The Forgotten Daughter

by Joanna Goodman

  “You have other options, you know.”

  “Like?”

  “He said you could seek individual recourse.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “You can sue privately.”

  “With what money?”

  “Maybe you could find a lawyer who would do it for a percentage of the damages.”

  Elodie moves the French fries around on her plate.

  “There are other ways to get justice,” Véronique says. “You could confront the nuns who abused you.”

  “Isn’t it obvious after the past couple of years that the nuns don’t think they did anything wrong?”

  “What about the doctor who sent you to St. Nazarius? You know where he lives.”

  “We already picketed in front of his house. He wasn’t even there. He went into hiding.”

  “He can’t hide forever,” Véronique says. “Stake out his house. Make him listen to what he did to you.”

  “He knows what he did to me,” she says, remembering how cold a man he was, how aloof he’d been when he interviewed her. “It’s been all over the news. Bruno even wrote a book about it.”

  “He doesn’t know your story, Elodie. It would be cathartic for you to tell him.”

  “I don’t know, Véro. You have to understand, when you’re a bastard, people from his generation think you’re subhuman. In their eyes, we’re all worthless. They don’t think they did anything wrong treating us the way they did.”

  “Don’t you want to ask him why he made up that false diagnosis?” Véronique persists. “What was in it for him? Did he know what he was sentencing you to? Doesn’t some part of you need to know?”

  Yes. No. Of course she wants to know, almost as much as she doesn’t. “I’m not sure I’m brave enough.”

  “Yes, you are,” Véronique says. “You’re the bravest goddamn person I know.”

  Maybe Véronique’s right. She’s come this far. Maybe she should continue to attack from all sides.

  After lunch, they stroll through Old Montreal while Véronique tells her about her volunteer work for the Yes campaign, her new friend Louis, and her courses at school. The levity of the afternoon is a gift.

  They stop at a souvenir shop on Rue St. Amable, and Véronique buys Elodie a blue-and-white key chain that says TABARNAK. They continue on past the train tracks to the Old Port, where they lean over the guardrail and watch the boats in the harbor.

  “What’s that ugly building?” Elodie asks, pointing across the water. “It looks like St. Nazarius.”

  “Silo 5. Boats used to transport grains into this port. It closed last year.”

  “What are they going to do with it now?”

  “Who knows? Condos, probably.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe I grew up in this city,” Elodie says, gazing out at the St. Lawrence River. “I had no idea it was so beautiful, that this river was always flowing. Boats were coming and going, tourists were walking along these cobblestone streets eating ice cream cones and getting caricatures. I had no idea anything existed outside that place.”

  “Well, you’re in the world now, my friend.”

  By the time Elodie arrives at the deli for her night shift, the sky is dark and her mood is brighter for having let Véronique distract her all afternoon. The caricature is tucked inside her purse, and the TABARNAK key chain is already hanging from her keys.

  She changes into her uniform and pours herself a cup of coffee. She’s working with Rachel today, Lenny’s grand-niece. Rachel goes to McGill University and only works part-time. She has an attitude, like she’s better than everyone else, or at least better than Elodie, even though she’s only nineteen. Elodie will only speak with her in French, to remind her who has seniority.

  “Are you voting Yes?” Rachel asks her as soon as Elodie emerges from the back room.

  “I’m not voting.”

  “How can you not vote?” Rachel says, indignant. “Don’t you realize how important this referendum is?”

  “I’m not sure Quebec should separate.”

  “That’s exactly why you have to vote NO!”

  “But I respect the people who think it’s for the best.”

  “Elodie, seriously? That can’t be your reason for not voting?”

  How can Elodie explain to this brat that even though she is a forty-five-year-old Quebec-born woman, she does not feel qualified to vote in such an important referendum? She doesn’t understand enough about either side’s motivations to cast her vote. She doesn’t even get the full implication of what separation would mean, and she’s too embarrassed to ask.

