The Way the Crow Flies

  She stepped out into the backyard and said, “Hey Dad, wanna go for a walk?”

  He looked up from where he was crouching with the mower tilted, wiping its green-stained blade. Tightening the nut. The smell of cut grass and gasoline reached her, deeply reminiscent, reassuring … and sad. Everything is fucking sad. It’s sad to be conceived. We start to die the moment we are born.

  “Sure, sweetie.”

  She followed him into the garage as he wheeled the mower across the concrete to its appointed place. The smell of cool concrete—another deep suburban smell, along with the chlorine whiff, mingle of roses and other people’s suppers.

  “How come you don’t buy an electric mower, Dad? They’re better for the environment. Or just get a push mower.”

  “That’s not a bad idea, I like the sound of those things a whole lot better.”

  They’ve had this mower since Centralia. Dad calls it “the beast.”

  “I’m just waitin’ for this one to die, but Henry Froelich fixed it so well, I’m afraid it never will.”

  They left the garage and walked.

  It was one of those rich Ottawa sunsets. The humidity lent a ravishing quality, wet fire streaked an aqua sky. Leaves so shiny they looked waxed, sprinklers hissing, parked cars gleaming.

  They talked about the future.

  “Why don’t you go to New York? Wait tables and work your way up through the clubs to the Ed Sullivan Show?” She had moved past Ed to Laugh-In but she didn’t correct him.

  “Or why don’t you take a raft up the Yukon River?”

  They walked past the high school. A group of kids were hanging out in the parking lot, music coming from the radio of someone’s dad’s station wagon. She glanced scornfully in their direction. The cool kids. Like I care. Dating, mating—all those girls soon to be trapped. She saw gorgeous Stephen Childerhouse. He looked up and she looked quickly away; he was holding hands with Monica Goldfarb. So what? The world doesn’t exist anyway. Reality is subjective. We are all just in a dream, and probably not our own. Don’t wake the red king. See? I don’t have to get stoned to be weird.

  They got ice cream cones. He took his first lick and she turned away, because he looked so young and she felt so old.

  They walked out past the edge of the housing development to where the land was still shaggy and the trees lived for themselves, trailing their leaves in the Ottawa River. Out there in the middle was a Huck Finn–sized island; why had she never snagged one of those stray logs from the match company upriver and floated across? She had always meant to, but at seventeen she wasn’t a kid any more. And it wouldn’t be much fun to do it alone. Jocelyn wasn’t that kind of friend. Madeleine had only ever had that kind of friend once.

  They walked along the dirt path past a blackened spot where kids had had a campfire and she said, “Dad? Do you think it’s possible that Ricky Froelich did it?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “How come they convicted him?”

  “That was a travesty.”

  Madeleine felt the tang and churn of something deeper than guilt. Something she could not outrun; she had to wait for it to pass, like the recurrence of a tropical disease. Shame. Her father would know nothing about it. He was clean. She watched him from the corner of her eye, willing him to keep his eyes from her. If he looked at her now he would see the dark thing. He was squinting into the sky, licking his ice cream, so innocent and unconcerned. This Book Belongs to John McCarthy.

  “Look at that,” he said, and pointed up. She felt her darkness falling away. “Up there,” he said, “see it?”

  She looked up and saw a white airplane. Silent. Slow. Wings long and tapered, clean and unencumbered by engines.

  They watched in silence. Unhurriedly she banked, dove, looped up and paused, offering her smooth breast to the sky before swooning back into the arms of gravity, her dance partner.

  “Now, that’s flying,” said Jack.

  LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

  “That’s the effect of living backward,” the Queen said kindly, “it always makes one a little giddy at first.”

  Through the Looking-Glass

  NINA DIDN’T THINK she should be alone this evening. Suggested she call a friend, and gave Madeleine her home number “in case you need to talk.” She asked if Madeleine was prepared to find out that Mr. March had died.

  “That doesn’t matter, I still have to tell what he did.”

