Mother’s lips were pursed.

And for a change, she wasn’t chain smoking.

The low rumble of the tires turning over gravel, punctuated with the frequent pings of small rocks hitting the undercarriage of the old rust bucket usually put me to sleep, but I was less at ease with my mother behind the wheel. My dad was a professional driver. But he wasn’t with us tonight. He was on the road again. “Somebody has to bring home the bacon,” he would say when we protested his departure.

Driving with mother was never a relaxing experience, and I was alert, not knowing where,or why, we were driving with such purpose to an unknown destination.

Coming out of our laneway we turned right on to the fourth line, now called Zion Line (I do not know why), and then right again on to the quarter line. We called side roads quarter lines. We drove the length of the quarter line (that now bears our family name, our farm being the only one there) and then turned right once more, traveling down the third line to take a final right just past the creek. That corner in the hollow was slippery in winter and there’d be a car in that ditch every week or so. My uncle would get the tractor with the big hitch and chains to tow folks out.

Mother slowed as the road narrowed. We went straight to the dead end and came to a stop in front of a small cluster of houses in the shape of a crescent. It seemed like a scene from an eerie movie, this strangely suburban row of houses out in the middle of nowhere. The houses looked back at us like faces with square window eyes, one was winking, the blind drawn almost shut. The forested plot that our house was built in was also serving as the backdrop for this little tucked away cul-de-sac. In fact, we could’ve cut through the woods to get to where we were going by foot, and it might’ve even been faster, but we would never walk with our mother in nature because she was too busy. Instead, we would play in the woods while mom and other neighbhourhood ladies would drink the new Diet Coke and smoke cigarettes and complain about the lazy no-good do-nothing men in their lives and how the women had to do it all, and I thought… Wow it sounds like a pretty rough deal being a grown-up lady.

The Tupper house was covered in yellow siding, a darker muted yellow – dijon. (I had not had dijon mustard yet and would not have known what it was, but I recall this house seemed very modern to me, a rural 80s tween.) It was a split-level house, one side appeared higher than the other, and I liked that too. It was as if you had to choose your own adventure as soon as you stepped in the front door: Up or down. I wished that my mother could have been invited over here for Diet Cokes and smokes. The babysitter’s house was nicer than ours.

We walked up to the door and my mother knocked. They didn’t have a rattling aluminum exterior screen door like we did, just a painted wooden door with a knocker and a wreath that changed with the seasons.

Tap tap tap.

My brother looked restless as usual, and mother held him tight by the arm as he squirmed. Her dark pink nail polish was flaking off and spots of yellow fingernail peeked through.

She crouched a bit and hissed at the side of his head as he recoiled. Now you are going to say sorry.

Our babysitter’s mom answered the door and smiled tightly.

Hello Bonnie, let me get the girls.

Mother sneered at my brother as the babysitter’s mom turned away to get our babysitter and her older sister, the sometimes-babysitter.

She gave his arm a quick yank. Fucking behave.

**

It had been a normal weekend like any other weekend – the weekend of the bite. My dad came home Friday evening from a long-haul that took him down south through the States for the week and yelled something like, “Honey I’m home! Spread your legs!” To which my mother provided one of her typical replies, such as, “Why don’t you go fuck yourself,” as she was on her way out the door.

Enjoy taking care of these two bastards. There’s no food in the fridge.

And off she would go. It was always a relief.

Mother was angry and erratic, and would yell horrible things at us. I cooked. Usually eggs and toast and hashbrowns. Sometimes we would have bacon. My father would scold, “Rum and Coke is not what the Baby Bonus is for!” And she’d snap back; “You’re supposed to be providing for your family, you Dead-Beat.” And then, like a hero swooping in to save us from misery, father would drive off and return 30 minutes or so later, triumphantly, with a big bucket of KFC with all the disgusting sides like that nuclear neon green coleslaw and the sloppy greyish-orange macaroni and mayonnaise salad, and we would feast like it was the first real meal we’d had in days. (And sometimes it was.)

This continued every weekend for a couple of years until my brother and I officially moved in with grandmother. Once that happened, no more babysitters needed. By that point, my dad’s trucker CB radio handle had become “The Bucket.” (Now, I cannot eat KFC. Even the smell makes me feel gross.)

But on this weekend in question, the weekend of the bite, my dad, like my mother, had plans, so we needed a babysitter. He called Tammy’s house and she said let me ask my mom and her mom said sure, of course, just be back home by 10. My dad went and picked her up to bring her to our place to watch us and then he was off to do whatever it was he was going to do.

My seven-year-old brother was hyper. He was jumping up and down on the furniture and Tammy was telling him to simmer down. Nothing too unusual about any of that. I was drawing and not really paying attention. Then I heard a loud squeal. Then Tammy yelled at my brother. Tammy never yelled. What did you do? My brother said, NOTHING! Then ran into his bedroom and slammed the door behind him.

