South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [69]
The problem was that Richard came from such a comfortable background that he could afford to buy a house in Evanston, and an expensive ring, and plan a wedding that involved fancy invitations, and talk easily about paying her tuition to art school, even though he had just started teaching. Because he came from money, he could do these things. And because she didn’t, it had begun to seem to her like a wedge between them that would only expand with time.
“Oh no,” he would say sympathetically as she Unrolled her sad story on the phone, because he did have a kind heart. Or maybe it was because he had such a good imagination. He could imagine how hard times made people feel. He could imagine, but he couldn’t really know. “Oh, Maddie. That sucks. See, I told you not to go Up there.”
“I know,” Madeline would have to answer. He would think this proved he’d been right, but the thing was, it didn’t. The longer she was here, the more she knew she’d had to come, no matter how bad things were. If she hadn’t, she’d never have known Walter. Never have seen Stone Lake (and never mind how badly that day turned out, it wasn’t the lake’s fault). Never would have fallen in love with the Hotel Leppinen (the clandestine visits to which she had become addicted). Never have tried to paint Lake Superior. Maybe never really tried to paint again at all, because Unbeknownst to anyone she’d never sent in the application for art school Richard had brought home for her.
She never would’ve met Mary or Emil or Greyson or Paul. Never known Arbutus or Gladys. Cranky, distant, steadfast Gladys who was sitting in the kitchen right now, staring at the paper but not reading it, holding Marley on her lap, looking about twenty years older and fathoms sadder than she had a couple of months ago. Something that was mostly Madeline’s fault. If only she hadn’t left Arbutus alone for so long that day.
“Do you have a bank account there, you want me to wire it to you, what?” Richard would probably ask.
“You’ll really do this?”
“You need the help, don’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“So I’ll do it.”
“But this doesn’t mean I want to get back together, and I feel lousy for that. I know I shouldn’t even ask.”
There might be a long silence. Then he would say, “Give it a chance. I still think you’re—”
“Going through a phase,” Madeline would finish for him.
“I don’t mean that to sound derogatory. I just think you’re doing something you have to do, but that it’s not a permanent part of you. When you’re done, you’ll come back home. This is your home, Madeline.”
“I don’t want you to count on that. You have to know that if you’re going to lend me money.”
“I know that,” he would say. But he wouldn’t really believe it. And he might wear her down, because he was a decent person, and it would be so much easier to just give Up and go back and step into the tidy, pleasant life he held out like a carrot rather than see things through here.
In the end, Madeline never picked Up the receiver.
Gladys watched Madeline sit before the phone and she wondered what she was thinking, who she was considering calling. Maybe there was no one, no one at all. Gladys hated to think of that. Hated to think how close she was to having no one too. If Arbutus was gone—oh, Gladys had friends, good friends, people she’d lived amongst her whole life. But she didn’t have children. Had no one to leave her meager possessions to, no one to give her memories to, and no one really to turn to if she was in trouble, no one younger and stronger who could really do something for her.
Gladys didn’t blame Madeline for being angry with her for not telling her about Walter sooner. And she didn’t blame her for Arbutus’s accident, either. She was just as much at fault as Madeline, had been gone just as long. And if Arbutus had shown a little sense for once and not stood on tiptoe to stow away a platter, none of this would have happened.
Except for the accident with Paul Garceau’s truck, of course. That was bad, and Gladys wished she could help,