  “I think you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that you may not find exactly what you expect.”

  “Why, you think Ricky did it?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying, Madeleine.”

  “Well what the fuck are you saying?!”

  “I’m saying—I’m asking. Where are you in all this?”

  But Madeleine didn’t understand the question. And she was late, late for a very important date.

  Out into the blinding street, people spilling across the intersection, light refracting off windshields and hoods. She can’t seem to get an entire lungful of air. It’s a beautiful day, not too hot, mid-June. Her eyes are up to their old tricks, this time seeing words that aren’t there, shivering letters stencilled on a restaurant window, It’s Cruel Inside…. She runs down the leafy Annex sidewalk. She wishes she had her bike, she runs faster—

  “Hi Madeleine!”

  “Hi Jim,” she calls in return, but doesn’t pause. He has a baby in a Snugli, when did that happen?

  Her hands twist as though they could unscrew themselves, she gulps air, just north of Bloor now, still running, the heels of her Quatre Cents Coups sandals pounding—this is the way to feel that your feet will not be chopped off….

  There has been enough talking. It’s time to do the right thing.

  She runs up the steps of her veranda. Her bike is not there, that’s because she left it locked to a parking meter outside Nina’s. Up the inside stairs two and three at a time. On the carpet in the middle of the empty room, the red light of the answering machine is blinking. She picks up and dials.

  It could have been me.

  It would have been me.

  It should have been me.

  She has called 911 this time. “… only for genuine emergencies,” says the female voice.

  “This is an emergency.”

  “Call your local police division, I’ll give you the—”

  “I’ve already called them, they did dick!”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to—”

  Madeleine slams down the phone and dials 411.

  There are places and moments that are definitive. Like old photos, they can tell us where we come from….

  “… thank you, here’s your number—”

  She is from a summer afternoon, the late August light that makes the corn glisten in the fields; her mother in the rearview mirror, lips arched to receive a fresh coat of red.

  “You have reached the Ontario Provincial Po—”

  “Hello, I’d like to report a—”

  “If you have a touchtone phone, and know the extension of the department….”

  She is from a street of Technicolor houses where she pedals toward a man in a beautiful blue uniform and hat; he leans forward, arms wide to catch her. Do it your way, sweetie.

  “I have information about a murder.”

  “Go ahead.”

  She is from the jab of a coat hook next to her spine.

  “… the Froelich case, yes….” She is from a secret. “… a teacher called Mr. March, he’s retired now, but—” How is she to get back there? “I called last week, someone was going to—you should have a file….” To the meadow in springtime. To Colleen and Rex … school-day quiet. “March. Like the month.” As she follows Colleen across the field to the meadow on the other side. Watch for something gleaming in last year’s grass. Something pink and winking back the sun, that will be her streamer.

  “I don’t have a record of your call, Mrs. McCarthy, can you hold, please.”

  Muzak in h
er ear. She sits cross-legged, gazing at the geometry on her carpet. She is gathering the facts, she can see them spread like pebbles before her, she wants to collect them in her hands but something keeps interfering, live loose ends of story snap and hiss around her, touching down, singeing the carpet. She hangs up, and stares at the phone as though it were a rat, capable of staring back. Through the beaded balcony curtain comes the sound of drumming several blocks away, the sun pink as Lik-m-aid, fizzing colour, the beads are so many candy necklaces strung end to end on shoelace licorice. She picks up the phone again and dials.

  The universal voice: “Information, for what city, please?”

  “Crediton.”

  “For what name?”

  “March. George, I think. George.”

  “One moment. Here’s your number.”

  It’s that simple. That possible and near. What must it be like to go through your entire adult life with one phone number? She thinks of Mr. Froelich with his “old phone number” tattooed on his arm. His chalky fingers and kind face, blackboard full of hazardous fractions behind him as he bends to touch her forehead, “Was ist los, Mädele?” Why is that man no longer in the world? She keys in the area code, then the number—it plays a tune, “Camptown Races.”

