The Forgotten Daughter Read online

  Dedication

  To my family, Mig, Jessie & Luke

  Epigraph

  Down in the angle at Montreal, on the island about which the two rivers join, there is little of this sense of new and endless space. Two old races and religions meet here and live their separate legends, side by side. If this sprawling half-continent has a heart, here it is. Its pulse throbs out along the rivers and railroads; slow, reluctant and rarely simple, a double beat, a self-moved reciprocation.

  —HUGH MACLENNAN, TWO SOLITUDES

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1982

  Part I: 1992–1995

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Part II: October 1970

  Chapter 24

  Part III: 1995–1997

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Part IV: 1999–2001

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Joanna Goodman

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1982

  To live outside the law you must be honest.

  —BOB DYLAN

  Véronique and Pierre are sitting outside on the fire escape. They’re twelve. It’s a cool, sunless day in April, and they’re missing school because her father is getting out of prison today.

  Pierre is smoking, which is new for him. The cigarette looks absurd in his little boy’s hand. Even the way he puts it to his lips and inhales—squinting his eyes, holding the smoke in his lungs like his dad does—is contrived.

  “You look like an idiot,” she says.

  He shrugs.

  “You’re going to get addicted.”

  “I already am,” he says, thinking he’s cool. “My dad started smoking at nine.”

  “That doesn’t make it smart.”

  Pierre doesn’t say anything. Her thoughts return to her father, his impending return. Inside, the apartment is decorated with balloons and streamers. Véronique painted a sign that says, WELCOME HOME!

  Her mother made a venison stew and chocolate cake, his favorites. Camil brought the venison, fresh from a recent hunting expedition with Pierre. The fridge is stocked with beer and Pepsi. His sisters—Véronique’s aunts—are bustling around, getting everything ready. Pierre’s little brother, Marc, is napping in her room so he can stay up late tonight. It’s going to be a big party—that’s what the grown-ups keep saying. The excitement is a current in the air, vibrating.

  Véronique is quietly apprehensive. She’s lived alone with her mother for as long as she can remember. They have a routine, a familiar, well-established system with its own rules and rituals. Her father’s arrival will surely disrupt—if not completely upheave—their world. What if he’s strict? Lisette is not. What if he’s a slob? Lisette keeps a spotless house. What if he steals Lisette from her, monopolizes her mother’s time and energy? What if her mother loves him more than she loves Véronique? What if her father doesn’t like her? What if she doesn’t like him?

  All this is running through her head as she gazes out past the trees into the back alley, where two tabbies are hissing at each other.

  “You happy he’s coming home?” Pierre asks her, sensing she’s not as thrilled as the rest of them.

  Véronique shrugs. “I guess so.”

  “It’s going to be weird.”

  “Yeah.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “September,” she says. “His birthday.”

  That’s been the sum total of their relationship since she was one, sporadic visits to the Cowansville Penitentiary—Christmas, Easter, his birthday. Lisette didn’t want Véronique anywhere near that environment on a regular basis, so she limited their visits to special occasions. Véronique was happy with that arrangement. She hated going there, started dreading it weeks in advance. It was a terrible, demoralizing place. The prison guards intimidated her, the inmates terrified her, the building was bleak. She much preferred talking to him on the phone once a week.

  But that’s all in the past now. She’ll never, ever have to go back to that place.

  “I guess you don’t really know him,” Pierre says, not looking at her.

  “I sort of do.”

  “I mean you don’t know what it’s like to live with him,” he says. “It’s not like me and my dad.”

  “Obviously,” she mutters, annoyed.

  “I’m just saying I can understand why you’re not jumping for joy.”

  Right on cue, Pierre’s father sticks his head out the back door. “They’re here!” Uncle Camil says. “Put that goddamn cigarette out, Pierre.”

  The door flies open to a burst of cheering and clapping, and her parents enter the apartment. Lisette is flushed, beaming ear to ear. She keeps leaning her head on Léo’s arm, holding his hand, touching him like she can’t believe he’s real. Véronique has never seen her mother like this before, and her initial reaction is jealousy. Already he’s infringing.

  And there is Léo, her father, tall and skinny but sturdy. His hair is buzzed, he’s clean-shaven, his brown eyes are glistening with tears. He rushes over to Véronique and pulls her into his arms, pressing her tight against him. She awkwardly wraps her arms around his waist. She can feel his ribs through his jacket.

  “My little girl,” he says, the words muffled in her hair. He folds her into himself and holds her there, his body convulsing while he sobs. Everyone is crying; she is aware of a cacophony of sniffles behind her. She locks eyes with her mother across the room, and Lisette smiles at her through her tears.

  Finally he releases her and stands back to look at her. “I can’t believe I’m home,” he says, choking up. “I’m home with my wife and my daughter!”

