THREE

March 29, 2012

1:44 p.m.

Mathieu watched Lori-Anne rush out to meet her parents and felt more alone than he should. Losing Nadia was something he’d never imagine could happen, and even though he assumed the loss must be just as painful for Lori-Anne, part of him believed that he was suffering more than his wife. The questions that went unanswered were an endless torment that he couldn’t run from.

If only he had driven Nadia like he always did. If only he hadn’t borrowed the Pathfinder to go get shop supplies. If only the bad weather had held off another hour.

So many factors came into play that day and now nothing could change the outcome.

Mathieu shifted his gaze from Lori-Anne and saw his paternal grandparents, Leon and Flore Delacroix, both in their late eighties, struggling against the wind and rain. He took a breath and stepped out of the Pathfinder. He caught up to his grandmother and took her left arm.

“That’s some angry weather,” Grandpa said, clamping a fedora on his head.

Mathieu thought it fitted his mood. “How are you feeling, Grandma?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ll manage just fine.”

“You’re sounding a lot better today,” Mathieu said and led them into the funeral home. “How’s your arm doing?”

“Probably won’t get much better than what it is,” she said. “I’m old, and the stroke didn’t do me any favours. But your grandpa takes good care of me.”

“It’s what he’s always done best,” he said while glancing at his grandfather. “Grandpa’s always been good at taking care of us.”

He walked his grandparents to the chapel doors at the far end of the lobby. When Mathieu glanced back, he saw Lori-Anne come in with her parents. It didn’t take long for her father to spot him and frown. After twenty years, Samuel Weatherly still made Mathieu feel like an outsider, a mistake that should be corrected.

Mathieu turned his attention to his grandparents. “Let me help you to your seats.”

“Isn’t Lori-Anne coming?” Grandma said.

He took one last look toward his wife, and since she was looking his way he gestured that he was going into the chapel. He saw her nod. “She’s just talking to her parents. She’ll join us in a minute.”

“How is she?” Grandma said.

“Upset,” Mathieu said. “She’s strong though.”

“Something like this,” Grandpa said, “can put a lot of stress on a marriage.”

Grandma tapped Mathieu’s hand. “You and Lori-Anne are going to need each other.”

“We’re doing okay,” he said.

“I can tell a lie when I hear one,” Grandpa said.

Mathieu helped his grandmother take a seat in the front row and then turned to his grandfather. “Please Grandpa. I just want to get through the day. Lori-Anne and I will work things out.”

“I hope you do,” Grandma said. “She’s such a lovely girl.”

Mathieu stood, watching for Lori-Anne. So many people entered the chapel. Kids from Nadia’s school accompanied by parents, teachers he’d met at the last parent-teacher interviews, and a lot of faces he didn’t recognize. He accepted condolences, shook hands, muttered thank you.

“Hey Uncle Mathieu,” Caitlin said and hugged him. “I can’t believe Nad is gone. I miss her so much. Is this really happening?”

Mathieu held her tightly, feeling his niece shake as she sobbed quietly. “Yeah, she’s really gone.”

“I don’t want her to be. What am I going to do without her? She was my best friend.”

“I wish none of this was happening too,” he said, the words scratching the back of his throat like jagged pieces of broken mirror. “It hardly seems right.”

Caitlin cried a bit more and then pulled away, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Mathieu thought she looked a lot like Nadia, the family resemblance undeniable. The two girls were the same height, same long blond hair. Only their eyes were different, Nadia’s had been blue-grey like his while Caitlin’s were amber like her mother’s.

“Here’s your mom with Nicholas and Suzie,” he said.

His sister-in-law wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “I’m so so sorry. This is horrible.”

“Thanks, Nancy,” he said, smelling the booze on her breath. “We’ll get through it. Somehow.”

“I can’t imagine . . .”

“I know,” he said.

“Mom,” Nicholas said. “Let’s get seats.”

“I’m sorry,” Suzie said and hugged him.

“Thanks,” he said to his oldest niece and watched her join the others in the second row.

Finally, Mathieu saw Lori-Anne come in, flanked by her parents and two of her older brothers, Brad and Cory. Brad’s wife, Carol, was also there but it looked like they’d left the kids back in Vancouver. Mathieu noticed that Jim, Nancy’s husband, was nowhere to be seen. That was so like him not to show up.

By now seats were scarce and people stood along the sides and at the back. Mathieu watched Lori-Anne lead her family up the middle aisle, people going quiet as they walked by. Lori-Anne came to stand beside him while everyone else took seats beside Nancy except for his mother-in-law, Victoria, who came to hug him.

“My dearest condolences, Mathieu.”

“Thank you.”

