Be Who God Meant You To Be

It's the point in the semester when nerves start to fray and tempers snap, as classes wind down and exams start up.

After three fights about who needs to study and who wants to watch TV, the apartment has been (by more or less mutual consent) declared to be a noise-free zone. No television, music with headphones only, conversation in hushed tones or behind closed doors, please. Meg, over her objections, has been put in charge of making her roommates follow the rules, as she is the one who seems least likely to cave.

Like on Wednesday evening, when Olivia makes the argument that she could study for her French final by watching television in French. Instead, Meg "hides" the TV remote in a drawer in the kitchen and offers to help her study for the oral portion of her exam. They take over the table, and Carrie lies sprawled on the sofa, rereading Chaucer.

It's a few minutes after 5:30 when the phone rings, interrupting Meg and Olivia's conversation -- en français, bien sûr -- about what to have for dinner. Carrie, who is the closest, answers it, Olivia and Meg falling silent and turning to see who it's for. "Hello?" Carrie says, followed quickly by, "No, Mom, I'm fine." She rolls her eyes a little at her roommates, and they turn back to their studies. "Of course I'm fine, why wouldn't I . . . what?"

Meg breaks off midsentence and looks at Carrie.

"What?" Carrie asks, again, and then, "Oh my God. Meg, turn the television on."

"Why?"

"There's been some kind of -- just do it, please," Carrie says.

Olivia gets the remote out of the drawer and turns the TV on from the kitchen.

The picture on the screen is one of chaos -- flashing lights and paramedics, police and frantic activity, people standing around in the cold. Carrie hangs up the phone and the three of them sit in a row on the couch, watching in silence.

It's the disjointed reporting of breaking news, facts changing as soon as they're reported. A gunman, maybe more than one . . . and a rampage at the École Polytechnique de Montréal . . . classes, classrooms . . . just after five . . . engineering students . . . police . . . wounded . . . dead . . .

Meg doesn't even realize Olivia has taken her and Carrie's hands until the phone rings again, and the noise is like the breaking of some kind of spell. Carrie, still the closest to the phone, answers it, and then passes it to Meg with the words, "Your father."

"I'm okay, Dad," Meg says, as a greeting, standing and moving a little way away from the couch.

She can hear the sigh of relief. "Good," he says. "Sorry. We knew that you were probably, Megkin, but your mother and I . . . "

"I know," Meg says. "Carrie's mom called, too."

"It's what parents do," John says. There's a slight pause. "Do you know anyone there, Meg?"

"I . . ." Meg trails off. She hasn't thought in those terms yet -- that this is all happening here and now, right now, in Montreal. "I do," she says, slightly stunned by the realization. "Oh, God, I do. Alain has a cousin, Maryse, who works there. In the library, I think. And, um, Nathalie, Luc's girlfriend, her brother, Georges, is a student there . . ."

They're not people she knows well -- she met Maryse last Christmas, she's seen Georges a handful of times at larger gatherings -- but they're people she knows. And, of course, Alain and Luc and Nathalie are all people she knows well.

"I have to go," Meg says, abruptly. I'm sorry, Dad, but I have to call Alain."

"Of course," John says. "We'll talk to you soon. We love you."

"I love you, too," Meg says, and hangs up.

Alain answers on the first ring. "Allo?" It's rushed, clipped, expectant.

"It's Meg."

"You're all right?" Alain asks.

"Yes. You?"

"Yes. So is Maryse. She left work at three with a headache. Maman woke her up when she called. She's fine."

"Oh, thank God. Georges?"

"We don't know yet. Luc is on his way to Nathalie's. He'll call when he knows something. I can't talk right now, Meg. I'll call you when I hear from Luc."

"Thank you," Meg says.

"Bien sûr," Alain says. "À bientôt."

He hangs up before Meg can reply. Meg hands the phone to Olivia. "Call your parents," she says.

