it he was. Helping me clean 
dishes, cooking every now and then, 
my husband even told me once that 
I should find a hobby and set aside 
a little time for myself every day. I 
thought I was lucky, but after our 
The Real Nanny Diaries
alexa bernabo
first child came I realized he was just 
like the other men in my town and 
my hopes for a marriage where both 
partners were equal quickly left my 
mind. I cared for both the children 
and home while my husband spent 
all of his paycheques on booze and 
cigarettes. About eight months into 
my fourth pregnancy, the constant 
debt we were in caused my husband 
to move on and leave my children and 
myself with nothing. I was pregnant 
and alone with three other mouths 
to feed. I felt ashamed. What kind of 
parent was I? We had no money and 
I couldn’t work; I was lost and afraid. 
My sister who lived in a village a few 
miles from my home in Abaga sent us 
the little money she could spare, but 
we were both aware that it would not 
be enough to keep my family alive. 
Two months after my fourth child 
was born, I looked at my babies, 
kissed their foreheads, and left on a 
boat to the United States. I can still 
remember the tears in the eyes of my 
eldest, who was only five years old at 
the time, and the sickening pain I felt 
in my stomach as I left them with my 
neighbour who was my only option 
until I could make enough money to 
send them to my sister’s home. Once 
I arrived in the States I stayed with 
my sister’s brother-in-law who had 
a home in Chicago. It took me two 
months to secure a position as a full- 
time nanny at the home of Mr. and 
Mrs. Tayard. That was six years ago 
and I have not seen my children since. 
My sister likes to comfort me by 
saying I did what I needed to do for 
my family, but the truth is I no longer 
feel like I deserve the title of being 
a mother. I abandoned my babies in 
a time where they needed me most 
and I will never be able to forget it. 
Aside from the guilt that weighs on 
my shoulders, my life in the States has 
seen few pleasures. When I was hired 
by Mrs. Tayard to be a nanny to her 
twin daughters, I could tell what kind 
of woman she was and the kind of life 
I was going to have in her home. Just 
as the word “woman” is my descriptor, 
Mrs. Tayard’s word would be “clean.” 
Yes, she always has her makeup done, 
and her hair up in curls, but that is 
not why I would use the word. Mrs. 
Tayard dismisses her children and 
acts like they are just dirty dishes 
that I need to wash and put away. 
She does not touch them, she does 
not look and them; she has cleaned 
herself of any trace of motherhood. I 
76 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
know this seems a tad hypocritical of 
me, especially considering my track 
record of motherhood shows striking 
similarities to hers. Yet, although I do 
not touch or look at my children, I 
would give anything to be with them, 
unlike Mrs. Tayard.
In the Philippines I was subjected 
to the daily abuse of my husband, but 
in the States I have felt abuse on an 
entirely different level. In Chicago, I 
have noticed a hierarchy of women 
who have no compassion or sympathy 
for their sisters who are suffering. 
Women in my country are united 
by the common experiences we have 
shared, but on this side of the world 
it is not the men I am afraid of, it 
is the women. While Mr. Tayard is 
tolerable, partly because he is always 
working and I never see him, his wife 
is the exact opposite. Mrs. Tayard does 
not see me as a woman like herself 
and she certainly does not consider 
me as an equal. She takes in how I 
dress and how I speak and judges me 
for it, never considering what I have 
been through. I do not even think she 
knows I have children of my own and 
why would she? I am her subordinate. 
I work 80 hours a week with no 
days off. I clean, I cook, and I take 
care of the house and do everything 
for Mrs. Tayard’s children. Her twins 
are six years old and I have grown to 
love them very much. I hold them 
and care for them like they were my 
own but that often makes my situa-
tion worse. What kind of person am 
I that gives so much love to another 
woman’s children when her own go 
through life alone?
Being a nanny breaks my heart as it 
has replaced the one job I cannot live 
without. Perhaps one day my children 
will understand why I left and forgive 
me, but I will never understand how 
I could sacrifice my life with them for 
the life I have now and I will never be 
able to forgive myself for it. 
Alexa Bernabo currently lives in Otta-
wa, Ontario.
MARY LOU SOUTAR-HYNES
The way light
         falls
      reveals a darker side
   to landscape’s pastoral symmetry
    behind the scenic veil
      A trail of severed
   marigolds across the field,     river’s shrewd
    insistence —     the slivered
     face of rock
      Yet today is summer
   unmistakably —     only the kayak’s silvered silence
    a single breath of cloud     
     sky powder-blue  
      Our journey
   worn by weight of moist air,     fabric’s slight texture
                 on skin — 
    light falling     between image
     and knowing
Note: Line 4, source of image “scenic veil” see: Recovering Landscapes: Essays in Contemporary Architecture, 
James Corner, Ed., Princetown Architectural Press, 1999, p. 12.
Mary Lou Soutar-Hynes’s poetry appears earlier in this volume.


The Real Nanny Diaries

Batey, Marilyn J.

VOLUME 30,  NUMBER 1 147
so doing demonstrates how journal 
writing for women has often been 
used as a communication tool. An 
honest and authentic one.
And it is in these authentic 
reflections, now included in this 
unabridged version, that I am most 
interested in. For sometimes what 
we don’t or can’t say in public is 
what connects women most deeply. 
Journals are a gift, a glimpse, or 
a pronouncement of truths. And 
journal writing for women has been 
studied for decades within feminist 
literary criticism circles. That the 
interest has not waned is perhaps 
due in part to the candid hidden 
truths about women’s lives that can 
often be discovered there. And that 
journal writing is emancipatory for 
some women may also explain the 
ongoing scholarly interest, exploring 
them as an act of resistance as well 
as a genre of women’s literature and 
culture in and of themselves. 
I was so pleased to hear that Rubio 
and Waterston had published a com-
plete volume of Lucy Maud’s life—the 
eleven years in pei. This collection of 
her journals is unabridged, and one of 
the great journals in Canada’s literary 
collective. In fact, I would argue that 
the Lucy Maud Montgomery jour-
nals are comparable to those of W. 
L. Mackenzie despite having received 
far less accolade. Until Rubio and 
Waterston that is. For to fold into 
these journals with a cup of tea and 
a comfy sweater is to succumb to 
the lure of lush literary alliteration 
…. sadly now a rarity in both the 
spoken and written word.
