Annabel - Kathleen Winter [79]
“I’d say he’s saving twenty-five dollars a week.” Treadway was a good judge of how much work a person did, and how much it was worth. “Let him save half. But let him contribute the other fifty dollars a month to the household.”
“You want me to charge him for the electricity he uses listening to his record player?”
“He can start helping pay his own expenses. His books and clothes. He can put a bit on the household bills after Christmas. It’s the principle. It won’t hurt him one little bit. I might stay out longer this spring. I might do the whole spring hunt up the river. Now he’s older he can give you more of a hand.”
When Wayne brought home the school bill for his new chemistry book, Jacinta gave him the money but said, “Your father wanted me to ask you to pay for part of it.”
“Pay for my books?”
“He said keep half your money and give me the other half for books and clothes and the household.”
All his life Wayne had deferred to Treadway’s pronouncements, and he did so now. As far as he knew, other boys’ fathers gave them more money as they grew older, not less. Brent Shiwack’s father bought him an Arctic Cat, and Mark Thevenet’s dad was ordering Mark his own Sea-Doo, which cost more than a car. Wayne did not expect Treadway to act like the other fathers, and he didn’t protest. There was a restrained economy under Treadway’s roof, part self-denial and part moral exercise, and Wayne had been trained into it. There were things he wanted, but a Sea-Doo was not one of them.
“Do you need more money, Mom? The co-op is always after me for more cod ears.”
“Your father just wants you to be self-sufficient. It’s his way of —”
“It’s okay, Mom. I can get more money. Roland Shiwack wants me to work more hours. He doesn’t like giving work to Brent. I could make eighty-five a week easy right now.”
“You don’t have to make that much. Your school work —”
“I’m fine, Mom. My school work is fine.”
Wayne did extra work for Roland and his feet began to peel again, as they had done the summer before grade seven. He told Roland, who said it was because of the shrimp.
“That’s why I can’t do it myself. That and the fact it takes too long and I have a million other things to do. There’s a substance in there that causes my hands to peel red raw. Funny it affects your feet. I guess it migrates. Can I have a look?”
Wayne shoved off his sneaker. The skin on his soles had broken into sheets and curled at the edges. He peeled off a sheet of skin.
“That’s it. That exact same thing, only on my hands.”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
“My hands sure hurt.”
“Well, my feet don’t. But I’m glad to know the cause.”
Wayne had always associated his peeling feet with the day Thomasina rushed him to hospital. He had thought it had something to do with his swelling abdomen. This time, he had been afraid the whole thing was starting again.
“It’s a relief to know what it is. That it’ll pass when I get the shrimp done.”
“If you want to stop, I’ll certainly understand. I can get you to shave the ends of that pile of fenceposts instead.”
Jacinta did not tell Wayne that Treadway might stay all spring in the interior. She forced herself to peel potatoes, boil them, then cut and fry them with egg and moose sausage, the way she would have done for the three of them as a family. But when the doctor visits died down and November came, when the clocks turned back and nights grew long, she stayed up later at night. Wayne had to get himself up in the mornings in time for school. At first Jacinta dragged herself out of bed and made a family breakfast. Then she made easier things: toast and jam or peanut butter, and milk; then she let Wayne get his own breakfast. She woke at ten, then eleven, then noon.
She ate store-bought jam, bread, and tea. A boiled egg once in a while. Treadway had cut three months’ worth