The Second Son (7 page)

Then came the fifties, when things began to change. By the time Andrew fell from that tree, my parents must have been wondering if their luck was beginning to run out. I could have told them, though, it wasn’t luck that made Andrew fall. He fell because he looked down when he reached the top and lost his nerve. He was frightened at being so high, the same as always. I wasn’t scared. I could climb to the top of any hayloft, branch, or ladder. Fearless, I was, compared to Andrew. One time in January, I climbed to the top of the water tower with my skates hanging around my neck. I would have skated up there, too, if the ice hadn’t been thirty feet below the top of the tank. Andrew didn’t have nerve like that, but he was my big brother and I loved him. And just as I nursed a grudge about having to wear his hand-me-downs and take his orders all the time, he always believed he was hard done by as the oldest, of whom more was asked and less was forgiven. I do know that my mother never accepted that her affection might be less than evenly divided.

Once, I went through the family pictures she kept in a cedar box and made up two piles, baby pictures of Andrew and baby pictures of me. Then I confronted her as to why there were three times as many pictures of Andrew. “Because,” she answered, “the first baby in a family is a novelty and everyone gets excited and takes a lot of pictures.” I guess I complained so much that she went out and bought a film for her Kodak camera and took a whole set of pictures of me to put in the cedar box. Those pictures didn’t count, though, not in my suspicious mind. Every time I looked at them I was left with the gnawing reminder that I came second. It is hard to say, of course, how much difference there is between what I knew then as a child and what I know now as an adult, with the years in between to think about it. And I suppose there might have been something missing in me, some standoffishness that made it hard for people to show me affection.

Maybe that’s why it hurt so much when Andrew squealed on me for daring him to climb so high. Maybe I sensed the balance would shift forever if they blamed me for ruining his life. Especially when they came back from the hospital in Cornwall and my father went out there with an axe and cut down that apple tree. He had it sawn up and hauled away the next day, except for that three-foot stump he left standing. To remind me, he said, of how close I had come to getting my brother killed.

Andrew came home in a cast and kept getting new ones for about three months. He did have a bit of a limp. But that damn tree stump lasted a lot longer than Andrew’s limp did. And I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Even Uncle Andy had a conversation with my mother about that stump. Grandpa MacRae had passed away by that time, and Uncle Andy was running the farm for Grandma Bessie. He was operating it alone, on a “wee tight boojit,” he used to joke. Even though they had the hydro by that time, he was still milking the cows by hand, partly because Grandma Bessie was pretty close with the dollar. “Machines cost money,” she was always saying.

And the rest was probably Uncle Andy’s own Scot stubbornness. He didn’t own a car and he wouldn’t use Grandma Bessie’s unless it was on her business. Plus, he loved horses, used them whenever he could. Said cars were more bother than they were worth. He used to brag about how much money he saved by using the horse and buggy to get to town. He liked to tell about the night he met John Angus the Drover on the road, him in his buggy and John Angus in his big red cattle truck. John Angus only saw him in the headlights at the last second and slammed on the brakes, not two feet from the horse. He rolled down his window and yelled, “Where the hell’s your lights, you damn fool?”

Uncle Andy yelled back, “Don’t you have enough of your own?”

My uncle might have been better with horses than he was with people. He always had a couple of young ones, breaking them to the harness. He even trained horses for racing, teaching them to trot, or pace behind the sulky. Sometimes he would take one into town and pick us up for a ride. Andrew and I would fight over whose turn it was, only to have second thoughts as soon as the horse took off. Uncle Andy would slide back in the sulky seat and leave room for us on that little knobby part. Bouncing around on that bit of a seat with your legs dangling down, the horse’s hoofs pounding the ground not a foot away, was scary enough to start with. Then the horse would lift its tail straight up and start pooping, with Uncle Andy laughing like a crazy man in your ear. Soon enough, though, we’d forget the bad parts and be begging once again to go first.

