The Way the Crow Flies

by Ann-Marie MacDonald

  Madeleine looks up. Her father is standing in the doorway, staring at her brother.

  “But Dad, I can hardly hear it,” says Mike.

  Her father looks strange. “What did you say, mister?”

  “Nothing.”

  Madeleine sits hugging a couch cushion, while Mike drags himself to the TV and lowers the volume. Dad doesn’t take his eyes from him. “What in the name of God are you watching, anyway?” Madeleine knew it was too good to be true—the half-naked Nazi, the chesty mademoiselle—

  “Combat,” says Mike.

  “Why are you letting your sister watch that garbage?”

  “It’s not garbage, it’s good.”

  “American garbage.”

  “Well, we don’t have our own garbage.”

  Dad clips him on the side of the head.

  “Ow,” cries Mike, and turns red.

  Jack plants himself in front of the television. “I’ll tell you something: the Americans entered both wars late and they like to take the credit, but you know who was in the front lines both times from the very beginning?” It’s a question that requires no reply. “Canadians.” His lips are thin and shiny. Bluish. “Do you know how many Canadian aircrew died in the last war?”

  Machine-gun fire from the television—“I’m hit!” cries Sarge. Mike reflexively tilts his head to see past his father, who turns and switches off the TV. Mike punches his couch cushion.

  Madeleine says, “Two out of three aircrew never came back.”

  Jack says, “That’s right.” He grabs Mike by the ear and yanks him from the couch.

  Mike yelps.

  “To bed!” he says through gritted teeth.

  “Ow, Papa!”

  Mike, following Dad’s grip on his ear, looks suddenly very small and pink in his hockey pajamas and bare feet. Dad’s neck has turned red. Mike is trying not to cry. Madeleine looks down.

  “It’s not my bedtime, Daddy!”—the last syllables get away from him in a sob that he fights to snatch back.

  Dad pushes him to the stairs, releasing his ear, and Mike stumbles up the first step. Dad follows and grabs a close handful of Mike’s brush cut, hauling him up. Mike is crying, “Daddy, please stop.”

  Maman says from the kitchen doorway, “Qu’est-ce qui se passe ici?” and drops her purse to the floor. Dad lets go and Mike runs upstairs—Madeleine hears his door slam shut.

  Dad lifts his hand to his forehead and says, “Mimi, I couldn’t find the uh”—he takes a deep breath and Madeleine hears a tremble in it. “Where’s the Aspirin?” She sits perfectly still, clutching her pillow. Have they forgotten that she is here?

  Mimi looks up at him and says, “Jack, what’s wrong?”

  “Headache,” he says mildly, trying to smile. It’s blinding him.

  “Sit down a minute.”

  Jack returns to the kitchen, finds a chair and sits while Mimi goes upstairs to the medicine cabinet. Madeleine can see that her father is not moving. His forehead rests lightly on his fingers.

  Mimi comes back down the stairs. “Tiens,” she says, handing him the pills and water.

  He puts them between his teeth and attempts a grin for her. “Merci,” he says, and swallows.

  The pain is there to smack him across the forehead when he stands, but he doesn’t sit back down. The kitchen light trembles briefly above his head and he says, “I’m gonna go stretch my legs.”

  He walks past her, down the three steps, which have begun to narrow and grow dim, is the light still on? He will feel more relaxed in the night air, where he knows it’s dark. He walks out the door, and the missing patch of vision is restored, replaced by a wavering arc, as though his eye were partially under water. It will pass. He wants only to walk out of the PMQs a ways, to where there are no street lights. Street lights burn, hard haloes expunging all other shapes, branding the insides of his closed lids, boring through to the back of his skull. The sun today on the drive, no sunglasses. No hat brim. No supper. It’s just a headache.

  He experiences a sense of “coming to” in the black freshness of night as he looks back upon the lights of the houses and the station buildings scattered at a gentle distance now, a spangled square mile. At the far end, a red light flashes unhurriedly from the airport control tower. Jack has walked north perhaps a mile. He smells the new fields. Earth and sky. Now that he is better, he realizes that he was close to keeling over as he left his house ten, twenty minutes ago. A slice of steel is wedged at an angle across the left side of his head, bisecting his eye. Soon it will begin to loosen, throb. He’s fine. Couple more Aspirins and a Scotch.

