She pushed the button to put a call though to her daughter and got her voice mail. Then she called Chloé but ended the call immediately. What the hell was Chloé supposed to do?
Danielle followed the road signs as best she could, but this was terra incognita—she could end up on a bridge and heading off the island at any minute. Or she could even drive into the St. Lawrence river itself, she thought. That would be a fucking ironic ending to her perfect day—not the kind of bath she was hoping for. Then, as the wind abated for a few seconds as though catching its breath for another blast, the sign for the Atwater Tunnel briefly appeared. Her relief was so palpable she felt like she was going to cry. If she could get through the tunnel and up the Atwater hill, she could just dump her car somewhere in a snowbank and go see a movie at the Cineplex there. That’s what she’d do. Or she could call her friend Monique and ask to spend the night in her condo in Westmount Square. This was just a snowstorm, and she’d survived many before, but the wind was now blowing so ferociously that Danielle could feel her car bouncing. As she entered the tunnel the wind stopped and for a few seconds, she could see. She considered just waiting it out in the tunnel, but it was much too dangerous. She could get rear-ended by a monster truck. Even if she locked herself in her car, she wouldn’t feel safe in that part of town at night. She sped up on the dry, protected surface and unclenched her fingers from the steering wheel—her hands were aching with tension. She slowed down a bit as she exited the tunnel, but the wind came up and swirling snow blinded her instantly. And then out of nowhere, a hunched, dark shape just materialized in front of her, and Danielle slammed the brake to the floor. She felt the Lexus starting to spin out, and then a sickening thud. Her car skidded off whatever she hit, slid perilously close to the concrete barricade, then righted itself and shot forward at greater velocity. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. What the fuck was that? Was it a dog? Or a coyote? They are all over Montreal now, she read somewhere. It must have been a dog—she had seen it lurching in front of her, trying to get across the road but mistiming its run.
Danielle was finally able to pull up at the traffic light a few hundred meters ahead. It was swaying in the storm’s wind as though any minute it might detach itself and plummet to the ground. What should she do? What should she do? The dog might be badly hurt. Or dead. Should she go back? What if it was a coyote and now it was injured and dangerous? She couldn’t just leave it there. But she couldn’t go back. She couldn’t. She could call someone. Who? The SPCA? The police? But what would she say? She hit an animal and she didn’t stop for it? What kind of person does that? She tried to think clearly. This situation could be managed. She would call the SPCA as soon as she got inside somewhere safe and sound. Danielle clutched at the steering wheel and began the long, very slow ascent of the Atwater hill, her car barely visible in the whiteness that seemed to swallow it whole.
Three
MARIE FINALLY SETTLED back into her beloved old armchair and picked up the stack of papers she had been studiously avoiding for several hours. She had washed the dishes, restacked the firewood, brushed both dogs, and rearranged one kitchen cabinet. Supper was already chopped and waiting to be thrown into the pan for a stir-fry. The salad was washed, dressing prepared. Dessert was thawing in the fridge. She had showered and washed her hair. Unless she needed to start picking the lint off her sweaters, Marie had no choice now but to start marking the first assignments of the semester. It was the third week of classes of the winter term at Dawson College, where she was back teaching after a one-year sabbatical. It was also when students and teacher realize that the honeymoon is over. Marie was starting to figure out who the keeners and slackers were, the grade grubbers who’d do anything for a high mark, and their opposite—those who had never encountered an A in their lives and wouldn’t know one if it attacked them and etched itself into their foreheads.
Marie didn’t pick up her green pen though, the one she always corrected with. She stared into the fire, now roaring mutely behind the tempered glass of her wood stove. Barney, her Puggle, was curled up in a tight little fur circle by her feet, snoring softly. Her other dog, Dog, was lying on his back, his hind legs immodestly splayed, his ridiculously long front legs stretched over his head just begging for someone to scratch his belly. Marie loved her life here in her little house in the woods. After her ex-husband, Daniel, had walked out on their twenty-two-year marriage, it had taken her a long time to accept it. But Marie had finally sold their Montreal home and the life that went with it and moved in full time to their cottage, just outside the village of Ste. Lucie in the hills of the Laurentians. She kept a cramped and not cheap enough pied à terre in Montreal, so she didn’t have to drive the hour or so up to Ste. Lucie on her three teaching days. But all that was possibly about to change.
Marie forced herself back to her students’ papers and selected the first one on the pile. She picked up her pen and began to read the introduction: “There is only one species that kills for pleasure. There is only one species that has destroyed the multiple whales that used to roam the oceans. That is the human species…the cereal killers of the planet.” Yes, we stabbed the Rice Krispies to death. We shot the Shreddies. Marie circled the spelling mistake and wrote (sp)! next to it—the millionth time she had done so. She continued reading: “Whales, especially humback (sp)! whales, long to be free. Free of hunting. But in countries like Norway, Japan and Ireland, they are always looking over their shoulders, scarred (sp)! a whaling harpon (sp)! is pointed right at them.” Marie sighed. This was not a good start. Marie was teaching a course about whales—specifically the interaction of humans and cetaceans—and it attracted a lot of students. But many of them had no idea what they were doing in college, and much of their work was half-baked opinion based on Wikipedia research. Marie resorted to the age-old technique of marking survival: abandon the depressing one and move on. She read the beginnings of three more papers, but all of them had major spelling mistakes in the opening paragraph.
Marie picked up a fourth. This student was examining the anthropomorphism of whales, and how this has both served to protect and endanger them. She used several sources—including the gutting documentary story of orcas in captivity in Blackfish. The writing was lucid, her argumentation well-documented, effective, and thoughtful. Most importantly, the paper was concise. Marie hadn’t read anything this good in a very long time. She took note of the student’s name: Michaela Cruz. Which one was she? Marie closed her eyes and mapped out the class in her head. Michaela. Right. Second row, two chairs out from the wall. When she first saw her walk into class wearing six-inch heels and a crop-top that accentuated her voluptuous breasts on her tiny frame, Marie thought she had to be a ditz—the kind of girl you see lined up outside a club in sub-zero temperatures in thigh-high hooker boots and a crotch-grabbing mini-skirt. Marie recalled that Michaela had one of those breathy, little-girl voices that Marie couldn’t help but think was an affectation. Affecting what? Weakness? Stupidity? Is that little girl stuff still considered sexy? But her paper was brilliant. Once again, Marie was reminded never to judge someone by her appearance. She returned to the paper, wrote “Thank you for this!” in green pen on the cover page, and gave it an A-plus. She leaned in to grab another paper, but her concentration was broken by the scene outside her living room window. The few meandering snowflakes that were falling earlier had apparently transformed into a blizzard. When did this happen? She got up to flick on the radio, and the disturbance caused Dog to change his upward dog yoga position ever so slightly. Barney, almost twelve years old, didn’t hear her at all and didn’t even budge. She turned on the radio and hit the weather report at precisely the correct moment. The weather channel was forecasting thirty to forty centimeters of snow, and dangerous roads because of high winds. They were warning of whiteout conditions. Marie flicked on her outdoor floodlight and returned to the window. She peered out into the night. Was Roméo still coming, or was the storm a perfect excuse? Not excuse—a good reason to stay home and safe. She decided to call.