Catching Teller Crow

Dad said his old man thought the law was there to protect some people and punish others. And Aboriginal people were the ‘others.’

“Maybe I didn’t see anything. Or maybe I did. Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

She looked at me—or, no, she didn’t, she looked into the space I was standing in for a second, then away again. “On if you’ll believe me.”

When your Nanna was little the government took her away from her mum. They had a law back then that let them take Aboriginal kids just because they were Aboriginal . . .

“Catching wasn’t lying. I know she wasn’t.”

“I don’t think she was lying, precisely. Just telling the truth in a different way.”

“That’s your plan now? Hang about and hold your dad’s hand for the rest of his life?”

“No. Not exactly.” Even I could hear the lie in my voice.

She pointed to the door. “Get out of here, Teller. Come back if you ever want help doing what you’re supposed to be doing and move on.”

“It seems to me he might be a little like my father—the kind of cop who thinks the rules don’t apply to everyone equally. He could’ve been too deferential to the Sholt family, given them special treatment . . . maybe let a few things slide about that home that he now sees he should have looked into.”

“I told you what I thought about your dad, didn’t I?”

I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything. “Yeah.”

“So we’re friends. Because friends always tell each other the truth. Even when it hurts.”

“I’m not telling you what happened to ask for help,” she said.

“Then why are you telling it?”

Catching drew her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. “To be heard.”

I was silent for a moment, thinking about that. Then I said, “Well, that kind of sounds like asking for help.”

“He eats what’s inside our insides. The colours that live in our spirits. Do you think I was always a grey girl?”

“It is your grey. Like mine, but not. Everyone’s grey is their own.”

I can endure.

As long as I remember where I come from.

Who I come from.

I couldn’t bear to say that the colours weren’t real.

People can time travel inside their heads.

Remember into the past.

Imagine into the future.

But sometimes you can’t escape the now.

If I’m dead inside, I’m free.

No.

If I’m dead inside I’m dead inside.

“If you can name it, you can catch it,” she calls. “If you can catch it, you can fight it. Everything has its opposite. Remember!”

No ticking clocks.

Just choices.

They measure the distance between who we are and who we’re turning into.

“This gray’s yours,” I say. “My colours are mine. I’m not carrying your shame for what you did. Only my pride. For surviving you.”

“Of course you’re here at the end. So what? It’s the beginning that hasn’t happened yet.”

And wherever we went, we went together.