The Home for Unwanted Girls

by Joanna Goodman

  “Very,” Maggie says, pulling down one of the tattered books from his shelf. “‘Sow seed generously,’” she reads aloud. “‘One for the rook, one for the crow, one to die, and one to grow.’ I remember you used to read that to me.”

  She runs her finger along the spine of A Field Guide for Wildflowers.

  “You can do better than a French Canadian,” he says.

  “You didn’t.”

  “It’s different,” he says, putting the catalogue back on the shelf. “Your mother’s not the one who had to earn the living.” Smoke from his panatela fills the room. “Besides, I’ve acknowledged my mistake. You can learn from it.”

  She remembers: You can’t change them.

  “Why did you marry her?” she asks him.

  He looks at her wearily and sighs, offering a single, defeated word by way of explanation. “Lust,” he says. “She’s always had a strange power over me. Still does.”

  As soon as he says it, Maggie understands the way Gabriel makes her feel. It’s the reason her parents can sometimes hate each other and still want to dance together and have sex. Now it has a name. Lust.

  “You’re forbidden to see him, Maggie. Do you hear me?”

  “Those English boys started it today.”

  “He’s a hoodlum. He’s not our kind and you deserve better. This is not how I raised you.”

  Her head buzzes at his hypocrisy. She wants to scream, And what about Clémentine? But she holds back, too terrified to crack the fragile wall of silence and denial they tacitly erected that day. It is the only way their relationship can be sustained.

  “I’m not cattle,” she says. “Why can’t you let me be happy?”

  “I of all people know you can’t be happy with him.”

  “He’s not Maman.”

  “Isn’t he, though?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Please don’t cross me on this, Margueret.”

  “You can’t tell me who to love,” she says, daring to defy him for the first time in her life. “I can love whoever I want.”

  He smiles thinly, his lips disappearing, and she has the fleeting thought that the two things she wants most in the world—Gabriel’s love and her father’s approval—cannot coexist, and that one will eventually have to be sacrificed for the other.

  Chapter 9

  The next morning when Maggie comes downstairs, she notices a suitcase by the back door. Her mother is making bread, working the dough with her fists.

  “Who’s leaving?” Maggie asks.

  “You are,” Maman responds, giving the dough a hard punch.

  Maggie opens the suitcase, and her heart plunges when she sees her clothes, neatly pressed and folded. She must have slept through her mother’s packing. “Where?” she asks, panicking. “Where am I going?”

  “You’ve got a summer job on your uncle Yvon’s farm,” she says.

  Her aunt and uncle live on a dairy farm in Frelighsburg, about six miles away from Dunham. They don’t visit very often because of Deda’s weight. It’s hard for her to move around. Alfreda—they call her Deda—must weigh close to three hundred pounds. All of Maggie’s memories of her involve her elephantine shape moored into an absurdly small pressed-back chair. Even the most negligible movements leave her panting and spent. Maman rarely visits them because Deda is too fat to clean and their house is filthy. In spite of that, Maggie likes her aunt. She’s affectionate and warm, with a robust laugh that emanates from the depths of her enormous belly.

  Her father comes into the room then and Maggie turns to him. “Was this your idea?” she asks him.

  “Settle down, Maggie,” says her father.

  “I don’t want to work on Yvon’s farm,” she says. “I want to keep working with you at the seed store—”

  “Yvon can pay you much better wages.”

  “I don’t care about better wages! I want to stay here!”

  “It’s just one summer.”

  Her mind is whirling. What about Gabriel? What if he leaves for Montreal before she gets back? “Please don’t make me go,” she says. They don’t understand. She can’t be away from Gabriel, or the seed store.

  “Yvon got a contract selling his milk to Guaranteed,” her father explains. “It’s a big deal for them. So you see, this isn’t about you, Maggie. He needs someone to help out on the farm, and frankly, we could use the extra money.”

  “I was eleven years old when I started supporting my family,” Maman says, wiping her hands on her flour-covered apron.

  “Don’t worry, you can keep some of it,” her father promises, adjusting his Panama hat. “Now go say good-bye to your sisters.”