Even Lucy Maud returned to her 
journals, adding photos, clippings, 
dried flowers, and event stubs to 
expound her descriptions of events, 
places and her own comings and 
goings. The end result can be found, 
at least in part, in The pei Years—a 
delicious multi-media experience 
akin to her sumptuous and famous 
scrapbooks. 
Lucy Maud Montgomery is a liter-
ary woman. Of that we are all aware. 
And perhaps she’ll always remain 
one of Canada’s best known. To me, 
Anne is palpable in many of the little 
vignettes lm recounts. Honest. Ok, I 
admit it – I might have been looking 
for that sort of a feel as I often find 
myself longing to be drawn back into 
those delightful descriptions of red 
sand, craggy cliffs, church socials, and 
those memorably endearing mishaps. 
And while I do know that  lmm 
was and is so much more than her 
best-known novel, in the pei  Years, 
glimmers of Anne and even perhaps 
Lucy Maud’s childhood imaginings 
abound. Who knows what you’ll feel 
or find when you allow yourself to 
descend into The pei  Years. But I’m 
sure you’ll agree with me, that you’re 
glad she wrote. That she revised. And 
that Rubio and Waterston gifted the 
world with these collections. 
“So long as you write what you 
wish to write, that is all that mat-
ters; and whether it matters for 
ages or only for hours, nobody 
can say.”—Virginia Woolf, A 
Room of One’s Own.
For Lucy Maud, I hope it was both.
Cheryl van Daalen-Smith, is an Asso-
ciate Professor at York University with 
appointments in the School of Gen-
der, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at 
York University, the Children’s Stud-
ies Program and the School of Nurs-
ing. In her (spare) time, she cares for 
and about a menagerie of cast-away 
farm animals at her farm in Caledon, 
Ontario.
ThE caMbrIdGE 
coMpaNIoN To 
JaNE auSTEN, 
SEcoNd EdITIoN
Edward Copeland and Juliet 
McMaster, Eds.
Cambridge: Cambridge University 
Press, 2011
reviewed by marilyn
j. batey
This recently published second 
edition contains many of the same 
contributors as the first edition with a 
few revisions, as well as some notable 
additions. It is an excellent collection 
which belongs in the library of every 
serious Austen scholar, as well as those 
who simply want a new or different 
insight into Austen’s work. 
The Companion commences with 
Deirdre Le Faye’s chronology and the 
editors have grouped the balance of 
the essays in such a way that they 
flow from the chronology through 
the problems of women writers to 
Austen’s six completed novels, her 
early works, and those left unfinished. 
These essays are followed by critiques 
involving letters, class, money, mak-
ing a living, and sociability, as well 
as “Jane Austen on screen.” The final 
chapter, entitled “Further reading,” is 
an extensive selection of books, essays, 
and articles—an excellent follow up 
to this Companion.
For example, Jan Fergus’s essay, 
“The professional woman writer,” 
gives an excellent insight into prob-
lems faced by women novelists in the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 
Austen, as well as other contempo-
rary women writers, faced not only 
financial difficulties, but in many 
cases, moral and social repercussions 
if their identities were revealed, hence 
the use of pseudonyms and/or male 
names. Even Jane herself was only 
CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME148
FINdING a waY To 
ThE hEarT: FEMINIST 
wrITINGS oN 
aborIGINal aNd 
woMEN’S hISTorY IN 
caNada
Robin Jarvis Brownlie and Valerie J. 
Korinek, Eds.
Winnipeg: University of Manitoba 
Press, 2012
reviewed by jennifer 
hayter
In the 1970s when historian Sylvia 
Van Kirk was in grad school, female 
academics were a rarity, women’s 
history was viewed with suspicion, 
and aboriginal history was considered 
only a preface to the “real” history 
of Canada. Today, history majors at 
any Canadian university can hardly 
avoid reading Van Kirk, a female aca-
demic who put indigenous women 
at the centre of fur trade history. The 
twelve essays in Finding a Way to the 
Heart consider some of the changes 
that made this possible, while also 
providing examples of some new 
research inspired by Van Kirk’s in-
novative subjects and methodologies. 
This collection is the result of a 2007 
roundtable, a retrospective on Van 
Kirk’s work. Its contributors include 
colleagues and former students who 
work on native-newcomer relations, 
the West, and women’s history. 
The first part of the book contains 
reflections on the many facets of Syl-
via’s work. Jennifer Brown’s chapter 
describes their shared experience 
of being female academics in the 
1970s, and how things have changed 
since then. Franca Iacovetta’s piece, 
one of the highlights of the book, 
focuses on underappreciated but 
vital behind the scenes activities. 
Through her extensive participation 
on committees—approximately 
100—Van Kirk made substantial 
identified in her first novels as being 
“by the author.” 
Essays on the six completed nov-
els follow and cover a number of 
interesting viewpoints. Penny Gay’s 
“Emma and Persuasion” questions 
whether Emma is narrated from her 
point of view, or by an ironic narrator 
who seems to be perched just behind 
Emma’s shoulder. In Persuasion, we 
see reflected some of the changes that 
were taking place in society where 
“professions (in this case the navy) 
that actively serve and protect, and 
where energy, determination, and 
luck outweigh ‘good family’.” 
In Margaret Anne Doody’s “The 
early short fiction,” we see chronology 
playing a part as she explores the 
changes in Austen’s work over time. 
There is also some indication that 
sometime around 1809 to 1811, 
Austen revised and/or cannibalized 
her earlier works, while Janet Todd 
looks at “Lady Susan, The Watsons, 
and Sanditon,” and speaks of the 
“unique” light cast on Austen’s 
creative process—certainly true of 
Lady Susan, which is almost risqué 
and The Watsons which seems to lack 
some of Austen’s sophistication in her 
characterizations.
There is an essay entitled “The 
letters” which reveals some of the con-
troversy, even today, over Cassandra 
Austen’s apparent destruction after 
her death of much of Jane’s corre-
spondence. However, those letters 
that do exist “reveal the difficulties 
that she faced under a system of 
checks and repressions that needed 
to be negotiated.” This is followed 
by reviews on such subjects as class, 
money, making a living, gender, 
and sociability. Juliet McMaster, for 
instance, suggests that when dealing 
with the subject of class and its place 
in the novels of Jane Austen, and in 
answer to the question “who cares?” 
states “it is the business of the novel 
to represent people—not exclusively, 
but prominently—in their social 
roles.” Also, “[a]s a sensitive and 
informed commentator on class, that 
huge topic of the nineteenth century, 
Austen shows us amply how such 
things matter. She also shows us how 
they should not matter too much.”
