She left the diner, vowing never to see them again. Let them go to Old Orchard just the four of them. Let them swim in the ocean and eat lobster and build sandcastles without her, the way they used be before she crashed their cozy little family.
She could hear Maggie calling after her as she fled, but she did not turn back. She neither saw nor spoke to Maggie and Gabriel for over a year.
Today, as she watches Maggie turn the sausages over in the pan, humming her favorite Edith Piaf song, Elodie can’t quite believe she ever had the nerve to sever ties with this beautiful woman, her mother. But she had lost so much in her years at St. Nazarius, and the one thing the nuns and doctors had not managed to destroy was her stubbornness. That stubbornness, bolstered by profound hurt, propelled her in her isolation. She was determined to punish her parents for their indifference and insensitivity, no matter how hard it was. And it was hard, especially with Nancy asking all the time, “Where are Grand-maman and Grand-père? How come we never see them anymore?”
When Maggie called her after their trip to Maine, Elodie said, “Please don’t call me anymore. Having you in my life is more painful than not having you.”
“Elo—”
She hung up on her mother, and again on her father when he called back later. The next day when she got home from work, there was a plastic bag outside her door. Inside were two hooded Old Orchard Beach sweatshirts—one for her, one for Nancy—and a small white box of saltwater taffy. Elodie threw all of it in the trash and cried.
Maggie and Gabriel did not respect her wish to be left alone. Maggie wrote her letters and called regularly. Elodie stopped answering the phone, but often came home to messages like We’re here when you’re ready. We’re not going anywhere.
A couple of times, Elodie spotted them in their car, parked across the street, watching her house. She did not relent and invite them in. She couldn’t. She would not put herself at risk again. Her parents were damn persistent, though. Eventually, over the course of that year, Elodie’s anger began to subside. Perhaps she’d been testing them to see how long they would hang in before giving up on her. Some part of her thought they’d be relieved to be rid of her, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
One morning she woke up and felt no more animosity toward them. The grudge she’d been hanging onto over the Old Orchard vacation suddenly seemed absurd. She felt light, cleansed. She missed them both terribly. Who the hell was she to kick them out of her life after she’d spent her first twenty-four years conjuring them and longing for them and wishing she’d had them?
She got in her car and drove directly to Maggie’s seed store in Cowansville. She remembers the bell jangling when she walked in, Maggie looking up from serving a customer, their eyes locking. Maggie’s face broke into a wide smile. She didn’t even finish serving the customer. She just ran to Elodie and pulled her into her arms and held her.
“I miss you,” she murmured.
“Me, too,” Elodie said.
“I’m sorry, cocotte.”
“I’m sorry,” Elodie said.
“Don’t be sorry, Elo. You have every right to your anger. We handled this poorly. And you need to know, we are never going anywhere.”
Elodie has had a mother for eighteen years, almost as long as she didn’t have one. Having Maggie in her life doesn’t completely erase her pain or blot out the memories or stave off the anxiety that can twist inside her chest, but Maggie makes everything infinitely better.
Looking at them all now, bustling around the warm, sunlit kitchen, passing plates to one another and chatting in familial shorthand, no one would guess that Elodie grew up apart and came to them as a complete stranger, fully grown. Sometimes even she forgets, and that’s the beautiful thing about family.
Maggie is trying valiantly to keep the mood upbeat in spite of this being a birthday party for someone who is dead. She’s made baked spaghetti with sausages and roast potatoes, and James has brought baguettes from Duc de Lorraine—Gabriel’s favorite—and there’s even a chocolate cake for dessert. The kitchen smells like heaven.
Maggie wanted to have a party. No one begrudged her, though James and Elodie did discuss how strange it was, maybe even a little unnerving. But everyone agreed to be here because it was for Maggie, and, of course, to honor Gabriel.
“As long as you’re not hanging streamers and putting sixty birthday candles in a cake,” James said when Maggie first brought up the idea at one of their Sunday family dinners. “That would just be creepy.”
It’s nothing like that today, but there is still a feeling of it being a little forced, as though Gabriel is merely upstairs showering and will be downstairs soon to join them. The feigning of joy is something Elodie is not only well practiced at, but also can easily detect.
