The Forgotten Daughter

by Joanna Goodman

  “Understandably,” he murmurs.

  “I’d like you to put that in writing.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I would like you to write a letter saying that you falsely diagnosed me on the orders of the nuns and the Duplessis government, even though you knew I was not mentally deficient.”

  “I don’t understand what that will accomplish.”

  “Having it in writing will bring me some peace of mind.”

  She did not come here with the intention of forcing him to write a confession letter or an apology; the idea did not occur to her until just now. But having asked for it, she will not leave here without it.

  “What will you do with it?” he asks nervously. Not a monster, but a coward.

  “I don’t know yet. Probably just keep it in the drawer beside my bed, to remind myself every day that I’m not crazy, and I never was.”

  “He’ll do it,” Mme. Duceppe intervenes, stepping into the room with a pen and a notepad. She hands it to her husband, glaring at him. Dr. Duceppe takes the pen. Elodie can’t help thinking about the last time they sat across from each other, him with his pen and pad, jotting down notes, barely looking at her; and Elodie, completely naïve and trusting, her fate—unbeknownst to her—about to be sealed by the stroke of his pen.

  “What do you want me to say?” he asks her.

  “The truth.”

  He bows his head over the page and begins to write. A strand of white hair flops over his eye. His brows furrow in concentration, a snowy ledge across his forehead. Elodie watches him write. Anxious about reading it. She isn’t sure what she’ll do with it yet, possibly just leave it in her drawer, read it whenever her self-confidence is waning. Or maybe she’ll present it in court one day—proof of the falsification of her records. She makes a mental note to discuss it with Bruno.

  “You said you were five?” he confirms, head still bent.

  “Yes.”

  “And you go by Elodie de Ste. Sulpice?”

  “Elodie Phénix,” she clarifies. “I took back my parents’ name.”

  He looks up, smiles. “Well, that’s wonderful.” When he’s finished writing, he rests the pen on the coffee table. “I wish I could do more,” he says, handing her the letter.

  “It’s too late for that,” she says, standing up and taking it from him. She reads it right in front of him.

  I am writing this letter to acknowledge a grave moral mistake I made in the early years of my career in psychiatry. In 1955, I was tasked with examining a number of children at the Ste. Sulpice Orphanage in Farnham, Quebec, in order to diagnose their mental health. Under direct orders from the Grey Nuns, immediately following Premier Duplessis’s reclassification of the province’s orphanages into psychiatric institutions, I personally diagnosed a number of seemingly healthy children as mentally deficient. My reports were entirely false.

  What stood out to me during those interviews at Ste. Sulpice was that the girls—ranging in age from five to fourteen—were generally bright and of sound mind. In other words, they were normal and frankly educable. While the level of their education to that point lagged somewhat behind the provincial standard, this was no doubt the result of having been institutionalized since birth. The orphans I examined were indeed sheltered and unworldly, but not one of them was mentally deficient.

  One of those orphans was Elodie Phénix. She showed up on my doorstep this evening with her medical records in hand and asked me why I had signed a false diagnosis of mental deficiency. Mlle. Phénix is a grown woman of forty-five now. She is well-spoken, intelligent, resilient, and courageous. She couldn’t be farther from the diagnosis I gave her forty years ago. To my great shame, the only answer I could offer her was my own cowardice in the face of the Catholic Church and the Duplessis regime.

  I eschewed my responsibility as a psychiatrist in favor of towing the line. As such, I was complicit in the crimes against humanity that were committed against these innocent children. I feel deep shame for what I did, and on behalf of all the doctors like myself who were a discredit to the profession, I am deeply sorry. To Mlle. Phénix and all the others like her, I apologize for my part in your suffering.

  Sincerely,

  Dr. Guillaume Duceppe

  She thanks him. She does not forgive him.

  “I am sorry,” he says, getting to his feet.

  She turns away, not wanting him to see her eyes.

  “Good luck,” Mme. Duceppe tells her.

  Outside, Elodie quickly lights a cigarette to settle her nerves. She gets inside her car and cranks up the heat. She unfolds the letter and reads it again, and again, and again.

  She lowers her head onto the steering wheel and cries for little Claire, who could not count past ten.

  32

  The October Crisis Remembered by an FLQ Killer

  By J. G. Phénix, Special to the Canadian News Association

  “It wasn’t about the FLQ. It wasn’t even about the FLQ versus the government. It was about the people. We did what we did for all the exploited Québécois who struggled and suffered and got nowhere,” recalls Léo Fortin, one of the five FLQ members responsible for the murder of Labour Minister Pierre Laporte in October 1970.

  “The government has blood on its hands, too,” Fortin claims, twenty-five years later. “They sacrificed the life of one of their own to show us they had all the power. The War Measures Act was Laporte’s death sentence. It was the politicians who did that to him—not us.”

  In spite of Fortin’s assessment, he was convicted of murder in 1971 and sentenced to life in prison. He served eleven years for the crime. Still, in Fortin’s eyes, the real victims of the 1970 October Crisis were the working-class Québécois, not the man who lies buried at Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery, nor the family he left behind.

