When they finish, they collapse next to each other, panting, damp. She looks at him, her eyes glistening with tears. Grief sex, he realizes. He did plenty of it after his father died.
“Where’d you go?”
“Ottawa.”
She props herself up on one elbow.
“I met with Ed about my Somalia piece.”
“Your knuckles are bloody,” she says. “You went to see Callahan.”
“I had to go to Ottawa at some point to visit Ed. I decided to kill two birds with one stone.”
“You didn’t kill him, did you?”
He’s watching her face, and nothing about her expression suggests she isn’t serious. “Of course not.”
She’s quiet for a long time. “I don’t need you to fight my battles.”
“I know. I did it for me.”
She reaches for his hand and examines the dried blood, his bruised knuckles, kissing each one. She rolls against him, straddling her leg over his body. “Thank you,” she says, softening. “I hope you beat the shit out of him.”
“He mentioned you’re selling him stolen CDs now,” James says, unable to stop himself.
She doesn’t say anything.
“Is that true?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“We’re in a relationship,” he says. “Your criminal life is definitely my business.”
“I was just trying to make a little extra cash,” she says. “For our future.”
“Don’t bullshit me. Your income took a hit when cigarette prices went down. A contraband-CD ring was your backup plan, am I right?”
“So? What’s wrong with a backup plan?”
“Have you considered just having your regular job like the rest of us? Taking home an honest paycheck?”
“You mean the shitty minimum wage salary I earn at Stan’s that wouldn’t even cover my rent and utilities if it was my only source of income?”
“I mean any job that’s safe and respectable, that won’t land you in jail.”
“And what? Become an upstanding citizen like you?”
“Your job is being a thief.”
“I’d rather be a thief than a poor sanctimonious cog.”
“I’m hardly a cog. I disseminate information to the public. I’m a truth-seeker.”
Véronique laughs at him. “And I steal from the rich to give to the poor. That doesn’t make you better than me.”
“It makes me honest.”
“I’m honest,” she says. “To the ones who matter.”
“You don’t have to be like your father, you know. You don’t have to live up to his legacy.”
“Please, not another sermon.”
“You should aspire to more.”
“I do aspire to much more,” she says. “For myself, my people, this province.”
“Your people,” he scoffs.
“It’s easy for you,” she says. “With your college education and your English mother and your affluent upbringing.”
“And where has crime gotten you?” he asks her. “Where did it get your cousin Pierre?”
He regrets it the moment the words are out. Véronique falls silent, doesn’t move.
His mother’s words come back to him, and he realizes, locked beneath her long smooth leg, that he has no idea who she really is or how strong her father’s blood runs in her veins.
He also knows she’s in a lot of pain right now, and this wasn’t the time to discuss her career aspirations. Her grief is still so raw. He should never have brought up the CD smuggling. He has no goddamn self-control. “I’m sorry,” he says softly. “V? Baby, I’m so sorry.” He pulls her into his arms and holds her, scratching her back.
Her body lies limply against his, but she stays there and eventually falls asleep. As he listens to her jagged breathing late into the night, he vows to keep her safe, whatever he has to do. She needs saving—mostly from herself—and he’s got to be the one to do it.
19
FEBRUARY 1995
Huguette picks Elodie up in front of her apartment with an Egg McMuffin and a thermos of coffee. She’s wearing dark burgundy lipstick and chewing Clorets gum. Véronique—who’s coming along for extra moral support—is already in the back seat with a box of Dunkin’ Donuts on her lap.
“Have you seen your brother’s article?” Huguette says, handing Elodie the newspaper along with the McDonald’s bag. “He wrote about what happened with the attorney general.”
“No,” Elodie says, barely inside the car. She felt bad last night when James called to ask her if she’d read it. He was excited that it had been picked up by the French papers and translated. She could tell he was looking for her approval, but she couldn’t fake it. She didn’t have the stamina. Not after what happened this week.
The attorney general announced that no charges would be laid in the 240 criminal complaints made against the Catholic Church and the Quebec medical association. After the Duplessis Orphans Committee failed to push forward the class action suit in the Quebec Court last year, all their hopes had been pinned to the criminal case. And now, after more than a year of waiting, it’s come to nothing.
She didn’t feel like sharing any of that with her family. She’s been spending more time with Huguette and Francine lately, which is easier. There’s no effort with them; they just get it. She’s come to regard these protests and meetings and court dates as her real vocation—the truly meaningful work of her life. Losses notwithstanding, this work continues to invigorate her.
“Read the article now,” Huguette says. “Your brother is really on our side. It’s good for us to have an ally in the media.”
Elodie opens the Journal de Montreal and skims the article, skipping most of it. A few sentences leap off the page, mostly for how much they aggravate her.
One wonders how the attorney general can rationalize dismissing so many similar complaints, but this is just one more injustice in a long history of injustices suffered by the now-grown Duplessis orphans. Today, they still struggle to find a place in the society that rejected them years ago. Many of them are battling a number of chronic medical, developmental, and emotional problems, most of which are irreversible. So how does a society begin to compensate for the lost freedom of its own children?
