February 1968
On a bone-chilling day in February, over a table of textbooks and potato chips, Susan and I, despite me being only twelve years old, decided we were going to go to college together and studied more than we ever had, with the realities of impending adulthood still a few years away. Susan had become obsessed with the Women’s Liberation Movement and the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, so there was no room in her future for men—“just yet,” she said. So, in our conversations about the future, I left John out. In my mind, he was there, but around the kitchen table doing homework and when we were at school sitting on the bleachers eating lunch, I didn’t mention him. Susan and I had become friends thanks to her mother, who occasionally stopped by our house after dark to buy tea to help with something Kiju called “women’s troubles.” Susan came with her once, just after we’d started elementary school. She was my first friend who wasn’t either from the few small houses around ours or one of the ones who came with their parents in the fall.
“You an Indian?” she asked on her first visit to my house, looking around our small home, taking in all the things she would never find in her own home—ash baskets for collecting vegetables from the garden, braids of sweetgrass hung over the door.
“Half, I think.”
“You think? Don’t you know?”
“Nope.”
“How come?”
An adult would never have been so bold, and this is one of the things I still admire in children, their unchecked curiosity.
“I don’t have a father.”
“Sure you do. Everyone does.”
Susan’s mother lowered her voice and glanced over her shoulder, trying to listen in on the conversation, so I lowered my voice too. “I don’t know who he is,” I whispered, then shrugged.
Susan’s mother turned and walked quickly toward us. She took Susan by the hand and escorted her out the door, thanking Kiju and chastising Susan for asking questions she had no business asking.
If Susan felt that me being Indian and fatherless were reasons not to be friends with me, she never said so. When we started school a few weeks later, she sat beside me, and we quickly became inseparable.
“My grandfather married an Indian woman after my grandmother died. Mom said that he was as happy as a clam.” This, to Susan, meant we shared something. What that was, I was never really sure, but it made us friends.
Susan had long, dark hair and skin darker than mine. “From the Greek side of my family,” she told me. In our little part of the world, having dark skin from her Greek family was mysterious and interesting. Indian dark and African dark were a different story altogether, seeming to hold something more sinister.
I still wandered among the pickers, looking for new faces, for anyone who might resemble me, no matter how vaguely. A new family would arrive, maybe fair skinned and freckled, and I would offer to help to hold their baby, to read with a child, to stir the stew. I would ask them about a Maggie, the potential of a long-lost photo. But I never found what I was looking for, and I would love to say that the older I got, the easier it got, but it didn’t. To acknowledge my status as an orphan—and not only an orphan but one with an unknown father—was a ghost that loomed large. The rest of the year it was easy to push my parentage out of my mind, but in October, when everyone gathered, the issue was front and centre. My desire to belong to someone took up all my thoughts and most of my time.
When I got a little older, my mind turned to other things at that time of year. I found myself looking forward to John’s arrival, scanning the cars and trucks as they pulled up, waiting for him. That year, his father and younger brother were there, but he wasn’t. I asked his father why he wasn’t there and he said John’s mother wanted him to stay in school. He’d had a hard year, so she decided to stay home with him. I walked away disappointed.
I was a teenager now, but I was still a child, particularly when it came to my feelings. As I walked back to the house, I let my mind wander, making something out of nothing. By the time I reached the door to the house, I had convinced myself that John didn’t come because he didn’t like me anymore. Maybe I had put too much stock in our letters, in the kiss on the cheek at New Year’s. I felt like a silly girl and moped around the house for the rest of the evening. That night I dreamt of John, and in the morning my feelings were tempered, not gone but a little less intense. Then Kiju got sad and my own emotions, valid or not, took a back seat.
It was a Saturday morning when Kiju came into the kitchen, a pronounced frown on her face.
“Something wrong, Kiju?”
“I heard another family chose to have their baby in the hospital.”
“Oh.”
She sounded hurt but busied herself setting the table for breakfast. She didn’t cry like the first time, but sighed a heavy sigh, full of loss.
“They’re still there, I guess. They keep the mother and the babies for a week, you know, away from family. Don’t even let the mothers give milk from the breast. I just can’t understand it.”
“It’s winter,” I said, hoping this weak excuse would soothe her worried heart, even though I knew that babies were born under the tree in winter. Kiju ignored me.
