The Island of Doves (27 page)

A
ll the next day they braced themselves for Edward Fraser to come back to the house and make another attempt to reclaim his wife, but he did not. Jean-Henri went to Morin’s store to ask about him and learned that the disheveled man had returned to the port in time to reboard the westbound boat.

So he would go on to Chicago, or New Orleans, Magdelaine thought. Of course, now that he knew where Susannah was he could always come back, but the prospect didn’t seem to worry Susannah in the slightest. Magdelaine thought back to the trembling young woman Father Milani had brought to her front door less than a year ago. All she had wanted then was a place to hide. Now she was ready to claim more—a new home, a new family. A story that had a different ending.

The weather continued to warm as April turned to May, and Susannah’s garden came alive. The crocuses and snowdrops emerged, along with the blossoms on the apple tree, and the yard hummed with bees. Susannah sketched a plan for the summer garden, with a larger plot of vegetables on one side and more transplanted thimbleberry bushes along the house.

Susannah put all of them to work. Therese and Esmee knelt in the established beds and pulled out anything that looked like a weed, then dug troughs as Raph sat on a blanket in the sun, shaking a jar of seeds. Magdelaine stared at her sister in awe, still fighting her own disbelief that she had found her way back home after all these years. Therese sat back on her heels to swat a bee away from her hair. Her eyes met Magdelaine’s and she grinned. Life had given them something wonderful, Magdelaine saw: the chance to start a new family. They wouldn’t waste it. They wouldn’t take it for granted, not for a day.

Susannah interrupted her thoughts. “Now, Magdelaine, Jean-Henri,” she said, handing both of them shovels, “you will be digging the new beds, over there.” Susannah pointed to the meadow just beyond the apple tree.

“You’re expanding, I see,” Magdelaine said.

Susannah smiled. “That is where I will teach the botany lesson. Then you will take the girls over to Bois Blanc to hunt for specimens, and I will instruct them in making an herbarium—a catalog of all the plants these islands hold. After you finish with the beds, Jean-Henri, I want you to build me a bench.”

Magdelaine feigned offense, then laughed as she nudged Jean-Henri. “Awfully domineering, isn’t she?”

He smirked. “I wonder where she learned that.”

They tromped through the tender spring grass to the site of the new beds. Just a few weeks earlier it would have been impossible to break the frozen ground, but now the thaw had crept into the soil, and it gave way to them.

They worked quietly, the
swish, chuff
of their shovels making a hypnotic rhythm. Magdelaine thought about how there were so many things in this life that humans could not accept, but how the earth accepted everything, every husk of a beetle, every spent blossom, every dead man and woman, with complete indifference. Then, if you waited a while, out came pink tulips on yellow-green stems, enough lettuce to send all the rabbits on the island into a frenzy. More than anything, it was patience a person needed.

“I suppose she wants the bench to go here,” Jean-Henri said, gesturing with his arm alongside the beds. “The house will shade it in the morning.”

She could see that he was already building the bench in his mind, imagining its lines, how to make it sturdy and beautiful. Just then she remembered the saw she had bought for him a year ago at Morin’s store, but never gave him. Had she really been so hard-hearted that she would withhold even that small gesture of kindness?

“
Mon fils
, I have something for you,” Magdelaine said. She hurried into the house and came back out a moment later with the saw. “I thought it looked like a good one.”

Jean-Henri laid down his shovel and took the gift, turning it over in his hand, and looked at her in surprise. “Yes, it is. Thank you, Mother.”

He took the saw inside and then joined her back at the beds. Taking up his shovel again, he worked quietly, almost as if he were afraid to disturb the rare moment of tranquillity between them. He absorbed himself in his work with a creased brow, and Magdelaine caught herself staring at him. She needed to do more than just give him the saw, she knew. She needed to tell him how she wanted things between them to change.

Finding a way to begin was difficult, but she knew she had to try. “Raphael has grown so much since he came to us. It is hard to believe.”

Jean-Henri nodded, then paused in his shoveling. He jabbed the tip of the shovel into the pile of dirt and leaned on the handle. “Promise me, Mother, that you won’t tell anyone else about where Raph came from. It is very important to Esmee, and to me. Sometimes I can almost make myself forget that he is not really ours. I feel about him just as I imagine I’d feel if he
were
my own son, and I would like to amend my memory to make it so.”

He could be so serious. She wondered if he had gotten that from her. “Of course,
mon fils
. That is the way it should be.”

