Famished Lover by Alan Cumyn Page A

banker, still employed, and they were going to take him in. The day old Frame told us the news we stood around Bannerman’s cluttered desk and drank Scotch, and I thought about other winters I’d endured in other years.
    â€œThese times are not so bad,” I said to them, and we all grunted and agreed. Even old Frame stood with us and drank. We might have been a herd of bison gathered around the water hole, shuddering out of the wind. I’d told old Frame about the pregnancy months before, and he’d shaken my hand and said how much he’d like to help. He would look at the books and see. If I’d just be patient . . .
    Jenkins went next, towards the end of March. He’d been the last one in the door, hired in the spring of ’28 when Frame was turning away contracts, we were so busy. Frame gave him the news at the end of the day — and mid-week at that — and there was no Scotch, we did not stand together like bison. “Oh no,” Gil said simply, in a scared little voice, and his face grew pale the way I’d seen men’s faces blanch in other circumstances. “Oh no,” he said again and again.
    A hard, late-season snowstorm had blanketed the city and clogged the streets and sidewalks. I walked Gil partway home. The snowbanks rose above our heads, and we slithered and slipped like slapstick figures from a blurry movie.
    â€œYou’re lucky!” he said to me bitterly. “You’ve got Lillian and the baby on the way. Old Frame would never let you go.”
    â€œYou’ll find other work,” I said. “I’ve seen this before. While everyone else is moping around, you figure out whatneeds to be done. It’s panic and black thoughts that are so defeating.”
    â€œIt’s never been this bad.”
    â€œOf course it has. And worse. I know.”
    We floundered together until we reached his street, then I shook his hand and said that we’d keep in touch, though I knew I’d probably never see him again.
    When I told Lillian the news she wiped her hands on her apron but did not turn to me. She was at the counter dealing with dinner.
    â€œI think that will be it for the layoffs,” I said lightly. “Frame’s keeping the rest of us pretty busy.” And I told her what Gil had said to me about my position in the firm, even though I didn’t fully believe it. Howard Lineman had five years of seniority on me, three children and a sick wife. Frank Wilbrod had four kids. John Kent was looking after his mother and three aunts. But I thought perhaps Lillian would take heart.
    â€œWe should move to the farm,” she said. “It’ll be spring soon. Papa needs the help and we need to save money, in case.” She didn’t finish the thought but changed gears instead. “You were going to get us out of here anyway.”
    â€œI am. Just not yet. The price of everything’s going down. Men with jobs look pretty shiny.” I kissed her on the neck from behind and put my hands on her belly, which was in its first swollen bloom.
    â€œYou’re all wet!” She pushed me away and I stood looking at her, so radiant with life.
    â€œI want to have this child on my family’s farm,” she said in her plough-pulling voice.
    â€œBut Mireille is nowhere. It’s got hardly anything — a few streets, the mill, if that’s even still going.”
    â€œOf course it’s still going!” “But what else? What’s there for me?” “Everything it had last summer! You could still paint and fish and walk the trails. I thought you fell in love with Mireille when you fell in love with me.”
    â€œI did. I did. But let’s not rush into anything. The patient man keeps his head.”
    â€œIn the meantime what’s his wife supposed to do?” I held her then and waltzed her out of that darkened little kitchen. “Dance with me,” I murmured in her lovely,