her where I wanted to go—but it didn't cross my mind, anyway. I just sat in awe.
After a while the mare—who I was beginning to think of as Angel—turned onto the lane that led past the Sisters' buildings and up to the road. I looked around as she walked. The Sisters' German Shepherds, Paddy and Laddy, were wrestling in their yard, and a man carrying a toolbox on his shoulder went around behind the convent. The nun who liked to be by herself walked past the man, a frown on her face. She picked up a stick to throw for the dogs. She looked stiff and out of place again, but her eyes softened as she watched the dogs run.
None of them noticed Angel and me on our way. It was as if we were invisible.
The sun was bright and there was no breeze at all. The trees were lush and dusted with light in their speckled green coats. Angel's feet barely kicked up the dust on the road. I'd never felt such rapture in all my life.
I think now that if Mom had known I was leaving the yard each day on the back of a black angelic horse, if she'd really understood what was happening, she would have been glad for me, and given us her blessing. But even at eight I knew that there are some things mothers—well, people in general—just won't understand, and it's better to save them for those who might.
I know she saw the difference in me, and was pleased. She thought it was the outings with her and Dad. It was good to know they loved me so much they'd change their routine to make me happy; that they'd work harder through the week to have time to take me places on the weekends. But it was riding on Angel's back that brought me joy.
Every morning and every afternoon I would run out to play with Angel, and in no time I was telling her all my stories
about not having enough faith to move mountains, and God not listening to my prayers. About my great loneliness since moving to this side of the river. About being pretty shy in the first place and not making many friends even when there were kids around. I told her about disappointing my Mom, about Uncle Bill not liking me, what rotten kids my cousins were. How Auntie Trish thought she knew everything, and Mom would sit there looking like she was really trying to be like Jesus when I knew she wished she could just tell Auntie Trish to shut up. Everything.
But Angel didn't say a word. Even when I asked her why she'd gone away. When I asked if she was an angel or what. When I questioned her about what I should say at confession, whether something was a sin—questions you'd think she'd have a strong opinion about. She listened, she cared about everything I said, but she never spoke. Only sometimes rubbed her nose against my arm or nibbled me with her lips. Let me climb onto her and play with my green plastic men on her wide back, sitting there with my bare feet twisting and wiggling as I looked around. At the world we had all to ourselves.
How much grander it was from her back than from where I stood on the ground! I could look farther, see wider, could peer down at the river and watch broken branches whirl and bump along it, see way over to the other shore where one time there was a weasel, but it didn't see us, and another time, a black dog lying completely still, partly covered by a red plaid blanket. I never felt like she was about to take me to heaven on her back; I never saw God or Mary peeking around the corner or felt what I would have thought I'd feel with an angel. I never felt like a better Catholic because of knowing her. Instead, she just seemed to be showing me the wonder of my ordinary world.
We went everywhere everywhere we could get to and be
home in time for lunch. Being invisible made it possible to go
very close to interesting things. We got to know quite a lot about
Paddy and Laddy and the Irish and Scottish nuns who lived with them, the one with the painful limp and the other with the sick Mom in Kilkenny, and we made a special point of following the nun who liked to be alone. When she wasn't out of sight in the convent, or working in the garden or doing laundry in big tubs out back, she would walk alone or with the dogs and we would walk beside her. Looking down from Angel's back, I came to like her.
She encountered a man on the road one day, and I noticed how her back stiffened as soon as she saw him walking toward her. She made her voice pleasant when he stopped and asked her, “How are you, Sister? Would you keep me in your prayers, Sister? I'm going for tests next week and I don't like to tell my wife, but I'm a little scared. I don't feel so well.”
"Of course, I'll pray for you, Mr. Sapatsky,” she said, and they talked a few moments more, and I did believe she was already praying for him when they parted. But I also saw how her shoulders went down when he was gone. Like every interaction with another person was a small steep mountain she had to climb.
Often she would move her lips ever so slightly. Was it God she was talking to? Or her mother, or herself? I never did know, but it didn't matter. She was doing what I was doing with Angel, and that made me like her even more.
