Edie Kiglatuk's Christmas by M. J. McGrath Page A

you and Tommy fight about?’ Edie rocked back in her chair and caught the boy’s eye. ‘You still sweet on Nancy, that it?’ Willie and Nancy had dated when they were at high school, a long time ago now. Edie remembered trying to be the boy’s advocate just before the headmaster closed the door on his education for good. The kid is among the brightest I’ve taught. Been attending class almost regularly, got himself a steady girl.
    â€˜I ain’t given Nancy a thought,’ Willie said. When he saw that wasn’t going to wash, he added, ‘Me and Tommy had a scrap OK? He fell back but then he got up. I swear he was on his feet when I hoofed off.’
    â€˜Tommy’s pretty sick, so I’ll ask again. What you two fight over?’
    â€˜Nothing, like I told you. You gonna arrest me for scrapping now?’
    â€˜Who said anything about arrest?’ Edie let that sit for a moment, hoping to catch the boy on the back foot. Instead, Willie sunk deep inside himself and let the light in his eyes go out.
    â–  ■ ■
    An hour and a half later Tommy died and no time at all after that Willie Killik went missing, failing to show for supper at the halfway house, breaking the terms of his juvie order.
    The super came over to advise Edie of this fact and found her in the outhouse in her backyard, taking advantage of the bad weather to chalk up some routine maintenance on her snowmobile.
    â€˜I checked all the usual places,’ the super said, his breath in great geyser gusts. He listed the names of a few trouble- makers Willie sometimes hung out with: a dope den, a couple of well-known local moonshiners. ‘Came up empty. Went round to his folks too, but they seem more bothered about the snowbie he took from their port.’ He blew through his nostrils to unfreeze the hairs. For a moment he watched her wipe the grease off her hands, then he went on.
    â€˜I called Derek but the weather’s still too bad out there to muster an air search. Anyone else, the elders, would have got a ground search party together.’ The super stamped the blood back into his feet. ‘But this is Willie and the wind’s taken all the tracks and it’s nearly Christmas, so …’ He shook his head in a disapproving manner. ‘Everyone knows that boy’s a suicide waiting to happen. He got nowhere to go.’
    Throwing the oily cloth over the stovepipe to stop it freezing, and pulling on her wolf-skin mittens, Edie saw the truth of this: boys, young men, turning on themselves at an alarming rate. ‘Suicide epidemic’, the news channels were calling it. You couldn’t argue with the stats. Young Inuit men were forty times more likely to kill themselves than their compatriots in the south.
    â€˜Now that Tommy’s dead, maybe that’s the best way out for Willie right now.’ Freddie sighed. ‘Derek said you’re about the only person who’d give a damn.’ A mean glint came into his eye and he let out a little chuckle. ‘Tell the truth, he also said you’d be about the only one who wouldn’t have anything better to do this near Christmas than go out looking for a suicide.’
    Edie saw the truth of this too.
    â€˜So, I’ll leave it with you?’ Freddie said in a tone that implied it wasn’t really a question.
    She picked up her tool bag and slung it over her shoulder. ‘Does a walrus shit in the sea?’
    The super’s forehead vee’d and he scratched his head. Edie held open the door. The air blew in ice crystals, gritty and dry as sand, and caught the super off-guard. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. ‘Can’t say I’ve seen a walrus shit. Had one piss on me once, though.’
    â€˜My point exactly.’
    â–  ■ ■
    Back in the house, Edie sat down to a bowl of hot blood soup and allowed her mind to scroll through all she knew about the missing boy. Somewhere, she’d have