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  “That went well,” said Henley, admiring the two-inch dent on Lars’s police truck.

  “Hey, geniuses over there, you nearly took our heads off!” said Bernier.

  “Is that any way to skin a buck?” Davis shouted.

  “Why the golf ball and the all-terrain?” asked Morrison, genuinely puzzled. “A good knife is all you need.”

  “Ah well, these guys sometimes work too hard to redefine stupid,” said Bernier, “but they mean well.” He smiled at the veteran gunsmith. “You don’t come out here enough, Rob.”

  “Maybe I do,” joked Morrison.

  “You should show them how to do it, Rob,” said Davis.

  “No, come on,” said Morrison, brushing aside the idea.

  “That would be cool to see,” said Lars, reaching for a sandwich.

  “Anyways, we’d need a catch.”

  Millet challenged him. “Well, let’s get one!”

  “What, right now?” asked Morrison.

  “I’m game,” said Henley, punching his buddy Bernier on the shoulder. “What do you say, birthday boy?”

  “I’m borrowing your new rifle!” said Davis.

  “I’ll get my custom Winchester! It’s not a Morrison, but it’ll hold up! Come on!” said Henley to Bernier.

  “Where would we go?” asked Morrison.

  “Right over the hill,” suggested Millet. “I’ve got lots of ammo in my car.”

  “The clearing on the east side. The big bucks love crossing through there,” added Henley, moving off toward the main house. “I’ll be right back! Let’s go, boys!” he shouted.

  The friends scrambled to prepare for their impromptu hunt. Each of them took last bites of food, chugged the last of their drinks. Millet stumbled over himself.

  “You’ve had enough there, Claude! You better leave the shooting to the big boys,” teased Davis.

  “Fuck off,” said Millet. “I am so doing this! I could outshoot you on any day of the week!”

  “Is that so? Well, it’s nighttime now and you’re drunk.”

  “I do my best when I’m drunk.”

  “Bet that’s not what your wife says?” said Davis.

  “Never mind what my wife says!” said Millet. He turned for support from Lennox, but Lennox smirked, said nothing, then gulped a long one from a whiskey bottle before slamming it back down on the food table.

  “Let’s go!” shouted Lennox.

  The friends geared up, reaching into their cars and trucks, as Henley returned with two rifles and ammunition boxes. Millet starting singing a mumbled version of “Happy Birthday.” The others joined in this awkward cacophony of deep voices, like a warriors’ chant before battle. Then they marched into the night.

  Jack watched them with awe. Here were these big men, talking tough, dressed and equipped to take on the outdoors, moving off on a quest into the dark woods. Millet led them, his headgear supporting a beam of light, aimed forward like a miner going underground for ore.

  “They’re going,” said Zeph.

  “Let’s follow them,” challenged Jack.

  “No way. I’m hungry! I want to go home and eat.”

  Jack would never have pressured Zeph into something he didn’t want to do, so he led the way to Zeph’s house. It took them twenty minutes to get through the woods and onto a path in the forest and finally to Chemin Van Kleet, the faster way to Zeph’s.

  The house was a dark mass in the night. Zeph brought them through the back door and into the kitchen, which was the room that mattered most to Zeph at the moment. Jack had been there often and knew where the bags of chips were usually stored. Zeph brought out some chocolate milk and two glasses. The house was quiet.

  “They’re asleep, I guess. Doesn’t matter.”

  Famished from their hike and the sight of the outdoor buffet, the boys gorged themselves with snack food, speaking little. The night was silent, except for a dog, probably Henley’s, barking in the distance.

  Paul heard the distant dog bark from inside the upstairs library. He took a last sip of coffee, his third or fourth of the evening. He normally didn’t drink this much coffee, but he was in a relaxed mood and felt like enjoying the rest of the evening. He had kissed Anne goodbye a few minutes ago. She had a few things to do before turning in and was going to visit her mother tomorrow morning. He would have liked her to stay the night, as she often did, but he understood. His fondness for her grew every day. He wanted to know her even better. He was very drawn by her interest in her indigenous roots, in history, in the environment they lived in. Yet, there was something mysterious about her, he felt, something wild and free-spirited. He felt if he moved too quickly toward her, she might run off, like a housecat that adores being scratched on the nape but that’ll spring off if you try to hold it too close.

  Paul picked up the house phone and entered Jack’s cell number.

  “Yah,” he heard his son say.

  “Jack, it’s getting a bit late, don’t you think?”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “Where are you?”

  “On my way.”

  “You realize you never really answer my questions anymore? Why is that?”

  “I’m coming, Dad!”

  “Okay, do that please,” said Paul. “See you soon.” He put the phone down. He wasn’t really worried about his outdoorsman son, who knew the woods intimately. It was more that he loved to have him around, and it was hard to see him grow. Jack seemed to need him less and less.