Maggie brings the food to the table, and everyone sits down. James opens a bottle of Chianti, fills their glasses. “Happy birthday, Pa,” he says, holding up his glass.
“Happy sixtieth, my love,” Maggie says, her eyes shining. “You should be here.”
“He’s here with us, Maman,” Stephanie reassures her.
“No, he’s not,” James mutters.
“You don’t know that,” Stephanie argues. She’s twenty-one and thinks she knows everything. She goes to university in Sherbrooke, and every time she comes home for a visit, Elodie is convinced she’s a little more self-centered. Elodie hasn’t always gotten along with Stephanie; she finds her spoiled and entitled, like most kids her age. Maybe Elodie is just jealous that Stephanie was here first. Regardless, there’s been a rivalry between them since the day Elodie showed up to claim a piece of their mother.
“You don’t know what happens after we die,” Stephanie is saying. “How can you be so sure Daddy isn’t here?”
“I don’t see him at the table, do you?”
“James,” Maggie says, silencing him.
“I mean his spirit,” Stephanie clarifies.
“You’ve got to stop watching Oprah, sis.”
“James,” Maggie repeats, more sternly this time. James and Stephanie still bicker like children, even though they are twenty-one and thirty-one.
Maggie serves them each a generous helping of baked spaghetti, sausage, and potatoes, and then tears the baguette into pieces. Elodie’s mouth is watering. She will never forget the first time Maggie made her her famous baked spaghetti, the way the top layer was charred and crispy and underneath the noodles were creamy and rich, full of fresh tomatoes and a whole block of melted Velveeta cheese. Maggie tried to teach Elodie how to make it—she’s been trying to teach her how to cook for years—but Elodie has no talent for it, and even less interest. She’d rather eat Maggie’s food.
“Did you see the Journal de Montreal the other day?” Stephanie says, to no one in particular. “There was a story about the Duplessis orphans.”
“It’s horrific,” Maggie says, looking across the table at Elodie. “The stories that are coming out.”
“Not that we didn’t already know,” James adds.
“Are you going to sue?” Stephanie asks her. “That’s what they’re talking about on the news.”
“Sue who?” Elodie says. “The government? The nuns? The doctor who had me locked up?”
“All of them.”
“I’m going to call the Duplessis Orphans Committee in the new year,” she says. “But I don’t see how a bunch of poor, uneducated mental patients can possibly stand up to the government, let alone the church.”
“You’re not a mental patient,” Maggie says.
“I was for ten years. The fact that I wasn’t crazy doesn’t change that.”
“It’s still worth trying,” James adds.
Elodie nods, savoring a mouthful of spaghetti. Part of her is eager for the chance to fight for some kind of restitution—money, criminal charges, and an apology from all who were complicit—but another part of her is terrified to dredge up the past. She’s managed to string an impressive number of good days together, days that have quietl
y morphed into solid chunks of time without despair, anxiety, or grief. Does she dare even consider tampering with such a fragile accord?
“I was thinking,” Maggie says. “With everything coming out in the news lately and so many orphans coming forward, maybe now’s the time for us to update your memoir, Elo. Try to get a publisher.”
“I could help,” James offers.
“Do you think someone would publish it now?”
“Absolutely. And I don’t think yours will be the only one. I’d like it to be the first.”
“You should find that nun,” Stephanie says. “Don’t you want to confront her?”
Elodie looks away. She hasn’t had any desire to find Sister Ignatia.
Elodie was barely twelve when Gabriel and Maggie showed up at St. Nazarius looking for her. Had they found her that day, they would have brought her home right then. Instead, Sister Ignatia told them she was dead. And then, for no other reason than inexplicable evil, she went and told Elodie that her mother was dead, purposely keeping them apart for twelve years longer than necessary.
Not long after Elodie came into their lives, Gabriel went back to St. Nazarius to find Sister Ignatia, but she’d already retired from the hospital by then. He was denied access to the convent’s residence where she was living. Maggie always said it was a good thing because he probably would have killed her with his bare hands.
“When Elodie is ready,” Maggie says, “she will do whatever she needs to do for herself. This isn’t about revenge—”
“Yes, it is,” Elodie says.
