Bones to Ashes

The air was cool and smelled of fish and salty mud. The water was dark and restless, flecked by white from a rising moon. Now and then an insomniac gull cried out, stopped, as though surprised by its own voice.

Harry ordered spaghetti. I went for the cod and potatoes. When the waitress left, Harry pointed to a newspaper abandoned on the adjacent table. L’Acadie Nouvelle.

“OK, chief. Background. Starting with where the hell we are.”

“Tracadie-Sheila.” I pronounced it Shy-la, like the locals.

“That much I know.”

“In the belly of L’Acadie, homeland to the distinctive, four-century-old Acadian culture.”

“You sound like one of those travel brochures in the motel lobby.”

“I read four while you were doing touch-up on your bangs.”

“They were greasy.”

“Except for the little jog into Shediac, we traveled north today, paralleling the Northumberland Strait. We’re now on the Acadian Peninsula. Remember driving past signs for Neguac?”

“Sort of.”

“The Acadian Peninsula stretches approximately two hundred kilometers up from Neguac, along New Brunswick’s northeastern coast, out to Miscou Island at the tip, then around Chaleurs Bay to Bathurst. There are about two hundred and forty-two thousand French speakers living in the province; about sixty thousand of those are right here on the peninsula.”

Our food arrived. We spent a few moments adding Parmesan and shaking salt and pepper.

“People here trace their unique brand of French, their music, even their cooking style back to Poitou and Brittany.”

“In France.” Harry was a master of the obvious.

“Ancestors of today’s Acadians started arriving in the New World as early as the late seventeenth century, bringing those traditions with them.”

“Didn’t they all move to New Orleans? Évangéline used to talk about that.”

“Not exactly. In 1755, the English ordered the expulsion of some ten thousand French speakers from Nova Scotia. Acadians call the deportation le Grand Dérangement. Lands were confiscated and people were hunted down and shipped off, mainly to France and the United States. Today, maybe a million Americans claim Acadian ancestry, most of those in Louisiana. We call them Cajuns.”

“I’ll be damned.” Harry pounded more cheese onto her pasta. “Why did the English want them out?”

“For refusing to pledge allegiance to the British Crown. Some managed to escape the sweeps, and took refuge up here, along the Restigouche and Miramichi rivers, and along the shores of the Bay of Chaleurs. In the late 1700s, they were joined by Acadians returning from exile.”

“So the French were allowed to come back?”

“Yes, but the English were still dominant and hostile as hell, so an isolated finger of land jutting out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence seemed like a good bet for a place in which they’d be left alone. A lot of them hunkered in here.”

Harry twirled spaghetti, thought working in her eyes.

“What was that poem you and Évangéline were always playacting?”

“‘Evangeline,’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It’s about a pair of doomed Acadian lovers. Gabriel is carried south against his will by the English order of expulsion. Evangeline sets out across America looking for him.”

“What happens?”

“Things don’t go well.”

“Bummer.” Harry downed the pasta, retwirled another forkful. “Remember how I’d nag until you’d give me a part?”

“Oh, yeah.” I pictured Harry, skinny arms crossed, suntanned face a mask of defiance. “You’d last about ten minutes, start whining about the heat, then wander off, leaving us with a gap in casting.”

“I got lousy roles with no lines. A tree. Or a stupid prison guard.”

“Stardom doesn’t come overnight.”

Rolling her eyes, Harry twirled more pasta.

“I always liked Évangéline. She was”—Harry searched for a word—“kind. I also thought she was exceedingly glamorous. Probably because she was five years older than me.”

“I was three years older.”

“Yeah, but you’re my sister. I’ve seen you eating Cool Whip out of the carton with your fingers.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“And Jell-O.”

We smiled at each other, remembering a time of backseat car rides, roller-coaster birthdays, make-believe, and Nancy Drew searches for lost friends. A simpler time. A time when Harry and I were a team.

Eventually, conversation shifted to Obéline.

Should we call ahead, give warning of our upcoming visit? Obéline was barely six when we’d last been together. Her life since had been rough. Her mother was dead, perhaps her sister. Bastarache had abused her. She’d been disfigured by fire. We disagreed on the warmth of the welcome we’d face. Harry felt we’d be greeted like long-lost friends. I wasn’t so sure.

When we settled the check it was well past ten. Too late to phone. Decision made. We’d arrive unannounced.

Our motel was across the inlet from the restaurant. Heading back down Highway 11, I guessed we were recrossing the Little Tracadie River Bridge No. 15. I remembered Hippo’s story, pitied the hapless soul who’d stumbled onto the crankshafted corpse.

I had only one revelation that night.

When Harry wears jeans, she goes commando.