  Paul found an empty space in an adjacent bookshelf and returned the book he had left out for Catherine. Her message came through loud and clear, not that there was ever any doubt. He knew it as soon as he entered the house and saw the book, in a different location on the counter, meaning she had at least looked at it. She had drawn the line, something she was very good at, in his view, and was making decisions accordingly, even regarding something as innocuous as a book. He should have been relieved, perhaps even happy, but it nagged at him that she didn’t feel compelled to take this token of their past. Maybe it was his ego or his pride. They both knew the significance of the book, which he had given her as an invitation into his life, an invitation to share in his passions. The fact that she could let go of it now was an indication that she had moved on—and that she had no need to hold onto the past, which was much worse. Catherine had always been fiercely independent.

  Catherine and Paul had both had affairs in the last years of their marriage. Paul had been the first, when he met an interesting, even exciting, lawyer at a finance industry cocktail. That had not lasted more than a few weeks, when he discovered she was borderline alcoholic. Catherine had learned about Paul’s adventure and confronted him about it. Paul had sworn it had been unintentional, a mistake, but Catherine, not good at forgiveness to start with, did an about-face on Paul. The man she found was young, cute, working with a collaborating engineering firm. That lasted just over three months, off and on. Catherine had enjoyed the sexual experimentation, but there was no depth to their relationship.

  Paul had had his suspicions and had given Catherine a kind of latitude, however uncomfortable it was for him. Their marriage would have gone right out the window then, if it hadn’t been for Catherine. There was still something she cared for in Paul, and she wasn’t sure she’d find another partner. She thought Paul might feel the same. They agreed that their demanding work schedules had been the key factor pulling them apart. Catherine and Paul respected each other, that much was forever. They had made two amazing boys. They had shared good years. And they had built their Valhalla, their dream life, if only to let it go.

  Paul had initiated their separation at least as much as Catherine, perhaps more. And he was realistic on that count, not knowing where his relationship would go with the much younger Anne. Were they in love? He didn’t know and he wasn’t pressuring himself to figure it
out either. For the moment, Paul and Anne’s relationship was a comfortable, exciting part of his life, and that was fine. He hoped Catherine would find someone who would bring the love she deserved back into her life. Paul had admittedly grown incapable of that.

  He could have been sad about that, but rather chose to accept it and move on. Catherine was a wonderful person, an astonishing professional, a great mother to their boys. She had been a great friend, too, and he hoped that would continue. She would be better off with a new love. Theirs had ended.

  A breeze entered through a window. Paul went to close it. The windows of the house were of industrial grade, with thick metal frames for added solidity and security. Opening and closing any one of them took a few moments and some effort. Paul then walked along the upstairs mezzanine hall. When he came to Noah’s room, the door was partway open. He could hear Noah typing away at his computer. When he peered in, making sure not to disturb, he saw that Noah had headphones on and was enjoying a virtual conversation, probably with a school friend or two.

  “Fail!” said Noah. “Oh, wow! Go around, all the way around!” and laughed.

  Paul was so proud of his little man, so smart and capable. He could do things with his computer Paul could never hope to learn. Paul could only guess he was playing an interactive multi-player game as the boys often did. Paul walked quietly away and went back downstairs. In the kitchen, he took a water bottle from the fridge and headed outside into the fresh evening air.

  It made him wonder if Jack would be cold out there. He couldn’t remember if he’d been wearing a sweater when he left with Zeph. Paul wanted him home soon. He loved evenings at home with his boys. Nothing was better. He thought to keep the fire burning in the living room and wanted to spend the last few hours of the evening lounging with his boys. If they didn’t talk to him and kept busy with their electronic tablets, that would be fine, as long as they were together.

  Paul walked out to the woodpile.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE HOSPITAL

  Catherine almost cried on the drive back to Montreal. Almost. A song on the radio had been too sweet, pricking her emotions. She changed the station. Hard rock suited her better as the landscape shot by. Randy Renaud, the iconic voice of CHOM 97.7 FM, introduced tune after tune that aimed to shake the world. She was okay with that. She had shaken her world, Paul’s world, her boys’ world, and anyone else’s that crossed her path these days. She was in a world-shaking state of mind, and people had best get out of her way.

  Catherine had arrived earlier than expected, due to surprisingly little traffic across the Champlain Bridge onto the Island of Montreal, and had immediately unloaded her Audi. After two hours of hard work, she jumped into the shower. The heat and soft flow of the water soothed her. When she finally stepped out, wrapped herself in a bathrobe and brushed her hair, she felt calm, though completely spent.

  The Rue Arsenault house, in the City of Kirkland west of Montreal, was fair-sized and a practical distance from schools and dense clusters of retail stores, with good access to the Trans-Canada and the Remembrance Highway, which both sliced the Island of Montreal east to west, from tip to tip. The home was of a type common to Montreal’s West Island, with a stone façade, a two-car garage, lateral walls of red brick, and a gable roof of black asphalt shingles. It wasn’t one of Catherine’s designs. These were homes designed and built in series by local developers. Catherine viewed the house more like a generic, functional box than as an architectural statement. It wasn’t Valhalla and had never earned a special nickname, which was, in part, what made Catherine lonely there. When she had the care of the kids, the Kirkland house was comfortable and accommodating, but when she was alone, the place was just plain wrong, inadequate in the most fundamental ways. She missed her boys so much, and though it had been only a few days since she’d been with them, nothing and no one could appease that emptiness, not even her best friend, Linda Finklestein, who had phoned to invite her out for drinks, even offering to help unload the car. Catherine had passed her up, preferring to wind down alone. It had seemed like the right decision. A night out with Linda might have done her good, but it was more likely she’d have regretted not being home with her slippers and lemon tea.

