The Dogs of Winter

by Ann Lambert

  Only his close friends would laugh at him like that—no one else would dare. He smiled pleasantly, nodded his head, and lifted his glass. Laugh, you idiots. Look what I’m married to. Margeaux smiled along with them, but she still wasn’t pregnant, so any talk of diapers was painful to her. He could practically hear her biological clock ticking out loud. Sitting near his wife were two of his three children. He was thrilled they had attended, as neither really liked Margeaux, but both liked his money and his connections. Charles, his handsome and earnest firstborn, was an environmental activist who was hoping to run for municipal office in the next election. And next to him, giggling and leaning into her brother, holding her flute champagne glass aloft was his precious, his treasure, his middle child, the brilliant Ariane. She would be writing her bar exams soon. Jean Luc dreamed of working with her one day, side by side, and Ariane had not said no. His youngest, Paul, had not even responded to the invitation. He had taken his mother’s side throughout the divorce and subsequent lawsuit and had not spoken to his father in almost six years. He ran a used record store in Verdun, and smoked so much weed he’d lost all ambition, all sense of urgency in his young life. Jean Luc felt sorry for him. Still, he was his son, and he was lost. The situation irked him.

  He suddenly got to his feet, lifted his glass and tapped delicately on it with a spoon. The room slowly began to quiet down, as his guests peremptorily interrupted their conversations and turned to Jean Luc David to listen.

  Just as he opened his mouth to toast his wife yet again, he noticed a disturbance at the other end of the room. As he looked to see what was going on, he noticed two uniformed police officers, standing alongside a woman. A cop. A Sûreté du Québec cop. What the fuck was going on?

  “Jean Luc David? A complaint of sexual assault was filed against you on February seventh of this year. Maître Remy Roussell of St. Jerome district has deemed the evidence sufficient. I am placing you under arrest.” Jean Luc didn’t really hear the rest. He stage-whispered to Pierre, his lawyer, to call his firm. He watched as the entire room, all 148 guests, went silent, except for a ripple of chatter asking what was happening, qu’est-ce qui se passe? Detective Sergeant Nicole LaFramboise took his two hands and crossed them in front of his crotch while she closed the handcuffs.

  “You’re starting all this shit up again? This is ridiculous. I am the victim here. I will sue the pants off the fucking SQ,” he spat at Nicole.

  She paused and smiled. “You do that. And when you’re done, you can sue the SPVM as well. I believe there are a few other women who would like a date with you in court. Oh, do you remember Chantal Lalonde-Fukushima? No, you probably don’t, I bet. She went missing after one of your legendary parties and turned up in the Saint Lawrence river. We have a few questions for you about her as well.”

  A uniformed policewoman read him his rights. He continued to threaten Nicole and the entire police force. Then he looked back at a stunned Margeaux and his son Charles. “Don’t stop the party. This is a mistake. And someone will pay, let me tell you. I will be released in a few hours. À tantôt, mon amour.”

  What Jean Luc David didn’t know at that moment was that one other woman had come forward and accused him of sexual assault. A young woman from Montreal named Michaela Cruz. They led him away from the head table as his open-mouthed guests followed his progress, between the two cops, towards the exit to the restaurant. He caught the eye of his daughter, Ariane as she hastened over to him and asked what she could do.

  “Call Gennifer. Gennifer Moran. Now.”

  Los Angeles to Tahiti. It took seventeen hours in all. Not bad. Especially since she’d booked first class for the flight from LA to Papeete and could spend that leg drinking champagne from real glass flutes and curling up in her sleep pod with four movies in the docket she hadn’t had time to see. The first meal they’d served had been extraordinarily good, almost as good as the meal she’d missed at The Party. That was followed by a hot, soft face cloth, a little jar of quite expensive moisturizer, toothbrush, mouthwash, and a sleeping mask. All paid for so generously by her boss. Her former boss. She’d booked her flight back home to Montreal for mid-April, but Gennifer didn’t know when she’d be coming home. Maybe never.

