by Connie Cook
"I wouldn't object at all. I'd be very grateful," Ruth said happily. Strange to think about being happy to go to work at Turnbulls', but working somewhere out of the public eye sounded very good to her just then.
"Would you be able to start Monday, then?"
"Monday would be perfect."
Chapter 17
The Weaver family immigrated to Canada from Poland shortly before the start of the war.
Their name hadn't been Weaver, then, of course. It had been something that sounded, to Anglophone ears, like a cross between a sneeze and an expletive. One of Jozef Weaver's first acts in Canada was to learn the English word for their Polish name and change the name accordingly. And so the family became the Weavers.
Bohusz was the oldest of the young Weavers. He hadn't yet reached school-age when the family moved from Poland. The two girls that came after him were both born in Poland, but they were tiny when the family immigrated, and the other three children were all born in Canada.
Being bright children, the little Weavers, when they entered school, all took to learning English as naturally as ducklings take to water, but Jozef's wife, Rahel, had never had the opportunity or the need to learn a great deal of the unreasonable language. Only Polish was spoken in the home, and she had her children or her husband to speak for her when she wasn't at home.
Jozef was a thinking and resourceful man with excellent foresight (as evidenced by the prompt name change). Those characteristics were also evidenced by the Weaver family's timely departure from Poland. Before the rest of the world was sitting up and taking notice of Hitler and his plans for invading (at least, before those members of the rest of the world that had their heads in the sand), Jozef understood the encroaching danger.
Jozef was a well-educated man. In Poland, he'd been an architect. But his knowledge of English was only moderate when he first arrived in Canada, and after settling on Arrowhead as the family's new home, he'd been grateful just to find a job on the metaphorical bottom rung of the metaphorical ladder of A. A. Turnbull Enterprises, feeding the scrap lumber and chips into the "wigwam" chip burner. And that was as far up the metaphorical ladder as he got – though he was often much higher than the bottom rung of the literal ladder on the "wigwam." And that ladder was an unsafe one.
After his death, Rahel, having a poor command of English and five children (plus one more whose presence was, as then, unrealized), found herself helpless. She was reasonably young for a widow with six children. She'd been an attractive woman, and she still was. She resorted to the means of supporting herself and her six children that many a destitute woman before her had resorted to – though, being that she was living in Arrowhead, perhaps not as blatantly as many of those other destitute women.
Her means of support largely consisted of several series of "men friends" who looked after her and the children by seeing they had money for necessities. These "men friends" often overlapped in their tenures.
But blatant or not, it wasn't how women in Arrowhead behaved. At least, if they did, it wasn't for the sake of supporting themselves or their children. So Rahel Weaver had become persona non grata in Arrowhead society.
* * *
Ruth started her new job at A.A. Turnbull Enterprises with sweating palms and a knot in her insides.
Monday morning, walking into the outer office a little before nine, she tried to smile at Marcie as they hung their rain jackets on the coat rack together, but she received only a cool glance from icy blue, unsmiling eyes in return.
Gus came from the inner sanctum to greet her. His greeting seemed a little forced.
"Good, Ruth. Glad to have you on board at Turnbulls'. I'll leave you in Marcie's capable hands. She can take you around, show you the ropes, tell you the sort of work you'll be doing here. The end of the week is payday, so there'll be plenty for you to do right off the bat."
"Good," Ruth said. "I like to be kept busy."
"Well, we'll aim to please, then," Gus said, laughing heartily.
Marcie didn't bother to laugh. Ruth wondered if she could.
"First I'll show you all the offices and where we keep all the files and the employment records," Marcie said without preamble. "Oh, and here's the powder room. You'll need to know that, of course. The lunchroom is through that door. You should get Skip, the foreman, to show you around the yard one day. It's good to know all the different pieces of the operation. Comes in handy sometimes."
Ruth tagged along at Marcie's heels. She had to hustle to keep up. Marcie wasn't slowing down for any new kid on the block.
