Just as Brother Denny Boyle told Blue on Page 90 that it was his “turn to pay the piper”, the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus is now experiencing payback time. It has agreed to pay $166 million to more than 500 victims of sexual abuse. The Jesuits are a Catholic religious order whose focus is education. and this the largest abuse settlement by any order of the Catholic Church. (New York Times, March 26, 2011).

Significant as this is to the survivors, this article represents the type of documentary reporting about nameless victims that we have been exposed to since the late ’60’s. It has come to the point where the public has become numbed by it all and just doesn’t pay attention anymore. Accordingly the article was placed on page 14 of the paper. Yet, when people read “Blue Saltwater”, some tell me that they find the story “dark”, like it’s a bad thing, and that it makes them feel the pain. Does this mean that experiencing Blue’s reality will help people more fully understand the gross dysfunction of the Indian Residential School System and its aftermath? I hope so.