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  Flynn loved her long neck, surrendered in radiant beauty.

  Monique’s pink suit jacket gently dropped onto the old wooden floor, the skirt easily unzipped, and she stepped out of it, leaving the long, lanky legs illuminated by the lustre of her fine French hosiery. As they embraced, Monique could feel the bonding to Flynn intensify as their bodies united in marital beauty and passionate bliss.

  Flynn hadn’t expected Monique to up her game in her sexual prowess following their wedding. At that moment, he was blindsided by how extensive his new wife’s intimacy and ability to make love had evolved. Monique was a far cry from any other he’d known. She owned her passion.

  Chapter 10

  Return to the Farm

  One week later, the honeymoon came to an abrupt end as the Ford turned off Folk’s Road and onto the sparsely gravelled lane. Giant evergreen trees cast their shade along the statuesque corridor that led to the farm. As Monique graciously stepped out of the Ford, she noted her precious lily of the valley and forget-me-not flowers covering the earth below the magnificent trees, swaying ever so subtly in the wind.

  Anticipating the visit, Adele asked Jacque to stay behind with her at the farmhouse after his lunch and ritual smoking of his pipe. Breaking his routine and not returning to the field after his lunch break was irritating for Jacque.

  Monique led the way into the kitchen. “Hi, Mom and Dad.” The evidence of a massive lunch was still on the table. Monique gestured to Flynn to sit down and handed him a clean plate and a coffee mug. A slice of rhubarb pie awaited him. Monique’s hands had a slight shaking (noticed by Adele) as she poured the boiling water over the scooped instant coffee in the mug.

  Taking a deep breath, Monique declared, “Mom, Dad; Flynn and I got married a week ago.”

  A raging silence consumed the room for several minutes. Finally, Adele bellowed, “What?” She scowled as she gathered the dishes from the table. “Jacque, this can’t be happening. Monique, this is a mortal sin. I was afraid of this happening, Monique. I raised you better than this. Jacque, your daughter is going to hell. Jacque, she will be excommunicated. Monique, how could you shame yourself and your family? He is a deplorable Anglican, and we are Catholics. You were raised to know better.”

  Flynn looked at his bride as she was trying to muster up the strength of a warrior woman to protect herself and her new husband from the wrath. At that moment, Flynn’s only strategic alignment with Monique was to drink the instant coffee and eat the pie.

  Monique was deep in the battlefield with her parents and their carved-in-stone beliefs. She was not trying to change them; she was only seeking love and acceptance for herself and her cherished husband. Fundamentally, she knew she was only deluding herself by delaying the inevitable war tactics.

  “You are living the life of a whore now, and your babies will all be bastards. The Church will never recognize this marriage. You will be excommunicated. You, foolish girl.” Adele’s words got more powerful and more demeaning with each breath.

  As the ugly words continued to be torpedoed, Monique’s face displayed her reality of powerlessness over her mother’s convictions.

  Jacque didn’t intervene; he didn’t have to—the expression on his face expressed his disdain. His anger disconnected him from his heart as a direct result of Monique’s actions of defiance.

  Flynn could take no more. “Monique, we are leaving right now.” Flynn had reached his limits of tolerance for the implosion of his new family alliance.

  The situation visibly shook Monique to her core. She followed her husband, retreating from the war zone back to the safety of their car. The fresh war wounds pervasively cast darkness over Monique, her marriage, and her future children. Her parents were right; she’d ex-communicated herself before God and the Church. Monique’s trembling made her inconsolable.

  Flynn once again found himself on foreign territory like a sailor lost in a desert storm.

  Without question, he had witnessed the cracking of his new bride. Their fresh wedding vows and shining gold rings untethered from the verbal blasting.

  Her mother’s word of “ex-communication” was now etched in her mind. Monique knew this wouldn’t be a pleasant task to inform her parents of her new marriage, but the defilement of her union was defeating her. Monique had no defence except to cave in her parents’ contempt.

  The drive home to their adorable, furnished one-bedroom apartment Owen had found for them on Aries Avenue (one block from his parents’ and far away from the farm) was in silence. It was during that drive that Flynn felt the joy of their union dissolve. Flynn, in his naivety, thought the splendour would last forever.

