Introduction

Against the Wind is an elegantly written story of relationships involving six principal characters, strands of whose lives braid together after a chance reunion among three of them. A successful environmental lawyer is forced to take himself to task when he realizes that everything about his work has betrayed his core beliefs. A high school English teacher asks her former high school love to take up her environmental cause. A transgender adolescent male raised by his grandparents struggles to excel in a world hostile to his kind. A French-Canadian political science professor finds himself left with a choice between his cherished separatist cause and his marriage and family. An accomplished engineer is chronically unable to impress his more accomplished father sufficiently to be named head of the international wind technology company his father founded. The Quebec separatist party’s Minister of Natural Resources, a divorcée, finds herself caught between her French-Canadian lover and an unexpected English-Canadian suitor.

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Excerpt

CHAPTER 2

As her headlights unfurl the highway in front of her car on the way back from Toronto, Lynn continues replaying parts of the evening’s conversation with Ralph at Café Boulud. She congratulates herself that she managed to avoid admitting that she took their college breakup hard. Didn’t want to let him know that she’d often played the ‘what if’ game. But it always came down to Jules—if she’d married Ralph, there wouldn’t be Jules. Not that Jules has been easy. It was hard to adapt to the new reality that he imposed on her and Jean-Pierre. Their Jules started life as Juliette, and now, like their daughter Suzanne, Juliette is gone. Juliette started leaving at a young age, insisting on joining boys’ teams, challenging boys on their turf, proving she was every bit as competent—she’d especially loved trampling them in soccer. At age seven, she refused to wear dresses to school, church, anywhere at all. Well before the court approved her name change, she demanded to be called Jules. As he tells it now, it was only ever the illusion of Juliette; Jules was there from the beginning.

The most difficult times with Jules are now behind Lynn, but the crisis created a rift with Jean-Pierre. For both Jules and Lynn. Jean-Pierre couldn’t adapt. Of course it was hard for her, too, her brain initially unable to reprogram itself to get the proper noun and corresponding pronouns right, but Jean-Pierre made no apparent effort. Jules was dogged about correcting their missteps. In a pocket notebook he carried wherever he went, he recorded the errors with thick black X’s, a tally sheet like the one Lynn had taped to the refrigerator when Juliette was a young child to track the number of times she misbehaved. A single X for an incorrect pronoun in any form (she, her, hers), three X’s for the improper proper noun (Juliette). Never a check mark for getting something right. Only the mistakes recorded. They thought Jules would tire of keeping score. At first he fined them a quarter for each tally mark, but when he saw how little good that did, he upped it to fifty cents and then a dollar. Some days Jules tallied more than a hundred dollars. Jean-Pierre kept telling Juliette it was merely play-money, yet asked her what she planned to do with it. Building a fund to pay for top surgery was Jules’ answer.

“What’s top surgery?”

“Duh— the opposite of bottom surgery. Don’t you know anything?”

“You mean a mastectomy?”

“A double mastectomy. That’s the easy part.”

“I won’t allow it.”

“You won’t have any choice when I’m eighteen.”

“What if our health insurance doesn’t cover it?”

“It costs less than $10,000.”

“You don’t have that kind of money.”

“At this rate I will soon.”

Lynn remembers where that conversation led, how Jean-Pierre’s fury built as the tension escalated. When Jules demanded that his father get his name right or he’d never speak to him again, Jean-Pierre spit back, “I do call you by your proper name, Juliette. That’s the name your parents gave you and that’s how it’s going to stay.”

“Not for long, Dad. I’ve been talking to Mum, and she’s agreed to file the government form for a legal name change.”

“I don’t believe it— She’d never do that— Not without talking to me first.”

With the road passing beneath her at 120 kph, little traffic to pay attention to, hopefully no cops lurking behind the overpasses, Lynn lets her mind locate the start of that particular episode, the one that essentially ended their marriage. Jules had just returned from school. Walking through the front door, he launched into a tirade about having to carry around the “ugly lumps on his chest,” having to wear a tight-fitting spandex top like a corset with a loose-fitting sweatshirt over it to hide what still showed. That day, Jean-Pierre didn’t back off. After hearing his bitter exchange with Jules regarding the name change, Lynn came into the living room to defuse the bomb about to detonate. “What’s got into you?” she asked Jean-Pierre.

