Barbara Williams - The Hope in Leaving: A Memoir

HANDSOME JACK IS A LOGGER, nomad, and born dreamer. His young wife, Simone, has too many kids and never enough money to support or protect them. The family keeps on the move, shedding a grand total of twenty-seven homes. Their first child, Randy, is sensitive and brilliant and bold, protector of his younger siblings, the fearless star of their childhood adventures and misadventuresuntil something snaps inside him. The second child who comes a year after him, our narrator Barbara, is the lucky one, who can dream of getting out. Every time the family relocates, she feels "the hope in leaving and doing better next time.

Poverty, mental illness, sexual abuse, and injustice pursue them wherever they go. They live small-town life hard and suffer, most of all Randy. The great surprise of The Hope in Leaving isnt that these characters descend increasingly into isolation and strife, but that despite this they remain a family, that there is always the spark of wit in their banter, and a kind of closeness no matter what happens, even a sense of normaalcy. Gradually, the reader comes to understand why The Hope in Leaving is a book that had to be written. In it, Williams proves beyond doubt that there is one thing that can survive the worst of life and even death itself: love without judgment.

Copyright 2016 by Barbara Williams

The author wishes the reader to know that the names and identifying charac- teristics of some of the people who appear in this memoir have been changed to protect their privacy.

A Seven Stories Press First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retriev- al system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written per- mission of the publisher.

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Book design by Elizabeth DeLong

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Williams, Barbara, 1953

Title: The hope in leaving : a memoir / Barbara Williams.

Description: First edition. | New York : Seven Stories Press, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015029675 | ISBN 9781609806729 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Williams, Barbara, 1953---Childhood and youth. | Williams,

Barbara, 1953---Family. | Coming of age--British Columbia. |

Loggers--Family relationships--British Columbia. | Logging--Social

aspects--British Columbia. | Migrant laborers families--British

Columbia--Biography. | Poor families--British Columbia--Biography. |

Dysfunctional families--British Columbia--Biography. | British

Columbia--Biography. | Actresses--Canada--Biography. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY &

AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY /

Entertainment & Performing Arts. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women.

Classification: lcc ct310.W49 A3 2016 | ddc 306.85086/94209711--dc23
lc record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015029675

Printed in the United States

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To Jean

A huge thank-you to Dan Simon, my wonderful
editor Jesse Ruddock, Ruth Weiner, Liz DeLong
and the team at Seven Stories Press.

For their feedback and guidance I thank Bill Clegg,
Ottessa Moshfegh, Jack Grapes, my writing group
and members of the Actors Gym.

Love to Tom, Liam and my mom,
for understanding.

Randy is sitting across from me with a hunting knife lying on his lap. Were in a field with high grass, where we used to play commandos. Its getting dark and I want to leave, but Im afraid to turn my back on him. Can I have it? I ask.

His hands lift away, inviting me to grab the knife. We both know Im not fast enough. Hes always been faster.

Keeping eye contact with him, I slowly stand. He rises too, gripping the knife with the blade down, and we face each other in a static duel.

Lets not do this, I urge him. Lets go.

His face questions me. He wants to trust me.

Its time to go home.

His eyes get watery. He doesnt really want to play this game.

Let me have the knife, I say.

Hes ashamed. Im sorry, he says, lifting his arm and opening his palm.

In one move I grab the knife and push the blade deep into his stomach. I see in his eyes that he knew this is how it would end.

And then I see the ceiling above my head and the room that is emptied of everything except my backpack and my sleeping bag that Im zipped into. And I remember that Im leaving today.

Ive had a variation of this dream with Randy and the hunting knife a few times now. Each time, I wake up with the overwhelming sense that I have to leave. This is the first time Ive killed my brother.

Theres an explosion of rain on the roof and Im compelled to check my car. Its packed with all my belongings. Im driving it to my mothers house this morning, then catching a red-eye to Toronto where I have a job waiting for me. Im giving everything to Randy. A bribe to let me go. I start to cry. I guess Im anxious about leaving, worried about Randy. When I go outside, my car is gone.

By 5am, Im standing at an impound station on Skid Row, where my car was towed after it was found parked on a sidewalk. Probably some teenage joyride, and Ive done worse, but its unfair that I have to pay the ninety bucks to redeem it.

The rain is still coming down. An old man too long in his cups has thrown up on the sidewalk and I cant be sure he didnt splatter my sleeping bag, so I give it to him. He wanders away singing. I dont mind drunks, theyre harmless, as long as they arent raising you.

We used to come here when I was little. Its Dads turf, where he gets his logging workSkid Row hotel bars are his hiring halls, since you have to be drunk to sign up for the kind of work he does. We would sit in the car outside darkened doorways while Dad ran in for just a minute. Then wed wait for hours with scary faces leering in at us, skinny men with mashed-up noses and cuts over their eyes, and women with pasty skin and dark-red lipstick smeared around rotting teeth. At closing time they would slither by our car, cursing, crying, and hitting each other. Finally Dad would stagger out and wed hold on tight for the blackout drive to wherever we happened to be living at the time.

My guitar and suitcase are missing, the only things I was planning to take to Toronto. Everything else is here, just a little defiled. Everything but my windshield wipers that have been ripped off, the little shits. Its still pouring and I can barely see as I start driving. I keep my windows down to reduce the fog and I race to the ferry at an insanely reckless clip, bawling as much as the rain. I can see more the faster I go, speed making the water thin against the glass.

On the ferry I sequester myself by a starboard window for the comfort of a familiar view. My stomach is a twisted mess. Hot tea and food might help but its too much effort. I fix my eyes on the gray seascape and surrender to the storm. Disappointed tourists stare through the windows, hoping some errant orca might sail out of the gloom. Usually I love this trip. No matter the weather, I go out on the upper deck and breathe the best air in the world. Not that Ive breathed the air in other places, but I know this air is the best.