The Skating Party

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Why hadn’t he saved Eunice first?be too much for it.”was already breaking, and the extra weight of the first one was bound to“There was no way on earth he could save both girls,” she said. “The iceearnest, for she too believed in identifying heroes and villains.times comes,’ he said.And then, making a joke of it,”See that you remember that when yourchoose:’“No,” he said when I asked him. “Not ‘still’ and not ‘pick out a girl.’ Aperson doesn’t have that much say in the matter.You can’t love where yoube beyond all thought of romance or adventure. I remember feeling thather if he set his mind to it.It seemed to me that Uncle Nathan could still pick out a girl and marryway about women, but I never thought of men that way whatever their ages.thought of anybody over the age of twenty-five as being so decrepit as tomarry? Some people remember their childhoods as a time when theyIs it surprising that I continued to wonder why Uncle Nathan didn’tburied Eunice in the spring, she didn’t come back.“It must have been a short convenation,’ my mother said practically.She didn’t mention Eunice or the accident or even Willow Bunch.Years later, someone from Willow Bunch had seen her in Edmonton.Bunch right after the accident. She didn’t wait until her husband sold out;Lathem’s sister, whose name was Delia Sykes, moved away from Willowshe went straight to Edmonton and waited for him there. Even when theymake up stories about her. But I no longer skated on the lake alone. Euniceas a person who had always been dead. Now she seemed real to me, almostwe attended services every second Sunday. If I’d thought ofher at all, it waslike a relative. She was a girl who had loved and been loved. I began toI’d seen Eunice Lathem’s name on a grave in the yard at St. Chad’s, where“It means that nobody knows,” my mother said.“What does that mean?” I asked.way,” my father said.“Your grandmother used to say that the Lord moves in a mysteriousit good for? And why had the moon been behind a cloud anyway?expected love to be able to call out to love. If it couldn’t do that, what wasIt troubled me that he hadn’t had some way of knowing. I would have“I told you,” my mother said.”He couldn’t see their faces.”“Your Uncle Nathan risked his life,” my mother said. Her voièe was“It was an awful thing tohhappen on our place’ my father said.The Skath,g Ps,sy 11
12 Within R..ehbeing beautiful. But since Delia Sykes was married, I don’t suppose I gaveEunice Lathem. I’d never wondered about her sister, and perhaps neverthat I )elia Sykes hat) died.much choice about who to talk to.Uncle Nathan and I left the barn and walked out to the road to pick upbelonged to the Eastern Star or the Rebekahs.tostory of bow lie bad met I )elia Sykes and before her, her husband.make enough money to live on until his lariat got goimg. But he wasIt was the spring I was fifteen. My parents were away for the weekend,It was a morning for bad news.The frost was coining out of the ground,It was late July amid late afternoon. Uncle Nathan was teaching school.alone on the fartim and so, if he wanted to talk about I )elia Sykes, he hadn’tAs I grew older I spent less time wondermg about the girl who’d beetiher looks a thought one way or the other.thought when I Ilmet her that she was single; that was the joke of it.”“Only I tlidii’t realize that he was her husband,” Uncle Nathan said. ‘1He sat in sihente for a while, and then, bit by bat, he began to tell me the*Uncle N.uhaim looked at the picture too. “Delia always was a beauty,”be saddened to learn of the death in I )uncan, B.C. of Mrs. I )dia Sykes, aaged WOH).1I) who had gone main the hairdresser’s to the photographer’s.he said.the mail.The news of Delia’s death was in the local paper. “Old—timers vihlcase one of the ewes died in lambmg or had 1)0 milk.were saving the dead lamb, so we could use its skin to dress another lamb ineyes. She was wearing a white dress. She looked as if she might havematter what .muvbody said, she was a grand girl”Her cheeks were a.S firm and round as two peach halves, and she had snappywas mourning her lost lamb. We had pt,r her in a pen by herself and weSetting the very ditches and wheel—ruts to weeping. Out in the barn, a ewebelieve. So I )eha s gone. he said. She was a grand girl, Delia Sykes. No“She may have been,” my mother said. “I remember Eunice Lathem aswould have if I hadn’t happened to be with Uncle Nathan the day he beardI felt cheated. Was the laughing otie’ also prettier?ness. lishe hadn’t been Eunice Latheni. I would have said she was sulking.laugh. Eunice was pretty too but there was a stilliiess about her, almost a sternone who wasn’t Eunice was laughing: she looked like a girl who loved toattending a silver wedding in Rochfort Bridge. Uncle Nathan and I wereformer resident of this district,” the paper said.Uncle Njtlm.m shook his head slowly, as if be found the news hard toThere was .t picture of Mrs. Sykes with the death notice. I saw a middle—4, . ‘ ‘ITwo girls and a pony stood looking at the camera. Both girk were prettyTheOne day my mother showed me a picture of Eunice Lathem and her sister.
Page 4 and 5: “I’ve always been sorry I was t
Page 8 and 9: There were two things Uncle Nathan
Page 10 and 11: She reached behind her into the hay
Page 12 and 13: Uncle Nathan noticed that she was q
Page 14 and 15: could keep on like this all our liv

The Skating Party

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