Hi, Folks! I've been reminiscing lately about the little town where I grew up, somewhere in Saskatchewan. The following short story is just that: a story. The people are figments of my imagination, and like "Dog River" in Corner Gas, the town in my tale is quite fictional. However, like most yarns, this one springs naturally from my memories of a special time and place. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you! ... Donna

It’s not much farther, I tell myself. My eyes are bleary with prairie fatigue, and my mind is a slide show of wheat fields and grain elevators. It’s been so long. I’d almost forgotten how it feels to see the sky stretching out all around me. Almost….

There it is -- the town where I grew up; the bank where I deposit my earliest memories; the place that broke my heart even as it breathed life into my spirit.

That dot on the map, north of Yorkton on the Yellowhead Highway.

First stop, the town’s cenotaph. That’s where the memories begin and end, at the monument dedicated to those who died in both of the great wars. I park my car on the road that is now paved – though in my memory it will always be carved in dirt, the hot dust rising in the unforgiving afternoon.

This is where he died. Or, so I am told, this is where his body was found a week ago, on a cool October morning. It was foul play, the paper said. Nothing fancy … a blunt instrument to the back of the head.

I got the call from an old friend. I thought you’d like to know… Lester LeBlanc… Dead. Yeah. I guess I’d like to know.

I remember Lester -- tall, dark, painfully young, a serious Metis teenager with a saxophone under his arm, black eyes flashing behind thick glasses, a smile always lurking at the corner of his mouth, but never quite coming into flower.

I remember the early days of spring, when I was thirteen, before I knew for certain that the world was really as hard a place as it seemed to be -- the little white church nestled in a profusion of lilac and honeysuckle, the grounds a forest of colour filled with sweetly scented air.

Lester started coming to our church in the spring of that year. He came alone. His family were not church-going people. He came because the minister told him that he could play his saxophone for the congregation every Sunday morning. The things a clergyman will do to save a soul….

He was fifteen that year, a stringy colt of a boy standing alone before the all-white congregation. Just a boy and his horn. Then he raised it to his mouth and he was instantly transformed, no longer merely a gangly, self-conscious, pimple-peppered kid. The music rose and fell with a sacrilegious beauty, lifting Lester up to the status of a god, and lifting me, the untried spirit, into the clouds.

Until that day, music had been something that one had to endure, a part of the noise of daily living -- the sorry twang of the country radio, and Did your chewing gum lose its flavour on the bedpost overnight?-- the crow-like offering of the townsfolk, Oh, come, come, come to the church in the wild wood….

That day my ears were opened with a heavenly flood of sound, cascading through the undiscovered regions of my brain, charting new synapses with each impassioned sliding of the scale.

Oh beautiful boy, to stand before us mortals creating such a sound!

“That was nice,” I said, my shyness choking me on the steps of the church after the service.

“Thanks. Wanna go for a walk?”

And so we became Sunday afternoon sweethearts, meeting out of sight of the elders after all the singing and the praying were done, holding hands under the lilac trees, and kissing behind the church in the heavy bush.

Of course, we knew we’d better not get caught. Nice white girls didn’t mess around with Metis country boys. It wouldn’t go well for either of us.

Lester lived near Good Spirit Lake, on a small farm with his father and uncle. He had a twin brother whose name I can’t remember, and a younger sister, about my age. I think she had a learning disability. She went to school on a nearby Reservation.

We didn’t talk much, Lester and me. But every Sunday I’d be there with bells on at the church, waiting for the music that would free my soul.

And every Sunday after church we’d come together, our mouths growing familiar with each other and our hands searching, reaching for something that we couldn’t name.

I shield my eyes and peer down the street to the right of the cenotaph, towards the brick schoolhouse where I first met Lester. Grades one through six, all housed in a four-room building, two classrooms on the main floor and two upstairs. A seesaw, a set of swings, and a Giant Strides, now defunct thanks to too many broken legs and too many lost teeth.

I didn’t know him then, really. He was one of a pair of twins, two years older than I was. By the time I was in grade six he had moved on to Junior High in Yorkton. A year later his brother died -- a tragic accident involving a train.

We were all fascinated by the prairie trains, with their speed and fury. Walking along the tracks in search of tiger lilies was a favourite pastime among the young people. From time to time you’d hear of some kid getting ripped apart by one of the great metal monsters. In fact, I’d even known one girl who’d chosen ‘death by train’ as a form of suicide.

I know I’m going to wander around the school grounds, peer into the windows and sit in the dust on the baseball diamond. But I’ll wait till later in the afternoon, after school is out.

For the moment I am expected down the road, at the General Store, that is, at one of two competing General Stores that still stand stubbornly across the main street from each other, as if this one-horse town could ever hope to support two stores. Paulette Snow now runs Snow’s Store since her father passed away. When she called to tell me about Lester she offered to let me stay at her place while I was in town.

I hear the soft jangling of the bell as the door swings open. The Mars Bars and the M & M’s make me smile. It’s good to know that I haven’t really walked straight into the past -- that even here, in this bastion of antiquity, something of the new millennium has ventured. When I was a kid drooling over this counter it was all Smarties and Popeye Candied Cigarettes. Big black Jawbreakers…

Paulette hears the bell and emerges from the back room, looking like nothing has changed since the last time that we saw each other. She was beautiful then, and she is still beautiful, dressed in the latest fashion, looking like one of Charlie’s Angels. Her hair is longer than it was when she married the Mayor. Oh, yeah, her name is different now. Paulette MacNeil.

She was a lovely bride. Her mother, president of the local Four-H Club, created her dress of the finest silk, shipped in especially from Montreal. Her golden curls escaped from her frothy veil, framing her heart-shaped face with its pouting mouth.

“Come in, stranger,” she says, her face beaming.

The memories overwhelm me. I remember that day, when my family first set foot in this town. We were supposed to move to the nearby Air Force base, but my father wanted to stop to ask directions, so he pulled off the highway and parked outside of Snow’s store. He liked the town, so we stayed.

Paulette once confided to me her memory of that day.

“I thought you were the weirdest thing on two feet,” she laughed. “You were all dressed up for the Wild West, in your cowboy hat and boots. Big City tenderfoot heading for the badlands.”

Her easy laughter still hurts. Even when we were only eight I knew that Paulette was special. She was the town’s golden child, in her dainty patent shoes with her curls all bound in pink ribbons. My memory of that day was different from hers. In my version of events she and I became instant friends.

“How’s it going?” I ask, following her into the house that is built onto the back of the store. Paulette doesn’t live there anymore, of course. She and Mayor Bill MacNeil have a new large house at the other end of Main Street. But Paulette’s mother still rattles around in this comfortable cage, sewing fancy dresses for her grandchildren.

“It’s going OK,” she answers. “Mom’s out with Brian for the day.” Brian is Paulette’s older brother, the artist.

“How is her arthritis?”

“Not bad. Knitting keeps her hands limber.” She waves her hand toward the wicker basket beside the rocker where a mountain of pastel-coloured yarn sits waiting.

“Have you heard any more about Lester?” I ask. It’s been a long drive – all the way from Toronto around the northern tip of Superior, through Kenora and Manitoba.

“The funeral’s tomorrow. Bill says they’re pretty sure Shelly had something to do with it, but there’s no evidence.”

I close my eyes, watching the rings that float behind my lids, warmed by the stream of light that pours in through the homemade lace curtains. Shelly Gogaletz. Shelly Gogaletz LeBlanc. The name still howls like a freight train in my ears.

I remember Shelly. She was fifteen the year that I was thirteen, the wayward daughter of elderly Ukrainian farmers, growing up as wild as thistle on a prairie lawn. Her hair fell long and brown down to her waist, and her blue eyes flashed a willful green in the sunlight. She wore her tube top high and her hipsters low, a yellow happy face stitched onto the back pocket of her hash jeans. She knew how to work a smile.

But I was just jealous. We all wore our hipsters low that year. Shelly simply wore them better than the rest of us, her reed-like trunk swaying naked as she moved, her laughter loud and ready.

“I liked your last C.D.,” Paulette says, moving toward the rack. “Do you mind if I play it?”

“Not at all. Thanks.” I’ve been taking lessons in good grace from my sister. Tillie says I don’t know how to deal with my success. She says I tend to wave away compliments, and that my doing so is vaguely rude, as if my fans should find more productive ways to spend their time, rather than listening to my music.

She’s right, of course, so I’m trying to be more gracious. Trying to enjoy the fact that people buy my C.D.’s of their own free will.

I never expected success -- never willed it to come to me. It was just a by-product of the music. I’ve been blessed with a love that is so deep that it can only be called corny, a love so real that it can’t be measured in terms of the mundane. Success came as a result of that love. I’m still not wholly comfortable with it.

Two husbands came and went, the first a flash of fury, howling through the night, the second, gentle lover that he was, dead these past three years. No children. My parents long gone, mother to cancer and father to a broken heart. My sister so much younger than me that even our mutual love sometimes cannot climb the wall of our separate upbringings. My own childhood wrapped and tucked away like an unwanted present in a dusty corner of the prairies, twenty miles north of Yorkton on the Yellowhead Highway.

And me, alone, for the most part, in Toronto, surrounded daily by producers and agents and media. Singing and playing to an almost empty room, to a lone ghost sitting in the corner, to the one who first brought me this love of music: Lester LeBlanc.

But now Lester is gone, too, and my memories come crashing down around my ears, faster than I can hope to gather up the pieces.