“We haven’t had a baby all year, Aliet.” She sat down, the weight of sadness taken out on the thin legs of a very old kitchen chair.
“I’m sure there’ll be more babies under the tree.”
She didn’t say anything as I placed a cup of tea on the small table beside her chair. That morning, I cooked us breakfast.
“Maybe I should chat with them. Reassure them,” she said as she scooped a spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth.
“It might help. Everyone trusts you, Kiju.”
“I don’t know, Aliet. They are starting to believe those white doctors instead of me. I fear they are starting to see me as a silly old woman trying to hold on to the past. But it’s more than that.”
I buttered a piece of toast and waited for her to continue.
“We’ve lost so much, I just can’t imagine this. Bringing our babies into the world in their way. Starting them off on their journey in such a cold manner. If we don’t hold on, if they don’t know their stories, how will they go out into the world? Lost, that’s how, disconnected.” She paused to take a breath. “I’ve heard that the mother isn’t even permitted to keep the birth sac. They throw it into a fire. It’s so wrong, Aliet, it just breaks my heart. Those children need to know their roots, need to know that there is always a place where they are loved and welcomed. These doctors are stealing our ways and giving us lost children.”
“I’m so sorry, Kiju.” I was still unsure how to comfort her, so I offered advice instead. “Maybe you should go talk to people, just like you said. Start with the folks who live here and maybe they will talk to their families. Tell them what’s happening. Tell them you are worried.”
She was quiet, considering my words. “Maybe.”
After breakfast, the dishes done, Kiju put on her boots and jacket and headed next door. I followed close behind. We knocked on the door and listened to the murmur of voices on the other side. Mrs. Jeremy opened the door.
“Well, look who’s here. Come in, come in.”
We took off our jackets and boots and followed her into the kitchen. Before we had the opportunity to refuse, she had put water on the stove for tea. I remember admiring the telephone that hung on the wall, a modern amenity that Kiju had yet to allow. Mrs. Jeremy set out a plate of store-bought cookies and sat at the table across from us, her cigarette squeezed between her fingers.
“What brings you two to my door on a cold day like this?”
Kiju took a breath before starting. “I wanted to talk to you about the birthing tree and our women. Apparently, they are choosing to give birth in hospitals now without even considering the traditional ways.”
“I know. My own girl gave birth last year in one. She said that they offer pain relief. You don’t have to experience the pain.” She flicked the ash from the tip of her cigarette into the glass ashtray and I winced as some of the smoke made its way toward me.
“But those medicines, they steal your memory. How can you tell your own child their birth story if you can’t remember it yourself? How will they know where they came from, who they came from?” Kiju’s voice was desperate, her face drawn. “And you sleep through the most beautiful . . .” She stammered. “And the lights, and the noise, so harsh on the ears of a newborn. And they steal the cord, the birth sac.”
“Superstition is what they told my girl when I asked to keep them. She tried to explain that it needs to be buried to remind children of their roots. But they made her feel silly, like she was a child, so she let them take it.” She looked sad. Kiju reached over and held her hand. There was no admonishment, no advice, only comfort.
Anita, Mrs. Jeremy’s daughter, who was a few years older than me, walked into the room and nodded to us as she got herself a glass of juice. She listened in on the conversation but didn’t take a seat.
“But we need to move forward, like the white folks. We don’t want to be left behind,” Anita said. “They already think we are slow and behind the times.”
Kiju sat up straighter and let go of Mrs. Jeremy’s hand, her own hands balled into tiny little fists in her lap. “Does it matter what they think? We can’t always listen to them. Haven’t you seen the damage they’ve already done?” Kiju asked.
“But that was so long ago. Things are better now.”
“Better?”
“Yeah, better than before.”
“We need to hold on to the threads that connect us to our past.
Without knowing our past, we won’t know who we are. That scares me. It should scare you. We can still be bold in this world but keep our own traditions.”
Kiju was trying to keep her voice level, but desperation was creeping in.
“Didn’t you say before that we should be able to choose?”
“Yes, but when you understand all the facts, all the information. Then choose. They are telling people lies, and people are believing them.”
Anita shrugged as if the conversation was nothing more than gossip between friends.