“What’s got into you?” he snapped back. “You’ve been playing along with Juliette’s charade. Now you’ve agreed to a name change?”

“Only one parent has to sign the form.”

“That may be good enough for the government, but not for me.”

“Jules’ psychiatrist has written a letter of support. I was hoping it would persuade you to co-sign the form.”

Jean-Pierre slammed his fist on the coffee table, knocking the book on the top of the stack to the floor. “The two of you are in on this?— You’ve been scheming behind my back?”

“You and I have discussed it for months,” said Lynn, picking up the book and replacing it carefully on the table.

“Not an official name change.”

“Sure we have— Where have you been?”

“I feel like I’m not living here anymore. This is my house and nobody tells me anything.”

“That’s ridiculous. It’s our house, too. You’ve just turned a deaf ear to what you don’t want to hear.”

“Maybe I should live somewhere else,” said Jean-Pierre.

“Or maybe Jules and I should.”

Jean-Pierre charged out of the house, slammed the door, and went for a long walk in the rain. By the time he returned, soaked to the skin, Jules had already eaten and gone to a nearby friend’s to spend the night. Lynn handed Jean-Pierre a towel and bathrobe. While he showered, she set the dining room table and lit candles. After dessert they made love. Angry love. It was the last time she’s made love of any kind. With anyone.

___

As he always had, Ralph took charge. He reminded the maître d’ that he’d requested a table in a quiet corner. “Better for talking business.”

“Yes, I guess that’s what this evening is about. I thought you might be able to help me in my fight against the wind farm projects in my county.”

“I’ve been thinking about your situation. I know you were hoping that my firm could represent your citizens’ group— ”

“ —not your firm, Ralph— You.”

They’d barely sat down. No Hi, how are you? It’s been a long time since our twentieth high school reunion. It’s great to see you. Lynn fiddled with her knife, trying to determine what to say next. Ralph continued as if she hadn’t interrupted, explaining that one of his clients had won the right to install turbines on a few of the sites in Prince Edward County and that it would be a conflict of interest for him to represent her group. He referred her to a lawyer working for a non-profit environmental organization.

“I want you because I’ve heard you’re the best.”

“This lawyer is very good. I’ve even lost a case to him.”

Still arrogant. She asked if he’d toured the sites for the proposed wind turbine installations. He shook his head no and reached across the table, put his hand on hers. “Please give that knife a break. Save it for your steak. It looks as if you’re getting ready to use it on me.”

“I think I’ll have salmon,” she said.

“I was hoping we might have chateaubriand for two.”

“Not tonight.”

“Well, maybe you can cook it for us sometime soon. You know— After you take me on a tour of your county.”

She caught his gaze and held it. Odd how it seemed that he was holding hers instead. Intensity in those light blue eyes. Penetrating, but not threatening. They communicated curiosity infused with warmth. Back in college, she’d thought of them as kind. They told you he was interested in what you had to say without telegraphing that he might be interested only because he was trying to figure you out. Deceptively kind eyes that could put you off guard. His appearance hadn’t changed much, except the color of his hair, silver now instead of reddish-brown, thick as ever. He was wearing it a little longer, slicked down with gel, a clean part—banker-ish. Only the slightest of wrinkles in his face and neck. Still trim. Well preserved. Amazing for sixty-two. Too damn good.

That’s how the evening began. Only hours old, part of it seems as if it occurred a month ago, barely echoes of the conversation left, part of it as if it’s happening all over again, right here, as if Ralph is in the passenger seat wondering why she is playing both roles. She can’t say the rest of that evening was uneventful. He refused to answer her question about where the boy who loved the outdoors had gone. He seemed to keep bringing the conversation back to the past. She was sure he’d end up at prom night and what they’d never satisfactorily resolved, but he didn’t. She let him reminisce about hiking in the Eastern Townships, willing to let herself tag along in the conversation as she used to tag along with him and his father as they orienteered their way to small mountain ponds for picnics. She let him tell the story about the day the two of them sailed his family’s Y-Flyer from the marina to the beach to join their mothers for lunch. After a swim, they headed upriver and upwind toward Lake Champlain, he at the tiller and tending the mainsail, she trimming the jib. A few miles from Fort Lennox, the sky turned dark and the wind picked up. Ralph came about and headed back. The boat made good speed surfing the growing waves, the centerboard whining as the bow planed. Holding onto the jib sheet, she pressed her toes against the gunwale and hiked out over the water. 1967. A few days before she turned seventeen.