Shelly. Damn her. Damn her blue-and-sometimes-green reckless, fickle eyes!

“Did anyone see him that night?” I ask, afraid of the answer. I’ve been afraid ever since I started on this quest that someone is going to tell me a truth that I would rather not hear about Lester. About his death, and more importantly, about his life.

The last I’d heard he and Shelly had moved into his father’s farmhouse. They had three kids and two dogs. No one had heard him play the saxophone in years, not since his father died. His uncle moved into a nursing home, but his sister still lived on the farm with Lester and Shelly. At least that’s what I heard.

“Arnold saw him at the hotel,” Paulette says. The ‘hotel’ is a four-room inn with a bar attached to it, a dingy hole where the local men gather to drink beer and shoot the shit.

“Who was he with?”

“A couple of guys. A white guy and a Metis. Arnold says he saw the Metis once or twice before with Lester.”

“Have they come forward?” I ask.

“Not yet. But Bill says they’ve got notices out everywhere. Meanwhile Shelly’s doing her ‘speak-no-evil’ dance all over the cops. They can’t get anything out of her.”

“She hasn’t changed?”

“Not a bit. Still living hard and fast. Haven’t seen her sober in years.”

“Still gets around?”

“Yeah. Rumour was she was messing with Lester’s uncle before they put him in a home. Poor old guy was in his seventies. Must’ve thought he’d died and gone to heaven the day she moved in.”

“She never should’ve married.”

“She never should’ve had three kids, either, but she did, her and Lester. Hell of a life, having a mother like that. Knowing that everyone is talking behind her back, and their father more a shadow than a man.”

What was he like, I wondered, as a man? I only knew the boy, the sweet, hot lover who lay beside me in the cool grass under the lilac trees. The child who pulled the honeysuckle flowers from the branches so we could sip their nectar. I remembered the way he smelled, the way he tasted, the way his hands felt on my half-developed woman’s body.

The promise of it all, the expectations. Gone forever in a single season.

We kissed and touched and rubbed our growing bodies together, our desire mounting with each passing Sunday afternoon. All through the summer we continued, frightened and exalted by the music we were making. Sweet virgin youth, awkward and bold, excruciatingly ardent.

“Have you eaten?” Paulette asks, shattering my reverie, and my stomach growls, despite my need for sleep.

“Not since breakfast.”

We walk three blocks north toward the Yellowhead Grill, now called the Prairie House Grill, according to the sign, which is badly worn by at least a dozen relentless winters. I don’t care. To me it will always be the Yellowhead Grill, the place where my friends and I met for endless cokes and hamburgers.

I recognize her right away, although I don’t know the man she is with. Caroline Bigelow, at one time the prettiest girl in town. All the boys were crazy about her.

Forty seems to have hit her like a fist full of frump, although her eyes are still alive with humour. In fact, she looks just like her mother, the merry-eyed, jowly piano teacher who played the organ every Sunday at our church.

She looks at me, then looks away, then sees Paulette beside me and puts two and two together.

“Hi,” she says, her cherubic face lighting up. “I heard you were coming. Just can’t stay away, can you?”

The jibe isn’t lost on me. Since we’d moved away when I was fifteen, I’d been back only twice, once to show off husband number one, who lasted barely three months after our visit, and the second time to stand as Maid of Honour at Paulette’s wedding.

In my heart, of course, I’d never left. But Caroline couldn’t have known that.

“Hi, Caroline. Good to see you.” She stands and I throw my arms around her, suddenly moved by the sight of her. It hits me now, as I allow myself to be drenched in her smile. I’m back. Twenty-five years later, and alone, but still, I’m back.

I push down the emotion and let her go, waiting for the introduction.

“My husband, Sid Sheppard,” she says, nodding at the balding country gentleman beside her.

“And of course I know who you are,” he says, grinning warmly. “We’re your biggest fans. We bought your latest album just last week. Tears on the Sand. It’s brilliant.”

“Thank you,” I smile graciously, thinking of Tillie. I wonder what she’s doing now, what park bench she is sitting on, under what tree, and whether she is holding her favourite blue fountain pen in one hand and resting her notebook on her knee. My sister the poet, the lost fairy princess, recorder of all things sweet and innocent. Scribbler of refined and delicate thoughts, dreamer of finer dreams than the rest of us will ever know.

He seems like a good man, I think, even if he isn’t much to look at. Besides, looks are no measure of a man. I recall "husband number one", with his lovely boyish face, his angel blonde hair, and his deadly temper. I wonder, even after all these years, how I managed to escape the terror of those years. Beautiful on the outside, but ugly as death on the inside.

“When did you two tie the knot?” I ask, smiling at Caroline and Sid.

“Just last year,” they answer in unison. New love. “We’re late bloomers,” Sid laughs.

“I waited and waited till I’d almost given up,” Caroline says. “Then, when I least expected it, along came Mr. Right.”

Paulette and I join them, and we order lunch, laughing and sharing anecdotes over sandwiches and coffee … snatches of stories that are supposed to capture the gist of the years that have passed since we were all children here together in this very diner, on a day not very different from today.

After lunch, Paulette makes her excuses. “Gotta get back to the store,” she says. “Wouldn’t want to lose any of my rip-roaring business.” We all laugh. It’s a mystery to me how her family managed to make a living all those years.

“I’m going to stay awhile,” I say, “and visit with Caroline. Then I’d like to take a walk. See if I remember any of the old places.”

“I guess the town will be crawling with press before we know it,” Sid says good-naturedly.

“No,” I answer quickly. “No one knows I’m here.”

“Don’t worry,” Caroline laughs, “your secret’s safe with us.”

I am relieved.

“I’ll see you in a few hours,” I say, waving to Paulette as she leaves the diner. I smile at her smile, and it’s like the years never happened.

“What’s the occasion?” Caroline asks. “Paulette told me you were coming, but she didn’t say why.”

“Lester’s funeral. Paulette remembered that I went to school with him.”

“Lester LeBlanc. Yeah. The cops have been hanging around town asking lots of questions. I didn’t know that you and he were friends.”

“Only for a little while,” I fudge the truth. “He used to come to our church one summer.”

“I remember that. He used to play the Sax -- he was pretty good, too. But I don’t remember you spending much time with him.”

So we’d fooled them all, with our slipping away, meeting in the bushes after everyone was gone. No one had known. It was a secret I had never shared with anyone, not even Tillie.

From late May through early October, our bodies growing more urgent with each meeting. Until the day that Lester finally became bold enough to lead me to the haunted house, the old abandoned building next door to the church. We climbed in through a half-boarded window and stretched out on the floor, free at last from the dreadful fear of discovery.

“I love you,” he said, pulling me close, his hands lifting my sweater to reveal my breasts.

“I love you,” he said, tearing at my jeans and panties so that my naked skin was pressed against the cold surface of the dirty floor.

“I love you,” he repeated, his penis hard against my thigh, pushing, pushing against me in an undeniable wave of passion.

“I love you, too,” I whispered, feeling him slide into me, and feeling the pain that comes from being broken.

It lasted only minutes, and afterwards he held me softly in his arms while I wept, not knowing what it was that I was weeping for. He kissed me and helped me with my clothes, and all the while he kept whispering ‘I love you’ till I couldn’t help but believe that we were, in fact, in love.
Who knows? Maybe we were.

But shortly after that Lester stopped coming to our church on Sunday and I didn’t see much of him around. I heard that he was spending time with Shelly Gogaletz, and the green-eyed monster of jealousy swallowed me whole.

Shelly was fifteen, the same age as Lester. Her body put mine to shame, with its maturity. Rumour had it that she’d already been around.

By Christmas it was common knowledge that Shelly was pregnant. Shotgun weddings were not uncommon in these parts, but this one had the added scandal of being a mixed marriage. I remember her smug satisfaction the day she brought her newborn into the diner, pushing the pram in front of her like it was first prize in the lottery. She smiled an especially demeaning smile at me, and for a chilling moment I thought that she must know -- that Lester must have told her about our love.

But the moment passed, and I realized that if she had, in fact, known about Lester and me she would have made a spectacle of herself by starting some ridiculous catfight. She was not a woman who could walk away from the opportunity to flaunt her lack of couth.

“Are you all right?” Caroline asks, reaching for my hand.

“Yeah,” I say. “Just a bit tired. It’s been a long drive. What were you saying?”

“I was just saying that I don’t remember you being particularly friendly with Lester.”

“I guess I wasn’t, really. We talked a bit. But I liked him, you know?”

“I understand,” she says, still holding my hand. “Besides, it’s great to see you again, no matter what the reason.”

“Tell me, Caroline,” I begin, not sure how to broach the subject, “do you have any idea who would want to hurt Lester? He was an easy-going guy, not the sort of fellow who would make a lot of enemies.”

“One of her men, most likely,” she says, meaning Shelly.

“What would be in it for her?”

“The farm, the house. Not worth much in resale value. But the kids are nearly grown. She could sell it and move into the city.”

“What about insurance? Paulette was saying that Bill thinks Shelly had something to do with it, but they can’t prove it. Would Lester have had life insurance?”

“Probably. But between you and me, Bill’s in no position to be digging very deeply.”

“Why?”

Caroline shakes her head again, looking at her husband. “I hate to say it,” she says, “but everyone around here knows it anyway. Bill’s been banging Shelly for years, since long before he and Paulette got married.”