  There was only one thing she was really looking forward to, and that was opening Noah’s envelope. A fine reward for her tough day, she thought. She suspected she would find a short letter or a poem. Noah’s poems had earned the acclaim of his teachers and won contests. One of his longer poems, on the global environmental crisis and how it affects the bee population, had been published in an anthology of emerging Montreal poets. His poems were good for a boy of only thirteen. This was no surprise in the Carignan family anymore. Last winter Noah had devoured Thus Spoke Zarathustra, an old book of his dad’s. She’d found him reading it, tucked in a ball on the couch with that little crease in his forehead that appeared whenever he was really concentrating.

  “What’cha reading?” she had asked.

  “A freaky book,” he had answered. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Nietzsche?”

  “Nee-chee?” he asked back, checking the spelling of the author’s name, then nodding. “He talks about Superman!” he’d said, intrigued by the pages he held open. One of many times she’d found him reading way beyond his age level.

  When she was fully dry, she sat on her bed with the envelope, as though it were a gift discovered on Christmas morning. She loved Noah’s handwriting, stylized and clear. He didn’t get it from her. Catherine’s own handwriting, despite architectural training, was no better than the average doctor’s note. She pulled the flap of the envelope, only lightly glued, and removed a single letter-sized sheet of paper. On it was a neatly laid-out poem, without introduction or explanation. She read it slowly.

  I am your youngest boy, of Earth

  You are my mother, Moon

  Light reflected my way since birth

  On a pale blue afternoon

  When your path takes you away

  I wish for night and heavens dark

  Around so far, for half a day

  The sky above, left clear and stark

  I need for you throughout the hours

  Though father, Sun, is right beyond

  I wish for you with all my powers

  And wait for twilight to respond

  I am your boy, will always care

  The love you give me is my treasure

  You are my mother, anywhere

  I love you back, with no measure

  I am your youngest boy, of Earth

  You are my mother, Moon

  Your light to me has worth

  Even on a pale blue afternoon

  Catherine ran her fingers softly along the page. Words offered to her by her young son, written with such sweet simplicity, besides warming the depths of her heart, brought a torrent of water from her eyes, from deep in her soul. When she read her son’s poem, sitting there all alone, missing her sons so intensely that her heart fluttered as if completely detached from her, Catherine could not have imagined that she would remember this night, at the Kirkland house, with such strong regret for the rest of her life.

  The phone rang.

  Catherine knew something was wrong before picking up. This wasn’t intuition, just simple deduction. It was late night. That’s not when good news comes.

  Her son Jack’s voice, though a welcome surprise and normally comforting, was instantly clear for all that it had to convey. She braced herself and still the news rattled her, weakening every muscle. The bedroom melted around her. She sat down on her bed, but she didn’t feel it supporting her. There was nothing present for Catherine except her empty disbelief. All else swirled.

  “How? How can that be? How … where is he?”

  “We’re at BMP,” said Jack, referring to Brome Missisquoi Perkins Hospital. “In Emergency.”
/>   “I’m coming,” she said. “I’ll be an hour-and-a-half, two max. I’m coming right there.”

  “Okay, Mom,” said Jack, “We need you. We’re in the waiting room.”

  “I love you,” she said. “Your father will be alright.”

  “Love you too.”

  “Call me on my cell as soon as you know anything. Okay?”

  “Yeah,” confirmed Jack softly.

  “Call me! Or, I’ll call you from the car!”

  “Yeah, Mom. We’re just waiting now. That’s what they told us to do.”

  “Where’s Noah?”

  “He’s right here with me. He’s fine. Just come.”

  “On my way!”

  Catherine got off the phone after a few more words of encouragement, as much for her sons as for herself. She got dressed and made her way into her car without realizing that she had done these things. She was on autopilot, knowing only that she had to be with Paul and her sons as soon as possible.

  She pulled into a gas station to fill up before getting on the highway. The time it took to fill up and pay, though only minutes, was excruciating. She didn’t wait for the receipt. Once out of Kirkland and on the highway, she crossed the West Island and merged onto Remembrance Highway to the Champlain Bridge. Up on the bridge, still busy at this late hour, she found nothing romantic about the view over the St. Lawrence, its massive flow moving assuredly, rapids churning, unstoppable. Catherine wanted to stop time, dam its flow, and gain an edge on it all, even by just a little bit, for once. But it wasn’t to be.

  She raced ahead, through the grey roadways of Montreal’s south shore, barrelling along Highway 10 for the third time. She drove a steady twenty-five kilometres per hour over the speed limit, without a care. An already familiar road seemed unbearably uniform. When she got to where it was mostly farms and worked fields bordering the highway, she began to anticipate her arrival and what was awaiting her in Emergency.