The attorney general doesn’t seem to want to risk hurting the nuns’ feelings by holding the religious orders accountable for their actions, nor does he want to set a precedent for condemning Catholicism. Instead, he concluded that there was insufficient proof to pursue any of the orphans’ complaints in criminal court. Their memories were failing, he said. They’d exceeded the statute of limitations, he said. There was contradictory testimony, he said. As a result, all the complainants’ statements to the police have been dismissed.
Elodie folds up the paper and tosses it on the floor. She felt differently when she read James’s first article about her, a profile piece that made her feel heard one of the few times in her life. Although he cast her very much as a victim, at least someone was publicly advocating for the Duplessis orphans. She remembers feeling quite hopeful when she read it, like something good could actually come of its publication. Reading today’s story merely has the effect of pissing her off.
The drive to Granby in the Eastern Townships usually takes an hour on the Autoroute, but a nasty clump of traffic on the Champlain Bridge delays them about twenty minutes. When they arrive at the house on Terrace Groulx—a new red-brick two-story with a white portico and white windows—a small crowd of about two dozen people has already gathered on the front lawn, picket signs in hand. I AM NOT CRAZY! APOLOGIZE NOW! DR. DUCEPPE IS A LIAR!
Huguette, Véronique, and Elodie climb out of the car and grab their signs from the trunk. Elodie’s sign says I AM NOT MENTALLY RETARDED! in dark blue paint. Huguette’s says, ACKNOWLEDGE THE CONSPIRACY OF LIES! Véronique’s says, JUSTICE FOR THE DUPLESSIS ORPHANS!
The sky is white and clear, the air frigid. Elodie is bundled in a heavy parka, tuque, scarf, an
d snowmobile mittens. The thermos of coffee and the Dunkin’ Donuts are for sustenance. They are prepared to be here all day, protesting outside the home of Dr. Guillaume Duceppe, the doctor who sent Elodie to St. Nazarius almost thirty-five years ago. With a few simple questions she was ill-equipped to answer—could she identify keys, a stove, a wallet?—he determined, with a satisfied swirl of his pen, that she was mentally deficient. So much power he wielded with that pen, enough to alter the course of her entire life. She will never forget his face—his pale beige skin, like a pan of solid bacon fat, his curling moustache and chilling indifference. If only she’d answered differently. Keys, a stove, a wallet. If he dares step outside today, she doesn’t know what she’ll do.
She marches back and forth alongside Huguette and Véronique, her sisters in solidarity. She isn’t sure how Véronique fits in; she only knows she loves the girl. Her youth and vigor motivate Elodie when her own energy lags, and her empathy over the last year has been like a balm.
“Is he inside?” Huguette asks a woman wearing a hand-knit brown hat and silver parka.
“No,” she says. “It’s just the wife inside.”
The woman has aged much the same way many of them have—quickly and unkindly. She looks much older than her forties. Her skin is sallow, pocked.
“How do you know?” Huguette asks her.
“We knocked on their door when we got here,” the woman says. “He was already gone. She’s probably called him by now and told him to stay away.”
“He can’t stay away forever,” Elodie says.
The woman holds out a gloved hand. “Danielle Daoust.”
“I’m Huguette. This is Elodie.”
The woman’s hand freezes around Elodie’s, her grip tightening. Her lower jaw drops as though to say something, but nothing comes out. Her eyes instantly fill with tears, and Elodie isn’t sure if it’s from the cold wind.
“Elodie from Ste. Sulpice?” the woman says.
“Yes. Do I know you? Were you at St. Nazarius?”
“I was at St. Julien with your friend Claire.”
Elodie’s free hand drops to her side. Claire.
“She always talked about you,” Danielle says. “She said you were her only family. There can’t be another Elodie, can there?”
“She was my best friend,” Elodie says, choking up. “She wound up at St. Julien? Do you remember what year?”
“Same as me, summer of 1958.”
“When did she get out? Where is she now? Are you still in touch?”
Danielle rests a hand on Elodie’s shoulder. “Claire died,” she says softly. “She didn’t make it.”
Didn’t make it.
People with picket signs are still circling purposefully around them. Elodie realizes she’s stopped moving. Her sign is resting on her shoulder, forgotten. Huguette’s arm is lightly touching one elbow, Véronique’s the other.
“She died at St. Julien?” Elodie manages, trying to keep the uprising of grief locked down.
“No, we both left in ’71,” Danielle explains. “We were twenty-two. We got an apartment together and started working at the Café Cléopâtre. Another girl from St. Julien got us jobs as go-go dancers. It was all we knew how to do besides clean toilets, and we weren’t about to do that ever again.”
Elodie shakes her head in disbelief. Her beloved Claire wound up as a stripper. The braids, the missing front teeth. It’s not possible. “How did she die?”
“It was an overdose,” Danielle says. “She was only twenty-four.”
“An accident, or . . .”
Danielle shrugs. “We’ll never know.”
Elodie hugs her, as though they’ve known each other all their lives. In some ways they have; they both loved Claire.
