Hilary her own story, how she’d left her home in Montreal at the age of sixteen. She’d met a guy who drove her to Burlington, Vermont, where she got a job waiting tables at a coffee shop and rented a room from the guy’s sister, who thought she was a college student. From Burlington she went to Vancouver; she didn’t like it, but while she was there she fell in with some theater people and decided she wanted to act. She stayed for a year before moving on: Las Vegas, Denver, Chicago. She lived for a year with a guy she’d met in a park, where he was feeding the ducks. He offered her a room if she’d cook his meals, and after six months he told her he loved her, and she believed him. He was a gentleman, and he said he knew she’d been through hard times, that he wanted to treat her with the respect and delicacy she deserved. This was how he talked, using words like
delicacy
. In all the time she lived with him he never touched her. At the end of the year he proposed, and she said she didn’t think she was ready for marriage yet. He nodded and said he understood, but at midnight he came into her room, got into her bed, and ran his hands up and down her bare back. She sat up and said, “Please don’t do that,” trying to keep her voice high and childish, frail with youth.
“I know your real self,” he said. “I know what you want.”
She ran from the house in her pajamas. It was the first night since she left home that she stayed in a shelter, and she vowed it would be the only one. From then on she never lived with a man. She used them for food, jobs, and transportation, but wouldn’t live with them. When she got to New York, she paid cash for a room at a hostel until the apartment deal with Larry came through. She never counted on anyone but herself.
In the six years she’d been gone, she’d written to her parents three times. The first was to tell them she was fine and not to try to find her. The second was a Christmas card she’d sent from Las Vegas, a drunken, sentimental mistake. The third was just last year. She had woken up in the middle of the night with the eeriest feeling about her mother; it was like having a scary dream that you couldn’t really remember. She was shaking and sweating. She didn’t believe in premonitions or portents, but she was rattled enough to write. She didn’t give a return address, and wasn’t thinking about going home.Too much time had passed and she was a different person now, an adult of her own making. She simply wrote,
Mom. I love you. Annie
. It wasn’t what any mother would have wanted, but it was something, and it would have to be enough.
“So how come you left?” Hilary said. “I mean, in the first place.”
Anne shrugged.
“Did you ever go back?”
“No.”
The girl sat in the silence, patting her belly. Her eyes were drowsy, implacable.
“How did you know that I ran away?” Anne said.
Hilary lifted her hand and gestured around the apartment. “It’s empty,” she said. “On purpose empty.”
“I guess,” Anne said.
Hilary looked at her, and suddenly her eyes were sharp, gleaming. “Girls who look like you can have whatever they want,” she said. “You chose this.”
Anne held her gaze. “So did you,” she said.
THREE
Iqaluit, 2006
MARTINE, OF COURSE, didn’t want him to go. When he told her about the contract, she stood in the living room with her arms crossed, looking, with her thick-framed glasses and disapproving frown, more like a librarian than the lawyer she was. When she was hurt or vulnerable, she reacted with stern anger, and Mitch loved her for the transparency of this posture, almost as much as he loved the quiet, resigned way in which later, in bed, crying a little, she would set it aside.
“I don’t understand,” she said then. Her curly hair was a tangle of silver blond on the pillow. Her French accent, as always when she was upset, grew stronger. “It’s so far away.”
“The rotation’s only a few
delicacy
. In all the time she lived with him he never touched her. At the end of the year he proposed, and she said she didn’t think she was ready for marriage yet. He nodded and said he understood, but at midnight he came into her room, got into her bed, and ran his hands up and down her bare back. She sat up and said, “Please don’t do that,” trying to keep her voice high and childish, frail with youth.
“I know your real self,” he said. “I know what you want.”
She ran from the house in her pajamas. It was the first night since she left home that she stayed in a shelter, and she vowed it would be the only one. From then on she never lived with a man. She used them for food, jobs, and transportation, but wouldn’t live with them. When she got to New York, she paid cash for a room at a hostel until the apartment deal with Larry came through. She never counted on anyone but herself.
In the six years she’d been gone, she’d written to her parents three times. The first was to tell them she was fine and not to try to find her. The second was a Christmas card she’d sent from Las Vegas, a drunken, sentimental mistake. The third was just last year. She had woken up in the middle of the night with the eeriest feeling about her mother; it was like having a scary dream that you couldn’t really remember. She was shaking and sweating. She didn’t believe in premonitions or portents, but she was rattled enough to write. She didn’t give a return address, and wasn’t thinking about going home.Too much time had passed and she was a different person now, an adult of her own making. She simply wrote,
Mom. I love you. Annie
. It wasn’t what any mother would have wanted, but it was something, and it would have to be enough.
“So how come you left?” Hilary said. “I mean, in the first place.”
Anne shrugged.
“Did you ever go back?”
“No.”
The girl sat in the silence, patting her belly. Her eyes were drowsy, implacable.
“How did you know that I ran away?” Anne said.
Hilary lifted her hand and gestured around the apartment. “It’s empty,” she said. “On purpose empty.”
“I guess,” Anne said.
Hilary looked at her, and suddenly her eyes were sharp, gleaming. “Girls who look like you can have whatever they want,” she said. “You chose this.”
Anne held her gaze. “So did you,” she said.
THREE
Iqaluit, 2006
MARTINE, OF COURSE, didn’t want him to go. When he told her about the contract, she stood in the living room with her arms crossed, looking, with her thick-framed glasses and disapproving frown, more like a librarian than the lawyer she was. When she was hurt or vulnerable, she reacted with stern anger, and Mitch loved her for the transparency of this posture, almost as much as he loved the quiet, resigned way in which later, in bed, crying a little, she would set it aside.
“I don’t understand,” she said then. Her curly hair was a tangle of silver blond on the pillow. Her French accent, as always when she was upset, grew stronger. “It’s so far away.”
“The rotation’s only a few
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