Patterns of Swallows (26 page)

It was what people couldn't say
to her that was hard to take (or so she thought at first). And what
they couldn't say only made what they did say – like, “Make
mine over easy,” or “Can I get another refill?” –
uncomfortable. She had the feeling that for two weeks there hadn't
been a single customer who had been willing to look her in the eye.
It was just a feeling. She didn't know for sure. She wasn't looking
to find out.

Not Jim and Glo, of course.
Glo, as soon as the word was out, had approached Ruth about it in her
usual straightforward way, hugged her tightly and told her they were
praying for her. Jim had added his sympathy with a hand squeeze.

But Ruth hadn't known how to
respond even to Jim and Glo. No wonder everyone was uncomfortable
with her. Why wouldn't they be when she was uncomfortable with
everyone and with herself? She'd become a pariah because she'd made
herself one.

At first, in the earliest days
P.G., she believed she was grateful to have her job to go to every
day. Her days off stretched before her like the wilderness before
the children of Israel. Yet, as much as she dreaded the days off,
she was beginning to dread her working days even more.

She was discovering
discontentment. Wherever she was was where she didn't want to be.
Whatever anyone said to her was the wrong thing to say. Either they
said nothing on the subject, and it was the wrong thing not to say,
or they said too much, and it was the wrong thing to say.

Mars Mitchum was the first,
outside of Jim and Glo and Sandy, to speak openly to Ruth about her
misfortune, and what he said was definitely too much and the wrong
thing to say.

Mars had been eating at the cafe
more and more frequently since Graham had left. He'd also been
cleaning up for his lunches or dinners out, disposing of his
erstwhile perpetual companion – an oil-stained, orange toque –
and carefully combing back his receding, dark brown hair and trading
in his torn and sawdusty, checked flannel shirts for new, clean
flannel shirts.

One memorable day, as Ruth
passed him his menu, he snatched for her hand rather than the menu
and held on. She tried to avoid obviously struggling to get away.
She wasn't in the mood for a scene though she was fairly sure one was
coming.

"Ruth, I wanted you to know
how sorry I am."

"Thanks, Mars," she
said, testing his grip by pulling her hand a little. His grip hadn't
loosened in the least. She finally looked at him. As she'd feared,
he was the one customer who wasn't afraid to look in her eyes.

"I know I tried to warn you
that one time about your husband and another woman, but it didn't do
any good, and I suppose it wouldn't have mattered in the end. Not
much you could have done about it, anyways."

"You mean you were talking
about Graham and Lily?" her voice rose on the last word until
the customers at two or three other tables turned to look at her.
Suddenly it didn't matter who looked at her or what they saw when
they did. Or what they heard.

"There were rumours.
They'd been at the tavern together quite a lot," Mars said,
dropping his voice in response to Ruth raising hers. He let go of
her hand, having said what he'd set out to say.

Ruth had often wondered how or
why Graham could have managed to leave out of the blue with Lily
Turnbull, of all people, whom, she imagined, he saw rarely in the
ordinary course of events. But now she knew. It wasn't out of the
blue. The why was still a complete mystery, but at least the how was
partially explained. In the ordinary course of events, they saw each
other regularly. At the tavern.

For no apparent reason, the
irony of the situation struck her hilariously. It was too funny!
She'd been picturing Graham with girls like Glenda. Girls who sell
their reputations cheaply. Girls who frequent taverns and go with
married men and wear perfume in a quantity to make up for what it
lacked in quality.

And here, all along, it had been
a girl like Lily. The girl of all girls in town who had always had
the most expensive everythings and yet her reputation had been worth
no more than a girl like Glenda's. Her virtue had been as
inexpensive as Glenda's perfume.

She began to chuckle, a sound
that was barely like laughing, from somewhere back deep in her throat
that grew and grew until she was doubled over the table gasping for
breath.

Glo came rushing over
protectively like a fiery orange mother hen in blue eyeshadow.

"Now Ruthie Darlin', come
on into the kitchen and have a set down. It's time for a break,
anyhow."

"What've you bin sayin' to
her?" she demanded to know from Mars.

"I just ... I ..."

The dumbfounded expression on
Mars' face keeled Ruth over with fresh spasms. How ridiculously
funny it all was! If only everyone else could share in the joke!
But the fact that they couldn't only made it more hilarious.

"Never mind!" Glo said
to Mars. "I can imagine. You never did have the sense God gave
geese. Now, c'mon, Darlin'. Let's go. I'll go make you a nice cup
of tea in the kitchen."

In the kitchen, Glo settled her
into a chair and went to make a cup of tea while Ruth tried to regain
her composure and Jim looked on, concerned. But his concerned looks
added to the problem, and she went off into gales of hysteria again.

She wiped away the tears on her
cheeks and cautiously sipped tea from the cup Glo held for her. She
was sure she was going to spew the tea everywhere as some new
provocation to laughter caught her in the funny bone but she managed
to drink a half of a mug-full safely, and the act of drinking seemed
to calm her.

"That's better," Glo
said. "I was afraid I was gonna hafta smack you one, and I
didn' wanna hafta do that. Wouldn' look good, havin' the boss
smackin' her staff around."

Ruth giggled a little weakly at
Glo's humour, but the hysteria had passed.

"Now, Ruthie Darlin',
there's somethin' Jim and me's bin thinkin' about. You haven't asked
for any time off through all this, and we haven't liked to interfere,
but I'm thinkin' it's time you took yourself a little time off.
Right, Jim?"

Jim nodded.

"It won't happen again,
Glo. Honest. I'm fine now. I think now that I've had one little
breakdown, it's outta my system, and I'll be fine from now on."

