Conclusion

I tell him irritatingly that ye-essssss, I remember the way back. There aren’t any complicated turns or too many streets to cross. It’s just one straight walk along Glen Drive until I hit

Pipeline Road where our new house is located. I walked to school all by myself in Montreal, remember? I manage to convince him and my confidence boosts and I am prouder than ever before. I’ve convinced a grown up to let me do something on my own and if that’s not grown up, than what is?

At school, I learn that Terry Fox went to there as a kid and we have to do his run in a few weeks. I’m the only new kid in the class; this is crushing to my pride and the shyness that plagues me for the next several years kicks in and I turn mute, nodding and shaking my only form of communication.

When school is over I leave through the front doors, the same ones that I entered that morning, walk past the chain link fence that separates the playground and the sidewalk, cross the street, pass a wooded area and keep walking. Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mother’s back. This is what I learn overhearing the older girls chanting in the playground. On the way home, I sing it to myself, jumping over every crack I see on the sidewalk. I don’t want to break my mother’s back. Several loops into the rhyme, I begin to notice that I’m crossing streets I don’t recognize. It’s taking too long to walk home than it did to walk to school and I start to panic. Up ahead I see a construction site and my heart splits in two and I start to cry with a force so hard my body shakes. I keep walking, keep crying because I don’t know what else to do and this tension makes me want to run home, my real home, not the fake new one my family moved to.

A lady with a stroller approaches me and asks if I’m okay. I shake my head and wipe my face with the back of the hand that holds a notice my teacher has given me earlier that day for my parents to read. She kneels to get close to my face and asks softly if I’m lost. I nod and manage to gasp, I’m new. The lady tells me it’ll be okay, takes my hand and walk to her house where I see the red and white block parent sign on her window. The lady has short curly brown hair with light freckles across her nose. She’s plump with a round stomach that makes me think it would be soft like a pillow if you hug her. I sit in the kitchen and she hands me a glass milk I drink down quickly to keep myself from having another meltdown. We’ll find your parents real soon, the plump lady tells me. She asks for my name and what school I go to. I tell her and even spell out my last name, but I forget what school I go, I’m in grade one and in French immersion and my teacher is Madame Christie. She takes the notice from my hand and tells me again not to worry, that I’ll be home in no time. I gulp down another glass of milk while the she starts calling people. I’m tired from all the crying and sit, scared stiff that I’ll have to go to a new family, if my real one can’t be found.

Soon, I see the clunkering blue station wagon approaching the drive way. They’re here, I yell, jumping from the table, the plump lady leads me to the front door and I run towards my parents, tripping on the walkway. My father scoops me up quickly and I squeeze his neck with my tiny, skinny arms, wrap my legs around him and start to cry all over again. I want to go home, I gasp, wiping hot tears and snot on his shoulder. I want to go home, I repeat. Marc and Giovanni, Rue Aubin, St. Hupert, our big backyard, listing all the things I know and want to go back to. I don’t like it here, I don’t like it here. My father rubs my back softly, hugging me tightly with his other arm and whispers that everything’s alright, everything’s going to be okay, we’re going home, Inday.

We’re going home.
 
(This piece is dedicated to the memory of Elenita “Tita” Ordonez, pioneering Filipino-Canadian community organizer, militant Anti-Marcos activist, and former Art History Professor at the University of Philippines. Tita passed away on April 20, 2012 from natural causes in Imus City, the Philippines.)
 
 [i] Little girl, or sweet little girl, a common moniker of affection for daughters in the Visaya Region.

[ii] Rude, pig, disgusting, gross, bad.

[iii] Women of the linguistic group, Ilongo, from the Visaya region.Region.

[ii] Rude, pig, disgusting, gross, bad.

[iii] Women of the linguistic group, Ilongo, from the Visaya region.