Patterns of Swallows (19 page)

"You make Dad sound like
some kind of crackpot. He may have made some bad business decisions,
but that doesn't make him crazy."

"Of course he wasn't a
crackpot. That's just it! He had a good head on 'im. It was the
things he did in the last little while that were so out of character,
it makes me think there was something else going on. I knew of
another fellow, chronically depressed. Ended up with a nervous
breakdown. He started doing the oddest things just before."

"I guess I shouldn't be
surprised that you think my dad was crazy. I just said nothing would
ever surprise me again. It was a crazy thing he did yesterday. No
argument there. I guess that act makes more sense now, though. He
was a proud man. Admitting defeat would've killed him slowly. He
chose the faster way out, I suppose."

"I don't think your dad was
crazy, Graham. I'm sorry I brought up depression. We'll never know,
and it can't change things one way or the other. Only thing left to
do now is try to pick up the pieces."

Graham had stopped listening to
Hank to thumb through the folder he'd left on the table.

"I know this one. I
recognize the name of this company," he said with his finger on
several entries on a sheet of paper.

"What's that?" Hank
asked, looking over his shoulder.

"It explains a lot,"
Graham said. "I remember Dad talking about an old school friend
of his, some guy he thought was real smart who'd moved to the big
city to make his fame and fortune, and this was the name of the
company he'd started. Westerneye. Yeah, that was the name. I
remember that. Dad was pretty excited about it, I know. Looks like
that was what got him into making bad investments. That was his
first investment. That's a sizable chunk of money he put in, that
first investment. Then I suppose the company didn't take off the way
they'd hoped, so he started putting more and more in, hoping to bail
out the company and rescue the money he'd already invested, I guess."

"After that company failed,
I imagine he got desperate to reclaim the money he'd lost and started
investing elsewhere, buying low, hoping the stocks would rise,"
Hank said. "Problem with buying low, the stocks are often low
because a company's already in trouble. Everyone's been so
optimistic since the war with everything booming. I suppose your dad
thought if he kept on investing, sooner or later, things were bound
to turn around."

"He wouldn't have invested
borrowed money or mortgaged the house just to gamble that away,
though, I'm sure. He wouldn't have done that to Mom," Graham
said.

"No, I believe that all
came later in an attempt to save the mill when he didn't have the
capital to pay the overhead and keep things running."

"At least it tells me that
Dad wasn't crazy. Just too quick to help out a friend." Graham
looked at the papers in his hand for a moment and said almost to
himself, "I see this was all starting back before I was married.
I imagine that was a disappointment to him. Suppose I know now why
he was so set on me marrying someone with some money of her own. I
guess he thought maybe I'd be able to save the mill that way."

Ruth went hot all through her
body and then cold. Was that what Mr. MacKellum had wanted? Why
hadn't Graham mentioned it to her before? Probably because he hadn't
wanted to hurt her. Is that why she'd felt from the beginning that
her father-in-law had at first regretted Graham's choice of wives?
Or was it only at first? Maybe he'd regretted Graham's choice right
to the end. Even if he hadn't, was that how Graham felt about the
situation? Graham had brought it up, after all. It must have been
something he'd been thinking about. At least it had occurred to him
now. Did Graham regret his choice of wives?

Graham caught her eye, realized
what he'd said and who he'd said it in front of, and said quickly as
though speaking to Hank, "Don't pay any attention to anything I
say right now. I don't know what I'm saying anymore. I'm not making
any sense. It's all been too much to take in."

"You and I should meet soon
so we can go over some things together. There's nothing we need to
do immediately though, Graham. We'll give it some time."

"I don't think we'd better
wait, Hank. The men at the mill have to know right away. I called
Sherman and Dorothy this morning just to tell them that neither my
dad nor I would be in today. I didn't tell them anything else. I'll
have to tell all the men tomorrow though."

"You've had enough. I can
do that. You call an assembly, and I can break the news. But it
doesn't have to be tomorrow. Why don't you let it ride for a day or
two at least?"

"What's the point? It's
got to be done sooner or later. Might as well be sooner. I don't
want the men to hear the news second-hand. And there's no sense
letting the men keep on earning wages I can't pay them." Graham
laughed harshly. "It's my place to tell the men. That
shouldn't be something you have to do. I need to do it."

Hank nodded briefly. Graham's
tone brooked no argument.

*
* *

When Graham got up in front of
the men assembled in the lunch room to tell them what he had to tell
them, astonishingly, none of them had an inkling what it was about.
The Arrowhead rumour mill had decidedly fallen down on the job.

The men should have noticed that
something was out of order from the expressions of Graham's and
Hank's faces, but they weren't an observant bunch. They expected the
speech to be on the topic of workplace safety or new policies for
requesting holiday time. They acted according to their expectations.

Jerry, nearest Graham,
stage-whispered to the man next to him, loud enough for Graham to
hear, "Hey, Rob. Did you bring the tomatoes?"

"Nah, rotten eggs,"
Rob joked back. They grinned at Graham. But he looked over their
heads and pretended not to hear, knowing how deeply they would soon
regret their levity.

After hearing what Graham had to
tell them, the majority of the men slouched quietly out of the
lunchroom. Only the bravest or the oldest employees or those who
knew Graham the least approached him to give him their condolences.
Jerry and Rob weren't among them. They carefully avoided eye contact
with Graham as they left. Their fresh humiliation added to his made
Graham an untouchable. Even an unseeable.