It's the pattern of the entire evening -- Meg loses count of the short, hurried phone calls in and out of the apartment -- Kim, Carrie's sister, classmates and friends from high school. Have you heard? Are you watching? Are you all right? and I'm fine, don't worry, I can't talk long.

Alain calls at seven to say that Georges is safe, though he doesn't know much more than that.

When she's not on the phone, Meg watches the story come together, on the television, broadcasting from a location she could walk to, if she wanted to. She watches, and she prays, and occasionally she wonders when she's going to wake up.

Because Meghan Margaret Ford has been to the end of the universe and back. She's talked to angels, danced at a vampire's prom, called a demon safe at home, played cards with a man who returned from hell . . . and nothing, nothing has felt more strange and less real than this evening.

Eventually all the pieces come together.

A little past 5:00, on the last day of classes at the École Polytechnique de Montréal, a single gunman entered the building. He had a rifle. He went into classrooms and down hallways, separating the men from the women, targeting the "feminists." Students thought it was joke, at first. Because how could it be real?

This sort of thing isn't supposed to happen here.

It lasted twenty-some minutes. Not even the time it takes to watch a sitcom. Or get your nails done. Or play a card game.

And when it was over, fourteen women were dead. Another fourteen others, mostly women, were wounded.

Students. Just students. Sitting in class.

Meg sits at stares at the television until very late, sitting on Olivia's left, holding her hand.

And trying to make it all feel real.

"I'll get it," Meg says, quickly, when the doorbell rings.

She and her parents are sitting around the kitchen table, finishing what is, for them, a rather late breakfast. But Meg and her father had gotten back from the ball game in Toronto quite late last night, and some days you just have to sleep in a little.

(But not a lot. Not with company coming.)

She doesn't miss the amused look that passes between her parents before John says, "Thought you might."

There's something Meg might almost call relief on Alain's face when she, and only she, answers the door. He takes her hand to pull her out onto the porch. Meg shuts the door behind her. "Hi."

Alain wraps his arms around her waist and kisses her before he answers. "Hello."

"How was your trip?"

"Fine. With a very pleasant end," he says, kissing her again.

"This isn't quite the end," she says. "You still haven't made it into the house."

"It can wait a few minutes, right?" he says, and he sounds . . . nervous.

Meg leans back a bit, far enough to see his face. He looks nervous, too.

"You're nervous," she says. He's usually so collected -- it's kind of odd to see him nervous.

And kind of endearing.

Alain exhales something that's not quite a sigh. "Ma belle, I am about to walk into a man's house and say, 'Hello, Dr. Ford, I'm the boy who thinks he's good enough for your daughter.' Of course I'm nervous."

"So, you're not worried about my mother, just my father?"

Alain's eyes widen. "Should I be worried about your mother?" he asks.

Meg just barely keeps from smiling. "Sorry, that was mean," she says. "You shouldn't be too nervous, though."

"And why is that?"

"Because you have the complete and utter support of the daughter in question. And they both know it."

Alain exhales again and then nods. "All right. I will try not to be too nervous."

"Good. Come on, let's get it over with. The first two minutes will be the worst, right?"

"I hope so . . ." Alain says, dropping his arms from around her waist.

Meg takes one of his hands, and reaches to open the front door.

And then turns back to Alain, with a slightly sheepish expression. "Sorry."

"What?" he asks.

"I think I've locked us out."

Meg lets herself back into the house one hour and twenty-five minutes after she left, and isn't all that surprised to find her father still in his study.

"I'm back," she says from the doorway.

"How was the library?" John asks.

"Fine. Full of books."

John nods, and then says, "I called Kim."

Meg hesitates. "I know," she says, finally.

"You . . . know?"

Meg comes in and sits down in the chair that's not at the desk. "One of the doors in the library led me to Milliways. And I ran into Kim there. And she said you had called."

"Oh." John is quiet for a moment. "Meg, I'm sorry I didn't . . ."

"You have nothing to apologize for," Meg says. "Telling you that story was asking a lot."

