Nancy’s eyes fill with tears, and Elodie takes her in her arms. “I know it hasn’t been easy for you,” Elodie says.
“I just don’t want you to be in pain,” Nancy sniffles. “I know that’s selfish—”
“No,” Elodie says, holding onto her. “Of course you don’t want to see your mother suffering.”
“Will things ever go back to the way they were before the Duplessis orphans?”
“I don’t think they can,” Elodie says. “Not anymore. But I believe they can be better.”
“How?”
“For one thing, I’m going to be more honest with you. From now on, I won’t always act like everything is fine when it’s not. That doesn’t mean I’m going to burden you with all my crap, but there’s definitely room for more authenticity between us.”
Nancy nods and steps back from her mother’s embrace. She puts her bowl of Kraft Dinner in the sink.
“I have to tell you something,” Elodie says, suddenly moved to rid herself of all her secrets. She doesn’t want any more unnecessary barriers in her life, certainly not between her and her daughter. “Let’s sit,” she says, leading Nancy by the hand to the kitchen table.
“Should I be scared?”
Elodie takes a cigarette from the pack she keeps in the wicker fruit basket. “This is hard to say,” she begins, feeling a weight pushing on her chest.
Nancy looks wary.
“I need to tell you something about your father, Nance.”
Typical Nancy—her expression doesn’t change, not even a flinch.
“He showed up one day at the deli.”
“When?”
Elodie braces herself. “Four years ago. Right before the referendum.”
Nancy is quiet.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Elodie says. “He was dying, Nance. He only had a few months to live at most. He had cancer. I made the decision to protect you from meeting him and then losing him right away. Maybe it was the wrong decision, looking back.”
Nancy remains silent.
“Obviously he didn’t know about you,” Elodie explains. “And I didn’t think it would be fair to tell him in the last weeks of his life.”
Elodie gets up and tears off a piece of paper from her grocery list pad. She sits back down at the table and scribbles something on the paper. “I’m sorry I kept it from you,” she says. “I didn’t think I had a choice, for both your sakes. I really believed in my heart it would be cruel to introduce you to him and then have him die on you.”
“That must have been a hard decision for you.”
“Would you have wanted to meet him?” Elodie asks her. “Was I wrong?”
“Of course I would have wanted to meet him,” she says. “He may not have wanted to meet me, though. I get that you were thinking about him, too. Especially since he was dying. It would have been a lot to take in.”
“I’m sorry,” Elodie says again. “Maybe I should have given you both a choice.”
“Why was he at the deli?” she wants to know. “He was from Boston, right? Was he there to see you?”
“No, he was surprised to see me,” Elodie says. “He enjoyed Montreal. He used to visit with his family.”
“His family?”
“You have sisters, Nance.”
Nancy’s eyes widen. A flicker of emotion in her face.
“Here,” Elodie says, handing Nancy the piece of paper.
“Katy, Finn, Jennifer, and Denise Duffy. Four of them?”
“Four redheads, like him. His name was Dennis Finbar Duffy. You’ll probably find them in Boston, if you decide you want to.”
“Of course I do,” Nancy says. Elodie can’t tell if she’s happy or angry, but she’s always been like that.
They sit like that for a while, Elodie smoking quietly, Nancy staring down at the names on that piece of paper.
“Say something,” Elodie finally says.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Are you angry with me?”
“No.”
“Would you like to go to Boston?”
“Would you come with me?” Nancy asks her, and Elodie is struck by her vulnerability.
“Yes,” Elodie says. “Of course. I want to meet your sisters.”
42
APRIL 1999
Véronique is sitting on the dock, staring out at the lake that once belonged to her and Pierre. That’s how she used to feel about it, back when they were smuggling. Like they owned it. Maybe that’s how you’re supposed to feel about the world in your twenties.
Pierre has been gone exactly five years today. A sad coincidence, given today is her father’s wake. Lisette wanted to have it here in Ste. Barbe, where people could be outside if the house got too crowded. It’s been a parade of separatists, nationalists, and ex-FLQ members drunkenly singing “Gens du Pays” and reminiscing about the old days. A couple of journalists tried to crash the party. Léo would have loved it. It would have made him feel important, beloved. Maybe he was.
Véronique finishes her beer and tucks her face into her scarf to protect it from the wind. She misses Léo. It doesn’t matter that she’s been away for almost two years; she misses knowing he’s here. Sitting in his recliner, nattering about something, listening to his music. She misses knowing he’s in the world. Even when he was in jail, he was there.
What a void it leaves, the death of a parent. She’d been angry with him leading up to his stroke; their relationship had been tenuous over the last couple of years, but there was comfort in knowing he was waiting for her at home. She’d come to take it for granted, having a father; thought, with the hubris of youth, that she had the luxury of deciding when she would wholeheartedly forgive him.
A gust of wind kicks up, spraying her with a mist of water. The lake is rough, choppy. She can viscerally remember how it felt to be out riding in wind like this, the boat banging against the waves like they were formed of concrete. Pierre shouting from the back, “Câlice, mon queue!”