  “I’m not going,” she says. “You can’t force me.” But even as the words leave her mouth, she knows she’s already lost the battle. She’s fifteen. What can she do? Run off with Gabriel and get married? Live in poverty in his shack or at his uncle’s apartment in Montreal? She underestimated her parents.

  “Go on.”

  Maggie doesn’t move. She looks desperately from one to the other, silently beseeching them to change their minds.

  “I said go,” her father repeats, raising his voice.

  “I hate you both!” Maggie cries, running from the room. She climbs the stairs slowly, feeling a crushing sense of shock and betrayal. How can he do this to her?

  She hugs and kisses her sisters, sobbing and clinging to them.

  “Are you ever coming back?” Geri asks, wide-eyed.

  “In the fall,” Maggie says. “If they let me.”

  She kisses Nicole’s plump red cheek one last time, grabs a few things her mother didn’t bother to pack—notepaper, pencil box, makeup, a handful of romance magazines—and returns to the kitchen in defeat. “I know you’re doing this to keep me away from Gabriel,” she says.

  Her father finishes his coffee and doesn’t respond. Maman turns slightly, her expression unreadable. She approaches Maggie and pecks her on the head. “It’s not forever,” she says.

  Maggie’s exile is probably the first thing her parents have agreed on in years.

  Her father takes her suitcase to the car. Gabriel doesn’t have a telephone, so she can’t even call him to say good-bye. She runs outside and searches Gabriel’s property, hoping to spot him. “Can I just go and say good-bye?” she asks her father.

  “There’s no time, Maggie,” he says. “I have to get you to Frelighsburg and then back in time to open the store.”

  “Please!”

  “It’s too early in the morning for all this melodrama,” he says. “Stop fancying yourself Juliet and get in the car.”

  They drive the fifteen minutes to Frelighsburg in silence. Maggie stares grimly out the window.

  “Gorgeous day,” her father chirps.

  She looks over at him, seething. He starts to whistle. He whistles the rest of the way to the farm, while she composes an impassioned letter to Gabriel in her head.

  Frelighsburg is a small town nestled at the bottom of a steep winding hill and sandwiched between the Saint-François-d’Assise Catholic Church and the Holy Trinity Anglican Church. The Pike River flows right through the middle, clearly marking the town’s boundaries: French on one side, English on the other. In the cemetery behind the Saint-François-d’Assise Church, the stones are marked touchette, piette, goyette. At the Anglican cemetery there are the whitcombs, byrons, spencers. Even dead, the French and English remain segregated.

  When they pull up to the farm, Deda is waiting for them outside in a rocking chair. She’s wearing a loose, stained frock and slippers. She manages to get up and meet them halfway, already flushed and out of breath. Maggie’s father doesn’t even go inside the house. He unloads her suitcase, sets it down on the side of the road, pecks her on the cheek, and gets back in his Packard.

  “Can’t be late for work,” her father calls out, rolling down his window. “Take care, my Black Beauty.”

  And then he drives off, his tires kicking up a cloud of gravel as he goes. Maggie w
atches him disappear, feeling abandoned, bereft. Hating him, but longing for him to turn back for her just the same.

  “Come, cocotte,” says her aunt, appearing next to her and putting a fat arm around her shoulder. “Let’s go find your uncle.”

  The one thing Maggie can be grateful for is that her aunt and uncle are both easygoing and fun—especially Yvon. Even Maman melts when he’s around, laughing at his jokes and fawning all over him because he was in the war. He still wears his soldier’s uniform with the forest green wedge cap to all their holiday parties, even though he’s been back almost five years. He sings war songs and always smells of wet wool, whiskey, and Brylcreem.

  “You get more beautiful all the time,” he says, pulling Maggie into his arms. “How old are you now? Sixteen?”

  “Fifteen,” she responds, barely recognizing him out of his uniform.

  He shakes his head in disbelief. He has a glorious pile of wavy black hair that parts naturally in the middle and falls over his eyelids in the shape of a heart. He’s very handsome in spite of the big stomach that now bulges over the top of his belt buckle.

