Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

Madeleine’s chest is pounding, it has started to do that on its own. She is breathing through her mouth even though that dries her throat to the point of paper — it will hurt to swallow. Like the time she had her tonsils out and could eat only ice cream.

“Madeleine?”

The judge is looking at her. “What did you see?”

“Look at me, please, Madeleine,” says Mr. Waller.

The ceiling fan grows louder in her ears. Where is Dad?

He is looking at her, his face tilted slightly. Pale and shiny. Guts, that’s what you’ve got . He crashed his plane. That’s what you’re made of . The right stuff. The truth will always be the hardest thing . Stab right through, like the coat hooks going straight through your back. Stab through and you will never have to go back there again. Nothing will ever press at your back again. Do the right thing .

Dad nods gently. Pilot to co-pilot . Do it your way, sweetie. Tell the truth.

And she does.

Her parents are quiet in the car. Up ahead, a pink plywood ice cream cone tilts toward the highway, but she knows they will not be stopping, because of the silence. She is relieved because she doesn’t feel like ice cream. Maman is angry. She yanked Madeleine all the way to the car, and Dad followed.

The Rambler slows and her father pulls in. “How about an ice cream?” He glances at Madeleine in the rearview mirror.

“Jack, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“She’s earned it, don’t you think?”

Madeleine forms a smile for him. He is not disappointed. He wants to get her an ice cream. Her mother says, “Jack,” but he is already getting out of the car.

She waits in silence with the back of her mother’s head.

After she told the truth, Mr. Waller sat down and the other lawyer came up to her in his gloomy black robes. “Why did you lie to the police, Madeleine?”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You’ve been a very good witness, Madeleine, you’ve told the truth. No one is going to be angry with you here today, but it is important for us to know why you told the police that you saw Ricky turn left, when you didn’t.”

“’Cause I—” Her throat was no longer dry, but neither were her eyes, they were filling up like dishes, yet she didn’t know what was so sad. As though she had just heard about a dog dying.

“Speak up, Madeleine.”

“I was worried that he would….”

“What were you worried about?”

“That he would get hanged.”

There was a sound in the room. “Order,” said the judge. “Let this child finish her testimony. You’re doing very well, Madeleine,” said the king of the frogs — he was not unkind.

“Now Madeleine,” said the winning lawyer, and Madeleine was on her guard, for he sounded as though he was trying to coax something out of her. “Who told you that?”

“No one,” she said.

“You’re under oath, young lady,” said the judge.

And suddenly it no longer counted that she was a little girl. Perhaps she wasn’t any more. Perhaps twenty years had passed and she was a grown-up, she felt her neck begin to stretch effortlessly like Alice in Wonderland’s, and her head begin to rise — soon she would be at the ceiling, getting her head chopped off by the fan.

“Who told you he would be hanged, Madeleine?” asked the lawyer. She returned to her normal size. “Everyone says it but it’s not true.”

“Can you give me an example of a particular person?”

“My brother said.”

“Your brother?”

“Yeah, Mike said.”

“And who else?”

“… My friend.”

“Which friend?”

Dad returns and hands Madeleine a triple-scoop Neapolitan, but he has not bought himself one to share with Maman. The car pulls from the gravel back onto the highway. Madeleine wishes she could accidentally drop the ice cream out the window, but that’s out of the question. So she eats the whole thing as quickly as possible.

The courtroom was as hot as an oven. Everyone was perfectly still. They were all being baked into gingerbread boys. Madeleine’s tears didn’t fall, they evaporated. She looked at Colleen. When the oven door is opened, she will leap from the pan and run away. We will run away together .

“Colleen,” she said.

“Colleen Froelich?”

Madeleine nodded.

“Was that a yes?”

Madeleine nodded again.

“Yes, the witness nodded yes,” said the judge. “Go on, Mr. Fraser.”

“Did Colleen tell you to lie, Madeleine?”

Madeleine didn’t answer.

The judge said, “Answer the question, Madeleine.”

But Madeleine didn’t speak or even move her head.

“Madeleine,” said the judge, “look behind you. Who is that lady?”

“Our gracious queen.”

“Do you know that we are here today in her name? When I or this gentleman asks you a question, it is exactly as though our queen were asking. Would you answer the queen?”

Madeleine nodded.

“Would you lie to our queen?”

Madeleine shook her head.

“Now, Madeleine,” said the judge, “did Colleen Froelich tell you to lie?”

Madeleine said, “I told myself.”

Dad stops the car outside Exeter so she can be sick.

Maman says to him, “I told you.”

“I don’t think you’re going to get much more out of this witness, Mr. Fraser,” said the judge, and he seemed to forget all about her once he said, “You may step down, little girl.”

Mr. Fraser turned away from her and went back to his table. Madeleine waited. There was something not finished. He didn’t do it . That was what she had been waiting to tell them. Ricky Froelich turned left, he did not do the murder. Ask Elizabeth .

She said, “Elizabeth—”

And the judge said, “The queen has finished with you for now, young lady, please step down.”

“Not the queen—!” she cried.

“Bailiff?” Mr. Plodd came walking toward her.

“Stop!” A woman had spoken, and she was making her way down the aisle. Maman.

The judge said, “Madam, please be seated.”

“C’est assez,” said Maman, clicking toward the witness box on her high heels.

“Madam, please! Bailiff.”

Mr. Plodd reached out his hand to Madeleine, but it was slapped away and Maman’s hand was there, with its red nails. It took Madeleine by the wrist and pulled her from the box and up the aisle. A jumble of faces bobbed by — Colleen looking straight ahead, Mr. Froelich with his head down, and Dad looking at her and Maman as though they were the last two people in the world he expected to see here.

“We’ll have a short recess,” said the judge behind her.

“Jack, allons-y!” called Maman from the door of the courtroom.

Madeleine ran to keep up with her mother’s grip, down the waxed corridor, between the paintings of men in robes, past a name on a door that leapt out at her, F. DONNELLY, QC.

Maman wipes Madeleine’s face with a wet-nap and they get back into the car. One good thing about stopping for ice cream at that roadside place in the middle of nowhere: it means they didn’t stop for ice cream in Crediton, where Mr. March lives.

“I want us to leave tomorrow, Jack.” She unzips her dress, steps out of it, takes a hanger, sticks it into the dress as though she were handling a boning knife and jams it into the closet.

“We can’t just up and leave.” He is standing, still dressed, with his arms folded.

“Why not? You up and go to that trial any time you want.”

“It’ll be over in a few days.”

“Are you going back?” yanking off her earrings.

“I’m not leaving before it’s over.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t do that to Henry, I can’t — they’re going to have to appeal.”