“Are you sure?” I am incredulous. The Mayor Bill MacNeil, dipping his wick into one of the most notorious scarlet women ever known to man. To men. To many men. And Paulette must have known. Could she be that obtuse?

“Yeah,” Sid agrees. “We’re sure. He used to brag about the stuff she’d do for him. He’d have a few beers, then get all randy and let the rest of us know he was gonna pay the great dame a visit. I got the idea that he wasn’t getting what he needed at home.”

“Big surprise there,” Caroline says, and I wonder what she means. Then it starts to make sense. Paulette was always more concerned with appearances than with feelings. I wonder what it would be like to be married to her.

I push the thought away, feeling like a traitor. After all, she is my friend.

“How could Lester have put up with Shelly all those years?” I ask the air.

“Cuckold syndrome,” Sid says. “Once he started turning a blind eye, it just got easier all the time.”

“And then there were the kids,” Caroline says. “Someone had to raise them. It sure wasn’t gonna be her royal majesty. She was busy doing the town.”

Oh, Lester, I think, how did it come to this? Would it have been different, I wonder, if it had been me? If I had been the one to present him with a swollen belly? Would his life have been better? Would mine?

But bitter irony, the truth, what it took me two marriages to learn, that my body was as barren as a prairie winter.

No babies here, no howling brats to disturb your sleep or running noses to break your heart. No chains to bind your love to me faster than a speeding bullet.

Oh, Lester. Where did your music go?

“Do you ever see Dorrie?” I ask, struggling to drag myself back into the present. For that is all there is now, the present, no future anymore, and the past a dust-covered relic in the attic of my mind.

“Yeah. She gets out most days. It’s hard since Krishka passed away.”

Krishka, Dorrie’s mother, was a crazy old Ukrainian woman who never learned a word of English and who roamed the village streets in the morning ranting at the crows. She was famous for her homemade mustard, the best to be had anywhere, and for her pirogues, which she sold door-to-door along with eggs from their near-by chicken farm.

It amazed me that someone like Dorrie could have come from Krishka. Dorrie was the most intelligent person that I ever met. The best friend I had ever had, bar none. Always three steps ahead of the rest of us. Always the planner, the one with big dreams.

Dorrie was the valedictorian in her senior year. We lost touch after she married an actor and moved to Regina. I waited for the day when I would hear that her first book had been published.

Instead, her marriage ended and she went home to care for her aging mother. But in the later years it was Krishka who had to look after Dorrie.

I know the tears are close at hand, so I excuse myself, leaving the new lovers behind to enjoy another coffee. I have roads to walk upon, memories to spin.

I step into the early afternoon sunlight, not wanting to obscure my vision with sunglasses. Not today. I want to look upon this town as it really is, in all of its drab glory. I want to revel in the half-remembered and the fictional, the truth and the fantasy that we call memory.

And so I walk, past the two General Stores that still stand stubbornly across from each other, to the cenotaph where I last saw him on that cold November morning. I was fifteen, and he was seventeen. She wasn’t there with him, but he carried his infant son upon his shoulders, proud as ever a father could be. The town elders led the way, carrying the wreath that we would place at the base of the monument.

About two hundred townsfolk, a scraggly parade of sorts, marching down the one main street. Most dressed in black, all wearing hats and gloves against the start of winter.

I saw that Shelly wasn’t with him, so I waved, just to let him know that I forgave him, that it was all OK, but he didn’t see me, or pretended not to, and I lost him in the sullen throng. I could have forced the issue. Could have looked again and seen the infant high above the other marchers, could have sidled up to him. But to say what? That his son was as beautiful as he was? That I longed to hold him one more time, to be a woman with him?

I didn’t lose sight of him that day. I let him go. And now I have to let him go again. That’s the reason I am here.

I tromp around the school ground, sitting on the wooden swings and listening to the ghostly sounds of teachers long dead or retired, chirping orders to unruly farm boys. But the sun is getting low, so I make my way towards the edge of town, to the last lot before the wheat fields begin. It only takes me five minutes to walk the distance, past the tiny post office and the churches, past Jainie’s house, where we made water bombs from balloons, to the large double lot where I used to live.

They’ve finally torn it down, that four-room hovel, that house of terror where I suffered seven lonely years of childhood. That eyesore, that monstrosity. I can’t blame them. Still, I would have liked to see it one more time, just to try to sort out the real from the imagined in my store of grievances.

Oh, well. Turning away, I walk next door to Dorrie’s house. Might as well get it over with.

“How are you?” she asks, fussing with the chairs, trying to position mine so that I won’t be staring straight into the setting sun.

“I’m fine, Dorrie. And you?”

“Oh, very well, thank you,” she says, twisting a dishrag in her hands. “I haven’t seen you for a long time. What have you been doing?”

She doesn’t know, of course, what I’ve been doing. She doesn’t follow the news, the entertainment scene. To her I’m just an old friend. It might have been a week, a year or twenty years since we last saw each other. It doesn’t matter to Dorrie.

“Have some pirogues,” she says, slopping the potato-filled dumplings onto a plate. “Mom made them fresh this morning.”

“Thank you,” I say, taking the greasy dish from her. It doesn’t matter that I wouldn’t eat them if they came from anyone else. I know I’ll eat them all, and I will tell her they are the best things that I’ve had in years.

“Have some homemade mustard with those,” she says, spooning a heap of the grainy yellow mixture onto the side.

“Delicious,” I mutter between bites.

“Mom made it this summer. I sell it around town. It pays the bills.”

“It’s good you have an income,” I offer lamely.

“Yes, especially since the publisher has been holding back my royalties. I haven’t had a cheque from them in years. The biggest book of the decade, and I haven’t seen a penny. Not a penny.”

“That’s terrible,” I agree, aware that Dorrie never finished her book. There was no great Canadian novel, no recognition, no success. There was just Dorrie and Krishka, chasing each other through the streets of this town, one as crazy as the other.

And now the ghost of Krishka is busy making mustard and pirogues for her daughter.

I hug her and take my leave. I love her -- always have -- but there’s nothing I can do for her.

She understands, and walks me to the door.

“Come again,” she says, “in another fifteen years. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too, Dorrie.”

There’s nothing left to see, and I’m suddenly overwhelmed by an undeniable exhaustion, so I slowly make my way back to Main Street, to Paulette’s house at the other end of town.

“Come in,” she says. “Supper’s ready. Bill’s going to be late. They brought someone in on the murder.”

She speaks in a hushed tone, like a fellow conspirator, like someone in the know, which, of course, she is.

“This is terrific,” I say about the food, ignoring the pile of pirogues that is already hardening in my stomach.

“Thanks,” she says. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about you and Lester?” She is hurt.

“Because,” I answer, “I was embarrassed. It was kind of dirty, sneaking off after church to make out with an older boy. And he was Metis. I was worried about my reputation.”

She seems satisfied with the lie. It is the kind of rationale she would have applied to the situation. The truth, though, is something a little different.

What I had with Lester was private. It was something that I didn’t want to share, didn’t want to expose to the twittering commentary of my friends. I was afraid that if I brought it out into the open I would lose it. Afraid that it wouldn’t be able to withstand the harsh scrutiny of people like Paulette.

And after I had already lost it, there was the humiliation of it all. It was better dealt with privately.

As we clear the supper dishes, Bill comes bustling in.

“We got the guy,” he says, as filled with self-importance as if he was the town Sheriff instead of just the Mayor. As if he’d personally hunted the killer down and dragged him into jail.

“Are you sure it’s him?” Paulette asks.

“Yeah. Son of a bitch confessed.”

“How did you find him?” I ask.

“The half-breed, Bobby Hogue, came forward. He was out drinking with Lester and Mike Heffernan that night. He said that Mike, that’s the white guy, told him he was balling Shelly on a regular basis. Mike told him that Shelly wanted Lester out of the picture. Had a big insurance policy waiting in the wings.”

“Why didn’t Bobby stop him?”

“Thought he was all talk. Didn’t take him seriously.”

“What does Mike say?”

“He says he did it -- killed Lester. But he says Shelly had nothing to do with it. He’s taking the fall. Thinks he’s in love. Poor bastard doesn’t know her very well.”

I blush for Bill, for what I know about him and Shelly. I blush for Paulette, for what she may or may not know. But neither of them blush. It’s all façade to them.

“What time is the funeral?” I ask, yawning. Time to sleep. I need my rest these days, the body breaking down in harmony with the mind.

“Eleven. What time do you want us to wake you?” Paulette asks.

“Don’t worry. I don’t sleep late.” I know I will be up before the sunrise. It is a function of my stage of life -- as I fast approach the end, I cling to every moment, wanting to savour it, not wanting to miss a second.

The service is held at our old church. Caroline Bigelow Sheppard plays the organ and the choir sings Amazing Grace. Most of the mourners are curiosity-seekers, out to learn whether I am really in town. The Minister is a young woman whom I have never met. Her voice is pleasing. All in all, it is nicely done.

Paulette suggests that I sing a number, but I refuse. I’m not here to showboat. I’m here to say goodbye.

At the moment that the congregation rises, though, to form a line to the open casket, I waver in my resolve. I cannot let myself look upon his death. I cannot see what forty-some-odd years of loss and suffering has done to him. At that moment I realize that I cannot relinquish my memory of the beautiful, serious boy with the flashing dark eyes and the saxophone under his arm. I opt to keep the memory, and leave the church without that kiss, that final farewell.

“Come again,” Paulette says, holding me and dropping a real tear.