Edward Copeland’s “Money” 
points out very clearly, and in great 
detail, the impact of ‘money’ on 
Austen’s society, while Clery sees 
“gender”as a basis for comedy, and 
Gillian Russell’s essay sees the role of 
women coming into its own through 
“sociability” and its infrastructure 
which arises partly from industrializa-
tion and the rise of the middle class. 
A very good flow of ideas. 
These essays are followed by Isobel 
Grundy’s “Jane Austen and literary 
tradition” and Kathryn Sutherland’s 
“Jane Austen on screen” while Clau-
dia L. Johnson looks at “Austen cults 
and cultures.” 
The Companion concludes with 
Bruce Stovel and Mary M. Chan’s 
excellent essay titled “Further read-
ing,” which provides comprehensive 
references for any student of Jane 
Austen and her writings, and is the 
perfect follow up for all those wishing 
to read further—after all, these read-
ings must surely have whetted one’s 
appetite for finding the “real Jane”! 
Marilyn J. Batey graduated from York 
University with a B.A. Honours in 
History (1998) and English (2007). 
Retired, she now spends her time vol-
unteering at various organizations. 
She is a member of the jasna (Jane 
Austen Society of North America).


The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, Second Edition

Sonik, Madeline

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 127
Scholars, intellectuals, students came from Harvard 
and New York by train and tram to the Farm (there was 
even a tram stop at the end of the lane). Hazel made 
bloomers for all the young women so that they would 
not be hampered by their skirts; they wore their hair long 
and free. !ey all hayed, chopped wood, and read poetry 
to one another. Walter Lippmann came to the Farm and 
eventually married Faye Albertson, Hazel’s step-daughter. 
Yes, it did seem that this utopia might actually be a reality. 
But of course these new folk were privileged, wealthy, 
and young. !ey were ardent, politically enlightened. But 
in most cases they ended up back in the lap of their own 
class, the establishment. Hazel’s husband decamped, for 
greener female pastures, though he always maintained an 
interest in the Farm. At some point the Farm’s economies 
declined to the point that they had to operate as a bed-and-
breakfast, which was, of course, to our great advantage. 
Kitty and I have had a creative, nurturing relationship 
over the past many decades, and I believe that much 
of this can be attributed to our time at the Farm. We 
learned about sharing, about the wonders of the land. 
Our peace-loving and ecological views converge. What 
greater gift could there be for two sisters than to have 
bonded through the inspiration of the Farm: Marnie and 
her cottage in the woods, the old mare Dolly, the books, 
the earth, the dish-washing assembly-line?
Frances Beer is a  Professor Emerita of English, York University; 
her BA is from Harvard, MA from Columbia, and Ph.D. 
from the University of Toronto. Her teaching has included 
graduate and undergraduate courses on medievel and chil-
dren’s literature, and nineteenth-century women novelists. 
Her publications include !e Juvenilia of Jane Austen and 
Charlotte Brontë, Women and Mystical Experience in the 
Middle Ages, a translation of Julian of Nowich’s Revelations, 
and a novel, Pilgrims in Love.
JOCELYN WILLIAMS
Then
When I wear this once scarlet scarf I feel
\RXUZD[HGOLSVDQG\RXUQRVHWLS
DJDLQVWWKHSLQNRIP\FKHHNDQGDPÀOOHG
with age seventeen.
Jocelyn Williams’s poetry appears earlier in this volume. 
MADELINE SONIK
Bad news
When I turned thirteen
my father called
all my friends
“bad news”
as if upon their faces
he could  read the headline
      “DISASTER”
OLNHSODQHVH[SORGLQJLQWREXLOGLQJV
and plagues swallowing up vistas of earth
 famine, fascism, fanaticism 
competed with the “F” words rolling 
from their teen-aged tongues
in everything they said and did
they announced annihilations
and the eye make-up
and cigarettes
KHH[DPLQHGPHIRU
(a witch-hunter combing 
intimate parts for moles
and multiple nipples)
all signs of the wicked
VH[XDOLW\
he could neither keep
for himself
or prevent me from growing
Madeline Sonik’s poetry appears earlier in this volme.


Bad News

Janusz, Barbara D.

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 83
Lydia Nelson, une mère célibataire qui 
a abandonné ses études au secondaire 
essaie de s’extirper des machination 
d’une bande de motards. Elle a été 
trahie et déçue quand elle fut prise 
dans une opération de drogues. Dans sa 
quête d’acquittement elle fut marquée 
profondément par l’injustice du système 
judiciaire orientée par les hommes. 
“It’s multiple transactions, Sabina. 
Over a period of six months, cul-
minating in a pound of coke.” He 
paused before continuing. “The 
Court of Appeal precedent of three 
years remains the yardstick. Even with 
a guilty plea.”
I swallowed hard. My mouth felt 
dry and I needed to dredge up some 
saliva in my mouth before responding 
to Gerald’s intractable position. “But 
my client doesn’t even have a criminal 
record.”
“If she did, particularly a prior for 
drugs, I’d be asking for more time.”
I rolled my eyes and sucked in 
my breath, cast my gaze out my 
seventh floor office window at the 
office tower across the street and 
visualized Gerald, on the other end 
of the line, on the fourteenth floor 
of the Federal Crown Prosecutor’s 
Entrapped
barbara d. janusz
office, just down the street from 
mine, looking out at the panoramic 
view of the mountains. “What about 
my line of questioning at the prelim 
that Detective Willis had seduced my 
client into selling him the drugs? That 
she might have even been falling in 
love with him?”
“Seduced! Oh, come on, Sabina. 
You don’t really think that Detective 
Willis acted improperly, do you? And 
is it even reasonable that your client 
might have thought she had a chance 
with Willis?”
Why? I wanted to ask. Because 
she comes across as trailer trash? All 
the more reason for Lydia to have 
been seduced into selling the narc 
increasingly larger amounts of coke. 