"Still, I should have . . ."

"Dad, please don't worry about it, okay?"

John sighs. "All right."

The room is quiet for a moment, and then he says, "So . . . you talked to Kim?"

"Yes."

"How did that go?"

Meg thinks for a moment. "Better than it has in a long time. Maybe even good."

John smiles. "I'm glad."

"Me, too."

"Meg . . . are you sure about Montreal? I know you want to see people there, but you could go a week earlier or later, if you liked, and be here when Kim is."

"She asked me the same thing."

"What did you say?"

"That I was sure about going to stay with Sylvain and Ginette. Dad, Kim and I have a lot of walking to do before we try to run again. And a week us both here . . . would be kind of like a marathon."

"All right."

"Yeah. I think maybe it will be," Meg says.

Maybe not right away. But for the first time in about a year, all right doesn't seem outside the realm of possibilities.

"Meg, we need to talk to you about something," her father says.

Meg looks up from the magazine she's reading. "Sure, I guess." She's slightly puzzled by the look John and Deirdre Ford exchange before coming into the living room. "What's going on?" she asks.

"Nothing," says her mother. And then, after a slight pause, amends, "Well, we were talking to Kim." She pauses, clearly waiting for Meg to ask about her sister.

Meg doesn't.

"And," Deirdre continues, "she's going to come home to visit for a week in August."

"Oh," says Meg. She's not at all convinced anyone should still refer to this as Kim's home, but she gets the meaning. "I'm sure you'll be happy to have her here. Thank you for telling me."

"Meg," her father says, and then hesitates. "Is that really all you have to say?"

"Yes. I'll make arrangements to stay somewhere else that week. It shouldn't be a problem. I'm sure Carrie or Alain's aunt--"

"Meghan," says her mother.

Meg's shoulders tense. The use of her full name means nothing good is coming.

"You're not going to go away the week your sister is here. She's coming to see you, too."

"Yes, I am," Meg says, evenly. "I have nothing else to say to Kim. And if you want her to visit, I certainly won't do anything to hinder that. But--"

"Meghan, you're being ridiculous," her mother says.

"Dee," says her father, "maybe not now."

Meg's eyes narrow. She is not being ridiculous. She's trying to be rational and mature about a mess of a situation that never gets any less messy. If Kim and their parents want to spend time together, that's fine. It's their choice. Meg, however, will opt out. And suspects everyone will have a better time if she and Kim don't try to spend a week under the same roof, anyway.

"Yes, now," her mother says. "This has been going on for almost a year."

Meg, whose new approach to anything like this is to simply walk away from it, picks up her purse and heads for the door.

"Where are you going?" Deirdre asks.

"Out," says Meg.

"We're not done talking."

"Yes, we are," Meg says.

"Meghan--"

"It's Meg, Mom."

"You're acting like a child."

Meg pauses at the door. "No, I'm acting like Kim. Which is what the whole damn world has been telling me to do for nineteen years. Well, this is what acting like Kim looks like. I'm going out because it feels like what I need to do right now. And the fact that that's a remarkably useless non-explanation, well, at least there's a family precedent for it."

The door closes firmly behind her, cutting off her parents' objections.

The train rolls west, a steady rhythm and blur of rails and stations, and Meghan Ford sits stiff-backed straight in her seat and stares out the window and wonders why the sky is clear.

There should be clouds.

This is, after all, the eye of a very large, very violent storm -- a deceptive moment of stillness that all but dares you to think that the worst is over.

It's not. Meg knows that. Whatever storm she and her sister have unleashed here isn't anywhere near done doing its damage.

Even knowing that, though, there's nothing she said in Kim's apartment that she wouldn't still say if she had it to do over again.

Meghan is not surprised to see her father sitting on a bench on the platform when the train reaches her stop. Whatever Kim had said, there was no way she hadn't called their parents after Meg left.

The conscientious big sister to the end.

There's a part of Meg that would very much like to just stay on the train and keep going west and west and west.