  “The stories they put out about the FLQ were all propaganda,” Fortin claims. “We weren’t the villains they made us out to be. They had a choice to negotiate with us and save the life of their colleague, or to dig in their heels and throw Laporte to the wolves. We all know how it turned out.”

  After all these years, Fortin is still trying to convince himself that the real villains of the October Crisis were the politicians Pierre Trudeau and Robert Bourassa, the “arrogant, power-hungry” prime minister and his “lackey,” the provincial premier. Fortin accepts no responsibility for the killing, nor has he ever expressed remorse.

  Véronique stops reading and rips the entire paper to shreds, which she lets fall to the kitchen floor. No wonder James wouldn’t show her the article before he filed it; he’s a coward. Every newspaper in the country has picked it up, too, including the French ones.

  This is her fault. Her father trusted her, and she trusted James. She’s had her doubts about their compatibility over the years, but she never doubted him. If anything, she thought her choices would be their undoing. She never imagined he would use her this way, exploiting her trust to gain access to her father. And for what? For a goddamn story. The story.

  How did she not see this coming? He was always willing to sacrifice their relationship for his own personal ambition. Léo warned her the night of the referendum. “He’s sure as hell not on your side,” he said.

  James should never have been the one to write that article. She grabs a box of garbage bags from the kitchen and goes upstairs to pack. Screw him, she thinks, throwing open their closet. She starts pulling her clothes off the hangers, shoving them into a garbage bag. Her sweaters and jeans from the two bottom shelves, her socks and underwear from her two drawers—all of it goes into the garbage bags. James hired one of those organizing companies to redo the closet with fancy built-ins. It cost him a small fortune, but all their stuff fit perfectly. He can have it all to himself.

  She clears out the bathroom, haphazardly dumping everything that’s hers into one of the bags—hair dryer, toothbrush, cosmetics, shampoo, tampons, her favorite white towels that they bought together at the Bay. Brown for him, white for her.
Back in the bedroom, she strips the bed. The sheets are hers. She’s not leaving them. Into a garbage bag they go, with her goose-down duvet and pillow. She’ll send for her wrought iron bed when she’s settled somewhere. At the moment, she has no idea where that will be.

  She’ll have to stay with her parents for a little while—she doesn’t have much choice right now—but she’s determined to be in her own place as soon as possible. She decides all this as she’s rushing from room to room, collecting her things, filling garbage bags, tossing James’s shit out of her way.

  When all the bags containing her life are piled in the vestibule, she calls Louis and asks him if he can pick her up. Her car’s been parked at her parents’ since she moved in with James. There’s no parking on his street and she doesn’t need it much now that she doesn’t smuggle cigarettes. But she’s not quite ready to call her parents. It’s still too raw, and she’s embarrassed to face her father. Louis doesn’t ask questions. She likes that about him.

  She sits down on one of the garbage bags to wait. Wipes her eyes. They were going to drive up to the Laurentians this weekend and chop down their own Christmas tree. They’d also talked about going snowboarding at Mt. Sutton over the holiday. They were going to stay with his mother in Cowansville, spend a quiet New Year’s Eve in the Townships, maybe at a B&B. Véronique was really looking forward to it. Instead, another loss. She forces herself to stop crying. Better to stay angry and strong.

  Just as she has that thought, the door swings open and James appears.

  “Hey, babe,” he says, noticing the garbage bags. “What’s going on? You cleaning stuff out?”

  “Yeah, everything I own.”

  He looks confused. He steps around the garbage bags and dumps his coat on the banister. “What are you doing?”

  “Leaving.”

  “Leaving me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “I read your article about my dad.”

  “V—” A shadow of guilt in his eyes.

  “Don’t bother. There’s nothing you can say. Nothing.”

  “V, just listen to me—”

  “Fuck you!” she cries, standing up. “You called him an FLQ killer in the headline!”

  “I didn’t write that headline,” he defends. “Damian did. Editors write the headlines, not the reporters.”

  She laughs, disgusted.

  “V, please calm down. Let’s talk about it, okay?”

  “It reads like an opinion piece, and you’ve certainly made your opinion of my father very clear. Not just to me but to the entire country. Do you realize how humiliating this is for my family?”

  “He did murder someone, V. And he is remorseless, by his own admission. Isn’t that more humiliating for you than my stupid article?”

  “You’re an asshole,” she says. “A selfish, calculating asshole.”

  “All I did was relay the facts,” he says. “I told the truth.”

  “Your truth.”

  “The truth. Véronique. I basically recorded his story as he told it to me. If you don’t like the article, it’s because you don’t like seeing the truth in print.”

  “You shouldn’t have written it at all!” she screams, ignoring the possibility that James may be right about her father.

  “I’m a journalist.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she mutters. “Here we go again with your code of ethics.”

  “It’s better than living by the criminal code.”

  “What wouldn’t you do for a story?”

  “Break the law.”

  “Oh, so you’d break my heart, but not the law,” she says. “See, I’m the opposite. I’d break the law in a heartbeat, but never deliberately hurt someone I love. That’s my code.”

  “Your code is fucked up.”

