LITMIR.BIZ

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woke up. Her small oval face peeked out from the white bandage circling her head. Her arm, encased in a cast, lay on top of a quilted bed cover.

      While I waited, I surveyed her room, a distinct contrast to the abundance downstairs. A nun’s cell. Small, bare of furniture, except for her bed and an unadorned wooden chest of drawers and night table. Everything in white, the walls, the floor, the furniture, the coverings and the lace curtains. But on the wall behind the bed, where I expected to see the traditional crucifix invariably found in French Canadian homes, there was nothing but a vague outline where one had once hung.

      And the bedroom, unlike my own, was completely free of clutter. No stray piece of clothing lay on the floor or hung from her bedstead. The cupboard door was firmly shut, the drawers likewise, the tops of the dresser and night table equally devoid of anything personal. In fact, there was nothing in this bedroom to suggest Yvette lived here.

      I’d no sooner finished this survey than she opened her eyes and whispered, “Meg, vous êtes… No, I speak English. Please. You are coming here?”

      “Yvette, it’s so good to hear your voice. How are you feeling?”

      “How you are here?” She appeared worried, confused. “I drove,” I switched to French, thinking it would be easier for her.

      “Non, non. In my room.” She persisted in English.

      “Speak French, Yvette. It will be easier for you.”

      “No. I speak English. Tell me who permit you in my room?”

      I reverted to my mother tongue. “Your brother. Don’t you want me here?”

      The look of alarm I had become used to flashed through her eyes. “Yves?”

      “Yes, if that’s his name.”

      “He here?”

      “Yes. Didn’t he bring you home from the hospital?”

      She closed her eyes, then gasped as if in pain.

      “You left the hospital before you were supposed to,” I said. “I came to see how you’re doing. If you want to go back, I can take you.”

      She shook her head. “No, I hurt a little, but it is okay. I stay here. It is better.”

      “Are you sure? I think it’s more important you have proper medical care than do what your family wants.”

      “Do not worry. I am okay. Papa look after me.”

      Although I thought his style of care would be more like a jailer than a nurse, I wasn’t going to force her against her will. Besides, a faint healthy pink had replaced last night’s worrisome pallor.

      Instead, I followed up on a question she hadn’t been able to answer in the hospital. “Can you remember anything yet from your accident?”

      “No. Nothing. I remember the hospital.” She smiled shyly. “You stay with me. Thank you.”

      “And you still don’t recall being on the trail?”

      She gripped her quilted cover with her one good hand. “I not understand.”

      I repeated the question in French.

      She persisted in English. “No, no. I mean, why you say I go on this trail?”

      Although last night I’d told her about finding her at the bottom of Kamikaze Pass, it was evident that she hadn’t fully taken it in. I described it again.

      Afterwards, she asked, “How I come there?”

      “That’s what I’m asking you.”

      She looked out of the single sash window beside her bed. “I do not know.”

      “But you must at least remember staying behind with your father? Watching the rest of us leave? Chantal, Pierre, John-Joe?”

      At the mention of John-Joe’s name, she glanced up at me, then returned her gaze to the window.

      “Something about John-Joe? What do you remember?”

      “Nothing. Rien.” Her eyes remained fixed on whatever she was watching outside. I moved over to the window and looked out onto the barnyard. Her brother was picking his way through the slush towards the house. I turned back to Yvette. She watched me intently, then said more as a statement than a question, “You save my life.”

      “Yes, I suppose so. I doubt you would have survived the night.”

      “Thank you,” she whispered.

      “How are you feeling?”

      “Sore,” she replied with her shy smile. “My head is sick. It is difficult to respire, non, I mean, breathe.”

      “You had quite a fall. I’m surprised you didn’t do more damage.”

      She lay so still then in her virginal bed, with her eyes closed, that I thought she’d gone to sleep. I started to leave. But at the sound of my tiptoes on the white-painted floor, she opened her eyes.

      “It is nice you are my friend. It is first time I have one.”

      Such loneliness made me want to reach out and hug her close to me, but I squeezed her hand instead. “And I want you to know that if you ever need any help, you can come to me, okay?”

      “I’m sorry. It is my fault my father angry at you.”

      “What are you talking about? You’ve nothing to be sorry for.”

      “I am not good.” She picked at a loose thread on her quilt. “I told you Papa said I can help you make the ski trail. It is not true. When I ask, he say no. I come anyway. I want to be with…” She raised her eyes briefly, then dropped them back down. “With you,” she finished, which made me wonder if someone else hadn’t been the attraction.

      So Eric had been right. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure things will work out.”

      And with this opening of the door to friendship, I continued, “While we were waiting for help, you talked about someone hurting you. Then you mentioned your father.”

      I stopped there, not wanting to make the direct link. I’d leave it up to her to decide where it went from this point.

      For an eye blink, I thought I saw a flash of recognition, but she immediately responded, “I do not understand.”

      The door to her room abruptly opened, and her brother stepped in.

      Yves remained standing at the open door, his brown eyes fixed on the mirror of his sister’s brown eyes. No words passed between brother and sister. I shuffled my feet, feeling embarrassed, but not knowing why. Then he said to me, “Enough. You must go.”

      I turned to Yvette and, patting her gently on the hand, promised to return in a couple of days. Then I followed Yves out of the room, down the dark hall with its closed doors, down the narrow stairs to the front hall, where I gave the entertainment centre and priceless antiques one last glance.

      As I stepped out the front door, I asked my question again, “Yves, you didn’t tell me where you worked?”

      “No, I didn’t,” he replied, closing the door as his final answer.

      I felt my blood rise at his rudeness, then realized there was no point in getting angry. The son might have a refined veneer, but underneath he was just as boorish as his father.

      six

      For the next couple of days I watched winter’s first big blizzard bury my twenty thousand dollar investment under fifty centimetres of snow, while I tried not to think about Eric’s princess. I figured it was safer to pour out my anger on something more tangible, like money. Love was too risky. Besides, I feared that if I confronted him about the woman, he might leave me out of his equation altogether. So I sat and stewed while Champlain’s granite nose vanished under

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