19

FEBRUARY 1995

Huguette picks Elodie up in front of her apartment with an Egg McMuffin and a thermos of coffee. She’s wearing dark burgundy lipstick and chewing Clorets gum. Véronique—who’s coming along for extra moral support—is already in the back seat with a box of Dunkin’ Donuts on her lap.

“Have you seen your brother’s article?” Huguette says, handing Elodie the newspaper along with the McDonald’s bag. “He wrote about what happened with the attorney general.”

“No,” Elodie says, barely inside the car. She felt bad last night when James called to ask her if she’d read it. He was excited that it had been picked up by the French papers and translated. She could tell he was looking for her approval, but she couldn’t fake it. She didn’t have the stamina. Not after what happened this week.

The attorney general announced that no charges would be laid in the 240 criminal complaints made against the Catholic Church and the Quebec medical association. After the Duplessis Orphans Committee failed to push forward the class action suit in the Quebec Court last year, all their hopes had been pinned to the criminal case. And now, after more than a year of waiting, it’s come to nothing.

She didn’t feel like sharing any of that with her family. She’s been spending more time with Huguette and Francine lately, which is easier. There’s no effort with them; they just get it. She’s come to regard these protests and meetings and court dates as her real vocation—the truly meaningful work of her life. Losses notwithstanding, this work continues to invigorate her.

“Read the article now,” Huguette says. “Your brother is really on our side. It’s good for us to have an ally in the media.”

Elodie opens the Journal de Montreal and skims the article, skipping most of it. A few sentences leap off the page, mostly for how much they aggravate her.

One wonders how the attorney general can rationalize dismissing so many similar complaints, but this is just one more injustice in a long history of injustices suffered by the now-grown Duplessis orphans. Today, they still struggle to find a place in the society that rejected them years ago. Many of them are battling a number of chronic medical, developmental, and emotional problems, most of which are irreversible. So how does a society begin to compensate for the lost freedom of its own children?

The attorney general doesn’t seem to want to risk hurting the nuns’ feelings by holding the religious orders accountable for their actions, nor does he want to set a precedent for condemning Catholicism. Instead, he concluded that there was insufficient proof to pursue any of the orphans’ complaints in criminal court. Their memories were failing, he said. They’d exceeded the statute of limitations, he said. There was contradictory testimony, he said. As a result, all the complainants’ statements to the police have been dismissed.

Elodie folds up the paper and tosses it on the floor. She felt differently when she read James’s first article about her, a profile piece that made her feel heard one of the few times in her life. Although he cast her very much as a victim, at least someone was publicly advocating for the Duplessis orphans. She remembers feeling quite hopeful when she read it, like something good could actually come of its publication. Reading today’s story merely has the effect of pissing her off.

The drive to Granby in the Eastern Townships usually takes an hour on the Autoroute, but a nasty clump of traffic on the Champlain Bridge delays them about twenty minutes. When they arrive at the house on Terrace Groulx—a new red-brick two-story with a white portico and white windows—a small crowd of about two dozen people has already gathered on the front lawn, picket signs in hand. I AM NOT CRAZY! APOLOGIZE NOW! DR. DUCEPPE IS A LIAR!

Huguette, Véronique, and Elodie climb out of the car and grab their signs from the trunk. Elodie’s sign says I AM NOT MENTALLY RETARDED! in dark blue paint. Huguette’s says, ACKNOWLEDGE THE CONSPIRACY OF LIES! Véronique’s says, JUSTICE FOR THE DUPLESSIS ORPHANS!

The sky is white and clear, the air frigid. Elodie is bundled in a heavy parka, tuque, scarf, and snowmobile mittens. The thermos of coffee and the Dunkin’ Donuts are for sustenance. They are prepared to be here all day, protesting outside the home of Dr. Guillaume Duceppe, the doctor who sent Elodie to St. Nazarius almost thirty-five years ago. With a few simple questions she was ill-equipped to answer—could she identify keys, a stove, a wallet?—he determined, with a satisfied swirl of his pen, that she was mentally deficient. So much power he wielded with that pen, enough to alter the course of her entire life. She will never forget his face—his pale beige skin, like a pan of solid bacon fat, his curling moustache and chilling indifference. If only she’d answered differently. Keys, a stove, a wallet. If he dares step outside today, she doesn’t know what she’ll do.

