Now I know that the Michelle topic is looming, and there isn’t much I can do to stop Jeannette without coming across as rude.
“I think it’s no coincidence that they found her now,” Jeannette says.
“Really?”
She gives me a look of thinly veiled condescension. “After all these years, we finally have some closure. Michelle is dead. She’s dead.” When Jeannette repeats the last phrase, it’s with a heavy finality, yet I can’t shake the feeling it’s meant for herself rather than me or anyone else. “All this time I think I was convinced deep down that she was coming back, you know.”
She never said anything like that during our interview, so it’s a surprise. I figured that, after more than thirty years, we’d all taken for granted that Michelle was long dead, a pile of bones in a shallow grave somewhere.
Jeannette gives a series of vigorous nods. “That’s right. I was sure she was alive. Watching me. Watching us all, really, watching the town. Keeping track. Keeping tabs. It’s almost a relief.”
“You’re relieved she’s dead?” I can’t resist. “What does God think of that?”
She wrinkles her nose. Her lipstick bleeds into the creases around her mouth. She’s right, Laura looks younger than her, despite being a couple of years older.
“This was part of the plan, Stephanie,” Jeannette says intently. “This was a sign, don’t you see?”
“A sign of what?”
She sighs, like I’m the one who’s being obtuse.
“A sign that it’s time for things to change,” she says at last. “We must all confess our sins and ask forgiveness before we can move on from the past. If you young ones ever set foot at a sermon, you’d know exactly what I’m talking about.”
I haven’t set foot at a sermon and have no plans of doing that. So I just wait for Jeannette to get to the point.
Instead, she ever so subtly rolls her eyes. “Anyway, it won’t be much longer now. This town has a lot to answer for.”
SEVEN
1979
Laura pops into the gas station to get her soda. Behind the counter is one of the teenagers from high school that Laura sort of knows—he wears rock shirts too, and she’s seen him pass tapes around. He gives her the stink eye, but she knows he won’t do anything. And if he ever tries, he’ll regret it. He’s gangly, covered in acne from forehead to neck, and his skinny, blue-white arms protrude like twigs from the baggy sleeves of the T-shirt he’s wearing. She feels his wary glare on her as she gets the soda from the shelf. No machine means the soda will be warm, and just thinking about it makes her want to puke, frankly, but she’s out of options. She throws her change on the counter, wondering if she should get a pack of smokes too.
“You’re too young, O’Malley,” the teenager says, glowering down at her from his post behind the counter.
Oh, piss off, she thinks. “Hey, what happened last night?” she asks. “Everyone’s worked up, and no one will tell me. Not more dead sheep?”
He rolls his eyes in disgust. “No. It was a dog this time.”
Laura waits with bated breath for him to go on. Sensing her eagerness and clearly happy to be the object of attention, he smirks. “The Gagnons’ dog.”
“Really? And it wasn’t, like, a coyote or something that did it?”
“Nah. Someone cut its head off.”
“Bullshit,” Laura says, incredulous. The Gagnons are rich—not Fortier-rich but well-to-do. From Laura’s standpoint, it’s all the same. The dog in question is an Airedale the Gagnon paterfamilias bought from a breeder in Quebec City. For his kids—Laura knows them, the eldest daughter is a couple of grades below her. She can’t help but feel a pang. Who the hell would do something like that?
“I didn’t see it,” the teenager admits. “Tony saw it and told me.”
Oh. Laura smirks. “Tony is full of shit,” she says. “Even I know that.”
“He told me—”
“He’s probably the one who did it.”
“He swore on his mother’s heart,” the teenager says, obviously pissed off with this questioning of his credibility.
“Yeah, that’s easy when your mother’s been gone for years,” Laura says with a shrug. She takes her soda and the cigarettes and heads out.
She downs her soda in a few gulps, barely noticing that it’s not cold, and it restores her somewhat. The main street is lazily abuzz with people enjoying the sunshine. Hardly anyone spares her a glance.
Laura can’t shake the feeling of dismay. It was such a sweet dog. She got to pet it once when it was in the yard. She reached in through the fence and patted its head, so soft and fluffy, and the dog licked her fingers. That was before Gagnon senior saw her and charged outside, yelling at her to move along. In the window of their split-level, she saw the eldest daughter, her nose all but pressed to the glass, her shiny eyes fixed on her, careful not to miss a second of the spectacle. Shitty, spoiled, little brat, Jeannette.
The dad came up to the dog and shoved it with the toe of his shoe, just enough to make it whine and run off in the direction of the house. Laura backed away, muttering something that was meant to sound contrite, and when he finally turned away and walked after the dog, she flipped him off.
How long ago had that been? A couple of weeks?
She felt bad for the Airedale.
They can’t seriously think she killed that dog. Then again, it doesn’t matter if they really think it or not. It’s easy to blame it on her, so that’s what everyone is probably doing.
The street goes ever so subtly uphill, and by the time she gets to the top, she’s winded, drenched in booze sweat. The church looms over her, casting its shadow straight ahead as the sun blazes right over the tip of the steeple. Stone steps lead up to tall double doors with a stained-glass window above them like a giant eye with a multicolored iris. Laura has only been inside a couple of times. No one ever explicitly made her feel unwelcome, but she just intuits those things, like most children do.
On Saturday, there’s no service, and so the steps are empty. No one pays much attention to her as she makes her way up to the doors, which are closed. She grabs the massive metal ring and gives a subtle tug, not really expecting the door to open, yet it does, with a soft creak.
Cool air, pleasantly scented with incense, wafts out at her, soothing her red face. The semidarkness inside seems suddenly inviting, and without thinking about it too much, Laura slips in, letting the door swing shut behind her.
It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust after the glare of the sun. The rows of pews glint with dark varnish. At the other end of the aisle, she can make out the altar. Multicolored blotches of light fall across the plain stone floor from the stained-glass windows.
