In Search of April Raintree

© 1999, HighWater Press Copyright to the novel In Search of April Raintree is held by Beatrice Mosionier. Copyright to the individual papers is held by the authors of the papers.

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Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Mosionier, Beatrice, 1949-

In search of April Raintree

ISBN 978-1-894110-43-3 (paper)

ISBN 978-1-77492-007-7 (PDF)

ISBN 978-1-77492-008-4 (EPUB)

1. Métis – Manitoba – Winnipeg – Fiction. I. Suzack, Cheryl. II. Title.

PS8555.U475I5 1999 C813’ .54 C99-920120-4

PR9199.3.C767I5 1999

www.highwaterpress.com

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Treaty 1 Territory and homeland of the Métis Nation

Contents

Introduction

In Search of April Raintree

Critical Essays

Deploying Identity in the Face of Racism

Margery Fee

The Problem of Searching For April Raintree

Janice Acoose

Abuse and Violence: April Raintree’s Human Rights (if she had any)

Agnes Grant

The Special Time

Beatrice Culleton Mosionier

What Constitutes a Meaningful Life?: Identity Quest(ion)s in In Search of April Raintree

Michael Creal

In Search of Cheryl Raintree, and Her Mother

Jeanne Perreault

Nothing But the Truth: Discursive Transparency in Beatrice Culleton

Helen Hoy

The Effect of Readers’ Responses on the Development of Aboriginal Literature in Canada: A Study of Maria Campbell’s Halfbreed, Beatrice Culleton’s In Search of April Raintree, and Richard Wagamese’s Keeper’n Me

Jo-Ann Thom

The Only Dirty Book: The Rape of April Raintree

Peter Cumming

The Limits of Sisterhood

Heather Zwicker

Contributors

Introduction

In a letter to American poet Constance Webb, noted political activist, intellectual visionary, and Caribbean writer C.L.R. James captures the spirit and character of collaborative working relationships. He states, One person writes but in the world in which we live all serious contributions have to be collective; … Although one mind may unify, the contributory material and ideas must come from all sources and types of mind…. (qtd. in Grimshaw 10). James’ words could not more appropriately describe this project. From its inception, this new critical edition of Beatrice Culleton Mosionier’s In Search of April Raintree has been collaborative in nature and ambitious in spirit.

The catalyst for this edition is the continuing relevance and value of In Search of April Raintree for contemporary Canadian readers. Mosionier’s representation of the life stories of two Métis sisters, who suffer the breakdown of their family relations and the injustices of the social services system, offers a powerful examination of the effects of racism in society. The author’s treatment of a harrowing rape trial in which the defendants justify their actions on the basis that the woman was Native and a prostitute reinforces the connections between material realities and social injustices. Yet, as many essays in the collection illustrate, In Search of April Raintree appeals to readers through its emotional as well as through its literary and political merits. Helen Hoy’s ‘Nothing but the Truth’: Discursive Transparency in Beatrice Culleton notes how one of her students felt distraught and off-kilter for 24 hours after reading the novel. In "‘The Only Dirty Book’: The Rape of April Raintree," Peter Cumming remarks that in anonymous surveys students consistently place In Search of April Raintree at the top of the list of books that have meant the most to them. The novel owes its success as much to its ability to emotionally engage readers as to its consideration of familiar themes, values, and ideas. As Heather Zwicker points out in The Limits of Sisterhood, the novel works through the simplicity of its literal story, the story of sisters.

The publishing history of In Search of April Raintree also attests to its continuing appeal and broad readership since its first publication by Pemmican in 1983. In its first nine years of circulation, the novel sold over 82,000 copies, and continues, on average, to sell 6,000 copies a year with Peguis (Hoy 182). To date, it has been translated into three languages (German, Dutch, and French), and anthologized in such wide-ranging collections as Our Bit of Truth: An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature (1990), Kitchen Talk: Contemporary Women’s Prose and Poetry (1992), and Sociology (1996). It is a novel that crosses disciplinary boundaries to engage with issues of racism and the socialization of Native children, truth-telling and the representation of social discourse, and First Nations literary history and the quest for identity. The essays represented here cross cultures as the collection draws on the experience and expertise of contributing scholars from a variety of cultural backgrounds.¹ As the first critical edition of a Native Canadian text, the collection aims to engage current debates in literary criticism and to intervene in the field of Native Canadian literature.