She marches back and forth alongside Huguette and Véronique, her sisters in solidarity. She isn’t sure how Véronique fits in; she only knows she loves the girl. Her youth and vigor motivate Elodie when her own energy lags, and her empathy over the last year has been like a balm.

“Is he inside?” Huguette asks a woman wearing a hand-knit brown hat and silver parka.

“No,” she says. “It’s just the wife inside.”

The woman has aged much the same way many of them have—quickly and unkindly. She looks much older than her forties. Her skin is sallow, pocked.

“How do you know?” Huguette asks her.

“We knocked on their door when we got here,” the woman says. “He was already gone. She’s probably called him by now and told him to stay away.”

“He can’t stay away forever,” Elodie says.

The woman holds out a gloved hand. “Danielle Daoust.”

“I’m Huguette. This is Elodie.”

The woman’s hand freezes around Elodie’s, her grip tightening. Her lower jaw drops as though to say something, but nothing comes out. Her eyes instantly fill with tears, and Elodie isn’t sure if it’s from the cold wind.

“Elodie from Ste. Sulpice?” the woman says.

“Yes. Do I know you? Were you at St. Nazarius?”

“I was at St. Julien with your friend Claire.”

Elodie’s free hand drops to her side. Claire.

“She always talked about you,” Danielle says. “She said you were her only family. There can’t be another Elodie, can there?”

“She was my best friend,” Elodie says, choking up. “She wound up at St. Julien? Do you remember what year?”

“Same as me, summer of 1958.”

“When did she get out? Where is she now? Are you still in touch?”

Danielle rests a hand on Elodie’s shoulder. “Claire died,” she says softly. “She didn’t make it.”

Didn’t make it.

People with picket signs are still circling purposefully around them. Elodie realizes she’s stopped moving. Her sign is resting on her shoulder, forgotten. Huguette’s arm is lightly touching one elbow, Véronique’s the other.

“She died at St. Julien?” Elodie manages, trying to keep the uprising of grief locked down.

“No, we both left in ’71,” Danielle explains. “We were twenty-two. We got an apartment together and started working at the Café Cléopâtre. Another girl from St. Julien got us jobs as go-go dancers. It was all we knew how to do besides clean toilets, and we weren’t about to do that ever again.”

Elodie shakes her head in disbelief. Her beloved Claire wound up as a stripper. The braids, the missing front teeth. It’s not possible. “How did she die?”

“It was an overdose,” Danielle says. “She was only twenty-four.”

“An accident, or . . .”

Danielle shrugs. “We’ll never know.”

Elodie hugs her, as though they’ve known each other all their lives. In some ways they have; they both loved Claire.

“She was a good soul.”

“Even when we were little, she had such a big heart,” Elodie says. “She was only a year older than me, but she took care of me.”

“She talked about you all the time.”

“We had no one else but each other.”

“She loved you.”

“Do you remember her thumbs?” Elodie says, through tears.

“They didn’t straighten!”

“She thought that was why no one wanted to adopt her.”

“And her deformed toe.”

They both laugh and cry at the same time. They hug again like old friends, and then Danielle shuffles off, her picket sign in the air.

“Those nuns deserve to be punished for what they did,” Véronique says, putting her arm around Elodie.

Not all the nuns were cruel, though. When Claire and Elodie used to hide under the bed together, Sister Tata would spy them and call them the Little Mice. Les ’Tis Souris. But she would leave them be, let them play. Once, she even told one of the newer nuns, “Leave them alone. They’re just children having fun.”

We will have justice, she silently vows. We will have justice, Claire.