Tammy was holding her hand and asked if I knew where the band-aids were. I did not. I didn’t think we had any. She then called her mom and had a quiet conversation. Then she called my dad and had a loud conversation. My grandmother came some minutes later and then Tammy was gone. My brother and I sat on each side of granny on the couch and watched Wheel of Fortune in silence.

**

Now back at the babysitter’s beautiful house standing in the fun, front split-stairs hallway, Tammy, our cool babysitter, was ready to receive her apology. She reached her right hand forward, unwrapped the bandage, and flipped her palm over to show us. There was a small puncture on the fleshy edge of her hand below the pinky. Maybe you could make out teeth marks, but I couldn’t really see any.

My brother turned red and looked down. Then he looked up suddenly and blurted out, SORREEEEE! and started jumping frantically up and down.

Tammy laughed nervously and quietly said, “Okay. Apology accepted.”

I was staring right at her, hoping she would look over at me and see that I wasn’t feral like my brother. Tammy’s mother was standing at the top of the stairs with her arms crossed. I was hoping that maybe she’d say something like, Why don’t you let your daughter stay for dinner? She’s not a biter! Or maybe, I imagined, Tammy told her mom she wanted to be my friend because I was so mature for my age.

But instead her mother said something along the lines of, okay, thank you, good night now, bye bye. And waved half-heartedly as if shooing us away.

My mother seemed angry now, which felt out of place since the apology had gone off fine, but she was probably sore to be losing a smoking, drinking and gossipping buddy over this biting incident.

As we went to leave my mom said something like, do you think you can babysit again next week, and Tammy’s mother said maybe Nelly, but probably not Tammy. Nelly being Tammy’s older sister.

On the drive back home my mother yelled at us some more.

You fucking fuckers are going to end up in jail if you don’t start learning how to fucking behave.

We didn’t see either Tammy or Nelly again for a while after the apology. Instead, one of my dad’s trucker buddies would babysit us in a pinch. One time he hung my brother up by his coat on a hook on the back of the kitchen door. It was funny to everyone, and became a story that was told over and over again for “laughs,” but I didn’t like it. What if I was next? Tammy would never have hung us up.

We lost the nice babysitter because my brother was so bad. That was what I was led to believe, anyway.

Turns out Tammy’s father shot her mother.

Shot her and killed her.

That’s probably why she stopped babysitting us.

I mean, I don’t really know for sure.

It was a secret.

Still is, kind of.

It would seem that way, anyway. I mean, I actually don’t know what happened to her. Did everyone know that Mrs. Tupper was being abused by her husband? Did my mother know? Domestic violence wasn’t something people talked about.

Still isn’t really.

But at that point in time, a female member of parliament, one of very few, spoke in the House of Commons about the problem of domestic violence against women — and the largely male audience broke out into uproarious laughter, and heckled her. The MP, Margaret Mitchell, said, “I don’t think this is a laughing matter.” It was reported in the newspaper.

**

It was during one of those lockdown holidays, where we never got to see anyone, isolating at home, that my mother told me about it over the phone.

We had been reminiscing about our neighbours, trying to make ourselves feel less dysfunctional by discussing how so many people have had their share of drama. I mean, it’s not just our family that has wacky stories.

She was very nonchalant about it.

Oh yes, they couldn’t babysit you anymore because he killed her.

Tammy’s mom — she was killed by their dad. He shot her. You didn’t know that, did you, dear?

She added the last part when I gasped.

Yes, he shot her. They moved away. I don’t know where.
Holy shit.

Yep, a lot of people got problems, Pam. It’s not just us. Maybe I should’ve killed your father! Ha ha ha.

We both laugh at that. I don’t know why. Then, I made a terrible comment…

Accidents DO happen!

Before I can correct my knee-jerk sad excuse for a joke or ask any more questions, my mother’s ‘boyfriend’ shows up and she cheerily says she has to get going.

*

I look up Tammy online, on Facebook of course, and see she has a huge family. It’s almost performative. It’s the full width of a web banner cover photo with at least four generations. She has a hyphenated compound name. Most of her profile pics involve babies.

Then I see it: a tribute to her recently deceased father. In loving memory of an amazing dad. Happy Father’s Day.

In the Happy Father’s Day photo the babysitter’s father has glassy, dark eyes, all pupil, and a receding hairline of tight, wispy white-blond curls. One lone comment from an old high school friend says “Hugs,” with two fluttering hearts. I can’t find an obituary for the babysitter’s mother. I even asked the town historian at the archives to go through the microfische. Nothing.

My mother lives with mental illness and is prone to telling stories. Maybe this is one of them.

(Maybe it isn’t.)