In the collection’s opening essay, Deploying Identity in the Face of Racism, Margery Fee examines the relationship between the discourse of race and state-controlled definitions of Aboriginal identity. Fee’s analysis of the implications of revisions to the Indian Act with Bill C-31 and the inclusion of Métis as a category of Aboriginal identity illustrates how state-controlled definitions of Nativeness rely on concepts of ethnic purity for their legitimacy. They thus retrench identity as a fixed, stable category and overlook the multiple connections of Native peoples across historical, social, and political boundaries. Claiming that Mosionier’s novel rejects whiteness or Nativeness as simple, clearcut identities, Fee proposes that the category Native be rethought as both a fluid and contested site of identification in order for these affiliations to be recognized. Her essay focuses attention on the author’s attempts to theorize Native identity not as an inherent category, but as a tool to use in ever-changing social relationships.

Janice Acoose in The Problem of ‘Searching’ For April Raintree demonstrates how Mosionier’s novel thematizes the absence of positive narratives of Métis culture and history in her exploration of the Raintree sisters’ quests to recover a sense of self and community. Connecting Mosionier’s construction of a dis-eased narrative voice with the exclusion of Métis nationalist writers like Emma LaRocque and Howard Adams from public discourse, Acoose argues that In Search of April Raintree resists readers’ attempts to find within it representations of Métis culture and history. Instead of offering a vision of Métis cultural identity, the novel opens a space for critical discourse about the formation of identity and the transmission of culture. Acoose argues that by resisting readers’ expectations, the novel encourages readers to look beyond the text and to take responsibility for their education. In this manner, Acoose suggests, readers may come to know something about Métis history and culture.

In Abuse and Violence: April Raintree’s Human Rights (if she had any), Agnes Grant analyses In Search of April Raintree from a position that is seldom recognized, yet has emerged with increasing urgency in light of the history of Indian residential schools in Canada: the position that considers the rights of the child. Drawing attention to the plight of April Raintree as she is relocated from the poverty of her birth family to the racism of her foster family, Grant argues that there is no movement in Canada today, nor has there ever been one, that examines the rights of children the way feminists have explored the abuse of women. Grant illustrates how Mosionier’s novel documents the vulnerability of Aboriginal women and children to poverty and racism while simultaneously insisting on the theme of resistance and renewal.

Beatrice Culleton Mosionier’s The Special Time explores the personal events that have shaped her continuing engagement with issues of racism and suicide. Speaking of her struggle to overcome the devastation of suicide within her family, Mosionier describes how her response to the problem was transformed by Jane Elliot’s Blue-eyed/Brown-eyed exercise, a program in racism awareness that allows individuals and groups to experience negative stereotypes commonly assigned to people of colour, women, and other ‘outsiders’ in society. In her affirmation of the need to provide respect and dignity to individuals and communities, Mosionier raises the question of the nature of our individual and collective responsibility to each other, a question that is explored by many of the papers in this collection.

In "What Constitutes a Meaningful Life?: Identity Quest(ion)s in In Search of April Raintree, Michael Creal explores the narrative quests" of April and Cheryl Raintree to illustrate Mosionier’s engagement with questions of social ethics and moral issues. Creal suggests that the central spiritual issue for contemporary society is the problem of what constitutes a meaningful life. He argues that Mosionier’s depiction of the quests of the Raintree sisters for a sense of self and community critiques the values inherent in contemporary society that jeopardize April and Cheryl’s ability to regain a meaningful sense of themselves and their community. His essay shows how Mosionier’s novel prompts readers to scrutinize social values in order to begin questioning the society that we participate in making.