  More clapping. Someone puts on the music—one of his old Jimi Hendrix albums, which no one has touched since he went to jail. Lisette joins them, and they all embrace, Véronique smothered between them.

  “Someone get me a beer!” Léo cries out. They disperse and Véronique slips away.

  She finds Pierre in the kitchen, drinking a 50 straight from the can. Marc is lying on his tummy on the linoleum, pushing a toy police car around. Véronique sits down beside him. He’s four, eight years younger than Pierre, with a different mother who left right after she had Marc, making Uncle Camil a single father of two boys. They’ve all grown up more like siblings than cousins. She thinks of Pierre and Marc as her brothers—especially Pierre, who’s the same age as her. Lisette and Camil have each filled a void in the other’s life. Together, they make up a complete family.

  “You’re lucky,�
� Pierre says.

  “I am?”

  “At least you’re getting your dad back.”

  Véronique is quiet. She doesn’t consider herself lucky.

  “I’ll never get my mom back,” he says, surprising her. He never talks about his mom.

  Marc looks up at his big brother. “You have me,” he says. “And I have you.”

  Véronique scoops Marc into her lap and smothers his fat cheek with kisses. “You sweet boy,” she says. “You sweet, smart boy.”

  Pierre holds out his can of beer, offering her some.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she says.

  As a joke, he offers his little brother the beer. Marc reaches for the can with his pudgy hand, eager to please, but Véronique stops him.

  “Let him have a sip,” Pierre says.

  Véronique ignores him. “Your brother is a bad influence,” she tells Marc, smoothing his fine brown hair, which is as soft as feathers. She runs his toy police car up and down his little sausage leg, and he giggles, burrowing his head against her. She knows she will always have to protect him from his older brother.

  Much later, when the party is winding down and most of the people have gone home, her father pulls her down onto his lap. She can tell he’s very drunk. His lids are heavy, and he’s slurring his words. “You’re so beautiful,” he weeps, tears sliding down his cheeks. “You look just like your mother.”

  “People say I look like you.”

  This pleases him. He kisses her forehead. He smells of body odor, cigarettes, and beer, but it’s somehow fatherly and wonderful.

  “I’m home now,” he says. “For good.”

  She’s staring down at the floor, a little uncomfortable.

  “I’m going to make it up to you,” he goes on, his breath warm in her ear. “I’m going to be the father you should have had all these years. I promise, I’m going to make up for lost time.”

  She nods, not knowing what to say. He seems to be waiting for something, a cue, an acknowledgment. He’s watching her expectantly.

  She wraps her arms around his neck and says, “Okay.”

  This seems to do the trick because he cries even harder and strokes her back and squeezes her, a little too hard, she thinks. “We’re going to go places and do all kinds of things together,” he says. “I’m going to teach you things.”

  He doesn’t say what sort of things they’re going to do together, or what he’s going to teach her, but she’s willing to have an open mind. Her big concern right now is how he’s going to fit inside her life with her mother.

  Uncle Camil and the boys leave around midnight. They’re the last ones to go, and as Véronique watches them stumble out the door, she worries vaguely about their long drive back to Ste. Barbe. Camil is drunk, but refuses to spend the night here. “I’m fine to drive,” he mumbles. “I need to sleep in my own bed.”

  Neither of her parents protest.

  When the three of them are finally alone, Léo looks around the room as though he’s seeing it for the first time. “I can’t believe I’m home,” he says. “With my girls.”

  He tugs them both brusquely into his arms. “This is the most beautiful apartment I’ve ever seen.”

  “Just wait a few weeks,” Lisette mutters.

  “I love you both so much.”

  Lisette kisses his neck, and then they kiss on the mouth. At first it’s just a peck, but it quickly turns more passionate. When their tongues make an appearance, Véronique flees, disgusted.

  A little while later, lying in her bed, she can hear them having sex through her bedroom wall. It starts with her mother moaning, her father grunting, the bed creaking rhythmically. She listens, sickened and fascinated at the same time. The noises get louder, more violent. Their four-poster bed is scraping the wall so forcefully it feels like her bed is rumbling. Her mother starts yelping like an animal; her father is swearing and calling out her mother’s name over and over again: “Lisette! Lisette! Câlice! Lisette! Câlice!”

  They don’t seem the least bit concerned about Véronique in the next room. Pierre warned her. He said, “You know they’re going to screw like crazy tonight.”

  “Shut up. That’s gross.”

  “He hasn’t done it in over ten years! My dad says he’s going to erupt like a goddamn volcano.”

  Véronique reaches for a cassette and pops London Calling into her ghetto-blaster. She turns up the volume. “Clampdown” mercifully drowns out her parents’ sex noises, and she tries to sleep.