"How long have you worked here?" Ruth asked when there was a lull in Marcie's tour-guide patter. If they had to work together, it would be nice to get to know the girl a little. And she was curious.
"Almost two years," Marcie answered shortly.
"You must have started right out of college. If you're younger than me, that is," Ruth said.
"How old are you?" Marcie asked.
"Twenty-three."
"Well, I'm older than I look. I'm twenty-five. I worked for a firm in Camille before, but this is a better position. All I did at the firm was answer phones and book appointments and bill the customers. The work's more interesting here. And the pay's better."
Ruth was surprised that Marcie volunteered that much information. Maybe she was thawing.
* * *
By the end of the week, Ruth had decided that Marcie wasn't unfriendly so much as she was all-business and no-nonsense. It didn't bother Ruth to work with someone businesslike. She was there to work, too. It would've been nice if Marcie had owned a sense of humour, but as long as she wasn't downright unfriendly, Ruth decided they'd manage nicely.
And she saw very little of Gus Turnbull who dealt largely with Marcie. Ruth's instructions came mostly through Marcie, and that suited her very well. Gus seemed as uncomfortable with Ruth as she was with him. Her strongest instincts (and general opinion) told her he wasn't a man to be trusted. But if she seldom came into contact with him, maybe she had no reason to be nervous about this venture. So far, things seemed to be turning out fine.
One person she saw more of than she really wanted to was Mars Mitchum. Seeing he delivered his loads of logs to the mill regularly and always had to go to the office to do the paperwork for them, she saw more of him at Turnbulls' than she had at the Morning Glory.
In cowardly fashion, Ruth found excuses to vacate the office when she saw him coming, but it was to no avail. If she wasn't the one to deal with him directly, he stalled until he managed to see her one way or the other.
She was sure a moment of truth was coming, and after a month on her new job, it did come.
He caught her unguarded when she hadn't realized he was there and had no chance to hide. She was coming down the hallway unsuspectingly, just on her way to her noon break in the lunchroom.
"Oh hi, Ruth," Mars said, appearing from out of the washroom, smoothing down his hair.
She jumped. She'd been thinking her own thoughts, and they hadn't included Mars.
"Mars!" she said.
"Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you. You jumped about a foot, I think."
"No wonder. The way you popped out of the washroom, right in front of me."
"Sorry," he said again. Then he matched his steps to hers. "Just on your way to lunch?" he asked, nodding at her lunch pail.
"Yes," she said, resenting the invasiveness of his presence into her thoughts.
"I guess it is that time, isn't it?"
"It's my lunch time, anyways."
"Well, guess it could be my lunch time, too. Kinda nice working on my own schedule. I get to take my breaks whenever I feel like it."
"That would be nice," Ruth agreed. Nice for him, maybe. Not so nice for her at the moment. She couldn't think of any way to get rid of him, and she knew full well she was going to have an unwanted lunch companion.
"Is there any rule about employees only eating in the lunchroom?" Mars asked.
"Not that I've heard of," Ruth sai
d, her tone leaving some room for the possibility of such a rule existing.
"Mind if I join you, then? Nicer than eating alone."
"Okay," she said weakly. There didn't seem to be any other answer.
Neither one had much to say while they munched sandwiches and cookies and apples out of their lunch pails.
"Would you like some hot cocoa?" Mars asked, offering her his thermos.
"No thanks. Too sweet for me. I've got coffee here. Would you like some coffee?"
"No thanks. I like the sweet stuff. Sweeter the better." He looked at her with a gleam that she knew was meant to be flirtatious and her stomach turned.
Finally, as they finished their lunches, he came to the point.
"Look, Ruth. We could do this again sometime."
"I suppose. The next time you show up on my lunch break," she said, making a mental note to switch her break time with Marcie.
"Well, it doesn't have to be at work, does it?"