“If folks would sit with me, learn with me. I can help them.” “I dunno,” Anita said. “Seems kinda old-fashioned to me.” “But . . .” Kiju tried to say more, but she was dispirited, and nothing came out.
Anita left the room as silently as she had entered. Mrs. Jeremy stood to make the tea.
“No, thank you. I think we will move on,” Kiju said.
Mrs. Jeremy poured herself a cup and left the other two cups on the counter, empty, as she followed us out.
“If you could maybe talk to your family, let them know that I would be happy to talk about all this, I would be grateful.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but no promises. These young folks these days have minds of their own.”
We bundled up against the cold and stepped out into winter. I turned toward home, thinking Kiju might have abandoned her mission, but she turned in the other direction. We spent the entire morning talking to the families who lived near us, trying to help them understand the importance of our ways of birthing new generations. But their responses echoed those of Anita, and Kiju wandered home disheartened.
That night, I tried everything I could to comfort her, to reassure her that she was wanted, needed. For hours it was only my voice interrupting the silence. She was so quiet as she knit a new pair of mittens for me, my hands apparently too large now for the ones she’d made the previous year. I made hot chocolate, and it went cold beside her. I buttered toast and sprinkled sugar on it, a special treat, and the toast went soggy and uneaten. It was a little after ten when she spoke.
“Maybe they are right and I’m just an old woman holding on too hard to the past.” With that, she stood up, put down the knitting needles and went to bed, without another word.
As the days grew longer, her quiet remained, her words reserved for necessity only. Until one dark afternoon in early March.
Each day after school, I rushed home, checking the mailbox at the end of the driveway and then the little table by the door, waiting on a letter from John, but I was disappointed each time the mailbox was empty and the little table was bare. I had begged Kiju for a telephone but had yet to win that particular battle. Letter writing was all we had, and he seemed to have given up on it, and I was determined that I wouldn’t write until he did. I could be stubborn when I wanted to be.
That winter, Kiju and I suffered together but separately, content in our misery. It was a particularly nasty day, with heavy snow and strong winds, when I looked up from my homework to see Kiju staring out the window. Her silence concerned me. She didn’t respond when I asked what we were having for supper and if I could help. She simply stared. I wondered if yet another of our women had confessed to using the hospital and not the tender care of my grandmother. I wished they would just stop telling her, but she knew, deep down. Fewer women were coming to us. It was impossible not to notice, but it had happened so fast. Change can creep up on you or it can pounce. This was a leap we were not prepared for.
“Kiju?”
She jumped, startled.
“Something is wrong. You are too quiet.” I said it lightly, but my effort to lift her mood fell flat.
Kiju reached over and took a piece of paper off the counter and handed it to me. It was a notice from the town about a council meeting to take place next Tuesday. Under the items to be discussed was “public safety and childbirth.”
“What does that mean?” I handed it back to her.
“Some of the people in town don’t like what we do, and they want us to stop. Not that anyone comes to us anymore. I don’t see why it’s so important now. They are winning the battle for our children. I suppose they want everyone to know they are winning. That once again they have beaten us down.”
“It’s none of their business what we do, and the women will come back, Kiju. They’re just confused. They’ll come back.” I hoped she couldn’t hear the doubt in my voice.
“I’m not so sure.” Kiju stared into her teacup.
“We can go. We can explain to them.”
“I wish I had your faith in people.”
“We’ll go, Kiju. They have to listen to you. They all listen to you when they want your herbs and medicines. They’ll listen now.”
*
The night before the town meeting, I couldn’t sleep. When my mother died under the birthing tree, a small group of local people put up a fuss, insisting that we be forced into the sanitized hospitals, a world full of sharp light and loud noises, of antiseptic smells and unfamiliar faces, and the prick of needles to lessen the pain, while white women, dressed in white hats and white dresses, snatched our babies from us the moment they came into the world, and exchanged the nutrients of a mother’s milk for manufactured formula. This was not what we wanted, but the more this small group talked, the more the fear they sought to instill took root.
