The House

By Dawn Natelle

It has been a while, but I have been busy. I have completed four chapters in this arc of the story. You will see them one per day to Wednesday, and I should have another one done for Thursday: Dawn.

Chapter 20 – Grey and Sun find love

The store was busy, with the café filled with folks from the house. They often came over after dinner for a slice of pie. Grey, Sun, Nora, Dan, Cindy and John were all squeezed around the largest table in the place. Grey and Sun were sitting facing the window, and immediately noticed a young native couple come in to the gas pumps on a Harley. The man was over 300 pounds, and looked like a stereotypical biker, right down to the ‘Outlaws’ patch on his leather jacket.

The girl, on the other hand was much younger, possibly still a teen, and very pretty. She was slim-looking, until she turned to profile and showed a baby bump of four or five months. She was one of those women who didn’t seem to put on baby fat elsewhere. Currently she was screaming at the man, who finally just got on his bike and drove away. After a minute, the girl turned and walked into the store.

“That’ll be $32.50,” Frank said from the till.

“What for?”

“For the gas. Your friend didn’t pay, so I expect you to,” Frank said.

The girl laughed. “I have no money.” She pulled some change out of her pocket, and it came to less than eight dollars, a couple loonies, two twoonies, and some smaller coins.

“Well, you could do an hour or so washing dishes to make it up,” Frank said. The girl was about to retort when Grey stood.

“Take it out of my account,” he told Frank, walking over to the girl. “Have you eaten today?”

“No,” she said coyly, lowering her eyes.

“Make her a sandwich with the good bread,” Grey said. “And a slice of pie. She’s eating for two.”

He took her over to a smaller table, since there was no more room at the bigger one. Willow had just finished her shift, and took Grey’s spot after serving the new girl.

Sun seethed at this. She had taken a dislike to the woman the moment she walked into the café, and it had just grown and grown as she had flirted with Grey. And Grey was not innocent either, flirting back and clearly enamored by the young woman. They sat and giggled at the table as she ate.

Finally she had finished, and apparently Grey had invited her to the house, since she walked home with the group. Sun decided to stay close to the two.

“So, your boyfriend on the bike,” Sun said. “He is the father?”

“What, of this,” the girl named Sapphire said, holding her belly. “No. And he isn’t my boyfriend. Just a friend I ride with sometimes. We had a bit of a spat, and he buggered off. Billy is no loss.”

“The father was a fellow down near Brantford, at the reserve I grew up on. He doesn’t even know. One time without condoms, and look what happens. My life has been like that.”

“So you are headed back down there now,” Sun probed.

Sapphire laughed. “God no. His wife and three kids would be a bit upset if I showed up there: especially in this condition. No, I’ll just chill out around here for a couple of days. Grey said I could. Isn’t he a cutie?”

They got to the house, and Sapphire was polite as Grey introduced her to Daisy, who agreed she could stay. Grey put her in one of the guest rooms, not too far from his, and then they went back to Great Hall, where they cuddled together on the sofa.

Sun thought she could see Grey’s common sense spilling out of his brain as he fell harder and deeper for the girl. And Sun’s dislike for Sapphire grew exponentially at the same time. Sun loved the thought that Grey had found love, but she felt that he could do so much better than this girl.

The next morning Sun saw the girl scoot out of Grey’s bedroom, and dash off to the washroom. Sun poked her head in the open door, and instantly saw the look on his face: the look that said ‘I have had sex and now I am a man’. Sun just closed the door without speaking to the smirking boy.

Things continued on for the next two days, with Grey and Sapphire nearly inseparable. The new girl seemed to be accepted well by most of the others, but Sun continued to feel dislike. For one thing Sapphire never seemed to help out with the cooking or cleaning up, or any of the small chores that are required to keep such a large house running. She spent a lot of time in Daisy’s living room, watching television. She refused to let Dary watch any of his shows, and when Daisy came out to watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, she became upset that she couldn’t watch what she preferred.

It was on the third day of her stay that everything changed. She didn’t smile, and snapped at practically anything said to her. Finally she told Grey she was in withdrawal from the Percocet pills she took twice a day. She had taken her last pill the prior morning.