Identifying the need for a broader understanding of the interaction of material realities and the shaping of narrative, Jeanne Perreault’s In Search of Cheryl Raintree, and Her Mother considers the social and physical realities facing many people of Native heritage. These include illness, infant mortality, foster care, alcoholism, rape, domestic violence against women, prostitution, and suicide. As Perreault writes, representing these violations against her characters is not only an aesthetic choice for Mosionier. It is essential to the informing discourse of the novel. The statistics she relates provide invaluable information about the effects of systemic poverty and racism. They also illustrate the strength and commitment of Native peoples to redefine identity and to restore community values. Interwoven with the realities of systemic racism and economic impoverishment, as Perreault’s paper illustrates, is a commitment to cultural revitalization, holism, and community that affirms the spirituality and survival within Native communities.

In ‘Nothing but the Truth’: Discursive Transparency in Beatrice Culleton, Helen Hoy examines early critical responses to In Search of April Raintree to critique reviewers’ assumptions that the novel offers uncrafted testimony and artless narrative. Hoy observes that in a novel in which the telling of truths and half-truths proliferates both socially and personally, in which ‘lies, secrets, and silence’ are both inflicted upon April and her sister Cheryl by foster parents, social workers, and history books, and prove to be a destructive component of their interactions, honesty and truth seem to function as talismans. Hoy argues that readers need to be wary of the novel’s appearance of art-less craft. We need to attend to its layered discursive registers, to its simultaneous craft and craft-iness, for, as Hoy suggests, if novelty, authorial self-expression, and originality of execution give way in Culleton’s aesthetic credo to instrumental and communal values, then her writing may require different methods of evaluation and the commitment on the part of readers to recognize these as artistic achievements.

Jo-Ann Thom, in "The Effect of Readers’ Responses on the Development of Aboriginal Literature in Canada: A Study of Maria Campbell’s Halfbreed, Beatrice Culleton’s In Search of April Raintree, and Richard Wagamese’s Keeper’n Me," also credits the artistic achievement of In Search of April Raintree. Noting its importance for many Canadian Aboriginal writers, Thom contends that In Search of April Raintree showed would-be Aboriginal writers that they could work in the medium of fiction to create narratives that do not claim to tell a true story but that nevertheless reveal ‘truths.’ Thom draws on students’ responses and new voices in contemporary Aboriginal literature to illustrate how the truths of systemic racism and cultural dislocation that Maria Campbell and Beatrice Mosionier examined are reimagined by contemporary writers like Richard Wagamese as narratives of cultural healing. Thom suggests that contemporary authors not only recognize and extend the work of previous Aboriginal writers, they also transform racist discourse into narratives that affirm Aboriginal culture and identity.

In "‘The Only Dirty Book’: The Rape of April Raintree," Peter Cumming contends that the revised version of In Search of April Raintree represents a seriously flawed adaptation of the original novel. Cumming notes how the edited version obsessively sanitizes the overt sexuality and violence and swearing of the original, and thus compromises the elements of verisimilitude that give the unrevised text so much political force. Focusing on the pivotal rape scene in both novels, Cumming questions the principles of revision that would remove the passages signifying violence against women, yet retain the racist slurs directed against the protagonist’s Native identity. Cumming argues that if the rape scene metaphorically represents relations between Native and non-Native people, then the effect of its revision is to seriously depoliticize Mosionier’s indictment of a society that simultaneously disempowers April Raintree both as a Native and as a woman.

In the final essay in the collection, The Limits of Sisterhood, Heather Zwicker considers the implications of sisterhood in In Search of April Raintree in order to examine how Mosionier’s novel theorizes the following questions that are at issue within feminism: how might we conceptualize community among women without asserting similarities or identities where there are none, and how do we celebrate difference without giving up on the possibility of solidarity? As Zwicker suggests, the novel resonates with the metaphoric implications of sisterhood, demonstrating that even within a relationship as close as literal sisters there exist irreducible differences between women that make community a vexed and difficult, but nonetheless crucial, venture. Through an analysis of the political views that the Raintree sisters adopt—April decides to assimilate and thus becomes a proponent of liberal quiescence, Cheryl embraces her Métis inheritance and articulates a position defined by identity politics—Zwicker argues that the disintegration of the relationship between April and Cheryl as the novel unfolds serves to demonstrate the inevitable disintegration of a feminism that fails to respond to the need for a community founded on mutual responsibility and recognition of difference. Zwicker’s essay raises compelling questions for readers about the relationship between political commit-ments and constitutive realities.

