Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

There is a small firepit and, under a rock, her tobacco, rolling papers and matches. She lights up. The pony drinks from the stream below. They lean back and look up at the first stars appearing in the intensifying blue. This is the life, pardner . “Hey Colleen. Is it an Indian custom — I mean, Métis?”

“What?”

“Being blood sisters.”

“How should I know, I got it off a movie.”

Colleen passes her the cigarette and Madeleine takes it, careful to betray no surprise. She holds it smouldering between index and middle finger, flooded with forbidden glamour — but she does not yield to the temptation to do Zsa Zsa or Bogart. She simply takes a puff and is immediately seized with a fit of coughing, eyes streaming, marvelling through the pain at how something so insubstantial as smoke can sear like a hot blade. When she can breathe again, she hands it back and says, “Ci pa gran chouz.”

Colleen laughs.

Madeleine reaches for a blade of grass. “We could light outta here,” she says, chewing the tender pale shoot. Head for the territories.”

“What territories?”

“Well. You know, we could just ride away.”

Colleen takes a drag from her cigarette. “You always run into something no matter where you go. Turns out you’re someplace after all.” She exhales. “Know what I mean?”

Madeleine feels her eyes widen in mystification, but she nods and, in a tone she hopes sounds both weary and comprehending, replies, “Yeah.”

She is about to suggest that they make a fire when Colleen says, “That’s what happened when we exscaped from the training school.”

“Is that when you rode to Calgary?”

“Yeah.” Colleen spits out a speck of tobacco, narrows her eyes and runs the tip of her tongue along her lower lip. “They brung us back.”

“How come you …” Madeleine doesn’t want to sound as though she is correcting Colleen, so she likewise says, “exscaped?”

“’Cause there was one or two sick fuckers there, eh?”

Madeleine’s desire to build a fire dies even as it occurs to her to wish she had brought a jacket. When she speaks again she tries to sound casual, this time not in order to convince Colleen that she knows what Colleen is talking about, but in order to reassure herself that she does not. She forms a polite question. “What did they have?”

“Not a disease, Dummkopf,” replies Colleen.

Madeleine swallows and waits. She doesn’t know the way back to the car. She doesn’t know where they are or how long it has taken to get here.

“They were sick in the head,” says Colleen. “They liked little kids.”

Madeleine stares at the cold firepit and doesn’t ask.

Colleen says, “Know what I mean?” Madeleine shakes her head. “Good,” says Colleen. “Hope you never find out.” She takes a big drag.

Madeleine starts to shiver. She concentrates on the red ember glowing at the end of Colleen’s cigarette. The world seems suddenly huge and chilly, a place where she might roll and rattle about endlessly, like a marble. She watches the red dot arc from Colleen’s fingers down into the stream, where it sizzles and disappears. She wants to go home and watch television, she doesn’t want to live in a trailer after all.

Colleen stands up and makes a clicking sound with her mouth, and the pony turns and shambles up to them. Madeleine gets up. She waits for Colleen to mount first, but Colleen says, “Hop on.” Madeleine feels too heavy to jump up this time, but before she knows it Colleen is boosting her. She swings her leg over and lurches forward, grasping a handful of mane as the pony shifts his weight. Colleen says, “Hang on,” and starts to run. The pony follows, and Madeleine does hang on.

By the time they get back to the trailer it’s dark, the crickets are singing and Madeleine’s legs are still trembling, her heart still ping-ponging.

Colleen says, “You can come back and ride any time you want.”

The grown-ups are sitting out front on kitchen chairs, with glasses of wine, and Elizabeth is wrapped in a Hudson’s Bay blanket, asleep in her wheelchair. A kerosene lamp burns on a stump and Mrs. Froelich is bent over Ricky’s guitar, strumming and singing softly, “‘Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing, where have all the flowers gone, long time ago …?’”

A lump forms in Madeleine’s throat, and she hangs back in the deeper shadow of the trailer. She watches Colleen walk into the pool of light and Mr. Froelich’s encircling arm. Madeleine skirts the light and comes up behind her father. She leans on the back of his chair and he says softly, “Did you have fun, sweetie?” She nods, even though she is behind him. They wait until the song has ended, then Jack gets up.

Karen puts her arms around him and says, “Thank you,” in his ear. He feels her about to step back again, and holds her briefly. He feels her return the pressure of his embrace for an instant, then she turns away. It has taken all of a few seconds. Henry Froelich grasps his hand with both his own. “Danke , Jack. You are a mensch.”

As they pull away, Madeleine folds her arms on the open window frame, rests her chin and watches the Froelichs recede into the night. Colleen raises her hand so Madeleine does too, and waves goodbye.

But Colleen is not waving. She is simply holding her hand up, perfectly still. Like an Indian in a western: How . Confident that she will not be giving offence by following Colleen’s lead, Madeleine stills her own hand. And in doing so, she realizes that Colleen is not saying How . She is showing Madeleine the scar in the palm of her hand.

The Rambler rounds a bend in the track, and the light of the Froelichs’ patch of world disappears.

When they pull into the driveway, Madeleine says, “Dad, I just remembered something.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m not allowed to play with Colleen.”

“You’re not? Who told you that?”

“Maman.”

Jack hesitates. The lights are off in the house, Mimi and Mike are still out. He says, “Well, I won’t mention it if you don’t.”

When he makes love to his wife that night, he imagines a thinner woman — her hair less rich, her cheek almost gaunt, her body less supple — a woman less beautiful than his wife.

THE BOUCHERS’ HOUSE sits blank at the corner of Columbia and St. Lawrence. Like Lisa’s and Colleen’s and Claire’s, it no longer remembers Madeleine or how she so often entered its front door and played in its rooms and backyard. Her footprints and those of her friends, the echoes of their voices etched in the air, all have disappeared. The houses are waiting for the next families to move in and to believe that they own them, that the things they do beneath those roofs and on those lawns, the games, the meals, Christmases and dreams, are tangible, indelible. Where do they go? All the remember-whens?

The night before Madeleine is to testify at Ricky’s trial, Mimi makes her favourite supper: wiener schnitzel. She takes it straight from the frying pan and puts it onto Madeleine’s plate, saying, “What would you like to wear tomorrow, ma p’tite?”

“Something not too scratchy,” says Madeleine.

Mike says, “How come I can’t go?”