“I can help cure you of your addiction,” Grey said.

“I don’t want to be cured of using Percocet. I like the feeling it gives me. But I wouldn’t mind being cured of the withdrawal. This really sucks.”

“I can’t do that,” Grey said. “I would have to do a cure every time, and I don’t know how often I can do that. Sometimes it takes me up to a week to recover. Plus I don’t know if I could just cure a part of the illness.”

Instead he just cuddled her, and nursed her by bringing her meals into their room, and feeding her. That afternoon she got a call on her flip-phone. She dressed, and went out to the porch. Grey was glad, thinking she was getting over it, but was surprised when Billy, the big, fat biker pulled his Harley into the drive. Sapphire jumped up and ran down the steps to come up to Billy and kiss him, and in return he put a small pill in her cheek. She hopped on the bike, and they sped off.

Grey was heartbroken, and moped around for the rest of the day and the next morning. But then, the following day Sapphire returned, getting dropped off by Billy. As the biker sped away, Grey’s emotions soared. She was back. And in a good mood again. She claimed to be fine, but it was clear she was on the pills again.

The following day Dr. Nora sat down with Sapphire. The doctor was a pediatrician, not an ob-gyn, but she was starting to branch out from her specialty. Once she had gotten over her illness, she had gone into Tweed and met with the local doctor, who was 58. He was too young to retire, but wanted to slow down. One of the reasons he came to Tweed was to be able to hunt and fish, but his caseload seldom allowed him the time. Nora agreed to work for him on Friday and Monday once a month, as well as during all of the hunting seasons that were coming up in the fall. So she was starting to do a lot of General Practitioner work.

She gave Sapphire an exam, concentrating on the babies. Her stethoscope picked up a multiple heartbeat. “You are either carrying twins, or the baby has an irregular heartbeat,” Dr. Nora said. “I really recommend that you stop taking the Percocet. It will be damaging to the babies. Let Grey cure you … he is good. I had cancer, and he cleared it up.”

But Sapphire took offense to the lecture about her drug use, and hurriedly dressed and left. “I didn’t even want this kid, and now you say there might be two? What a fuck up for my life. How am I supposed to have fun with a little rug rat following me around, let alone two?” She never came to the doctor for a second exam.

The cycle continued, with Sapphire happy for a few days while her pills lasted, and then calling Billy for more, spending a night with him in return. Grey, still in love, placated himself that he got four or five nights with her to one for Billy.

In mid August, with Sapphire so large that Grey had to be careful making love to her, another visitor came to the house. It was Great Hawk, a Mohawk from Quinte reserve, and he was touching base with Daisy. He had brought 15 young people from his reserve to pick blueberries and was surprised to see so many living in the house. Last year Daisy had been alone.

Daisy invited him to dinner, which had just gotten underway in the Great Hall. He looked around, and took the vacant seat next to Sun. He chatted with her several times during the meal, especially after she had told him of her plans to pick some of the berries. He told her they would be there for two weeks, until the kids had to go school. Until then they were sleeping in tents near the berry patch.

It was the end of the meal, when Sun stood to clear the table that Hawk first saw how tall she was. He was just over 6’2” and she was several inches taller, in makazins (moccasins).

The next afternoon Sun saddled Pierre and took him out to the berry patch, taking the long route to give the horse some exercise. Hawk had been peeking looks towards the house all day, and some of the kids were teasing him about his lack of concentration. Then Pierre appeared from the north, surprising him.

“Sunflower, welcome,” he said, and the teens realized she was what he had been looking west for all morning. Sun dismounted, and there was a gasp from the kids when they saw her standing next to Hawk. On Pierre she looked normal size. On the ground it was an entirely different thing.

“I’m ready to start picking,” Sun said, holding up a deerskin bag that she intended to fill. It was similar to the newspaper bags that carriers used, except in deerskin and decorated with fancy beadwork.

“You can start over there,” Hawk pointed. “Nobody has gone over that area yet,”

“No, I think I will start here,” Sun pointed out an area that had been picked. The teens earned money on a piecemeal basis, so much for each basket picked. As a result, they tended to pick quickly and go for the easy berries. This resulted in picked bushes having many berries left as they went to the full bushes. But Sun was not picking for money, so she decided to clean up the other bushes, only leaving enough berries so the bog would regenerate at the end of the season.