I conjured up the image of Judge 
Stevenson peering up from his notes, 
shooting me a look of bewilderment 
before narrowing his eyes and sizing 
up the detective on the witness stand. 
Detective Willis was what you would 
call a heartthrob. When I’d spotted 
him in the foyer outside courtroom 
407—known euphemistically as the 
drug courtroom—I understood in a 
flash how his boyish, rugged good 
looks had pulled at Lydia’s heart 
strings. 
“Detective Willis, do you recall im-
mediately after you’d clinched the last 
transaction and flashed your Calgary 
Police Service badge, my client groaning 
and saying, “Oh Bill!”?”
“Yes. She might have reacted in 
that way.”
“And when you called Ms. Nelson on 
the phone to arrange this last transaction 
and the previous three, she’d confided 
in you about her daughter and her 
financial situation? And you listened 
and commiserated with her?”
“Yes.”
“Your intent was to instill trust and 
perhaps even to forge a friendship with 
my client?”
“Yes, that’s the nature of undercover 
work. You try to win the dealer’s trust.”
The easygoing yet forthright man-
ner in which Willis had withstood 
my cross-examination—as though 
he had nothing to hide and shared 
in my objective to get to the truth 
of the matter—solidified for me how 
easy it would have been for Lydia to 
have been duped into believing that 
he was a user who trafficked on the 
side to subsidize his habit. 
“You know, Sabina, that even if 
your client had been induced to act 
as a mule, entrapment is not even a 
84 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
defence in this country.”
“I was thinking about mitigation 
of sentence, Gerald.” I managed to 
control the edge that was insinuating 
itself into my voice, my urge to get 
back at him for underestimating 
my knowledge of the law. Although 
Gerald was correct about the paucity 
of case law on entrapment, it wasn’t 
a defence, per se, but an abuse of 
process that, depending on the 
circumstances, could warrant the 
ordering of a stay of proceedings. 
Five years had lapsed since the en-
trenchment of our Charter of Rights 
and Freedoms in the Constitution. 
Across the country, criminal defence 
lawyers were growing impatient with 
anticipation for that seminal court 
ruling that would clarify what type 
of undercover law enforcement 
tactics were so offensive as to bring 
the administration of justice into 
disrepute.
“Well you know my position. I’d 
be willing to drop one of the four 
charges, but will ask for the standard 
three years.”
“You won’t object, though, if I put 
in a request with the criminal trial co-
ordinator for Justice Sileski to preside 
over the sentencing, would you?”
“No, not at all. You want to plead 
her out in superior court?”
“Yes, that’s my preference.” Cra-
dling the receiver under my chin, 
I opened my file, retrieved the 
psychological report and flipped 
to the second page. “I have a psych 
report that I want to tender in the 
sentencing proceedings.” I zeroed 
in on Dr. Reynold’s opinion that 
Lydia suffered from battered wife 
syndrome, manifested by symptoms 
of low self-esteem, social withdrawal 
and generalized anxiety. “I don’t want 
the report to be read or mentioned 
in court, though. I was hoping you 
and I could meet beforehand in 
Justice Sileski’s chambers to discuss 
the mitigating factors identified by 
Dr. Reynolds in his report.”
Surprisingly, Gerald didn’t ask for 
an explanation. 
Hanging up, I ambled over to the 
window, peered down at the roadway, 
the bumper to bumper traffic inching 
its way out of Calgary’s downtown 
core. Across the street, in the park 
adjacent to the Nova building, I 
noticed that the leaves had lost their 
lime green sheen and had metamor-
phosed into a deeper verdant hue, 
which for me, signified the change 
of season from spring to summer. 
I thought back to when Lydia had 
first consulted me in my office, nine 
months earlier, in the fall, when the 
leaves had started to turn.
Sliding into the antique leather 
armchair across the desk from me, 
she’d pulled a package of cigarettes out 
of her blue jean jacket breast pocket. 
“Is it okay if I smoke?” Lydia asked 
in a raspy voice.
“Go ahead,” I offered. I waited for 
her to light her cigarette before asking 
whether she’d brought her paperwork.
Picking up her black vinyl purse 
from the floor, she deposited it on 
her lap and unzipped the side pock-
et. She apologized as she unfolded 
the crumpled Promise to Appear in 
Court. “Sorry, I spilled a bit of coffee 
on it.” Her hand shook as she passed 
it to me. She was a petite but sturdy 
woman, with long, dirty-blond hair 
and eggshell blue eyes. I imagined her 
in Junior High School qualifying for 
the 100 meter race in the annual track 
meet. She’d probably been popular 
with the boys, not in a loose way, but 
as a rough and tumble good sport, 
eager to please but never a push over.
Leaning back in my chair, I quickly 
perused the particulars—number 
of charges, section of the Narcotics 
Control Act, dates of the offences—
spanning a four month period. I also 
zeroed in on the upcoming court date 
and the conditions of her release. 
“So you were released on a $10,000 
surety?”
“Yeah.”
“Who put it up?”
“My parents.”
“They live in the city?”
“Oh, yeah. They put up their 
mobile home. I wouldn’t be able to 
make it without them. They’ve already 
agreed to act as guardians for Angie 
when I go to prison.”
I flinched at her enunciation of the 
word “prison,” the flippant manner 
in which she pronounced it. Despite 
the brave face that she projected, 
I detected a tinge of despair in her 
voice. “Angie’s your daughter?”
Lydia nodded. “She’s just five years 
old. We don’t know whether the stress 
of these charges has affected her prog-
ress in kindergarten or whether she 
has a learning disability. They won’t 
do the tests until she’s in grade one.”
“Who’s the co-accused?” I read 
aloud his name as it appeared on the 
document, but as a party to the office. 
“Randolph Michaels.”
Lydia leaned her back in the arm-
chair and raised her chin defiantly. 
“My boyfriend. He’s a member of the 
Hell’s Angels and was my supplier. 
He’s threatened me and my parents. 
He’s even threatened to hurt Angie.” 
Clawing at a tear that escaped from one 
of her eyes, she paused before adding, 
“Whatever happens, it can’t come out 
in court that I’ve fingered Randy in 
any way. I have to take this rap even 
though they were targeting him.”