“We put into the slip at the first crack of thunder,” Ralph said. “Soaked before we could finish furling the mainsail.”

“You had something else on your mind.”

“Yeah, I can’t believe it never happened.”

Lynn changed the subject to their days on the debating team. “Do you remember the time Jean-Guy and I beat you and Louise in the provincial championships? You couldn’t get over it.”

“We had to argue against Quebec’s secession from Canada. With two French judges and only one English judge, that was the harder side to win.”

“Maybe. But you chose a bad strategy. Jean-Guy and I— ”

“ —got lucky,” Ralph interrupted.

“Not at all. It was brilliant to have me speak in French and Jean-Guy in English. It blew the judges away.”

“Yeah, it was pretty clever.” Ralph’s expression softened. “A sign of things to come, wasn’t it?” He motioned to the waiter to take away their plates.

She frowned. “You’ve eaten only half your steak.”

“That’s all I want. Would you like dessert?”

“What do you mean?”

“How about a nice crème brûlée?”

“No— What do you mean about a sign of things to come?”

“Adopting the French point of view as your own— Your love of men named Jean-something-or-other— Your dumping me in college for Jean-Pierre.”

Ralph ordered two crèmes brûlées.

“Make that one. I’m going to pass.” She got up from the table. “Excuse me— I’m going to the ladies’ room.”

Her love for Jean-something-or-other? Why had she agreed to this? Maybe for an opportunity—finally—to come clean… But maybe now, seeing each other again after so many years, wasn’t the right time. She touched up her lipstick and ran a brush through her hair, still the same length it had been in high school and college. Short. She never let it grow out, her hair the only feature that has resisted the pull of time. With regular coloring of course. She’s added more wrinkles than Ralph has. No Botox for her. Let those crow’s feet creep toward her gray-green eyes if they must. Ralph always claimed her eyes were gray. She’s always seen them as green. Like his, hers can hold a gaze. Does he see hers as kind? Damn him— He’s as good looking as ever, still arrogant, still in control. He hasn’t changed. She brushed her hair back behind her ears.

“That’s not how I remember it— ” she said as she approached the table. Their waiter waited for her to sit, then placed a crème brûlée in front of her. “Compliments of the chef, Madame.” She nodded to the waiter and tasted a spoonful. “Please give my compliments to the chef.” Turning to Ralph, “You took up with your best friend’s sister.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t me with Jean-Pierre— It was you with Joan.”

“That was only after you began to see Jean-Pierre.”

“No, it was before. I asked if you wanted to discuss our term papers before we turned them in and you said you couldn’t because you had dinner plans.”

“I hardly remember.”

“Convenient. Let me jog your memory— Dinner with Jack and his sister. But Jack couldn’t come, so you and Joan had dinner alone.”

“It was nothing.”

“Really?— A week later you took her skiing and left me behind.”

“That’s not how it was— Joan was part of a large group of us who went on the midterm ski trip— You didn’t even ski.”

“Maybe I would have if you’d asked.” She knew it was unfair to dredge this up after so long. But he’d started it. “Face it, you— ”

“You face it. The truth is that you fell for him and his separatist cause. Christ, you married Jean-son-of-a-bitch right after graduation and began campaigning for the Parti Québécois!”

The people at the nearby tables stopped their conversations and turned their attention to Lynn and Ralph’s escalating argument. The waiter approached. “Is there something else I can bring you? A digestif, perhaps, compliments of the house, to accompany your dessert?” With a wave of the hand, Ralph dismissed the waiter’s intrusion. Lynn leaned across the table and spoke softly, “I tried to talk to you, but you’d have none of it. You said you weren’t ready.”

“Better late than never.”

“Sometimes not.”

At the hotel bar after dinner, Ralph ordered a cognac. Lynn nursed a seltzer-water-with-lime—she had a three-hour drive home. By tacit consent, they avoided the herd of elephants passing between them. After the evening’s drama, she wasn’t about to ask Ralph why he was still single, knowing that he’d counter by delving into the reasons why she and Jean-Pierre were living apart.