She picked for an hour before they broke for lunch and she joined in, sitting next to Hawk as the pickers ate sandwiches that had been brought from Quinte. There were some envious eyes that stared at the sandwiches she had brought from the house using homemade bread. There was a round of cheers when Hawk said he would buy homemade bread from the store, and cold cuts from Tweed for the meals tomorrow. Sun did give Hawk a half of one of her sandwiches, refusing to take one of his two-day old Wonder Bread sandwiches in its place.

“I’ll bet that she is stronger than Hawk,” one of the teens said. Sun was not interested in fighting the man, although she was interested in him in other ways. But Hawk felt his masculinity challenged, and finally they agreed to an arm-wrestling match.

For the first minute, the two hands were steady and upright. Sun actually had the advantage of a slightly longer arm. Sun then started to push Hawk forward until he was near the 45-degree angle that is difficult to recover from in the sport. But then he found his arm flying through and pinning Sun as if she was a normal girl.

“I win,” Hawk said. “My prize is a date with you. Is there somewhere nice in Tweed?”

“I accept, but only for a dinner at the café in the store. On Wednesday?” Sun said.

After another five hours picking after lunch, Sun had filled her bag. She helped load the berries onto one of the two pickups, so they could be driven to the store to be sold. Of course, the teens were amazed at how easily she lifted the flats of berries.

As she went over to Pierre, tethered in the long, rich grass near the bog, Hawk followed. “I know you let me win the arm-wrestling,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Well, a guy has to show the kids that a mere woman can’t beat him,” Sun said.

“And you are no mere woman,” Hawk said. “You are something special.” Sun blushed.

Suddenly there was a chorus of ‘Kiss her, kiss her” from the teens, and Hawk reddened just as much as Sun had. Sun leaned down and kissed him quickly on the cheek, then hauled herself up onto Pierre and they trotted away. She took a quick look back, and caught a glimpse of the tall Mohawk, with his hand on his cheek where she had kissed him. She smiled, feeling completely different from anything in her life as she trotted down the trail to the house.

On Wednesday Sun didn’t get much work done. She took a bubble bath, and dressed in her finest powwow dress. Hawk came in, and used one of the other bathrooms to shower and change into a fresh set of clothes. They left for the store so they could be served before the last bus came in. It was a simple meal, with a venison stew that could be mopped up with Willow’s bread. After the bus rush ended, they finished up with pie.

“Cheapest date ever,” Hawk commented as he read the bill at the end.

“First date ever,” Sun said with a blush. “I really feel more comfortable here than in some place in the city.”

“Maybe we can have another one soon,” Hawk asked. “I could take you to a movie in Peterborough or Belleville. Maybe we can find a restaurant in one of those cities where you can become a regular.”

“I would like that,” Sun said. “Especially the part about getting to go out with you regularly.”

On the porch to the house, Hawk walked her up the steps to the door, and then gently reached up and kissed her. The tall woman nearly buckled, but his strength held her tightly as they kissed again and again. Finally she pulled back, awash in new emotions.

“Can we do this again Saturday night?” Hawk said.

“Kissing or the café?” she asked.

“Both, hopefully,” he said.

“Both certainly,” she replied as she opened the door.

All the women in the house were clustered around, wanting details on the date, but Sun just glided past them to her bedroom.

“It looks like it went well,” Lois said, “based on the dreamy smile on Sun’s face.”

“Very well,” Willow added. “They were like a couple of love-struck kids at the café. I guess we have to wait for details at breakfast tomorrow.”

Over the next two weeks Sun and Hawk went to the café each Wednesday and Saturday. They decided not to go to Peterborough until after the berry-picking season ended, but from that point on, they went every Friday or Saturday.

Hawk had a job in Kingston working for an aggregates business, using a front-end loader to scoop gravel, stone, topsoil, or sand onto dump trucks. He got the berry season off as unpaid leave each year, but worked either a Tuesday-Saturday or Monday-Friday shift during the rest of the year. Each weekend he would clean up, and head to the house for a date.