Sisters in the Wind(44)

Jamie has a copy of an accident report from a logging company in Ontario. Daunis’s father was a novice faller who was killed within his first year of employment. He was crushed by a falling tree after a coworker’s radio malfunctioned and Levi Firekeeper wasn’t informed he was within the tree’s path. It was the type of accident that occurs frequently enough for Falling Zone to be one of three hazard categories for which faller fatality statistics are collected.

Jamie hasn’t stopped with the “how” of her dad’s death; he looked into why he was there in the first place. Jamie wrote a memo recalling a conversation with Daunis on September 28, 2004. Daunis had told him her dad wasn’t able to get hired anywhere because her grandfather, Lorenzo Fontaine, was the mayor and an influential businessman who didn’t want Levi Firekeeper to remain in the area.

Jamie must have been a good notetaker back then, too. How else could he have remembered the exact date of one specific conversation with Daunis from, like, more than four years ago?

There are more documents in the file. A copy of Daunis’s grandparents’ marriage license, which seems odd. A newspaper article from 2003 dedicating a new dorm, Fontaine Hall, at Lake Superior State University. Okay, that makes sense. The building was named after Lorenzo Fontaine. I do a double take at the black-and-white photo. Daunis stands next to an older woman with white hair, and two other adults—a man and a woman. She’s taller than everyone else, a smiling teen in a dress. I read the caption:

The Fontaine family: left to right, son David Fontaine, Mrs. Lorenzo (Mary) Fontaine, granddaughter Daunis Fontaine, and daughter Grace Fontaine

I inspect the photo again. Daunis doesn’t resemble her mom or the other two family members. She must look like her dad.

The last document is from someplace called Dun & Bradstreet. It’s information about a company in Ontario. Basic stuff like address, revenue, year started, and something called an ESG ranking. The industry section lists what type of work the company does: highway, street, and bridge construction; logging, other specialty trade, surfacing and paving; logging camps and contractors.

I get a bad feeling in my gut about where this might be headed.

There’s a list of contacts, board members. One name is circled: Louis Rodier.

There was one document that didn’t make any sense being in the file. I go back to the marriage license of Lorenzo Fontaine and Mary Tessier. Nothing looks out of the ordinary. I still don’t get why Jamie—

The witnesses who also signed the license. Perhaps the best man and maid of honor? Gabriele Fontaine and Albertine Rodier.

Jamie is researching whether Daunis’s grandfather had a connection to the logging company that hired Levi Firekeeper for an extremely dangerous job when no one else would.

It isn’t definitive proof. Just one name that might be as common as Smith for all I know.

Is he doing this for her? Or is she in the dark about it? It’s not like I can ask him. When I return the file with the journal article, I’ll figure out how to return the secret file without him knowing.

No more snooping.



* * *



It’s weird being at the hotel suite without Daunis; she’s never been away this long. I find myself staring at her bedroom door, half listening for muffled phone conversations.

Jamie and I go to the ice arena on Saturday. He stays by my side, giving me flashbacks to when he and Daunis used to hover over me. He’s not himself without her.

“Go skate,” I command. “You’re a gloomy cloud raining sadness all over me.”

He chuckles and heads for the skate rental. Instead of the hockey skates he and Daunis usually rent, Jamie gets the figure-skating ones.

I watch as he glides across the ice. He does a dozen laps before turning to skate backward. Jamie stumbles every so often, as if getting used to figure skates. But after a while he attempts a jump like he did when showing off with Daunis. I notice the way he tucks his arms when he spins; it’s nothing like how I was taught to do when surfacing in a swim race. He lands awkwardly but tries repeatedly until his landing is consistently smooth.

Jamie notices me and waves. I wave back. When he finds me after the open-skate session ends, he seems calm and happy.

“You were taking flight, J-Bird,” I say, the nickname coming to me.

“J-Bird?” He laughs. “Okay, Lucy-in-the-Sky-with-Diamonds.”

“That’s not a nickname. It’s gotta be short.”

“Lucy Sparkle,” he says. “Because of the diamonds in the sky.”

“Nicknames aren’t supposed to have explanations.”

“Sparky?”

“You’re good at skating, but terrible at nicknames, J-Bird.”

Instead of returning directly to the hotel, Jamie drives around town. It feels good to be out and about. The buildings downtown look the same; I used to walk past the shops every day. It’s odd how much I took ordinary activities like walking, jogging, and skipping for granted.

“I’m good at skating because I had a foster parent who was a coach,” Jamie says.

I start to say how great that must have been … until it registers that he didn’t volunteer the information as a happy memory. I stay quiet and wait for him to say more.

We pass the Little Free Library where I donated a birthday book the morning of the explosion. When I thought I was on my way out of town.