  Monique never saw her parents in a favourable light again. They had intentionally made her an outcast. As a result of betraying them and their faith, she felt emotionally ill to her core. Flynn’s parents would see his French exotic and erotic bride now wore the cape of a marred woman. Her fire within now only faintly smouldered. She had crossed the foreboding religious line of Catholics into what was believed to be the no man’s land of the devil himself. She knew this wasn’t finished just with ex-communication; there would be further punishments.

  Chapter 11

  Monique Pregnant

  Too tarnished and preoccupied with sin to practice any consistency of adherence to the Pope’s newly sanctioned form of birth control, the Rhythm Method, Monique was pregnant by early June. Unfortunately, there was no delight in this. Flynn never really fully entertained the idea of becoming a father (likely because he never really gave up on being a carefree teenager). Monique became more destabilized with each passing day by her mother’s etched designation of “bastards.”

  Relentlessly, Monique had to repair the damages of her choices. The mortal sin of marrying outside of the Catholic Church had to be rectified at all costs. It had to be done before their child was born a bastard and would live the life of an ousted child, spending his or her afterlife in purgatory. A lifetime of catastrophic consequences ruminated in all aspects of Monique’s obsessive thoughts.

  Flynn, just shy of thirty, didn’t feel ready for this degrading development in his bilateral parental casting of shame. Although forewarned, he didn’t fully appreciate the triad of hostility from Monique’s parents, his parents, and his wife until he was deep within it. Life was so simple when his mistress was the sea. His life was now locked “in irons.”

  More choices had to be made. Monique wouldn’t give rest until her need to have their marriage blessed was complete. Conversely, Etta and Owen emphatically wanted to raise Flynn’s children Anglican and to discredit all acknowledgement of Monique’s French-Canadian heritage. Flynn was so uncomfortable in all aspects of this life-altering dilemma. His only reprieve was to join an Algoma Steel Plant bowling league.

  Monique left her duties at the hospital, given that she was pregnant and rightfully incapable of caring for anyone other than herself. Her already limited compassion for her patients had left her. Monique was utterly consumed with her “sin,” just as Adele had prophesied. Flynn had no defences against this invasive phenomenon infecting their marriage.

  It was the ferocious and simultaneous battles between the Catholics against Anglicans, the French against English, Adele against Etta, Adele against Monique, and Etta against everything relating to Monique. Their life of conflicting absolutes had to change. Monique needed to extinguish her obsession with being “ex-communicated”, if only for the wellbeing of their baby.

  Flynn finally consented to have their marriage “blessed,” which meant an absolution of their civil union and re-marrying in the Lady of Good Counsel’s rectory. Predictably, the priest was irritated by Monique’s choices but finally agreed to a Catholic “blessing” to be held October thirty-first. The date was a permanent reminder of her reprehensible choices. Monique left the church rectory feeling relieved, but not revived, while Flynn felt violated by the regimens of the opposing Christian religion. The only good that came out of their backdoor ceremony was they now had a le
gitimate Catholic marriage.

  Monique, like her mother, hated being pregnant. The unpleasantness of morning puking, fatigue, and an expanding belly prevailed her thoughts. Flynn could only get her to smile when he brought her home a cherry blossom chocolate treat after bowling.

  Adele only called their apartment when Jacque needed help on the farm. She didn’t want to see her pregnant daughter. Adele still wanted to punish her daughter for compromising the Gagne family in the eyes of the Church.

  When Monique went into labour, Flynn secretly followed his mother’s direction and took her to the Protestant hospital. (The Plummer Hospital was directly beside The General Catholic hospital in the small steel town.) Etta wouldn’t have her first grandchild born in the “Dago hospital.” She wouldn’t be able to handle the shame within her circle of firmly planted Protestants.

  Dutifully, Flynn waited until the last possible moment, when Monique was deep into labour and begging for ether, to drive from the General Hospital parking lot to the Plummer Hospital Emergency Department to have their baby delivered.