He picked up the shovel again. “There is no good reason for him to know the truth, to go through life wondering about that piece of himself that is missing. Nothing good comes from that.”

“I agree. A boy should not have questions about his parents.”

Magdelaine glanced behind them, out at the water. The lake was always there. It had been there in every day of her girlhood, in every dream on every night that she slept. It was in her body, in her son’s body, in the body of her grandson, who wasn’t hers but
was
, in all the ways that mattered. If she could change the past she wouldn’t change a thing except that: Let Raph have come through Esmee’s body into the world. Let her son have seen the woman he loves heavy with his own child. But they had what they had and it could not be changed. They were taking this gift as it was, picking up the broken thing and loving its brokenness. Esmee and Jean-Henri were audacious to think they could rewrite that child’s destiny, but they would probably succeed.

She left the shovel sticking up in the ground and touched Jean-Henri’s elbow to get his attention. She tried to find the words. “You know, your father was twenty-five years old when he died.”

He squinted against the sun and gave her a weary smile. “And look at all he had accomplished. I know. I should have known why you gave me that gift, so that you could broach the subject of my work once again.”

Magdelaine shook her head. “No. You misunderstand me. What I mean is that he was very young. He was full of ambition and ideas, and who knows what he might have become had he not been killed on that riverbank. But he
was
killed, and now all we have left is what he intended to do. And it doesn’t count for much. You, on the other hand, are in the midst of
doing
something, and it is a wonderful thing. It would be wrong to compare a man who is living an honorable life to one who might have, if he had been given the chance.”

Jean-Henri stared at her as if he were sure he had misunderstood what sounded like an admission of fault. When she didn’t say anything to correct that impression, he shook his head, then grinned and wiped his brow. “Yes, it
would
be wrong,” he said, “were one to make that comparison. You are full of surprises today, Mother.”

Magdelaine nodded. “Well, I have been wrong to do that. But what I am trying to say is that I will not do it anymore. I give you my word.” It wasn’t just pride that had made it so hard for Magdelaine to admit how she had failed him. She had been afraid to let her son know how much she loved him, as if denying it could protect her from the pain of losing him. But he wasn’t lost. Susannah had helped her see that. None of them knew what the future held, but, today, he was here. And Magdelaine wasn’t going to waste any more time.

“Mother, I know good and well that that is the closest thing to an apology I’ll get from you. And I’ll take it.”

She pulled his face to hers and kissed his whiskered jaw. “I am proud of you, Jean.”

He tried to hide his surprise at all of it—the admission, the affection—and kissed her back. “Thank you, Mother. Now we had better get back to work before we lose the light.”

•   •   •

T
hey worked until dusk, then went inside and ate a supper of cold meat and bread and cheese, washed down with wine. Magdelaine helped Esmee bathe Raph and put him to bed. Everyone settled in the sitting room for a while, and then one by one they began to yawn and find their way to bed. After everyone had gone upstairs and the house was quiet, Magdelaine took the lamp from the kitchen and slipped out the back door.

She crossed the yard in the darkness, the lamp casting an orange glow on her feet. It was strangely warm for a spring night. The air was still, with no breeze to speak of, as if it were waiting to see what Magdelaine might say when she came to stand in front of Josette’s grave. She had passed by this stone countless times over the years, and it never failed to remind her of what she had lost, what she needed to keep working to make right. But she had never let herself stop and speak aloud to her little sister, in case it might bring some unearned comfort. Magdelaine had long felt that she could say nothing to Josette until she could say that she had done something to amend the past. Tonight, finally, felt different.

Magdelaine cleared her throat. She set the lamp on top of the stone and fumbled with her hands. “Therese and I have done something,
petit lapin
, that I think you would like. Helped someone.”

And in a halting hoarse whisper, Magdelaine told Josette about Susannah Dove. She explained about the other women—the other Misses Dove—whom they tried and failed to help, then how they arranged for Susannah to come to the island and what she went through in trying to get there. She explained that she had believed Susannah was saved when in fact her husband still searched for her, still intended to hurt her, but that he never had a chance of succeeding because Magdelaine had made her mind up that he would not, whatever the cost to herself. As she explained about Therese her throat ached and she felt her nose begin to run. They had wanted to bring this woman from Buffalo some kind of peace, but it was she who had fixed so many broken things. Susannah had helped Magdelaine see her son as he really was, helped her gain a daughter-in-law and a grandson. And Susannah had brought Therese back to her. The big unwieldy ship of her life had changed course, was headed for warmer waters, because Susannah had come to Mackinac.

