AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As the first official day of summer approached, the weather gods had finally smiled. The sun had appeared, and daytime temperatures had managed to inch above seventy. Just in time.
L’international des Feux Loto-Québec, also known as the Montreal Fireworks Festival, a Montreal tradition, is one of the largest fireworks festivals in the world. Or so its organizers boast. I’ve never fact-checked. Every year, the extravaganza kicks off in late June.
Second point of information. My significant other is Lieutenant-détective Andrew Ryan, a former Sûreté du Québec homicide cop. Sort of former. More on that later. Ryan is a sucker for pyrotechnics. On any level. Black Cats. Lady Fingers. M-80s. Roman Candles. Bottle rockets. If it goes boom or shoots pinwheels, the man is enthralled. Go figure.
L’international des Feux competition is a world apart from the little poppers and streakers Ryan purchases to detonate in parking lots and fields. Each country’s performance is professionally choreographed, marrying music to the art exploding high above. The pyromusical presentations can be seen and heard for six consecutive Saturdays all across the city. Ryan loves them and rarely misses a performance.
I am a board-certified forensic anthropologist, practicing for more years than I care to admit. My career has been spent at death scenes and in autopsy rooms. I’ve observed firsthand the countless ways people harm other people and themselves. The follies in which humans engage to get themselves killed. One such folly is the mishandling of explosives. I am less of an enthusiast than my beau.
Face radiant with boyish excitement, Ryan had proposed viewing this year’s kickoff performance from the river. Since the fireworks are launched from the La Ronde amusement park, situated on Île Sainte-Hélène across from Montreal’s historic old port, the whole wondrous display would explode directly over our heads!Magnifique!
Next thing I knew,Voilà!We’d been invited onto Rabeau’s boat.
I must admit, the experience was moving, listening to “Ride of the Valkyries” or “Ode to Joy” as peonies, crossettes, and kamuras exploded high above. Ryan named and explained each.
Until Clémence showed up to kick ass.
So here we were. Without a motor. Without life vests. Soaked. Pitching and rolling and struggling to stay aboard a vessel far too small for the conditions. Easy pickings for lightning.
Then, through the wind and the waves and the furious thrumming of drops on fiberglass, my ears registered a sound that I’dbeen frantic to hear. Gulpy and unstable at first, the watery glugging gradually blended into a steady hum.
The boat seemed to tense, as if sensing new determination in the old Evinrude.
The humming gathered strength.
The vessel began moving with purpose, no longer at the whim of the turbulentrivière.
The humming intensified and rose in pitch.
The bow lifted and the little Whaler thrust forward, leaving a frothy white wake as she sliced through the chop.
Ryan crawled to join me for the rocky return to shore. Arm-wrapping my shoulders, he held me tight.
For the first time since the storm broke, I drew a deep breath.
Clémence was living up to her name. Taking mercy on us.
Our little party would survive.
Others wouldn’t be so lucky.
2
THURSDAY, JULY4
I woke early, feeling a bit melancholy and unsure why. Until I picked up my iPhone and noted the date.
Independence Day is my favorite American holiday. No feast to prepare or overeat. No baskets to fill and hide. No presents to wrap, ornaments to hang, or cookies to bake. Call me a grinch. But buy me a bucket of the Colonel’s finest and light a few sparklers and I’m happy as a kid at a carnival. Although, that morning, my enthusiasm for anything pyrotechnic was still at rock bottom.
Five days after her wild theatrics, Clémence was still a topic of conversation. In that brief interval, I’d learned more than I needed to know about microbursts and how they differ from tornados.Las microrafales et las tornades.
A microburst is a localized column of falling air within a thunderstorm. That’s the burst part. The plummeting downdraft is usually less than two and a half miles in diameter. That’s the micro part. As for the speed of those zephyrs, I’ve no idea of Clémence’s personalbest, but winds produced by microbursts can reach up to 100 mph, equivalent to those of an EF-1 tornado.
Guess where Clémence smacked terra firma? Yup. Right around Rabeau’s little boat.
Some good did come from the whole debacle. Ryan agreed that we would no longer socialize with Xavier Rabeau and the vomitous Mademoiselle Damico.
By eight-thirty a.m., I was completing my third circuit of a network of small streets in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, a working-class neighborhood just east of Centreville. Driving slowly, eyes alert, I passed a school, a small park, several convenience stores known in Quebec asdepanneurs,and rows of iron staircase–fronted two- and three-flat buildings. Found not a millimeter of open curb.