He came by almost every week with the buggy and wouldn’t pass our place without stopping for a visit with my mom. Usually at that time of day she would be in the kitchen getting something ready for supper. He would sit by the front door, on the kitchen chair my mother kept there for guests. He would always say his boots were dirty and he didn’t want to mess up her floor. The real reason was so he could step outside and spit, because he usually had a chew of tobacco in his mouth. Or sometimes it was snuff he would have under his lip, from a little round tin called Copenhagen. He would visit for half an hour or so, exchanging the latest news while Mom went about her business.

A lot of stuff happened in our kitchen. It was a big kitchen, like a farm kitchen, the kind a family lives in. We had a big oval table my father bought at an auction somewhere. “A good buy, fumed oak, no veneer,” he said when he brought it home, not ashamed in the least that it was used, for he judged the value of things by the quality of the deal he had gotten. It was a big table for a big family, he would boast, even though he never got his wish for those four or five more kids he wanted. We each had our own place at the table — my father at one long end, the closest to the back room and his easy chair where he’d rest up and have a smoke and a beer before supper. Andrew sat beside him, to his left. My mother always sat on Dad’s right, closest to the stove and the kitchen cupboards. I got the spot that was left, opposite Dad, with my back to the front door.

Mom never sat down until everyone’s plate was served and they had begun to eat. Even then she was always jumping up to get stuff and checking that everyone had everything they needed, a holdover from farm life, I suppose. With the extensions there was room for eight or ten around the table, and we’d often have company. That’s when I would try to slip into Andrew’s place, but the objection was always quick to his lips. “Mom, he’s in my chair,” he would cry and my mother would give me that look and I’d move to another place. It was a round table she used to tell me, just like King Arthur’s, where every seat was equal. Funny, how I knew oval and round weren’t the same thing but I never said anything.

We were a noisy bunch, with plenty of arguments and gossip, my dad especially. He loved taking the opposite position on any subject we brought to the table. My mother would always intervene if the disagreements got too intense, especially at dinner. It would upset our digestion, she would always say. Breakfast I can’t remember much about, except it always seemed to be rushed. I do remember those cold winter mornings when the fire in the wood furnace had gone out and I would drag my clothes under the covers to warm them up before I ventured onto that cold linoleum floor.

As for what we ate for breakfast I can remember only toast and cereal, usually puffed wheat. My dad said cereal was mostly air and if we were going to pay good money for air we might as well eat the cheapest air available. That’s all he would bring home from the store, big bags of it, with that string you were supposed to pull to zip open the top. Only it hardly ever worked right and you’d have to get the scissors and cut it, except when you ripped it open anyway and made your mother mad at you every time you poured it, and it spilled all over. Every once in a while my mother would threaten us with porridge but we remembered the story about Aunt Sissy and knew she would never have the heart to make us eat it. Aunt Sissy was my mother’s sister. Besides Andy, she had one other brother, Angus. Her other brother, Gerry, was killed in the war.

That time after Andrew’s accident, when Uncle Andy dropped by, I was in the kitchen, too. My father had just left to take Andrew in for another checkup. After my mom finished telling my uncle the latest news on Andrew’s leg he asked, “So, when is Ed going to finish the job and cut down that stump?”

That was the cue for me to get chased out of there, which made me think they’d be talking about me. So I snuck upstairs and took up my post by the cold air grate in our room above the kitchen, where you could hear just about everything. I even had a way to listen at night when I was supposed to be asleep. I would drop my wool blanket on the floor beside the bed and slide silently over to the grate. Normally if you tried to get up the first thing you’d hear after the creaking wood was my mother yelling at you to get back in bed. Andrew would often hiss at me not to listen, and threaten to tell. He rarely did, though. Probably because I shared lots of what I heard. They were still talking about the stump when I got up there.

“Oh, he’ll get around to it, I suppose,” Mom was saying.

“Can’t see why he cut down a perfectly good apple tree in the first place.”

“He was just so upset when we came home from the hospital, pacing back and forth like a wild man, until he finally went out there and hacked away at that poor tree.”

“I guess if the lad had fallen off the shed roof he would have burned the shed down?”

“I guess he might have.” Not being able to see them, I couldn’t tell if they were smiling when she said that.

