Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

Madeleine says, “I’m probably going to be in the secret service,” and everyone laughs. She smiles politely. It feels good to make people laugh, even if you are not sure what’s so funny.

Dessert is on the house. Welcome back to Canada.

They pull into their driveway as the sun begins to undo itself across the sky. Madeleine’s interior movie music swells at the sight of its slow swoon over the PMQs; light spears the windshield, piercing her heart. Tonight they will sleep in their own beds in their own house for the first time since Germany.

In the basement, her father roots around in one of the boxes and Madeleine watches as he comes out with something more miraculous than a live rabbit. “The baseball gloves!” He tosses her one and they go out behind the house into the grassy circle. Mike is off with his new friend so she has Dad and the game of catch all to herself. The good smack in the palm, just this side of painful; the whizzing overarm return that he plucks easily from the air. The sun sinks between them so neither has it in their eyes, because when you play catch with your dad, everything is fair.

Oh no, here comes Mike with Roy Noonan. They have baseball mitts, they’re going to wreck the game.

But they don’t. The circle widens, the four of them toss the ball and an easy rhythm is established — thwack, pause, lift, whish, the ball cresting from glove to glove like a dolphin. Neither Mike nor Roy seems the slightest bit embarrassed to be playing with a kid sister, and the fact that Madeleine is a girl occasions no comment until, when the sun has faded to the point where they can no longer see the ball, and they follow Dad back to the house, she hears Roy Noonan say, “Your sister’s pretty good for a girl.”

And Mike’s reply, “Yeah, I know.”

What, about this day, has not been perfect?

When the kids have gone to bed, Mimi makes tea and Jack plugs in the hi-fi they bought in Germany. The station comes in crystal clear. “‘Unforgettable … that’s what you are.’” She sets the mugs down on the floor, he opens his arms and they dance under the sixty-watt bulb, swaying slowly in a clear patch among the boxes. “‘Unforgettable, though near or far….’” Her fingers curl through his, she brushes her face against his neck, his hand finds the small of her back, she is perfect.

“You want a baby from Centralia?” he says.

“I wouldn’t mind a little Centralia baby.”

“A little chipmunk?”

“I love you, Jack.”

“Welcome home, Missus.” He holds her closer. She kisses his neck lightly in the spot where the soft bristles of his hairline begin. “Je t’aime, Mimi ,” he whispers in his shy French, bad English accent; she smiles into his shoulder. “‘That’s why, darling, it’s incredible, that someone so unforgettable….’”

He could take her upstairs now, but Nat King Cole is singing and, just as on their honeymoon in Montreal, there is the delicious confidence of putting off the moment. Life is long, I am going to make love to you for years and years…. “‘thinks that I am unforgettable too.

“Dad?” through the slats at the top of the stairs.

He looks up. “What are you doing awake, old buddy?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve got butterflies,” says Madeleine.

Mimi heads for the staircase. “You’re cold in those baby-dolls.”

“No I’m not!” Madeleine loves her baby-dolls. They are the closest thing to Steve McQueen sleepwear — boxer shorts and undershirt.

“Where’s old Bugsy?” asks Jack.

Madeleine’s heart leaps. “I don’t know. I had him yesterday when we came into the house.”

“Well where did you leave him?” Jack glances about.

“I don’t know.” Her eyes fill with tears.

Mimi mutters, “Mon Dieu , Jack, you could leave the well enough alone.” But she joins the search while Madeleine sits, stricken, on the stairs.

Maman does not like Bugs. She thinks he’s unsanitary. He has never been washed because there is a small record player or something in his stomach — when you pull his string he says several typical Bugs Bunny things. These days his voice sounds far away, his words obscured by static as though he were sending a radio message from outer space, who toined out da lights?

Jack is bent down looking under the couch when Mike’s voice comes from the top of the stairs: “He’s in my room where you left him.”

“Michel,” says Mimi, “what are you doing up?”

“I can’t sleep with all the noise,” he says, joining his sister on the landing in his cowboy pajamas.

Madeleine runs to her brother’s room. Bugs is lying face down on the floor as though he’s been shot. She turns him over and he looks as amused as ever, Gee, doc, I didn’t know you cared . She picks him up and hugs him, wondering if Mike will be angry with her for snooping in his room. Bugs is the evidence.

But Mike isn’t angry. He climbs back in bed, saying, “’Night, squirt.”

Who is this nice Mike? Where’s the one who used to get so mad at her? The brother who played with her and tortured her, the one she bit, leaving tooth-marks in his arm? Two tears run down her cheeks as her father picks her up and carries her to bed.

“What’s wrong, old buddy?”

She doesn’t know how to blame it on Mike because, after all, he has been perfectly nice. “I was just sad about Bugs. He’s getting old.”

Jack tucks the covers around her. “He looks pretty spry to me. He’s got bags of mileage in him yet. Besides, Bugsy was never born, so you know what that means.”

“What?”

“He’s going to live forever.” He sits on the side of her bed and says, “Now you snuggle down and go to sleep so you can wake up fresh as a daisy, ’cause I’ll tell you what, tomorrow night we’re going to have a barbecue and you can invite your new buddies.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“’Night-night, now.”

“I made you some hot,” says Mimi, handing him a fresh mug.

He sips and says, “Oh, I invited someone for supper tomorrow night.”

“What?”

“Vic Boucher and—”

“Oh, Jack—”

“It doesn’t have to be a big deal—”

“It’s a big deal”—nodding, holding out her arms, surveying the chaos. Today she unpacked everyone’s clothes, did the beds, unpacked the kitchen, washed every utensil, pot, plate and pan, but the rest of the house…. “You want me to entertain like this?”

“I’ll throw something on the barbecue.”

“What am I going to do to you?”—losing syntax when she’s upset.

“I don’t know, what are you going to do to me?” He winks.

“Tu sais c’que je veux dire , how can you invite people when”—throwing up her hands—“oh Jack … who are they?”

He follows her upstairs and her rant becomes a whisper, then disappears behind the bathroom door. He goes into their room and places his gift on her vanity table. A little something he has been carrying in his shaving kit since Europe.

She returns from the bathroom, unzipping her own dress, you’re cut off, monsieur , but when she catches sight of the Chanel N o5 spritz bottle she drops her arms and says, “Oh Jack.”

“I’m still mad at you,” she whispers when he turns out the light and joins her in bed.

He reaches for her, fills his hands with her breasts, miraculous, her skin warm as sand, inhales at her neck, he has shaved for her, she bites his shoulder. “Come on,” she says. “That’s right, baby,” their first night in the new house, “that’s right.” It’s so easy, like dancing with her, and when she lies beneath him and opens like a tulip Jack is glad to know she is stronger than he is, she must be to take him like that, to stay soft and welcoming the way she does, only her fingertips hard in his back, “Oh Jack….” To stay soft the harder he gets, only her fingernails and her nipples, “That’s right, that’s right….” Her mouth, her tongue, her half-closed eyes in the moonlight, face turned to one side, for no one else, for him, “Take what you want, baby, take it. C’est pour toi.”