The day the falls stood still by Cathy Marie Buchanan

Author:Cathy Marie Buchanan [Cathy Marie Buchanan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Roman
ISBN: 9780091925956
Published: 2010-09-15T07:00:00+00:00

Father arrives home from Buffalo well after sunset and, without removing his frock coat, takes the stairs two at a time. “Come on up, Bess. I have news.”

“Well?” Mother says, as he crosses the threshold of their room.

“Everything’s set. The first of November I start as head foreman, and Mr. McMicking let it slip that the missus has been at him to step back from running the place and his son isn’t any more interested in leather than in widgets. You ought to see it. He’s expanded into the buildings on either side, and he’s got an order backlog that’s long enough to see him through to the spring.”

“I knew he’d still have a soft spot for you.” She takes his hand, and the smile I have not seen in weeks comes to her face.

He sits down on the edge of their bed. “It isn’t aluminum.”

“It’s enough,” she says. “In the morning, you can telephone Mr. Brimley and ask him to come out and let you know what Glenview is worth.” And I wonder if Mother is so suddenly well that she will have Glenview gleaming by the time Mr. Brimley arrives.

Father speaks to her and she to him, without glancing in my direction. Why had he even bothered to call me upstairs? In their minds I am still a child, relegated to the sidelines, content to observe while my lot is cast. And so when I speak, their faces do not change. “I have a job here,” I say, “and a beau. A fiancé, actually. And I’ll board here, in Niagara Falls, maybe with Mrs. Andrews, until I’m eighteen, and then I’m marrying Tom Cole.”

“What?” Father says.

“That fishmonger?” Mother says.

“Fergus Cole’s grandson? He’s a bartender at the Windsor, for God’s sake,” Father says.

They wear shock and distaste on their faces, and I see there will be coldness toward both Tom and me, but there will be no lasting rift. I am their only child, their last hope. And Tom and I are a package now. My job is to make sure they see it that way. “He’s the most honorable man I’ve ever met.”

“You’re being rash,” Mother says.

“You married Father when you were eighteen,” I say, “and I won’t need consent.” Now the upturned corners of her lips drop and her mouth forms a straight line. Very likely she is remembering her own resolve at eighteen, a resolve that was no doubt formidable. Almost certainly, she knows there is nothing that can be done, that I will marry Tom.

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