Crow Lake Read Online Free PDF

to keep the chair legs from wobbling on the hard-baked earth. Or rather, three of us sat in a row; Bo sat on Luke’s lap with her thumb in her mouth.
    I remember being very uncomfortable. It was extremely hot, and Luke and Matt had been consumed by the need to do everything properly, so we were all in our darkest clothes—in my case a winter skirt and jersey, in Bo’s a flannel dress from the previous year, much too small. The boys were in dark shirts and trousers. All four of us were shiny with sweat long before the service began.
    All I can remember about the service itself is that I could hear several people snuffling and I couldn’t turn around to see who they were. I think I was protected from the reality of what was happening by disbelief. I could not believe that my mother and father were in those two boxes by the gravesides, and certainly I could not believe that if they were, people would lower them into the ground and heap earth onto them so that they could never again get out. I sat quietly between Luke and Matt, and then stood beside them, holding Matt’s hand, as the coffins were lowered into the ground. Matt held my hand very tight; I remember that.
    Then it was over, except that it wasn’t, because everyone in the village had to pay their respects to us. Most of them didn’t actually say anything, they just filed past and nodded at us or patted Bo’s head, but still it took a long time. I stood beside Matt. A couple of times he looked down at me and smiled, though his smile was just a white line. Bo was very well behaved, even though she was beet red with the heat. Luke held her, and she leaned her head against his shoulder and watched everybody around her thumb.
    Sally McLean was one of the first to come up. She was one of the ones who’d been crying—you could see by her face. She didn’t look at Matt or me but she turned her tear-stained face to Luke and said, “I’m so sorry, Luke,” in a broken whisper.
    Luke said, “Thanks.”
    She looked at him, her mouth quivering with sympathy, but then her parents stepped up so she didn’t say anything else. Mr. and Mrs. McLean were small, shy, quiet people, nothing at all like their daughter. Mr. McLean cleared his throat but didn’t actually say anything. Mrs. McLean smiled unhappily at all of us. Then Mr. McLean cleared his throat again and said to Sally, “We’d better be getting along now, Sal,” but she just gave him a reproachful look and stayed where she was.
    Calvin Pye came up next, herding his wife and kids before him. Calvin Pye was the farmer Matt and Luke worked for in the summers, and he was a bitter-looking man. He had a scared-looking wife called Alice whom my mother had felt sorry for. I’d never been quite sure why. She’d just said, “That poor woman,” from time to time.
    She’d been sorry for the children too. The eldest child was Marie, who’d been in Matt’s class at high school until the year before, when she’d left to help at home, and the youngest was Rosie, who was seven and in my class. The boy, Laurie, was fourteen, and should have been in high school, but he’d missed so much school due to having to work on the farm that he was never going to make it out of grade eight. Both the girls were pale and nervous-looking like their mother, but Laurie was the spitting image of Mr. Pye. He had the same lean, bony face and the same dark, furious eyes.
    Mr. Pye said, “We’re sorry for your loss,” and Mrs. Pye said, “Yes.” Rosie and I looked at each other. Rosie looked as if she’d been crying, but she always looked like that. Laurie stared at the ground. I think Marie wanted to say something to Matt, but Mr. Pye herded them all away.
    Miss Carrington came up. She was my teacher and had taught both Luke and Matt. The public school had only one room, so she taught everybody until they went to the high school in town or left to work on their fathers’ farms. She was young and quite nice, but very strict, and I