Water's Edge

by Genevieve Fortin

  Emilie chased all of her nostalgic thoughts away to replace them with the concrete, immediate sensation of Kate’s nipples hardening against her back and Kate’s hand slowly going down her side to her hip. When the same hand moved to the front of her thigh and made its way to Emilie’s sex just as Kate’s kisses became more insistent and her breathing irregular, Emilie found herself wanting her again. It was a need that was tangible and could be fulfilled so easily, right in this moment. They’d rested enough and there wasn’t much of this Sunday left to take advantage of, so Emilie turned on her back and let Kate cover her body with her skin and her mouth.

  Working in the bookstore surrounded with the books she loved, Sundays in Kate’s bed taking the pleasure she wanted—it was her life and it was the life she’d chosen. Why should she care whether they understood it or not?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rimouski, July 1901

  Angeline rocked Victor on the porch as she watched Paul-Emile play in the yard. The rustic chair Joseph had made from leftover lumber he’d gotten from the mill didn’t rock as smoothly as the one her father had built and that remained inside, safe from bad weather, but Angeline liked having the option to sit with the baby outside. It gave her a chance to enjoy sunny days like today and keep an eye on Paul-Emile who, like all two-year-olds, always found trouble to get into.

  She looked down at Victor and marveled yet again at how different two brothers could be. In every way. Of course what other people saw was the contrast between Victor’s fine blond hair and Paul-Emile’s thick black mane or Victor’s blue eyes compared to his older brother’s dark gaze. Some even noticed that Victor seemed stronger and heavier than Paul-Emile had been at the same age, a fact Angeline could confirm as she held Victor.

  Angeline knew, however, that the differences between her sons went beyond their physique. Paul-Emilie had been inquisitive from a very young age, fighting sleep as long as he could at night, waking up with the chickens every morning, as if he were afraid he’d miss something. Victor had slept through the night very shortly after his birth and once he was asleep nothing could disturb him. Another difference Angeline noticed was in their respective relationship with their father. Joseph liked to rock his sons to sleep when he had the chance, which didn’t happen often. Their oldest son had never seemed comfortable in his father’s arms, refusing to sleep as long as Angeline wasn’t the one holding him. Victor, however, fell asleep faster and deeper in his father’s arms than in his mother’s. Sometimes when he cried, Angeline asked Joseph to take Victor because he always stopped crying as soon as Joseph held him. Angeline wondered what kind of divergence she would keep observing in her sons and hoped their differences wouldn’t keep them from getting along.

  Victor started whining. “Be good, Victor. Papa is at work so you’re stuck with me,” Angeline said as she started rocking her chair faster.

  It was Sunday afternoon but Joseph had to fix a piece of machinery before the early shift tomorrow. His new position paid a little better but unfortunately his schedule was still as unpredictable as ever and would always be by nature. Machinery needed to be fixed when it stopped, whenever that was. They’d gone to the Saint-Laurent’s shore a couple more times and had talked about taking a trip to Quebec City, which they could afford now, but Joseph’s schedule made it impossible to plan outings. Angeline understood. She would have loved to see Quebec City but she was lucky her husband had a good job and they had a good home where they could raise their children.

  Victor finally stopped whining and fell asleep. Angeline glanced at Paul-Emile who was exploring the garden and decided to quickly go inside the house to put Victor in the crib, knowing he wouldn’t wake up now that he was sleeping. She was on her way back outside to grab Paul-Emile when she heard him scream, “Puppy! Puppy!” She ran back to the porch where she saw Paul-Emilie playing with a puppy and Joseph watching them, laughing at their antics. The scene made her smile. “What’s that, Joseph?”

  “That’s a puppy,” he said sarcastically as he approached her and kissed her cheek.

  “I see that, Joseph, but where did he come from?”

  “Fat Pineau from the mill said he had eight pups he was trying to get rid of, so I stopped by his house on my way home. I figured the boys would like a puppy.”

  “Well this one sure does,” Angeline said and she started laughing as she watched Paul-Emile try to pick up a puppy that was already too heavy for him. “How old is he?”