  Maggie looks around, remembering why her mother doesn’t like to visit. Their house is dark and gloomy. The drab Victorian furniture is all in tones of maroon and deep brown, and Maggie can see that everything is dirty. There are dust minous floating around on the wood floors, cobwebs in the corners, mucky boots and shoes piled in a heap by the door, and discarded Union des Producteurs Agricoles newspapers stacked on the floor of the foyer.

  Deda notices Maggie looking around and says, “It’ll be nice to have help around here. It’s hard for me to manage.”

  Maggie can’t wait to give the place a good cleaning. Deda slices up some fresh bread and pours Maggie a glass of unpasteurized milk. It reminds her of Nicole’s spit-up. “You’ll get used to it,” Deda says cheerily.

  They go upstairs to see Maggie’s room, which is as dark as the rest of the house. There’s one small lamp on the bedside table, which does little to brighten it up. “Do you mind if I lie down for a bit?” she says. “I’m tired.”

  “Of course, cocotte.”

  When she’s alone, Maggie climbs into the iron bed and pulls the patchwork quilt up to her nose. It’s scratchy and heavy and weighs almost as much as she does. Like all the quilts in her mother’s family, it’s made from the wool worsted remnants of men’s suits—herringbone, houndstooth, pinstripes, tweed. It smells of cedar. Maggie cries softly. Everything is strange here. The darkness is darker, the air heavier. She misses her pretty wallpaper and fresh sheets that smell of soap, her sisters’ warm bodies in the bed.

  She can’t stop thinking of Gabriel. After a while, she pulls out some notepaper and a pencil and writes out the letter she composed in her mind on the way here.

  June 28, 1949

  Dear Gabriel,

  I’m sorry I couldn’t say good-bye, there was no time. I’ve been sent to Frelighsburg to work on my uncle’s dairy farm, under the pretext of my family needing the money. But we all know I’ve been banished here to keep me away from you. I will send letters as often as I can. Wait for me, my Love! They can’t keep us apart!

  Yours forever,

  Maggie

  The days unravel quietly, without any of the tense eruptions she’s used to at home. Maggie’s job is to help with “le train,” which is what the farmers call their morning routine. She cleans the cow stalls, collects eggs from the coop, washes and plucks feathers off dead chickens. She also helps Deda with the cooking and cleaning, which isn’t so bad because her hard work is always rewarded with praise and accolades. If she misses a grease stain on the stove, Deda never notices. She’s just happy to have a clean glass and fork at mealtime. By the time Maggie falls into bed at night, she hasn’t the energy to feel sorry for herself or lie awake mourning her separation from Gabriel. She just sleeps.

  “Pluck the feathers right out,” Deda instructs. She’s teaching Maggie how to pluck a chicken. “Like this. Don’t be afraid to hurt the bird. He’s already dead.”

  They’re sitting side by side on the porch, staring at the tender pink bellies of two chickens in their laps. There’s a stream of sweat trickling down the side of Deda’s face as she works. “That’s good, Maggie,” she encourages. “And then the feathers go right into this barrel. I save them for stuffing pillows.”

  Maggie tosses a handful of feathers into the barrel. A breeze sweeps across the porch, and some of them blow away and land in Deda’s hair. She giggles and shakes her head. In spite of everything, there are still moments of pleasure.

  “You must have a boyfriend in Dunham,” Deda remarks, reaching for another chicken. “A girl as pretty as you. What’s his name? I won’t say anything.”

  “Gabriel,” Maggie confesses, dying to talk about him with someone. She mailed her letter to him on her first day at the farm, and now she’s waiting for his response.

  “Gabriel was the angel who told Mary she would bear a son that would be Savior of the world,” Deda explains. “I suppose it’s his letter you’re waiting for?”

  Maggie looks away.

  “I envy you,” Deda says. “Having all that in front of you. You can still pick the right man, someone who will make you happy.”

  “I can’t wait to go back,” Maggie says. “They can’t keep us apart forever. Eventually they’ll have to accept us together.”

