On the Goose - Josie Penny

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she said.

      “Pregnant?” It took a few seconds for that word to register in my brain. Pregnant?

      “You’re going to have a baby, Josie. You had better go to the clinic and check it out.”

      I couldn’t be pregnant! I’d just met Keith. I’d only been here a few months. I was just starting my new life in this place.

      Keith knew even less than me about such basic things as the monthly cycle or fertility. He had never even heard the word “pregnant” before. When I missed the fourth month I had no choice but to tell him. I knew he was picking me up for the Christmas party at the town hall that night, and I would tell him then. He picked me up in his car and I crawled inside and slammed the door. I was shaking from fear of what he would say or do. But something told me that I had to press on.

      “I think I’m pregnant, Keith,” I blurted.

      “What! What do you mean pregnant? Whass dat?”

      “I haven’t had a period for almost four months and I think I’m gonna have a baby.”

      He went silent, trying to absorb what I’d just told him. Trying to understand what it all meant.

      “Tis not mine then, dat’s for damn sure. You’ve been out with dozens of fellers and it could be anybody’s!” he screamed.

      “No, Keith! I haven’t been with a single person since I met you. You were the only one since our very first date.”

      “Did you go to the nurse yet? How can you be sure?”

      “I’m goin’ tomorrow,” I murmured through my tears.

      What will I do if he leaves me? I thought. I’ll lose my job. I’ll have no place to live, no one to turn to. I was terrified, alone, and having those terrible feelings of abandonment and rejection again. Then I thought of Aunt Winnie. She wouldn’t turn me away, would she? But I didn’t want to live with her. She had enough to worry about with a whole bunch of youngsters and a husband, who, in my opinion, drank too much. They didn’t look like they were very well off, either.

      My mind circled back to the present. What have I got myself into now? I thought. Where did my plans of freedom and a carefree life in this big town go? Suddenly my dreams of fun, of freedom, of everlasting happiness with the person I loved were blown to smithereens. I thought of what Mom might say. I was glad I wasn’t home to hear her yelling and screaming, her cursing and swearing, her degrading comments. I can deal with this, I thought. I have to!

      After that initial fight Keith seemed to change. He became kinder and somewhat compassionate toward me. There was no mention of the baby and we continued to spend time together for the rest of the fall and into the winter. I was so distraught that I don’t remember anything about my first Christmas away from home. Where were all my dreams? Where was my tall, dark, and handsome man who would take care of me forever?

      I did a lot of babysitting after work because I was unable to say no to people. One night while we were babysitting for the Seawards I was browsing through the Simpsons-Sears catalogue. We came upon the wedding dresses. Keith pointed to the most expensive one there, $29.95, and asked, somewhat fearfully, “Do you think you could still fit into one of those?”

      I didn’t know what to say. Was he proposing? I simply said, “I don’t know. I guess I could order one and see if it fits.”

      I went home full of hope. I did love him very much. The feeling of abandonment lifted to a controllable level, and I fell asleep thinking for the first time in weeks of the tiny baby growing inside of me.

      Chapter 5

      The Penny Family

      Mark Penny, Keith’s father, was a descendent of an English family. He was offered a job in Buffalo, New York, and moved to Toronto. He commuted daily from Toronto to Buffalo for several years. In 1919, Mr. Penny received a letter from Bain Johnson & Company in Battle Harbour, Labrador, requesting him to come to Labrador to run its fishing operations. Dr. Grenfell saw Mark Penny as an enterprising young man and thought it would be smart to get him on his team. He approached Mark and offered to send him, all expenses paid, to Bishop Feild College in St. John’s for teachers’ training. After a few years of college, Mark returned to Labrador. As a young man he was a teacher, catechist, and lay reader in the Church of England. This he did for the rest of his working days. As a result, he became a prominent citizen of Labrador and was respected in every community he visited. Unfortunately for the Penny family, he received little pay for his efforts. He only earned seven hundred dollars a year, which was surely not enough to support a large family.

      Mark married a widow with two small children and moved with them to Cartwright to teach school. He also travelled long distances on the Labrador coast by dog team during the winter months and by small boat during the summer months. With very little pay he travelled to all the communities along the coast, baptizing babies, performing marriages, praying for the sick and dying, and burying the dead. Payment could be a pair of moccasins, a pipe, hand-knit socks and mittens, a tool of some kind — anything other than money. With barely enough to feed his ever-growing family he did the best he could under extremely primitive conditions. He often left his wife and small children to fend for themselves in order to take care of the spiritually starved people and to teach as an itinerant teacher. This took its toll on the whole family. Hardships and hunger were the results. Mr. and Mrs. Penny raised eight children.

      Keith Loomis Penny was born August 15, 1940, in Port Hope Simpson, Labrador. He was the youngest of nine to Mark and Elsie. Mr. Penny was fifty-six years old and Elsie was forty-seven when this healthy, blond-haired bundle of joy graced the Penny home. I would assume at those late years they did not plan to have a newborn. He was an inquisitive, mischievous child, and, to poor little Keith’s consternation, as an adolescent he was handed around to several of his siblings, who by now were married with families of their own. He was left to do pretty much as he pleased. Keith told me one story of when he was only nine. His parents sent him on the Kyle with his brother George from Battle Harbour to Twillingate. He roamed all around the ship alone. The ship was dirty and by the time he reached Battle Harbour he was black from head to toe from coal dust. No one seemed to care where he went. He grew up without a sense of place, a sense of home, or a sense of belonging. It took its toll on the high-spirited, sensitive, soft-hearted person who grew into a fearful, insecure man with an oversized ego.

      Keith didn’t have the courage to tell his father about my pregnancy, so I had to tell him myself, which was traumatizing for me. He then approached Keith.

      “What are you going to do about the young girl down the street?”

      “I dunno. What about her?” Keith asked his father.

      “She’s going to have a baby, so you’ll have to marry that girl. That’s all there is to it!”

      During the winter of 1961, my pregnancy was starting to show, and Keith and I were now disconnected from the few friends he’d been associated with for the past several years. I was pleased that he was so attentive, and that we spent a lot of time together, but I felt very uncertain about the future. A little later Keith and I became involved in community affairs. We sold church calendars door to door, and as a result of all of that we gained some semblance of respect from his family and Reverend Payne. We continued to participate in church activities with Keith’s parents until a week after we got married. Then he stopped all activity with the church and I followed. It seemed as though Keith was just going to church to please his father.

      In early May, I wrote to my mother telling her I was going to have a baby, and that my boyfriend Keith Penny was going to marry me. We hadn’t yet set a date.

      I waited anxiously for my dress to arrive. Finally it came in the mail and Mrs. Crawford brought it home. I ripped the package open and pulled it out. It was beautiful! The bottom had four tiers of wide lace and it had a lace-tiered bodice. With fear, I carefully let it drop over my shoulders and embrace my body. As I tried desperately to close the buttons, I couldn’t! It was too small. In despair I pulled it off and checked the seams to see if they could be

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