by Connie Cook
Ruth puzzled over Lily's, "I told you I'd never forgive you!" None of it made sense at all. What would Lily have against Ruth?
And then, from some dusty shelf in the back of Ruth's memory, she pulled out a mental filmstrip and looked at a showing of three little girls on a playground. Then she could remember clearly Lily shrieking after her, "I'll never forgive you! Never!"
Funny! She hadn't thought of that incident in years and yet it came back to her in that moment as though she was there, reliving it. She'd often thought about the incidents immediately before that one. The one where Wynnie had been the person to inform her that her mother wasn't really her mother. And the one where Lily had called her a dirty half-breed. (The "dirty" part was so silly! Mother had certainly kept Ruth well-scrubbed, believing cleanliness to be next to godliness and a great deal more attainable.)
But, somehow, Ruth had always tended to stop the film there. Before she got to the part where she'd said what she'd said to Wynnie and Lily and before the part where Lily screamed at her in a fury that she would never forgive her! Never!
Yet Lily must not have forgotten that part. That must have been the part of the film Lily rewound and replayed often in her memory.
Memories were strange things. Why do we remember what we remember? Like the baby swallow and her father. Now why would she think of that? She'd better stop thinking and just get to work.
But her mental snapshots of the morning's events refused to be ousted even as she greeted customers and handed out menus and took orders and remembered all the things that needed to be remembered, like, a refill on the coffee for Mars Mitchum and like, Ray Schultz still needing his side of hash browns. She remembered all those things without really thinking about them while she couldn't stop thinking about the other things she was trying not to remember.
Ruth felt cold all day, even in the warm kitchen of the warm cafe.
Was it possible that Lily had borne a grudge all those years from one childhood round of mud-slinging? No one could be that petty. It was beyond belief. Yet why else would Lily have said what she'd said when she was pretending to ... to, well, to run off with Graham? Could she have meant what she'd said? That she had never forgiven Ruth and she never would? Is that why she had played her cruel joke, pretending she and Graham were running away together?
* * *
When Ruth looked back on that first day, she never again felt tempted to shake her head in frustration at her mother-in-law's "hunting accident" theory. From that day forward, she better understood her mother-in-law's initial reaction to her tragedy, having gone through a similar thought process herself in the midst of her own, personal tragedy.
Not that Mrs. MacKellum persisted in touting a hunting accident once she understood that Guy had lost his business and their money. She may have been naive, but she wasn't one to self-deceive knowingly.
It was just that, for that first day after Guy's death, nothing made any sense to his wife. A hunting accident seemed equally as likely as any other enormously unlikely possibility. But when she knew all the facts, she accepted Guy's death for what it was.
That entire day, the day of seeing Graham and Lily drive off together, nothing made sense to Ruth. She was able to believe in any wildly unlikely explanations. Because all explanations, even the one any casual observer would have instantly landed upon after seeing what she had seen that morning, were equally wildly unlikely.
Somewhere during the day at work, in spite of her best efforts, she'd begun to allow the idea to play around the edges of her mind that Graham had ... well, that things were what they would have looked like to a casual observer. At least, she had begun to admit to herself how things would have looked to any casual observer, but how things looked didn't make any sense. It just wasn't possible in any kind of a rational universe.
Graham loved her. She was sure he did. She and Graham had hardly been fighting at all lately. True, Graham wasn't working, and he'd been drinking as much as ever, but she'd become very good at keeping her thoughts to herself. So whatever Graham did wrong was no reason for him to leave her, was it? Maybe if she'd persisted in nagging or lecturing or badgering or if she'd given him the cold shoulder when he came home long after he should have, maybe then the casual observer's explanation of the morning's events would have made sense.
But she hadn't done any of those things. She'd battened down the hatches and prepared to ride out the storm, huddled below deck. That was how she'd handled things of late. Wasn't that how she was supposed to handle them? Wasn't that what Graham would have wanted if he'd been in his right senses, and wouldn't he appreciate how she'd handled things when he came to his senses? Surely, there wasn't anything she could have done differently.
And if she'd done what she was supposed to, things would eventually turn out right. Wouldn't they? Wasn't that how it worked? In any rational universe. And the universe must be rational to produce rational beings.
And hope, while it keeps alive the capacity for intense pain, must be the only rational response to a rational universe because it is always the last bastion abandoned by a rational being. Those beings who abandon it soon find themselves adrift on a sea of insanity.
And so, Ruth found her own imaginings much more credible and rational than the casual observer's explanation.
Until, as Ruth dragged her tired feet in the door after that long day of work, Mom handed her the note.
"I found this," Mom said to Ruth with a scared rabbit look on her face. "I wouldn't have read it, only I didn't know what it was. And I'd already read it before I'd realized what it was."
"Where did you find it?" Ruth asked, wondering how she'd missed it. Surely, Graham wouldn't have left a note for her where his mother would find it before she would. She took the piece of paper by one small corner as though the touch of it might contaminate her with something deadly. She didn't know what it said yet, but all the same, she knew what it said.