  “Fat Pineau said he’s nine weeks old. I met his mama when I picked him up and she weighs about seventy pounds so he should be a big fellow. Do you think it was a bad idea?”

  Angeline looked as the dog licked Paul-Emilie’s face. His coat was golden in color and a little thicker around the neck. She bent down and extended a hand toward the puppy. “You think you’re some kind of lion with that hair, little one?” she asked the dog quietly. He immediately started walking awkwardly toward her, his wide paws appearing disproportionately large for his body. He licked her hand and she laughed. He was a bizarre-looking little dog, but he was theirs now. She’d never had a dog before, and she liked the idea of her sons growing up with one. “It was a great idea, Joseph,” she declared as she stood up. She squeezed Joseph’s arm and smiled at him in silent gratitude, then turned back to Paul-Emile and his new best friend. “So what should we call him?”

  Paul-Emile looked down at the puppy and grabbed two fistfuls of the thick golden hair. “Yellow!” he exclaimed.

  Angeline and Joseph laughed. “All right, Yellow it is,” Angeline agreed. It was a simple name but it suited him. Besides, what else was she expecting? At two years and seven months of age, Paul-Emile didn’t have many words in his vocabulary yet and she’d been teaching him colors for a few weeks. Yellow made perfect sense. “What do you think, Yellow? You like your new name?”

  The dog wagged his tail and Angeline took that as her answer.

  Chapter Twenty

  Boston, March 1902

  Emilie stood alone in a corner of the parlor, observing the women gathered around the fireplace or the sofa and chaise lounge drinking champagne and discussing trivial events of their lives. She even spotted duos kissing in the less well-lit periphery of the room. She rarely came to Kate’s Saturday night social affairs anymore. She’d grown bored with the scene. Most women were rich and disconnected from the reality of women like Emilie. They were married to rich men while they slept with women, more or less discreetly depending on the kind of marriage they had. They paraded around in these soirées making declarations of rebellion against society while they conveniently hid in conventional marriages with men. Nights like these reminded Emilie that Kate was one of them, and Emilie didn’t really like Kate in such settings. She was different in the intimacy of their bedroom. Or perhaps it was just easier to forget that Kate was married when they were in bed together.

  There was one couple Emilie enjoyed talking to once in a while, but they weren’t there tonight. The Brothel Girls. That’s what everyone called them because they prostituted themselves so they could afford to live together. They sold their bodies to men so they could remain in love under the same roof. It was tragic, perhaps, but wasn’t it what these other women were doing too? At least the Brothel Girls were honest about the nature of their commerce. It was straightforward prostitution, not prostitution disguised as marriage. Emilie often thought that she would have preferred selling her body to men so she could live with Angeline rather than marrying a rich man who would own her. Then she reminded herself that she was no better than Kate. She worked at the bookstore and she had her own room, yes, but she still slept with a married woman in the safety of her Queen Anne style home every Sunday, something they couldn’t do if Kate hadn’t been married to a rich man who didn’t mind whom his wife slept with on this continent because he was living his own extramarital affairs in London.

  Emilie looked for Kate and found her in deep conversation with a couple of women by the fireplace. She looked so elegant in
her black silk evening gown that one could almost miss its two thin black lace shoulder straps because of the two other decorative straps, made of silk purple flowers, that fell off her bare shoulders.

  Emilie admired her lover’s shoulders and waited until Kate looked at her to point her index finger up, indicating that she was ready to go upstairs. Then she went to wait by the door leading to the hallway, knowing Kate would come to say good night. When Emilie came to Kate’s gatherings, she always excused herself early and waited for Kate in bed in tempting positions. Soon Kate approached with a seductive smile and embraced Emilie. “My poor darling, I know you hate these things. Go up and wait for me. I’ll get rid of these brats.”

  Emilie leaned against the door and accepted Kate’s promising kiss. That was the reason she kept coming once in a while, she reminded herself as she felt her body tingle. She’d felt the ground move under her feet before from the way Kate kissed her, but this time as she kept falling backward she realized it was the door she was leaning against that had opened. She gasped and started laughing nervously when she realized someone had caught her from behind, until Kate looked past her and asked sternly, “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my home?”

