Remembrance Read Free Page B

it,” said David MacDonald, himself in a state of confusion.
    “There is a car coming,” said his austere father. “I see the headlights through the trees.”
    “It’s them,” said the child and bolted for the door.
    “Wait a minute,” said David MacDonald, seizing the shoulder of the faded shirt, which ripped and came apart in his grasping hand. The child fled into the descending darkness, slamming the door behind him.
    They went outside.
    The car came up the driveway, its headlights illuminating the frozen ruts over which its suspension bounced. There was a man at the wheel and David MacDonald’s wife sat in the passenger seat beside him. The two excited girls were in the back seat amid a clutter of shopping bags that spilled an assortment of clean and unclean clothing across the seat and onto the floor.
    “Where is he?” she said. “It’s getting dark and we’re in a hurry. Jacques says we’ve got to get into New Brunswick before midnight.”
    His father went inside to get the lantern, and all of them, except the man behind the wheel, called the child’s name, which seemed to vanish on the rising wind. It was beginning to snow.
    They followed the austere, lantern-carrying father into the barn, still calling the child’s name. On the threshing floor there was a ladder that led up to the hayloft, where the grey cat kept her kittens secreted within a hole in the sheltering hay. Because he carried the light, the austere father was able to see and reached the threshing floor first.He knocked the ladder flat and kicked some hay over it before the others followed him into the dimly lit space.
    They kept calling the child’s name.
    “David, David,” they called, but there was no sound from the muffled hay, only the impatient animals shifting in their stalls.
    “We’ve got to get going,” said David MacDonald’s wife. “Jacques says we’ve got to get into New Brunswick before it gets much later. It’s beginning to snow. I’ll let you know when we get back to Montreal and we can make arrangements.”
    They left the barn and went back into the yard. Jacques was drumming his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel.
    “Do you want to be doing this?” said David MacDonald to his flesh-and-blood daughters, who, after the search, had returned to the chaos of the back seat.
    “Yes,” they said. “It will be fun. Montreal has street lights and lots of restaurants. There is a merry-go-round not far from where Mom lives.”

– 3 –
    NONE OF THEM ever reached Montreal, nor for that matter the New Brunswick border. All of them were killed when their car collided with a transport truck on the narrow wooden bridge outside of Tatamagouche, on the “Sunrise Trail.” It was near midnight and snowing quite heavily and the roads were slippery and the visibility poor. Perhaps Jacques was tired or unfamiliar with the narrow roads. It was said that when the occupants spilled from the car, the wife of David MacDonald and her oldest daughter were still alive, but it was snowing and dark and isolated and by the time help arrived it was too late. Jacques, it was learned, worked in the laundry room of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Montreal. All of this information did not reach them until the following day. They had no telephone and the neighbours’ lines had been blown down by the storm.
    After the car with the Quebec plates left the yard, they stood for a while and watched the red tail lights vanish into the enveloping snow and then they went inside where it was, at least, warmer. After a while the austere father said, “You better go out to the barn and put the ladder up to the hayloft.”
    “Why?” said David MacDonald, who was still in a state of confusion.
    “You’ll see,” said his father, who rose to put a stick in the fire.
    David MacDonald took the lantern and went out to the barn. He found the ladder partly covered in hay and placed it against the loft and then went back inside.
    A short time later the