The previous year a few of these people had even wandered the camp in the evenings, men dressed in suits and women with lipstick on their teeth. Some carried Bibles, some sandwiches, as if we would let our own go hungry. If not a Bible then pamphlets, concern, real or not, in their voices. Our people seemed to be patient if not attentive. They listened about the wonders of modern medicine, the value of a “proper education” and not filling children’s heads with Indian nonsense and superstition. The visitors spoke of the risks of the medicines Kiju made in our kitchen, of the dangers of a mistaken mushroom in a tonic, of the potential of death in the misuse of a berry or leaf. The pamphlets were taken, and maybe even read, but when night fell, they often met the fire. Regardless, something was taking root; Kiju and I could feel it.
Kiju had continued quietly protesting the changes, speaking to any woman who would listen, but the more she pleaded for the children, the more she seemed to drive the families away.
*
We ate dinner early so we could walk into town without being late. Toasted fried egg sandwiches with apples cut into slices. Sweet and salty.
“Well, let’s go, I guess,” she said as she threw the reminder notice of that night’s meeting into the fire. We watched the edges curl and burn as the words disappeared into the flames.
As we walked toward town, I considered that going to the meeting might be a fool’s errand. They had already made up their minds, and they weren’t going to listen to us. Kiju said that Indians were never listened to in matters considered important to the rest of society, and that was even more true for Indian women. Susan’s women’s rights movement had yet to make its way to our part of the world, and even if it did, it wouldn’t represent us. The tree still stood, waiting, but no one visited, no one entered the world under her strong branches, her rustling leaves. No one held on to the roots for strength. I hadn’t seen the ground glow red in so long, I was forgetting what it looked like, even when I closed my eyes and concentrated.
The town hall was half-full, mostly women, given the topic. The only men were the mayor, the three members of town council, the priest from the Catholic church, Father Michael, and the reverend from the Baptist church, as well as a man with a balding head and a full moustache, his suit pressed and clean. He looked confident in himself, if completely out of place.
“Good evening, Mrs. Paul.” Father Michael took my grandmother’s hand without asking and held on to it while bending slightly to come face to face with her. “You need to know that we mean no disrespect to you. The women of this town hold you in very high esteem. But we need to move ahead with the rest of the world and take advantage of new methods to ensure the safety of the flock. You understand.” His voice dripped with condescension. Even at my young age I understood that.
Kiju took a deep breath and removed her hand from between his. “I understand,” she said as she walked past him, leaving his hands hanging mid-air.
“Father Michael.” I nodded as I followed her to the plastic seats in the second row, facing the town council.
“Why do they treat me like I’m an idiot? I’ll wager none of these men have ever witnessed the beauty of birth. And these women”—she cast her hand around in a semicircle—“don’t even get me started.” Then she placed her hands on her lap and avoided the glances and idle whispers.
I went to the back of the room to collect some snacks. No one approached Kiju or tried to engage me in conversation, despite the fact that almost everyone in the room had known us for years. We all shopped in the same stores, and some had come to Kiju for herbs to calm a cough or stop a crying baby. But on this night, instead of being upset at their avoidance, I was glad for it. We dipped stale cookies in weak tea as we waited for the meeting to start.
The mayor faced the crowd and cleared his throat, waiting for the room to quiet.
“Good evening. It’s so nice to see so many concerned citizens.” He stopped to clear his throat again. “As you know, historically there have been some unwanted practices related to childbirth that have been happening in and around our town. While these practices may have been welcome in the past, we have made wonderful advances in medical treatment that provide a safe and clean environment where women can labour.” He looked around the room, careful to avoid making eye contact with either of us. Kiju sat still and said nothing.
“We have a guest with us this evening to better explain the dangers of these practices and the advancements that make labour safer for our womenfolk. Please help me welcome Dr. Vincent Thorn.”
I didn’t recognize the man, dressed in his fancy suit, who walked down the centre aisle, took the mayor’s hand and thanked him for the invite.
“As many of you know, the medical field has advanced quite a lot in the last few decades. Giving birth is now safer for both mother and child, as well as being less painful for the mother. There is no longer a need for the . . .” He stopped to consider his words. “. . . more uncivilized ways of having children that could and does endanger both the mother and the child.”
He looked directly at us. Someone must have told him who we were. The room was quiet except for the nervous shuffling of feet.
“I think everyone will agree with me that progress is welcome, and the safety of the women and children is paramount.”
A few quiet claps.
Kiju stood and the room went as quiet as a tomb. Hands stopped mid-clap, waiting.