“She was a good soul.”
“Even when we were little, she had such a big heart,” Elodie says. “She was only a year older than me, but she took care of me.”
“She talked about you all the time.”
“We had no one else but each other.”
“She loved you.”
“Do you remember her thumbs?” Elodie says, through tears.
“They didn’t straighten!”
“She thought that was why no one wanted to adopt her.”
“And her deformed toe.”
They both laugh and cry at the same time. They hug again like old friends, and then Danielle shuffles off, her picket sign in the air.
“Those nuns deserve to be punished for what they did,” Véronique says, putting her arm around Elodie.
Not all the nuns were cruel, though. When Claire and Elodie used to hide under the bed together, Sister Tata would spy them and call them the Little Mice. Les ’Tis Souris. But she would leave them be, let them play. Once, she even told one of the newer nuns, “Leave them alone. They’re just children having fun.”
We will have justice, she silently vows. We will have justice, Claire.
20
SEPTEMBER 1995
“The first poll shows the No side leading by a landslide,” James says with satisfaction, showing Véronique the article in the Gazette.
“Get that thing away from me,” Véronique responds, unfazed. They’re lying in bed—their usual Saturday morning routine—with coffee mugs on the side tables and newspapers spread around them, staining the white sheets inky gray. Le Devoir for her, the Gazette for him.
A referendum date has been set for October 30, which will decide once and for all whether or not Quebec will separate from Canada. James and Véronique are both giddy, for completely different reasons. They each think their side is going to win, and they’re damn excited.
“Promise me you won’t let politics get in the way of us?” he says.
“Why would I?” she says. “As long as you’re not a poor loser, we’ll be fine.”
She moved into his place when her lease was up in July, and so far it’s been harmonious. They chose his apartment because it’s on a better street—the lovely Ste. Famille, with its narrow road and leafy canopy of trees. It’s also a lot bigger. He occupies the top two floors of a gray-brick triplex with large bay windows, two large bedrooms—they use one as a shared office—two bathrooms, and a spacious, renovated kitchen that has a dishwasher. The fact that James also lives in the Plateau has made the transition that much easier for her. She can still get her groceries at Quatre Frères on St. Laurent and get her bagels from Fairmount. They keep joking that if they survive the referendum, they’ll be together forever.
“What does your little nationalist newspaper say about it?” he says. “Surely even the Le Devoir can’t spin these poll results.”
Véronique slips out of bed. “Don’t worry about our side,” she says, putting a plaid shirt over her white T-shirt. She has a good feeling about this referendum. After a decade of failed constitutional talks, the French are more pissed off with Canada than ever, and with a new charismatic leader at the helm, she’s certain they can win.
“I predict a 70–30 victory for the No side,” he says.
She grabs a pair of his socks from the floor and puts them on her bare feet. “It’s freezing in here. You want toast?”
“Bagel.”
She leaves him in bed and pads downstairs to the kitchen. She’s happy here. James offered to let her paint the place light blue—it used to be beige with brown trim. Now it has a softer, more feminine vibe. Their stuff has merged seamlessly—all of their books lined up together on his Ikea Billy shelves, her candleholders and plants with his art and family heirlooms, a new rug. Her couch is in their office, and they use her antique wrought iron bed. Previously, James slept on a mattress on the floor. She gave away her hand-me-down dishes and pots to the Salvation Army; his are all brand-new, a housewarming gift from his mother. Somehow, it works. More importantly, they work. She’s felt more like herself in the last couple of months than she has in a long time.
She still grieves for Pierre. It’s been almost a year and a half since the accident, which sometimes
feels like forever and other times like it was yesterday. You don’t lose someone close to you and bounce back within a few months. She has enough common sense to know that grief is deep and savage, will ebb and flow throughout her lifetime, but there are days lately when she can think about him and it doesn’t feel like a knife in her heart.
Getting out of her apartment was a start. She also quit Stan’s. After Pierre died, she couldn’t face going back. She would always remember her parents showing up there and announcing that he was dead.
She’s still smuggling, though much less frequently. She reached a truce with James. She does one run a month to Billy’s Marina and makes all her deliveries with Marc. She doesn’t transport alone anymore. There were a lot of negotiations and ultimatums—not just with James, but also with Uncle Camil. She never told Camil about Callahan, but she did make it clear she would never go back to Ottawa. Camil wanted to know why, but all she said was she didn’t trust him, it was too far, and she preferred to stay in Quebec.
Camil was pissed off. Callahan is one of his best distributers. He pressured her for months about it, but she kept refusing. She also told him she wanted Marc to start doing the transports with her, as a precaution. He agreed, figuring it was a good idea to train Marc anyway. Marc had already started smuggling the year before. Camil brought him in right away to replace Pierre. He even asked Véronique to teach him English. Marc is a smart kid, a hell of a lot steadier and more reliable than Pierre was. He’s the one who used to pick Pierre up out of the snowbanks when Pierre would pass out drunk at the end of a night of partying. She misses Pierre, but she feels a lot safer with Marc, even if he is only seventeen.
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