“I will,” I say, thinking that one more lie won’t upset the balance of her web of lies.

She helps me carry my bags to the car. The sun is high overhead. When the funeral ended, I realized that I just wanted to go home. I wanted to see my sister, Tillie, to let her know that she is my home. Wherever she is, my crazy wonderful flower of a sister, that is my home.

“Goodbye, Paulette,” I say, “and thanks. Thanks for everything.”

“It was nothing,” she says, weeping openly now at my leaving. Poor woman. So lonely in her big fine house.

I start to cry as well, and she hugs me.

Before I leave town, though, there is one more stop to make. I couldn’t do it at the church, but I have to say goodbye to Lester. I have to tell him that I came, let him know that I forgive him and I understand.

I hear the gravel crunch under my tires as I pull into the village graveyard. This at least is as I remember it. No pavement here, no trees to block the grueling prairie sun. I find the small stone marker where the dirt is freshly turned and kneel in the thin dusty grass.

“It was a nice service,” I say, feeling mildly foolish but determined to talk to him. “I wish you’d been there. You could have played your saxophone. It would have been nice.”

I wince, feeling the sharp pain in my breast that comes in spasms now, the inoperable cancer that is blowing like tumbleweed through the badlands of my body. Live in the moment, I remind myself. Don’t fear the future. It will play itself out.

“Maybe I’ll see you soon, my friend, on the other side. You never know. Maybe you’ll play your saxophone and I’ll sing and play my guitar. We were good together.”

I stand, shaking the prairie dust from the knees of my trousers. I know I have to get back on the road, before the exhaustion takes hold again. I have to get back to Tillie.

Poor Tillie. What will become of her? Who will save her from the harsh, cold world? I’ve tried to be some kind of mother to her, as well as a sister, poor motherless Ophelia.

On the way out of town I pause, touching the brake as the tires roll gently over the railroad tracks. I remember the speed and the fury. Maybe it would be a better way to go.

No, I think. It wouldn’t do. I have to find it in myself to go with grace, the way that Tillie would want me to. The way my mother taught me.

Don’t think about the future, I remind myself, picking up speed on the open highway. There is only now.

THE END

“No, that’s all right, Val,” Janie said. “Life does, after all, go on. I’m glad you and Carmen thought of me, being in the neighbourhood and all. Stop by and we’ll have coffee.”

Janie put the phone down and glanced around the living room. It was still tidy from the other day.

The kitchen was clean but dishevelled. She ran hot water and washed the dishes, starting up the coffee maker. Replacing the lid on a small bottle, she put it away in the cupboard.

~

“How did she sound?” Carmen said.

“Quite chipper, actually. It’s as if nothing happened. Did you see her the other day, chatting with that handsome Minister and his wife? Talk about keeping a stiff upper lip.”

“Everyone copes with these things differently. I don’t envy Janie, all alone in that big house. Shepp was her world.”

“Hmm…”

“You disagree?”

“Well,” Val said, “it’s not like they were together all that long. She snapped him up like shoes on sale.”

“You think she married him for his money?”

“He sure as hell had enough of it. And she was dirt-poor, working her ass off to make ends meet at that hole-in-the-wall bookstore.”

“Her luck turned around, didn’t it?” Carmen said. “Right after they married, she managed to line up an agent and a publisher. Then winning that big literary award…”

“Did you see Shepp’s kids, Lacey and Ron, at the funeral? How old are they?”

“They’re both still in University, so they must be in their early twenties.”

“They barely spoke two words to Janie the entire time. Having such a young step-mother probably doesn’t sit well with them. I wonder whether she’ll inherit everything.”

“I’m sure Shepp provided for his children. After all, they’re still in school.”

“I’m just saying – the bulk of the estate will go to her. And from where I stand, she’s not entirely lost in grief.” Val pulled into a quiet neighbourhood and parked on the street. “Here we are.”

“What a lovely house!” Carmen said, studying the expanse of landscaping that led to the sprawling, white stuccoed building.

~

Through the living room window, Janie watched the women approach. She pulled her shoulders up, reminding herself to show a friendly smile. She’d never been fond of Val. On the other hand, Carmen was nice enough.

“Come in,” Janie said. “Such a nice day. I was working in the garden this morning. What brings you ladies to my neck of the woods?”

“Actually, Janie,” Val said, “we came to ask you a favour.”

“And you came all this way? I’m glad. It gives us a chance to visit. How do you like your coffee?”

“That smells wonderful, Janie,” Carmen said. “Cream and sugar, please.”

“Black for me,” Val said.

The three women sat in a breakfast nook off Janie’s marble-finished kitchen.

“I’ve never seen your place before,” Carmen said. “It’s really nice.”

“Thank you. Shepp built it for Angie, of course. Everything was to her taste, but I have to admit, I’m fond of it. She had a decorator’s touch.”

“You’ve probably added your own style over the years.”

“Not really. A blanket here, a picture there – that’s about it. Kind of strange, really, settling into another woman’s surroundings. But my focus has always been my writing, so it’s worked out well in that way.”

“Actually,” Val said, “that’s why we’re here. The annual CanLit Conference is coming up. We need a guest of honour and we’re hoping you’ll agree…”

“Me? I’m stunned. I don’t know what to say. Thank you. But that’s in July, isn’t it?”

“Yes. We wanted to ask you sooner, but with Shepp so sick – we’ll understand if it’s too short notice.”

“No, it isn’t that. It’s just that it’s so soon after… I don’t know…”

“We have a couple of other names we can try,” Carmen said. “We were really hoping for you, though.”

“I’m deeply honoured. That’s still two months away – plenty of time for this old hack to pull herself together. I’ll do it. You must have been worried, not having the spot filled on the program.”

“Frankly, we spoke to Mel Hanson awhile ago. He was ready to step up if we couldn’t get you. We’ll ask him to MC the event instead.”

“This is entirely unexpected and so kind of you. I’ll be honoured to accept.”

“It’s settled, then,” Carmen said. “We’ll add you to the program right away. Can we trouble you to throw together a bio, about a hundred words?”

“Of course. I’ll email it to you tonight.”

“And we’ll need five hundred words on Thieves In The Afternoon,” Val said. “You know, the creative process, the idea, that sort of thing.”

Janie stared into her coffee mug. That book had taken eight long years to write, edit and revise. Dark years of sick obsession, lost in the literary dance of pathos and eros, good and evil, the seemingly endless struggle to create something real. Hungry years of scrimping, barely able to pay the rent on her meagre salary from the bookstore, pouring every waking moment into an effort with no reason to expect a payoff. Few friends, no social life, no love…

Then two more years given over to the hopeless attempt to break into a market that was too small, too closed to allow for entry by an ‘unknown’.

In the end, it was only Shepp’s connections that brought her work to light. He helped her find a publisher. His name gave her exposure. For this she would always be grateful.

“That’ll take a bit longer,” she said. “How soon do you need it?”

“Can you do it by Wednesday?”

“I can send it tomorrow, if you like.”

“Perfect,” Carmen said. “Now we can talk about other things. How are you holding up?”

“I’m ok,” Janie said. “The service went well. Shepp would have been proud. The kids headed back to residence right afterwards. Their semester is wrapping up. They have exams.”

“They seem like nice kids,” Val said.

“Yes,” Janie agreed. “Shepp and Angie did a good job with them.”

“You did a good job, too,” Carmen said. “I hope they appreciate you.”

“I often think I could have done more. But they were already in their teens when I came into the picture. They have their own ideas. We’re not as close as I'd like.”

“I’m sure they’ll come around,” Carmen said. “It’s this entire generation. They aren’t maturing as early as we did. Eventually they’ll realise how much you’ve done for them.”

“I believe they will. It’s just that they’re just so busy now, with exams and all.”

“Well,” Val said, “I have a meeting this afternoon. Thank you for the coffee, Janie. And thank you for saving our bacon on the conference. We were counting on you.”

“That’s right,” Carmen said. “We’ve been keeping our fingers crossed. I’m glad it all worked out. If there’s anything we can do to make it easier for you, just let us know.”

“Don’t worry," Janie said. "This is just the shot in the arm I needed after everything with Shepp. There is no better validation of one’s work than being honoured by one’s peers.”

~

Val unlocked the car doors and tossed her purse into the back seat. The two women were quiet as they pulled away from the house.

When they turned onto the main street, Carmen broke the silence.

“I hate to say it,” she said, “but that was strange.”

“I told you so,” Val said. “Even the kids couldn’t wait to get away from her. Not a flicker of emotion – very cold.”

“Maybe it hasn’t hit her yet,” Carmen said. “Maybe she hasn’t faced it that he’s really gone.”

“Maybe, but she didn’t think twice about the ‘guest of honour’ slot. Anything to further the career and image.”

“Do you regret asking her?”

“Not at all,” Val said. “I’m as mercenary as the next gal. We need a big name and Janie’s about as big as it gets. Shepp’s death adds to the mystique, if you know what I mean.”

“Mm-hmm,” Carmen nodded. She wasn’t comfortable with Val’s harsh judgement of Janie, but she had to admit, there was something odd about the woman. Like everyone, Carmen had her own ideas about grief. Janie just didn’t fit the bill.

~

Janie watched the women drive away. She sighed. Her smile fell away like the lace of the curtain, leaving her face dark and drawn.

