Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

“Hi Dad.” It’s Mike.

“What are you doing home from school?”

Mike rolls his eyes, but Jack remembers as soon as he asks: it’s summer holidays. “Don’t be smart,” he says. “Where’s your sister?”

“How should I know?”

“What did you say, mister?”—his hand opening, lifting.

“Jack,” says Mimi, and he stops himself.

Mike ducks out of the kitchen. A crescent of soapy water sloshes past Jack’s shoes. “She was in the front yard this morning,” says Mimi. “Mike took her swimming this afternoon, now she’s in the Bouchers’ backyard, I’m her mother, if you want to know where she is, ask me, not your son.” And keeps on scrubbing.

Jack leaves. Winds up at the mess; it’s peaceful this time of day. He settles in by a window overlooking shrubs and the green sweep down to the tennis courts. He sips a Scotch and reads Time . President Kennedy has committed sixteen thousand combat troops to Vietnam.

When he gets home, the table is set for two, the kids are nowhere to be seen and Mimi says, “I’m sorry, Jack.”

He’s tired and his head is aching, but she has made coq au vin and he must be hungry, he has had no lunch. “Holy liftin’, a gourmet meal,” he says.

She pours him a glass of wine. “Jack, I don’t want to be a bitch, I’m just worried.”

“I don’t think they’ll convict, honey, I really don’t. Can I have a glass of water?”

“No, I’m worried about Mike.”

“Mike?”

“He quit.”

“Quit what?”

“Baseball. And he broke a window—”

“He—?”

“Don’t be mad, it was an accident. Over at the rec centre.”

Jack sighs, nods.

“And I’m worried about—” Tears fill her eyes.

“What’s wrong, baby?”

“Our holiday.” She weeps. “You’re using up your leave and you — I want to see my mother.”

He takes her in his arms. “We’ll go right after the trial, I promise. I got plenty of leave left.”

“Jack,” she says. She has put on perfume, he can smell it. He feels silk brush his back as she gets into bed next to him — the emerald negligée he gave her for Christmas. “Jack.” She strokes his shoulder.

She has rubbed cream into her hands to soften them. She feels terrible that she let him see her that way — in her work clothes — but he must have known the house doesn’t stay clean on its own.

“Smell nice,” he mumbles.

“Jack….” She touches her lips to his ear.

“Where’s the Aspirin, baby?”

She gets up, returns with a glass of water and two pills. “Is it bad?”

“Naw,” he says, rolling to face the wall.

“Pauvre bébé” —massaging his neck.

He reaches back and pats her on the hip. “Thanks for dinner, it was great.” He sleeps.

He is up and gone before Mimi wakes — there are his pajamas on the floor. She folds them, then goes into the bathroom. Someone is mowing a lawn nearby, she can hear the motor, and there is the particular smell of gasoline and cut grass that she associates with weekends, not Friday mornings. She brushes her teeth, and out of the corner of her eye she registers someone mowing the Froelichs’ front lawn. She glances, then stares; it’s her husband. Closing in on a shrinking square of overgrown grass in the centre of a perfect green carpet. The Froelichs’ front door opens and Karen Froelich comes out with a steaming mug. She hands it to Mimi’s husband.

Madeleine sits with Rex in the cindery strip between grass and street. She steers an ancient Matchbox truck through roads she bulldozed with a piece of roof shingle. She knows she is too old to play in the dirt by herself with someone’s dog — maybe I’m retarded and don’t know it.

There is a U-Haul in the Froelichs’ driveway. Her father saw it too, from the kitchen window, at breakfast, and said he was going over there to “see what’s up.” But her mother got the idea to go on a spur-of-the-moment camping trip, and told him to help her pack instead.

Madeleine is half hoping that Colleen may come out of the house and say hi. She is always at the trial, and when she comes home it’s late in the evening, after visiting Rick. But today is Saturday, and the U-Haul says that any minute the Froelichs will come out of their house and start loading something into it. Or maybe they are going to buy something. A new couch. Madeleine hears her name being called—“Madeleine, on y va” —and joins her brother and parents in the Rambler.

“No one ever asked me,” Mike mutters under his breath at the back of his father’s head. He spends the whole drive ignoring Madeleine and thumping his fist into his baseball mitt.

When they return Sunday evening, the U-Haul is gone and so is Ricky’s home-made hotrod. The Froelichs’ house sits empty. “What the heck is going on?” says Jack, standing in his driveway, fists on his hips, looking across at the purple house.

At first, Madeleine thought her father was offended because the Froelichs had decided to move without telling anyone, or saying goodbye. But it turned out the Froelichs had lost their PMQ.

“I CALLED HQ,” says Hal Woodley, “but my hands are tied.”

Hal is cleaning out his desk. The handover parade is next week. A new CO will take formal command of RCAF Centralia. The air force band will play, officers, cadets and other ranks will be in their uniforms — a dazzle of gold braid and, for the wives, new spring hats. Jack knows nothing about the new CO, but how reasonable is it to expect that he would lift a finger to help Henry Froelich? Hank is not even military personnel.

“Did they at least tell you why they turned him out on the street?” asks Jack.

“Froelich’s no longer eligible for housing because he’s no longer employed by the local school board.”

“They fired him?”

“‘Chose not to renew his contract’ is the official word.” Hal takes the framed photo of the Avro Arrow off his wall and places it in a box.

“How’s your young gal — Marsha — doing?”

“Well, she’s … she’s young, she’ll be okay. We’ve sent her to stay with her aunt out west.”

Jack knows the girl was taken out of school before the end of the year. According to Mimi, she had to be sedated when she heard about Ricky; Elaine told her that Steve has since prescribed a mood-elevating drug. But time heals, and in just a month the Woodleys will be at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Jack feels a pang of envy, then remorse when he recalls the Froelichs. Stuck here and virtually homeless. “Hal … what are the chances that a well-placed phone call to the school board from someone like yourself might—?”

“Tell you the truth, Jack, it’s probably for the best. What kind of life would the Froelichs have here after what’s happened?”

“But the boy will be acquitted, don’t you think?”

“Probably. But the damage is done.”

Jack nods. Extends his hand. “Raise a good glass of German beer for me, will you, sir?”

“Will do, Jack.”

Mimi and Mike have headed off to a movie together, over on the station— The Sands of Iwo Jima , starring John Wayne as a hardbitten Marine sergeant. Jack pointed out that “for a fella who never saw action, he sure gets a lot of credit,” but Mike just shrugged. Jack had officially grounded him, but Mimi told her son that, although she was not usually partial to war pictures, she’d heard this one was good. Jack gave her a look — what’s the point of punishing the boy if you’re going to turn around and spoil him? — but she ignored him and the pair left the house.