But, then, even if that were a choice, it's not the one she would make. So she gathers her bags and she steps onto the almost deserted platform, where both her father and the storm are waiting.

"Kim called," John Ford says, by way of greeting.

"I thought she might," says Meghan, though what she means is, I knew she would.

"She said you had a fight."

"I'd have said argument but fight is not exactly wrong."

John sighs. "Meghan--"

"Dad," she says, "can we please not have this conversation in the middle of a train station?"

Her father sighs again, takes half of his daughter's bags, and heads for the car. Meg follows just far enough behind to make it hard to talk. It's a fairly futile gesture, though, since if you want to trap someone for a conversation, it's hard to beat the front seat of a moving car.

"What happened?" John asks, eyes darting briefly from the road to his daughter.

"What did Kim say happened?" Meg counters. Partly because she wants to know the lay of the land here. Mostly because she thinks her parents deserve to hear Kim's news from Kim, even if Kim has told her to tell them.

"That she told you she was taking a job in England and you fought about it."

"Then I guess that's what happened."

"Meghan."

"What?"

"I was hoping for a more detailed answer. And I wanted your answer, not Kim's."

Meg crosses her arms. "Kim told me that she's moving to England. Next month. She's already done all the paperwork, and had it approved. The apartment is already almost empty, she's worried about giving sufficient notice to Toronto General, but telling us about it was pretty far down the To Do list. And I told her that I was tired of being lied to, and kept in the dark about . . . well, I left."

"Oh, Meg," says her father. They've stopped at a red light, and he turns his full attention to her. "Meg."

Meg doesn't say anything for a long moment, and it's not a comfortable silence that descends. Then she says, "The light's green."

John drives though the light, then turns into an empty parking lot and turns off the engine. "Meg," he says, again.

"What? What was I supposed to say? That it's all right that she's decided to just . . . just abandon us, without so much as making a show of discussing it with us? Again?"

"Meghan, you are not being fair."

"I'm tired of being fair."

"Did you talk about why she decided to move? Or why she waited to tell you?"

Meghan opens her mouth to reply and then stops. It's the first time she's realized that they didn't.

"Just . . . she just said that it was something she had to do."

"I see," says her father. "And did you give her a chance to explain what that meant?"

No, but Meg doesn't want to admit that. She's tired. She's tired of a lot of things -- not only of being fair but also of trying to be accepting and understanding about things she doesn't really know how to accept or understand. Things she doesn't really want to accept or understand. She's tired of trying to see Kim's side, of trying not to upset things, of feeling lost and alone and overwhelmed. She's tired of feeling ambushed and attacked. She's tired of having to work -- hard -- at a relationship that came as easily as breathing for the first 16 years of her life.

"Fine," she snaps. "Take her side. You always do."

"Meghan," says her father, firmly, "I am not taking anyone's side. I just want you think about this. I hate to see you decide at eighteen that you don't want your only sister to be a part of the rest of your life."

"She decided it first," Meg mutters.

John looks at her, but doesn't respond to that latest comment. "Kim said she'd be visiting soon. Maybe you two can talk about all this then."

"I have plans that day," Meg says. Whatever day it is.

John Ford sighs again. "Well, maybe they will have changed by then."

"I don't think there's much of a chance of that," Meghan says, and turns to look out the side window.

John waits a moment to see if she's going to say anything more, then starts the car and drives them home in silence.

In the west, clouds begin to gather and the wind picks up.

It's going to be a hell of a storm.

Meghan Ford steps into her parents' house for the first time in three month -- or three hours, depending on how she measures. It's still here, she thinks. And I'm not in some padded room somewhere.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed. The letter she wrote to a friend in Victoria that afternoon -- this afternoon? -- is still sitting on the hall table, waiting to go out in the morning's mail. The scarf she decided not to wear at the last minute is still draped over the banister at the bottom of the steps.