I was taken aback by Lydia’s willing-
ness to so readily assume responsibil-
ity for her actions. I’d become inured 
to most criminal clients minimizing 
their culpability, attributing fault 
to others or their unenviable back-
grounds. She looked older than her 
twenty-two years and based on the 
information that she’d already given 
me about the age of her daughter, 
I concluded that Lydia had likely 
dropped out of high school. I was 
loath to inquire about her financial 
circumstances. She came across as a 
fiercely proud person. “Who’s acting 
for Michaels? Do you know?”
VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 85
“Brian Blake.”
I nodded knowingly. Biker gangs 
had a reputation for only hiring the 
best and Blake was considered one 
of the top guns in the profession, at 
least a dozen years my senior. 
“So Michaels was present when 
you were busted?”
“Yeah. He was in the car when I 
exchanged the blow for the money.”
Lydia’s jaw dropped at the rapid fire 
sequence of my questions. I could see 
that I’d hit a raw nerve. “It’s okay,” 
I offered. “We can talk about this 
next time.”
“No,” Lydia rasped, “I’d like to get 
it off my chest.” 
“So tell me why?” I deliberately 
softened my tone. “Why would you 
agree to sell drugs for Randy?”
a couple of lines in his car.”
“And did he snort some too.”
She shook her head. “He said he 
was already flying high.”
“But you didn’t suspect he was 
undercover… even when he didn’t 
use that afternoon?”
Shaking her head, again, she threw 
me a look of sheepishness.
“Did he seem nervous about pull-
“Where did the transaction take 
place?”
“They all took place in the same 
location. In an alley near the Stam-
pede grounds but Randy was never 
there except for the last time. It was 
a pound and he didn’t trust me with 
that amount of blow.” 
I jotted down the date and Lydia’s 
name at the top of a page of foolscap 
and quickly summarized what she’d 
already divulged. “You’re charged 
with four counts of trafficking. The 
last transaction consisted of a pound. 
What were the amounts of the pre-
ceding transactions?”
“We started with an ounce, pro-
gressed to three and then four before 
Bill asked whether it would be possi-
ble to score a pound.”
I noticed her voice soften when 
she mentioned the name Bill. “Bill?”
“He was the undercover officer 
who busted us.”
I dropped my pen onto the paper 
and leaned back in my chair, cross-
ing one leg over the other. “Tell me 
about Bill and how this could have 
happened. You selling blow to an 
undercover officer over a four month 
span on four separate occasions with-
out suspecting that he was a cop.” 
“I owed him.” 
“You owed him for what?”
“He repaired the transmission on 
my car and when I told him I couldn’t 
pay him back right away, he said not 
to worry, that I could make it up to 
him another way.”
“So you never made any money 
on these deals?”
Lydia shook her head.
“Whatever moneys Bill paid you, 
you handed over to Randy.”
“Yeah. And if you can believe it, 
I would have had my debt paid off 
after the last score. I’d been planning 
to end it with Randy after that!”
I knew that the bikers not only 
kept their women on a tight leash, 
but treated their wives and girlfriends 
like chattels. I had a hunch that she’d 
cultivated her relationship with the 
undercover officer with the resolve 
to cut herself loose from Randy’s 
controlling grasp. In subsequent 
consultations, Lydia stressed how 
nice Bill was, how he’d treated her 
with respect and attentiveness. 
“And where you did meet Bill?” 
“At the King Eddy on Saturday 
afternoon during one of the blues 
jams. I met him out back while having 
a smoke. He asked if I wanted to do 
ing the coke out in broad daylight?”
I noticed her brow furrow as she 
jogged her memory. “He was a real 
pro. He looked over his shoulder 
before opening the door for me. And 
then in his side-view and rear-view 
mirrors before pulling it out of his 
jean pocket.” 
“And so how was it that your 
relationship developed into you 
becoming his supplier?”
“He said that this was the last of it 
and asked whether I knew where he 
could score some more?”
“And you gave him your number?”
She nodded.
“And at that time you already owed 
Michaels for repairing your car?”
“Yeah.”
I surreptitiously checked my wrist-
watch for the time. I’d scheduled 
another client for a consultation at five 
o’clock. “I’ll give Blake a call and find 
out what his client is planning to do. 
I imagine there’s wiretap evidence.”
A look of bewilderment washed 
over Lydia’s face.
After she confirmed that arrange-
ments for each of the transactions 
had been made over the phone, I 
explained that the police had to apply 
for a warrant to intercept telephone 
Cradling the receiver under my chin, I opened my file, and flipped 
to the second page. “I have a psych report that I want to tender in the 
sentencing proceedings.” I zeroed in on Dr. Reynold’s opinion that Lydia 
suffered from battered wife syndrome, manifested by symptoms of 
low self-esteem, social withdrawal and generalized anxiety.”
86 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
communications. “At the prelimi-
nary hearing the Crown will bear 
the burden of establishing that the 
police had reasonable and probable 
grounds to believe that a criminal 
offence was being committed. Mere 
suspicion is not enough to render 
wiretap evidence admissible.”
“But I just want to get this over as 
quickly as possible,” Lydia objected, 
her mouth tightening into a grimace.
I held up my hand like I was direct-
ing traffic. “There’s the matter of your 
parents applying for guardianship of 
Angie. That will take some time.” I 
also explained that a preliminary 
hearing afforded defence an oppor-
tunity to discover the Crown’s case 
without having to lead any evidence. 
“We whittle away at the Crown’s case 
like a sculptor methodically chisels a 
human form out of a slab of marble.”
***
“Order in court, all rise.”
I turned my head toward the prison-
er’s box to ensure that Lydia had risen 
to her feet. She’d taken great pains with 
her appearance, had curled her hair 
and was dressed in a black skirt, white 
blouse and eggshell blue cardigan that 
underscored the colour of her eyes.
“You may be seated,” Justice Sileski 
commanded. Peering over his eye-
glasses at Lydia, he asked her whether 
she had anything to say before he 
proceeded to deliver his sentence. 
Lydia stood up. She looked so small 
and fragile in the imposing polished 
wood confines of the prisoner’s box. 
I could tell by how she grasped the 
front railing of the box that she was 
trying to stop herself from shaking. In 
her characteristically raspy voice, she 
replied, “No, Your Honour.” 
Catching the sound of the court-
room door open, I glimpsed Michaels 
entering, taking a seat in the last 
row of benches in the public galley. 
Lydia’s father, who was seated beside 
his wife on the front bench, directly 
behind Lydia, shot Michaels a scorn-
ful glance.