"Darlin', you don't imagine
I'm worried about how you're doin' on the job, do ya? It's you I'm
worryin' about. I know you like to hang onto your independence
somethin' fierce, but this time I'm makin' the decision for ya.
You're gettin' a week off. Now, don't you worry," she said as
Ruth tried to interrupt. "It's with pay, so don't you tell us
you can't afford it. You don't have any choice on this one. Jim and
I talked it all over, and that's just how it's gonna be."

Ruth realized that Jim and Glo
had probably talked it over telepathically through a little eye
contact as Glo was in the process of explaining it all to Ruth. It
didn't matter. Whatever Glo said was always fine with Jim.

Ruth could only nod weakly and
say, "Okay. Thanks, you two. I don't know what I'd do without
you," before a different kind of hysteria threatened to engulf
her. She fled the kitchen to check on Mrs. Handy and Philippa who
were in for their weekly dinner out.

The farm house had been vacant
for months. No efforts had succeeded in finding renters for the old
house.

There was no way around it. The
two women needed to relocate to the farm house in order to make ends
meet. Without the rent from the farm house to cover the rent on the
bungalow in town, on Ruth's salary alone, the money she and Graham
had put away was dipped into a little deeper every month in order to
cover expenses.

"We can't go on spending
your savings," Mom said to Ruth. "We have to find a way to
live within our means."

Ruth agreed, but for Mom's sake,
she hated to suggest moving back to the farm house. She knew it was
drafty and inconvenient and wood-heated and would mean a lot more
work for her mother-in-law while she was at the Morning Glory.

It was Mom who brought the
subject up.

"You know what we could
do?" she said one day with all the excitement of discovery
alighting upon her. "What would you think about moving back
into your old home? No sense having that old place sit empty and you
paying the rent on this one when we could be living in a house you
already own."

"It wouldn't be what you're
used to," Ruth said hesitantly. The days were getting warmer
but not so warm that the house wouldn't need to be heated. She
wondered how her mother-in-law would cope with the old wood stove in
the house.

"Well, then I'll get used
to it," Mom said. She had a certain set to her shoulders that
indicated her mind was made up, and she had them set now.

The pair handed in their notice
to quit the bungalow by the end of March and then waited a good
opportunity for Ruth to have a few days off to get their things
moved.

The week off that Ruth's
hysterical attack had earned her coincided well with the almost-end
of the month of March, and Monday of that week was chosen as moving
day.

On Sunday, Mom spread the word
around to a few church friends. Bo Weaver had a pickup truck that,
with enough trips, would accommodate all the furniture. He enlisted
a few more, and on Monday, there was a cheerful group gathered to
help in any way they could.

Some of the faces were
different, but Ruth was reminded of her first return to the old farm
house and the friends who had come alongside to help make the place
livable. Philippa and Mrs. Handy and Bo were the only ones in the
new group who had been part of the group of original helpers, but
there were also two of the church men to help move the heavy items,
and one more woman who came to help with the packing and cleaning.

It was a long day, but an
enjoyable one. The most enjoyable for Ruth in weeks. Maybe months.
She was surprised to learn she could still laugh (in non-hysterical
fashion, I mean).

Tasks that would have taken Ruth
and Mrs. MacKellum several days to accomplish alone were completed in
short order, and by the end of Monday, the move was accomplished; all
except the unpacking and the settling in.

*
* *

Ruth had been in constant motion
for so long that when she finally let her wheels grind to a halt the
inevitable happened.

On Tuesday, the day after the
big move, Ruth began to feel a sore throat coming on. Wednesday, she
tried to help with the unpacking, but she couldn't keep the chills
away. Her head felt as though it was floating away somewhere
detached from her body, and the pain in her throat made her think
carefully before every swallow. She finally gave up unpacking and
went to bed.

Thursday, she rolled out of bed
in the morning feeling just as bad if not worse, and Mom, taking one
look at her, sent her right back where she'd come from.

"I can't spend all day in
bed," Ruth said, speaking gingerly around the lump of burning
coal in her throat. "I've got to get the fire going. It's not
that warm out yet."

"Don't you think I've lit a
fire before in my life?" Mom asked her. "Don't you worry!
I haven't forgotten how to work a wood stove. I haven't always lived
in a house with an electric furnace, you know. The first eighteen
years of my life, we lived dirt poor in a little house on a farm in
Saskatchewan that had no electricity and no indoor toilet, so I can
manage one little wood stove, believe you me."

Being sick gave Ruth a little
glimpse into a side of her mother-in-law that Ruth had never seen
before. Mom was much more capable than Ruth had imagined.

Ruth spent most of the rest of
her week off in bed. What started off as a bad sore throat and head
cold soon developed into bronchitis. Mustard plasters, ginger teas,
and all the home prescriptions Mom could remember availed nothing
except to increase Ruth's discomfort with the foul-tasting remedies.

But Ruth refused to see Dr.
Moffet.

"It's just a little
bronchitis," she said. "I got it often when I was a kid.
It'll go away in time. The doctor couldn't do anything for it,
anyways."

When her week off was over, as
soon as Glo heard Ruth's voice over the telephone, she and Jim voted
unanimously (though Jim voted silently) for Ruth to have another week
off.

"Don't you worry," Glo
told her, "we've got Phoebe back temporary while you're away.
She's got her mother to watch the baby, so don't you worry about a
thing. We miss you, but we'll manage for another week. Or until
you're all better. You just take all the time in the world you need,
Darlin'."

For once, Ruth didn't argue.
Physically, she felt too awful. And mentally, the relief was too
great.

Another week away from the
ruthless realities of the real world, another week of seeing no one
but the one person who understood, another week without either
pitying or judging eyes following her constantly – it was too
good to be true! Good ol' bronchitis!