JANUARY 2022
More backstory to An Incoming Tide.
The relationship between Estelle and Nikki in the novel is quite problematic. As Estelle reflects in An Incoming Tide, it needs one fix after another—all the while, she is losing the fight for her own mental health.
Within the psychology of complex interpersonal trauma, there is theory around who traumatized individuals take as intimate partners, who they are attracted to. Down in graduate school in California, Estelle was rescued by Dodi. Dodi emerged from the chaos much like Aunt Leanne had done for Estelle in her childhood. Dodi became an extraordinary, loving part of Estelle’s life.
But also in the novel, twice Estelle came back to Calgary and found herself in toxic relationships. First it was with Everett and then with Nikki. In a sense, both of those relationships were like the traumatic and unfulfilling relationship Estelle had with her father—binding and hurtful.
And yet the sense of attraction Estelle felt in coming into these relationships was compelling. Perhaps in a future Fourth Comings, I will share more of the story of Everett with you. But for this month, let’s take a peek into how Estelle and Nikki got together.
The relationship between Estelle and Nikki in the novel is quite problematic. As Estelle reflects in An Incoming Tide, it needs one fix after another—all the while, she is losing the fight for her own mental health.
Within the psychology of complex interpersonal trauma, there is theory around who traumatized individuals take as intimate partners, who they are attracted to. Down in graduate school in California, Estelle was rescued by Dodi. Dodi emerged from the chaos much like Aunt Leanne had done for Estelle in her childhood. Dodi became an extraordinary, loving part of Estelle’s life.
But also in the novel, twice Estelle came back to Calgary and found herself in toxic relationships. First it was with Everett and then with Nikki. In a sense, both of those relationships were like the traumatic and unfulfilling relationship Estelle had with her father—binding and hurtful.
And yet the sense of attraction Estelle felt in coming into these relationships was compelling. Perhaps in a future Fourth Comings, I will share more of the story of Everett with you. But for this month, let’s take a peek into how Estelle and Nikki got together.
Estelle Meets Nikki
Estelle’s first winter back in Canada after four years in California was a climatic roller-coaster. In rapid cycle, the bone-numbing freeze of the polar vortex gave way to the mild, damp winds of the Chinooks descending off the eastern flank of the Rockies. Each time, pristine snow quickly turned into a slurry of slushy muck. Then the cold hit again, freezing the footfalls in the slush into icy, ankle-twisting traps. Other native Calgarians seemed to accept it all in stride. Estelle could not.
The autumn before hadn’t been much better.
Estelle’s completion of her doctorate had brought her back to Canada. And—as vibrant as the fall colours were, as dramatic the skies—Estelle’s moods plummeted with the declining daylight hours. She’d never noticed the seasonal flux of moods before she had spent those years in southern California. Back now to the more northerly latitude, Estelle found herself slipping further and further under with seasonal depression.
Initially, she was excited to ply her newly minted profession as a clinical psychologist. Then, Estelle found herself disillusioned with the agency politics and systems where she worked. She could accept the functional difficulties of her clientele in that downtown, street-level, mental health clinic. Her clients were a mix of the homeless with addictions, untreated psychosis and flat-out bad luck. She was buoyed by the small victories of relationship and courageous resolve. But the motives and methods of agency administrators and clinical supervisors created intrusions of grinding stress as they enforced policies that just didn’t work with Estelle’s clientele.
When Aunt Leanne noticed Estelle’s stress and declining mood, the old look of worry returned to her face. It was an echo of the past, of those traumatic years raising Estelle through childhood and adolescence.
Leanne and Gordon had set up Estelle and three-year-old Jemma in the basement of 113 Durham Lane. Jax had begrudgingly come through with money for renovations down there—nothing had been done with GJ’s dungeon in the years since he had left. Now, it would be a small suite for the next generation. Many evenings, after Estelle had put Jemma to bed, Leanne would sit down there with her to talk.
The talks were mostly about Dodi, California Dodi.
Upon graduation Dodi, Estelle’s lover and partner in caring for infant Jemma, had to return to St. Louis, Missouri to pay back the financial support a Health Management Organization provided for her to get her doctorate. Estelle’s student visa wouldn’t allow her to work in the States—and so, she had to return to Canada. How they had wished they could’ve lived and worked together. Circumstances drove them apart.
Estelle also felt an obligation to come home, an obligation to her father who had financed her graduate school education. Now as a psychologist, Estelle followed her psychiatrist father into the field of mental health treatment.
Returning to 113 Durham Lane, Estelle settled back into her auntie’s love, the love that had sustained her during her childhood and adolescent years. But, after experiencing the all-encompassing love of Dodi, it wasn’t the same. The Dodi love, brilliant light love shining through dark skin, had burrowed a hole into Estelle’s heart, nestling into the deepest self of her. The empty place, left there when they parted, sobbed and echoed in those initial months of Estelle’s return to Calgary.
It hadn’t fared much better for Jemma. True enough, Jemma had quickly attached to Leanne’s partner, Gordon. Gordon emerged from his shy, diminutive self to be taken with the clever little girl. During waking times, the two were almost inseparable. But at night when Jemma had descended into sleep, the night terrors would come. Her screams shattered the wee hours and deeply worried Estelle. Dodi, equally bereft in the loss of her little girl, sent audio recordings of the favourite books she used to read to Jemma. Dodi’s voice was the only thing that could settle panicky Jemma in the middle of the night. She would go back to sleep and Estelle would sit on the side of her own bed and cry with exhaustion and emptiness.