“Well, fine,” Maggie concedes. “But it’s also about getting some closure.”
“If that’s even possible.”
“I hope it is.”
“I prefer revenge,” Elodie says, not meaning to be funny, but the others laugh. “I would like the world to know what she did to us. I’d like people to know that she murdered Emmeline and little Agathe, and told me that you were dead when you came to take me home. I don’t think closure is realistic, but I’ll feel a lot better when Sister Ignatia and the doctor who put me in that place are exposed for the monsters they are.”
Elodie can already feel the dark fog beginning to rise up inside her, so she does what she always does. She smiles. She breathes. She silently acknowledges everything she has—health, family, home, food. “Let’s change the subject,” she says. “Pass me the cheese, please.”
“I met someone,” James announces.
“Really?” Maggie says, brightening. “What’s her name? Is it serious?”
“Her name is Véronique Fortin. The relationship is purely one-sided. She actually hates me.”
“I’m almost sixty, you know. Time is running out.”
“She’s the daughter of a convicted FLQ terrorist.”
“Not Léo Fortin?” Maggie cries.
“The very one.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was,” he says. “She’s a bad idea, I know. But I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Is she a separatist?”
“Of course. Hard-core.”
Maggie rolls her eyes. “What is it with us? First my father fell for one, then I did. Now you . . .”
“The heart wants what the heart wants,” Stephanie says.
“Why the hell do we always want angry French Canadian nationalists?”
“It must be a gene,” Elodie says, and they all laugh.
After dessert, when the dishes are done and the kitchen is sparkling and smells of Fantastik, Stephanie takes off to meet friends and James announces he’s heading out.
“Sleep here,” Maggie says to James, a little slurry from the wine. “Don’t drive back tonight. It’s snowing.”
“I have to,” he says, hugging both of them. Maggie hands him a large chunk of cake wrapped in tinfoil and a Tupperware of spaghetti.
Elodie knows he probably wants to be alone for a while on his father’s birthday. Probably needs to get drunk and punch a wall or get in a fight.
When they’re alone, Maggie opens another bottle of wine, and the two of them settle in the den. Maggie has a new couch, navy blue corduroy, with an absurd amount of plaid and floral toss cushions that leave very little room for sitting. Maggie throws a handful of them on the floor to make room. “I wanted it to look like a Ralph Lauren room,” she explains.
“It’s nice,” Elodie says. “I like it.”
Maggie replenishes their wine, and they touch glasses. Maggie says, “To Gabriel.”
“To Gabriel,” Elodie echoes.
“I miss him.”
“Me, too.”
“I feel very sad tonight,” Maggie admits, her eyes filling with tears. Elodie doesn’t know what to say. “We were supposed to get old together,” Maggie goes on. “I’m just so glad you were all here with me. It means a lot. He would have been so proud of you, Elo.”
“Why?”
“Oh, Elo. You don’t give yourself enough credit.” Maggie takes her by the hand and pulls her into the hallway. They stand side by side, looking into the carved oval mirror on the wall, just as they did the very first time they met. Elodie has changed so much since that day, both inside and out. She still has the physical scars on her face, but she’s able to see beyond them now. She can see Gabriel in her full brow and blue eyes, Maggie in the shape of them. She wears her dirty-blond hair in a blunt cut to her chin, an improvement over the long drape of hair she used to hide behind. She has color in her cheeks, meat on her bones. They tell her she looks a lot like Clémentine, who is beautiful.
“Look at the woman you’ve become,” Maggie says.
“You paid for my teeth to be fixed.”
“I’m not talking about your teeth. I’m talking about your strength. You’ve raised a wonderful daughter, you’ve supported her for twenty years at the same job, you’ve overcome so much.”
“I’m a waitress—”
“Are you kidding me?” Maggie says, her voice rising. Elodie can tell she’s quite drunk. “Holding down a job for two decades after what you’ve been through, Elo? Do you know how many orphans like you are probably on welfare? Or back in institutions? Or dead? Your father would be proud of you for surviving.”
“It’s all because of you and Pa.”
