Chapter 5: Chapter 4

When you live on the street, no one is polite to you. In fact, lots of people who would never be rude to the average stranger have no problem treating street kids like something to be scraped off their shoes. It's kind of the full-circle, self-fulfilling side to this lifestyle choice we've made. Just by being street kids, we provoke exactly the kind of reaction from normal society that confirms our beliefs about the evils of normal society. See how that works?

And yes, our particular lifestyle is a choice we've made. Sure, some people are out on the streets because they've run out of options, but some of us have chosen to be there because we think the modern world is messed up and we want no part of it.

So anyway, when Teddy excuses himself and gets up from the table as soon as he's finished eating I figure maybe Neea will be less Miss Manners and more herself but, on the other hand, without Teddy there, there won't be a tall, moody, good-looking boy to gaze at. Teddy dutifully clears his dishes and puts them in the dishwasher before leaving.

"I'm meeting up with Jello and Byron for a while," he says to Neea. "Won't be late."

Jello and Byron? Uh, interesting friends ya got there, Ted. Of course, I'm picturing a silk-shirted poet and a large, wobbly, transparent red cube. Before Teddy leaves the kitchen he does something that I wasn't expecting: he leans down and kisses his mother on the cheek. No big deal, I know, but after all his tense awkwardness, this little shining moment of sincere affection hits me like a warm and fuzzy kick to the chest. That doesn't mean I'm longing to feel that kind of closeness with my own mother, it's just nice to see, you know?

Uncharacteristically, I don't feel like firing off a sarcastic parting shot as I watch him leave the room. Instead I'm just thinking I'll probably never see this guy again. Not a lot of overlap in our social circles. When he gives me a reluctant glance on his way out I just kind of shrug as if to say "oh well."

After Teddy's out the door, Neea confides, "He's not really comfortable with change. I'm sorry if he came across as rude. He's really not like that, but... he's a teenage boy."

Neea gives me a knowing smile and gets up to clear the table. I get up to help her.

"Let's just put them in the sink for now, sweetie," Neea says. "I'll clean up later. I'd rather sit and chat for a few minutes, OK?"

Sweetie. Are all Finnish people this nice? I watch the cheerful, blonde-haired woman move around the kitchen. I wonder if Teddy thinks all mothers are like his mother? Does he know that some moms go around making everyone think they're nice while at the same time finding a million petty little ways to make you feel worthless? I bet he has no idea how lucky he is.

When we're sitting down again Neea picks up the wine bottle to refill her glass, then stops. "Would you like some wine now?" she asks. "Oh, but maybe you're not old enough yet?"

"I'm legal. I'm nineteen."

Neea gets up and takes another wine glass from the cupboard and fills it for me before refilling her own.

"Ei tippa tapa ja ämpäriin ei huku," she says with a smile. "We say that in Finland. 'A drop won't kill you, and you can't drown in a bucket'... It doesn't really make any sense!"

"Ei tippa... ja, uhhh..." I feebly attempt.

"Ei-tippa-tapa-ja-ämpäriin-ei-huku!" Neea says, even faster this time.

We touch our glasses together. "It's true," says Neea, "I guess I do speak Finnish when I drink!"

Seriously, is this the weirdest day ever? I live on the street, not in a house with a name. I don't sip white wine and have giggles with Finnish ladies. I suck on a meth pipe and hang out with a bunch of outcasts and deviants. None of this makes sense.

"I was your age when I left Finland and came to Canada," she's telling me. "It was supposed to be for one year. That was almost twenty years ago. You really don't know how your life will go!"

Amen to that, sister.

"I was innocent, young Linnea Salonen from Helsinki. I think I was really ready to fall in love. And so I came here and fell in love with this place, British Columbia, and this city, Victoria, so like Helsinki in certain ways, and yet so different. And then I fell in love with a man—Teddy's father, Alan. After that, I fell in love with the idea of becoming a mother... and then I eventually fell in love with motherhood and with my beautiful son."

Neea's face is glowing as she speaks. "That was the big one," she adds with a smile.

"Yeah, Teddy seems like a really good son," I say, then add with a laugh, "Too bad he hates me."

"Oh no, don't say that! He doesn't hate you at all!"

She explains how he's just a little shy or whatever and that's how he deals with things. I tell her that I get it, it's fine. As we talk, my eye keeps getting drawn up to a row of plates displayed high on the wall behind Neea. They're painted, or I guess, glazed, in a deep blue and gold with what look like historical scenes but the art on them is modern, and actually really cool. Neea notices me looking up at them.

"I really like those plates," I tell her.

"Oh! They're from Finland," she says excitedly. "My mother and father gave them to me. The pictures are from a famous old Finnish poem called the Kalevala. The company that made them would release a new one each year and my parents would send me one as a present every Christmas. To make me miss home, I'm sure!"

"They're beautiful... Why is the woman crying in that one?" I ask, pointing to one of the plates.

Neea looks up to see which plate I mean.

"Oh yes, because her son is going away to a castle and she doesn't want him to go. There are dangerous men there with swords and... and beer." She laughs at herself. "I guess it's a complicated story."

"I like how your country's famous poem has beer in it," I say.

"You're going to think all Finns are alcoholics. It really isn't true!"

"So how long has it been just you and Teddy in the house?"

"You mean, how long have Teddy's father and I been apart?" Neea says with a smile.

"Well, no, or... I guess, yeah, but I don't mean to be nosy."

"It's okay. Alan and I separated, let's see... Teddy was seven, so it's eleven years ago. Seems like less than that... but then sometimes it seems like forever ago. I guess that's often how it is with big things in your life."

"True," I answer. "Or, I guess I would think it was true if there were any big things in my life."

"Don't wish for those kinds of big things," Neea says, then looks down sadly at her wine glass. After a while she adds, "We had a daughter too."

