Mom was out, but I knew enough to phone 911, my hands shaking with fear. The ambulance arrived eight minutes later. Those eight minutes lasted forever. I knelt down beside him, pushed at his shoulders and arms, and tried talking to him. He came to, sort of. “How could you, Papa? ” I said. The effect of the pills had taken hold, and, while he tried to respond, I could make nothing of his answer. Soon, he was out again. I sat there. Where was Mom? Who was his note directed to? Did he love me? Why then . . . ?
I went to see Dad in the hospital two days later. Thank God, if such a thing exists, I thought. He had survived. There were tubes coursing in and out of his body, and from the open doorway I could see him looking somewhat dreamily out the window. He looked thin and frail as he reached for his glass of chocolate milk—I guess the hospital ceded to a request for his favourite drink. I noticed the deep scars on his hands from years of loading cargo and handling heavy ropes on ships travelling the broad St. Lawrence River. He turned, and I could tell that his eyes were still the same colour as the sea. He tried to smile, and then patted the bed. I said nothing, but my mind raced with a thousand questions. Why did you want to die? You don’t love me anymore? Why did I leave him alone? I should have known from the last time . . . . He took my hand in both of his. From a man who never said much, this, I suppose, was an apology. Again, I promised myself to never let him out of my sight. Like many deals made by ten-year-olds, it was unrealistic, but it was my deal nonetheless. Summer was upon us, and from that moment on I became Papa’s protector.
My Dad first attempted suicide in the fall of 1985. I was eight, and we lived in an old house in Saint-Jean-de-Matha, a rural Quebec town of about 3,000 people where the local highlight was to get your name and birthday displayed on the town-hall bingo board. Both my mother and father came from large Québécois families—Mom one of thirteen children; Dad one of fifteen—but, with my Dad out of work, depressed, and a bit of a loner, neither of them was getting much support. One day, Dad had been loading cargo on a slippery boat deck. He’d fallen and wrecked his back in a way that two operations couldn’t fix. He’d been working on boats since he was fifteen, and he loved the life of the seas. It was all he knew, but as far as he was concerned, even if he had only a wife and a single child to support, a man who couldn’t work wasn’t a man. So, in 1985, while my mother and aunt were out clothes shopping for me, my father tried to kill himself by drinking Drano. My mother found him half-dead on the kitchen floor.
He survived, but for two months Dad came home only on weekends. The rest of the time he was at the hospital. We visited, but Mom and I spent a lot of time at home, alone.
One crisp December day, with the snow so white and shimmering that it hurt my eyes to look at it, I came home from school to find my aunts Janette and Janine, the twins, playing cards with my mother in the kitchen. Dad had finally returned home for good and was in the garage. I didn’t care much for these two aunts. They were tough and uncaring, and, knowing that “him” meant my father, I overheard one of them say to my Mom: “Ginette, please, just get rid of him. He’s sick, and he’s making you sick too. You have to divorce him! He’s made you lose so much weight that we can barely recognize you.” And I remember my mother replying, “I love him. Can’t you understand that, for God’s sake? I married him for the best and the worst . . . . He’ll get a new job, and everything will be like before.” I was so proud of her. Even if her sisters thought she was trapped by her love for my father, Mom still had hope.
I remember her telling me, “Francis, be a good boy with Papa. He has many headaches and he’s very sick.” My mother tried to hide the truth from me, but I heard my aunt Janine saying on the phone that my father tried to commit suicide. I didn’t know what this meant, but the dictionary told me—intentionally killing oneself—and I quickly learned that suicide was taboo in our culture.
I was glad when Dad finally came home to stay, and I tried to be as helpful as possible. I went to bed without whining or asking to stay up later. I shovelled the snow from the garage to the street. I had more As than Bs on my report card and I didn’t ask for expensive Christmas or birthday gifts. With Dad on welfare, we didn’t have much money. Still, it was hard to tell what he was sick of. For me, life was simple and great. A Mom, a Dad, Hot Wheels, Lego, and a house with a TV. My favourite shows were Fraggle Rock and The Littlest Hobo.
One night, Dad refused to build a snowman with me. It was nine o’clock, and he said I had school the next day. I told him, “Papa, I don’t love you anymore,” and went to bed. Those words came back to haunt me.
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