Patterns of Swallows Read Online Free PDF Page A

say the words.
She didn't want to find her father particularly; she certainly
didn't want to have to live with him, but she thought that might be
how it would have to be. She would have no control over her future
after Mother died – she knew that – and the words once
spoken to her mother might end up being a lie.
    Ruth explained it to the nurse,
and the nurse said, "Of course, but it doesn't matter. Just say
the words, anyways. It's just words."
    Ruth
was shocked. "But it's a promise ,"
she told the nurse, as if the nurse hadn't grasped that fact and when
she did, she'd understand.
    "It's not a real promise,"
the nurse cajoled. "It would make her easier in her mind. It
would make her passing easier."
    But it was a promise Ruth never
did make. She'd seen enough of what bitterness could do to a person,
and she didn't want any part of it.
    "It would make her passing
easier," the nurse had said, but Ruth knew it wasn't true.
Bitterness hadn't made her mother's living easier. Why would it make
her dying easier?
    Ruth had another, a private
reason, she wouldn't make the promise to her mother. She had no room
left in her for unforgiveness, even towards her father.
    When a person has died to save
your life, you can never quite be the same again. Especially when
your last words to him were ugly ones. You don't get over a thing
like that in a hurry.
    No, Ruth wanted no part ever
again of vendettas. Not even of participating in her mother's.
    The townspeople speculated
whether Mr. Chavinski would come back now that "that woman"
wasn't there to come back to. But he never did. Some chapters are
written and read and closed for good.
    Ruth never wasted time
speculating on the question. She knew, somehow, that he wouldn't.
Her swallow-like doggedness hadn't been inherited from her father.
She knew he felt no need to rebuild in the place he'd once called
home.
    Mrs. Starke had taken Ruth into
their home for the weeks after her Mother's death while it was being
decided what to do with her, but there was no question of her staying
permanently. The Starkes had five girls of their own. They didn't
need another. They couldn't feed another, Mrs. Starke confided to
anyone who would listen. The child welfare authorities were called
in to handle things.
    The first avenue taken was the
attempt to locate the father. Ruth had never made the promise to her
mother, but in the end, it wouldn't have mattered if she had.
    It had been years since they'd
received any money from him. When inquiries were made at the last
address the money had come from, the only information that could be
found was that he had moved on and left no forwarding address.
Announcements on national radio, advising Rudolf Chavinski to contact
the R.C.M.P. for an important personal message, turned up nothing.
Perhaps he didn't listen to radio. Perhaps he just couldn't be
bothered with important personal messages relating to a life he
didn't want anymore. The Mounties knew nothing of his whereabouts
and never were able to trace him. For all intents and purposes, Rudy
Chavinski had vanished off the face of the earth. At least, vanished
from the face of Ruth's life, never to re-enter it. Perhaps he died
soon after the payments stopped coming to her mother. No one in
Arrowhead ever knew the answer.
    Ruth couldn't feel any sorrow
about it at twelve. What would she have done if she'd had to live
with a father she didn't know who didn't want her?
    Her father had one brother left
alive, but he was a bachelor, living in a mining camp way up north.
The child welfare people didn't bother to ask him if he wanted Ruth.
    Ruth's mother had one sister in
Saskatchewan. She didn't come for the funeral. When she was
contacted about Ruth, she replied in no uncertain terms that the girl
was no blood relation of hers and she was under no obligation to take
her. It was the aunt (or the non-aunt, as she made it clear she was)
who revealed the story of how Ruth had come to be. She passed the
information