They were good women, she thought. So kind. And such an honour. They must have been nervous, holding the position of guest of honour open so long. How could she refuse, under the circumstances? Thieves In The Afternoon was a runaway success, riding the New York Times bestseller list for months during the previous year. Excellent marketing by the publisher Shepp had lined up for her, coupled with relentless interviews and appearances on her part had lifted it above the rest.

Shepp would not allow her to give up. Throughout his long illness, he kept reminding her she deserved success.

What did any of it mean without Shepp? Ahead of her stretched only loneliness, more decades of writing in a void. Her heart was empty, drained from all those years of pouring its contents onto the page, rinsed clean by grief that no one else would see.

Even Shepp’s children had deserted her. They’d never accepted her, but if Shepp had lived long enough, eventually they would have come around. Now it was too late.

Janie reached into the kitchen cupboard and removed a handful of tiny bottles she’d been accumulating for the past few months. She lined them up on the counter, touching the lids lovingly.

She paused for a moment, still unsure. That very morning she’d planned to swallow them all and end this misery. Now, though, Val and Carmen had come into her kitchen bearing a gift – the gift of kindness. The gift of respect for her efforts. The gift of friendship.

Maybe these things were enough to live for. Maybe friendship could carry her past this sense of hopelessness. She would invite the children to the ceremony. That might open the door to bring them closer.

Carefully she removed the lids from each of the bottles. She poured the contents into a bowl and carried them to the bathroom. She didn’t dare leave them in the cupboard, where they might present temptation on another day. Janie dumped the pills and flushed them away.

She had work to do.

***
Donna Carrick, November 15, 2009

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Hi, Folks! I've been reminiscing lately about the little town where I grew up, somewhere in Saskatchewan. The following short story is just that: a story. The people are figments of my imagination, and like "Dog River" in Corner Gas, the town in my tale is quite fictional. However, like most yarns, this one springs naturally from my memories of a special time and place. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you! ... Donna

It’s not much farther, I tell myself. My eyes are bleary with prairie fatigue, and my mind is a slide show of wheat fields and grain elevators. It’s been so long. I’d almost forgotten how it feels to see the sky stretching out all around me. Almost….

There it is -- the town where I grew up; the bank where I deposit my earliest memories; the place that broke my heart even as it breathed life into my spirit.

That dot on the map, north of Yorkton on the Yellowhead Highway.

First stop, the town’s cenotaph. That’s where the memories begin and end, at the monument dedicated to those who died in both of the great wars. I park my car on the road that is now paved – though in my memory it will always be carved in dirt, the hot dust rising in the unforgiving afternoon.

This is where he died. Or, so I am told, this is where his body was found a week ago, on a cool October morning. It was foul play, the paper said. Nothing fancy … a blunt instrument to the back of the head.

I got the call from an old friend. I thought you’d like to know… Lester LeBlanc… Dead. Yeah. I guess I’d like to know.

I remember Lester -- tall, dark, painfully young, a serious Metis teenager with a saxophone under his arm, black eyes flashing behind thick glasses, a smile always lurking at the corner of his mouth, but never quite coming into flower.

I remember the early days of spring, when I was thirteen, before I knew for certain that the world was really as hard a place as it seemed to be -- the little white church nestled in a profusion of lilac and honeysuckle, the grounds a forest of colour filled with sweetly scented air.

Lester started coming to our church in the spring of that year. He came alone. His family were not church-going people. He came because the minister told him that he could play his saxophone for the congregation every Sunday morning. The things a clergyman will do to save a soul….

He was fifteen that year, a stringy colt of a boy standing alone before the all-white congregation. Just a boy and his horn. Then he raised it to his mouth and he was instantly transformed, no longer merely a gangly, self-conscious, pimple-peppered kid. The music rose and fell with a sacrilegious beauty, lifting Lester up to the status of a god, and lifting me, the untried spirit, into the clouds.

Until that day, music had been something that one had to endure, a part of the noise of daily living -- the sorry twang of the country radio, and Did your chewing gum lose its flavour on the bedpost overnight?-- the crow-like offering of the townsfolk, Oh, come, come, come to the church in the wild wood….

That day my ears were opened with a heavenly flood of sound, cascading through the undiscovered regions of my brain, charting new synapses with each impassioned sliding of the scale.

Oh beautiful boy, to stand before us mortals creating such a sound!

“That was nice,” I said, my shyness choking me on the steps of the church after the service.

“Thanks. Wanna go for a walk?”

And so we became Sunday afternoon sweethearts, meeting out of sight of the elders after all the singing and the praying were done, holding hands under the lilac trees, and kissing behind the church in the heavy bush.

Of course, we knew we’d better not get caught. Nice white girls didn’t mess around with Metis country boys. It wouldn’t go well for either of us.

Lester lived near Good Spirit Lake, on a small farm with his father and uncle. He had a twin brother whose name I can’t remember, and a younger sister, about my age. I think she had a learning disability. She went to school on a nearby Reservation.

We didn’t talk much, Lester and me. But every Sunday I’d be there with bells on at the church, waiting for the music that would free my soul.

And every Sunday after church we’d come together, our mouths growing familiar with each other and our hands searching, reaching for something that we couldn’t name.

I shield my eyes and peer down the street to the right of the cenotaph, towards the brick schoolhouse where I first met Lester. Grades one through six, all housed in a four-room building, two classrooms on the main floor and two upstairs. A seesaw, a set of swings, and a Giant Strides, now defunct thanks to too many broken legs and too many lost teeth.

I didn’t know him then, really. He was one of a pair of twins, two years older than I was. By the time I was in grade six he had moved on to Junior High in Yorkton. A year later his brother died -- a tragic accident involving a train.

We were all fascinated by the prairie trains, with their speed and fury. Walking along the tracks in search of tiger lilies was a favourite pastime among the young people. From time to time you’d hear of some kid getting ripped apart by one of the great metal monsters. In fact, I’d even known one girl who’d chosen ‘death by train’ as a form of suicide.

I know I’m going to wander around the school grounds, peer into the windows and sit in the dust on the baseball diamond. But I’ll wait till later in the afternoon, after school is out.

For the moment I am expected down the road, at the General Store, that is, at one of two competing General Stores that still stand stubbornly across the main street from each other, as if this one-horse town could ever hope to support two stores. Paulette Snow now runs Snow’s Store since her father passed away. When she called to tell me about Lester she offered to let me stay at her place while I was in town.

I hear the soft jangling of the bell as the door swings open. The Mars Bars and the M & M’s make me smile. It’s good to know that I haven’t really walked straight into the past -- that even here, in this bastion of antiquity, something of the new millennium has ventured. When I was a kid drooling over this counter it was all Smarties and Popeye Candied Cigarettes. Big black Jawbreakers…

Paulette hears the bell and emerges from the back room, looking like nothing has changed since the last time that we saw each other. She was beautiful then, and she is still beautiful, dressed in the latest fashion, looking like one of Charlie’s Angels. Her hair is longer than it was when she married the Mayor. Oh, yeah, her name is different now. Paulette MacNeil.

She was a lovely bride. Her mother, president of the local Four-H Club, created her dress of the finest silk, shipped in especially from Montreal. Her golden curls escaped from her frothy veil, framing her heart-shaped face with its pouting mouth.

“Come in, stranger,” she says, her face beaming.

The memories overwhelm me. I remember that day, when my family first set foot in this town. We were supposed to move to the nearby Air Force base, but my father wanted to stop to ask directions, so he pulled off the highway and parked outside of Snow’s store. He liked the town, so we stayed.

Paulette once confided to me her memory of that day.

“I thought you were the weirdest thing on two feet,” she laughed. “You were all dressed up for the Wild West, in your cowboy hat and boots. Big City tenderfoot heading for the badlands.”

Her easy laughter still hurts. Even when we were only eight I knew that Paulette was special. She was the town’s golden child, in her dainty patent shoes with her curls all bound in pink ribbons. My memory of that day was different from hers. In my version of events she and I became instant friends.

“How’s it going?” I ask, following her into the house that is built onto the back of the store. Paulette doesn’t live there anymore, of course. She and Mayor Bill MacNeil have a new large house at the other end of Main Street. But Paulette’s mother still rattles around in this comfortable cage, sewing fancy dresses for her grandchildren.

“It’s going OK,” she answers. “Mom’s out with Brian for the day.” Brian is Paulette’s older brother, the artist.

“How is her arthritis?”

“Not bad. Knitting keeps her hands limber.” She waves her hand toward the wicker basket beside the rocker where a mountain of pastel-coloured yarn sits waiting.

“Have you heard any more about Lester?” I ask. It’s been a long drive – all the way from Toronto around the northern tip of Superior, through Kenora and Manitoba.

“The funeral’s tomorrow. Bill says they’re pretty sure Shelly had something to do with it, but there’s no evidence.”

I close my eyes, watching the rings that float behind my lids, warmed by the stream of light that pours in through the homemade lace curtains. Shelly Gogaletz. Shelly Gogaletz LeBlanc. The name still howls like a freight train in my ears.

I remember Shelly. She was fifteen the year that I was thirteen, the wayward daughter of elderly Ukrainian farmers, growing up as wild as thistle on a prairie lawn. Her hair fell long and brown down to her waist, and her blue eyes flashed a willful green in the sunlight. She wore her tube top high and her hipsters low, a yellow happy face stitched onto the back pocket of her hash jeans. She knew how to work a smile.

But I was just jealous. We all wore our hipsters low that year. Shelly simply wore them better than the rest of us, her reed-like trunk swaying naked as she moved, her laughter loud and ready.

