Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

She pulls on her skirt, buttons her blouse and picks up Jack’s uniform trousers, in a heap on the floor. Before folding them over a hanger, she removes his keys, change — a fortune in dimes — pencil stubs, paperclips, chalk — the amount of debris he manages to accumulate in the space of a day, he is still like his boyhood hero, Tom Sawyer — and a crumpled piece of paper. She is about to place it on his dresser — God knows it might contain one of his diagrams, a plan for restructuring the COS — but first, on impulse, she smooths it and reads: cherries, cognac, caviar… . She feels her face grow hot and places a hand at her neck.

She doesn’t try to create a story for herself to explain the piece of paper. She puts it in her jewellery box. Part of being a wife is knowing when to say nothing.

The flowers are in a vase on the kitchen table, “comme un beau centrepiece,” says Mimi, handing Madeleine a basket of biscuits chauds for the table, fresh out of the oven.

Jack is listening to the six o’clock news and reading Look at the same time. Mike has his baseball cards at the table, Madeleine is waiting for someone to notice. How come he gets to sit there and she has to help her mother?

“Tiens, Madeleine,” handing her the butter.

Mimi switches off the radio and Jack snaps out of his news trance, tosses his magazine aside, rubs his hands together and says, “Look at this, oh boy.”

Râpé , a delicious Acadian concoction of pork roast, grated potatoes and onions. Jack pats his stomach under the table and resolves to eat no more than one biscuit. If he’d had his gym gear with him today, he could have stuffed his uniform into a rucksack and run the three miles home from Exeter this afternoon, rather than taking a cab. He picks up his knife and fork. A woman like Mimi should never be taken for granted.

She smiles at him as she sits down, and Jack realizes he has been staring at her. He smiles back and sets down his knife and fork again as she makes the sign of the cross and starts grace. “Au nom du Père, du Fils et du Saint-Esprit …” He joins her and the kids, speaking rapidly, “Bless us O Lord and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive through the bounty of Christ Our Lord amen, pass the butter Mike, what did you kids learn at school today?”

Halfway through supper the phone rings. Jack looks up, mildly put out. Mimi answers and he waits. If it’s a hang-up, he will have to find some excuse to leave and get to the phone booth.

“Oh hi Sharon,” says Mimi.

Jack relaxes and resumes eating.

“No, she isn’t,” says Mimi. “No, I haven’t…. Oh that’s all right, Sharon, no, no trouble, let me just ask her.”

Madeleine looks up.

Mimi asks, “Do you know where Claire McCarroll is?”

“No,” says Madeleine.

Mimi turns back to the phone. “No, I’m sorry, Sharon, have you tried the Froelichs? … Oh well then, I bet she’s off playing at someone’s house…. That’s right…. Will do, Sharon…. Okay, bye-bye.”

She sits down again and Jack says, “Well madame, you’ve outdone yourself this time, they’re going to have to wheel me out of here on a stretcher.”

“Keep your fork, prince,” says Mimi. “There’s pie.” Tarte au butterscotch .

“Yum!” says Mike.

Jack loosens his belt. “Do your worst.”

“Madeleine, aide-moi,” says Mimi, handing her the kettle.

“How come I have to make the tea? How come Mike never makes the tea? How come he never does anything around here?”

Mike laughs. Mimi says, “He’s a boy, he has other jobs.”

“Like what?” retorts Madeleine, and feels the burn of her mother’s red nails pinching her earlobe.

Her father grins and winks at her brother. “He’d only burn the tea, right Mike?”

Mike grins back at him. It makes Madeleine furious. “You can’t burn tea!”

“Don’t talk back à ton père,” says her mother, sharply.

“Come here,” says Jack, and Madeleine climbs on his knee. Mimi leans against the counter, lights a cigarette. “Tsk-tsk-tsk, my papa would have given me a good slap.”

He strokes Madeleine’s pixie cut. “Maman needs your help,” he says. “Me and Mike aren’t any good at that sort of thing. Did you know it’s a special treat for me every time you bring me my tea?”

Madeleine shakes her head. She doesn’t dare speak, she might cry.

IT WASN’T A STRANGER. It was horrible because she thought she was going to see a bird’s nest. Robin’s eggs, the colour of her dress. There are boys who smash robin’s eggs, but there was no danger of that here.

There was the egg, held gently in the outstretched palm. It was hollow.

“I know where there are more eggs, little girl.”

You could see the hole in the shell where a snake had poked its tooth and sucked it out.

“Alive ones.”

So she leaned her bike against the maple tree at the bottom of the ravine at Rock Bass, and followed.

IT IS THE SOFTEST PART of the day; pillowy shadows have begun to gather, warm like a cashmere sweater, shapely and perfumed; the grass is still wet with the moisture of snow so recently soaked up by the soil. The days are getting longer, still light at six-thirty. The sun’s rays have turned from linen to flannel, even the gravel is painted smooth. The schoolyard is bathed in glamour, the white stucco of J. A. D. McCurdy powdered pink in the long laze toward sunset. Swings are at rest, the teeter-totters poised like a lady’s legs about to put on stockings, Hey, big boy .

Tonight, the Brownies are flying up to Guides. Benches have been set out on the baseball diamond next to the schoolyard. Madeleine is seated already, her hair tucked neatly under her brown beret. Sewn down her sleeve are numerous badges — some hard-won, such as that sporting a needle and thread. Sacrifices have been made. And this evening, she and her friends — not including Colleen — are getting their wings. That will make two sets of wings in the McCarthy household.

The occasion is tinged with poignancy; Miss Lang is leaving to get married. It is unlikely that an equally beautiful, kind and laughing Brown Owl will take her place. There is only one Miss Lang. She too is in her uniform this evening, her sash, emblazoned with crests and badges, across her chest.

Madeleine arrived conscientiously early, and sat in fervent contemplation of the giant red-and-black toadstool set up on the batter’s plate. She watches now with equal fervour as Miss Lang chats with her fiancé. Madeleine swallows a lump in her throat, and blinks. Miss Lang lowers her eyes and smiles at something the fiancé says. He moves to hold her hand but she gently withdraws and reaches for her clipboard behind the toadstool. Madeleine observes him; dark crew cut, forearms muscular and lean, the cool lines of his cotton shirt, ivory chinos and desert boots. His back pocket bulges slightly over his wallet.

Madeleine turns to look for her mother — there she is, placing a platter of pink-and-green sandwich rolls on the refreshment table. Mike has arrived as well, with Roy Noonan. They are playing catch. But Dad is not here yet. Brownies and their families mill about. Even Grace’s mother is here. Madeleine expected Mrs. Novotny to be a big fat lady from having had all those babies, but she’s skinny, with ropey arms and sunken cheeks.