In the ravine we didn't see any dinosaurs, search though we did, though one time I was sure for a moment that I saw the rise of a triceratops' crest through the bushes. Angel stepped carefully down steep inclines and tiptoed over the windfall of many years, ducked her head under low-hanging branches and waited whenever I got off and searched on my knees. You never knew how small a dinosaur egg might be, hidden by leaves or looking like a rock. You couldn't be too hasty in your search.
I didn't find more with Angel there than I'd found on my own. But it was so much more fun to have her company, someone
else interested in my explorations, even if all she was doing was standing a few feet away demolishing leaves.
One day I sat on Angel's back and sang my heart out to the trees as we made our way to forbidden territory. We swayed down the road as cars passed in twos and threes, heading for the bridge to take them downtown or following the road to the new shopping centre. Houses were going up and trees coming down all the time. We turned up a street that had no trees left at all. Many of the houses still had building things piled up in the yard, dirt lawns, and signs out front saying they were for sale. A group of kids playing street hockey didn't even look as we stepped between them, barely dodging the puck.
That street ended in a cul de sac. At one house a boy my age was kneeling in the driveway. He was dragging a small metal car through dirty water and saying, “Vr000000m!” under his breath. Angel and I wandered up the drive toward him to get a closer look and as we did my hair began to stand on end. He had stopped making the sound. He was slowly turning his head. He was looking up into my eyes.
Angel bobbed her head as if she was saying hello to him. The boy looked from me to her and let his hand come off the toy, then stood up. “Who are you?” he asked, staring at Angel. He looked nervous.
I couldn't speak. What was wrong with Angel? How come we weren't invisible?
"What do you want?” he said, glancing at his house. “Do you want my mother? Dad isn't home.”
"No, no,” I managed to say. “I, um, we were just going for a walk and we saw you and wanted to see who you were. We didn't recognize you.
"Oh,” he said, backing away from Angel as she stretched forward for a sniff. “I'm Bobby. I just moved here. We're from St. Vital.” “Oh,” I said, nodding. “Ah.”
"Who are you?”
"Oh! I'm Bernadette. I live beside the convent with my Mom and Dad.”
"In the big old house?”
"Yeah—how did you know?”
"We were there last week to see about getting me into school. They have nice dogs there.”
"Yeah,” I said. “They do.”
Finally he steadied himself and said, “Does he bite?”
"Oh, no!” I answered. “She's great!”
So that was how it started. After a while I slipped off Angel and squatted down to look at Bobby's car in the mud. We got talking about St. Vital and St. James where I used to live, and if we'd be allowed to toboggan on the river, and whether we had brothers and sisters (zero for me, three for him) Angel wandered over to Bobby's new sod lawn and began trimming it. I brought out my green plastic men and we split them up
and made hills of gravel in the driveway and were seriously adventuring when Angel strode over and began fluttering her nostrils in my face.
"Angel!” I said and pushed at her muzzle. She kept her big nose there and looked into my eyes. “Angel, you're in the way!” I said, and pushed again. She lifted her head and looked serious. Then Bobby's mom came out their front door.
"Bobby!” she called. “Lunch!”
My stomach fell. I was late! I looked at Angel in horror and stood up to mount her, but there was nothing there for me to stand on. “Help me, Bobby!” I said. He glanced at his mom anxiously but she was turning back into the house. He frowned.
"That was pretty rude of her, not saying hello to you. I'd never get away with that,” he said, then bent over and let me climb up onto his back and from there onto Angel.
I looked down at him “It's okay,” I said, confused but relieved. “She didn't see me.” He frowned, but before I could explain, Angel was walking. I wrenched around on her back and waved
uncertainly, then we were down the drive and moving quickly toward home, arriving just in time for lunch.
A few days later I was on Angel as she walked up a narrow dirt road that was closely lined with poplars, and Bobby was kicking a battered red ball alongside us and then running to catch up to it. We passed an old woman walking slowly down the street. She glanced at Bobby but