  He turns for home. His eyes are watering. His throat is sore. Perhaps he is coming down with something. He stops, puts his hand out and rests it on a wooden fencepost soft with weather, he is weeping. It will help his headache. He is weeping and his nose is running.

  It’s amazing how a headache can undo a man, it’s just as well he came out for a walk rather than inflict this on Mimi. She would ask him what’s wrong, and although things are getting more complicated with the job he is trying to do, there is nothing so wrong that it can’t be fixed.

  Except that a little girl is dead.

  Jack’s forehead rests on the back of his hand and he gives the weight of his head to the fencepost. A child has died. He sees in his mind’s eye a little girl with brown hair tousled around her head, lying on her back in a field. She has his daughter’s face. He cries. There is no one around. In his mind he hears his daughter’s voice, Daddy. He sobs into his arm. Oh God. A child has died. His face in both his hands—dear God. A child.

  “Oh God,” he says, sniffing, wiping his nose with his forearm—the words coming up like crumpled paper. Breathing in through his mouth, both palms smearing his face. Not my little girl, but a dear child. Taken. Just like that. He slams his fist onto the fencepost, Jesus—and again, Jesus—let him alone with the likes of that, whatever it was that killed her—he wrenches the post in the earth like a bad tooth—smash him, tear him apart. With my bare hands.

  He lets go of the smooth wood. His eyes still streaming, he starts for home, pulling his shirt out from his trousers to dry his face, blow his nose. His hanky is in his uniform jacket on the back of the kitchen chair at home, he has come out in his blue shirt-sleeves, and now he realizes that it’s cold, April’s sharp end.

  He is grateful that no car has come along, for he is half out of uniform, no jacket, tie or hat. LMF. The initials come to mind—perhaps because he knows he is a poor sight at the moment. Lack of moral fibre. When he was in training, he knew a man who was turfed from the air force for that. It could mean anything. Usually it meant cowardice. Failure of nerve. Breakdown after a bombing run or, during training, the inability to go back up.

  Madeleine stands still as a statue outside Mike’s bedroom door. It is closed, but she can hear Maman softly singing. Her voice is muffled, but Madeleine recognizes the tune. “Un Acadien errant.” Mike’s favourite song. Maman has not sung to him in a long while, not since they moved here. He has not required songs, he has required privacy for himself and his sacred airplane models.

  Madeleine knows Maman is probably rubbing his back, warm beneath his hockey pajamas. Mike is lying on his stomach with his hazel eyes open, calmly gazing into the dark. Madeleine listens, standing so still she is convinced that, were she to move so much as a finger, it would creak and give her away.

  It’s like waiting outside an operating room to see if the patient will pull through. Mike is going to be thirteen in a few months. He would kill Madeleine if he knew she was out here spying. But he is too wounded at the moment to kill anyone. Maman is bandaging him up. Inside, her voice softly rises and falls—the tale of a wandering Acadian, far from his home.

  Henry Froelich sees Jack rounding the corner of St. Lawrence Avenue. He is out on his front step with the porch light off. “Good evening Jack.”

  Jack squints at the Froelichs’ house, shielding his eyes from the street light that spreads like a stain
.

  “Is that you, Henry?”

  “Ja.”

  “How’s she going?”

  “Not too good.”

  Jack has no choice. He walks up the driveway, his eyes still dazzled by the smear of light; he can see part of Henry Froelich at the edge of a yellow orb. “If there’s anything I can do….” His voice sounds high and reedy, does Froelich notice?

  “Jack?”

  “Yes?” He clears his throat.

  “When the police have interviewed everyone today, they interviewed you too, ja?”

  “Yeah they did.”

  “What do they ask you?”

  “Let’s see, they asked me if I was out driving last Wednesday. Out on Highway 4. Asked if I saw anyone.” He coughs.

  “You are ill.”

  “Some kinda bug floatin’ around.”

  “Do they ask if you have acquaintance with a war criminal?”

  Jack’s surprise at being asked point-blank is genuine, no need to pretend and no need to lie, for the police did not ask him that. “No, they didn’t.” He half smiles, triggering twin throbs at his temple. “I’d’ve remembered that one. Why?”

  “Do you wish a glass of wine, Jack?” Froelich’s hand is on the door.