The essays presented here initiate debate, contribute to critical perspectives on Native Canadian literature, and attest to the continuing strength of stories to inspire and move us. If, as Merle Hodge suggests, the proper role of fiction in human societies includes allowing a people to ‘read’ itself—to decipher its own reality (205), then Beatrice Culleton Mosionier’s In Search of April Raintree provides readers with a compelling narrative whose complex perceptions and powerful illustrations represent its determined attempts to decipher reality. These essays affirm its complexity, celebrate its achievements, and gesture toward what Jeannette Armstrong calls a new order of culturalism and relationship beyond colonial thought and practise (8).

Cheryl Suzack Editor

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the contributors to this critical edition for the pleasure of working with them on this project. I would also like to thank the many people who provided invaluable advice and support along the way. I am indebted to Sue Hamilton, Stephen Slemon, Sujaya Dhanvantari, Mary Elizabeth Leighton, Susan Sheard, Bill Roszell, Heather Zwicker, Nima Naghibi, Jeanne Perreault, and especially, Catherine Lennox and Charmagne de Veer. I am grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for a doctoral fellowship which has supported my research.

Notes

1 I have opted to retain the terms of naming that individual authors use in their essays. Readers will note that authors make reference to Native, Aboriginal, Indigenous, and First Nations in accordance with their individual preferences.

Works Cited

Alford, Edna, and Claire Harris, eds. Kitchen Talk: Contemporary Women’s Prose and Poetry. Red Deer, AB: Red Deer College Press, 1992.

Armstrong, Jeannette. Editor’s Note. Looking at the Words of our People: First Nations Analysis of Literature. Ed. Jeannette Armstrong. Penticton, BC: Theytusu, 1993.

Grant, Agnes, ed. Our Bit of Truth: An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature. Winnipeg: MB, Pemmican, 1990.

Grimshaw, Anna, ed. The C.L.R. James Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992.

Hodge, Merle. Challenges of the Struggle for Sovereignty: Changing the World versus Writing Stories. Caribbean Women Writers: Essays from the First International Conference. Ed. Selwyn R. Cudjoe. Wellesley, MA: Calaloux Publications, 1990. 202–208.

Hoy, Helen. ‘Nothing but the Truth’: Discursive Transparency in Beatrice Culleton. ARIEL: 25.1 (1994): 155–84.

Macionis, John J., Juanne Nancarrow Clarke, and Linda M. Gerber. Sociology: Second Edition. Scarborough, ON: Prentice Hall, 1997.

In memory of my sisters,

Vivian and Kathy

Acknowledgments

I would like to give special thanks to Associate Chief Judge Murray C. Sinclair for his advice and assistance. And, of course, my appreciation goes out to all my families.

Beatrice Mosionier

A Note on the Text

For this new edition, corrections have been made to the text of In Search for April Raintree to improve legibility and style. They include corrections in spelling, punctuation, ellipsis, formatting, and style.

Chapter One

Memories. Some memories are elusive, fleeting, like a butterfly that touches down and is free until it is caught. Others are haunting. You’d rather forget them, but they won’t be forgotten. And some are always there. No matter where you are, they are there, too. I always felt most of my memories were better avoided, but now I think it’s best to go back in my life before I go forward. Last month, April 18th, I celebrated my twenty-fourth birthday. That’s still young but I feel so old.

My father, Henry Raintree, was of mixed blood, a little of this, a little of that, and a whole lot of Indian. My sister, Cheryl, who was eighteen months younger than me, had inherited his looks: black hair, dark brown eyes which turned black when angry, and brown skin. There was no doubt they were both of Indian ancestry. My mother, Alice, on the other hand, was part Irish and part Ojibway. Like her, I had pale skin, not that it made any difference when we were living as a family. We lived in Norway House, a small northern Manitoba town, before my father contracted tuberculosis.