“I think,” Magdelaine said, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her dress, “that we will all be together now, really together, for as long as we can. Susannah is going to stay. Therese too. What do you think about that?”

Josette kept quiet on the matter, as she had on so many things. Magdelaine turned and walked past the graves and through the gate at the back of her yard. In their pen, the dogs slept in a warm heap on the straw, their chests rising and falling in unison. The big showy waste of a house stood in front of her, and beneath its roof was every person she loved in this world, sleeping and safe, at least for today. The past, all its wrongs, all its dead, were sleeping too now, finally, and it was quiet as she went in to lie down and rest.

S
usannah rose early the next morning. Downstairs she pulled on her cloak and boots, then stepped out onto the porch and felt the warm breeze off the lake. In the garden, she inhaled the scent of the overturned earth and admired the neat black rows in the beds, each mound holding the promise of a sprout. She felt pleased as she allowed herself to imagine the future. At the end of the summer they could have a real harvest celebration, with bouquets of wildflowers on the tables. Everyone on the island would be welcome.

Her gaze flicked to a cluster of birds chattering in the apple tree. She couldn’t help looking for the dove each time she stepped outside the house. But the tree held only a flock of finches. Neither she nor Magdelaine had seen the dove again since the day they had released it. After spending so much time in a cage, it seemed unlikely that the creature even knew
how
to be free, but perhaps it had remembered some way, or learned the lessons anew.

She brushed off her hands and went inside for a drink of water. Magdelaine was sitting at the table with her sister. They seemed deep in conversation, and Susannah hated to interrupt them. But Magdelaine called her over.

“Jean-Henri went to Morin’s this morning for rice and came back with this too.”

Magdelaine handed an envelope to Susannah. The stationery was by now very familiar, and she opened it and unfolded the paper. As she had expected, it was another drawing of the potted peas, this time grown tall, the sprouts climbing a stake in the center of the pot. Susannah set the drawing on the table and crossed the kitchen to the cistern, dipping a cup into the water and drinking it down.

“He had better get them in the ground, don’t you think?” Magdelaine said. “Now that spring is here?”

“Who is
he
?” Therese asked.

Susannah set her cup down and glanced at Therese, then stepped back over to the table and picked up the drawing again. She folded it back into the envelope and slipped it into her pocket. He would be teaching class now, finishing up the morning in just a few minutes. Perhaps she would call on him there later on, offer her help with the planting. “He is a friend,” Susannah told Therese.

Magdelaine raised her eyebrows slightly but didn’t say a word.

She left the sisters and went back outside. There was a boat in the port and a few families strolled down the gangway, the women carrying parasols, their children clutching their skirts. Each season seemed to bring more visitors to the island on pleasure trips. They wanted to see the way the natives lived, they said. They asked questions about the lives of the fur traders, a profession that was fast becoming a relic of history. A recent edition of a Detroit newspaper had informed them that the Michigan Territory was to become a state and there would be money from the federal government for roads and bridges and railroads. The island would not be a remote hideaway for much longer.

At the other end of the lane, the mission school stood already weatherworn after just a few winters. Ani, who had spent the morning making his rounds to all his friends, waited at the school’s side entrance for the lessons to end. Just then, the door sprang open and a dozen children spilled out into the meadow. Susannah watched as three girls passed Ani, patting the top of his head. A boy of eight or nine years approached then and crouched down in front of the dog, giving him a vigorous rub on his neck and belly. Ani nuzzled him back. Susannah wondered if this was the younger, faster friend Magdelaine had joked was wooing Ani away from her. The boy clutched his book beneath his elbow and set off running across the meadow, the dog leaping joyfully through the mud ahead of him. Every few seconds, Ani glanced back to be sure his friend was still there. The sun was very bright and it shone on the boy’s face. He closed his eyes but kept on running, despite his momentary blindness, because the world was a marvelous place and it had never hurt him, though it would someday. But not today.

She crossed through the garden, then out the front gate to the other side of the lane and down to the sand to walk along the water line. The waves arching in on the beach whispered something rhythmic that sounded like, “I am. I am.” Whatever that meant now, whatever it would mean, Susannah had the time, the space, to discover it. The thrust of the bracing wind off the lake pressed against her so fully that she had to lean into it to stay upright. She was heavier than the air all around her, heavier by far, but for a moment she felt a sensation like the force of lift beneath her arms, the impulse to rise.