“Such a shame,” she said, letting him go and wiping her nose with a used tissue she held in her right hand. “I loved that little bird.”

“Little bird?”

“When she was a baby, she’d purse her lips when I fed her. It reminded me of a little bird’s peak.”

Mathieu couldn’t find the strength to smile.

“We’ll get through this,” Victoria said before taking a seat beside her husband.

“Lots of people,” Lori-Anne said into Mathieu’s ear. “You never realize the impact someone has in other people’s lives.”

“She wasn’t just ours anymore,” he said and glanced around. People tried to avert their gaze, but not before he saw pity in their eyes.

He looked away. He didn’t want their pity. He wanted his daughter.

“Why?” he said, possibly for the hundredth time. “She had so much ahead of her. We had so much ahead of us. We’ll never be grandparents.”

Tears streamed down Lori-Anne’s face. He had no words of comfort, just this raw anger deep in his core wanting to lay waste to everything in its path. If only he could smash something, anything, everything, maybe he’d find some relief.

A door opened and Mathieu looked up.

Father Russo stood before them, his arms raised in blessing. The congregation went silent. And then stifled sobs started way in the back and rose like a wave toward the front. Behind him, Mathieu heard Caitlin crying loudly while Nancy tried to soothe her. His grandmother also began to cry and Mathieu took her hand.

“We have gathered here today to pay our respect . . .” Father Russo said but Mathieu had tuned him out. He stared at the life-sized crucifix that hung on the back wall, and felt little comfort in seeing Jesus hanging from it. How could God, who allowed that to happen to His son, care about what happened to Mathieu’s daughter?

No answers came.

* * *

Father Russo spoke fondly of Nadia, bringing her back to life, if only in select memories. Lori-Anne had met with him the day before to go over the ceremony, and had supplied the details that personalized her daughter.

She sat there remembering when things were much simpler and happier, when Nadia was a toddler playing with her toys in the living room while she prepared Sunday night dinner. Sunday afternoons had always been hers and Nadia’s as Mathieu took care of the outside, mowing the lawn, trimming the shrubs, washing the cars, and occasionally playing a round of golf with her brother Cory. A routine she now realized had been privileged harmony.

Lori-Anne took her husband’s hand and laced her fingers with his. It felt good to be touching him, an act of intimacy that had eluded them since the accident. She quickly glanced at Mathieu and doubt squeezed her heart when she saw the agony in his eyes. Today was hard, but she knew what to expect. She had no idea what was to come for them after today. A distance had settled between them that had never been there before and she didn’t know what it meant. They’d had a wonderful marriage, a close and loving relationship. He’d always been the man she’d wanted and needed, and she’d never imagined that that would change. She’d also never imagined that her daughter would die.

Father Russo finished and looked her way.

“Come,” Lori-Anne said.

“Where?”

“To the front.”

“Why?”

“So people can express their condolences.”

“Okay.”

Lori-Anne stood, still holding Mathieu’s hand, and he followed. Nadia’s urn, and an 8x10 framed picture taken this past Christmas showing Nadia wearing a new black-and-cream sweater with a pair of skinny jeans, sat on a pedestal. A beautiful flower arrangement filled the entire area around the base.

Lori-Anne took a deep breath and faced the gathering, Mathieu at her side.

At Father Russo’s invitation, people began to move toward the front.

* * *

Mathieu shook hands and accepted hugs from people he didn’t know. At first, he tried to stay in the moment, but soon his thoughts turned to cherished memories.

He recalled the day he’d brought Nadia home from the hospital, a bundle of life, squirming and cooing. The sweetest sounds he’d ever heard. Her tiny fingers grabbing his nose when he snuggled against her belly.

How he wanted to hold her, touch her, kiss her one more time. He wanted to be angry with her, yell at her, ground her. He wanted to sneak into her room after she’d fallen asleep and watch her sleep for a moment, knowing that he was the luckiest man alive. Most of all, he wanted to tell her how much he loved her.

He shook hands with Brad and hugged Carol.

“Thanks for making the long trip to be here,” he said.

“Wish it was for better circumstances,” Brad said.

Mathieu nodded.

Next came Cory. His gay brother-in-law. They hugged. He’d always liked Cory. He was the black sheep in the family so it made him an instant ally against Samuel.

“If you need anything,” Cory said. “Let me know.”

“Thanks.”

The line of people never seemed to end but in a way, it was a good thing, showed that Nadia had mattered. Still, it was hard to accept the same condolences over and over again as if he was hearing them for the first time. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much else people could say.

* * *

Once everyone had expressed their sympathy and exited the chapel, it became too quiet. Lori-Anne turned to Mathieu and rubbed his arm. “How are you?”

