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Authors: Alice Munro
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come, and the man and his son had unloaded all the furniture and carried it into the main room of the hotel.
The next day she took a good look around. She was making up her mind.
The day after that she judged Ken Boudreau to be able to sit up and listen to her, and she said, “This place is a sinkhole for money. The town is on its last legs. What should be done is to take out everything that can bring in any cash and sell it. I don’t mean the furniture that was shipped in, I mean things like the pool table and the kitchen range. Then we ought to sell the building to somebody who’ll strip the tin off it for junk. There’s always a bit to be made off stuff you’d never think had any value. Then—What was it you had in mind to do before you got hold of the hotel?”
He said that he had had some idea of going to British Columbia, to Salmon Arm, where he had a friend who had told him one time he could have a job managing orchards. But he couldn’t go because the car needed new tires and work done on it before he could undertake a long trip, and he was spending all he had just to live. Then the hotel had fallen into his lap.
“Like a ton of bricks,” she said. “Tires and fixing the car would be a better investment than sinking anything into this place. It would be a good idea to get out there before the snow comes. And ship the furniture by rail again, to make use of it when we get there. We have got all we need to furnish a home.”
“It’s maybe not all that firm of an offer.”
She said, “I know. But it’ll be all right.”
He understood that she did know, and that it was, it would be, all right. You could say that a case like his was right up her alley.
Not that he wouldn’t be grateful. He’d got to a point where gratitude wasn’t a burden, where it was natural—especially when it wasn’t demanded.
Thoughts of regeneration were starting. This is the change I need. He had said that before, but surely there was one time when it would be true. The mild winters, the smell of the evergreen forests and the ripe apples. All we need to make a home.
He has his pride, she thought. That would have to be taken account of. It might be better never to mention the letters in which he had laid himself open to her. Before she came away, she had destroyed them. In fact she had destroyed each one as soon as she’d read it over well enough to know it by heart, and that didn’t take long. One thing she surely didn’t want was for them ever to fall into the hands of young Sabitha and her shifty friend. Especially the part in the last letter, about her nightgown, and being in bed. It wasn’t that such things wouldn’t go on, but it might be thought vulgar or sappy or asking for ridicule, to put them on paper.
She doubted they’d see much of Sabitha. But she would never thwart him, if that was what he wanted.
This wasn’t really a new experience, this brisk sense of expansion and responsibility. She’d felt something the same for Mrs. Willets—another fine-looking, flighty person in need of care and management. Ken Boudreau had turned out to be a bit more that way than she was prepared for, and there were the differences you had to expect with a man, but surely there was nothing in him that she couldn’t handle.
After Mrs. Willets her heart had been dry, and she had considered it might always be so. And now such a warm commotion, such busy love.
Mr. McCauley died about two years after Johanna’s departure. His funeral was the last one held in the Anglican church. There was a good turnout for it. Sabitha—who came with her mother’s cousin, the Toronto woman—was now self-contained and pretty and remarkably, unexpectedly slim. She wore a sophisticated black hat and did not speak to anybody unless they spoke to her first. Even then, she did not seem to remember them.
The death notice in the paper said that Mr. McCauley was survived by his granddaughter Sabitha Boudreau and his son-inlaw Ken Boudreau,
The next day she took a good look around. She was making up her mind.
The day after that she judged Ken Boudreau to be able to sit up and listen to her, and she said, “This place is a sinkhole for money. The town is on its last legs. What should be done is to take out everything that can bring in any cash and sell it. I don’t mean the furniture that was shipped in, I mean things like the pool table and the kitchen range. Then we ought to sell the building to somebody who’ll strip the tin off it for junk. There’s always a bit to be made off stuff you’d never think had any value. Then—What was it you had in mind to do before you got hold of the hotel?”
He said that he had had some idea of going to British Columbia, to Salmon Arm, where he had a friend who had told him one time he could have a job managing orchards. But he couldn’t go because the car needed new tires and work done on it before he could undertake a long trip, and he was spending all he had just to live. Then the hotel had fallen into his lap.
“Like a ton of bricks,” she said. “Tires and fixing the car would be a better investment than sinking anything into this place. It would be a good idea to get out there before the snow comes. And ship the furniture by rail again, to make use of it when we get there. We have got all we need to furnish a home.”
“It’s maybe not all that firm of an offer.”
She said, “I know. But it’ll be all right.”
He understood that she did know, and that it was, it would be, all right. You could say that a case like his was right up her alley.
Not that he wouldn’t be grateful. He’d got to a point where gratitude wasn’t a burden, where it was natural—especially when it wasn’t demanded.
Thoughts of regeneration were starting. This is the change I need. He had said that before, but surely there was one time when it would be true. The mild winters, the smell of the evergreen forests and the ripe apples. All we need to make a home.
He has his pride, she thought. That would have to be taken account of. It might be better never to mention the letters in which he had laid himself open to her. Before she came away, she had destroyed them. In fact she had destroyed each one as soon as she’d read it over well enough to know it by heart, and that didn’t take long. One thing she surely didn’t want was for them ever to fall into the hands of young Sabitha and her shifty friend. Especially the part in the last letter, about her nightgown, and being in bed. It wasn’t that such things wouldn’t go on, but it might be thought vulgar or sappy or asking for ridicule, to put them on paper.
She doubted they’d see much of Sabitha. But she would never thwart him, if that was what he wanted.
This wasn’t really a new experience, this brisk sense of expansion and responsibility. She’d felt something the same for Mrs. Willets—another fine-looking, flighty person in need of care and management. Ken Boudreau had turned out to be a bit more that way than she was prepared for, and there were the differences you had to expect with a man, but surely there was nothing in him that she couldn’t handle.
After Mrs. Willets her heart had been dry, and she had considered it might always be so. And now such a warm commotion, such busy love.
Mr. McCauley died about two years after Johanna’s departure. His funeral was the last one held in the Anglican church. There was a good turnout for it. Sabitha—who came with her mother’s cousin, the Toronto woman—was now self-contained and pretty and remarkably, unexpectedly slim. She wore a sophisticated black hat and did not speak to anybody unless they spoke to her first. Even then, she did not seem to remember them.
The death notice in the paper said that Mr. McCauley was survived by his granddaughter Sabitha Boudreau and his son-inlaw Ken Boudreau,
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