The Western Light by Susan Swan Read Free Book Online Page A

Petrolia.
    After the mansion was finished, he called it The Great House and brought his father to live with old Louie and himself.
    In my composition, I had been trying to describe the extraordinary details of old Mac’s early life. Little Louie was encouraging me — or pretending to, that is. I couldn’t help thinking my aunt wished she were back writing newspaper stories instead of researching our family history. She considered Big Louie’s enthusiasm for our past “a bourgeois embarrassment,” and she was fond of reminding my grandmother that Leon Trotsky said North American workers would rise up one day, and families like the Vidals, who considered themselves members of the educated upper class, would become social democrats like my aunt and her friends.
    THE MORNING AFTER JOHN PILKIE came for tea, I overheard my aunt and grandmother arguing in the guest bedroom. I crept across the hall and peeked through the crack between the wall and the door. My aunt was in bed in her pyjamas, peering at a letter through a small magnifying glass. Newspaper pages lay scattered on the floor along with three apple cores, an empty box of Tampax, and a half-full package of Sweet Caps.
    â€œLook at this mess, Little Louie. When will you grow up?” Big Louie picked up the apple cores and dumped them into a wastebasket, and then she started in on the newspapers. I waited for her to pick up the empty box of Tampax, but my grandmother ignored it, maybe because it shocked her. Sal hid her boxes of sanitary napkins in the towel cupboard and she would have died of shame if anyone found them.
    â€œMom, take it easy. I have to help Mouse with Old Mac’s letters, remember?” Little Louie waved her cigarette at the bundle of papers on the bed. My grandmother said in a softer tone: “Well, I’m glad to hear that, Louisa. It’s time you stopped thinking about yourself. Mary needs you.”
    â€œMom, Mary seems pretty grown-up to me.”
    â€œNonsense. She’s under the influence of that woman.”
    â€œYou mean the next Mrs. Morley Bradford?
    â€œHe’ll never marry Sal. She’s his ex-nurse,” my grandmother said.
    â€œI wouldn’t be so sure. You didn’t send me up here to look after Mary and you know it. You want to keep me from seeing Max. Mom, that girl tricked him. She told him she was pregnant when she wasn’t.”
    â€œWell, she’s married to him now, isn’t she, Louisa?”
    â€œIt’s not Max’s fault. She lied to him.”
    â€œDearie, we’ve been over this a hundred times and I’m as sorry as you are about the situation. But you’ll have to move on. You need somebody solid, who can give you a comfortable life.”
    â€œI don’t want somebody like that. They’re boring,” Little Louie shouted.
    â€œLower your voice, dear. Little pitchers have big ears.” Big Louie started for the door. “I have to go now and see about lunch.” I flattened myself against the wall. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her saunter down the hall, her silk kimono floating behind her like a kite tail. When the coast was clear, I stared again through the crack in the door; this time, a faint, flowery smell tickled my nose. “I thought I heard you outside,” Little Louie whispered on the other side. “Look, don’t pay any attention to what Mom and I said. It was just girl talk. Do you want to read old Mac’s letters?”
    â€œYes,” I whispered back. There was no point explaining that Morley was too busy for a romance with Sal. Or asking my aunt about Max Falkowski and his shotgun wedding. I’d heard Sal call a girlfriend’s baby “premature” when it was born seven months after the wedding ceremony, but what Little Louie said about Max’s wife was something new: women pretending to be pregnant so men would marry them. It was unspeakable business, so for once, I