“McIntoshes are good eating. You’ll be sorry it’s gone.”

“The kids wouldn’t stay out of it. He meant it as a lesson, I suppose.”

“That stump’s dangerous, with kids running around out there.” From the sound of Uncle Andy’s voice, he was serious about questioning my father’s judgment. I remember thinking it was a good thing my father couldn’t hear him.

“He told Mike he was leaving it there as a reminder, that he’d cut the rest of it down when he was sure he’d learned his lesson.”

“That’s nuts, Lorna. The boy already knows you favour Andrew. He doesn’t need a reminder hanging over his head.”

“Don’t say that, Andy. It’s not true. You’re the only one who ever says that.”

“You mean I’m the only one who tells you the truth. You know what Angus says, don’t you?” I listened anxiously for what that might be. My Uncle Angus was closer to my mother in age and often at odds with her.

There was an edge to her voice when she asked, “And what does Mr. Know-it-all have to say?”

“He says you have trouble showing your affection. Says you were never the same after Momma died. Of course it’s only a theory.” I could hear the grin in his voice when he said those things. I guess that’s how he got away with it.

“Hah,” she retorted, “I never heard you complain. I gave you all the affection you ever needed.”

“Well, I was the baby of the family, wasn’t I? And you did name him after me. Maybe it’s all because of Momma, and what happened with Bessie.”

I remember she snapped at him, “Stuff and nonsense. I know my own heart and I love both those boys the same. They’re just different, is all. Andrew is affectionate. Mike pushes you away. He’s independent as all get-out, just like his father — you should hear how he talks to his mother sometimes. The boys were different from the time they were infants. Andrew would sit in his crib and stick his arms out for you to pick him up. Mike would just pile his toys in the corner, climb up, and throw himself out on the floor. He’s more of a loner, that’s all. Every child is different. You’ll see when you’ve some of your own.” She laughed then and added, “Although I’m beginning to wonder if that will ever — ”

“Don’t try to change the subject. I’ve had plenty of experience with yearlings and — ”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Andy. You don’t think raising kids is the same as horses?” She was giggling at him now.

“Laugh if you want, but you just pet one, and watch the other one come running. They’ve got to be gentled in the direction you want.”

“Oh, baloney. The boy is like his father. They’re too quick to pick a fight, the two of them. It’s best to ignore them until they’re over their bad mood. God knows, picking favourites is the last thing I would ever do.”

“Then get Ed to cut down that damn stump.”

“Oh, he’ll cut it down soon enough. You know how he is. He just gets emotional at the time. It’s all forgotten the next day.”

“Don’t I know it?” I heard him laughing before he continued, “Remember last summer, when your dog got into that bees’ nest out behind the barn? And his snout swole up three times its size? Ed was after me to get out the twenty-two and put the poor beast out of its misery. Damn fool was going to kill the kids’ dog. Between the kids and the dog, I don’t know which was crying the loudest.”

My mother laughed at the recollection. “He does get carried away, doesn’t he?”

“Let’s face it, Lorna, you married a Frenchman.”

“And I’m proud of it.”

“Sure, but you have to admit he can get carried away sometimes.” Uncle Andy laughed at another recollection. “Hell, he’s convinced Bessie trained old Dougal just to bite the French people.”

My mom laughed, too. “That damn old dog is hiding under the steps every time we come, yet it’s only Ed he bites in the ankles. Is it any wonder he gets mad? He tore his new socks the last time we were there.”

“Aw, he’s a good man, to take it so well.”

“He’s given me a good life, Andy. And two fine boys to look after me in my old age.”

“Yeah,” Uncle Andy concluded with a joke, “only he won’t be giving you any more McIntoshes, unless you think that stump is going to sprout some new branches.”

That stump never did sprout any branches. And it stayed there for over a year, until my mother started nagging my father to cut it down. It was an eyesore, she said. I wonder if they ever thought much about it, after it was gone. And I wonder how surprised they would have been at what it meant to me. For I never looked out on the front yard that I didn’t see that goddamn stump, still there in my mind’s eye, still in that secret corner of my heart where I harboured all my grudges.