In the Clear (12 page)

“We? Do you think your maman is happier too?” she laughs, mocking me gently.

“Sometimes I wonder if you two are really sisters,” I say, whacking the puck down the miniature rink.

“What's she got against you?”

“What's with you tonight? So many questions!”

“No one around here talks to me. I don't understand this family. And …” All my worry rushes to the surface, freeing itself. “I'm about to be a sister. What if we fight like you and my mother?”

Tante Marie looks sad. “Oh, Pauline. I hope not. What do you want to know? You want to understand your maman?”

I nod.

“The first thing to understand about her is that she always loved books. Just like you with your hockey. Grand-mère used to say Agathe was born with a book in her hand. And I remember, when I was eight, she won a scholarship to study English literature here in Toronto. You'd think she'd won a million dollars. It meant the world to her.”

“Why isn't she teaching at the university anymore if she loves it so much?”

A pained look comes over Tante Marie. I've never seen her hesitate like this.

“The summer you became sick with polio,” she says slowly, choosing her words, “she was about to become a professor at the université. She was French. She was a woman. You can't imagine how hard she'd worked to get there.”

“I spoiled her life … is that what you're trying to say?”

“No!” She shakes her head emphatically. “She loved you more than all the books in the world, and all the students. I can only imagine how she felt watching you. You were very, very sick. They nearly lost you. They were at the mercy of the iron lung and the doctors and the hospitals.”

She shudders, remembering. I do too.

“It was such a miracle that you got better and walked again. Surely you can understand that after all that helpless, anxious waiting, there was nothing more important than that?”

I don't say anything.

“Right or wrong, Agathe gave up her life at the université because you'd had too much hurt. And in the beginning, it made sense. You needed exercising and home-schooling. She wanted to protect you.”

My mother gave up her life for me. She sacrificed herself. If only she hadn't. How different these last years would have been if she'd let me go to school. But still, something doesn't make sense. “Why didn't she protect me in the hospitals?”

Tante Marie groans. “Oh. Those hospitals.” She hugs me for a long minute. She wipes a tear from her eye. “How did you survive them, chérie? You and your friends.” She lets out a deep breath. “You can't blame your maman. The hospital was taking care of you and your parents had to trust them. You were all at their mercy. Every week you got stronger. And remember …” She pauses. “You didn't speak. They came every visiting day. You seemed to be getting better and you didn't tell them what was going on.”

“But why was it you … you!”

She throws her hand up as if to God. “Oh, Pauline! You sound like Agathe. Just thank God it was someone! I happened to come that morning. I'd been so far away and felt so desperate to see you. I happened to see what the horrible woman was doing. You know what's crazy? I was the best person, and the worst person, to save you. At first your maman was grateful. But later, she turned it against me. As if I'd done it on purpose. She wished it had been her to save you. I stole that from her.”

She shakes her head and looks sadly out the window. “It's strange how things happen in life. Grand-mère once told me that Agathe resented me the moment I was born.”

She squeezes my hand. “Grand-mère. She was such a wise woman. I miss talking to her. I used to ask her, why do people get the problems they do? Why did Pauline get polio? Why did I get Agathe for my older sister? You know what Grand-mère used to say?”

I shake my head, remembering Grand-mère as I saw her on Christmas Eve, with a crown of red velvet ribbons against her white hair. “She said that we get what we can handle. It's like hanging our wash out on the laundry line in the backyard. If we all looked outside and saw each other's problems hanging out on their lines, we would each choose our own line, and reel it back in.”

Out the window, I see that the pools of water on my backyard rink are shrinking as they freeze. I wonder suddenly what Henry's problems would look like on a laundry line, or Stuart's or Billy's. Or my mother's.

“Hey! Let's finish our match before they get home,” Tante Marie says.

We throw ourselves into the game. It's a tied game, and in the last minute, Tante Marie knocks over one of my forwards and I make a buzzing sound. “Penalty!” I holler.

For the last minute, I tell her, she has to play sitting on one hand. Somehow she manages to score immediately from the face-off, and this seems hilarious to both of us.

“With one hand! I beat Toronto with one hand!” she hoots.

She scoops me up and swings me around, my left leg flapping wildly.

“Maudits anglais! Those damn Englishmen!” we laugh and scream.

We don't hear my parents come in.

“Arrêt, Marie! That's enough.” The brittle voice of my mother stops us.

My parents stand in the doorway, watching. My mother's holding a small bundle that must be a baby. Her face is drawn and upset. A chill has entered the room with her – a glacier is moving over us. My feet slide awkwardly to the floor and I stand, holding onto Tante Marie. If only we'd heard them come in.

“What are you doing now, Marie? Trying to turn her against the English? Do you forget this is Toronto, our home?”

“Agatha. They're playing, having fun,” my father pleads.

Everything about my mother seems to be cracking: her face, her hands. Afraid, I watch her thrust the small bundle – my sister – toward my father. In a shattered voice, my mother says, “You always take Marie's side, Will. But I know she wants to divide us, to cause trouble. I want her to leave.”

She turns abruptly and runs up the stairs. We hear the click of her door.

A strange feeling comes over me, as if I'm looking in one of those curved mirrors at a circus. We are turning into skinny giants, fat midgets, an unrecognizable family.

My dad breaks the awkward silence. His voice comes from far away and he sounds tired. “You'll have to forgive her. It's been a long week and she's not herself. She was up all last night with the baby and she's exhausted. We should all get to bed. Things will look better in the morning.”