  Chapter 12

  Lily

  Lily was born an absolute brown-eyed beauty. She amazed her parents and delighted Etta and Owen to no end—a real treasure was gifted on that day. Monique’s smile reappeared from its long hibernation.

  Flynn felt fear and joy simultaneously. Later that evening, Flynn called the farm out of duty and asked to speak to Jacque. “Hello, Sir, this is Flynn. Monique and I now have a healthy baby girl.”

  Before Flynn could convey the infant’s name, Jacque uttered “ok” and hung up the phone on the kitchen wall. Jacque was heading to the pumphouse, where he kept his homemade wine. He had to keep up the façade of contempt in front of Adele as he passed her rocking fiercely in her old rocking chair. “It’s a girl.” Once he got to the pumphouse, he filled one of the old, scratched juice glasses to the brim and lit his pipe. In his solitude, he allowed himself to feel joy for his grandbaby. In delight far removed from Adele, he sipped and puffed in his subdued secret celebration.

  Being a mother was not a natural fit for Monique. The foreboding aspect of having a baby only grew out of the deeply embedded fear that her baby would suffer “the wrath of God” for marrying outside the Catholic Church. Monique checked her baby girl many times over to ensure she was anatomically correct. Baby Lily was not only a perfect creation, but she was also exquisitely beautiful. As it was the norm in the 1950s, mothers stayed in the hospital for ten days. Despite being both horrified and mortified that Flynn brought her to the Plummer Hospital, she was grateful her baby was safely delivered. For those divine days, she had ample rest to readjust to her non-pregnant self.

  After an uninterrupted night of sleep and following her last breakfast in her hospital bed, Monique read the Sault Star. Flynn had dutifully (as orchestrated by Etta) placed the birth announcement in the paper. Lily Ann, seven pounds and ten ounces, proud parents Monique and Flynn Kross, and grandparents Etta and Owen Kross. Notably, the Gagne’s were omitted from the birth announcement. Flynn was oblivious to the birth announcement etiquette and wrote it as his mother dictated. Monique chose not to react to this error; she didn’t want anything to disturb her well deserved rest after pushing out the Kross bundle of joy.

  Etta and Owen were over the moon with their brown-eyed beauty. Every evening, the pair would visit the hospital nursery and gaze through the window at the row of bassinets. The big pink card with the name Kross identified their treasure. The white beaded wrist bracelet with the corresponding name peaked out from the swaddled babe.

  Monique was relieved when she was told her milk was too thin, and it was much better to have the baby on formula (this was the message to all mothers during these years). As expected by the maternity ward routine, Monique walked to the nursery at 10:00 a.m. She quietly rocked her baby while the infant sucked on her three-ounce bottle of warm formula, followed by the rhythmic, gentle patting of Lily’s back for the much-anticipated baby burp. After twenty minutes, as Monique was about to get up from the rocking chair, the surly nurse told her to burp her baby again. Without discussion, Monique gave an arrogant stare to the attending nurse and handed her baby over, convinced she was too tired to stay any longer.

  During Monique’s hospitalization, Flynn moved back into his parent’s home, readily resuming his “son” position in the family. Without missing a beat, Flynn was soothed to be under his mother’s care, if only for a brief time.

  Flynn was proud to pick up his beautiful wife, who looked rested and well-coiffed. Her signature red lipstick enhanced her glow. He met her at the hospital’s front door as the porter helped her stand from the wheelchair with her babe in arms. Flynn opened the car door for his new little family. The porter handed Flynn the standard departure bag of three hospital prepared bottles of formula.

  Etta had meticulously prepared their apartment for her new granddaughter. Two dozen white flannel diapers—freshly washed and folded, of course—with pink diaper pins, pink plastic diaper pants, one dozen white diaper shirts, six baby blankets (pink, of course); the whole list Monique created while in the hospital was delivered with tender loving care.

  Owen cleaned the new parents’ apartment until everything shone. Both happily fatigued, Etta and Owen looked in awe at each other, still unable to believe their son was now a dad. They quickly closed the door behind them and silently drove home, leaving Flynn and Monique to their privacy when they arrived at their family address.

  “Ah, how nice of your parents. Everything looks so clean and organized, I must thank them.” (Monique knew she never would.)