At the preliminary hearing, Blake 
had masterfully framed his questions 
on cross-examination of the under-
cover officer so as to cast doubt about 
Willis’s knowledge of the relationship 
between Lydia and Michaels. Mere 
presence at the scene of the crime 
was insufficient to render a co-ac-
cused an accessory to an offence and 
while Lydia, following her arrest, 
hadn’t buckled under the pressure 
tactics of police interrogation to 
leak Michaels’ name, the wiretap 
evidence had proved inconclusive in 
establishing that Lydia had acted as 
Michaels’ agent. 
Justice Sileski waited until he had 
everyone’s undivided attention. “I 
am mindful of the Court of Appeal 
precedent of three years for a charge 
of trafficking in cocaine, particularly 
multiple transactions and the substan-
tial quantity of drugs trafficked by the 
accused in this case. But having read 
the psychological report tendered by 
the defence in these sentencing pro-
ceedings which Madam Clerk, I ask, 
that you enter and mark as Exhibit 
‘A’… and in view of the guilty plea, 
and remorse which has been exhibited 
by the accused….”
I was gratified to catch Justice 
Sileski, at this juncture in his judge-
ment, scanning the public galley 
and zeroing in on Michaels who, in 
the psychological report, had been 
described by Dr. Reynolds as a bully 
and a misogynist. I also called to mind 
the Justice, in his private chambers, 
asking Gerald whether he thought 
Detective Willis had gone too far in 
winning Lydia’s trust. 
“And taking into consideration 
submissions by the defence that the 
accused is a single mother to a five-
year-old daughter over whom the 
accused’s parents have been granted 
guardianship and that the accused 
will serve out her sentence at Fort Sas-
katchewan Correctional Institute and 
that exercising access to her daughter 
will prove a hardship, I find that there 
are sufficient mitigating circumstanc-
es that both the specific and general 
deterrent factors in sentencing will 
be served by a two and one half year 
sentence, followed by the imposition 
of a term of probation of one year.”
My heart resumed its regular beat. 
I’d managed to shave six months off 
the mandated three years. I’d hoped 
to set a precedent for the sentencing 
of women drug offenders, particularly 
single mothers like Lydia, whose time 
in prison, by virtue of their separation 
from their children, was hard time.
I watched Mr. and Mrs. Nelson 
rush toward the prisoner’s box at the 
same time as the guard approached 
Lydia to escort her out of the court-
room and into the holding cells. 
Stowing my file, Criminal Code, pad 
of paper and pen into my briefcase, 
I looked past their tearful embraces, 
and noticed that Michaels had already 
exited the courtroom. 
I sensed Gerald’s eyes fixed on me.
“Congratulations, Sabina. That was 
a clever move on your part. To keep 
the contents of the psych report off 
the record.”
“Didn’t you notice Michaels sit-
ting at the back of the courtroom?” 
I felt dismayed that Gerald would 
diminish the gravity of the sentenc-
ing proceedings by treating it like a 
contest, a game. 
Nodding lamely, he extended his 
hand for me shake. I grasped his hand 
and thanked him, as was customary. 
Picking up my briefcase, from coun-
sel’s table, I turned on my heels and 
headed for the door. 
Author of the novel, Mirrored in the 
Caves, published by Inanna Publica-
tions, Barbara D. Janusz is a graduate 
from the University of Alberta with 
Bachelor degrees in Arts and Laws. She 
has published editorials, short stories, 
poetry and articles in literary journals, 
newspapers, magazines and anthologies 
across Canada. 


Entrapped

Walker, Marcia

6 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
Il s’agit d’une histoire de nostalgie et de perte vécue par une 
mère, sa fille et la grand-mère qui est en résidence et qui vit 
le dernier stage de la maladie d’Alzheimer. 
“This place smells,” I say, making a face and shoving my 
nose into the shoulder of my mom’s thick wool sweater. 
It’s something I could have gotten away with when I was 
younger, but now that I’m fourteen my mom shrugs me off.
“Shhh,” she says.
“Like pee,” I say, even louder. 
“Keep your voice down.” 
“Why? Everyone’s deaf.”
The doors make a smooth electronic swishing sound 
behind me like they’re sucking the breath out of the place. 
It’s called “Wandering Pines Retirement Home.” I guess 
they think that sounds relaxing. What a joke. They should 
call these homes something more realistic like “Last Stop 
Manor” or “My Husband Died Five Years Ago and I’ll 
Be Joining Him Soon Home-Care Centre.” I suggested 
these to my mom on the drive up and she told me to stop 
talking. Not in a mean way, she’s very polite about it. She 
said, “Stop. Just stop talking. Please.” 
It was a long three-hour drive.
“We won’t stay long,” my mom says. She visited my 
grandma two months ago. I was supposed to come but 
faked a headache at the last minute. 
“It really stinks.” I plug my nose but somehow the smell 
seeps in. Screw people hearing me, it would be good for 
them to bathe. When I don’t shower, it means I’ve given 
up on the day. This place reeks of people who’ve given 
up for a lot longer.
They’ve got the music playing low, piping it in, but you 
Going, Going, Gone
marcia walker
can still hear some guy moaning down the hall. There’s an 
old woman sitting in a wheelchair with crackers on her 
lap. She stares, nodding at my boots. I got these great old 
black army boots for twenty-five cents at the Goodwill. 
Best. Deal. Ever. Usually if anyone does a double take I’ll 
tell them everything about my steal, but I don’t feel like 
it now. I wish I’d worn something else. 
My mom recognizes the nurse at the main desk; they 
went to nursing school together about a hundred years 
ago. The nurse has these outrageous long nails. They have 
happy faces painted on them, which she is tapping on the 
counter when I walk up. Happy faces, like that is going 
to make any difference. I look back at the woman with 
the crackers on her lap and she’s still staring at my boots. 
Maybe she used to have a pair. Maybe they remind her of 
World War ii. Maybe she stole a pair from a dead soldier 
and still feels bad about it. 
The nurse and my mom are talking about someone they 
know who just died. 
“It was sudden. She went to bed tired and never woke 
up,” the nurse says.
“That’s awful. That’s awful,” my mom says. 
“Her son found her.”
“That’s awful. It’s awful.” 