  “I’m sorry, Madam, I asked him to wait at the front door but…” The servant didn’t finish her sentence.

  Emilie had regained her balance and slowly turned around. Of course she recognized the man and his piercing green eyes before he introduced himself to Kate. “Dr. Maurice Banville, madam. I was looking for Miss Levesque. I won’t take any more of your time. Good night.”

  Emilie wanted to disappear. To run upstairs or throw herself into the fireplace. More than anything she wished she could erase the expression of embarrassment and disgust she saw in Maurice’s face before he turned around and walked away, but all she could do was say his name, and even then her voice caught.

  “Who is that man, Emilie?” she heard Kate ask as she started running after Maurice.

  Emilie caught up with Maurice just before he opened the front door. “Maurice, wait. What are you doing here?”

  He turned to face her and she barely recognized him. She’d never seen Maurice angry before. His eyes were glacial and terrifying. She’d seen him hurt though, when she’d had the nerve to ask him if he and Helen had children the first day they’d met. She’d seen pain in his eyes then, and she recognized that pain now behind the anger. Pain she’d caused.

  “I went to Michael’s home to surprise you, Emilie. When he told me about a supposed cousin of your mother’s I knew something was wrong. If you’d had a cousin in Boston you would have told me years ago. I don’t know what kind of perversion you’ve fallen into, Emilie,” he started, almost spitting his words before he had to pause to catch his breath. He looked down to his feet, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her. “Maybe I should never have helped you move to this city,” he continued. Then he took a deep breath and faced her again, pointing his finger toward something behind her.

  Emilie turned around to see Kate, standing there with a defiant glare. Emilie didn’t know she’d followed her and she wished she hadn’t. When she turned back to Maurice he was brandishing a finger at her. “This, whatever it is, has to stop. I will find a suitable young man for you and you will get married, Emilie. Mark my words.”

  Before Emilie could answer, Maurice was gone. She couldn’t move or say anything. She’d disappointed the man who’d been her mentor, who’d helped her make her way to Boston, to the bookstore, to the Flahertys’ lodging house. She’d hurt him badly and she felt horrible about it, but the life he’d helped her make here in Boston was hers now, and there was no way she’d let him take it all away.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rimouski, September 1902

  “It’s a girl, Madam Levesque,” young Doctor Michaud announced.

  The young doctor had taken over his father’s practice the same year Angeline had moved to Rimouski. He was timid and didn’t talk much but she trusted him. Angeline had heard her mother repeat with emotion, “A girl, Angeline, it’s a girl,” before she passed out from exhaustion.

  When she opened her eyes again, she saw Joseph sitting in the rocking chair, in his arms the smallest baby she’d ever seen. Their daughter was wrapped up in a blanket and her papa looked at her with pride. Angeline smiled. Joseph must have moved the rocking chair to the bedroom while she was sleeping. Yellow was asleep by his feet on the floor. The dog had grown into his large paws. He was enormous and had kept his thick collar of fur that almost made him look like a lion. He was never far from Joseph.

  Angeline suddenly realized the perfect family portrait was missing two very important faces. “Where are the boys?” she asked in a raspy voice. Her mouth was dry. Her hair was stuck to her forehead and her neck, still damp with sweat. Everything in her belly and between her thighs was sore.

  Joseph stood up, the small bundle in one arm, and handed Angeline a glass of water from her bedside table. Yellow woke up only to lie back on the floor by the bed. “Your mother took them home with her when she left. They’ll be back later.”

  Angeline sat up in bed with difficulty. She leaned against the headboard to take a sip of water and put the glass back on the bedside table. “Let me see her,” she said softly.

