A Grandmother Begins the Story by Michelle Porter

Author:Michelle Porter [Porter, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

Geneviève looks into the fire

The rain kept on, steady as a train, and Gen held on until the night began to think about morning, until Velma clambered back through that light.

She said, I knew you’d wait up, you always did.

The nurse’s advice about withdrawal had been haunting Gen as much as her damned body’s need for a drink. Don’t be afraid if you experience hallucinations, the nurse had said to Gen. They’re temporary.

Gen brought herself to her feet again and found herself swaying between belief and doubt, but she said, Let me close the doors so we don’t wake them up with our playing.

Velma put her fiddle on her clavicle, lifted her bow, and waited. Velma’s hair was falling over her shoulders. At her armpits the dress had turned a darker red because she’d just been playing and she always played with her whole self, every muscle in her body making the music. Gen sat at the bench.

I’ve been waiting to play with you since you left for the spirit world, you bloody no-good bastard, Gen said.

Velma held the bow over the strings. It’s only intermission and I’ll have to get back on stage over there pretty quick so don’t mess up my entrance by talking shit to me.

Gen pointed at the fiddle with her chin. Looks like grandpa’s, the one his own papa gave him, the one with all the stories.

Velma nodded. The very one.

But Papa’s sister burned it. That’s what they said.

Yes, and how nice of her to send it up here in smoke. It was waiting for me. You want to know how it was when I got my hands on it?

She tried to burn anything that told who we were.

As if anybody could do that. But listen to you—you’ve got to go on and on about a thing even after it’s dead, don’t you? I forgot that about you. Oh wait—hold on a second, the audience over there needs me a bit.

Velma went back into the light, but she left it open somehow and this time Geneviève could see in just a little bit, like she was watching from backstage. There was Velma’s back and there was an audience in a room packed with people at tables, all their faces turned to Velma. The microphone amplified Velma’s deep voice so Gen could hear it well from where she was, sitting at a piano in a rehab centre in Southern Alberta.

Velma began with a story. Gen remembered how Velma had started telling stories to her audience when she was first working on her solo performances, after they’d moved to British Columbia. She used to say it was hard to tell if they came more for her stories or her music. Every spirit in that audience on the other side of the light leaned forward just a bit and at the end of the story Velma stepped back and let out a laugh. This one is for my sister, Velma said then, and she lifted the fiddle to her shoulder.

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