When my grandma lived with us, back when she could 
take care of herself, before my aunts and uncles had the 
big fight about where to put her, back then, I’d hang 
out with my grandma in her room. It was my favourite 
place. She had the best stuff: crazy long ropes of pearls, 
mirrored jewelry boxes, folded tissue-thin handkerchiefs, 
heavy crystal perfume bottles. In the top drawer of her 
VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 7
dresser she had six nightgowns, long beige silky things. 
One had a stain on the bum but she wore it anyway. 
She kept her dentures in a glass tumbler on top of her 
dresser. If I showed up early enough I could watch her 
brush them. 
One night, before she had taken out her teeth, I was 
watching her inch her way out of her girdle, peeling it off. 
“Ah,” she’d say, each time she pulled it down a little more. 
“Hey grandma, do you want some help?” I said. 
She looked up. “What are you going to do? Pull my pants 
the cream down her back and squished it onto her arms 
until it was all used up. Then I slopped on some more 
and massaged it in. Soon the cream was all gone but I 
kept rubbing her skin. My hands ran down her spine, to 
her sides, over the rolls and above her girdle. I forgot I 
was even touching her and closed my eyes. It felt like I 
was touching a part of myself, something underneath my 
skin. My fingertips tingled. 
I stopped moving my hands and laid them open on her 
back, my fingers spread out like fans. 
“How’s that, grandma?” 
“Well, Maggie, that’s about as good as it’s ever going to 
get. Now come help me with this girdle.”
I don’t know if the man has stopped moaning or if they’ve 
turned up the music. The saxophone solo is almost worse 
than the moaning. My grandma’s room is at the end of 
the hall, where the sprawling spider plant hangs. On my 
last trip the nurse gave me a clipping but I forgot it in 
the backseat of the car and it dried up like snakeskin. My 
mom and I don’t say anything as we walk down the hall. 
I can’t talk about how much I miss my grandma. I hate 
coming here I miss her so much. It’s like I’ve lost a whole 
language. It’s trapped somewhere inside my grandma. We 
stop in front of her closed door. My mom roots around 
her purse and pulls out her lipstick. 
“Mom, she’s not going to care if you’re wearing lipstick.” 
“That’s not the point. The point is I try.” Then she 
lowering her voice, she adds, “If she’s not wearing her 
dentures, don’t say anything. The nurses took them 
away because she moaned whenever she wore them. 
Her hearing is just fine though. So, if you don’t have 
anything nice to say, don’t say it at all.” My mom’s hand 
shakes as she slides orange lipstick along her thin lips. I 
chew my bottom lip hoping to fatten it up. I’ve got the 
same scrawny lips. My grandma has them too. It doesn’t 
matter how much lipstick we wear, there’s barely any 
lip separating our chin from our teeth. My mom keeps 
slathering on the orange lipstick. It’s not a good colour 
for her but she uses it anyway because she got it free 
from a promotion at the Bay. 
My mom smiles at the metal door and then opens it in 
She had the best stuff: crazy long ropes of pearls, mirrored jewelry boxes, 
folded tissue-thin handkerchiefs, heavy crystal perfume bottles. In the 
top drawer of her dresser she had six nightgowns, long beige silky things. 
She kept her dentures in a glass tumbler on top of her dresser. 
If I showed up early enough I could watch her brush them. 
down?” She laughed and went back to wrestling her girdle. 
“Whew, no, no. Never mind, this will be you one day.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m going to 
let it all hang out.” I stuck out my belly as far as it would 
go. Then I flopped back on her bed. “Hey, is that a new 
one?” I pointed to a large dark brown mole on her shoulder. 
“Where?”
“Right there.” I put my finger close to the furry spot. 
“No, no, that’s not new, they don’t just sprout up over 
night,” she said, sitting on the bed. “Can you get me my 
cream? Whew, I’m sweating up the sea.” She tapped her 
hands on her cheeks and then fanned herself with her 
fingers. 
I went over to the dresser. There were seven jars of cream 
clustered on top but I knew the one she was talking about.
It was the cold cream in the fat blue container. 
“All right,” she said. “Now spread it on my back.”
“Me?” Usually my mom did this. I’d seen them through 
the opening in the door. They’d talk with their voices low 
so I couldn’t hear their words, only the murmur.
“Of course you. Don’t be stingy. I need a lot of cream.” 
“I’ll put on lots.” I scooped a wad of cream onto my 
palm and flung it onto her back. It smacked harder that 
I expected. 
“Go ahead, rub it in,” she said, shivering.
“I know, I know.” 
My grandma had hundreds of moles on her back and 
shoulders. Some were large with spiky hairs, others were 
bumps on top of bumps. I smooshed the cream around 
her back, my fingers grazing over the hairs and lumps; 
some were hard, others were spongy like cake. The cream 
oozed between my fingers. My grandma sighed. I smoothed 
8 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
one quick motion. The room looks like a hospital room, 
white walls and a bed on wheels. There is a purple and 
green quilt on the bed that my mom brought last time. 
My grandma sits in the corner chair, slumped. She used 
to get her hair curled but now she’s almost bald. What’s 
left of her hair hangs in a few strands down her back. I’m 
glad my mom warned me about the dentures because 
half her face has been sucked away. There is a dark trench 
where her teeth should go. She turns to us but doesn’t say 
anything. I almost look behind me because I don’t know 
“Fine,” she says, and then limps out of the room taking 
all the sound with her. I look back at my grandma. She’s 
still staring at the space beyond me but I wave anyway. 
Then I walk over and wave my hand in front of her 
face. “Hey, Grandma, it’s Maggie.” She stares, unmoved. 
“Grandma,” I say again. Then I jump up and down. Her 
eyes follow me but they have no expression. I crash out 
in the chair beside her.
Her window faces a park. There is a swing set, a red 
teeter-totter and a metal slide. A father pushes his kid on 
where she’s focusing. It’s like we should get her glasses 
except she’s already wearing them. 
“Hi Mom.” 
“Hi Grandma.”
Our voices sound loud and fake. Already I’m embar-
rassed. We both go over to her and I copy everything my 
mom does. She bends down to kiss her on the cheek so 
I bend down to kiss her on the cheek. It’s her but it’s not 
her. I want to hug her hard like I used to but she’s bony 
and brittle. Her girdle would fall off her now. I back away 
to the door and want to run for it. My mom peppers her 
with questions.
