Patterns of Swallows (14 page)

Ruth called the men to the
table, and the meal was eaten with a cool breeze blowing between the
two women. Ruth wasn't one for small talk at any time, but it should
have been obvious to the men that Mrs. MacKellum was not herself. It
normally devolved on her to keep meal-time conversation running
smoothly. That night, the men, engrossed in some problem at the mill
in need of a quick solution, kept the table-talk humming and didn't
notice the silence of the two women.

Mrs. MacKellum returned the
dinner invitation several weeks later (a long time for her to wait
without having her son at her table) and lightly refused Ruth's offer
of help when the younger couple arrived on the appointed night.

Ruth was prepared to do as she
was told and submit meekly to instructions in the older woman's
kitchen as a tacit attempt to repair the breach, but her
mother-in-law didn't give her the chance.

"Don't you worry about it!
It's all done, just about ready to put on the table. We're just
having a simple supper, so there wasn't much to do. You just sit
right down there with Graham and keep the men in line. See if you
can keep them from talking shop all evening. I'm sorry I wasn't able
to teach Graham better manners than that."

The words were light, and the
men didn't observe anything out of the ordinary – though
Graham's mother never normally refused a little feminine company in
the kitchen.

But even Graham couldn't help
discovering that something was awry when the younger couple had
Graham's parents over for dinner again a week later.

This time, his mother didn't
offer her help in getting the meal ready. Graham looked at her
strangely as she sat down on the chesterfield in the living room with
the men.

"You could probably help
Ruth in the kitchen if you want to, Mom. You'll just be bored by Dad
and I. We'll just end up 'talking shop' as you call it, and you know
how much you love to listen to mill talk."

"Oh,
no," Mrs. MacKellum said with the air of one who's been waiting
a considerable time to say a thing, "Ruth doesn't need
my
help."

The emphasis on the pronoun
couldn't escape even Graham's notice. He quizzed his mother out of
the corner of his eye but turned to his father with a different
topic. He made a mental note to ask Ruth about it after his parents
had gone home.

"I'm afraid I lost my
temper and snapped at her when she was trying to help me in the
kitchen the first time we had them over for dinner," Ruth told
him when he broached the subject with her.

"Well, why? Why'd you do
something like that?"

"You should know me by now,
Graham. You know I speak my thoughts before I'm even aware that I
have any."

"That's no excuse. It's a
habit you need to get out of. Why did you snap at Mom?"

"She was bossing me. I
hate to be bossed. Especially when it's my house and my kitchen and
my way of doing things. There's more than one way to do things, you
know, but I don't think your mother realizes it."
"Well,
you'll just have to apologize to her. You can't let this build and
build till it's all blown out of proportion and neither of you are
speaking to each other."

"Don't worry! We're
perfectly polite to each other, and we always will be. Your mother's
too well-bred to feud openly. That would be bad manners."

"I don't think I like you
taking that tone about my mother."

"I don't think I like you
taking that tone about your wife. Why do you instantly assume that
your mother's in the right, and I'm the one who needs to apologize?"

"Well, from what you told
me, you were in the wrong, and you are the one who needs to
apologize."

Ruth pulled the reins back on
her temper before it ran off with her again.

"Look, Graham, I'd like to.
Only ... how do I do that now? I mean, what do I say? 'Mrs.
MacKellum, I'm sorry I was rude to you a month ago.' That is just
the kind of thing I might say, but that's not how your mother
operates. Believe me, I know that about her. It would just
embarrass her and make things more uncomfortable between us. It'll
just have to blow over in its own time."

"I just don't like the two
of you being on the outs."

"We're not on the outs,
exactly. Like I say, we'll always be perfectly polite to each other.
It's just ... I mean, well ... there wasn't much hope she was
exactly going to 'take me to her bosom,' anyways, was there?"

"You didn't give her a
chance. You got prickly right away and didn't even make the effort
to get to know her."

Ruth decided conciliation was
her best approach whether or not she agreed completely and said,
"Maybe you're right, Graham. I'll try harder with her. I
really will."

"And you should apologize.
She's obviously still feeling hurt."

"I think that one will just
have to go away on its own. I just can't! It's too silly! I'd feel
too stupid, and we'd both end up feeling stupid."

"Well, just see if you
can't be a little nicer to her, then, can't you? Work at it."

"Yes, Graham. I really
will try."

And Ruth did try. But trying
too hard to work at certain things only makes them feel like too much
work. There were some types of work Ruth enjoyed very much and some
she didn't enjoy at all.

And summer turned to fall. The
first year of married life could be crossed off the calendar.

But by their first anniversary,
Ruth was living (at least part of the time and temporarily) in a
different town from Graham. This wasn't because of any unhappiness
in their marriage. As I've told you, it's likely they were at least
averagely happy together in that first year of marriage.

The separation was a purely
practical one, and it came about like this:

"You still think about
going out to work?" Graham asked her casually over breakfast one
summer morning, putting down his newspaper momentarily.

"Not really," Ruth
said, unsure what was the right answer. She was unsure what was the
safe answer, and she was unsure what was the honest answer. She was
fairly sure that "not really" was more safe than honest,
but seeing she didn't know the honest answer, she chose what seemed
like the safer answer. She had not an inkling why Graham would ask
her. He'd made it very clear he didn't want his wife working.