  Fifty-Six

  He had a concussion. From the blow to his head by the cop’s girlfriend. He had been unconscious for thirty-seven minutes, they told him. She could’ve killed him, if the log she hit him with had been one inch closer to the left temple. He’d had a terrible headache and couldn’t think of looking directly at any light. They had finally taken the restraints off him the day before, after he kept begging nonstop for hours for a proper shower. To be able to wash himself properly. He was filthy. Once they let him wash, he figured they thought he’d just vomit it all out, his traumatic past, what led him to do it, why he couldn’t be fully responsible for his actions.

  Despite the concussion, a veritable army of psychiatrists, psychotherapists, social workers, and neurologists from the Pinel Institute where he was being held—wasting all that precious public money on him—spent the last five—six?—days asking him question after question, to determine his fitness to appear in court and face the criminal charges laid against him. Did he understand the nature of the charges laid? Could he clearly communicate to his lawyer? Is he aware what a trial is and that it might take place?

  He refused to speak at all. He thought perhaps his silence, along with the concussion, should keep them off his back for a while, until he figured out what to do. He could only hope and believe that they hadn’t arrested his sister Janey, and that she was still able to care for the dogs at La Crèche. He had to believe that, because if he didn’t, he would go out of his mind. The thought of all those beautiful trusting boys and girls wondering where he was, what had happened, when he was coming back, had nearly driven him truly crazy. But Janey was so fragile, and without him he feared she would simply revert to her old behavior—a lifeless abdication of all responsibility to anyone, including herself.

  Then the social workers would swoop in again, the vultures, and she’d be off to the home again. He had to get out of this, but it was hard to focus. Whatever they were giving him were causing vivid, terrifying nightmares of the kind he hadn’t endured in years. Palpable, visceral moments from his past kept coming back to him, sometimes during the day as well when he fell into a court-ordered drug-induced sleep. This was typical of these so-called healers who ethos was first do all the harm they’ll let you get away with.

  He looked up at the holes in the ceiling tiles. He looked out the tiny, filthy window and tried to see something. Anything. But it was all gray with winter smog and general negligence. Her windows were like that—if he hadn’t cleaned every one of them that third time he visited. He couldn’t imagine how she’d left them like that, but then he couldn’t imagine her leaving him, either. Without a word. Like he was a fucking piece of gum under her shoe she had to scrape off and drop in a garbage can. When he got out—which he would—he would find Hélène and prove himself to her. Again.

  He checked the time on his monitor. They would be back again in twelve minutes, for more stupid questions and his continued silence. In the meantime, he reached under his mattress with his liberated hand, and pulled out an envelope. In it were letters from several women—who were very passionate supporters. They had been smuggled in to him by a friendly member of the cleaning staff—a very pretty girl who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. She was a dog lover, too. He opened one of them and began to read the first few sentences one more time.

  “Dear Peter, I want to thank you, from the botom of my heart, for saving all those beutiful animals off the streets. They did nothing to deserve that life. There are no laws which protect them. You are the law. I think YOU are a grate hero—” Suddenly his door opened and he could hear the chatting voices for a few seconds before they turned to him and their tone shifted completely. He had just enough time to refold the le
tter, hide it with the others, and rearrange his face to that of complete and utter indifference.

  Fifty-Seven

  MARIE HAD GONE FOR A SKI that morning alone. Well, almost alone. Dog had followed her as he always did, doggedly and directly behind her, every now and then stepping on the backs of her skis, which often sent her stumbling forward over the tips. It was an annoying habit, but she appreciated his presence nonetheless. Although she’d skied solo for years now, and although he could be a hazard, she knew it was safer if Dog was with her.

  Marie was following a big loop trail that started straight up the little mountain behind her house and a few kilometers later crossed a scenic plateau where in the distance she could see the white slopes of Mont Tremblant and the hills around St. Donat covered in hoarfrost.

