Theirs. High buttoned. Dull.
His. Heeled.Tooled leather with shiny toe caps and I grabbed one of them just as he was leaving and they prised my fingers away and scolded me. He turned away then turned back and threw down his hat and said “Wear that when your head’s big enough and remember me.”
Then he was gone.
My name is Wa-Sha-Quon-Asin, Grey Owl and I come in peace.
They’d say I had his eyes and even when I won the Composition Prize at school, I was still my worthless father’s son.
And there was this woman used to watch me sometimes from a distance. I’d be alone, tracking buffalo through the park or hunting bears in our back garden and see her spying through the gaps between the trees. A small dark skinned woman. My mother.