"What're you getting at, Mars?"
"I mean, we could go out sometime, if you like."
Ruth said quickly, "I'm still married, Mars."
"Oh yeah, officially. Obviously, it doesn't make much difference to your husband."
"It doesn't matter what he does. It's not going to change what I do. And I'm still a married woman. I'm not planning on going out with other fellows. At all."
"It could just be for a friendly dinner. Or even just a cup a coffee. I'm sure you must need someone to talk to sometimes. And I'd like someone to talk to occasionally, too."
Ruth's heart hurt for the loneliness in his last statement. But she wasn't about to let her soft heart turn her head soft and get her into a situation she knew she shouldn't be in and didn't want to be in.
"I do have people to talk to, Mars. I'm sorry if you don't. Don't you have friends you talk to?"
"Oh, sure, my old buddies. Fellows to laugh it up with. No one to talk to. Really talk to, I mean."
"Well, I'm sorry, Mars. But I just can't be that person for you. You understand, don't you?"
"Yeah, I understand. I understand you're putting your life on ice and hanging around, waiting on a guy who isn't coming back and who isn't fit for you to wipe your feet on. You've got to start living again, Ruth. Just accept the fact that he's gone and isn't coming back."
Mars had a way of changing her mood from sympathetic to furious in under five seconds flat.
"Mars, I'm sorry, but it's not really any of your business how I live my life. I can make those decisions for myself, thanks. Now, if you'll excuse me. I've got to get back to work."
She snapped her lunch pail closed and started walking without a backward glance.
Mars was right on her heels.
"Look, Ruth, don't be mad, 'kay? I know I always say the wrong thing, but it just gets under my skin to see the way he treated you and see you just taking it and coming back for more. Even now that he's gone, hanging on to a dead marriage. You know I only say what I say because I care, don't you?"
Ruth stopped in her tracks, her defences down.
"I know you're trying to be kind. I'm not mad. Or if I do get mad, I don't stay mad."
"Well, will you think about it then? Will you think about maybe getting together sometime? Just for coffee? Just to talk?"
Ruth hesitated. It would be so much easier to tell him yes, she'd think about it, and then avoid him later. But she tried not to say things she didn't mean. Besides, in the long run, it was always simpler to be honest.
"I can't, Mars. I just can't. I'm sorry. There's no point starting something that would be leading nowhere."
Mars didn't say good-bye. He turned and found the nearest exit.
She was hoping to avoid Mars from then on when he brought in his loads of wood, but she didn't need to. He avoided her. When they couldn't avoid each other, it was strictly business. Nothing was said between them that didn't involve the buying and selling of trees.
* * *
Other than the unpleasantness with Mars, working at A.A. Turnbull Enterprises was turning out much better than Ruth had dared to hope when she'd started. She saw very little of her boss, the rest of the workers seemed to like her well enough to get by with, and the work was congenial to her.
It wasn't challenging. It was largely filing and stuffing envelopes as Gus had warned her. But it was straightforward and orderly, and when she went home after a day's work, she had the satisfaction of knowing she was doing all that was asked of her.
Her mother-in-law said no more about leaving to go and live with Pat and Earl. She seemed content to stay where she was, and life settled into a routine.
The very regularity of her days caused Ruth unease, however. She was saddened to realize that she'd become suspicious of respite. Calm left her wondering when the storm would break.
And, it was true, she wasn't finished riding out storms.
However, when the next storm clouds showed themselves on the face of her horizon, no larger than the size of a man's hand, she didn't recognize them for what they were.
* * *
"Walters, Watson, Weaver," Ruth muttered to herself, reading the names on the file folders in the drawer of the metal cabinet. "Webster. There we go." In a hurry, she snatched the "Webster" file out of the drawer. She failed to notice that it snagged the file immediately in front of it until the contents of the "Weaver" file spilled on the floor.
She gathered up the loose papers and hastily replaced them in their folder and back in the filing cabinet.