"Why?" she wanted to
know. "Is there a 'help wanted' in the paper that would be a
good opening for me?"

"No, but I might have a
good opening for you," Graham grinned at her, pleased with
himself.

"What would you think about
working part-time at the mill?" he asked.

Ruth swallowed her memories of
the Morning Glory. Of course, Graham wouldn't have thought of her
going back there. He certainly wouldn't have his wife working as a
waitress.

"Wha'd'you mean? I'd never
be able to do that. Like, running the planer or something? Or
stacking lumber? I don't think I'd be strong enough." Ruth was
sure he didn't mean any such thing. She was mostly being silly, but
she couldn't imagine what he did mean.

Graham laughed at her a little.

"I wouldn't trust you out
in the yard with all those men. I hear the way they talk about
women. Just you and all the boys! That'd be the day! No, I mean
how'd you like to work in the office. As my secretary. Just a
couple or three days a week. Right now, Dorothy's been doing the
secretarial for both me and Dad, but it's getting to where I could
use my own secretary. And you could earn your own pin money. I
might expect you to work cheap, though."

"Graham! You can't be
serious!"

"You mean about working
cheap?" he asked, teasing.

Ruth ignored the teasing. "You
give me all the 'pin money,' as you put it, that I need. How many
pins can a girl buy? Of course I'd do it just to help out if I
could. But I couldn't! I don't know the first thing about
secretary-ing. I don't know shorthand. I couldn't type to save my
life."

"I know that. It was this
ad in the paper that gave me the idea in the first place. Dad's been
talking about me getting a girl in, part time, as my secretary, but I
thought of you when I saw this ad. See here? They're bringing a new
course to the college in Camille in September. An abbreviated
secretarial course. Just one term. Starter stenography and basic
bookkeeping, it says here. Even if you didn't want to work in the
office at the mill, it's not a bad idea for you to get something like
this. If anything were to happen to me, it's always good for a woman
to have something to fall back on. Other than waitressing, I mean.
Something you'd really be able to support yourself at. Course, I'm
not planning on anything happening to me just yet, and I do plan to
leave you well-provided-for when something does happen to me, but you
never know."

Graham
grabbed her around the waist as she reached for his plate to take it
to the sink and pulled her into his lap. They were still newlyweds,
after all, even if they weren't
new
newlyweds.

She shrieked a little as she
landed in his lap suddenly and dropped the plate back on the table.
She struggled a little (but just a little) to get up and get on with
clearing the table.

"Graham!" she scolded.

"You'd better be nice to
me," he said, keeping her pinned to his lap. "This may be
my last day on earth. You just never know."

"Graham!" she said
again. She couldn't take his last comment quite as lightly as he'd
intended it, but she shook it off.

"Let me up. I've got to
get the dishes going, and you've got to get off to work."

"Not until you tell me what
you think about my idea."

"We-ell, I don't know what
I think. Obviously, I'd have to give it a little more thought than
half-a-minute's worth. Camille! It's over an hour away. That would
be a long drive every day. And in the winter, too. Over a mountain
pass? I can't see me driving that every day for four months in the
winter. I see the course doesn't wrap up until Christmas."

"That is the problem. I
suppose it would mean you finding a place to live in Camille during
the week and coming home just for weekends. Might be worth it,
though. Other couples have done it and survived, I'm sure. It is
only four months, and I don't know when you'd get an opportunity like
this again. And then, after that, I could have you at the mill with
me, right under my watchful eye." He tugged on her hair
playfully.

"You almost make it sound
like you want to get rid of me!"

"Believe me! I don't want
to get rid of you. But it is only four months, and we'd see each
other on weekends. Then after that, when you're finished your
course, I'd have you all to myself. We could get up to all kind of
mischief at the office. I've always wanted to chase my secretary
around her desk." Graham still hadn't let her off his lap.

"Graham, you've got to get
to work!"

"Hey, what's the fun of
being the boss's son if you can't be late once in awhile. Stop
thinking about those dishes. Focus on your husband for a minute or
two."

"You've got to get to
work," Ruth repeated weakly. But she returned his kiss.

*
* *

The subject wasn't reintroduced
until a week later. Ruth thought she'd let the matter slide and test
Graham's seriousness about it, waiting to see if he brought it up
again. Sometimes it was hard for her to know when he was teasing and
when he wasn't. She couldn't imagine that he'd want to be separated
from her for four months immediately into the start of their second
year of marriage.

Graham had saved the newspaper
ad in the pocket of his shirt. When Ruth went through his pockets to
wash his clothes, she found the ad and set in on the dresser not
liking to dispose of it entirely but not wanting to remind Graham of
it openly.

He found the ad the next morning
as he dressed for work.

"We never did finish
discussing that secretarial course in Camille," he said to her,
expertly looping his tie around the collar of his shirt. "You
said you wanted more time to think about it, so now that you've had
more time, wha'd'you think?"

"I can't imagine it
working, that's all. Paying the rent for two places when we don't
have to?"

"That's no issue. The rent
for the farm covers the rent for this place nicely with a little left
over from the lease of the land. My salary is more than enough for
anything else we need plus renting you a little place. You could get
a little apartment. Or maybe room and board. You could probably
find something pretty cheap but nice enough still. And it would be
worth it in the long run. It'd be a good idea for you to have a
course like this one under your belt."