“You haven’t mentioned anything about Suzanne. At our high school reunion you said she was about to graduate from high school.”

Tears welled in her eyes. She could see that Ralph, thinking it safe territory, felt terrible for having asked. “Suzanne and her husband died in a plane crash. July 17th, 1996. My birthday. For seventeen years, I’ve avoided celebrating it.”

Ralph ran his hands through his hair and clasped them behind his head, his forearms pinched against his ears. “Oh my god, Lynn— I’m so sorry— That must’ve been devastating.”

“I think about her all the time.”

“On the phone you mentioned a grandson.”

“Jules. The only part of Suzanne who survived. He was staying with a nanny. Sixteen months old— ”

“You and Jean-Pierre raised him?”

“He doesn’t remember his parents. We are the only parents he’s known. He calls us Mum and Dad.”

“I’m sure it hasn’t been easy.”

Ralph was right about that. But maybe harder for Jules than her. Not because he’d been orphaned before having had a chance to know his true parents. Because— she decided the complicated story of Jules could wait. She wasn’t ready to tell it to Ralph. Another place she didn’t want to go. More of those than she’d first thought there would be when she agreed to this dinner. But unavoidable when you see someone again after a long time. So much to catch up on, the inevitable prying into crannies where the mind has tucked certain events away, not for safekeeping but because the memories simply can’t be expunged, merely stowed as far as possible from where they can readily prey upon the mind. “It hasn’t.”

“Jules is seventeen now?”

“Almost eighteen. He’ll graduate in June.”

“Is he planning to go to college?”

“University of Toronto. Engineering.”

“What type of engineer does he want to be?”

“Mechanical or civil, I guess—he’s building model wind turbines for his science fair project this year. Floating windmills. Crazy-looking things.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah— What do you mean?”

“That’s Dieter’s specialty. When you called me the other day you mentioned you’d seen him recently.”

“At a town meeting. He represented International Wind Technologies.”

“A German company,” said Ralph. “He was recently put in charge of their North American operations.” Ralph filled her in on what she didn’t know about Dieter of the present day. Their grade school and high school friend had followed his father’s footsteps and become a world-class engineer. “I bet Jules would like to pick his brain.”

“Are you suggesting I invite Dieter to my place?”

“Invite both of us.”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve been saying that a lot tonight.”

“Have you forgotten your last encounter with Dieter?”

“The rafting trip during our high school reunion?”

“I was thinking of the floor hockey championship in our senior year.”

“A horror show.”

For sure. Nobody there that night would ever forget the bench-clearing brawl that Ralph and Dieter instigated. To the great embarrassment of parents, teachers, and the principal.

“And don’t forget he had a crush on me. He was upset when you and I started going out together.”

“I’m sure he got over you,” said Ralph.

“Maybe not— Have you?”

That shut him up. Then, barely audibly, he said, Not really— as if admitting it to himself more than addressing her. “Just make sure you tell Dieter that you’ve invited me too. Maybe he’ll turn you down.” Ralph smiled at that.

___

She sees that the lights are still on. As she enters the house, she calls out to Jules. “You still up?” No answer. She walks down the hallway to the back bedroom she’d had converted into a studio for Jules to work on his science fair project. He’s filled the huge fish tank on the wall-length tabletop and is now piecing together mini-LEGOs from his old mechanical engineering set. He’s already constructed three stacks of blocks that he’s seated on the bottom of the tank. “What are those?”

“Anchoring pylons. I’m going to simulate the effect of waves on the stability of the turbines I’m building.”

“Are the others in your group helping you?”

“Not really. They’re researching the environmental effects on fish and birds.”

“I wish you’d work with them instead of building your turbines. It would help support my cause.”

“That doesn’t really interest me.”

“You’re not interested in helping me?”

“I think Canada should build more wind farms. Especially offshore— Like Denmark has done.”

“Why couldn’t you have chosen some other project?”

“Loosen up, Mum. We’ve talked about this a zillion times.”

“Obviously to no good.”

“There’s no way my project is going to damage your protest.”

“What if your team wins and gets some press?”

Jules put down the parts of a pylon he was snapping together. “I hope you’ll be happy for us.”