  Predictably, with a new baby and a husband working shift work, finding a peaceful and orderly course of a day became a foreign concept. Monique felt her mind, body, and soul were on a hormonal rampage within herself. Relying on her nursing background and baby care refresher teaching while in the hospital, Monique put her baby Lily on a strict bottle-feeding regime every four hours. Like clockwork, baby Lily would start crying at three hours. It was Monique’s firm belief not to feed the baby until the exact scheduled time. “It’s supposed to be good for babies to cry,” she repeatedly told Flynn. However, baby Lily cried inconsolably, frequently throughout the day and night.

  By the fourth day home, the new little family had already begun its etchings of fragmentation. Flynn panicked when he arrived back at their apartment. Immediately, he heard the baby inconsolably crying once again. Monique was in the bedroom with the door closed and a pillow over her head, sound asleep. Flynn had reached the end of his tolerance for his wife’s lack of action, feeling this baby would not survive. He scooped his totally soaked, smelly little baby, wrapped her in a blanket, grabbed the diaper bag, and frantically drove the short distance to his parents.

  Too impatient to find the key on his keychain, he banged on the front door. His parent’s response was immediate; Etta bolted from her room, followed by Owen from his. The door flung open, and Flynn, without hesitation, passed the baby to his father’s arms.

  Completely oblivious to Flynn’s actions, Monique slept well past nine. After listening for the baby, she got up and brewed herself a glorious pot of coffee, almost as if she was in a dream of being in some serene, far away land. Despite the total calamity of the living room, she lingered in the indulgence of the delicious brew. Slowly, as she began to return to her reality, she became aware she was alone and was grateful for the solitude.

  By this time, Lily’s wellness was restored by her loving, nurturing, adoring grandparents. Sensing the calmness, Flynn retreated to his bed in his parent’s home.

  Monique went back to bed for a while. Later, she had a long, soothing bath with Epsom salts and washed her hair. After lunch, she painted her nails red while listening to Perry Como and Dean Martin on the radio. Later in the afternoon, a reminder of reality crept back while staring at the total upheaval of the apartment. She strolled into the baby’s room, wrinkled her nose at the mess and smell, then closed the door, leaving the soiled baby bedd
ing behind.

  Owen came to the apartment door with a basket of egg salad sandwiches, lemonade, and Queen Elizabeth cake for Monique. He saw what he needed to reassure himself that she was ok and chalked the whole episode up to the fragility of women following childbirth.

  Etta was busy oscillating between the delight of looking after her precious granddaughter and disdain of her predictably disgraceful daughter-in-law’s behaviour. What did Son expect marrying a pea wobbler? Fatigue quickly became the common denominator for the caregivers, while baby Lily thrived in all the love and tender care of her grandparents.

  Flynn was cautious around Monique, giving her time and space. He had two days off and wanted to review their course of parenting. Flynn decided to do what Monique liked to do. He took her for a car ride north to Pancake Bay for the afternoon to have a picnic on the beach. The wind was brisk, but the sun was shining, and he could see Monique’s radiant smile return. That afternoon their playful beach blanket exchanges reassured Flynn that some familiarity of why he married Monique remained. On the return ride home, Monique’s smile faded, as did her happy demeanour.

  While they were out, Owen brought groceries to their apartment and once again transformed the chaos into shining order.

  Owen decided it was time to reunite his son’s little family. Etta resigned to the idea, given the sleepless nights she and Owen had suffered. Shortly after Monique and Flynn returned to the apartment, Owen arrived with the sleeping babe in his arms, passing her to Monique. Awkwardly, she took the baby, trying to find a comfortable holding position for herself. Owen didn’t stay but gave his son an encouraging nod to signal that it was his time to man up beyond survival mode and get his family on a sure and steady course.

  As Flynn closed the door behind his father, he felt disoriented with little confidence in righting the course.

  Monique quickly passed Lily to Flynn while she retreated to the kitchen to sterilize the baby bottles. Her natural default to managing her new role of motherhood was to approach it from a clinical level. Eight bottles were perfectly prepared, six for the next twenty-four hours, plus two for the lead time into the following day until the process required repeating.