Inside of five years, the three men she’s loved most in her life are gone. The heartbreak feels untenable today under the dim gray sky and battering wind.
“Véro?”
She turns. Marc is there, shivering in a thin K-Way jacket. He joins her at the edge of the dock, not saying anything for a long time. At some point she feels his arm around her shoulders, heavy and strong, a log of solid muscle.
“What now?” he asks her.
“I’m going to stay,” she says. “I can’t leave my mom.”
“You know you always have a job if you want it,” he says. “Camil needs more people.”
“No.”
He doesn’t push. She wishes Marc would get out of this life. The last thing she wants is to lose him to an arrest or a gunshot. But he’s flush from selling drugs, just bought a house and has a baby on the way. She knows he’ll never give it up. He was born for it.
She once thought she was born for it, too, but the people in her life helped her to see otherwise. It took a long time, a lot of catastrophic choices, but she would never go back now.
“I have a plan,” she tells Marc. “I know what I want to do next.”
When she gets back up to the house, she sees Elodie standing in the middle of the room by herself. They haven’t seen each other since the morning Véronique showed up on her doorstep, having just narrowly escaped detonating a bomb outside of James’s office. “Elo?”
“I hope it’s okay that I came,” she says, turning to Véronique. “I read about your father, and there was a notice about today’s wake—”
“I’m so happy you’re here,” she says, practically falling into Elodie’s arms. “You don’t know how good it is to see you.”
“I think I do.”
They look each other over, teary and relieved to be together again. “You look good, Elo. Really.”
“So do you, Véro.”
“I’ve wanted to call you so many times.”
“I wish you would have.
”
“I’ve been away, traveling.”
“Tell me everything you’ve been doing for the past two years.”
“I went to Europe in the fall of ’97. I visited Budapest first, then Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam. I ended up in Paris and just stayed there. I had nothing to come home to.”
“Did you work over there?”
“I worked at a bookstore in the Marais. Mostly I just read. I read everything I could get my hands on. I met someone and moved in with him. And then Léo had the stroke, so I came back. He died while I was home.”
“So you’re staying?”
“I can’t leave my mother.”
“I’m sorry, V. And the man you left in Paris?”
“He’s still there. He owns the bookstore where I worked.”
“Do you love him?”
“I do. Just not enough to stay in Paris.” Not the way I loved James. “He’s not about to leave his store and move to Montreal for me either. It ended by default.”
“Maybe when your mother is back on her feet, you can go back to Paris.”
“I belong here,” she says. “Montreal is home.”
“I’m glad,” Elodie says. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, Elo. I’ve wanted to reach out so many times, but . . .”
“Why didn’t you?”
Véronique shrugs. “Remorse. Embarrassment. I never said goodbye to you. I never even wrote.”
“I understood why.”
“What I did that night,” she says. “The bomb—”
“But you didn’t do it.”
“I would have.”
“You were in a dark place, Véro. That was never who you were, and I knew that. I never judged you. I just needed a little time.”
“Did you ever tell James why I was at his office that night?”
“Of course not. He wanted to believe you were there because you still loved him.”
“I did.”
“I know,” Elodie says, squeezing her hand. “I heard about Louis.”
Louis was arrested throwing a Molotov cocktail into a sandwich shop in NDG. He got some notoriety when he was arrested, but his Language Brigade fizzled out and he was quickly forgotten. Véronique was in Europe at the time. She felt sad for him, but relieved it was over. He never mentioned her name to the police when he was questioned about the first couple of bombings. At least he was loyal to her. He’s in jail now, sentenced to eight years. She has not been to see him. She probably won’t go. She’s still so ashamed of that episode in her life.
“Maybe this doesn’t matter anymore,” Elodie says, “but James is genuinely sorry he wrote that article about your father.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“You are the last person he ever wanted to hurt, Véronique.”
“I know that now,” she admits. “If I’m honest, I really hoped that article could somehow change the past or justify what my father had done. I had all these silly expectations about how it could exonerate him. I’m the one who needed to be convinced he was a hero and not a murderer, so the truth in black and white was unbearable.”
“Still, James didn’t need to be the one to write it,” Elodie says. “And he’s been paying for it ever since.”
“What do you mean?”
“He lost you. That’s what I mean.”
“You know it’s funny, in a way,” Véronique says. “It turns out Léo didn’t even kill Pierre Laporte.”
“He didn’t?”
“He told me the truth before I went to Europe. He wasn’t even there when it happened.”
“Why did he let you think he had? Why did he let the world think that?”
“I guess he thought it was the more heroic version of himself.”
“He was willing to go to jail for life?”
“That was Léo,” she says. “He had his principles, they were just completely fucked up. James always used to say that.”
“James will feel even worse.”
“Léo wanted everyone to think he had done it. James was just doing his job.”
“But you haven’t come out and publicly cleared his name.”
“Léo wouldn’t have wanted that,” Véronique says. “He spent his entire life committed to that lie. It was his legacy, his legend. It’s not my place to tell his truth.”
“That must have been quite a bombshell.”