"It was on Graham's pillow. I went in to change the sheets for wash day."
Ah yes! Today was wash day. It suddenly struck Ruth as fantastical that her husband could have left her on wash day. How could the stolid normalcy of wash day have continued on such a momentous day as the day her husband had left her? Shouldn't it have been a national day of ... something? Of rest? Or of mourning? Certainly not a day where her mother-in-law came to strip the sheets on their bed and to find the note Graham had left for her.
She recognized that she was losing control and hastily reined in her thoughts. She must keep in her right mind. It wouldn't do to have Graham come back to his senses and come back to her, only to discover that she'd lost hers.
The note said, Ruth, I love you, but we both know we can't go on like this. I know what it must be doing to you, living this way. It would be better for both of us if I go away just for a little while. At least until I can get things all squared away in my mind and be the husband I know I should be. Please don't try to find me. I'll be fine. I won't do anything foolish. But I just need to get away for now. Good-bye, I do love you. Please believe me. Graham.
Ruth flung the note into a twisted ball and into the garbage can as though it had been a snake that had bitten her.
Yet at the same time, the dramatics and the noble self-sacrifices of the note were laughable. There was a ludicrous clash in tones between the note and Graham's shamefaced retreat coupled with Lily's childish spite in their encounter that morning. The contrast made her want to laugh loud and hard. She resisted. She mustn't let Mom think she was going crazy. But maybe she was. If she wasn't, the rational universe had.
Chapter 15
The idea occurred to Ruth that previously the calendars of her personal history could be dated by two divisions – B.G. and A.G. Before Graham and After Graham. But her history had entered a new era: P.G. Post-Graham.
But after all, this stage would last hardly long enough to be an era. It might be, what? One day? Two days? A week at most. It could hardly last longer than that. Chances were good that he'd
be back tomorrow already. How long could it possibly take for Lily Turnbull's companionship to lose its lustre?
But that first day P.G. had to be got through somehow.
Ruth was carried through the remainder of that first day by two things – by her mother-in-law's presence and by simply putting one foot in front of the other.
As to the first, Ruth shuddered with a cold terror at the thought that she could have been living alone when this happened. She had a new appreciation of Mom's need for continuous company after her husband had died. Being alone was the one thing that was unfaceable. All that time on one's hands with nothing to do but think!
As to the second, there were tasks, menial ones, but ones Ruth could concentrate some energy, if not thought, on. While her mind ran its own wilful course, even having her hands busy helped. There were potatoes to be peeled and onions to be chopped, and thank heavens it was wash day! There was the usual mountain of ironing to do.
Mom said, "Ruth, just leave it. Please. Why don't you go rest? You need to rest. I can do that."
And Ruth had almost shouted in desperation, "Please let me do something."
Mom had offered no further resistance then but set up the other board and iron to help Ruth. She understood the value of quiet, unspoken companionship at such a time. And she felt in sore need of it herself.
While she may not have been as personally affected by the tragedy in quite the same way as Ruth, she was very personally affected by the tragedy. Just in a different way.
The sheets had to be ironed, Ruth knew, and she knew she had to do it. They had to be faced. But they held memories. The memories pressed and burned into Ruth like the iron into the sheets. But the sheets couldn't be shirked. If she shirked the sheets now, when would she face them?
The memories, on the other hand, she would have shirked if she could have. But they, too, couldn't be shirked simply because they refused to be shirked.
If they would only lie dormant for awhile, covered over, just until Graham returned, then she could unearth them and maybe even laugh over them again someday. Maybe she and Graham would even be able to laugh together over the memory of this time someday.
She allowed herself to shirk Graham's shirts, however. She picked her careful way around the still slightly damp pieces of white fabric in the pile, choosing only linens and the women's clothing. The first day P.G. was too soon to think of ironing Graham's shirts.
Mom noticed but said nothing and carefully managed things so that she ended up with all of Graham's shirts. Ruth noticed the manoeuvre and was grateful but said nothing, as well.
As she ironed Graham's shirts, Mrs. MacKellum poured out her love and longing into them. She yearned to hold them, press them to her face, and take in whatever of Graham's scent still clung to them.
She imagined them as the tiny underthings she'd once ironed in just this way. The great size of the man's shirts amazed her. The years had run as fast and had disappeared, as though in one instant, like the owner of the shirts had. And she feared that the owner of the shirts, just like the years, would never return.
Though Graham meant to leave his wife and not his mother, I can't help imagining that it was his mother, on that first day P.G., whose heart was the more broken by his act. After all, his wife believed her husband would return to her. His mother knew for a fact her little boy never would.
Mrs. MacKellum clenched her teeth against the shaking in her jaw. She mustn't give in. For Ruth's sake, she must stand firm.
* * *
That first night, the inevitable could be put off no longer. Ruth had to go to bed sometime. Feet of lead dragged her to the bedroom. She left the lights off and undressed with the door open to give her the little light she needed to find her nightclothes.
