Elodie stares at the sketch in her notebook and realizes she’s made a mistake. She erases what she’s drawn and makes the correction: there were three buckled straps that ran across the front of the straitjacket, not four. The fourth buckle was actually at the bottom; it was for the strap that went between her legs and fastened behind her back.
Satisfied, she closes her notebook for the day and tucks it safely inside the drawer of her nightstand. It’s become quite a tome, this book containing page after page of hand-drawn sketches and detailed notes about what happened to her at Saint-Nazarius—chronicled with agonizing precision, the memories still raw and vivid in her mind.
She has no plans to show the notebook to anyone else. She bared her soul to that journalist, and instead of telling the truth, he wrote a fairy tale with a happy ending. The morning the piece was published, she could hardly wait to read it. It was a week ago Saturday. She thought, Finally, I’ll get my revenge. She figured the whole province would soon learn about what the nuns had done to the orphans and consequences would follow at last.
By the time Elodie was finished reading the article, she was sobbing on the floor, devastated. The story made no mention of the torture and abuse she’d suffered on a daily basis, no mention of Sister Ignatia’s name or the fact that “Monique” was raising her own illegitimate child now. That would have interfered with the journalist’s happy ending; it would have sullied the idea he’d put forth of her leading a “quiet, normal life.”
It was bullshit, all of it. Lies by omission—and worse. “Christmas concerts”? “Friendships that will last a lifetime”? Elodie wanted to throw up reading that part. And most egregious of all was his description of the nuns’ “benevolence” and “quotidian care.”
That’s when she tore the newspaper to shreds and set it on fire in her sink and then stood there watching the flames destroy her first, but not her last, attempt at retribution.
She’s not a good enough writer to tackle her own autobiography, but she’s vowed to herself that one day she will tell her story to someone willing to expose the truth: not some whitewashed fluff piece that continues to protect the church, but an unsparing, graphic account of the horrors the orphans endured. She only hopes Sister Ignatia will still be alive when the world finds out what she did.
“Maman?”
Elodie looks up to find Nancy standing there, watching her with those worshipful blue eyes. She’s almost three now, with fine blond hair and a round, rosy face. It still amazes Elodie that she’s somehow managed to create this exuberant angel, this spark of light and joy who doesn’t sit still, laughs at everything, stomps her feet when she doesn’t get her way; this child who is fearless and confident and inherently happy.
Not a day passes that Elodie does not wonder, How did I make this creature?
They’re nothing alike. Nancy is curious and clever, optimistic. Elodie’s passing dark moods hardly seem to deflate the little girl’s buoyant spirit or deter her from her mission to explore, entertain, or get her way. In fact, very little dampens her zest, other than being told no. Compared to her own childhood, Nancy has had a marvelous life so far, which is a point of great pride for Elodie.
She may not be the best mother; she’ll be the first to admit it. She waitresses five nights a week and they’re still on welfare. When she’s home, she spends far too much time with her nose buried in her grievance notebook, obsessively trying to record every single abuse she ever suffered. But Nancy is safe and well fed, has no bruises or scars, has never been locked up. She’s been snuggled and kissed and tickled and told “I love you” a thousand times. Elodie has surpassed all her expectations for the kind of mother she’d be and managed, in spite of everything, to transcend her many limitations.
“Maman, up,” Nancy says, raising her plump arms above her head.
Elodie lifts her onto the pullout couch they share, and Nancy curls up in her lap like a kitten. “Je t’aime, Maman,” she coos.
Elodie still finds it jarring to hear those words so freely uttered. I love you. She’s had to do so little to earn them. “I love you, too,” she says, lighting a cigarette.
“When am I going to Grand-Maman’s?” Nancy asks, looking up at Elodie with unfiltered adoration.
“Who?” Elodie says. “You don’t have a grandmother.”
“Mme. Drouin told me she’s my grand-maman and that’s what I’m supposed to call her.”
Elodie has a long drag from her cigarette and tries to calm her racing pulse. “Well, she’s not,” she says angrily.
“Then who is?”
Elodie opens her mouth to tell Nancy the truth, but quickly reconsiders. Nancy is watching her expectantly, the way children do. “Mme. Drouin is not your grandmother,” she says carefully.
“But she takes care of me.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“All the other kids on the street have grandmothers and aunties and uncles and cousins,” she says. “Where are mine?”
Elodie stubs out her cigarette in a mug by her bed, blinking against the threat of tears. “Aren’t I enough for you?” she asks the little girl.
Nancy looks thoughtful, her golden brows adorably furrowed. “Can’t I have both?” she says.
“Maybe one day, chouette,” Elodie says, never giving up on the possibility of one day finding a relative. “Now go get Maman a Pepsi.”
Nancy scrambles out of bed, singing “Frère Jacques” on her way to the kitchenette.
“Don’t shake the can!” Elodie calls out.
Moments later, Nancy returns with a can of Pepsi. She holds it out and Elodie opens it, and sure enough, it explodes, the frothy soda spilling out like lava all over her shirt and sheets. Nancy bursts out laughing, completely unafraid of any consequences. Elodie laughs with her, knowing for certain that Nancy must be the universe’s gift for the terrible childhood she endured.
The phone rings and Elodie slides across the bed to grab it. “Allô?”
“Elodie, it’s Gilles Leduc from the Journal de Montréal.”
Elodie tenses and her face feels hot. “Your article was bullshit,” she says. “You’re as bad as them, protecting the nuns like that. You call yourself a journalist, but you’re just a liar. You left everything important out. My ‘quiet, normal life’? Are you blind?” She hears him sighing on the other end, but she goes on. “You made it sound like I had an enchanted childhood in that place, for Christ’s sake. Why didn’t you just tell the truth? It would have made for a much better story!”
Nancy is watching her with her big eyes.
“Do you read the classifieds?” he interrupts, silencing her rant.
“No.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I won’t ever read your paper again, asshole. You don’t write the truth!”
“I really think you need to buy today’s paper.”
“Why?”
“A copy editor I know in the classifieds department mentioned there’s someone who’s been running an ad for years, the first Saturday of every month. I think it could be you he’s looking for.”
“Me? What are you talking about?”
“Your story matches the details in this classified ad. Just go buy the goddamn paper.”
He hangs up. In spite of her vow never to read a newspaper again, she drags Nancy to the corner store to pick up the Journal de Montréal. She scans the entire classifieds section right there, until she comes to the ad that just about stops her heart.
I am in search of a young woman with the given name Elodie, born March 6, 1950, at the Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins Hospital in the Eastern Townships. She was transferred in 1957 from the Saint-Sulpice Orphanage near Farnham to Saint-Nazarius Hospital in Montreal. I have information about her birth family. Please call—
And just like that, everything changes.
Her birth family. She repeats those words over and over in her head as she rushes home, clutching the newspaper to her heart.
“What’s wrong, Maman?” Nancy asks, trying to keep pace with Elodie.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Elodie says, crouching down to her daughter’s eye level. “It’s just the opposite. I think everything might finally be all right.”