  “Hank?” It’s Karen Froelich from an upper window.

  “Ja, mein Liebling?”

  “Lizzie’s asking for you, baby. Hi Jack.”

  Jack shields his eyes to look up and makes out her silhouette at the lit screen. “Hi Karen.”

  “This thing is so screwed up,” she says, and he is struck again by how young she sounds. “The cops kept Ricky for hours before they even charged him, no lawyer, never even called us.”

  “That oughta be enough to get this thing thrown out right there.”

  “I’ve got a friend at the Star, I’m going to get him to come out here and—” A baby cries and Karen’s outline withdraws.

  Froelich says, “Sorry, Jack, I go.”

  “Get some sleep, eh?”

  “You too, my friend.”

  “What does your lawyer say?”

  “We meet him tomorrow morning. Before the bail hearing.”

  “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  “Mimi has been already very kind.”

  The yellow orb has shrunk to a splotch and Jack can see most of his neighbour quite clearly now. There are tears in Froelich’s eyes. He extends his hand. Jack takes it.

  “You are a good neighbour,” says Henry Froelich.

  Madeleine’s foot has gone to sleep, crouched as she is outside Mike’s door. Bugs Bunny is asleep too, his ears criss-crossed over his eyes to block the night light. The only good thing about Ricky Froelich being arrested today is that no one has noticed the cut in Madeleine’s palm. She has kept it hidden, curled in her hand. It has scabbed over nicely and ceased to sting. She looks at it now in the semi-dark—a speck of moisture gleams at one end of the seam, she is tempted to see how far she can open her hand without causing it to bleed afresh. She hears the front door open downstairs, and steals back to her room as quietly as possible on pins and needles. Dad is home.

  Mimi has left the kitchen light on. She has made him a meatloaf sandwich and placed it on the counter under Saran Wrap. Jack puts it in the fridge. He reaches to the cupboard above it and takes down the bottle of Scotch. A bottle lasts a long time in this house, it is still half full from last fall. Johnnie Walker Red. He pours a shot and swallows it. Puts an ice cube in his glass and pours another.

  He takes off his shoes and creeps upstairs with his drink. The night light is on in the hall. His daughter’s door stands half open; he looks in on her. She is asleep on her back, curved like a fish, halo of hair on her pillow. He wipes his left eye, which always seeps after a headache. It was good to cry, he’s not made of stone. The ice snaps softly in his glass but she doesn’t stir. The room is full of her child’s breath, flannel, toothpaste and dreams. My little girl is safe.

  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer lies on her bedside table next to a tattered Golden Book, Pinocchio. She is a scallywag. She will grow up to be anything she wants to be. My little spitfire. “Good night, sweetie,” he whispers.

  Madeleine doesn’t answer, nor does she open her eyes when she feels his hand upon her forehead. He thinks she is asleep. She doesn’t want to disappoint him.

  Before he turns to leave, she thinks she hears him say, “I love you,” and this is surprising because he always says, “Maman and I love you kids very much.” But she has heard it, and it’s one more reason to allow him to think she is asleep. Through the slits of her eyelids she sees his back silhouetted by the night light, and she moves her lips soundlessly—“I love you, Daddy.”

  This too is a little surprising because, although it’s more often girls who call their fathers “Daddy,” unlike Mike, she never does.

  Lingering in his wake like a spirit, the smell of liquor from his glass, sharp amber, a new smell in her room. She adds it to her drawer of smells for Dad—cigars and blue wool, leather, Old Spice and newspapers, and his scalp after she has rubbed his head.

  In his bedroom Jack undoes his pants, careful not to let his belt buckle hit the floor. He drains his glass, drops his socks and eases into bed; it feels like heaven. He smells her hairspray, warm remnants of the day’s perfume—she turns. “Did you look in on Mike?”

  He blinks in the dark. “Why?”

  “He couldn’t get to sleep, he was so upset.”

  Upset? Right, a fight with his son. Over what? Television. Blasted idiot box.

  “Jack. Did you hit him?”

  “What? When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “No, no, lost my temper’s all.”

  “Go tuck him in,” she says, stroking his shoulder.

  She must know something is going on. Everyone has taken the little girl’s death to heart, everyone is upset about the boy’s arrest, but she must know something is on his mind.