For a long moment, she just stands there, still and silent, waiting for . . . she's not sure what she's waiting for. And then her father calls, "Meg? That you?"

John Ford appears in the doorway, half-silhouetted in the light from the kitchen behind him. "You're late."

"Sorry," says Meghan, still not moving from her own doorway. "I --we, um, sort of lost track of . . . time."

He frowns slightly, and steps into the hall to look at her more closely.

"Did you have a good time?" he asks, and she can hear the edges of concern.

"Oh, yes," she says, quickly. "Yes." She can't quite, at this moment, remember a single detail of her last date with Derek Laundon. "But I'm tired. I think I'll just go on up to bed."

She hugs her father -- a little too tight for a little too long, and when he looks down at her, she can see all the questions he isn't asking her. He's deciding they can wait, she knows, till morning, or later.

She'll hope for later. Much, much, much later.

She doesn't turn the light on in her room, just changes in the dark and falls into bed.

Even before she opens her eyes the next morning, she knows -- by the sounds and the smells and the way the pillow feels against her face and the quality of the light against her eyelids -- she knows that she's in her own bed, in her own room, in her own home. But before she can even quite finish the thought, That was one strange dream, she's opened her eyes and seen the burn on the back of her right hand, from the tea she spilled when she saw The Door.

The sleeves on the shirt she picks that morning are too long -- they always have been. They hang down past her wrists, half-cover her knuckles.

If anyone had asked, Meg would have said that it was just the shirt she felt like wearing, the first thing that jumped out at her when she opened her closet, not anything she picked out for any particular reason.

She would have been lying.

She hugs her mother when she goes down to breakfast, again a little too long and a little too tight for just a casual good-morning sort of hug.

And she pretends she doesn't see the look her parents exchange when they think she isn't looking.

After breakfast, she walks up the street to Derek's house, and kisses him when he opens the door, before he can even say hello.

"Missed you," she says, before she thinks to stop herself. It's only been thirteen hours since she saw him.

It just feels longer. That's all. Really.

"Ummmmm, I, um, missed you, too?" he says.

"Sorry," she says, with a smile that it's something of an effort to produce. "That's not quite what I meant, but--"

"Hey, no objections," he says, smiling that bright, slightly crooked smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes and that was the first thing she ever noticed about him. "I never mind seeing you. Do you want to come in?"

He steps back, out of the doorway, to let her pass. And she almost goes in, but then stops.

"Do you mind coming out? I feel like walking."

"Sure. I'll get my coat."

She's waiting, as they walk, for something, anything to look different. She feels like she's been gone for months, and when they stop to say hello to her friend Laurie, she has to check the impulse to hug her, too.

But if she's been gone that long then, logically, some things have to be different. And nothing that she can see has changed, nothing at all, except the angry red splotch on the back of her right hand.

"Can I ask you kind of an odd question, Derek?" she says, as they turn back onto their street.

"Um, sure," he says, a little uncertainly, though he's clearly aiming for gamely.

She takes off her glove and pulls her sleeve back, shows him her hand. "Do you have any idea how I did this?"

He stops walking, takes her hand in both of his. "Looks like a burn, to me. You don't remember?"

"I think . . . I spilled tea, when I was, um, startled," Meghan says. "I just -- it wasn't there last night, was it?"

He looks, for a moment, almost comically puzzled, and it would be funny, under other circumstances.

A lot of this would be funny under other circumstances.

"No," he says, very slowly. "No, babe, it wasn't."

"I didn't think so," she says. Which is true. Thinking and hoping are not, after all, the same thing.

"Are you okay, Meg?" Derek asks, now sounding more concerned than puzzled.

"Yeah," she says. "I'm fine. Really, don't worry about it."

Derek looks at her a moment longer, and then nods, letting go of her hand. "Okay."

Really, Meghan thinks, pulling her glove back on. I'm fine. Perfectly fine. Except for the part where I'm either mad, or still dreaming, or there really is a magical bar at the end of the universe.