  But long after they pass out and the apartment falls silent, Véronique is still awake. All she can think about is what tomorrow and the day after and the day after that will look like. Will her mother still make her toast with butter and maple syrup, or will her father request something else? Eggs? French toast? Will his dirty underwear and socks and razors and manly deodorant clutter their only bathroom?

  Will he be here when she gets home from school, invading her space? She likes having the place to herself after school, when her mother is at work.

  Will they still watch their favorite shows together on the couch every night—Edgar Allan, Détective; Chez Denise; Boogie-Woogie 47; Peau de Banane—or will Léo take over the TV with hockey and politics?

  She closes her eyes, her chest knotted with apprehension. Everything is about to change.

  A few weeks later, on a Friday night, Léo takes Véronique to McDonald’s. He’s been dying to go ever since he got out. The first Montreal McDonald’s opened after he’d gone to jail, so he’s never even had a Big Mac before. Maybe this is what he meant when he said he was going to take her places.

  They drive all the way to Atwater, which is closer to downtown than she ever goes, and that in itself is exciting. Being with Léo is also exciting. She didn’t realize how good it would feel to be out in the world with him. For the first time ever, she feels like she belongs to that rarefied caste of girls who have fathers. She never realized how much of a void it left until he filled it. Léo is so self-assured and charming, so eager to protect and take care of her. Sometimes his eagerness borders on cloying—even at twelve she is aware how much he needs her to accept him, to return his affections. His guilt is constant and unabashed, but she feels safe with him, adored.

  It happened quickly, her falling in love with the idea of him. He does take over the TV every night, watching the news and sports and dumb comedy shows; his stuff is everywhere, driving her and Lisette crazy. He doesn’t wash his dishes, doesn’t put the lid down on the toilet. He’s loud and opinionated, and he fills every bit of space in their once quiet lives. He’s at home waiting for her every day when she walks through the door after school with a million annoying questions. And yet none of that matters. Lisette and Véronique are smitten, both constantly absolving him of all his minor transgressions.

  They get in line at McDonald’s behind a tall man in a belted trench coat the color of pale sand. The fabric is so smooth it looks like velvet. Léo looks up and studies the menu.

  “What are you getting?” she asks her father.

  “You tell me,” he says, lighting a smoke.

  The man in front of them steps up to the counter and orders his meal in English. The girl serving him is French. She doesn’t understand him and asks him in French to repeat his order.

  “You don’t understand ‘Big Mac with no sauce’?” he says impatiently.

  The girl looks flustered; her cheeks are turning red.

  “Large fry and a medium orange drink?”

  The girl shakes her head. The man sighs and looks around for some solidarity. “Can you believe this?”

  The girl interrupts her coworker and asks for help.

  “You need to learn English,” the man says, raising his voice. “How hard can it be? Big Mac? French fries?”

  Véronique looks over at her father. Léo’s expression is inscrutable. He takes a long drag off his cigarette and exhales into the man’s back. She wonders if he’s going to say something and embarrass her.

&nbs
p; Léo does not say a word. Instead, he leans in a little closer and nonchalantly presses the tip of his cigarette against the man’s trench coat, burning a hole in the beautiful fabric.

  Véronique looks up at her father in shock, but he pretends not to notice. When Léo finally pulls his hand away and the guy shuffles off to wait for his food, there is a perfect black sphere in the coat.

  Léo approaches the counter and orders in French. He winks at the girl, and she smiles, relieved.

  “Don’t worry about assholes like him,” Léo says. “Things are going to change in this province. The time is going to come when guys like him won’t be able to order in English.”

  “Merci,” she says.

  The English guy in the fancy coat is oblivious. Either he didn’t hear or he doesn’t understand French. Léo smiles pleasantly at him.

  When they sit down across from each other at one of the little tables, with their Big Macs and their French fries spread out on the brown tray, Véronique says, “You shouldn’t have burned his coat.”

  “I wanted to punch him in the face, but I didn’t want to wind up back in jail.”

  “Pa, I’m serious.”

  “It was gabardine,” Léo says. “That coat must have cost a fortune.”

  “You can’t just do things like that in the real world.”

  “Did you hear how he spoke to her, Véro? Like she was some piece of garbage. That’s how rich Anglos treat us. That’s what they think of us. You think that’s okay?”

  “No, but—”

  “No. It’s not okay. He wasn’t just speaking to her that way. Do you understand? He was speaking to us that way. Me and you. I can’t believe how little has changed in this city since I went away. We’re still second-class citizens!”

  “You could have told him to be more respectful,” Véronique says. “You still could have defended her.”

  “Sure,” Léo says, chuckling. “That would have gone well. He would have laughed in my face and driven off in his BMW.”

  “So instead you burned a hole in his coat?”

  “It’s okay to stand up for what you believe in, Véro. I did it for that poor girl. What was her crime? She doesn’t speak English. This is her goddamn province!”

  Véronique sweeps a handful of fries through a mound of ketchup.