She didn't remember the small incident (how large some small incidents can become in retrospect!) when she entered the records' room the next morning. She didn't remember the incident when she saw the sheet of paper on the floor mostly hidden by the desk.
She didn't remember the incident when she frowned at the sheet of paper and picked it up. She didn't remember the incident as she examined the paper for some clue as to its identity and proper home.
She didn't remember the incident until her eyes caught the name "Rahel Weaver" on the page.
She skimmed through a great deal of legal jargon, trying to make sense of it in order to know what she was looking at and where it came from.
But when she noticed the name "Rahel Weaver" repeated and saw the signature of that person, she remembered yesterday's small incident of the spilled file and realized that the paper must have come from the Weaver file that she'd accidentally emptied out onto the floor yesterday.
It had never occurred to her to be curious about the Weaver file in the mill's records before. She'd known in a vague sort of way that Joe Weaver had, at one time, worked for Turnbulls'. She'd even remembered that Joe had met his end through some kind of accident at the mill, but she'd given the file no thought at all beyond those vague rememberings.
She replaced the stray sheet of paper in the Weaver file without any plans of giving it another thought, but it stayed in her mind unplanned, though barely recognized at first as taking up any space in her thoughts.
She'd deciphered enough of the cryptic legal message to realize that she had been looking at some sort of financial settlement between the mill and Rahel Weaver, and the figure following the dollar signs had caught her attention as being a large sum.
She'd also noticed another of the signatures at the end of the document besides those of Mrs. Weaver's and Angus Turnbull's. Her brain only half-consciously registered the clearly legible "Manuel Seneca," but it was an unusual name, and Ruth's brain half-consciously registered it as such. It also half-consciously registered that the unusually-named Manuel Seneca had represented Rahel Weaver.
Several times that day, her brain also half-consciously registered the question, "If she got all that money, then why did she ...? I mean, why did the Weavers live like they were so poor if they got all that money from the mill?"
But the question only half-consciously registered and by the next day, even it's half-consciousness had been tucked away out of sight.
Chapter 18
Ruth spent what time she could in the garden in that early summer. When she came home from her work at the mill, the longer summer evenings allowed her an hour or two after supper to get her hands (and her feet) dirty. It was a nice change from the pumps she wore to the office every day to feel the rich, brown, loamy soil beneath her bare feet.
Graham's leaving had produced two, nearly-immediate benefits. They didn't reconcile Ruth to his absence. Nothing could do that, she was sure, but being able to live on the farm again and the new comradeship in trouble she'd found with her mother-in-law did help to pour balm on her aching wounds.
There was a third benefit – the main one. But it was a benefit she didn't understand fully at that time. There was another comradeship, one that crept over her slowly, unrealized at first. It was that comradeship that did the most to pour oil on her wounds. That comradeship is more infinitely precious than any other and worth the aching wounds. But while the wounds ache, it's very nearly impossible to see that infinitely precious comradeship for what it is, and the natural tendency is to turn on that comradeship as the cause of the aches and the wounds instead of their healer.
But one way or the other, it was good for her to be back on the farm, and Ruth found the capacity for pleasure returning to her as she pulled weeds and staked tomatoes and otherwise nurtured green, growing things in their large vegetable garden.
Mom didn't find the same pleasure Ruth did in growing vegetables though she tried to do her share in the garden.
They worked together, Mom with a hoe and Ruth pulling weeds by hand, in companionable silence one evening after supper – until, for no apparent reason, a question found its way out of Ruth's mouth before it had time to register at any level above half-consciousness.
"Do you know a Manuel Seneca?" she broke their respective reveries to ask her mother-in-law, surprising even herself.
"Manuel Seneca. Manuel Seneca. It sounds familiar. Oh, right! Manny Seneca. He was a young hot-shot lawyer or thought he was. Set up shop in Arrowhead for a little while. Why do you ask?"