We Become Outlaws

Our family lasted almost one year in Saskatchewan. It took the town that long to figure out that Ned didn’t speak any French.

“I always looked on it as kind of a frill,” he explains to my mother.

“French?”

“Teaching,” says Ned. “I coach the girls’ basketball team and keep real good order in the classroom, so the kids don’t, you know, go out and smoke in the hallways, at least during class time, and I always help out at assemblies. I was the one who rustled up some World War Two veterans for Remembrance Day. Remember, Jane, the knack I had with the veterans?”

“Knack with the veterans?” asks my mother. She seems stunned by recent events.

“You don’t want them drooling on their shoes. And you want them to look like they’re having fun even if they’ve forgotten what they’re doing there. It takes a certain deft touch,” says Ned.

“So you didn’t think knowing French was really so important?” My mother is trying just desperately to understand Ned’s point of view.

“Not in the general scheme of things,” says Ned cheerfully.

“Well!” says my mother. “Are they angry?”

“Oh, livid,” says Ned.

“I guess they want you to resign?” asks my mother.

My heart leaps up at the thought of leaving this crummy little house on the edge of town where we have lived for the last year. None of us have warmed to Saskatchewan. We moved here from Massachusetts the summer before when my mother married Ned, who got a full-time job here. His first full-time job eve...