Cowardice and shame can
sometimes do as much inadvertent damage as any of the more obviously
deadly vices. That had certainly proven to be true in the case of
Mr. MacKellum.

The speech in the lunchroom and
the moments after were, for Graham, the hardest of all the events
relating directly to the death of his father. Harder even than
identifying the body.

*
* *

After the funeral, Mrs.
MacKellum went to stay with Pat and Earl and the kids for a few
weeks. She couldn't stand the thought of being alone in her big, old
house, she told Graham and Ruth.

She lasted only a week at Pat
and Earl's, but she had a sister in Alberta who could take her in for
a time, as well.

"I'll go in and talk to the
bank and hopefully stall them from repossessing the house for awhile.
Mom doesn't need to know about all that just yet. We'll wait on
seeing about getting that loan to buy her house until she gets back
from Alberta," Graham said to Ruth.

"Maybe we should see if she
wants to stay there first," Ruth suggested.

"Of course she'll want to
stay there. It's her home," Graham said. But he held off
getting the loan all the same.

Mrs. MacKellum was foundering.
It was obvious to Ruth. It was less obvious to Graham, but he could
also see that something had to be done.

Graham's mother had only spent a
week with her daughter and family. She'd spent only two weeks with
her sister in Alberta. But she could hardly stand to be alone in the
big, empty house. Most of her evenings were spent with Graham and
Ruth or with some of her church friends. Whenever she went out for
the evening (which was most evenings) she stayed until her hosts and
hostesses fought their yawns till their eyes watered or gave in and
gaped wildly behind the polite hands hiding their mouths.

"Oh dear, it's getting
late. I'd really better go," she'd say and finally pull herself
away an hour or so later, waiting to leave until she was tired enough
to fall into bed and into sleep instantly. It seldom worked.

After two weeks of it, Ruth said
to Graham, "Graham, your mom can't live alone. She's not meant
for it. And Pat's and Earl's is no place for her. Either their
marriage would break up, or your mom and Earl would constantly be at
each other's throats. And it doesn't look like her moving in with
your aunt in Alberta is a possibility. Her place is too tiny."

"Where are you going with
this?" Graham asked, puzzled.

"We have a bedroom just
sitting empty. Your mom's house pretty well belongs to the bank
already, anyways. The grace period they gave us is almost up. Why
don't we forget about getting a loan and trying to keep her house and
just ask her to move in with us instead?"

"We couldn't do that,"
Graham said flatly. "You talk about Pat's and Earl's being no
place for her. Why would our place be any better? You and she don't
do much better together than her and Earl."

"That's silly," Ruth
said, feeling her temper rising. "We get along fine. It took
us a little while to get used to each other, but we're fine now. Why
don't you at least ask her if she'd like to move in with us? Leave
it up to her. But I'm perfectly willing to have her. She really
can't go on like this. At least for awhile she should come live with
us. Just till she's ready to find a little place and be on her own.
You can put it to her that way, so she doesn't think it's charity or
feel like she'd have to be here forever."

"And what about you?"
Graham asked. "Is that really what you want? It wouldn't be
easy, y'know. Everyone says it's tough to have your in-laws come to
live. And I'd be off at my job all day when I find work. It
wouldn't affect me the way it would affect you."

"It
doesn't matter what I
want
.
It's what your mom
needs
.
But yes, as a matter of fact, it is what I want. We'd do fine. I
know we'd both try very hard. And we'll make it work. You'll see."

With that assurance but with a
little trepidation, Graham approached his mother on the subject. How
about moving in, at least just for a little while, he said.

Mrs. MacKellum accepted with a
little trepidation, as well, and some reluctance.

She hated the idea of being
burdensome. She was less confident than Ruth had sounded that the
two of them would be able to make it work. And she'd miss her own
kitchen.

But when she learned that the
bank owned her house, she was appalled at the idea of Graham paying
the mortgage on it or trying to get a loan to buy it back for her.
She saw her rock and her hard place clearly. Either she'd be
beholden by moving in and living with one of her children or her
sister or she'd be beholden by having Graham pay off the debt on her
house. One way or the other, she'd be beholden. Moving in with
Graham and Ruth seemed to her to be the less burdensome option.

And anything, even being
beholden, would be better than the nights of lying awake in the
darkness, listening to the silence of the house, knowing one
accustomed presence would never be there again.

"It's her home,"
Graham had said. But he was wrong. It wasn't her home anymore. Not
without Guy.

*
* *

Graham hadn't had an easy time
finding work.

He had no training or expertise
in any work other than the work of being groomed to take over the
operation of a sawmill one day. Turnbulls', out of pity, may have
given him a job, but it would have meant starting at ground level.
And it would have meant working for Gus Turnbull. For Graham, it was
out of the question to even think about going to Gus Turnbull to ask
for a job. He tried to explain his feelings on the subject to Ruth
when she made the suggestion. She didn't understand entirely, but
she understood that Graham wasn't going to do it. That much was
plain.

Weeks went by after MacKellum
Milling had ceased production, and still Graham had found no job.
Things weren't dire; Graham and Ruth had some savings. But it wasn't
smart to dip too deeply into their savings. They weren't substantial
enough to live off.

And there was Graham's mother to
be supported now, as well.

As day after day of unemployment
was scratched off the calendar, Graham began to grow a little
desperate.

"I'm sure Jim and Glo would
let me go back to work for them," Ruth said to Graham.

"My wife is not going to be
the one supporting this family," Graham told her shortly. His
expression said plainly that it wasn't open for discussion.