It was a strange impulse that prompted her to undress and crawl into bed in the darkness. After all, Graham was more often than not out at this time of night. The empty side of the bed was a familiar sight by now. But tonight, it was different. Tonight she felt the need for the optical illusion the darkness provided. If she couldn't see the blankness, she could imagine it wasn't there.
On another strange impulse, she got out of bed and crept to the kitchen in the dark. Even in the dark, she could find the flask of whiskey "for emergencies" that Graham kept in the unused ceramic cookie jar in the back corner of the cupboard above the refrigerator. She was fairly certain it would still be there and that there would be something left in it.
It was still there and only half used. And this was an emergency.
She poured herself a tumbler full. It should be mixed with something, she knew, but she couldn't be bothered. It might work faster neat.
She downed the entire glassful as quickly as she could. It took her at least fifteen minutes.
The first large swallow made her gag and nearly retch. She ran for the sink to lean over it just in case. An uncontrollable shudder started in her head and ran the entire length of her body after she'd managed to get her first effort down. What did people see in this?
She willed herself for the next sip. She had to take a smaller one this time. Taking a smaller sip didn't help much. Yet she was determined.
It only seemed to grow worse by the end. The last half could only be got down by plugging her nose, tipping her head back, and pouring in the fiery liquid as close to the back of her throat and as far away from her tongue as she could get it, and still it burned and made her shiver at the same time.
But Ruth would not allow herself to wash a drop of it down the sink. It took all her willpower to force down the last eighth of an inch at the bottom of the tumbler, but she did it.
She wasn't sure how much whiskey it would take to do the job. She knew that last little bit probably wouldn't matter much, but she hated not to finish a thing that she'd started.
And it did do the job. It took her half an hour of lying awake in the darkness to feel anything from the whiskey, but very quickly from that point on, lucidity disappeared, her head swam, and before long, all awareness had faded, and she was fast asleep.
* * *
She expected to feel wretched the next morning – physically wretched, I mean, but she surprised herself. She discovered that she may have had no immediate taste for it, but she had a good head for whiskey. At least for the morning after whiskey. She felt only very slightly nauseous (but that may have had more to do with the recalled taste of her first experience with hard liquor than anything) and had no headache at all.
The sleep had done her good. She could face getting up and going to work after that night of deep, unbroken sleep she'd had. She'd gone to work on no sleep before. She knew what that felt like, and she'd had no intention of straggling through Day Two P.G. on zero hours of sleep. She'd needed that whiskey.
She said nothing to Jim and Glo or the others at the Morning Glory about the events that had transpired. After all, Day Two P.G. might be the end of the era. There was a good chance Graham would be back today. How long could it take a person to realize the mistake he'd made, Ruth wondered. Maybe she'd better count on a week just to be on the safe side. But even for a week, nothing need be said. Maybe after it was all over it could be told. Not until then.
But by the end of Day Two P.G., Graham was still absent.
Ruth lay in bed that night, thinking about sleeping and about blessed oblivion and about the flask in the cookie jar that could provide blissful though brief respite from thought. She tossed and turned for an hour, resisting temptation. After two hours, she found her way to the kitchen in the dark.
She got up on a chair to take down the ceramic cookie jar. She pulled out the flask and removed its lid. Then she poured all its contents down the sink.
She knew of two more of Graham's hiding spots. She quickly found the bottles half-filled with whatever it was. It didn't matter what it was. Whatever it was also disappeared down the sink.
What she had to face wasn't going to be faced that way.
* * *
Common adversity cause
d Ruth and her mother-in-law to interact on a level of honesty they had never approached before.
One memorable conversation took place shortly after Ruth had unthinkingly been "rude" to a well-meaning cashier at the Co-op.
Ruth had always mildly disliked any form of shopping. Even grocery shopping was a task she avoided until absolutely necessary. Mom, on the other hand, loved shopping, so after they'd combined their households, Ruth was more than willing to turn over the chore to her. But Mom didn't drive, so when large items needed purchasing, either Ruth or Graham had no choice but to come along.
In the days P.G., even Mom found the marketing a sore trial. Every day of the week, the Co-op was filled with housewives on a social outing, looking for a good tongue-wag.
Ruth openly refused to set foot in the store. All things could be borne if they had to be, but some things didn't have to be. When Mom needed Ruth to drive her, Ruth waited in her car in the parking lot, reading a book while Mom did the shopping.
Mom never expressed her own dread of doing the marketing. She felt it was the least she could do for Ruth. Perhaps she felt that nothing she could do for Ruth would be enough to make up for what her son had done to Ruth. She did all kinds of things quietly and uncomplainingly in the days P.G. as a kind of vicarious penance on Graham's behalf.
But that day, Mom had no choice but to involve Ruth in the shopping. She'd overspent by fifty-eight cents she didn't have with her. Either she'd have to put something back (but everything on the list was necessary), or she'd have to enlist Ruth's help.
Leaving the groceries where they were at the check-out, she stepped just outside the door of the store and waved frantically at Ruth in the car. It took Ruth a moment or two to look up from her book. She came running when she saw Mom's signal.