Then we moved to Winnipeg. I used to hear him talk about TB and how it had caused him to lose everything he had worked for. Both my Mom and Dad always took this medicine and I always thought it was because of TB. Although we moved from one rundown house to another, I remember only one, on Jarvis Avenue. And of course, we were always on welfare. I knew that from the way my Dad used to talk. Sometimes he would put himself down and sometimes he counted the days till he could walk down to the place where they gave out cheques and food stamps.

It seemed to me that after the welfare cheque days, came the medicine days. That was when my parents would take a lot of medicine and it always changed them. Mom, who was usually quiet and calm, would talk and laugh in a loud obnoxious way, and Dad, who already talked and laughed a lot, just got clumsier. The times they took the medicine the most were the times when many other grown-ups would come over and drink it with them. To avoid these people, I would take Cheryl into our tiny bedroom, close the door, and put my box of old rusted toys in front of the door. Besides the aunties and uncles out there, there were strange men and they would start yelling and sometimes they would fight, right in our small house. I would lie on my cot listening to them knocking things over and bumping into walls. Sometimes they would crash into our door and I would grow even more petrified, even though I knew Mom and Dad were out there with them. It always took a long time before I could get to sleep.

There were days when they came with their own children. I didn’t much like these children either, for they were sullen and cranky and wouldn’t talk or play with us or else they were aggressive bullies who only wanted to fight us. Usually, their faces were dirty, their noses were runny, and I was sure they had done it in their pants because they smelled terrible. If they had to stay the night, I remember I would put our blankets on the floor for them, stubbornly refusing to share our cot with them. Once Mom had let a little girl sleep with us and during the night she wet the bed. It had been a long time before the smell went away.

My mother didn’t always drink that medicine, not as much as my father did. That’s when she would clean the house, bake, and do the laundry and sewing. If she was really happy, she would sing us songs, and at night, she would rock Cheryl to sleep. But that was one kind of happiness that didn’t come often enough for me. To prolong that mood in her, I would help her with everything, chattering away in desperation, lest my own silences would push her back into her normal remoteness. My first cause for vanity was that, out of all the houses of the people we knew, my mother kept the cleanest house. Except for those mornings after. She would tell her friends that it was because she was raised in a residential school and then worked as a housekeeper for the priest in her hometown.

Cheryl and I always woke up before our parents, so I would tend to Cheryl’s needs. I would feed her whatever was available, then wash her, and dress her in clean clothes. Weather permitting, we would then go off to the park, which was a long walk, especially on hot summer days. Our daily routine was dictated by our hunger pangs and by daylight. Darkness brought out the boogeymen, and Dad told us what they did to little children. I liked all of Dad’s stories, even the scary ones, because I knew that Cheryl and I were always safe in the house.

It was very rare when Mom would go downtown to the department stores where they had ride-on stairs. Mom didn’t like going shopping. I guess it was because sometimes people were rude to her. When that happened, Mom would get a hurt look in her eyes and act apologetic. One day, I didn’t notice any of that because that day I saw my first black person. I was sure he was a boogeyman and wondered how come he wandered around so easily as if nothing was wrong. I watched him, and he stopped at the watch counter. Since Mom and Cheryl were nearby and there were a lot of other people close enough, I went over to him. My voice was very shaky, but I asked, Mr. Boogeyman, what do you do with the children you catch?

What’s that? his voice seemed to rumble from deep within him, and when he turned to look at me, I thought he had the kindest eyes I’d ever seen. Maybe, though, they changed at night. No, he couldn’t be bad.

Nothing, I said and walked back to my mother’s side. When winter came, we didn’t go to the park anymore. There was plenty to do with the snow around our house. Sometimes, Mom would come out and help us build our snowmen and our houses. One December, we all went downtown to watch the Santa Claus parade. That was such a thrilling, magical day for me. After that, we went to visit an aunt and uncle where Cheryl and I had a glorious old time feasting on cake, fruit, and hot chocolate. Then we walked home. Dad threw snowballs at Mom for a bit before he carried sleepy-eyed Cheryl in his arms. I was enchanted by all the coloured Christmas lights and the decorations in the store windows. I think that was the best day ever, because Mom and Dad laughed for real.

