Flames rose in their dance to the sky – reaching, touching lightly their sister spirits dancing in the borealis. The fire’s dance was a dance of death, for the flames would thaw the ground for Jean-Luc to dig the grave of his gentle wife, Lissette. Perhaps she danced in the spirit realm of the borealis with the spirits of the People, as there was no priest to commend her to the Christian God.
The fire spoke his grief more eloquently than the tears flowing into his beard. It spoke his pain as keenly as the sobs choking past his throat. The cracking of the timbers was the breaking of his heart. He wept as he watched the fire, cradling the golden haired child that was so much like Lissette. He cried in anguish, cursing himself, the cold, the wild, for her death, for a burial without a priest. He struggled for breath, the cold air fire in his lungs. His pulse pounded in his temples, his chest heaved, ready to burst. He felt nothing but the pain of his loss, not the cold ground, not the shivering of his little girl.
As the sky lightened to day, and the flames became glowing embers, his grief subdued. He became aware of his heavy cold limbs, and his child trembling in his arms, clutching fiercely to his capote. The spirit of Lissette chided him, their beloved daughter, their precious Blanche LeFleur, forgotten while her papa wept like a fool. He groaned, and looked into her wide eyes. She stared back at her father, her pupils dilated her until blue eyes were black, saying nothing. Only trembling, waiting for her father to put things right again.
“My little one, my dear one, I am so sorry!” he whispered, . He drew her deeper into his arms. He had wrapped her in three good blankets, the fruit of his trapping skill. She was not cold or chilled. She trembled from fear mostly. Frightened by seeing her papa lost in grief, frightened of the dancing shadows cast by the flames. She was frightened, too, by her mother’s absence, missing her musical voice and loving touch. Afraid to ask, but asking anyway, “Where Mama go?”
Jean-Luc sighed. “Gone to the angels, la petite cherie,” he answered sadly. In his mind he saw his golden haired Lissette, shining among angelic spirits, smiling at him, as she turned to join the dancing around her. A glint of comfort eased his sorrow. He turned his attention to the sad eyes looking so earnestly at him.
He stroked her cheek gently as she huddled against his chest. She did not understand angels, only ‘gone’. Gone was her little pine needle doll down the stream, gone was the rabbit running away in the woods. Papa was sometimes gone; but he always came back. She knew sometimes with ‘gone’ was ‘came back’, but sometimes ‘gone’ was always. She knew gone, but Mama gone?
“Mama come back?”
Her father did not answer. He tucked her hands inside his shirt and held her head to his breast. Blanche could hear her father’s heart. Its beat was steady. Lub-dub, lub-dub. She was warm here, against his rough calico shirt. His skin was hot beneath her small hands. He smelled like tobacco, wood smoke, buckskin, wool, and the musky smell that was Father. Familiar, safe, here, now.
“Non, mon petite cherie.’ She had never heard her father sound so sad. Her father was laughter and song. A booming laugh, deep baritone singing, his blue eyes sparkling as he sang voyageur songs, songs he learned from his Chippewa friends, songs he remembered from his cradle days in Montreal. His tears more than his words, told her the truth. Mama was gone and would not come back.
She closed her eyes to shut out the grief. Grief spilled into her anyway, cutting her heart. Her sobs and tears shaking her like wind in the branches that might tear her apart.
Jean Luc held her, keening softly. La Petite Blanche LeFleur. Little White Flower, the image of her mother. Her weight in his arms comforted him, comforting him more as her sobs slowed to hiccups, then stopped with the ragged breath of a young child’s sleep.
Jean-Pierre wrapped her snugly, laying her gently, securely into the dogsled to sleep.
Shouldering his shovel he dug through the embers, ashes and soil to make a grave for his Lissette, beloved wife and mother.