“I think that you and everyone else here should respect the ways in which women choose to give birth. If a woman chooses a hospital, that is her right, but traditional birth should always be an option. A woman should be able to choose without fear or pressure.” She spoke softly, and everything she said was a matter of fact. “And you, a man, think you know what is best for a woman. You who want to deprive her of memory, of the moment she brings life into the world, by knocking her unconscious. It’s cruel, if you ask me.”
“Ma’am—”
“Please let me finish before you carry on with your bullshit.”
I choked back a laugh. I don’t think I’d ever heard her swear in all my years on earth. It was a shock, and I was delighted by it.
“If a woman chooses to give birth in one of your institutions, that is her right. If she chooses to give birth among nature, where she is held in the earth’s embrace, what gives you the right to tell her she is not allowed? Where do you get your moral authority?”
The room was quiet.
“You have nothing to say?” She looked around the room as people looked at their hands, their feet, the wall—anything except my grandmother. “Well, to me, that says it all. I’m finished now.” Kiju sat back down and placed her hands on her lap.
“Mrs. Paul.” Father Michael was standing now. “I believe that the doctor has a good point. We just want what is best.”
“And a bunch of men know what’s best for a woman? I hardly think so.”
“Mrs. Paul. I agree with the doctor, and I think most of the women here do as well.” Father Michael looked around the room, half-full of nodding women.
“You have corrupted their minds. You have convinced them of something you want. Half of these women have been to my door, for teas and medicines.”
I looked around the room at the women who wouldn’t look at us. My home economics teacher, the wife of the man who owned the grocery store, and the woman who lived three houses down from ours—they had all been to the house for something to stop headaches, or a tonic to ease a nasty belly, one to end a pregnancy she didn’t want to explain to anyone. Yet they said nothing to defend my grandmother.
“You keep your practices and I will keep mine. I just ask that you stop trying to terrify our women into adopting your ways. It’s unfair and it’s wrong.” Kiju reached over and took my hand. “I have nothing else to say. I’ve said my piece.”
We stood and started to walk down the aisle toward the door when a woman younger than my grandmother but much older than me slid her thin body down the narrow row of chairs and stepped out into the aisle, blocking our way to the door. She was tall and bent her back to make sure she would meet Kiju’s eyes.
“I didn’t want to say anything, but you of all people should understand. You let your own daughter die.” She whispered it, but just loud enough for the people sitting on the aisle to hear. A hush fell over the room. I swear that every single person was holding their breath.
My grandmother was a kind woman, not prone to fits of anger or violence, so when she brought her arm up, stretched out her fingers and slapped the woman so hard that the sound of it echoed off the walls, it was all I could do not to either run or start to laugh. The woman’s head of auburn curls, so neatly assembled and without a hair out of place, was flung to the side and her cheek, powdered with rouge, was now as red as a sunset. Kiju looked at me, took my hand, and walked around the woman and out into the night air as those inside gasped and moved to help the vile woman.
A three-quarters moon guided our walk home. The wind had settled, and the cool air felt good on my face.
“I’m ashamed,” she said quietly.
“Of what?”
“Of my behaviour. I shouldn’t have hit her.”
“I thought it was great.”
She stopped and turned toward me, her face in shadow. “Aliet, violence, whether with words or hands, is always a bad idea.” Yet there was the smallest smile on her face.
She turned and started walking again. “But boy, did that feel good.”
We both laughed, and I hooked my arm in hers.
“I need you to know.” She stopped to catch her breath. “I need you to know that I would never have let your mother die. She was my entire life. I loved her more than the moon loves the stars. Her pregnancy was normal, nothing out of the ordinary. If there was something wrong, I would have taken her to the hospital. It was her heart, a condition she’d had since birth, but we didn’t know, no one knew. I would never let her die.”
“I know that.”
“Good, but I had to say it out loud. Throw it out into the universe. Hopefully, she knows.”
“She does.”
“It’s not something you ever get over, losing a child. It’s something that never ends, the grief just comes and goes as it pleases. It’s a greedy thing, grief. You have to sit with it, let it do what it does, and then rise up and keep going.”
