They sit together on the paisley couch. Frank’s eyes are filling, and Suzanne’s are how dry. She sits with Frank for a while. He drives her back home in his Volkswagen, leaving her three houses away, at her request.
Because Frank cried, she knows he believed her. Holly will be okay, Suzanne tells herself, pulling up the tree hand over hand.
She sits on her bed, the horses haphazard on the floor. One horse is in her hand, and she sucks on the plastic fetlock. She broke her word to her father.
Broken promises or lies.
Or a little baby dies.
They take her to the midway, a place she has never asked to go. They also bring along Annie Fournier, a new-ish girl from one street over whose mother works at the same company as Suzanne’s mother. Both are only children. Neither likes the midway.
“It’ll be fun, that’s why,” Adele explains.
Her daughter’s silence somehow infuriates.
“You need to get out more. She’s the same age as you are. And it’s the midway! When I was your age, I couldn’t wait for it to come to town!”
Suzanne puts on her blue jeans and the bright flowered top that is getting too small, removes it, and pulls on an oversized T-shirt.
Annie Fournier arrives with a plastic bag in tow. She doesn’t exactly scowl at Suzanne, but she makes it wordlessly clear that this is not her idea either. The girls sit side by side in the living room while Mrs. Cardinal bustles in the kitchen, putting things in her carry-all.
Suzanne’s father is outside at the car, throwing Suzanne’s candy bar wrappers into a small bucket he keeps handy but never handy enough. Soon they are off, and the dreaded silence fills the back seat where the two child islands float. When Robert Cardinal turns a corner, the islands bump, lightly, but otherwise remain two distinct land masses.
“Well, come on, girls! What’s your favourite ride, Annie? Which one are you really looking forward to?” Mr. Cardinal glances back.
It turns out Annie Fournier likes the midway. It is just Suzanne she does not like.
“Maybe the Wild Mouse. Do you think they’ll have a Salt and Pepper this year?”
Mr. Cardinal signals out the window. “Wouldn’t know. Kind of a big contraption. We haven’t gone to the midway in a long time, so you probably know more about it than we do. When was the last time we went, Adele?”
Mrs. Cardinal jerks out of her thoughts and shakes her head. “Long time. Suzanne was only five or so. The year of the fire, I think.”
Suzanne is stunned. “I been there before?”
She remembers nothing at all of midways, rides. They must be mistaken. “What rides did I like?”
Mrs. Cardinal shakes her head. “Oh, you were too young and too small for any of the big rides, but you did like the kiddie-world merry-go-round, and the little boats, and you and Carla . . .”
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear.
Silence in the front seat now, as Robert pulls into the makeshift parking lot. Annie Fournier jabs a fingernail into Suzanne’s right arm and whispers, “Too scared for any of the real rides. Big surprise. Maybe you can go on the little boats again.”
Suzanne follows the procession onto the grounds of the midway.
This Annie Fournier is not an evil girl. Suzanne cannot say she is evil. But she is a girl with plans. A crafty girl, as Mrs. Reidel might say. She has already wrapped her hand around the arm of Mr. Cardinal for the walk over to the hot dog stand, and now she is attempting to insinuate herself into Mrs. Cardinal’s good graces. Hah. Mrs. Cardinal is not going to hold her hand, or rub her back when she is scared. Still, the new girl is beaming up at Mrs. Cardinal and is getting a smile back that Suzanne only remembers.
The hot dogs are cold. There is a bug in the relish.
“What’s wrong with you? Eat up! We only have another hour to go on the rides!”
Mr. Cardinal is buoyant, cleaning up his hot dog and chasing Annie Fournier around to grab handfuls of her cotton candy.
“Oh, Robert, get your own,” Mrs. Cardinal laughs. Laughs!
“You done?” Adele scoops up Suzanne’s hot dog and wipes the girl’s mouth with a paper serviette. Then it is back on the rides. The Wild Mouse is next, and Annie has convinced the Cardinals to put Suzanne on it with her. Her eyes glow in the reflection of the flaking bulbs that line the path to the ride. Suzanne is bolted in beside Annie. The ride commences. Suzanne’s head is forced back like a giant invisible hand pressing her forehead. Round and back, this way and that, slammed forward, thrust back. Annie Fournier’s head is the same as hers, forward and back. Noise. Lights. It is too much, too . . .
When she vomits, she decorates the car, but mostly she decorates Annie Fournier. Suzanne sees a shriek frozen on Annie’s face. Anger, incredulity. When the ride stops, the attendant grunts at the girls to get out. Annie Fournier spills off the ride and runs to the exit screaming and crying. Mrs. Cardinal takes her hand and tries to wipe her shirt before moving away with her. Suzanne staggers to the exit as the attendant hoses down the car. Her father is there waiting for her.
“Sorry, Papa,” she murmurs, not trusting herself to open her mouth.
Her father steers her head toward the car. “Didn’t know your aim was that good,” he says.
She hears no more of Annie Fournier for a while. But one day Mrs. Cardinal comes home from work with the idea that it would be lovely if Annie Fournier came over once a week to play.
“With you?” Suzanne asks.
“No, with you.”
Why do they do this? Why can’t they leave her alone? Suzanne looks around her bedroom, determined to hide anything of real value. Her rocks, her doll, Annabelle, the key chain with the rubber dog, the horses with the chewed fetlocks. No way will Annie Fournier get her treasures.
Summer spins into fall, and Annie Fournier’s visits continue. On the other side of town, at the James Street Hospital, Holly gives birth to a healthy boy. People in town are ambivalent. While they don’t approve of her non-wedded state, they certainly wish her and the child no ill.
They reserve most of their disdain for Frank, who carries the baby around like he owns it.
Frank and Holly and the baby find Suzanne on the way to the library. Holly is pushing the baby in an old pram that squeaks. Frank is making faces into the pram.
“Suzanne! We were looking for you the last few days! We didn’t want to go by your house,” Frank added. Nod and a wink.
“He wanted to thank you,” Holly says, coming round to kiss and hug Suzanne.
“I did have complications. If I hadn’t been in hospital . . . well . . . thank you so much.”
Suzanne looks into the pram. Tiny-fingered child, eyes and fists clenched tight. Dark wisps of hair, and the red and white toque in this chill air.
“His name is Maurice Falcon, but we’re going to call him Falcon.”
Falcon.
“Keen of eye, strong of flight,” says Frank.
“I like his name,” Suzanne says. “Just don’t call him Little Falcon.”
“Or Fire Engine Falcon, right? Whoa! That has a ring