  “And he’ll wait for you?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Maggie says, sounding more confident than she feels. She puts her chicken down and turns to her aunt. “Are my parents happy together, do you think?”

  Deda gives her a bewildered look. “You live with them,” she says. “You’d know better than me.”

  “I know, but they fight so much. And then they dance together . . .”

  Deda laughs. “That’s about right.”

  Maggie waits for something more, but that’s all Deda says.

  The next morning, there’s a letter for Maggie in the mailbox.

  I’m terrible at writing. I’m coming to see you. Saturday at noon in front of the Church.

  GP

  On Saturday, Maggie washes her hair and puts on the one Sunday dress her mother packed. She tells Deda she’s going into town to buy stamps and have a soda at Freshy’s. Deda smiles.

  Gabriel is already waiting for her in front of the Saint-François-d’Assise Church when she arrives. He climbs off his bike and she runs to him. He pulls her into his arms and inhales the smell of her hair. They stand there holding each other for a long time before she even lifts her head. She can barely look at him, like not being able to look straight at the sun. “I miss you,” she says, bursting into tears.

  “It’s only been a week,” he says, stroking her hair. He leads her into the cemetery behind the church. “There’s no cornstalks, but it’ll do.”

  “I don’t have much time,” she says. “An hour maybe.”

  They sit down on the grass and she lays her head in his lap. “It’s hard being here all alone,” she tells him. “By the time I get back to Dunham at the end of the summer, you’ll be leaving for Montreal.”

  “I can come home on weekends to see you. Or maybe you’ll come with me.”

  “I still have school,” she reminds him. “I have to finish.”

  “Why?”

  The question startles her. The answer should be self-explanatory. She feels a slight dip of disappointment, but quickly shoves it aside. She wants their reunion to be perfect. He lies down beside her, and they kiss and nuzzle among the tombstones for a while.

  “How is it here?” he asks her.

  “Lonely,” she says. “But my aunt and uncle are nice.”

  “Your parents must sure want to keep you away from me.”

  “After what happened with Barney—”

  “You think that was my fault?”

  “You didn’t have to pull the knife.”

  “You didn’t have to get in your father’s car and leave me alone in the street.”
/>   She looks away.

  “You’re a lot like him,” Gabriel points out, and he means it as an insult, just like her mother did.

  “Well, from what I hear you’re a lot like your father,” she fires back.

  “I’m not my father.”

  She shrugs, wanting to hurt him. “Anyway,” she says, “I’m glad I’m like my dad.”

  Gabriel is quiet for a few minutes, and just when she thinks he’s moved on and they’ll be able to lie down in the grass and kiss and touch each other, he says, “You think you’re better than me.”

  “I do not.”

  “I hate the way you looked at me that day in town.”

  “What way?”

  “The way your father looks at me.”

  “That isn’t true,” she says. “You’re looking for a reason to fight with me!”

  “You were ashamed of me.”

  “You shouldn’t have pulled the knife.”

  Gabriel lies back, pulling Maggie down with him. “Your father thinks he can stop us being together,” he murmurs, running his hand up her calf, her thigh, between her legs.

  “Is that what this is about?” she asks, as his hand inches closer to her panties. “Besting my father?”

  He doesn’t answer. And then she feels his finger inside her and she cries out. Turning her head to the side, she finds herself facing one of the tombstones. She closes her eyes.

  The neighbors and farmhands start showing up around dusk for Deda and Yvon’s party, which, they’ve warned her, happens every Saturday night. They love a good party. Maybe the loud music and constant clamor of people in their home fills the silence of having no children.

  As the sky grows dark, the fiddle comes out of the closet, the gin and the cards are laid out on the table, and the floor begins to thump from the square dancing. Yvon hands Maggie the Crown Royal. She takes the bottle and swigs from it. Her chest burns and she feels warm inside. Yvon begins to dance her around the living room.

  Deda is in her chair, clapping her hands. Yvon’s arms are around Maggie’s waist. He’s looking at her fondly.