Ann-Marie MacDonald: Way the Crow Flies

“Ricky Froelich was at Collins Bay,” says Madeleine. The two women fall silent at the mention of a name embedded so deeply in their past.

Small world , thinks Madeleine, and the next instant regrets it because that old saccharine song enters her head and she knows it won’t be banished in a hurry. Mr. March and his baton— It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears… .

Auriel shakes her head. “That was before Dave’s time, of course. But he knew the warden.”

Madeleine holds Auriel’s gaze a moment, then asks, “Do you ever wonder who did it?”

“Can I tell you the truth, Madeleine? I don’t wonder any more, I just pray for them all.”

“Do you pray for Marjorie and Grace?”

Auriel’s forehead creases. “Why?”

Tears have filled Madeleine’s eyes at her mention of the two girls, as if they are the ones she is mourning today. She shrugs. “I just wonder sometimes, you know? … Whatever happened to those two?”

Auriel is looking at her so sympathetically that Madeleine is tempted to tell her everything. She has fought so hard to find and reassemble the many pieces of the story, to make it and herself whole again. And now she must carry it, the information lodged in her like an unexploded bomb, a live shell left over from the war. I waved . Auriel is looking at her. Auriel is the closest thing to a real sister she’s ever had. Tell .

But her mouth won’t move. She has the old familiar sense of looking out from a dark closet, but this time she recognizes it as tunnel vision. Precursor to migraine or, in Madeleine’s case, panic attack. She looks away from Auriel, and focuses on her father’s hat.

“Margarine,” says Auriel, but she says it sadly.

Madeleine smiles. “Poor old Margarine.”

“They moved when we did.”

“The Nolans? Where, do you know?” She is aware of trying not to sound too interested.

“Out west, I think. Winnipeg.”

“Oh yeah?”

“No — nearby, you know there used to be an air force station, what’s the name of that little place? Sounds like a pickle.”

“Gimli.”

“That’s it.”

“That doesn’t sound like a pickle,” says Madeleine.

“Then how did you know?” Auriel laughs. “I saw her name on a list at a nursing convention about five years ago. But she didn’t show up. She’s a geriatric nurse.”

“Oh.” Madeleine shudders.

Auriel gives her a pained smile. “Yeah.”

She doesn’t know what became of Grace. They stand silent for a moment, then Auriel says, “I hope he’s been able to have some kind of life.”

“Who?”

“Ricky. He lives with his sister now. What was her name?”

“… Colleen.” Don’t tell me where they live .

“She was scary.”

“Remember Elizabeth?” asks Madeleine.

“Oh yeah. What a great family, really, eh? So sad. I don’t think anyone really believed he did it.”

With no warning, tears run down Madeleine’s face.

“Oh Madeleine, I’m so sorry about your dad.” Auriel hugs her again.

Madeleine sniffs. “Actually, I was thinking about Rex.” She is wiping her eyes, feeling better — out of the woods somehow — when she hears Auriel say, “They changed their name.” And she knows the thing she wanted very much not to know. Their name. How to find them.

The night after the funeral, Madeleine lies dry-eyed and sleepless with grief, on the pull-out bed in her parents’ rec room. Surrounded by bookshelves, trophies — public speaking for her, sports for Mike — and framed photos of smiling squadrons of men in uniform. Such young men. She never realized that before. Today at the church she was unable to read the speech she had written. She had composed a eulogy of remember-whens — things that remain unchanged by what her father told her. She wrote it for her mother. She got out the first few words, “My father was a good man.” And was destroyed. She pulled herself together, set aside the speech and managed to get through his favourite poem, “High Flight.”

After the funeral Mass, the graveside. Madeleine’s arm is still tender to the touch where Mimi gripped it as they lowered the casket. Gleaming mahogany. Rectangular excavation. Astroturf. Nothing to do with Jack.

Now, despite the soothing snores from Winnie, wedged beneath the covers, and the resonant purring of old Tante Yvonne in the guest room next door, the house feels too quiet. This is the true wake; the silence in the wake of departing mourners. An end to bright voices, the buoyancy of company keeping Jack afloat — he could walk in at any moment, it’s his party after all.

Madeleine can hear her mother upstairs in the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher. She looks at the digital clock. Just after three A.M. The rattle of the dishes gives way to silence. She gets out of bed and creeps upstairs.

“Tu dors pas?” Mimi is flipping through a Chatelaine magazine— “HOW TO TAKE THE MISERY OUT OF MOVING” “15-MINUTE WORKDAY DINNERS.” She is in her pale pink quilted housecoat and slippers. Madeleine is in boxers and an old T-shirt with “Joe’s Collision” printed on it.

Mimi puts the kettle on and brings out the Scrabble game. They each reach in and pull seven letters from the blue flannel Crown Royal bag. Madeleine looks down at her tray and sees, scrambled but unmistakeable, seven letters for a bonus fifty points: LESBIAN. She sighs and puts down NAIL.

“Tsk-tsk, Madeleine, you can do better than that.”

Something is different tonight — beyond the immeasurable absence of her father. Something one doesn’t notice until it ceases — like the sound of a refrigerator. Madeleine watches her mother’s long tapered nails place two letters in the interstices of three words. “AI? What the heck is AI?”

“A three-toed sloth.” For twenty-seven points. They always play in English — a way of handicapping Mimi so as to create a more level playing field between her and her daughter.

“Maman, you don’t open up the board when you make mingy little words like that.”

“No, but I win.”

Mimi is eating day-old burnt toast — that Depression delicacy — and Madeleine has a cup of Campbell’s tomato soup with saltines. À chacun son snack .

“Have you got the Q?”

“Yeah,” sighs Madeleine, looking down at her tray: QUEER.

Mimi drapes POUTINE across the board. “Voilà , a nice long word for you.”

Face value plus fifty bonus points for using all seven letters. Madeleine watches her mother totting up the points. “You’re cheating, that’s a French word.”

“Poutine is universal language, look at the fast-food menus, it’s right next to wings.”

Madeleine lays down QUEER for a triple word score.

Her mother doesn’t bat an eye, merely says, “That’s more like,” and counts, tapping each tile with a long buffed nail. “Forty-two points.”

“Maman, you’re not smoking.” That’s what’s different about tonight.

“I quit.”

“When?”

“Today.” They play.

“XI?”

“It’s an ancient Chinese coin.”

They switch to speaking French at some point. At least, Mimi does; Madeleine limps along half and half. But she understands every word. A rough translation: “For years after we lost your brother I used to pray that I might receive a letter one day from a Vietnamese girl. I imagined that she would say, ‘I have his child. Your grandchild. May I come see you?’ And she would move here with her child — a little boy — and we would all live together. She would be my daughter-in-law. Very pretty. Long dark hair, sweet-natured. She would speak French of course, and we would become the best of friends. Her child would grow up with her and your father and me, and … we’d all live happily ever after. And then — I don’t know, maybe only last year — after your papa had his heart attack”—here Mimi pauses to wipe her eyes and Madeleine hands her a box of tissues—“I realized that this young woman I was making up … this sweet girl with the long dark hair, she was my daughter. And that”—Mimi sucks in a breath through her mouth, unlipsticked at this hour—“I already have … a beautiful daughter.”