  Besides, she’s not invested in any outcome. She doesn’t consider herself to be a proper citizen of the province. These language squabbles have never mattered to Elodie. In fact, caring about this sort of thing has always struck her as a luxury.

  “My dad says the economy will collapse if there’s a separation,” Rachel says. “You don’t seriously want Quebec to break away from Canada, do you? Forget keeping your job. This deli won’t survive.”

  A customer walks in then, and Elodie is relieved when he starts heading toward her section. He’s old and frail, leaning heavily on a cane as he shuffles over to a booth. He’s wearing a Red Sox baseball cap, which is not unusual in Montreal. He settles into the booth with some difficulty and looks up, presumably in search of a waitress. They make eye contact.

  Elodie approaches him, hands him a menu. “Can I get you a drink?” she asks him. She knows to start off in English when she sees a Boston cap. No Montrealer would ever be caught dead in one.

  “My God,” the man says.

  “Are you okay?” she asks. He looks unwell, pale and weak.

  “I . . . My God. I don’t . . .” He shakes his head, removes his glasses, which are fogging up. She can see he’s crying. “It’s you.”

  She’s blank. Doesn’t recognize him.

  “Elodie. Like Melody without the M.”

  She nods, glances down at her name tag.

  “You’re still here.”

  This sort of thing happens when you’ve worked at the same place for more than two decades. She has no idea who he is, but she tries not to be rude about it. “Twenty-five years,” she says. “They give me a free smoked meat sandwich on my anniversary.” Her standard joke.

  “I’m Dennis,” he says.

  Dennis? It means nothing to her at first. Dennis. Dennis. Her mind is churning. And then it comes to her. “Mon Dieu,” she breathes. “It can’t . . . Dennis?”

  He’s bobbing his head, wiping his eyes. “We met right before I left for basic training.”

  Elodie calls out to Rachel that she’s taking a break.

  “You just started your shift,” Rachel mutters.

  Elodie ignores her and sits down opposite Dennis, trying to steady her breathing. “I didn’t recognize you,” she says. “I’m sorry.” All she can think is, Are we this old?

  He can’t be much older than forty-five, but he looks closer to sixty-five. Drawn, feeble. He removes his cap and sets it down beside the napkin dispenser. He’s completely bald. His cheeks are sunken, off-white. She remembers the boy with the clear blue eyes, round pink cheeks, impeccable white teeth, and buzz cut. How cruel time is, she thinks.

  “I’m dying,” he says, as nonchalant as if he’s just asked her to pass the ketchup. “Stage 4 soft-tissue sarcoma.”

  Elodie winces out loud, not meaning to.

  “My job in Vietnam was loading herbicides onto airplanes and choppers,” he says. “You ever hear of Agent Orange?”

  “No.”

  “They don’t know for sure that’s what caused my cancer,” he says. “But I do.”

  “My mother’s father died of cancer, probably from pesticide,” she tells him, in her terrible English. “He had a seed store.”

  Dennis nods sadly. “They stopped using Agent Orange in ’71, but only after I’d been handling it for most of my tour.”

  “I’m sorry.” She
doesn’t know what else to say.

  “Hey, the way I look at it, I should have died in ’Nam. God gave me an extra twenty-five-year bonus.”

  “How do you still believe in God?”

  “I didn’t for a long time after I got back from Vietnam. But eventually, after my daughters were born, I started to believe again. My wife’s been dragging me to church for twenty years. I guess it’s rubbed off.”

  “How many daughter you have?”

  “Four.”

  “Four.” She smiles, genuinely happy for him. “What are their names?”

  “Katy, Finn, Jennifer, and Denise. All redheads.”

  “There’s so much I want to ask you,” she says. “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Ask. Now’s your chance.”

  “What’s your full name?”

  “Dennis Finbar Duffy.”

  “And your wife?”

  “Suzanne. She’s back at the hotel. I had to beg her to let me walk the few blocks over here by myself.”

