It is the smell of curry that transports me back to the kitchen with its black and white floor tiles gleaming still within my memory, along with the little black and white Chihuahua dog that slept in a box behind the stove. I can still see the African violets lined up on the window sill, their many colors nodding, in the filtered sunlight that found its way through the window and on to the table where I sat so many times when I was young.
Curry was a taste foreign to my household, a pungent introduction to a world beyond my family hearth. I, who had no extended family living nearby, found an aunt and uncle in this home with their daughter, six years my elder, a cousin. This modest house lay on the western edge of my little neighbourhood, tucked up against the woods from where I could watch from their large front windows, the many moods of the silvery waters below.
I was enchanted with the girl's bedroom. It was filled with pink frills and fancy dressed china dolls, their places now overshadowed with horse posters everywhere on the walls.
I didn't think much of horses, my love was given to the furry felines who lived in the barn or slept in a box on the back porch. Horses reminded me too much of our cow, or rather her daughter, who was not the maternal mellow Jersey with mild brown eyes and a gentle tan, but black with a smattering of white, and a nasty disposition. She found great delight in chasing me from her pasture or giving me the evil eye. I was happy to make faces at her from behind the safety of the pasture fence.
The horse posters on the bedroom wall of my dear friend did not excite my fancy. I was content to listen to Adrianne extol their virtues and her daydreams of having her own horse one day.
It was before I was old enough to go to school that I first stayed overnight at their house. A grand adventure beyond my familiar. She slept in a feather bed that I crawled into one morning to chat before the day began. As I sank into the feathers I was suddenly filled with the fear that I would smother and never rise again. Not eager to repeat this experience, I kept a respectful distance.
My memory is a jumble of images that are hard to put into a time frame. Somewhere during this time Adrianne found out that she was adopted. This discovery raged through her like a runaway train of anger and her home became a battleground of wills. Was it the previous secrecy she resented or the crisis of identity it brought?
One night her mother drove Adrianne and I to town for her to attend the youth group at their little church at the end of the main street. Her Mom and I dropped her off and went grocery shopping. It was dark by the time we returned to sit parked across from the church waiting for the youth meeting to end.
As we sat there quietly I noticed Adrianne slipping from out of the darkness into a side door and said out loud "there's Adrianne" just in time for her mother to notice her too.
It was not a happy moment. When the church youth group emptied out on to the street Adrianne's mother went to meet her. I could see a heated exchange between them as they headed back to the car.I sat quietly in the middle as they each took their place on either side and we headed towards home in a tense silence.
In those years there was a toll gate on the new bridge across the Kootenay River. We pulled in to the line-up under the glare of the big overhead lights. While waiting our turn Adrianne suddenly turned on me in fury and yelled that I was a lousy little snitch, and lifted her hand to strike me. I still see her mother's arm, my memory forever in slow motion, reaching out to grab her before she struck my cowering figure. This quiet and composed older woman was now fierce to my defense; still holding Adrianne's arm she declared that is was not I who was the offender.
In silence we drove home.
At some point not long after this incident Adrianne ran away, leaving the horse they had just recently bought her lonely in its paddock.
I did not understand why Adrianne was so upset to learn she was adopted. In retrospect, I can now understand that my occasional claims to be adopted when I felt out of sync with all my older siblings, while patiently tolerated by my mother, was possibly just my own way of acting out my grief for my dear lost friend. And yet I felt a loyalty to these kind older people who had tried to raise her and were left with an emptiness I carefully respected.
I stayed with them a few years later while my parents were away. Now it was I who sat in the late afternoon sunshine of their living room, next to the little orange tree with its tiny fruit, chatting to my hearts content. Always welcome to knock on their door, to sit at the piano and try vainly to make sense of it, I think fondly of their kindness all those years ago when my finding the path to their door made them happy too.