  She stopped in a little clearing where the trees parted helpfully, and a fallen log offered her a perfect natural bench. She sipped a bit of the hot tea in her thermos and took a few minutes to remove the ice balls frozen in Dog’s paws. Just as she was putting her backpack on, she heard them. The sweet, two-note fee-bee of the chickadees, the first one higher-pitched. They were letting each other know that Marie was there—an intruder in their woods. A wave of relief and gratitude washed over her. For the past few months, Marie had noticed fewer and fewer birds singing in her forest. Many of the birds that stay for the winter in Quebec—the juncos, the nuthatches, and the chickadees had disappeared. She was terrified that climate change would bring the silent spring Rachel Carson warned against in 1962. The thought of an end to birdsong was to Marie, the end of the world. She was often too scared to admit her concerns to Roméo or her neighbors out loud—because if she did maybe it was really happening. Had really happened. When she heard those familiar little birds that could survive in 50 below zero temperatures chattering around her, she felt like weeping with relief and joy. They were back.

  Marie began the sometimes treacherous descent to her house, dragging her ski poles between her legs when she picked up too much speed, watching for fallen trees across the trail, yelling at Dog to get out of the way, as he preferred to run in front of her skis on the way home. Just as she was about a minute away from her back door, Marie angled her skis into a snowplow and came to a stop. Meandering flakes of snow fell daintily around her—in stark contrast to the trees, their branches sagging with the weight of a foot of crusty, hardened snow. There was an absolute absence of anything human at that moment—no pain, no desire, no doubt, no fear—just the geophany of the wind playing in the swaying balsams. No matter how difficult her life was, no matter what abyss she sometimes found herself in, the effect of undistilled Mother Nature was magical. Marie always felt comforted and restored by it.

  After the trauma of the events at the dog shelter, Marie had been exhausted. Finished. She could still feel the weight of the log she’d grabbed from the woodpile, the feral instinct that allowed her to bring it down hard on the man’s shoulder, and when that didn’t stop him, on his head. She had tried to block that sound out entirely, but it was impossible. The sound of Roméo just trying to breathe with one collapsed lung and broken ribs, the shock of violence in her life. Again. Marie closed her eyes and took a deep breath that she felt to the core of her body. When she opened them again, Marie could see her little house through the trees, nestled in a little dip in the topography, and looking perfectly self-contained. Marie loved her house. She loved this one place in the entire world that was hers. It was her home. The only one she had.

  Marie was thinking about all this as she watched Roméo carefully place the last of the plates in the dish rack and begin the meticulous scrubbing of pots. It drove her crazy how he cleared the table often while guests of theirs were still eating. And how carefully and fastidiously he washed the dishes, which hadn’t been as clean since the day she unpacked them from the box. But he did it all with no fuss and no complaint. Marie’s best friend Lucy often talked about how romantic her husband was, even after thirty-eight years of marriage. How he showered her with flowers, and trips to exotic places, little unexpected gifts, thoughtful surprises. Roméo, Marie had to admit, did none of those things. But when Marie was in bed with the H1N3 flu for eight days, Roméo moved in, nursed her phlegmy, coughing, feverish, and smelly self back to health, while also walking Dog every morning at 6:30—in the winter darkness. Her other dog, Barney, had been so anxious about Marie being sick that he’d had diarrhea for several days. Roméo cleaned it up with no protest or complaint. When her mother, Claire, wandered away from the nursing home in Ste. Lucie and got lost for twenty-four hours, Roméo mobilized the local Sûreté cops and found her. If that wasn’t romantic, Marie thought, then what was?

  But he could be too quiet and withdrawn, and it often seemed like Marie had to work too hard to pull the words from him. Like tonight. She got up to stoke the fire which was threatening to extinguish itself, and then watched Roméo neatly fold the dish towel and give her kitchen counter one last thorough wipe. They had not discussed the case that morning at all, each tacitly agreeing to let it go for the weekend. They each knew that when—and if—Peter LaFlèche went to trial, they would both have to testify and revisit the horror again. They had of course already discussed it and him at length, asking themselves why some people with such damaged childhoods turn the rage inward and struggle with drugs and self-harm, while others (and, thank God, the overwhelming minority) direct that rage outward. It was like a light gets switched on or off. A sudden homicidal madness. A misplaced sense of justice.

