Inexplicable Excuses
an excerpt

She wondered at how she had gotten to this place in her life, how he had managed to stay away for so long. When she left for university, she made so many promises to her cousins, to her friends, to her parents that she would come back often. But the day she boarded the bus to Edmonton was the last day she saw Saskatchewan for eight years.

The first year, it was a blur of parties every weekend. Too many plans to go home and spend time drinking tea and catching up on gossip. Besides, the thought of being a hot topic at the card table made the thought of going home less exciting. After barely passing all her classes her first year, she had been too ashamed to go home that summer. She stayed in Edmonton and got a job at the Peace Hills Trust bank over on the Samson reserve near Wetaskiwin and crashed on her buddy Eileen’s couch for a few months until class started up again in the fall.

Crawling back to campus that September wasn’t much easier, but she had some really understanding advisors who helped her get back on track. It was one prof in particular who took a special interest in her. He was her Native Studies professor and he seemed to know so much about everything. He was handsome and intelligent, and he listened to her, talked to her, showed her what she was worth.

He was also married. His wife had come to Canada to study Native Studies, having seen a correlation between what had happened in her country and what was continuing to happen here. Instead, she met Jasper and married him.

That hadn’t seemed relevant at the time, though. Not when he did so much for her. And then, that day in December, when she had called him in tears, begged him to meet her at the Tim Hortons nearby the Eaton Center downtown, the fact that he was married became insanely relevant.