Not long after that, many people came to our house to drink the medicine, and in the beginning, they all sounded cheerful and happy. But later, they started their yelling, and even the women were angrily shouting. One woman was loudly wailing, and it sounded like she’d gotten smacked a few times.

In the middle of the night when everything had been quiet for a while, I got up to go to the toilet. There were people sprawled all over the place, sleeping and snoring.

One man, though, who was half sitting up against a wall, grumbled and shifted and I saw that his pants were open. I knew that I should hurry, but I just stood there watching and he played around with his thing. Then he peed right in my direction. That made me move back out of the room. I went through the kitchen, and there was my Dad sleeping on the bare floor, still in his clothes. I wondered why, so I went to their bedroom. When I put the light switch on, I saw my mother. She was bare-naked and kissing a strange man. I guess she realized that someone was in the room, and she sat up while trying to hide her nakedness. She looked scared, but when she saw that it was only me, she hissed at me, Get out of here!

I forgot about having to go to the toilet and went back to my bed. I tried to figure everything out, but I couldn’t.

A few days later, I was sitting on my Dad’s lap, and Mom was doing the laundry. A woman came to visit, but then it became an argument. She was shouting terrible names, and she began to push my mother around. Meanwhile, Dad just watched them and laughed and even egged them on. To me this was all so confusing. I just knew that Mom shouldn’t have kissed someone else; my Dad shouldn’t have slept on the floor; that old man shouldn’t have played with himself and then peed on the floor; and right now, Dad ought to be trying to protect Mom, not finding the whole thing amusing. I squirmed off Dad’s lap, walked over to that woman, and kicked her as hard as I could, yelling for her to leave Mom alone. I heard Dad laughing even louder. But it worked because the strange woman left.

That winter, I noticed that my Mom was getting fatter and fatter. When winter was finished, my Mom got so sick from being fat she had to go away to the hospital. One of our aunties came to stay with us. She and Dad would sit around joking and drinking their medicine. I used to wonder how come they all drank this medicine, yet no one ever got better. Another thing, they couldn’t all be sick like Mom and Dad, could they? So one evening while Dad and Auntie Eva were busy playing cards, I picked up his glass and took a quick swallow before he could stop me. Ugh! It burned my mouth and my throat and made me cough and choke. I spit it out as fast as I could. It was purely awful and I was even more puzzled as to why they all seemed to enjoy taking it. I felt so sorry for them and I was real glad I wasn’t sick.

When my mother came back, she wasn’t as fat as when she left. The snow was all gone, too. We celebrated my sixth birthday and one of my presents was a book. I took my book with me everywhere. There was talk of my going to school in the fall. I didn’t know what reading and printing were like, but I was very curious about them. I looked forward to school. I promised Cheryl I would teach her reading and printing as soon as I knew how. But for the time being, I would pretend to read to Cheryl, and as I turned the pages of my book like Mom did, I would make up stories to match the pictures in the book.

A few weeks later, we came home from a day’s ramblings to find a real live baby in Mom’s arms. Mom was rocking it and singing a soft melody to it. I asked her, Where did it come from?

The hospital. She was very sick. She’s your new little sister, Anna.

Will she have to take that medicine? It tastes awful, I said, pitying the baby for being sick.

No, she drinks milk. The nurse came this morning and helped me prepare some, Mom answered. I knew from the way she talked that she hadn’t taken any medicine so far. I hoped that from now on she wouldn’t have to take it any more. I studied the baby for a while. It was so tiny and wrinkled. I decided I’d much rather play with Cheryl.

That summer, Cheryl and I spent whole days at the park. I would make us sandwiches of bread and lard so we wouldn’t have to walk back home in the middle of the day. That’s when it seemed the hottest. We played on the swings and slides and in the sandbox as long as they weren’t being used by the other children. We would build sandcastles and install caterpillars and ladybugs in them. If the other children were there, we would stay apart from them and watch the man mow the park grass, enjoying the smell of the fresh-cut lawns and the sound from the motor of the lawnmower. Sometimes the droning noise lulled Cheryl to sleep, and I would sit by her to wait for her to wake up.

