Patterns of Swallows (16 page)

Ruth enjoyed her classes.
Graham had been right when he'd said he thought it was the type of
work she'd like and be good at.

When it was over, she wouldn't
have been able to say that she had thoroughly enjoyed her time in
Camille in general, though it was much better than she'd been
expecting, and the company at Mrs. Goodhope's had been congenial
enough.

But she was glad to be back in
Arrowhead permanently when Christmas came. It would be the last time
she lived out of Arrowhead for any length of time ever again, she
hoped.

It wasn't her first Christmas
with Graham, but it was even more special than the first Christmas
had been. Last Christmas, she and Graham had still been adjusting to
married life.

Or she had been. The subject
hadn't been discussed between them, so she was never sure if Graham
had needed to adjust to married life. Things seemed so easy for
men, sometimes. In most ways, his life had carried on just as usual
– except at a different address with a different woman cooking
his breakfasts and dinners.

This Christmas, there was the
splendour of being home to stay to make the season extra special.

And they had perfect Christmas
weather the week preceding: frosty, sunny days and a fresh dusting
of snow nearly every night. Not enough to shovel but enough to hide
the dirty, worn snow underneath.

Graham had carefully planned a
surprise for Ruth's first night back – something he knew she
would love.

After supper, he said to her,
"Get a warm coat and scarf and toque and your gloves on. We're
going out tonight. You might wanna change outta that dress, too. It
looks pretty flimsy."

"Graham, what on earth ...
What d'you have up your sleeve? It's my first night back. I was
hoping we could spend a little time together."
"Just
trust me on this one, kay? We will be spending a little time
together."

"Whatever you say."

"And dress warm."

"Whatever you say."

Ruth really began to wonder when
they took the road out to the farm.

He pulled the car into the lane
leading to the farm house and shut off the engine.

"What on earth?" Ruth
asked again.

"Shhh!" he said.
"Listen! D'you hear that?"

Then Ruth heard it. Bells.
Sleigh bells, carried on the winter night air.

She hugged his neck.

"You didn't!"

"I didn't what?"

"A sleigh ride?"

"Wait and see," he
grinned.

He couldn't
have found anything she would have liked more. She had scarcely
dreamed he possessed so much romance in his soul to plan something so
extravagantly ...
right
for her first night back.

The farmer who leased her fields
had a cutter sleigh and a horse to pull it. He even owned sleigh
bells.

His son worked at the mill, and
he and Graham were friends in a casual sort of way. Out at the dairy
one time, Graham had noticed the old sleigh. It had put ideas into
his head. He asked Jerry about its availability and the possibility
of having him drive passengers in it sometime. Then he filed the
information away in his memory for such time as he would have need of
creating a special occasion.

Graham
and Ruth sang,"Dashing through the snow ..." as the sleigh
slid through the fresh snow with a
whish,
whish
as accompaniment to its cheerful jingling.

And, of course, Graham kissed
her.

He pulled a sprig of mistletoe
out of his pocket and held it above her head.

"It's not quite a hay ride,
but I hope it will do," he said, leaning in.

Ruth heart soared at the thought
that he had remembered. She'd believed men didn't go in for such
sentimental nonsense as remembering the occasions of first kisses and
such like. But Graham had remembered.

That Christmas, they were almost
certainly in the top percentages of happy couples.

Graham took a week or so off
around Christmas and taught Ruth to cross-country ski. The skis were
his present to her which she received a little early. Those crisp,
winter outings on frigid, blue-and-white days and then hot chocolate
and popcorn around the fireplace at night were some of the best times
she could ever remember. She couldn't remember a present she'd
enjoyed more. Or two presents. The skis and Graham's week off to
spend with her.

After Graham's holidays were
over, she'd take the skis by herself, driving out of town to the
paths along by the railroad tracks or out to the farm where she'd
leave her long, narrow tracks in the sparkling, untouched powder of
her own fields.

Those were glorious days.

But her life of leisure was
nearly at an end.

It had been agreed that shortly
into the new year she would start her job in the sawmill office. She
was looking forward to it and fearing it all at the same time. She'd
be working for Graham mostly. But Mr. MacKellum was Graham's boss,
and she still wasn't entirely sure where she stood with Graham's
parents.

She needn't have worried,
however. If Guy MacKellum was aware of the rupture between herself
and his wife, it never affected his treatment of Ruth. He was the
same to her on the job as he had been since the beginning of the
marriage when whatever other plans he or his wife may have made for
their son had to be shelved. He was, on all occasions, the type of
man who is naturally kind with that kindness that costs little.
Being kind to Ruth after her marriage to his son cost him little, and
so he was kind to her.

He could also be intentionally
kind with a kindness that costs more. Ruth had cost him something,
and still he was kind to her.

In her work, he soon discovered
that she gained him much more than she cost. She saw what needed to
be done and did it. Well and efficiently though quietly even if it
wasn't part of her job description. If the coffee pot was empty, she
made a new pot. If the bathroom needed cleaning, she cleaned the
bathroom. If letters needed filing, she filed them.

The regular secretary, Dorothy
Madden, had an inflexible nose that went out of joint easily, so Ruth
had to be careful not to tread on toes, but no one was bothered when
she cleaned bathrooms or tidied file drawers.

