Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

How can a grown-up ever gain entry? Unless you become as one of these… . Not “innocent,” just new. Raw and so very available to life. Why do grown-ups insist on childhood “innocence”? It’s a static quality, but children are in flux, they grow, they change. The grown-ups want them to carry that precious thing they believe they too once had. And the children do carry it, because they are very strong. The problem is, they know. And they will do anything to protect the grown-ups from knowledge. The child knows that the grown-up values innocence, and the child assumes that this is because the grown-up is innocent and therefore must be protected from the truth. And if the ignorant grown-up is innocent, then the knowing child must be guilty. Like Madeleine.

She left something back there, dropped it in the grass.

Where?

In the meadow .

If she could go back and find herself at nine, she could ask and she would listen. The pieces would become a story and lead back here to where she lies on the rug at thirty-two. And she would be able to get up again.

CLAIRE MCCARROLL Murdered

MADELEINE MCCARTHY Murdered

MARJORIE NOLAN Murdered

GRACE NOVOTNY Murdered

JOYCE NUTT Murdered

DIANE VOGEL Murdered

AFTER JACK GOT HOME from the hospital, he gave his wife a gift. Unlike the mink coat, it was something she still wanted very badly. He passed it to her carefully. She received it as the precious and fragile object it was. Like a Fabergé egg, sapphire-blue in her hands:

I never touched Karen Froelich .

Here is how you will know I am telling the truth .

It was I who waved .

This is what a good wife could do for you if you were of that generation. She could take something terribly dark. Terribly heavy. Corrosive. And in her hands it could shine like a jewel, simply because you had shared it with her. Your Secret becomes Our Secret.

But few people are ever lucky enough to have such a marriage. And while his gift was not, and now never could be, the third child that Mimi had prayed for, it was precious nonetheless. And it made her weep because he was and always had been hers. Always would be. She longed to give him something in return. It wasn’t your fault our son went away. I forgive you . But the two statements didn’t add up, so she kissed him instead, stroked his face and put the kettle on.

HERE IS SOMETHING that will always make sense: it’s my fault.

Take Highway 2 east out of Toronto. Through suburban sprawl interrupted by farmhouses stranded on shrinking arable islands, through towns where split-levels and monster homes crowd out or ye-oldify the gingerbreaded main street, which never ends but morphs into fast-food, new-and-used, superstore, multiplex and featureless buildings that have created a housing crisis for ghosts. I saved myself from after-three, but that only caused him to claim Claire as my replacement .

Back within sight of Lake Ontario on your right — so close yet inaccessible, because where there are roads leading down to it there are also housing developments and factories and fences. You could abandon your car and travel like a dog through the long grass over lumpy ground to the shore, where signs tell you what, precisely, is unsafe about this particular spot. This is North America, there are signs warning you of danger everywhere. Caution: Cliff. We are at the point where we risk walking off the edge of any precipice, however stark, that is not furnished with a sign. Caution: Children. I saved Claire with the letter from the Human Sword, but that only drove him from the classroom to the meadow, where there was no door to close, no other little girls to see, no principal just down the hall… .

Turn north on Highway 33. The landscape changes, highway slicing through limestone, exposed rock face on both sides, teeming with still-life, layer upon fossilized layer spray-painted now with graffiti. If only I had told my dad . Careful not to get into a mental groove or make a nursery rhyme out of your guilt, you will be lulled smack into KILROY WAS HERE. Claire wouldn’t have died, I wouldn’t have lied, Ricky wouldn’t’ve needed an alibi, he’d never’ve gone to jail . This is the land of Hidden Intersections and painted yellow signs with leaping deer. Mike would not have gone away, Mr. Froelich would be alive today . Take number 16, soon to be the Veterans Memorial Highway, Lest We Forget, my dad would not be ill . Welcome to the National Capital Region, Bienvenue à la Région de la Capitale nationale…. and all for the want of a horseshoe nail .

These two-lane, two-way highways are statistically more dangerous than the straight multi-lane 401, the difference being that these winding roads, with their scenery and their signs, are narrative. The 401 is just a series of facts. Armed with a Tim Hortons’ coffee, Madeleine feels no sense of dissolving from within, no dread that her hand will wrench the wheel into the Canadian Shield. The rain starts and she turns on the radio and windshield wipers. Leslie Gore sings “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows.” Everything is going to be okay. I’m going home. To my mum and dad.

What will you do when you get there, Madeleine?

I will tell my dad what happened to me. And my mother will make me a plate of food.

Why must you tell now?

Because there is a person who can save me, a perfect donor match, she is nine, I have to find her before it’s too late.

I will say, Dad, someone hurt me.

I will say, Dad, please walk me to school today.

Watch me, Dad.

And I will never again have to wait my turn in the lonely lonely classroom where the clock is always set at five past three.

She is hungry and almost happy. She drives out of the rain and into one of Ottawa’s unlikely tropical sunsets.

Sailing along the Queensway, glimpse of the flag atop the Parliament Buildings. Maple leaf. No emblem of war or victory or workers’ solidarity. A leaf red as a crayon, the kind children collect in autumn.

There is a way back, after all. Through the front door of a new ground-floor condo in the suburbs of Ottawa. It opens onto all the modern conveniences and the one person in the world capable of taking her back there. Once upon a time there was a young air force pilot named Jack and a pretty Acadian nurse called Mimi.

Open Sesame.

ONCE UPON A TIME, there were magic words that soothed us. In defence of democracy. Just say no. Resolve. Freedom. Justice . We no longer liked the word “war” because it conjured up pictures of soldiers burning villages in order to save them. But war was potent if it was summoned against a concept or social condition. When we went to war against people, we preferred to call it by names that resembled movie titles, with their comforting implication of beginning, middle and end, as well as their expedient hint at a sequel.

Some of us conscientiously gathered proof to justify attacking tyrants, while others waited to examine the evidence duly laid out. But we all ignored the story of how we had helped to create them: the drug lords, the war lords, the nuts who, with our help or the help of our friends, had cut down the ranks of the moderate among them. This was an old story and we wanted to believe in a new world order, so we ignored it. But empires have always divided and conquered, tilted and tolerated. And prospered for a time. It’s a question of balance, and the problem, in the end, is always greed. Like the story of the king who grew hungrier the more he ate. Like the aldermen of Hamelin, who, seeing their fair city cleansed of rats, refused to pay the Piper.