  The beauty of the evening finds its way into her empty living room, touches the mouldings of the high Victorian ceiling, medallion at its centre. The phone rings at the other end of the line. So empty. The sound of a chain in a dry well.

  “Hello?” An older lady’s voice, tentative.

  “Hello … Mrs. March?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hi, I’m an old student of Mr. March’s.”

  “Oh.” The guard drops, Madeleine can hear the smile.

  “I wondered if I could speak with him.” She hears her own voice trembling, as though she were speaking into the blades of a fan. She feels herself growing smaller and smaller, will he even be able to hear her when she finally speaks the words? And what will they be?

  “Oh I’m sorry, dear,” says the lady, “George passed away.”

  There are landmarks we use without thinking. You can never get lost if you can see a mountain. Now Mr. March is gone. And Madeleine no longer knows where she is; or how to get back to where she came from. Oh dear! cried the child when she realized she had lost her way, Whatever will become of me?

  She could have got back through him. Through the bad time to the blessed, last good time. Centralia. But the door in the mountain closed before she could reach it, and she can detect no opening or notch in this implacable surface.

  “Are you still there, dear?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The elderly voice aspirates, “Yuh, yuh,” and there is a cherishing quality to her next words. “Eighteen months ago now.”

  Madeleine does not reply.

  “What did you say your name was, dear?”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Oh, I wish he could have talked to you, he loved his pupils.”

  Mrs. March is saying something, her voice still fluttering from the earpiece, as Madeleine guides the receiver gently to its cradle and hangs up.

  It’s over.

  She carefully lies down, curled with her head by the phone. She hears her own voice softly moaning, “Oh no-o-o, oh no-o-o-o,” like poor Grace, poor Grace, poor Grace. She observes herself stroking her own forehead as though her curled fingers belonged to someone else—a grown-up, preoccupied but able to spare some absent comfort. She is grateful to be alone on the rug. She wishes it were the cool Centralia grass. The smell of earth, the tickle of an ant crawling up a curving blade, crackle of countless lives beneath her ear. She wishes she could feel a pink tongue, like a slice of ham, warm against her cheek, Rex panting, dog-laughing. Wishes she could smell the sun on her arm, hear kids’ voices from many backyards away, watch the wheels of her brother’s bike ride up. She would give anything to see his high-tops, one poised on his pedal, the other planted on the ground, to hear him say, “What do you think you’re doing, stunned one?” turning to call, “Maman, she fell asleep in the grass.”

  Where are you, Mike? My brother. Gone, gone to grass.

  The kind disinterested fingers press against her eyes, because Mike is dying now too, finally, and again. He is part of the earth, part of the lush forest that is slowly healing itself over there. His bones, fragments of his uniform, tattered green, the chain he wore, metal dog tags, one of them his name. I love you, Mike. Rest.

  Where have all the children gone?

  She lies weightless on the carpet, arms and legs, hands and head like a loose collection. If she got up, half might remain, scattered on the rug.

  Once upon a time there was a mountain cave. The Piper led the children into it, all except one who was lame and could not keep up. By the time that child arrived, the door had vanished and she was forlorn, never knowing whether she was lucky or just lonely. Who was that child? The lame one. The one who became a grown-up.

  Through closed eyes, Madeleine can hear the voices of children from inside the mountain. Hers is among them. The wool of the carpet bristles her cheek, she keeps her eyes closed, listening.

  How can a grown-up ever gain entry? Unless you become as one of these…. Not “innocent,” just new. Raw and so very available to life. Why do grown-ups insist on childhood “innocence”? It’s a static quality, but children are in flux, they grow, they change. The grown-ups want them to carry that precious thing they believe they too once had. And the children do carry it, because they are very strong. The problem is, they know. And they will do anything to protect the grown-ups from knowledge. The child knows that the grown-up values innocence, and the child assumes that this is because the grown-up is innocent and therefore must be protected from the truth. And if the ignorant grown-up is innocent, then the knowing child must be guilty. Like Madeleine.