  Joseph carefully put the baby in her mother’s arms and sat on the bed next to Angeline, leaning back against the headboard, an arm around his wife’s shoulders so they could both admire their daughter. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”

  “Oh yes,” Angeline whispered, staring at the round pink face and the cutest button nose. “Mathilde?” she asked Joseph. They hadn’t discussed names during her pregnancy but Angeline imagined Joseph would still want to name their first daughter in honor of his mother. For some reason she didn’t think the name suited the baby girl she was holding, but she knew it was important to Joseph.

  “No, she doesn’t look like a Mathilde,” Joseph answered, surprising her. “She looks just like you, Angeline. Look at her skin, her face, her nose. She is just as beautiful, like an angel. I was staring at her while you were sleeping and that’s all I could think about. She’s an angel. Our angel.”

  Angeline looked at her daughter more attentively, touched by Joseph’s words. She did look like an angel, she had to admit. “I see what you mean. And did you think of any particular name we could call this angel while I was sleeping?” she asked teasingly.

  Joseph kissed Angeline’s forehead and smiled at her. “What would you think about Marie-Ange?”

  “Marie-Ange,” Angeline repeated as she observed her daughter. It did suit her perfectly. “I like it, Joseph.” She turned to him and smiled her agreement before she added, “Marie-Ange Mathilde Levesque.”

  Joseph attempted to swallow his emotion but tears still welled up in his eyes. Angeline had not seen Joseph cry often. When she did, she imagined restless waves in the dark blue eyes. “That’s perfect,” he said with gratitude. Then he turned to their new baby and repeated softly, as if to himself, “Marie-Ange Mathilde Levesque.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Boston, April 1903

  Emilie hadn’t seen Maurice again after he’d showed up unannounced at Kate’s house. After he’d seen them kiss. Yet she was reminded of his existence on a regular basis. “Dr. Banville’s friend, Mr. Black, will be joining us for dinner this evening, Emilie. We expect you to show up early with your best behavior,” Mr. Flaherty announced before he winked at her and left her alone in the bookstore. Emilie sighed with exasperation.

  Mr. Black would be the fifth friend of Maurice’s Mr. and Mrs. Flaherty would introduce to Emilie since Maurice had come to Boston a little more than a year ago. Poor Maurice. Emilie was certain he hadn’t realized how difficult a task finding her a husband would be.

  She wasn’t exactly a catch for the young men of Boston, who had plenty of options. Three of the previous candidates had shown no interest whatsoever from their first glance in Emilie’s direction. Emilie suspected
the lack of interest came from her petite physique. Despite her vigorous appetite Emilie remained thin to the point of appearing unhealthy, and the fact that she refused to smile or show her usual high level of energy during those gruesome dinners made it worse. The woman she portrayed didn’t exactly scream child bearer, which most men looked for in a wife.

  Her age didn’t help either. When asked, Emilie always answered that she was almost twenty-four years old rather than simply stating she was twenty-three. At almost twenty-four, she knew she was slightly over the ideal age for a good Catholic woman to start manufacturing babies.

  The one man who hadn’t seemed bothered by Emilie’s physique or her age had lost interest the minute she’d started talking about literature and women’s right to vote. No, Emilie wasn’t really worried she’d ever be faced with having to refuse a marriage proposal. She knew no man would propose to her. These dinners were just an inconvenience she wished she didn’t have to put these men, the Flahertys and herself through.

  Mr. Flaherty played his part as he’d promised Maurice, Emilie imagined, but he knew the exercise was futile. He knew Emilie didn’t want to get married, although she was certain Maurice hadn’t told him about Kate and the nature of their relationship. She was grateful for the discretion even though she knew Maurice had remained quiet out of shame rather than out of respect for her.

  The one thing Maurice had achieved with his plan was to limit the number of Saturday nights Emilie could spend at Kate’s soirées since these dinners with potential fiancés were always on Saturdays. Not going to Kate’s parties didn’t bother Emilie too much since she didn’t like them and often chose not to go anyway, but the fact that not going was not her choice on those specific nights infuriated her. She hated that she had to bend to a man’s will, a man who was not her husband and certainly not her father. She was tempted not to show up to meet Mr. Black but she knew the consequences would make her life even more miserable.