There were two different groups of children that went to the park. One group was the brown-skinned children who looked like Cheryl in most ways. Some of them even came over to our house with their parents. But they were dirty looking and they dressed in real raggedy clothes. I didn’t care to play with them at all. The other group was white-skinned, and I used to envy them, especially the girls with blond hair and blue eyes. They seemed so clean and fresh and reminded me of flowers I had seen. Some of them were freckled, but they didn’t seem to mind. To me, I imagined they were very rich and lived in big, beautiful houses, and there was so much that I wondered about them. But they didn’t care to play with Cheryl and me. They called us names and bullied us.

We were ignored completely only when both groups were at the park. Then they were busy yelling names at each other. I always thought that the white-skinned group had the upper hand in name-calling. Of course, I didn’t know what Jew or the other names meant. Cheryl was too young to realize anything, and she was usually happy-go-lucky.

Our free, idle days with our family came to an end one summer afternoon. We came home, and there were some cars in front of our house. One had flashing red lights on it, and I knew it was a police car. When we entered the house, Mom was sitting at the table, openly weeping, right in front of all these strange people. There were empty medicine bottles on the small counter and the table, but I couldn’t figure out why the four people were there. A nice-smelling woman knelt down to talk to me.

My name is Mrs. Grey. I bet you’re April, aren’t you? And this little girl must be Cheryl. She put her hand on Cheryl’s head in a friendly gesture, but I didn’t trust her.

I nodded that we were April and Cheryl, but I kept my eyes on my mother. Finally I asked, Why is Mom crying? Did you hurt her?

No, dear, your mother is ill and she won’t be able to take care of you anymore. Would you like to go for a car ride? the woman asked.

My eyes lit up with interest. We’d been in a taxi a few times, and it had been a lot of fun. But then I thought of Baby Anna. I looked around for her. Where’s Anna?

Anna’s sick, the woman answered. She’s gone to the hospital. Don’t worry, we’ll take you for a ride to a nice clean place. You and Cheryl, okay?

That was not okay. I wanted to stay. We can stay with Daddy. He will take care of us. You can go away now, I said. It was all settled.

But Mrs. Grey said in a gentle voice, I’m afraid not, honey. We have to take you and Cheryl with us. Maybe if your Mommy and Daddy get well enough, you can come to live with them again.

The man who was with Mrs. Grey had gone to our bedroom to get all our things. He came back with a box. I was more worried, and I looked from the woman to the man, then over to one policeman who was looking around, then to the other who was writing in a notepad. I finally looked back at my Mom for reassurance. She didn’t look at me, but I said in a very definite manner, No, we’d better stay here.

I was hoping Dad would walk in, and he would make them all go away. He would make everything right.

The man with the box leaned over and whispered something to my mother. She forced herself to stop sobbing, slowly got up, and came over to us. I could see that she was struggling to maintain control.

April, I want you and Cheryl to go with these people.It will only be for a little while. Right now, Daddy and me, well, we can’t take care of you. You’ll be all right. You be good girls, for me. I’m sorry…

She couldn’t say anymore because she started crying again. I didn’t like to see her this way, especially in front of these people. She hugged us, and that’s when I started crying, too. I kind of knew that she was really saying goodbye to us, but I was determined that we were not going to be taken away. I clung to my Mom as tight as I could. They wouldn’t be able to pull me away from her, and then they would leave. I expected Mom to do the same. But she didn’t. She pushed me away. Into their grasping hands. I couldn’t believe it. Frantically, I screamed, Mommy, please don’t make us go. Please, Mommy. We want to stay with you. Please don’t make us go. Oh, Mom, don’t!

I tried hard to put everything into my voice, sure that they would all come to their senses and leave us be. There were a lot of grown-up things I didn’t understand that day. My mother should have fought with her life to keep us with her. Instead, she handed us over. It didn’t make any sense to me.

The car door slammed shut on us.

Please, don’t make us go, I said in a subdued, quiet voice, knowing at the same time that I was wasting my time. I gripped Cheryl’s hand, and we set off into the unknown. We were both crying and ignored the soothing voices from the strangers in front.

How could Mom do this to us? What was going to happen to us? Well, at least I still had Cheryl. I thought this to myself over and over again. Cheryl kept crying,