“I liked your last C.D.,” Paulette says, moving toward the rack. “Do you mind if I play it?”

“Not at all. Thanks.” I’ve been taking lessons in good grace from my sister. Tillie says I don’t know how to deal with my success. She says I tend to wave away compliments, and that my doing so is vaguely rude, as if my fans should find more productive ways to spend their time, rather than listening to my music.

She’s right, of course, so I’m trying to be more gracious. Trying to enjoy the fact that people buy my C.D.’s of their own free will.

I never expected success -- never willed it to come to me. It was just a by-product of the music. I’ve been blessed with a love that is so deep that it can only be called corny, a love so real that it can’t be measured in terms of the mundane. Success came as a result of that love. I’m still not wholly comfortable with it.

Two husbands came and went, the first a flash of fury, howling through the night, the second, gentle lover that he was, dead these past three years. No children. My parents long gone, mother to cancer and father to a broken heart. My sister so much younger than me that even our mutual love sometimes cannot climb the wall of our separate upbringings. My own childhood wrapped and tucked away like an unwanted present in a dusty corner of the prairies, twenty miles north of Yorkton on the Yellowhead Highway.

And me, alone, for the most part, in Toronto, surrounded daily by producers and agents and media. Singing and playing to an almost empty room, to a lone ghost sitting in the corner, to the one who first brought me this love of music: Lester LeBlanc.

But now Lester is gone, too, and my memories come crashing down around my ears, faster than I can hope to gather up the pieces.

Shelly. Damn her. Damn her blue-and-sometimes-green reckless, fickle eyes!

“Did anyone see him that night?” I ask, afraid of the answer. I’ve been afraid ever since I started on this quest that someone is going to tell me a truth that I would rather not hear about Lester. About his death, and more importantly, about his life.

The last I’d heard he and Shelly had moved into his father’s farmhouse. They had three kids and two dogs. No one had heard him play the saxophone in years, not since his father died. His uncle moved into a nursing home, but his sister still lived on the farm with Lester and Shelly. At least that’s what I heard.

“Arnold saw him at the hotel,” Paulette says. The ‘hotel’ is a four-room inn with a bar attached to it, a dingy hole where the local men gather to drink beer and shoot the shit.

“Who was he with?”

“A couple of guys. A white guy and a Metis. Arnold says he saw the Metis once or twice before with Lester.”

“Have they come forward?” I ask.

“Not yet. But Bill says they’ve got notices out everywhere. Meanwhile Shelly’s doing her ‘speak-no-evil’ dance all over the cops. They can’t get anything out of her.”

“She hasn’t changed?”

“Not a bit. Still living hard and fast. Haven’t seen her sober in years.”

“Still gets around?”

“Yeah. Rumour was she was messing with Lester’s uncle before they put him in a home. Poor old guy was in his seventies. Must’ve thought he’d died and gone to heaven the day she moved in.”

“She never should’ve married.”

“She never should’ve had three kids, either, but she did, her and Lester. Hell of a life, having a mother like that. Knowing that everyone is talking behind her back, and their father more a shadow than a man.”

What was he like, I wondered, as a man? I only knew the boy, the sweet, hot lover who lay beside me in the cool grass under the lilac trees. The child who pulled the honeysuckle flowers from the branches so we could sip their nectar. I remembered the way he smelled, the way he tasted, the way his hands felt on my half-developed woman’s body.

The promise of it all, the expectations. Gone forever in a single season.

We kissed and touched and rubbed our growing bodies together, our desire mounting with each passing Sunday afternoon. All through the summer we continued, frightened and exalted by the music we were making. Sweet virgin youth, awkward and bold, excruciatingly ardent.

“Have you eaten?” Paulette asks, shattering my reverie, and my stomach growls, despite my need for sleep.

“Not since breakfast.”

We walk three blocks north toward the Yellowhead Grill, now called the Prairie House Grill, according to the sign, which is badly worn by at least a dozen relentless winters. I don’t care. To me it will always be the Yellowhead Grill, the place where my friends and I met for endless cokes and hamburgers.

I recognize her right away, although I don’t know the man she is with. Caroline Bigelow, at one time the prettiest girl in town. All the boys were crazy about her.

Forty seems to have hit her like a fist full of frump, although her eyes are still alive with humour. In fact, she looks just like her mother, the merry-eyed, jowly piano teacher who played the organ every Sunday at our church.

She looks at me, then looks away, then sees Paulette beside me and puts two and two together.

“Hi,” she says, her cherubic face lighting up. “I heard you were coming. Just can’t stay away, can you?”

The jibe isn’t lost on me. Since we’d moved away when I was fifteen, I’d been back only twice, once to show off husband number one, who lasted barely three months after our visit, and the second time to stand as Maid of Honour at Paulette’s wedding.

In my heart, of course, I’d never left. But Caroline couldn’t have known that.

“Hi, Caroline. Good to see you.” She stands and I throw my arms around her, suddenly moved by the sight of her. It hits me now, as I allow myself to be drenched in her smile. I’m back. Twenty-five years later, and alone, but still, I’m back.

I push down the emotion and let her go, waiting for the introduction.

“My husband, Sid Sheppard,” she says, nodding at the balding country gentleman beside her.

“And of course I know who you are,” he says, grinning warmly. “We’re your biggest fans. We bought your latest album just last week. Tears on the Sand. It’s brilliant.”

“Thank you,” I smile graciously, thinking of Tillie. I wonder what she’s doing now, what park bench she is sitting on, under what tree, and whether she is holding her favourite blue fountain pen in one hand and resting her notebook on her knee. My sister the poet, the lost fairy princess, recorder of all things sweet and innocent. Scribbler of refined and delicate thoughts, dreamer of finer dreams than the rest of us will ever know.

He seems like a good man, I think, even if he isn’t much to look at. Besides, looks are no measure of a man. I recall "husband number one", with his lovely boyish face, his angel blonde hair, and his deadly temper. I wonder, even after all these years, how I managed to escape the terror of those years. Beautiful on the outside, but ugly as death on the inside.

“When did you two tie the knot?” I ask, smiling at Caroline and Sid.

“Just last year,” they answer in unison. New love. “We’re late bloomers,” Sid laughs.

“I waited and waited till I’d almost given up,” Caroline says. “Then, when I least expected it, along came Mr. Right.”

Paulette and I join them, and we order lunch, laughing and sharing anecdotes over sandwiches and coffee … snatches of stories that are supposed to capture the gist of the years that have passed since we were all children here together in this very diner, on a day not very different from today.

After lunch, Paulette makes her excuses. “Gotta get back to the store,” she says. “Wouldn’t want to lose any of my rip-roaring business.” We all laugh. It’s a mystery to me how her family managed to make a living all those years.

“I’m going to stay awhile,” I say, “and visit with Caroline. Then I’d like to take a walk. See if I remember any of the old places.”

“I guess the town will be crawling with press before we know it,” Sid says good-naturedly.

“No,” I answer quickly. “No one knows I’m here.”

“Don’t worry,” Caroline laughs, “your secret’s safe with us.”

I am relieved.

“I’ll see you in a few hours,” I say, waving to Paulette as she leaves the diner. I smile at her smile, and it’s like the years never happened.

“What’s the occasion?” Caroline asks. “Paulette told me you were coming, but she didn’t say why.”

“Lester’s funeral. Paulette remembered that I went to school with him.”

“Lester LeBlanc. Yeah. The cops have been hanging around town asking lots of questions. I didn’t know that you and he were friends.”

“Only for a little while,” I fudge the truth. “He used to come to our church one summer.”

“I remember that. He used to play the Sax -- he was pretty good, too. But I don’t remember you spending much time with him.”

So we’d fooled them all, with our slipping away, meeting in the bushes after everyone was gone. No one had known. It was a secret I had never shared with anyone, not even Tillie.

From late May through early October, our bodies growing more urgent with each meeting. Until the day that Lester finally became bold enough to lead me to the haunted house, the old abandoned building next door to the church. We climbed in through a half-boarded window and stretched out on the floor, free at last from the dreadful fear of discovery.

“I love you,” he said, pulling me close, his hands lifting my sweater to reveal my breasts.

“I love you,” he said, tearing at my jeans and panties so that my naked skin was pressed against the cold surface of the dirty floor.

“I love you,” he repeated, his penis hard against my thigh, pushing, pushing against me in an undeniable wave of passion.

“I love you, too,” I whispered, feeling him slide into me, and feeling the pain that comes from being broken.

It lasted only minutes, and afterwards he held me softly in his arms while I wept, not knowing what it was that I was weeping for. He kissed me and helped me with my clothes, and all the while he kept whispering ‘I love you’ till I couldn’t help but believe that we were, in fact, in love.
Who knows? Maybe we were.

But shortly after that Lester stopped coming to our church on Sunday and I didn’t see much of him around. I heard that he was spending time with Shelly Gogaletz, and the green-eyed monster of jealousy swallowed me whole.

Shelly was fifteen, the same age as Lester. Her body put mine to shame, with its maturity. Rumour had it that she’d already been around.

By Christmas it was common knowledge that Shelly was pregnant. Shotgun weddings were not uncommon in these parts, but this one had the added scandal of being a mixed marriage. I remember her smug satisfaction the day she brought her newborn into the diner, pushing the pram in front of her like it was first prize in the lottery. She smiled an especially demeaning smile at me, and for a chilling moment I thought that she must know -- that Lester must have told her about our love.