Until she tried to bring some
order to the shelf containing the fiscal records.

"Just leave that, Ruth,"
Mr. MacKellum said when he came into the office and saw her on a
stepping stool, straightening books on the shelf in the back room.
"The bookkeeper can get to it. He's funny that way. He doesn't
like anyone to try and put method to his madness. I suppose he knows
where everything is, even if no one else can find anything back
there,"

It wasn't said harshly, but Ruth
was embarrassed for overstepping.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she
said, flushing. "I just thought it wouldn't hurt to put the
books in order according to year. I saw that there were some out of
order, but I shouldn't have ... I wasn't going into anything, just
straightening around."

But that sounded defensive
rather than apologetic, so she apologized again, and that was one
apology too many. Which sounded like guilty conscience speaking.
Which she didn't have. She hadn't been snooping. She'd been
straightening. But she could just imagine how her reaction had made
it look. And, of course, she'd had to go and try to fix it which
only made it worse as such attempts usually do.

For such a tiny incident, it
stayed with Ruth for days, bringing the sting of shame to her cheeks
every time she thought of it.

If Mr. MacKellum thought any
more about the minor happening, he never showed it.

It was so very minor, and
happily it was the worst thing to happen to Ruth on the job in her
work at the mill. Most of her days there were uneventful in the
extreme.

Ruth soon forgot about the
embarrassing episode herself. She had something else to think about
those days. At first, it was just a dream – a sweet dream but
just a dream. Then days went by and became weeks, and dream became
near-certainty.

Then she went for a visit to Dr.
Moffet, and near-certainty became certainty.

Graham was thrilled, too. The
timing was good. They were settled and secure. Why shouldn't they
have a baby?

There were happy hours spent
late at night when they should have been sleeping, planning their
plans.

He'd be stuck with a "Haskell"
somewhere in his name, Graham said. (Graham was sure it was a "he").
All the MacKellum men for three generations past had been stuck with
a Haskell. If she hated Haskell as a middle name, he could have two
middle names. But what else should they call him? What were names
she liked for boys? How about Samuel? Samuel was so solid, and it
had such a nice ring. But what were names he liked for girls? They
shouldn't be caught flatfooted if it wasn't a he.

Or maybe it was painting the
baby's room. What colour should they paint it? Blue, of course.
But what if it wasn't a boy? Well, better blue than pink. A girl
could sleep in a blue room, but no self-respecting boy would be able
to fall asleep in a pink room. They'd be up all night if they had a
pink room and no girl to put in it. Well, not pink, for sure. But
what about yellow? No one could find fault with yellow. Or what
about green? Green was the nicest colour there was, Ruth thought.
But green was no better for girls than blue (Graham's opinion), and
blue was the nicest colour there was, so it might as well be blue as
green. They compromised on blue that night.

Then, the next night they'd
compromise on yellow or green. Amazing how long it can take to paint
a baby's room when there are two choosing the colour for it and doing
it in the middle of the night when they should be sleeping.

But the room never did get
painted blue, green, or yellow (or pink). Just as quickly as the
sweet dream had become certainty it turned into dust and ashes.

After it was all over, it was
barely discussed between Graham and Ruth. That was just how these
things went sometimes, they supposed. What was there to say? There
were no more plans left to be made.

"At
least we didn't tell anyone. We won't have any explaining to do,"
Graham said, looking out the window as they talked. It was hard to
know where to turn his eyes for a few days afterward. He was afraid
of what he might see if he looked directly at Ruth. It was their
first sorrow together, but it wasn't really
their
sorrow,
and it wasn't really together. It was his sorrow and her sorrow.

Ruth supposed it was better they
hadn't told anyone. As Graham said, they wouldn't have to listen to
excited congratulations only to offer painful negations.

And yet. And yet, was it
better? Was it better to wear her motherhood invisibly? Part of her
wished for the world to know that Samuel Haskell MacKellum had once
existed. Or still existed somewhere. But not inside of her. Not
anymore.

Graham
knew
of
him, but only she
knew
him. And when only she had
known
him, even if only in the form of a sweet dream, with no one else in
the world outside of herself and Graham even knowing
of
him, it took something away from the solid and uncompromising
existence that he had surely had. If others knew of his reality, it
would have meant that he had left his tiny mark on the world if only
briefly. Perhaps it was the reason why, in later days, she told me
about the existence of Samuel Haskell MacKellum.

And where was he now? That was
the recurring thought. The one she mulled over at night, trying to
fall asleep. What happened to people who hadn't lived long enough
even to develop personalities all their own? What would they be in
the other, that better, world? They'd be themselves, but what did
that mean? Maybe they were simply the people they were meant to be
but had never quite become on this earth, just like the rest of
everyone there. That was the conclusion she came to. But what was
Samuel Haskell MacKellum meant to be? She wished she'd been able to
know a little more of him.

She woke herself crying one
night. She'd been dreaming, but she couldn't remember about what.

She tried to stifle the sobs.
She didn't want to wake Graham, and he wasn't a heavy sleeper.

Something woke Graham in spite
of the sobs being stifled.

He heard them and reached for
her to hold her.

"Shh, shh! What is it?
Was it a bad dream?"