  Roméo himself had survived a horribly humiliating and abusive father. It had taken him a long time to tell her, and even when he did he kept insisting it was long ago, and he was long over it. But Marie knew better. She felt such overwhelming, crushing tenderness for Roméo when she heard his determination to let it go. The vulnerability in him that it revealed. After they learned that Peter LaFlèche had been admitted to the Pinel Institute, Roméo told Marie he remembered the case of the Boy in the Cage from when he was a child himself. He said that his story had made him feel better somehow—that someone had even had it worse than him. Then he felt the terrible shame of that.

  “Would you like some tea?” Roméo held the kettle aloft.

  “I would much rather have a scotch. That eighteen-year-old Glenmorangie I have stashed away? Let’s open it.”

  But Roméo was busy with something in the fridge now. Would he ever stop and just sit? “There’s a blueberry pie in the fridge, but I thought maybe we’d save it for the brunch tomorrow.”

  Ben, Maya, and Noah were driving up from the city the next morning, and amazingly, Ruby had agreed to drop the books for an afternoon and come along with them. They had planned a fancy brunch, followed by a ski on the gentler trails around the lake. Even more miraculously, Sophie had consented to join the family gathering. Marie did not know what that might portend, but she was very pleased anyway. Roméo had been cryptic about her troubles with her newish boyfriend—all Marie knew was that Sophie was coming alone, and Roméo seemed very relieved. Marie thought about Rosie Nukilik’s family. How they would never see her have children and grandchildren. She thought of the other murdered Inuit women—who would never come home to their families. How lucky she was to have her children alive, and with the chance to choose the lives they wanted.

  Marie watched as Roméo removed something from the fridge and clearly wince in pain. His ribs were healing, but even a deep breath could still hurt. She could just make out his softly whistling something complicated and classical to himself. Was it one of Bach’s Goldberg Variations? Marie now recognized most of his favorites. He paused the tune briefly, straining with effort, and then resumed again. Suddenly, the issue that had dominated their conversations for months, that had hovered over them, like a storm cloud they couldn’t escape—no longer mattered. The thought of Roméo not being in her life—what if that maniac had managed to kill him? What if something happened to Roméo? How many people got to fall in love again
at fifty-nine years old, like she had? With a good, kind man who never bored her, even when he was doing the dishes? How many people got to feel necessary to someone else, and in turn, allow themselves to be necessary to someone again? Marie wasn’t going to wreck that. Not now. Not ever. She knew that the journey was much deeper and better with Roméo on it with her. If it meant selling this house, this home, and finding a new place together, for them to build a life together. Then. Okay. Yes. She could accept that.

  Marie rose to one knee and peered over the top of the sofa at the kitchen.

  “Roméo? Could you, um…drop whatever you’re cleaning in there—are you defrosting the fridge, or what? Could you just come here and sit by the fire with me a minute? I want to tell you something.” Marie felt her entire body tingling, anticipating his reaction.

  “Une minute, s’il te plait.”

  Marie could hear the pinging of the crystal scotch glasses, one of the few things passed down to her from her father. And then Roméo was beside her, holding two champagne flutes in one hand, and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in the other.

  “Whaaat are you doing? What’s the occasion?”

  Roméo set the glasses and champagne aside on the coffee table. He folded his long body onto the sofa next to Marie, holding his ribcage ever so slightly. Marie picked up a sleeping Barney and moved him to the other end of the sofa to make room. Dog was dead asleep before the fireplace, his legs spasming from some squirrel-chasing dream, while the occasional muffled yip escaped his maw.

  “I’ve made up my mind about The Decision.”

  “So have I—”

  Roméo held his hand up. “I’d like to speak first.” He took as deep a breath as his ribs allowed. “I would be honored to live here with you. It is your home. And you are my home. So. Here I am.”