But the moment passed, and I realized that if she had, in fact, known about Lester and me she would have made a spectacle of herself by starting some ridiculous catfight. She was not a woman who could walk away from the opportunity to flaunt her lack of couth.

“Are you all right?” Caroline asks, reaching for my hand.

“Yeah,” I say. “Just a bit tired. It’s been a long drive. What were you saying?”

“I was just saying that I don’t remember you being particularly friendly with Lester.”

“I guess I wasn’t, really. We talked a bit. But I liked him, you know?”

“I understand,” she says, still holding my hand. “Besides, it’s great to see you again, no matter what the reason.”

“Tell me, Caroline,” I begin, not sure how to broach the subject, “do you have any idea who would want to hurt Lester? He was an easy-going guy, not the sort of fellow who would make a lot of enemies.”

“One of her men, most likely,” she says, meaning Shelly.

“What would be in it for her?”

“The farm, the house. Not worth much in resale value. But the kids are nearly grown. She could sell it and move into the city.”

“What about insurance? Paulette was saying that Bill thinks Shelly had something to do with it, but they can’t prove it. Would Lester have had life insurance?”

“Probably. But between you and me, Bill’s in no position to be digging very deeply.”

“Why?”

Caroline shakes her head again, looking at her husband. “I hate to say it,” she says, “but everyone around here knows it anyway. Bill’s been banging Shelly for years, since long before he and Paulette got married.”

“Are you sure?” I am incredulous. The Mayor Bill MacNeil, dipping his wick into one of the most notorious scarlet women ever known to man. To men. To many men. And Paulette must have known. Could she be that obtuse?

“Yeah,” Sid agrees. “We’re sure. He used to brag about the stuff she’d do for him. He’d have a few beers, then get all randy and let the rest of us know he was gonna pay the great dame a visit. I got the idea that he wasn’t getting what he needed at home.”

“Big surprise there,” Caroline says, and I wonder what she means. Then it starts to make sense. Paulette was always more concerned with appearances than with feelings. I wonder what it would be like to be married to her.

I push the thought away, feeling like a traitor. After all, she is my friend.

“How could Lester have put up with Shelly all those years?” I ask the air.

“Cuckold syndrome,” Sid says. “Once he started turning a blind eye, it just got easier all the time.”

“And then there were the kids,” Caroline says. “Someone had to raise them. It sure wasn’t gonna be her royal majesty. She was busy doing the town.”

Oh, Lester, I think, how did it come to this? Would it have been different, I wonder, if it had been me? If I had been the one to present him with a swollen belly? Would his life have been better? Would mine?

But bitter irony, the truth, what it took me two marriages to learn, that my body was as barren as a prairie winter.

No babies here, no howling brats to disturb your sleep or running noses to break your heart. No chains to bind your love to me faster than a speeding bullet.

Oh, Lester. Where did your music go?

“Do you ever see Dorrie?” I ask, struggling to drag myself back into the present. For that is all there is now, the present, no future anymore, and the past a dust-covered relic in the attic of my mind.

“Yeah. She gets out most days. It’s hard since Krishka passed away.”

Krishka, Dorrie’s mother, was a crazy old Ukrainian woman who never learned a word of English and who roamed the village streets in the morning ranting at the crows. She was famous for her homemade mustard, the best to be had anywhere, and for her pirogues, which she sold door-to-door along with eggs from their near-by chicken farm.

It amazed me that someone like Dorrie could have come from Krishka. Dorrie was the most intelligent person that I ever met. The best friend I had ever had, bar none. Always three steps ahead of the rest of us. Always the planner, the one with big dreams.

Dorrie was the valedictorian in her senior year. We lost touch after she married an actor and moved to Regina. I waited for the day when I would hear that her first book had been published.

Instead, her marriage ended and she went home to care for her aging mother. But in the later years it was Krishka who had to look after Dorrie.

I know the tears are close at hand, so I excuse myself, leaving the new lovers behind to enjoy another coffee. I have roads to walk upon, memories to spin.

I step into the early afternoon sunlight, not wanting to obscure my vision with sunglasses. Not today. I want to look upon this town as it really is, in all of its drab glory. I want to revel in the half-remembered and the fictional, the truth and the fantasy that we call memory.

And so I walk, past the two General Stores that still stand stubbornly across from each other, to the cenotaph where I last saw him on that cold November morning. I was fifteen, and he was seventeen. She wasn’t there with him, but he carried his infant son upon his shoulders, proud as ever a father could be. The town elders led the way, carrying the wreath that we would place at the base of the monument.

About two hundred townsfolk, a scraggly parade of sorts, marching down the one main street. Most dressed in black, all wearing hats and gloves against the start of winter.

I saw that Shelly wasn’t with him, so I waved, just to let him know that I forgave him, that it was all OK, but he didn’t see me, or pretended not to, and I lost him in the sullen throng. I could have forced the issue. Could have looked again and seen the infant high above the other marchers, could have sidled up to him. But to say what? That his son was as beautiful as he was? That I longed to hold him one more time, to be a woman with him?

I didn’t lose sight of him that day. I let him go. And now I have to let him go again. That’s the reason I am here.

I tromp around the school ground, sitting on the wooden swings and listening to the ghostly sounds of teachers long dead or retired, chirping orders to unruly farm boys. But the sun is getting low, so I make my way towards the edge of town, to the last lot before the wheat fields begin. It only takes me five minutes to walk the distance, past the tiny post office and the churches, past Jainie’s house, where we made water bombs from balloons, to the large double lot where I used to live.

They’ve finally torn it down, that four-room hovel, that house of terror where I suffered seven lonely years of childhood. That eyesore, that monstrosity. I can’t blame them. Still, I would have liked to see it one more time, just to try to sort out the real from the imagined in my store of grievances.

Oh, well. Turning away, I walk next door to Dorrie’s house. Might as well get it over with.

“How are you?” she asks, fussing with the chairs, trying to position mine so that I won’t be staring straight into the setting sun.

“I’m fine, Dorrie. And you?”

“Oh, very well, thank you,” she says, twisting a dishrag in her hands. “I haven’t seen you for a long time. What have you been doing?”

She doesn’t know, of course, what I’ve been doing. She doesn’t follow the news, the entertainment scene. To her I’m just an old friend. It might have been a week, a year or twenty years since we last saw each other. It doesn’t matter to Dorrie.

“Have some pirogues,” she says, slopping the potato-filled dumplings onto a plate. “Mom made them fresh this morning.”

“Thank you,” I say, taking the greasy dish from her. It doesn’t matter that I wouldn’t eat them if they came from anyone else. I know I’ll eat them all, and I will tell her they are the best things that I’ve had in years.

“Have some homemade mustard with those,” she says, spooning a heap of the grainy yellow mixture onto the side.

“Delicious,” I mutter between bites.

“Mom made it this summer. I sell it around town. It pays the bills.”

“It’s good you have an income,” I offer lamely.

“Yes, especially since the publisher has been holding back my royalties. I haven’t had a cheque from them in years. The biggest book of the decade, and I haven’t seen a penny. Not a penny.”

“That’s terrible,” I agree, aware that Dorrie never finished her book. There was no great Canadian novel, no recognition, no success. There was just Dorrie and Krishka, chasing each other through the streets of this town, one as crazy as the other.

And now the ghost of Krishka is busy making mustard and pirogues for her daughter.

I hug her and take my leave. I love her -- always have -- but there’s nothing I can do for her.

She understands, and walks me to the door.

“Come again,” she says, “in another fifteen years. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too, Dorrie.”

There’s nothing left to see, and I’m suddenly overwhelmed by an undeniable exhaustion, so I slowly make my way back to Main Street, to Paulette’s house at the other end of town.

“Come in,” she says. “Supper’s ready. Bill’s going to be late. They brought someone in on the murder.”

She speaks in a hushed tone, like a fellow conspirator, like someone in the know, which, of course, she is.

“This is terrific,” I say about the food, ignoring the pile of pirogues that is already hardening in my stomach.

“Thanks,” she says. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about you and Lester?” She is hurt.

“Because,” I answer, “I was embarrassed. It was kind of dirty, sneaking off after church to make out with an older boy. And he was Metis. I was worried about my reputation.”

She seems satisfied with the lie. It is the kind of rationale she would have applied to the situation. The truth, though, is something a little different.

What I had with Lester was private. It was something that I didn’t want to share, didn’t want to expose to the twittering commentary of my friends. I was afraid that if I brought it out into the open I would lose it. Afraid that it wouldn’t be able to withstand the harsh scrutiny of people like Paulette.

And after I had already lost it, there was the humiliation of it all. It was better dealt with privately.

As we clear the supper dishes, Bill comes bustling in.

“We got the guy,” he says, as filled with self-importance as if he was the town Sheriff instead of just the Mayor. As if he’d personally hunted the killer down and dragged him into jail.

“Are you sure it’s him?” Paulette asks.

“Yeah. Son of a bitch confessed.”

“How did you find him?” I ask.

“The half-breed, Bobby Hogue, came forward. He was out drinking with Lester and Mike Heffernan that night. He said that Mike, that’s the white guy, told him he was balling Shelly on a regular basis. Mike told him that Shelly wanted Lester out of the picture. Had a big insurance policy waiting in the wings.”

“Why didn’t Bobby stop him?”

“Thought he was all talk. Didn’t take him seriously.”

“What does Mike say?”