The baby fusses. She sounds strange, like a little cat meowing. Tante Marie gives me my crutches and goes to stand beside my father. She pulls back the blanket gently.

“You have another beautiful daughter. Let me hold her, Will. Just for a minute. I won't get a chance tomorrow in front of Agathe.”

Tante Marie sways from side to side, admiring what's in the bundle.

“Did you pick a name yet?”

“Céline,” he answers.

“A good French name,” she says approvingly. She rubs her cheek gently against the baby's, whispering Céline, then gives her back to my dad.

“Things will never change between us,” Marie says quietly. Dad shakes his head, starting to protest.

“You know I'm right, Will. I'll leave early in the morning. She'll find it too hard to have me here. You'll take me to the train station and I'll get the first train back to Montréal. Having a new baby is a big adjustment. It will be easier for everybody with me gone.”

Not for me, I want to say. Only for my mother.

Dad sighs like he's too tired to argue, and switches off the light.

“Bonne nuit,” Tante Marie says, in the dark. “You look tired too. Go up to bed and I'll say goodnight to Pauline.”

“I know Agatha appreciates your coming, even if she can't say it. Thank you, Marie,” he says. He looks over at me. “Sleep well, Pauline. Goodnight.” And before I can stop him, he too disappears up the stairs.

The house is so suddenly quiet, I hear the furnace click on in the basement and the air come whooshing up the vents. For a second, I feel like I'm back in the iron lung and it is pressing, pressing on me, forcing me to breathe.

Adults are so complicated. I wish I could cry like a baby.

But then I look at Tante Marie's face. In the moonlight, years of hurt are reflected in her eyes, though she tries to blink it away, and I want only one thing: to cheer her up.

“I'm a big sister,” I say. “How long before I can teach that kid to play goal?”

Tante Marie laughs and wipes her eyes. “Knowing you, next year. As soon as Céline can walk.”

She walks over to me and kisses both my cheeks – the smell of Tante Marie. “I'll be gone in the morning,” she continues. “I won't come back here again.”

My legs tremble at the thought of losing her. It's not fair. “But if you don't come, I'll never see you.”

“The train runs both ways between Toronto and Montréal,” Tante Marie says.

“Me?” It's an astonishing thought. Could I do it? “Travel alone on the train?”

“You'll be fourteen in August. I traveled alone when I was twelve. There's a porter to help you on and off. And the conductor will treat you like a queen. You'll love it.”

Tante Marie's eyes sparkle. “If I send you the ticket for your birthday, your maman won't deny you my gift.”

The pressing on my chest stops. I realize it wasn't pressure on my lungs at all. It was on my heart. My mother's problems are not mine. I can still love Tante Marie.

“I'll do it. I'll come by myself.”

She drops her voice to a whisper, a lavender-scented whisper. “We'll have fun. I'll take you to see les Canadiens play at the Forum. That's where we'll really beat those maudits anglais.”

Oh, Tante Marie! She makes me laugh. How lucky I am. Ever since that first time back in the House of Horrors, she's brought me her gifts. She causes such wonderful trouble.

If only my mother could understand. Whatever Tante Marie's gifts, they have a way of bringing me home.

18.
H
OME

In the morning when I get up, Tante Marie is gone. Dad has taken her to the train station. She is on her way back to Montréal. She's on her way home.

As I get dressed, I remember the trouble she caused at the House of Horrors. We had to wait a few days until I could be discharged. Tante Marie visited every morning, staying for hours to check that we were all okay. She brought fresh croissants, raspberry jam and thermoses of hot chocolate, teaching us to sing “Alouette, gentille Alouette” with her as we got ready for each day.

Witch Wilson quit, or was fired. It didn't matter which. When the doctor ordered her down to his office, she left our ward for the last time. She never haunted us again.

My mother is right about Tante Marie. She has always caused trouble. Wonderful trouble.

I understand now that my mother blamed herself when I finally spoke and told them about all the bad things I'd had to endure. I guess that's why she was so afraid to let me go to school. She was afraid I'd get mistreated or hurt again.

I know what it's like to be jealous and hate somebody for what they can do, especially when it's something you find hard or can't do very well yourself. I think my mother feels that way about her youngest sister, Marie.

I love Tante Marie. But I also love my mother.

I walk into the kitchen. My mother is holding my sister, my new sister Céline. I can tell by my mother's red, blotchy face that she's been crying.

Céline's got a red, blotchy face too. Oh no! Both of them.

“Hi, Mom,” I say, sitting beside her. It's probably best not to bring up Tante Marie and what happened last night. Besides – this itsy-bitsy sister is amazing!

“Oh, Mom. She's so tiny. Look at her fingers. Just like a doll. I can't believe it.”

My mother looks up at me. Her hair is a thick brown mess, hanging loosely to her shoulders. She looks like she hasn't had much sleep.

“Would you like to hold her?”

I reach out my arms. Mom cradles her, carefully passing her into my arms.

“She hardly weighs a thing! She feels like a warm football.”

My mother laughs. “Oh, Pauline.”

Oh no. Now she looks like she's going to cry again.

“You'll be such a better sister than I ever was.”

Well. What should I say to that? I suppose she knows she doesn't treat Tante Marie fairly. But I know better than to rub it in. So I say nothing.

“I … I reacted badly last night. I'm sorry,” she says.

What has happened to my mother?

She pushes her hair off her face, finds a comb in her pocket and begins to tidy her hair as she speaks. “I wondered if you might like to see Tante Marie this summer for your birthday.”

I'm not sure I've heard her right. She keeps combing her hair, arranging herself, pulling herself together.