“It’s partly why I went to Europe,” she says. “I needed to get away from him, from Louis. From James.”
“Did you reconcile with Léo before he died?”
“Sort of. I came home for Christmas last year with Féderic so he could meet my parents. We had a good time, but there was no formal truce between my father and me. He didn’t apologize. We just sort of moved on. I went back to Paris a lot less angry.”
Elodie touches Véronique’s cheek in her warm, motherly way. “Maybe you can drop by the deli for lunch next week?”
“I’d love that. I haven’t had a smoked meat sandwich in too long.”
“James is still at CNA,” Elodie mentions. “He’s bureau chief now.”
“I know. He’s pretty well-known.”
“He’s not seeing anyone.”
“Sarah didn’t work out?”
“Sarah was never right for him.”
“I see what you’re doing here,” Véronique says, “but I’m not ready. I’m still sorting things out with Féderic, and I have to get my life in order here. I’m starting over.”
“Maybe it’s selfish of me,” Elodie says. “I’d just like two of my favorite people to be together, where you belong.”
Later on, after all the guests have gone, Camil and Véronique cap off the night with shots of crème de menthe. Marc has gone home, and Lisette is in the kitchen washing dishes. The house is quiet except for the rattle of cutlery and clanging of plates being loaded into the dishwasher.
“Did Marc speak to you about coming back to work?” Camil asks her.
The den is blue with cigarette smoke. They’re both drunk, heavy-lidded. “I’m not coming back to work for you,” she tells him.
“I need you.”
“I’m done, mon’onc. I can’t.”
“Do you know how much money we’re making? What else are you going to do?”
“I have a plan,” she says, emptying her shot glass.
Camil manages to get back on his feet and wobbles over to her. He refills her glass, then his. “To Léo!” he says, holding it up, exposing the faded blue tattoo of his wife’s face on his forearm.
“To Léo.”
They down the shots, and he pours them two more before sinking back in his recliner. She watches him from across the room as he watches her. He’s got a mean stare. She wouldn’t want to mess with him if she weren’t his niece. This is what Marc will become one day, hardened and intimidating; a seasoned, lifetime criminal. Camil is the real deal, maybe more so than her father ever was.
He lights a cigarette, which he holds between his middle and pointing fingers, a quirk she always found strange. She would like to ask him if he killed Callahan. She’s drunk enough; he’s drunk enough. But part of her would rather not know.
He closes his eyes, lets out a long, low snore, and then jerks awake. “It was a good turnout today,” he slurs, remembering the cigarette burning in his hand. “Your father would have been pleased.”
Véronique nods, letting the syrupy crème de menthe slide down her throat; the sweet, mouthwashy taste is starting to nauseate her. Her uncle is watching her through half-closed eyes. “I had nothing to do with Callahan’s death,” he says. “If that’s why you won’t come back.”
She doesn’t respond.
“I swear, Véro. I would never kill one of my best customers.”
That’s the problem with a guy like Camil. You can never tell when he’s lying.
43
JUNE 30, 2001
Elodie is sitting very still. A hush has fallen over the room. Her hands are folded on her lap. She can
feel them trembling against the fabric of her cotton dress. They’ve all said their piece. Bruno has spoken eloquently on their behalf. They’re close. So very close. All that’s left is to vote on the agreement, which was written by Bruno and their attorney: “For a Reconciliation with Justice.”
Elodie is fifty-one years old. She’s been at this almost ten years. The Duplessis orphans have their own headquarters now, here at the St. Pierre Centre on Rue Panet. There’s a new premier of Quebec, and he’s made the best offer they’ve had yet. The only offer worth considering.
Bruno, sitting at the front of the room, looks out at the assembly of Duplessis orphans, his peers, and says, “Are we in agreement then?”
One of the men, an outspoken critic of Bruno, leaps to his feet. “This decree is an insult!” he says, flushed with anger. “Where is the complete text of the offer from Premier Landry? You’ve made too many concessions in this agreement, Bruno.”
“It’s this or nothing,” Bruno says calmly. “This is as far as the province will go, Robert.”
“We wanted double this amount!” Robert rails. “In Article 10 of the original document, the wording stated specifically that the provincial government, the medical community, and the church would have to contribute to a compensation fund in the amount of fifty thousand dollars per orphan. Why is that article removed from this decree?”
“Because it was not agreed upon, Robert. They refused our counteroffer. It’s this or nothing.”
“But this doesn’t go far enough! You’ve betrayed your principles, Bruno. Did you make a secret deal with them?”
“I made the necessary concessions to get you as much as you’re ever going to get.”
Someone else stands up and says to Robert, “We’re getting old and we need the money before it’s too late. We’re at the end of the line. This is what we’ve wanted.”
“It’s a deal with the devil,” Robert counters. “You’re about to sign away the possibility of ever getting an apology from the church!”
“We were never going to get an apology from the church.”
“Bruno, ten days ago you rejected Landry’s offer. Now you’re about to accept it with no significant changes! What’s in it for you? What happened to ‘I will never settle this case at a discount!’?”
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