  “Go on,” she says, finding his lips in the dark, giving him a kiss.

  He gets up from the bed. Jack has never brought his work home. He brings home his paycheque and his undivided affection. Men have to take things on by themselves sometimes, and not burden their wives—he finds his robe on the back of the door—their wives have enough to do. He knows she won’t pry. Not if he’s okay tomorrow.

  He goes to his son’s room. The moon filters through the curtains—spaceships and ringed planets. On the wall, the Canadian Golden Hawks still hold pride of place, but they have been encroached upon by a buildup of heavy armour clipped from magazines. B-52 bombers brood over a runway. A Sherman tank hulks amid tropical foliage, the cam-blackened eyes of a U.S. combat soldier peer through palm fronds. The Few, the Proud….

  He looks down at his son, curled in a snaggle of sheet and blanket, brow furrowed in sleep. Who is he like? Jack’s own father? Maybe; Jack doesn’t remember him that well. He was a little hard on the boy this evening. Well, he’s a boy. Boys need to learn. Tomorrow we’ll do something—what’s tomorrow? Wednesday. We’ll go to the rec centre, get out the floor hockey equipment.

  He picks up a baseball cap from the floor—“4 Fighter Wing”—and hangs it on the edge of the mirror over the dresser. Before turning to leave, he glances back down at the bed. His son is an arrow that he can point, draw back and release. He wants to fire him off in the right direction. Mike is a strong boy, he loves his mother. Jack just wants him to do the things he never got a chance to do. Don’t disappoint me.

  “Did you tuck him in?” asks Mimi as he crawls back into bed.

  “He’s asleep,” says Jack, reaching back to pat her. She curls against his back, slips her arm around his waist. Nibbles his earlobe. He doesn’t stir. She kisses his neck.

  “Jack?” she whispers.

  “’Night, sweetheart,” he mumbles. “Love you.” And he’s out cold.

  In Goderich, Ricky Froelich is wide awake. Out his high window is a glimpse of branches against the blue-black sky. If he jumps
, grabs the bars and hoists himself up, he can see the stone wall that separates the courtyard from the tree and the town beyond. On a sunny day or on a dark night such as this, the county jail is either picturesque or tinglingly Gothic. Either way, it is the oldest jail in Ontario, and one of the sights of Goderich, seat of Huron County, the prettiest town in Canada.

  It has happened a couple of times now that Rick has dozed off, then been awakened by the words “You still awake, son, feel like talking?” And they bring him out of his cell, give him a Coke and ask, “What did you do when you got to the intersection, Rick?”

  Madeleine dreams of the Donnelly tombstone, but instead of the chiselled names, each followed by the word Murdered, there are the names of the Froelich kids and, after each one, Adopted.

  RICKY FROELICH Adopted

  ELIZABETH FROELICH Adopted

  COLLEEN FROELICH Adopted

  ROGER FROELICH Adopted

  CARL FROELICH Adopted

  Rex is there and he’s licking an ice cream cone with his pink tongue, and someone’s voice says, “Rex is an Indian.” Madeleine doesn’t want to turn around because she knows that Claire is behind her, and the voice says, “Look at my ice screamer,” and just then Madeleine sees that it isn’t an ice cream cone, it’s a pink streamer—She wakes up with a yelp still in her throat. She has wet the bed again, oh no. She gets up and feels the sheets—even her pillow is wet. She sniffs the damp patch, tamped down in the shape of her body. It’s only sweat. She stares out her window at the placid moon. The moon has nothing against anyone. She stares at it, allowing it to cool the fear. There is kindness in that cool place.

  ONCE UPON A TIME there was a mountain cave. It was deep and dark, as dark as outer space, and inside the cave was a treasure. Slaves worked day and night to mount up more treasure. They enlarged the cave with their bare hands, scooping the entrails of the earth, toiling on pain of death, out of sight of sun and moon, so that for them time was measured in hunger and fatigue. They were beaten and hanged, they died of starvation and disease, they lived with the treasure and they slept alongside it in that dank subterranean world. And although they were dirty, the treasure was clean. The cruel masters called the treasure Vengeance. All this happened in a land not so far away, the land of Goethe and the Brothers Grimm. The cave was called Dora. The name means “gold.”