  “You used me!” she screams. “You manipulated me into letting you interview my dad. You deceived all of us, pretending you were going to let him tell his story in his own words. You swore you would be objective. Isn’t that also part of your goddamn code?”

  “I simply wrote his story as he told it to me.”

  “You should have fought Damian on the headline.”

  “I have no say in that.”

  “Our principles will never align,” she says, feeling suddenly very clear and calm. “You betrayed me.”

  “The way you talk about principles and morals. What about your job and your family history?”

  She laughs softly, hurt but not entirely surprised. She’s always known this is where he stands. “My father is never going to forgive me.”

  “I wrote the story,” James says. “You had nothing to do with it.”

  “Are you kidding me? I’m the one who promised him you would be fair. I convinced him to talk to you!”

  “You don’t have to move out over this, V.”

  “You just don’t get it. You put your career before me. And let’s face it, you have no respect for me or my family. You never did.”

  “I think you’re the most brilliant woman I’ve—”

  “Save it. You’ve been trying to change me since day one. You can’t stand how I earn my living, you’re embarrassed by what I do.”

  “You earn your living selling drugs,” he reminds her. “So yes, it embarrasses me. I would like the woman I love to actually live up to her potential.”

  “See? You don’t accept me for who I am.”

  “You don’t know who you are,” he counters. “You’re not a criminal like your father. That’s who you think you are. It’s who you try to be, maybe for his approval or I don’t know what. But you’ve got it backwards. I’m the one who actually sees who you really are, what you could be. You’re too scared to try something different.”

  “It’s a nice speech, but it doesn’t change anything.”

  “Being a criminal isn’t hereditary, you know. It’s not like you’re predisposed to it. You have choices.”

  “It’s in my blood,” she says. “I am what I am. At least I’m not an opportunist.”

  “Your principles are so twisted.”

  “Louis respects my principles.”

  The moment she utters Louis’s name, she regrets it. It was never her intention to pit James against another man. She sees her mistake at once.

  “Ah, Louis,” he says, seizing the opportunity to exonerate himself and avoid taking any responsibility for what he’s done. “So that’s what this is about. You’re just using my article as an excuse to be with Louis.”

  “I don’t want to be with Louis,” she says, exhausted. She checks the street for Louis’s car through the window.

  “You brought him up.”

  “As an example of someone who understands why my father did what he did,” she says, silently berating herself for having given James a scapegoat. She’s made it far too easy for him to deflect culpability. “Louis is a friend, that’s it. But if you want to tell yourself he’s the reason why I’m leaving you, I don’t give a shit anymore. Blame Louis. He’s convenient. That way you don’t have to look at yourself or what you did.”

  On cue, she sees Louis pull up in front of their apartment.

  “Whether you believe me or not,” she says, “I’m leaving you because you’ve never stopped trying to make me into someone I’m not.”

  “That’s Léo talking.”

  “Maybe so,” she concedes. “It doesn’t matter, though, because what you did was unforgivable. You shouldn’t have written the article. Period. You exploited my love for you and you broke my heart. Tell yourself whatever you like. You’re the one who has to live with yourself.”

  With that, she grabs two garbage bags and throws open the front door. Louis is coming up the steps toward her. He sees the garbage bags, immediately reads the situation. “Let me take those,” he says, and she hands them to him and he takes them to his car and tosses them in the back seat.

  “There’s more,” she says.

  James is standing in the doorway, look
ing smug. “So it’s not about Louis,” he says.

  She ignores him, grabs two more garbage bags.

  “Let me help you with those,” James says, dripping with sarcasm. He reaches for one of her bags and throws it out the front door.

  “Stop it!” she cries.

  Louis is behind her. “Hey, man,” he says to James. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Stay out of this.”

  Véronique holds her arm out and gently pushes Louis back. “It’s okay,” she says. “Can you just wait in the car?”

  Louis hesitates.

  “You didn’t waste a minute swooping over here to rescue her, did you?” James shouts.

  “She called me for a ride, man.”

  Véronique turns to Louis. “Please,” she says. “Wait in the car.”

  “Have you been fucking him all along?” James wants to know.

  “You did this,” she says, pushing past him to collect the rest of her things.

  He’s on her heels, following her up the front steps. “Just tell me. Have you slept with him?”

  “No!” she cries. “My God, no! Is it so hard for you to believe that this is all on you? The moment you made the decision to publish your stupid article, we were finished.”

  She grabs the last of the garbage bags and drags them out the door. “I’ll send my parents back for the rest of my things,” she says. “I want my bed back.”

  She feels stupid for saying that. It’s just an old wrought iron bed she found at an antique shop for a hundred bucks. The place had dozens of them, but damned if she’s going to let him sleep in it with his future girlfriends.

  “Take care of her!” James calls out to Louis. “Best of luck to you both!”

  He slams the door on her back, and she has to fight hard not to cry. She still loves him. This would be so much easier if she didn’t.

  She won’t make this mistake again.

  She slides into the front seat beside Louis, slams the car door. All her bags are crammed into the trunk and the back seat. They can’t even see out the back window.

  “Where to?” he says.

  “I have nowhere to go.”

  “Your parents’?”