CURLED UP IN THE ROCKING CHAIR in her apartment, Claire stared at the clock on the wall, following each tick of the second hand. She wasn’t used to having time on her hands. With nothing to do but wait, her thoughts spun downward into the abyss that she never wanted to acknowledge, that she always tried to hide away. The harder she pushed them back, the clearer the memories flooded in.
“Maman, I’m home.” Home was a brownstone three-bedroom condo in Outremont, the tony neighbourhood on the north side of Mont-Royal, where upper-class francophones, the political elite, lived out their oversized dreams. She hopped up the steps, opened the door, and saw her mother tapping away at her laptop on the kitchen table.
Late-afternoon sunlight streamed through the kitchen window, lighting up her mother’s face. A cool summer breeze teased the white curtains.
Her mother turned as Claire walked through the vestibule. “Salut, ma chérie.” She smiled.
“Salut, maman,” Claire said from rote.
“I sold two paintings today.”
“À qui?”
“A collector in Geneva. Can you come with me to deliver the paintings? We could pick up the cheque together. Then we can go shopping in Paris. Just like old times. Mother and daughter.”
Her mother ran an art consulting company from her kitchen. With a long list of clients in Europe, the U.S., and Asia, she offered portfolios of high-quality Canadian art. Not Group of Seven or Riopelle, but lesser-known artists with big potential to increase in value.
“Maman, I’ve got plans of my own.” Claire dropped her backpack full of unloved textbooks and pulled out a letter. “I’ve been accepted.”
Her mother held her arms out. “Wonderful! Université de Montréal? I’m so happy that law school finally accepted you.”
Claire frowned. “Non, maman. I’m not going to be a lawyer. I want to do something interesting. For me.”
“I thought we’d already settled this.” She crossed her arms. “So what is it then, sociology, history?”
Claire pouted. “Oui. History. I love it.” She thought her mother, at least, would understand, but it had been a losing battle the last few months.
“What can you do with a history degree? Work at Starbucks? No one will pay you to study the history of paintings.”
“It’s my life, my choice. I’m not here to make up for what you and papa regret in your own lives.”
Her mother recoiled at the ferocity of the statement. She turned and stared out the window. The light through the window blinds painted horizontal bars on her face. “Such a waste.”
“I want to know how we can make things better.”
Mother looked at the floor. “You know what he’ll say.”
Her father arrived after six, looking ragged after another day in Quebec’s pre-eminent high-tech company. He was a senior manager of a major aircraft project, but she didn’t know many details about what he did there. All she saw was her father aging rapidly, trying in vain to compartmentalize the stress of the office and prevent it from infecting the family.
He set his briefcase down and hung his coat on the hook by the front door. Claire gave him a hug that was more worry than warmth. “Papa, when are you going to stop working there? It’s killing you.”
“Don’t start that again.”
“I wish you would get another job.”
“It’s not that easy at my age. With the salary and the bonus, we can afford our trips and your brother’s hockey camps.”
Her maudit brother, Patrick, and his maudit unattainable dream of making it as a professional hockey player. He just wasn’t that good. She could see he would never make the NHL. Why couldn’t her parents? Their blindness was shocking.
She thought her father was important, with a big job, a big title, and lots of responsibility. He got it because he worked hard. That was his message to his children. Maybe he had fought for the job, but now it seemed to consume him, and he appeared more powerless than before, accepting his fate without a fight. She vowed never to be like that.
She thrust her letter in his face.
He read it in silence. “After all that we’ve done for you, ma petite?” He sighed.
“Papa, it’s my decision.”
He looked at her with sad eyes. “But law school would be good for you. You’re studious. Your marks are good. You’re strong-willed. It’s a career. Don’t throw it away with a history degree.” Another sigh. “What do you get with that?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m going to university. To find out.”
“I’ll tell you what you get. Unemployment.”
“You think I won’t learn anything useful?”
“Name one person with a history degree who did anything useful.”
“Lester Pearson, prime minister of Canada. One of the greats, you said once.”
“You serious?”
“I checked on Wikipedia. I knew you were going to ask.”
“So, you are going to Ontario then?”
“Yes. Guelph.”
Her father shook his head and wheezed as he sat in his regular chair at the far end of the kitchen table. “You should stay here, with your people.”
She threw him a look of disgust. “Our people?”
“I’ve worked with les Anglos for many years. They will never accept you.”
The stress of his sagging career was clear in his droopy face and hunched shoulders. She would never be like him.
Back in her apartment, her white uniform tunic lay across her sofa like a flat corpse. Dressed in a ratty T-shirt with a coffee stain that countless washings failed to clean and grey track pants, her hair uncombed, Claire stayed in her one-bedroom apartment and ignored the spectacular view of Halifax Harbour. She chipped away at her tub of Häagen-Dazs chocolate-chip ice cream while some talk show blared from the TV. She didn’t want to hear her parents say, “I told you so.”
There was no one else she could talk to. She hadn’t spoken to her navy friends in the months since she had been promoted to captain of the Kingston. There hadn’t been time. The captain’s chair had called to her, as if it had been waiting for a long time. During her first tour of duty as an ensign, she stood in awe at the chair where only the captain could sit.
Seven years in the navy wasn’t a long time to wait for a first command. She had moved swiftly up the ranks. She passed several classmates from basic officer training. A few of the men did not accept that a woman could be a better officer than they could. She knew that they, or someone who sympathized with their plight, had passed around rumours about her supposed lack of virtue. About the real reason she had risen so fast. About who in the chain of command she had slept with. And how well she kept her liaisons secret.
If a man were subject to such a rumour, he’d gain “cred,” but it wasn’t the case with her. She could hear it in the way some of the junior sailors addressed her as “ma’am” on her last posting as the executive officer of another patrol vessel. With a snicker. With a leer that seeped from the raunchy scene they pictured in their heads.
She had long given up trying to correct the record with her fellow sailors. Her protests met with deadened eyes and raised shoulders. Some of her superior officers got a bit too close when discussing orders. One suggested taking shore leave together. Another told her to smile more.
She was trapped. There was little she could do. Complaining to her commanding officer would only get her a reputation as a difficult officer to work with and would damage her chances at promotion. She would have to bottle up her frustration, while the perpetrators interpreted silence as a de facto acceptance of their behaviour. She focused on her career and tried to be the best officer she could be. It will be worth it in the end, she told herself in the lonely nights with only the drone of the engines and indifferent bleeps of the navigation console for company.
The first time she sat in the chair on the Kingston — her first command — an electric shock surged through her body. She had come home. This was where she belonged, surrounded by her crew. Ready to do what was right, helping those in need. To use the lethal power of her ship to enforce good over evil.
For the first time, she felt complete. Becoming captain vindicated her earlier decisions that had crushed her parents’ expectations. They wanted an honourable professional, a son-in-law, and grandchildren; she gave them an odd career choice, one where women stood a good chance of being sexually assaulted, had to endure long periods of absence and as a result had little likelihood of finding a serious boyfriend. Sure, there had been plenty of offers, but each was tainted by chain-of-command issues. The offers had come from her superior officers or from someone she supervised. None could be accepted.
These problems faded as Claire considered again her current position. Someone on the Kingston was trying to sabotage her career by making false allegations about her conduct directly to her boss. Even her new-found power wasn’t enough to shield her from harassment.
And Captain Hall had taken away what mattered most to her.
She stared at the phone that wasn’t ringing and thought about her future — once sunny and warm, now clouding over, threatened by an imminent gale that was beginning to shred her self-confidence, leaving only a pile of self-doubt.