I kicked a rock into the ditch and let her talk. Sometimes, when she got like this, I wasn’t even sure she knew I was around. But as we turned the last corner toward home, her mittened hand took my mittened hand and she started to swing until we both had no choice but to smile.
The house was dark, and the fire had almost gone out. I went out to the woodshed and grabbed a few logs to last us the night while she sliced a few pieces of homemade bread and buttered them, sprinkling cinnamon sugar on them for a treat. The fire restored, she made tea and we talked about the woman’s face and the shock that had quieted the entire audience.
We stayed up late that night, and she told me stories about my mother, stories she’d told so many times I could mouth the words along with her, but I listened, and I pretended to be surprised and saddened at all the right places. How she and Big Ben, back then known only as Ben, had stolen the bicycle of a boy who was mean to her and threw it in the river on the other side of town and how the police brought my mother home. About the time where she jumped rope for 796 consecutive jumps without tripping. About the comfort she provided when my grandfather died, even though she herself was too young to understand.
“And when she was expecting you, she would sit in that chair by the fire and rub her belly and sing to you. Not the traditional songs, but the new kind of music. She just loved Frank Sinatra. I’m surprised you can’t hear her voice, she sang so much to you.”
That night, I dreamt of the birthing tree. In my dream, the woman with the shape of Kiju’s hand imprinted on her cheek was using a hatchet, slamming it into the trunk over and over again, her neatly coiffed hair loose and knotted. Each time she struck the tree, a woman cried and blood seeped out of the bark. I was running to stop her, but each time I got close, the tree moved farther away. I screamed for her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen. In the sky, black birds shrieked and dove at the woman, but, like me, each time they came close, she moved farther away. We watched as she slammed the hatchet into the trunk, but the tree wouldn’t fall. The leaves shook and the branches swayed, but the tree stood. I woke up to the dull light of dawn, my head aching from clenching my teeth, my eyes and pillow wet from crying. Kiju snored in her room, unaware of the battle I’d fought in my sleep.
I got up and stretched the tension from my body and walked out into the cold. The ground was covered in a thick layer of frost that crunched under my feet as I made my way to the outhouse. The cold wrapped itself around me as I gathered logs to start the fire. Inside was almost as cold as outside; what the house had in charm, it lacked in insulation. I snuck around quietly, lighting the fire in the stove, and set the kettle on to boil. While an indoor toilet wasn’t something she thought we needed, a tap in the kitchen delighted her. It was cold water and we had to boil water for dishes, but it was a welcome addition. I stood and watched the steam start to rise out of the little whistle hole on the kettle, determined to get to it before it whistled and woke her. I was watching so intently that I didn’t hear her come up behind me.
“A watched pot never boils.”
I jumped as the kettle whistled and I moved out of her way, letting her begin her day.
“It’s a simple life with me, Aliet. I hope you don’t feel that you are missing out on anything. If your mother were alive, I imagine you would be off on some great adventure.”
“I have lots of time for adventure,” I replied.
When I got to school, I noticed everyone looking at me.
Apparently, word had gotten around about Kiju’s slap. Susan pulled me into an empty classroom just before the bell rang for third period. We only had English together and that wasn’t until the afternoon.
“Did Kiju really punch Mrs. Brown?” Her eyes were wide with pure joy. “Please tell me she did. I wish I could have seen it. That woman never minds her own business.”
“She did. I was so shocked I almost started laughing, but I held it together. She, Mrs. Brown, blamed Kiju for my mother’s death.”
Susan’s face went cold. “What a bitch.”
“Yup. She deserved it.”
“I guess so.”
The bell rang and we went our separate ways, her to the left and me to the right. I was left to wade through the crowded halls, listening to the whispers and catching the odd glance. Some were nasty and some, I swear, held admiration.
A month later, an envelope arrived in the mail. A new bylaw had been passed making any medical procedure illegal unless conducted by a qualified medical practitioner in a proper medical facility. Monetary fines and other penalties would be issued if the illegal activity was discovered. Kiju handed me the notice, and as I read, I turned up my nose as if the message itself reeked of decay. I had just finished when Kiju snapped it out of my hands and threw it into the fire. We never spoke of it again until the night we met Paulina.
__________________________________
From The Birthing Tree by Amanda Peters. Used with permission of the publisher, Catapult. Copyright © 2026.
