Rendezvous – so he discovered many years later when he read the police report. By then, he was familiar with the Rendezvous, with its bolted-down chairs and metal mirrors – a windowless, low-ceilinged place where you never knew what time of day it was and the golden pitchers of beer rose and fell like the pistons of some slow-motion destruction machine. She socialized in other places as well, better places, and why that night, given her mood, she had chosen the Rendezvous was one of the many questions he would never answer. Others had noticed her there – “Intoxicated. Danced with several partners” – but according to the report, no one had seen her leave. The report picked her up again at the Harbour, where someone happened to see her trudging by through a light snowfall. By then, she had already walked, the report surmised, from the turnoff – a distance of six miles; and she had eight more miles to go, by the shortest route, over the ice. He could barely bring himself to think about the next part of her journey, for she was on her way back to him and Yvonne. They had gone to bed expecting theywould wake to her, or at least to a phone call, as they had so often in the past. While they were sleeping, their mother drowned.
He could see her trudging over the ice that had little snow cover yet, though there must have been enough to disguise the hole that was waiting for her. The night was mostly overcast. Perhaps a few stars had shone intermittently, and in the snow’s glow she must have made out the dark thin reefs of bush along the larger islands, the gleam of light from a cabin. She was wearing boots and carried her dancing shoes in her purse. But she must have been cold in her skimpy coat, the wind cutting, and perhaps it was this and not alcohol that had disoriented her, the cold settling too deeply. Perhaps she was singing to herself to buoy her spirits. What he could not bear was seeing her, in his mind’s eye, progress toward the faintly steaming slit in the snow, while he was unable to cry a warning.
They had not found her until spring. He was not allowed to see her, though her white coffin was set at the front of the church, with a bunch of evergreen on its lid. The priest, old Father Donahue, spoke of her at some length: he had known Corrine Johnson his whole life, he said, he could remember the hot summer night she was born. His kind, rough voice went on, describing the time she was chosen to play Mary in the Christmas pageant – and what a fine Mary she was, he said. Listening to him, Billy glimpsed a mother he didn’t know, who’d had another life as a child, as a young woman who one day, kicking offher shoes, had plunged into icy water to save little Peter Squance. Who was this person?
Afterwards, he followed her (what they said was her) in her white coffin along the trail to the graves. It had snowed a little that day, idle flakes disappearing on the coffin lid, among the crosses and spirit houses, among the gloomy pines, with the choir singing in their red robes. Standing between Matt and Emma, he and his sister watched her go down into the ground. But he had not seen her and did not entirely believe it was her, and so for a long time afterwards, in certain moods, he would watch the lake, remembering how she had told him that one day she would find a good man; and she might go off with him for a while – this man who owned a nice house, who would buy her nice clothes. And then (he could depend on it), she would send for him.
The Blue Osprey sits at the end of a long bay – a rambling log structure overlooking a lawn where twin poles fly the flags of the United States and Canada, drooping in the windless air. He walks up a brick path and passes through the front doors into coolness, the lustre of distant skylights. Others are here, but they are not the fishermen and hunters he remembers from the old days, in their plaid shirts and assorted caps, with their gun cases and tackle boxes and cartons
He could see her trudging over the ice that had little snow cover yet, though there must have been enough to disguise the hole that was waiting for her. The night was mostly overcast. Perhaps a few stars had shone intermittently, and in the snow’s glow she must have made out the dark thin reefs of bush along the larger islands, the gleam of light from a cabin. She was wearing boots and carried her dancing shoes in her purse. But she must have been cold in her skimpy coat, the wind cutting, and perhaps it was this and not alcohol that had disoriented her, the cold settling too deeply. Perhaps she was singing to herself to buoy her spirits. What he could not bear was seeing her, in his mind’s eye, progress toward the faintly steaming slit in the snow, while he was unable to cry a warning.
They had not found her until spring. He was not allowed to see her, though her white coffin was set at the front of the church, with a bunch of evergreen on its lid. The priest, old Father Donahue, spoke of her at some length: he had known Corrine Johnson his whole life, he said, he could remember the hot summer night she was born. His kind, rough voice went on, describing the time she was chosen to play Mary in the Christmas pageant – and what a fine Mary she was, he said. Listening to him, Billy glimpsed a mother he didn’t know, who’d had another life as a child, as a young woman who one day, kicking offher shoes, had plunged into icy water to save little Peter Squance. Who was this person?
Afterwards, he followed her (what they said was her) in her white coffin along the trail to the graves. It had snowed a little that day, idle flakes disappearing on the coffin lid, among the crosses and spirit houses, among the gloomy pines, with the choir singing in their red robes. Standing between Matt and Emma, he and his sister watched her go down into the ground. But he had not seen her and did not entirely believe it was her, and so for a long time afterwards, in certain moods, he would watch the lake, remembering how she had told him that one day she would find a good man; and she might go off with him for a while – this man who owned a nice house, who would buy her nice clothes. And then (he could depend on it), she would send for him.
The Blue Osprey sits at the end of a long bay – a rambling log structure overlooking a lawn where twin poles fly the flags of the United States and Canada, drooping in the windless air. He walks up a brick path and passes through the front doors into coolness, the lustre of distant skylights. Others are here, but they are not the fishermen and hunters he remembers from the old days, in their plaid shirts and assorted caps, with their gun cases and tackle boxes and cartons
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