  She left something back there, dropped it in the grass.

  Where?

  In the meadow.

  If she could go back and find herself at nine, she could ask and she would listen. The pieces would become a story and lead back here to where she lies on the rug at thirty-two. And she would be able to get up again.

  CLAIRE MCCARROLL Murdered

  MADELEINE MCCARTHY Murdered

  MARJORIE NOLAN Murdered

  GRACE NOVOTNY Murdered

  JOYCE NUTT Murdered

  DIANE VOGEL Murdered

  BLUE EGG

  AFTER JACK GOT HOME from the hospital, he gave his wife a gift. Unlike the mink coat, it was something she still wanted very badly. He passed it to her carefully. She received it as the precious and fragile object it was. Like a Fabergé egg, sapphire-blue in her hands:

  I never touched Karen Froelich.

  Here is how you will know I am telling the truth.

  It was I who waved.

  This is what a good wife could do for you if you were of that generation. She could take something terribly dark. Terribly heavy. Corrosive. And in her hands it could shine like a jewel, simply because you had shared it with her. Your Secret becomes Our Secret.

  But few people are ever lucky enough to have such a marriage. And while his gift was not, and now never could be, the third child that Mimi had prayed for, it was precious nonetheless. And it made her weep because he was and always had been hers. Always would be. She longed to give him something in return. It wasn’t your fault our son went away. I forgive you. But the two statements didn’t add up, so she kissed him instead, stroked his face and put the kettle on.

  THE DOMINO EFFECT

  HERE IS SOMETHING that will always make sense: it’s my fault.

  Take Highway 2 east out of Toronto. Through suburban sprawl interrupted by farmhouses stranded on shrinking arable islands, through towns where split-levels and monster homes crowd out or ye-oldify the gingerbreaded main street, which never ends but morphs into fast-food, new-and-used, superstore, multiplex and featureless buildings that have created a housing crisis for ghosts. I saved mysel
f from after-three, but that only caused him to claim Claire as my replacement.

  Back within sight of Lake Ontario on your right—so close yet inaccessible, because where there are roads leading down to it there are also housing developments and factories and fences. You could abandon your car and travel like a dog through the long grass over lumpy ground to the shore, where signs tell you what, precisely, is unsafe about this particular spot. This is North America, there are signs warning you of danger everywhere. Caution: Cliff. We are at the point where we risk walking off the edge of any precipice, however stark, that is not furnished with a sign. Caution: Children. I saved Claire with the letter from the Human Sword, but that only drove him from the classroom to the meadow, where there was no door to close, no other little girls to see, no principal just down the hall….

  Turn north on Highway 33. The landscape changes, highway slicing through limestone, exposed rock face on both sides, teeming with still-life, layer upon fossilized layer spray-painted now with graffiti. If only I had told my dad. Careful not to get into a mental groove or make a nursery rhyme out of your guilt, you will be lulled smack into KILROY WAS HERE. Claire wouldn’t have died, I wouldn’t have lied, Ricky wouldn’t’ve needed an alibi, he’d never’ve gone to jail. This is the land of Hidden Intersections and painted yellow signs with leaping deer. Mike would not have gone away, Mr. Froelich would be alive today. Take number 16, soon to be the Veterans Memorial Highway, Lest We Forget, my dad would not be ill. Welcome to the National Capital Region, Bienvenue à la Région de la Capitale nationale…. and all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

  These two-lane, two-way highways are statistically more dangerous than the straight multi-lane 401, the difference being that these winding roads, with their scenery and their signs, are narrative. The 401 is just a series of facts. Armed with a Tim Hortons’ coffee, Madeleine feels no sense of dissolving from within, no dread that her hand will wrench the wheel into the Canadian Shield. The rain starts and she turns on the radio and windshield wipers. Leslie Gore sings “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows.” Everything is going to be okay. I’m going home. To my mum and dad.