“He says he did it -- killed Lester. But he says Shelly had nothing to do with it. He’s taking the fall. Thinks he’s in love. Poor bastard doesn’t know her very well.”

I blush for Bill, for what I know about him and Shelly. I blush for Paulette, for what she may or may not know. But neither of them blush. It’s all façade to them.

“What time is the funeral?” I ask, yawning. Time to sleep. I need my rest these days, the body breaking down in harmony with the mind.

“Eleven. What time do you want us to wake you?” Paulette asks.

“Don’t worry. I don’t sleep late.” I know I will be up before the sunrise. It is a function of my stage of life -- as I fast approach the end, I cling to every moment, wanting to savour it, not wanting to miss a second.

The service is held at our old church. Caroline Bigelow Sheppard plays the organ and the choir sings Amazing Grace. Most of the mourners are curiosity-seekers, out to learn whether I am really in town. The Minister is a young woman whom I have never met. Her voice is pleasing. All in all, it is nicely done.

Paulette suggests that I sing a number, but I refuse. I’m not here to showboat. I’m here to say goodbye.

At the moment that the congregation rises, though, to form a line to the open casket, I waver in my resolve. I cannot let myself look upon his death. I cannot see what forty-some-odd years of loss and suffering has done to him. At that moment I realize that I cannot relinquish my memory of the beautiful, serious boy with the flashing dark eyes and the saxophone under his arm. I opt to keep the memory, and leave the church without that kiss, that final farewell.

“Come again,” Paulette says, holding me and dropping a real tear.

“I will,” I say, thinking that one more lie won’t upset the balance of her web of lies.

She helps me carry my bags to the car. The sun is high overhead. When the funeral ended, I realized that I just wanted to go home. I wanted to see my sister, Tillie, to let her know that she is my home. Wherever she is, my crazy wonderful flower of a sister, that is my home.

“Goodbye, Paulette,” I say, “and thanks. Thanks for everything.”

“It was nothing,” she says, weeping openly now at my leaving. Poor woman. So lonely in her big fine house.

I start to cry as well, and she hugs me.

Before I leave town, though, there is one more stop to make. I couldn’t do it at the church, but I have to say goodbye to Lester. I have to tell him that I came, let him know that I forgive him and I understand.

I hear the gravel crunch under my tires as I pull into the village graveyard. This at least is as I remember it. No pavement here, no trees to block the grueling prairie sun. I find the small stone marker where the dirt is freshly turned and kneel in the thin dusty grass.

“It was a nice service,” I say, feeling mildly foolish but determined to talk to him. “I wish you’d been there. You could have played your saxophone. It would have been nice.”

I wince, feeling the sharp pain in my breast that comes in spasms now, the inoperable cancer that is blowing like tumbleweed through the badlands of my body. Live in the moment, I remind myself. Don’t fear the future. It will play itself out.

“Maybe I’ll see you soon, my friend, on the other side. You never know. Maybe you’ll play your saxophone and I’ll sing and play my guitar. We were good together.”

I stand, shaking the prairie dust from the knees of my trousers. I know I have to get back on the road, before the exhaustion takes hold again. I have to get back to Tillie.

Poor Tillie. What will become of her? Who will save her from the harsh, cold world? I’ve tried to be some kind of mother to her, as well as a sister, poor motherless Ophelia.

On the way out of town I pause, touching the brake as the tires roll gently over the railroad tracks. I remember the speed and the fury. Maybe it would be a better way to go.

No, I think. It wouldn’t do. I have to find it in myself to go with grace, the way that Tillie would want me to. The way my mother taught me.

Don’t think about the future, I remind myself, picking up speed on the open highway. There is only now.

THE END

Today's story is my attempt to underline one of life's less appealing realities: Just when we believe we've reconciled ourselves to the worst fate can deliver, it hands us a new, unimaginable twist. I hope you enjoy this chilling tale..

"Helen," she said, "I've come to prepare you."

The woman spoke in an urgent voice. Her hair was a mixture of silver and gold, advancing years in denial, given the lie by timeless blue eyes.

Helen had never seen her before, but she seemed familiar.

Helen woke with a start and squinted at the bedside clock. 2 am. No sounds, other than the natural creaking of an aging house -- old, but with good bones.

Then she remembered. Zee had called at 11 to say she would be staying overnight with her friend Claire. Helen guessed her daughter was likely spending the night with her boyfriend, Sam, but Zee was a young woman. She could do as she pleased.

Helen was grateful that, at the age of 20, her daughter still called when she wasn’t coming home. Zee never gave Helen cause to worry.

Helen had raised Zee to be an independent woman. Her daughter was strong, beautiful and thoughtful.

Helen reached for her crutches and strapped them on. She was careful to use both when she was home alone. How embarrassing would that be, to fall down in the bathroom with her drawers around her ankles?

She did her business and washed her hands, ruminating on the face from her dream. So familiar, and yet she couldn't place it. A depth of kindness in those eyes.

She shook her head, unable to match the face to memory. She glanced in the mirror at her own blue-grey eyes and golden hair. Well, chemical gold, but still vibrant, thanks to Zee. Zee would not allow Helen to let herself go.

Leaning on her left crutch, she reached for a brush and smoothed the tangles before heading back to bed.

The physical struggle of moving on crutches stirred her heart in an uncomfortable palpitation. The moment passed. Soon she was asleep.

"Helen, please listen to me." The woman touched her shoulder.

"What do you want?"

"Your Father sent me to prepare you."

A quiet rage took hold of Helen, tightening her fists. She stood tall, as she often did in her dreams, without crutches, without pain. A force to be reckoned with.

"Don't mention my father," she said. "He was a wife-beater, a child molester and a drunken bastard. I don't have time to remember him."

"Your heavenly Father is sorry for your suffering, Helen. He knows pain has been a part of your life."

"How can He call himself a loving God? My entire life has been about misery. From those early years of abuse, to this illness that makes me a burden. A burden to the husband who left me, and now to his child."

"You're not a burden, Helen. You are loved. And your life," the woman added, "has not been all about pain."

"That's true," Helen nodded, her anger subsiding. "I have Zee. I am thankful for that."

"Helen," the woman said, "I need to prepare you..."

"It's all right," Helen said. "I've been prepared for years. Since this illness claimed me. Tell Our Father He can take me when He's ready."

"But Zee...."

"Zee will be all right," Helen said, suddenly calm. "She knew this would happen. I've always been honest with her, taught her to be strong."

Helen smiled at the thought of her daughter. Zee was doing well at University. Helen had prepared her for this day. She never wanted to be a burden to Zee. It was time to let her girl have a life of her own.

Throughout the years of bitterness and sorrow, there had always been one gift. Zee. Helen's pride and joy, her offering to the world.

Knowing she would leave behind such a fine young woman made it easier for Helen to face mortality.

"I've become tired of this struggle," she said. "Tell Our Father, if He can forgive me for being a stubborn, angry fool, then I can forgive Him for giving me this pain. I'm ready to make my peace."

"Helen," the angel said, for she must be an angel, so lovely, with such kindness in her sad eyes. She looked like someone Helen knew. "Please hear me. You need to be prepared."

"It's ok," Helen said, letting the dream-angel drift away. "Whenever you're ready, take me to Him. I'm prepared."

With a feeling of contentment, Helen took her leave of the angel, allowing her mind to wander into other rooms, other dreams….

**
"I'd like to leave now," Zee said, glancing over her shoulder at a young man on the other side of the room.

"Are you ok?" Sam asked. "You seem preoccupied."

"I'm all right. Just tired. It's late. I've got classes tomorrow."

"Did you call your Mom?"

"I told her I was staying with Claire."

"Good. It's noisy in here. I'll go outside and call a cab."

Sam kissed Zee on the forehead. She was one in a million, beautiful, kind, studious and loving. He was a lucky guy.

She watched him leave the party, hoping he wouldn't be gone too long.

"Hi, Zee."

She nearly groaned out loud as the other man approached, but good manners kicked in and she managed to restrain herself.

"Hi, Richard," she said.

"Who's the guy?"

"That's my boyfriend, Sam."

"Some boyfriend. No offense, but he looks like a girl. Why'd he ditch you?"

"He's calling a cab. We're leaving. Now you'll have to excuse me."

Zee stood. She could feel her Scots-Irish blood rising. Her mother hadn't raised her to tolerate this kind of nonsense. Richard had been a nuisance for weeks, but now he was becoming insufferable. She didn't want to make a scene, but she would if she had to.

"Take it easy, Zee’” he said. “I just want to talk. You've been avoiding me."

"Stop following me, Richard. I saw you at the library today."

"I was studying," he said. "It's a free country."

"Excuse me," she said, trying to push past him.

Richard held her arm. "You never gave me a chance," he said.

"Let go of me."

The knife’s blade was sharp and mercifully swift. She hardly felt it slide past her rib-cage and into her heart. Her hearing became muted and at the same time strangely acute. She was aware of horrified shouts as her friends looked up in alarm.

Her blood crashed in her ears, drowning out their cries. Her closest friend Claire rushed to her side. She watched as someone ran to get Sam. He pushed through the crowd and knelt, in time to hear her whisper.

"My mother...."

The End

Donna Carrick is the author of The First Excellence, Winner of the 2011 Indie Book Event Award. "An exquisitely-crafted saga of one person's search for her roots set against a clash of cultures." ~ Jim Napier, The Sherbrooke Record.

Her other titles include: Gold And Fishes, The Noon God and Sept-Iles and other places.