  “Why you came back here now?” she asks him, trying to keep her emotions in check as the memories of that weekend come flooding back. Memories of his kindness, his playfulness, the tender way he took her virginity. The gift he gave her. Nancy.

  “I’ve been back once before,” he says. “I brought the whole family. Must have been spring of ’84 because we came to see Boston play Montreal in the playoffs. We lost. Ended up getting swept that series. I brought them here to the deli for smoked meat, but you weren’t here. I didn’t expect you to be.”

  “Did you tell them about me?”

  “Are you kidding? No. But I’ve thought about you many times, especially during my tour. When I first got back, I thought about coming to see you.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I just never got around to it. And then I met Suzanne. I guess I didn’t want to ruin my memory of our experience together, you know?”

  She nods.

  “It was such a magical weekend,” he says. “I didn’t want to discover that we actually had nothing in common. We probably would have tried to have a long-distance relationship and it would have fallen apart, as they do. It would have been too disappointing.”

  “I know exactly what you mean.”

  “Instead, I have this perfect memory of a beautiful French Canadian girl. It’s really special to me.”

  He doesn’t know how special, she thinks.

  “It was the last time I was . . . myself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was never the same obnoxious, carefree kid again,” he says. “The guy you met that weekend? He didn’t come back from ’Nam. Which is kind of why I came back here today. This was the last place I got to be that kid.”

  “And for a Montreal smoked meat sandwich.”

  “That, too,” he says, chuckling. “It’s good to see this place again, relive that memory. Never in a million years did I expect to find you here.” He shakes his head, incredulous. “If this isn’t one of God’s little miracles, I don’t know what is.”

  “How long you have to live?” she asks him.

  “Not more than two or three months. Maybe weeks even.”

  She was better off believing he’d died over there.

  “I’ve had a really good life, Elodie. I promise.”

  She wipes her nose with a napkin from the dispenser.

  “Have you?” he asks her. “Had a good life?”

  She looks up at him. For a split second, she almost tells him about Nancy. But then she thinks about Nancy in all this, about how painful it would be for her to discover her father didn’t die in Vietnam after all, but that he’s dying now. What if he passes away before she ever gets a chance to meet him?

  “Yes,” she answers. “I’ve had a very good life.”

  “I’m glad,” he says, smiling. He still has the nice white teeth and freckles. “Any kids?”

  “One daughter,” she tells him, leaving it there. Maybe it’s the wrong decision to keep it from him, but it feels like the only way to protect Nancy. Besides, he’s already got four girls; he doesn’t need another.

  “How about that smoked meat?” he says. “I’ve stopped treatment. My appetite is coming back.”

  22

  On Friday, Véronique meets Louis at the corner of Pine and St. Laurent and slides into his red Pontiac Acadian. It smells of weed, French fries, and a faint masking odor of pine-scented air freshener. There’s marijuana shake on the floor at her feet, several crumpled McDonald’s bags on the back seat, and Black Sabbath is blaring from the tinny car stereo.

  “The signs are in my trunk,” he says. “You got the addresses?”

  She can barely hear him above Ozzy Osbourne belting out “Sweet Leaf.” “Here,” she says, pulling out the list Céline emailed her. “The first house is a corner lot on Ninth and Bélanger in Rosemont.”

  “La Petite Patrie,” he says, pulling out onto Pine Avenue. “On y’va!”

  He roars north on St. Laurent, past shops and restaurants and a sprinkling of offices on the top floors of old buildings. Through one window, she observes a row of heads perched over their computers. The poor sheep, stuck in an office all day. She experiences a sudden surge of joy in the realization that she will never be one of them.

  After three or four houses in the East End, they get a good rhythm going. Louis sticks the H-wire stand into the grass and Véronique slides the sign onto the frame. It’s still warm for autumn, and they work quickly and efficiently under the September sun. Louis sings while he works, everything from Gilles Vigneault’s nationalist anthem, “Gens du Pays,” to the old French Canadian folk songs their grandparents used to sing. He sings in a deep, old-timey voice, and Véronique finds herself laughing along for a good part of the day, occasionally joining in when she knows the words.