Had? What is she saying?

Neea continues after a moment. "She was Alan's daughter from his first wife. She was eight when Alan and I got married. Her name was Sienna. Alan was an artist, so she was named after the colour of paint, you know? Anyway, when Alan and I first got together, for the first few years, Sienna and I were, un... what's the word? Unseparate? Unseparable?"

"Inseparable?" I suggest.

"Yes, inseparable. Sienna loved clothes, loved to dress up. I would make her dresses, sometimes from material that my mother sent from Finland. She looked so lovely... I see now that Sienna was a large part of the reason I loved Alan. And she seemed very glad to have me in her life too. I was... not a new mother for her exactly—she still had her mother, Kendra, who she saw regularly—but maybe like a new big sister... I don't know.

"It went like that for a few years, a few wonderful years. We were all so happy then. I got pregnant and we had little Teddy, and Sienna absolutely adored him. It was, maybe, the best time of my life. But when Sienna became a teenager, things started to change. At the time, I didn't know why. Looking back, I think maybe I know. I think maybe Sienna felt that I was coming between her and her father. Maybe I was... I..."

Neea stops before heading down a path that can only end in tears. I'm just looking at her, feeling kind of helpless, surprised how quickly the conversation turned emotional. Neea's story is making my pathetic meth come-down feel a little less like the end of the world. Perspective, I guess.

"I know now that Alan was not—how do the psychiatrists phrase it?—emotionally available? He wasn't emotionally available to Sienna, or to me either. She ended up having a lot of anger for both of us. Those were difficult times for all of us. She was a teenager—becoming a young woman, really—and none of it was easy for her. Things were bad at home so she started staying out more, and started to get into drugs. It was her nature to experiment, I guess. That can serve you well or it can lead you into dangerous places.

"Alan was always so busy too. In his defence, he was very busy with his art at this time. Kendra wasn't much help, because she had problems of her own, so I was left to deal with Sienna. But since she didn't trust me, it was difficult to help her. We tried various types of intervention and counselling, but she rejected it all. I tried everything I could think of, but then... well, you always think you could have done more..."

Neea stops again and now the tears come. And here's me, street kid, meth-head, burden on society, shame of Kamloops and Victoria, and I'm supposed to comfort her? What should I do? Like, hold her? Jesus, I have no idea. I can't think of a single helpful thing to say. What could I say? I don't even know where this story is going! What the hell happened to Sienna?

"It was February twentieth. She was fifteen..." Neea goes on. "These days it's—what is it called—fentanyl, I think, that is so dangerous. But for Sienna it was heroin. It seems almost old-fashioned. A drug from the sixties. Her friend said it was the first time Sienna had even tried it. They were at a weekend-long party at a house in Langford. Someone who should have known better—who should have been looking out for her—gave her too much..." Neea's voice cracks as she speaks.

"When we found out, my immediate reaction was almost nothing. All I felt was numb and thought 'I'm not surprised.' But then, of course, the unbelievable weight of it hit me. Our daughter was gone, and it was like night fell on the rest of us... A very long night."

"Oh my God," I say, truly saddened by what she's telling me.

"I still had Teddy to worry about. He was five at that time. I couldn't rely on Alan—he really fell apart. And then, for me, the guilt came. It was unbearable. I convinced myself her death was my fault. I said this to Alan, hoping that he would tell me I was wrong, let me stop feeling so guilty, but he didn't. Or, he did but he didn't sound very sure. Alan and I, we already had problems but this was... it was more than our marriage could handle. We stayed together for a year and a half, but finally we reached a point where it was just impossible to keep pretending. We couldn't be together anymore..."

Neea draws a deep breath, keeping her tears at bay, and takes a long sip of her wine.

Damn.

I've heard stories before, of course, but it's never happened to anyone close to me. It's pretty hard to OD on meth, especially if you only smoke it like me, but I guess it could be any of us if we aren't careful. Like Neea said, fentanyl is getting crazy these days, turning up in almost everything, evil producers and dealers not caring about anyone or anything except making more profit. One reason we stick to meth is that it's hopefully less likely to have that shit in it. Meth is an upper, so why would you mix in a downer? Still, it happens. Yet another reason to know your source, find someone you trust like our guy Switch, and stick with him.

Maybe one reason we live on the street, if I want to get all psychiatrical about it, is the danger. No one wants to OD, or get knifed, or get taken down by cops, but the possibility of those things and more happening at any time puts kind of a sharper edge on life. But straight up dying from too much heroin—going to some party, wanting to have a little fun and escape from your shitty life for a while, one minute living and breathing and the next, gone? Well that's crazy. And that's also just how life is, I guess, fragile as fuck. And really, if it isn't drugs that get you, it could be a sweet Finnish lady driving an old Honda. You can't predict.

"So then it was just Teddy and me," Neea continues. "I don't know what I would have done without him. When someone—an innocent child—completely depends on you, you have to lock away your own problems and only think about what is necessary. Grief is an indulgence you can't allow yourself. Alan very kindly let us stay in this house. This is still his house, but he lets us stay here... not for free, but for much less than he could get for it. Alan moved on. He went to live in Vancouver—for the sake of his career, he said, but probably to escape the sadness. Eventually he married Cassie. Teddy never spent much time with Alan, visiting maybe once each month or so. Less, as time went on. The rest of the time he grew up right here in this house with me."

Neea sits back heavily in her chair. That's the end. That's her story. Two children, one of them nearly a man now, the other gone forever. We sit in the quiet of the kitchen and I wonder how long it's been raining outside.

____________________

If you liked this chapter I hope you'll kindly consider giving it a vote. Votes really help to increase a story's reach and my little tale could use a boost. Thank you for reading!

— D.B.