“Hanging in. You?”

They stood in front of Nadia’s urn.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

“She looks so pretty in that picture.”

“We almost had to take her phone away so she’d get dressed to go to my parents’ house.”

“She wanted to play with her new phone. What teenager wouldn’t?”

“I know,” she said. “I’m so glad we managed to get this photo.”

“Me too.”

“We were good parents, weren’t we?”

“I like to think so.”

They stood for a moment longer, the missing presence in their lives becoming more and more real and Lori-Anne’s urge to deny its existence a growing lump deep inside of her. She would never get the chance to make amends for what had happened, for what had been said. She wanted to make peace with Nadia, but it felt rather one-sided and unfinished.

“We should get going,” she said, her chest feeling so small she had to force herself to breathe. “Do you want to carry the urn?”

“Sure.”

Lori-Anne followed Mathieu down the middle aisle, but before exiting the chapel she turned and looked at Nadia’s picture.

I’m sorry, she mouthed.

* * *

Mathieu felt the dampness in the air the moment he stepped out of the funeral home. The rain had changed to a drizzle. The parking lot had emptied quickly and only family remained.

“Why do we need a hearse?” he said.

“It’s part of the service,” Lori-Anne said.

Mathieu made his way to the hearse and handed the urn to the driver. The man secured his daughter’s remains and closed the door.

“We’ll follow,” he said to the driver. “Close.”

Lori-Anne was already in the car waiting for him. He started the engine and shivered, a chill in his bones. The drizzle on the windshield made everything blurry so he set the wipers to the intermittent setting.

He glanced at Lori-Anne. “Is any of this real?”

She shook her head. “I keep hoping it’s not.”

He followed the hearse out of the parking lot, and his family pulled in line behind him. At the first set of lights, they stopped. People rushed across the intersection, their heads bowed under umbrellas. No one seemed to notice the hearse. No one knew or cared that a young girl had ceased to breathe, ceased to exist, ceased to matter. Mathieu wanted to roll down the window and shout, It’s my daughter in there.

He rubbed his face with a callused hand.

The light turned green and they moved on. The developed neighbourhood gave way to farmland. They rode in silence. Ten minutes later they turned into the cemetery.

* * *

Lori-Anne slid out of the car and took a few hesitant steps toward her husband. He was leaning against the hood, his hands shoved in the pockets of his overcoat, his head bent down as if pressed by an unbearable weight.

She was sure all the grey in his hair had showed up overnight.

Behind them car doors slammed shut and footsteps crunched stones. Monday’s snow was almost gone, washed away by today’s rain. The grass wasn’t visible yet, but another wet day might do it.

“Are you going to get her?”

“Yeah,” Mathieu said. “I was just thinking . . .”

“I know.”

She watched Mathieu take the urn from the driver. When he faced her, tears streaked down his face, matching hers.

She went to him.

They held each other, Nadia between them.

* * *

Mathieu and Lori-Anne stood inches from the gravesite, their family forming a semicircle around them. Father Russo finished with the Lord’s Prayer and invited Mathieu to put his daughter to rest.

He went down on one knee, kissed the urn, and carefully set Nadia’s remains. He took a handful of dirt that had been left beside the small hole that had been dug for the urn and let it trickle through his fingers.

“Goodbye, sweetie,” he said.

Mathieu got up and stood by his wife. His grandmother, to his left, rubbed his arm. He looked at his grandfather and saw the same sadness in the old man’s eyes that he felt in his heart. No one said anything as they took turns letting a handful of dirt cover the urn before walking away.

The afternoon was getting late and a northerly wind picked up, biting at his face and moving the steel-coloured sky above. Mathieu looked up and noticed the pale shadow of the moon between cloud breaks.

Goodnight Moon.

How many times had he read that book to her at bedtime? By the time Nadia was three, she could recite the words as he read them. To this day, he remembered most of them too. He recalled how she would hang on, not giving in to sleep until he’d read the last syllable. Then she would close her eyes and cuddle with her teddy and blanket, a smile on her face. He would lean over and kiss her forehead, and she’d fall asleep within seconds.

He didn’t know why he’d just thought of that, except that bedtime had been one of his favourite moments, a perfect way to end the day. Mathieu closed his eyes and let the memory wrap itself around him, the comfort it brought like slipping into a warm bed.

When he opened his eyes, the moon was gone and so was the life he’d loved.

Mathieu looked at his parents’ gravestones, a few feet away in the family plot. In the past year, he’d only come twice to visit them, the years erasing any memory he’d had of them long ago, but now he needed them more than ever.

Mom, Dad, take care of your granddaughter.