  Every now and then, someone passing by gives them a thumbs-up or shouts out, “Quebec libre!” An elderly woman even comes out of her house to hand them homemade banana bread wrapped in tinfoil. “You two give me hope for Quebec’s youth,” she tells them, shaking their hands. “I admire your commitment.”

  As the sky turns pink behind them and the air cools down to a more seasonal temperature, they decide to grab a beer at Bar Bernard, a dark tavern on the outskirts of the Plateau.

  “I used to live above this place,” Louis tells her once they’re seated. “Every weekend I’d have to listen to their shitty cover band until three o’clock in the morning. It was like they were playing in my bedroom. Their last song of the night was always ‘The End,’ by the Doors.”

  “Where do you live now?”

  “A few blocks north. It’s a shithole, but at least it’s not above a bar. You?”

  “The Plateau. On Ste. Famille.”

  “Nice street,” he comments. “And you don’t work, you said?”

  She realizes he must see her as some kind of spoiled princess, someone whose daddy probably pays her rent on one of the prettiest streets in the Plateau. “I work,” she says. “I just have extremely flexible hours.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a bookkeeper.”

  He looks impressed.

  “I’m going back to school in the fall to study poli-sci.” Even as she says it, she likes the sound of it more and more. “What about you? I assume you’re interested in politics?”

  “No, I’m interested in Quebec becoming an independent country, that’s all.”

  “That’s politics.”

  Louis shrugs. “I just want a better life for myself. My interest in this referendum is purely selfish.”

  “I don’t think it’s selfish to want a better life.”

  “Do you remember the ’80 referendum?” he asks her.

  “I do. I was only ten, but I remember how divisive it was.”

  “I was thirteen,” he says. “My parents were fanatic separatists. They volunteered for the Yes campaign; we had a sign bigger than our house on the front lawn. They brought me to the Paul Sa
uvé Arena to watch the results come in with all the Yes supporters. I remember when it was official that we’d lost and Lévesque started singing ‘Gens du Pays,’ I looked up at my mom and dad and they were both bawling. I’d never seen my dad cry before. He was heartbroken.”

  Louis crushes his cigarette in the ashtray and lights another. His poutine is untouched.

  “You said they were fanatic separatists?”

  “My dad died of lung cancer in ’89,” he says. “My mom is still alive. She’ll vote Yes, but she doesn’t care about it the way she did fifteen years ago. She lost her fight. The goddamn English crushed her spirit.”

  Louis is angry—she can tell from spending just one day with him. James also lost his father, but his pain is more diffused, expresses itself primarily as sadness. Louis is more like her father; their past pain is stored as resentment and blame, festering below the surface until it’s eventually expelled in bitter rants or, in her father’s case, violence.

  “My father is Léo Fortin,” she says, catching him by surprise.

  “Your dad is the Léo Fortin?” he cries. “October Crisis Léo Fortin?”

  She nods silently, savoring his pleasure.

  “You’re Léo Fortin’s daughter?”

  “I am.”

  “Tabarnak!” he cries, incredulous. After a long string of profanity, he says, “I have to meet him.”

  “Sure,” she says, smiling. “Anytime.”

  “What are you doing tonight?” he asks her, and she realizes she hasn’t mentioned James yet.

  “My boyfriend and I have plans,” she fibs. She’s actually driving up to Ste. Barbe tonight.

  “Oh, right. No problem,” he says, looking embarrassed.

  They split the bill and leave the bar. It’s dark when they get outside. “I had a great day,” he says.

  “Me, too.”

  The lake is perfectly still tonight, the air warm and windless as she steers the boat toward her uncle’s dock. Next time she makes a run to the reservation, it will be much colder, the water rougher, moodier. The weather changes dramatically from September to October, so she’s enjoying the last sweet breaths of summer.