“I’d be happier if you won with some other project.”

“You’re starting to sound like Dad.”

That is not what she needs to hear at one o’clock in the morning. But she lets it pass because it’s Jules not Jean-Pierre. “Right— You should go to bed and get some sleep. Goodnight.” She leaves the room, walks down the hall to her bathroom, washes the makeup from her face, and rubs in moisturizing cream. After brushing her teeth, she changes into pajamas and slides under the covers. Unable to fall asleep, she lies thinking how much easier it would be for a single mother to raise a daughter instead of a son. They could lie in bed with you and talk. The way she used to with her mother when her father was away on business. Her mother and father—how painlessly they’ve adjusted to Jules’ changed circumstances. They understand that he’s the same talented child, merely answering to a different name. Why couldn’t Jean-Pierre see that? She’d counted on him to come around rather than lose another child. Okay—lose a daughter, but gain a son. Doesn’t every father want a son? Of course, but a real son, Jean-Pierre said, not a daughter masquerading as one. He claimed that that was worse than it would have been to discover his daughter was gay. Jean-Pierre didn’t laugh when Lynn said that Jules might be both transgender and gay.

Lynn hears Jules turn out the light in the studio and go into his bedroom. How does the kid survive on so little sleep? He’s like her father, who’d go to bed at eleven and rise at five. Still unable to sleep, she lets her mind run over tomorrow’s lesson plan for English class. Today’s plan—it’s already tomorrow. Stephen Leacock’s story about the sinking of a small town’s steamboat, the Mariposa Belle— Mariposa, a town like Picton, but with a shallow lake, not Lake Ontario with its deeper waters. Deep enough to make erecting wind turbines a challenge she hopes. She imagines Jules far offshore directing the installation of a farm, she and Ralph sailing close by, their sails whipped about by turbulence from the turbines, the boat changing tacks suddenly, jibing unexpectedly, the boom striking her forehead… falling overboard, unable to grasp the whisker pole Ralph extends toward her… sinking, sinking… her last image a turbine’s blades, like a steamboat’s paddlewheel… more like a giant motorboat’s propeller spinning loose from its mount… pursuing her to the bottom of the lake.

She awakes from the nightmare, perspiring from her neck and back, pajamas clinging to her skin. She removes her top. Stands in front of the mirror— No, she hasn’t aged nearly as well as Ralph. The death of Suzanne and the troubles with Jules have left their marks. But at least she’s maintained her slim body. Her breasts haven’t yet surrendered fully to gravity. Ralph might still be able to see her as the same young woman he once loved. Just an older version of her yearbook photos. Not so bad. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think the author chose to write from six characters’ points of view? Among these six, who are the primary characters? Would the novel have been more effective written in various first-person voices?

2. Various reviewers of Against the Wind have had opposite opinions about the denouement of the novel. Do you think that it ends too abruptly, leaving important matters unresolved? Or that too many loose ends are wrapped up too neatly?

3. Which characters did you find likable and had sympathies for? Which are the unlikable characters in the book? Did most characters come across as multi-dimensional, with various admirable and some not-so-admirable traits and behaviors?

4. As the story is told in the book, life presents the principal characters with second chances to get things right at which they failed or could have done better the first time around. Who succeeds and who continues to fall short?

5. Did the transitions between decades-old backstory and the current time of the novel work for you? Why do you think the author chose to start the story halfway through current time and then immediately shift back to the beginning of current time?

6. The book deals with a variety of issues: transgender parenting (Lynn/Jean-Pierre/ Jules), lost love (Ralph/Lynn and Lynn/Jean-Pierre), male rivalry (Ralph/Dieter), marital infidelity and divorce (Lynn/Jean-Pierre), Alzheimer’s disease (Ralph’s father), environmental issues (wind energy and hydroelectric), French-English politics in Quebec (Jean-Pierre/Monique versus Lynn/Ralph), and the matter of trust (in particular, Ralph’s continuing attempts to manipulate outcomes). Did you find the plot too complicated or did the story flow smoothly despite its complexity?

7. What purpose did it serve to have Ralph trying to divine the future from time to time by interpreting and re-interpreting the Miró prints hanging on his office wall? Was it a sign of something about Ralph as a person?

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