Leanne, noticing that emptiness in their talks, urged Estelle to go out and meet someone—to get on with her life. Leanne had left it far too long in her own life. When she finally got herself back in circulation, Gordon happened. And Gordon was good.
Finally, spring came.
The snow melted into a dirty wash and brown grass waited patiently for roots to warm so it could green again. Tulips sprouted on the south side of 113 Durham Lane. Urban deer came from the parks of the Elbow River to munch the delectable shoots.
With spring, Estelle needed a cowboy hat to wear during the upcoming Calgary Stampede. Estelle and Jemma headed down MacLeod Trail to the Lammle’s Western Wear and Tack.
Jemma bounces into the store with the excitement of becoming a cowboy. She has to see everything. In rapid succession her gaze takes in the boots, the plaid shirts, the hats, the belt buckles. She bounces beside Estelle. Estelle holds her back by holding her hand.
“Can I help you?” the clerk asks. Her nametag introduces her as Nikki. Estelle notices.
“Well, a hat … ” Unable to complete the sentence, Estelle is pulled from the conversation by Jemma, Jemma taking the brief moment of her mother’s distraction to tug her off for them to see everything.
“Looks like someone else is going to show you around the store herself!” Nikki beams at the energy in the tiny person, all legs and fingers and smiles. She follows behind the mother and child.
When Jemma stops for a few seconds, taking in the rich touch of ornate leather of a saddle on a stand, Nikki leans down. “So, my amazing little cowgirl, we need to get you properly geared up. No more Disney clothes for you. You are in Calgary. Cowgirl country! It’s jeans, boots, a plaid shirt and hat for you now.”
“But I want pink.”
“We can do that, let’s hope for your size in something suitable for the Stampede.” Nikki looks up at Estelle. “Is it okay if I take her, show her what we have in her size?” Nikki asks.
“Sure.”
With that Nikki and Jemma are off to another part of the store.
A wave of safety settles over Estelle, a different sort of safe than she had felt with Dodi. As Nikki takes Jemma to the children’s section Estelle notices Nikki’s broad shoulders, the lope to her walk. Confident. Strong. Nikki is wrapping a posse of protection and playfulness around Jemma, her eyes twinkling with a little girl to dress. Jemma’s eyes burst with excitement back. Coming over, Estelle reaches out and touches Nikki’s shoulder to get her attention. A powerful wave of sexual energy courses through her—confusing, disorienting, all-consuming.
Nikki turns to Estelle. “Price? Budget?”
“Oh, whatever is good. Make her happy.” Their eyes meet. The attraction between the two women is instantaneously mutual.
Entrusting her Jemma to the just-met Nikki, Estelle heads over to the hats. They all feel stiff and look odd on her head—a floppy, woven straw hat with the leather headband feels the best. Looking at the prices of the traditional felt hats Estelle notes the straw is cheaper. She would spend her budget on the excitement of her daughter’s new wardrobe.
Walking back over in her straw hat, Estelle calls attention to herself.
Nikki looks up.
“Nikki, I’m Estelle. This is Jemma.”
Suddenly, Jemma is not the centre of Nikki’s attention any longer.
“The straw looks good on you. Hey, wait ... ” Nikki reaches into her pocket and takes out an old-fashioned cigarette case, pulls it open to reveal pieces of straw, golden amber in colour, of just the right length. She puts one in her mouth and hands one to Estelle to do the same. She turns the mirror that sits on the checkout counter so that Estelle could see herself with the straw hat and the cowboy toothpick.
“Perfect!” Nikki exclaims.
“Can I see?” Jemma asks. Seeing the straws in the mouths of the two adults she exclaims, “Me to … Pleez!”
“Ok?” Nikki asks Estelle.
“Oh, I’m sure she has had a lot more gross things in her mouth this far in life. What can it hurt?”
Nikki hands one to Jemma, stooping down again to talk in a grownup, confidential sort of way, telling Jemma to keep it between her lips and teeth, not any further back or she might choke.
“Do you want her to try these on?”
Estelle looks at the sizes. Nikki had guessed right. “Oh, I don’t think so. They look good.”
“Please, mommy?”
Off Nikki and Jemma go into the change room. Frozen Disney is folded and set aside.
Upon their return Nikki playfully puts Estelle’s straw hat back on her head and asks if Estelle has a phone. Estelle hands it over. Nikki quickly takes a picture of mother and daughter, placing the store name Lammle’s in the background. She hands the phone back to Estelle.
Jemma demands to see. “And her too. Her and me. We dressed the same.”
Estelle complies. She shows the photo of Jemma and Nikki to her daughter. Immediately, Jemma takes the phone and runs around to the other customers in the store to show off her picture.
“Can you text it to me?” Nikki asks.
“Sure, when she brings back the phone.”
When Jemma returns with the phone there’s a text message on it. Where the hell are you? When do I get to see my daughter? Estelle dismisses the text—not fast enough, Nikki had seen it.
“From her father.”
“What do we have men for anyway?” Nikki asks in a mocking tone.
“Well ... ” Estelle answers.
“Yah, I guess. That’s about it.”
They exchange numbers.