“It’s because of you. You are the person I admire most in the world, Elodie Phénix. I’ve never known anyone as resilient as you are. Do you hear me?”
Elodie nods, moved beyond words.
“You are nothing short of a miracle,” Maggie says, pulling her into her arms and holding her against her breast. “God took Gabriel from me,” she says, her mouth in Elodie’s hair, “but He gave me you. And I love you so much, my girl.”
Elodie relaxes, allowing the good feelings to course through her body. In her mother’s arms, all is right with the world, as she always imagined it would be.
6
The roads aren’t bad until James gets to Granby, and then he hits a whiteout. He slows the car down to a crawl, flicks on his high beams, and turns up the volume on disc one of the Led Zeppelin box set, settling in and singing along.
He got into Zeppelin when they released the box set a couple of years ago. Forget grunge music, he thinks. Give him seventies rock any day. Forget Véronique is what he really means.
He just wants to get back to the city and drink. Not a polite Chianti with his mother and sisters, but a tsunami of booze to drown out the shitty feelings and fill the hole in his heart. This is what he does every year on his father’s birthday. He blacks out.
By the time he reaches the Champlain Bridge, the snowstorm has relented and just a few plump flakes are dancing in front of his windshield. Zeppelin is nearing the end of disc two—“D’yer Mak’er,” a classic—and all he wants to do is get the hell out of the car—and out of his head—and surround himself with people.
He parks in front of his apartment on Ste. Famille and heads over to the Bifteck, an unpretentious bar on a shabby strip of the Main whose mission is appealing
ly straightforward: offer cheap beer, stale popcorn, and pool. The place is long and dark, cramped and smoke-filled, with round tables that face the sidewalk and a couple of pool tables at the very back. When you walk down the narrow length of the bar, spilled draft beer sticks to your shoes.
In spite of it being your basic crappy drinking hole, the Bifteck has recently become a Scene. Everywhere you look, there are musicians from cool local bands like GrimSkunk or Groovy Aardvark; beautiful girls in secondhand jeans and suede miniskirts, with their flat milk-white tummies and their nose rings and their Montreal Plateau attitudes on display; Concordia communications students discussing their short films, artists discussing their latest installations. Combat boots, tattoos, dreadlocks, and Jane’s Addiction T-shirts. Never mind the filthy toilet or the stench of poorly cleaned vomit. This is the place to be.
James orders a pitcher and spends the next couple of hours drinking warm draft and shooting pool. He feels old. He is old. Everyone else here looks to be in their early twenties. He should be at Winnie’s on Crescent Street, with his middle-aged colleagues. He should be drinking cold pints with other journalists, talking politics.
Not tonight. Tonight is about obliteration.
He’s not the first guy to lose his father, won’t be the last. People tell him he should be grateful he had his dad for twenty-three years—the most “formative” years, apparently. No. He’s not grateful that his dad had a heart attack at fifty-two, standing in the middle of his beloved cornfield. James would have preferred his father to be at his wedding—should there ever be one—and to meet his future children. He would have preferred his father to be there for his mother, to take care of her into their old age. Would have preferred to keep fishing with him, hunting, having their long father-son talks in the cornfield while they examined corn tassels and swelling cobs. He does not feel grateful for having lost his best friend and mentor a year after graduating college.
Gabriel was not a perfect father by any means. He had a temper and could hold a grudge well beyond what was reasonable or rational. One time, when James was sixteen, he borrowed his father’s pickup truck without asking and accidentally backed it up into a parked trailer. Gabriel grounded him for a month, but also didn’t speak to him for the same amount of time. He felt betrayed by James in a way that was strikingly disproportionate to the actual misdemeanor; really, it was nothing more than a teenage boy’s poor judgment and impulsivity, but Gabriel took it personally. Maggie kept telling him the grounding was punishment enough, and that the silent treatment was overkill, but Gabriel had to let his grudges burn off, however long it took. He had similar cold wars with his sisters at various times, the neighbors, even Maggie. He was infuriatingly stubborn. Maggie used to joke that he kept a collection of grievances and resentments in a notebook, referring to it frequently to maintain and update them, like a stamp or a coin collector. He could not forgive easily.
The Forgotten Daughter Page 6