The Second Part of Chapter 2: They Find Out

Margaret had just finished a busy day at the publishing house where she had worked for a while; it had been her career during the time when people of her generation were considering early retirement; she had never planned for retirement, and simply planned to quit when she felt tired, and her children, Jacob, Mary and Clarissa were happy enough with the arrangement. This particular day was tiring, given that she had to read two manuscripts, both of which were moderately good; she simply had to make a decision as to which one to publish; when she arrived home, she preferred to leave work troubles at work, and in the attempt to do so, started on dinner. She had just retrieved some carrots from the fridge when the phone rang; she picked it up.

“Hello?”

Margaret could hear Clarissa’s voice. “Hi mom, guess what? I finally found a boyfriend!”

“That’s wonderful dear,” replied Margaret. Clarissa was the last in a family with three children to find a boyfriend, and was the latest in life to do so; Clarissa was in her thirties, while her brother and sister had both married in their twenties. Perhaps it had something to do with her being the youngest child, or that she was living far from home, while the other two were no more than an hour’s drive away.

“What’s he like?”

“Well, he’s an economist, like me, and he’s with an economic consulting firm; they do business with quite a lot of clients,”

“So, you met through work? That sounds very nice,” said Margaret, assuming that was the case. “Am I ever going to meet him?”

“I don’t know; both of us are always very busy,” she replied.

I hope this ends in marriage, thought Margaret.

“What was that? I heard you mumbling,”

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking to myself of what to plant in the garden this year, as Hyram already has some bulbs on the go in the basement, and there’s just the question of what seeds to put in the ground. Let’s see, there’re lettuces, some legumes, squash, carrots, and all sorts of other things. Have you got anything growing?”

“No; north-facing apartments aren’t all that good for growing plants.”

“That’s too bad. What about your boyfriend?”

“Oh yes, he has a nice three-storey house downtown, and there’s a small garden. It’s the winter, though, so I have yet to see it in bloom.”

“I’m quite looking forward to spring; the snow has almost melted here, and I can see buds on all the trees.” There was something not so appealing about the advent of spring: in the light of the evening, she could see that the mild weather had laid the earth bare in all its inglorious detail and the deposits of winter were there for all to see, without the concealing mantle that afforded everyone the illusion of a neat front yard. She could see several deposits made by neighbours’ dogs on their own front yard, which in contrast to its lush summer colouring, was an unsightly shade of ochre in some places, yellow in others, and interspersed with patchy brown. This ugliness heralded the start of lawn work season, which she relished because she could sit back, relax, and watch Hyram do the work.

“That hasn’t happened yet where I live,” said Clarissa. Well, it’s been nice talking to you. Oh, and one thing I meant to tell you is that, um, for Easter, could you pick me up at Finch? I can take the subway from Union Station; you don’t have to drive me from there,”

“Very well, Clarie. I look forward to seeing you again.”

Margaret hung up the phone. She was happy for Clarissa, and for herself; perhaps she would get lucky, eventually, and have a second grandchild. On the other hand, her boyfriend would not be over to visit for Easter.

“It was Clarissa,” she told Hyram in response to his inquiring look. “She has a boyfriend.”

“Is it serious?”

“I don’t think so; she’s not bringing him here to meet us, she told me that. They seem to have separate plans for Easter.”

“It’s very nice to hear that Clarie’s trying to find someone to marry and hopefully grow old with,”

“At least trying is something; for a while I thought she was going to do without, or maybe she was a lesbian.”

“I, on the other hand, never thought that. It seems like they’re attracted to each other’s inner qualities, or that’s Clarissa’s side of the story, anyways. That’s what happens when you meet someone through work.” That had not been the case for Margaret and Hyram; their marriage had been an elaborate machination between their respective parents, composed of many rendezvous, seemingly spontaneous but in reality carefully arranged encounters, and dates; The parents had wanted to grow closer and chose their children as a surrogate vehicle for this to happen. It was quite propitious that they had found in each other a kindred spirit, which resulted in a happy marriage and three children.

“If she’s not really planning on having us meet the man, then perhaps she’s using him as practice. I don’t think we have anything to get all excited about.”

Hyram said, “I thought ‘practice’ would have been reserved for a really good-looking man who didn’t necessarily have to meet any other qualifications.”

“Where did you get that idea from? That wasn’t the case with us,” replied Margaret.

“Well, you know, it’s what Jacob and Mary did. Remember Mary’s first boyfriend Allan and Jacob’s sweetheart, Elena? He looked like a dancer, or an athlete and she looked vaguely like someone I saw on the cover of some glossy magazine,”

“You still want them after all these years? Alice and Andrew are perfectly good spouses, and it’s too bad Allan and Elena were lacking in other areas,” said Margaret, referring to their intelligence, or lack thereof. As high school sweethearts, they were the best for that time: good-looking, without much underneath. Alice was married to their only son and Andrew was married to their eldest daughter, Mary.

“Oh no, don’t get me wrong; I was just commenting on the manoeuvrings of it all. Anyways, I forgot to ask you at dinner, how was work?”

Hyram’s reply sounded bored, and she had heard it many times before, in that age-old marital progression towards some happy boredom: “Same old, same old: it was slow today; it always seems to be that way this time of year.” The work they were referring to was his work with the Ministry of Transportation, where he was a bridge safety inspector; this was a substantial career change from his more youthful purchasing and sales jobs that he had with various companies. On the one hand, stability with the Ministry was nice, but on the other hand, it was boring and unlike sales or purchasing jobs. This was one of the hazards of having been married for so long, and Hyram thought that perhaps they were due for a vacation to an exotic part of the world. By exotic, he meant that he wanted to go somewhere completely unlike Canada; it would be exciting, unlike Canada, or an old city, unlike Toronto. So, he said to his wife, “How about a trip somewhere. We have the money, so why not?”

At his suggestion of travel, Margaret said, “Did you have any particular place in mind?” Her work was getting stressful, and she felt that she needed a break; she sat on the board of Twaddle and Twankfors, her publishing house where she had worked many years, and they had spent a mind-numbing meeting that day debating a change to the company logo, which was T&T over a silhouette of what was supposed to be a cupola representing the tower of a stately building somewhere, but everyone who saw the logo said it looked like something else altogether, which led them to wonder, “What do you guys publish anyways, erotica?” It was for this reason that she had suggested a bell tower. She had worked at the publishing house since the mid 1980s, and thus her career path was much more stable than that of her husband. This was her second career after an earlier life working in retail and writing fiction.

Hyram suggested a place where he had never travelled: “How about Russia?”

“That sounds nice; do you mean this summer?”

“Sure,”

The two carried on the conversation into the night, turning from their family to friends, politics, science, the garden, until they tired and went to bed.

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