They surged onto the stage. They overwhelmed me. Jim, watching from the wings, saw my panic, as I thought shoes—patent leather, wingtips, loafers, workman’s boots.
He hustled me off stage and into the dressing room. He shut the door, but not on everyone. Somehow there were promoters, agents, producers, old friends, and acquaintances all talking at once.
Abram, excited as I’ve ever seen him, swept me into his arms. “You’ve done it, Kathy!”
For an iridescent, soap bubble moment I gloried in it. Gentle too, was quivering, triumphant, on fire. “The music,” he gasped out. “You and the audience hyped each other in some miraculous way. I’ve never heard you sing like this, Kathy. Do you realize it puts you back on top? It’s as though none of that stuff that happened, happened. You’re bigger than ever, and in the way you want. You did it on your own terms. Not many do it that way.”
“Oh Gentle, I still hear it in my head. You were the one who told me a singer doesn’t hear herself the way other people do but through the bones in her head. Well, the bones in my head are still ringing.”
But it was my daughter’s praise I was tuned to. My mum’s eyes shone through Kathy’s, shone with gratitude.
The moment was right.
If I was going to tell her, this was the time. I had, as I told my father, very good reasons against it. But suppose I came out with it…or would it be better to lead up to it? If I did it carefully, cautiously, taking cues from her reaction—I’d lose my courage. “Grit your teeth,” I told myself, “and simply say, ‘I’m your mother, Kathy.’”
Then what? What did I expect? That she would hug me with newfound joy? That she would thank me for claiming her at last? At last, after eighteen years? More likely she’d look at me, and a stunned, strained silence would set in. “It took you almost twenty years to make me part of your life? You say you’re my mother. I have a mother. All I know of you is your albums….”
I was conscious of Abram looking at me with concern. He spoke to Kathy, who came over to say good-bye and thank me once more.
She hugged me, and kissed me.
Kathy was hugging me, kissing me. I was holding my girl. I never dared dream this; I’d been afraid to imagine it. It was only for a moment, but my entire life was in that moment.
I was her friend.
“Lone Walker was too smart to come in. I was right about the police being everywhere,” she whispered.
I squeezed her hand. I had her confidence. This was more than I ever thought to have of Kathy. My daughter was part of my life—if I was careful, if I didn’t mess up. If I didn’t tell her.
Abram still watched me. I put on a smile and introduced her to Erich von Kerll.
“Your father?” She turned to Erich. “You must be so proud.”
He bowed over Kathy’s hand, very European. She was charmed. There was a strong resemblance between grandfather and granddaughter. I was charmed.
The next moment I was also saying good-bye to her.
Goodbye, wonderful redhaired Kathy Mason of Oakdale Street. I promised myself to tell her. I would soon. But not tonight.
Abram escorted her out, arranging to send an accounting of the proceeds of the benefit and meet with the attorney who had undertaken Lone Walker’s case. Good-byes, even happy ones, are hard. What about the other kind? Could I face up to that?
My father was pressing my hand. “That was she? That lovely young lady? You are to be congratulated she is back in your life.”
“Yes, I believe she is.”
“What a marvelous success tonight. And the offers that I hear discussed at every hand…”
“Stay close to me,” I whispered to my father. I would have liked to rest, but contracts were thrust at me, deals proposed, percentages suggested. Jim Gentle looked at everything, talked to everyone. He was in his element.
Abram looked bewildered.
As for me? I found myself listening.
This was a last chance, one that wouldn’t come again. The offer that appealed to me, that I felt I could make work, that I felt I had the strength for, was a recording deal to do the program I’d sung tonight. It was open-ended, leaving it to me how many I would do. I’d be singing my own songs, songs of the Alberta prairie and of a people that didn’t die and didn’t go away. Their music had been accepted here tonight, received in a spirit of openness. The audience had become part of the dream that Cree music is made of. If I did an album my strange, ethnic music would be another thread in the multihued tapestry of musical America.
As Little Bird I had finally learned how to soar. Now, when my body was broken, when I couldn’t even love my love, I’d soared, my motorized vehicle and I.
Abram had come back in and withdrawn to a corner of the room.
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Titles by Benedict and Nancy Freedman
MRS. MIKE
THIS AND NO MORE
THE SPARK AND THE EXODUS
LOOTVILLE
TRESA
THE APPRENTICE BASTARD
CYCLONE OF SILENCE
THE SEARCH FOR JOYFUL
KATHY LITTLE BIRD
Titles by Nancy Freedman
JOSHUA SON OF NONE
THE IMMORTALS
PRIMA DONNA
THE SEVENTH STONE
SAPPHO THE TENTH MUSE
Benedict Freedman, Kathy Little Bird
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