“So what have you been up to? Have you been keeping 
busy? How are things? Linda was here yesterday, did you 
have a nice visit? You look well. How are you feeling? 
Is that sweater new? Are you eating well? Did they stop 
giving you the pink medication? I talked to them about 
that. I brought you some new sheets. Let me show you.” 
She rustles about in the Sears bag next to her and pulls 
out purple floral sheets. “What do you think of these? 
Mom? Betty? I know how much you like purple. Is the 
temperature okay in here for you? I bought you a new 
nightgown as well. It was on sale, it’s here somewhere.” My 
mom digs deeper in the bag. “Where is it? Did I leave it 
in the car?” She looks over at me and I shrug. She checks 
the bag again. She’s almost got her whole head inside the 
bag now. “Oh great. I must have left it in the car. Marga-
ret, you wait with grandma.” She turns too quickly and 
stubs her toe on the metal bed frame. She wants to swear 
but she won’t because my grandma’s there. That stuff still 
matters to my mom. She whimpers as she holds her foot. 
“Are you okay?” I say. 
the swing while holding a coffee in his free hand. 
“Remember how I fell off the slide that time?” I say. “The 
giant one that you rode down on a potato sack? I fell off 
and landed on my back and couldn’t breathe. Everybody 
came running towards me. Even you. I knew it was bad 
because you never ran. Then I blacked out.” I don’t look 
at my grandma. I’m staring at the kid in the swing. He 
keeps yelling at his dad to push him higher. 
“When I woke up, your face was right above me and 
your eyes were this terrible blue. Freaky blue. You were 
looking down, searching for me like I was lost. Remember, 
I said, “Grandma, I’m right here.” After I spoke your eyes 
went back to their regular colour. You turned off the engine 
when we got home, and said, “for godsakes, Maggie, don’t 
tell your mother about the fall.” 
“I didn’t. I never told her. You were so scared but I 
never told her. I won’t. Even if my back hurts, I just say 
it’s puberty.”
My grandma’s silence makes the room feel larger. Her 
body doesn’t take up any space anymore. I think about 
our secret and wonder if secrets are stronger than love. 
The more I think about it, the more I want a part of her. 
Something I can hold onto. I look around the room to 
find something of my grandma, some piece that could 
take me to her or bring her back to me. I wander over to 
the dresser in the corner. The drawers are stiff but I get 
them open after a few tries. Her shirts are folded, like 
professionally folded with no sign of hands rustling and 
shoving things in and out. Nothing overflows. Skirts and 
pants are in the next drawer. Sweaters in the bottom. All 
pressed. None of her old stuff. Not one silk nightgown. 
The top of the dresser is clean, shiny and bare. The only 
I look over at my grandma but her eyes are turned towards the wall. 
The thing is, I know if I asked her, she’d give them to me. I reach into the 
glass, my hands gripping the teeth and plastic, and scoop them up. 
They’re not squishy like I expected. Her lips have turned up. I could swear 
she was smiling. She won’t tell my mom, even if she could. 
VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 9
picture in the room is above the bed, a framed picture of 
kids sledding down the hill. I think it came like that from 
the store but I stare anyways to see if there’s someone I 
know. I look for me but see only strangers smiling in the 
snow. I’m feeling crazy but I need to find something. I 
check the bedside table and it’s empty. I rip back the quilt, 
desperate to find her old red satin sheets, but there’s just 
the white scratchy polyester kind. 
Where’s your stuff Grandma, I want to yell and then I 
see them. Her dentures. Sitting in a glass next to the sink 
are her old teeth. She used to let me watch her take them 
out at the end of the day.
I glance at the door. My mom will be back any second. 
Then I look over at my grandma but her eyes are turned 
towards the wall. The thing is, I know if I asked her, she’d 
give them to me. I know she would. I reach into the glass, 
my hands gripping the teeth and plastic, and scoop them 
up. They’re not squishy like I expected. I tuck them in 
my sweatshirt pocket and run back to the chair beside 
my grandma. Her lips have turned up. I could swear she 
was smiling. She won’t tell my mom, even if she could. 
My mom sweeps back into the room carrying two bags. 
“I’m back. Sorry about that,” she says as she pushes the 
door open and wedges the doorstop underneath. “Let’s 
let in some fresh air. I think it’s going to rain. Have you 
two been visiting? I used to call Margaret your shadow 
when she was younger because she never left your side. 
Right, Mom? You remember Margaret. Of course you do. 
Margaret come closer to grandma.” 
The teeth have soaked my pocket. 
“Margaret, bring the chair closer.”
Holding onto the dentures in one hand, keeping them 
safe in my pocket, I drag my chair so it butts up against 
my grandma’s. I can’t seem to let go of the dentures. 
Now that the door’s open we can hear the guy down the 
hall moaning again. My mom unwraps the new sheets, 
flapping them in the air. 
I look over at my grandma but her eyes are glazed. 
She’s rubbing the sleeve of my coat between her fingers. 
I take my free hand and rest it over hers. They look the 
same but hers feel soft and moist. I rub my thumb along 
her bones, over her wrist and down her fingers, back and 
forth. She used to tell me she was big boned but she was 
wrong. She was always small and breakable underneath. 
Marcia Walker is a fomer lawyer whose stories have been 
published in The Globe and Mail, and featured on cbc 
radio programs dnto and The Wild Side. She lives in Toronto 
with her husband and two children.
Renee noRman
These Women
I am making a list
women in middle age
who rose
no floated
to that cliché ceiling
& seeing their image there
the double chin
lines around the neck
skin tags the first signs
of flabby arms & wiry
stray black hair
in their chin
like some old crone
were grateful
for the occasional blur
of progressive lenses
determined, strong
mindful of lost time
goals to achieve
took their place there
with the fierceness
only years of invisibility
grow
Renee Norman is a poet, writer, and retired educator, 
currently offering workshops and teaching courses 
on a freelance basis. She has worked as a university 
professor, education consultant, and classroom teacher. 
She holds a Ph.D. from the University of British 
Columbia and her published dissertation was about 
women’s autobiographical writings. Her three books 
of poetry were published by Inanna Publications: 
True Confessions, which received the 2006 Canadian 
Jewish Book Award for Poetry, Backhand Through 
the Mother, and Martha in the Mirror.


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