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“Ça va bien aller.”

Repeating her name.

She was shivering. Nathalie. Her lips turning blue. Nathalie. He took off his coat and laid it over her.

As he worked, he asked her easy, mundane questions to keep her conscious. Blood was running into her eyes from a head wound. He wiped it away, but her eyes had closed.

“Where do you live?” “What courses are you taking?” “Stay with me, Nathalie.”

Armand stayed with her, holding her hand sticky with her own blood, calling for a stretcher. Yelling for a stretcher.

“Ça va bien aller, Nathalie.”

A stretcher finally arrived minutes, what seemed like hours, later. She gripped his hand as they took her from the classroom.

His supervisor grabbed his arm and shouted, “Come on. Move. There’re more.”

Armand had to yank his hand free as Nathalie disappeared into the hallway. And he moved in the other direction, searching for survivors.

It was only after half an hour and more victims that his supervisor, bending over one of the bodies and checking for a pulse that was no longer there, had turned to him, her eyes wide.

“Women. My God, they’re all women.”

Armand looked around. He’d been so busy just functioning, trying to help, trying to keep the horror and terror at bay, that he hadn’t noticed.

She had seen what he’d missed.

The gunman had only murdered, only wounded, only targeted women.

The fourteen white roses on stage represented each young woman murdered that day, thirty years and a stone’s throw away from where they now stood.

The killer had separated out the men and told them to leave. And then he’d shot the women. For daring to believe they could enter a man’s world without consequence. For daring to become engineers.

They were murdered because they were women. For having opinions. And desires.

Oh yes, and breasts, and a sweet pear hidden in my body.

Whenever there’s talk of demons, these come in handy.

Later, years later, Armand would read those words by Ruth Zardo, his favorite poet. And he would know the truth of it.

Death sits on my shoulder like a crow

… Or a judge, muttering about sluts and punishment.

And licking his lips.

Fourteen white roses. Fourteen murdered.

Thirteen wounded. Including Nathalie Provost.

It became known as the Montréal Massacre. The catchy alliteration made it easily digestible for those reading the headlines. Something awful had happened. They read the story and shook their heads in genuine sorrow. But most did not look deeper.

The Montréal Massacre.

For the families of victims and the survivors there were no words to describe what happened. It was both much bigger than the blaring headlines and more intimate. More personal. More universal. Much worse.

One of the police officers had entered the building and found his own daughter among the dead.