Free After River by Donna Milner Page B

hospital. The town looked neat and orderly from this birds-eye view. It looked nothing like the hodgepodge menagerie of steep-roofed houses that hung on the hillsides.
    I was surprised by how flat everything looked. The mountains and forests, the steep winding roads and streets, were rendered harmless by the camera’s overhead eye. How perfectly nestled into the valley our home site appeared, as if my grandfather had been guided by a divine plan when he carved out the four hundred acres.
    The eager-eyed young salesman watched as we scrutinized the pictures. ‘The finished portrait will be hand painted by a water-colourist,’ he said as he reached for a huckleberry tart from the full plate in front of him.
    No one ever entered our kitchen without staying for the next meal, or at least sitting down for tea and whatever baked goodies sat on top of the large wooden sideboard in the corner of the kitchen. I think my mother would have been horrified if ever anyone left her home without something made by her hand sloshing around in his belly. Family, friends, or strays, they were all treated the same. Hikers and huckleberry pickers, priests and Jehovah’s Witnesses, would be invited in to break bread if they showed up at our door. Even the members of the small Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment often stopped by on evening patrols to share one of my mother’s late-night snacks. Travelling salesmen: the Fuller Brush man, the Watkin’s man, and the Avon lady, all choked back my mother’s black-as-tar tea–‘panther-piss’, Morgan and Carl called it–if they wanted a chance at a sale.
    Not many went away without at least a small order. There was always some ointment, creme, brush, or bottle of fruit syrup that was just as easy to buy from these wandering mail-order catalogues. Of course, it helped if Mother liked them. And how she liked a good talker. I think this dying breed of door-to-door peddlers entertained her as much as the black-and-white television set in the corner of the living room.
    The young salesman at the end of the table that day did not measure up. But it didn’t matter. I could see in my mother’s eyes that she would have one of these painted aerial portraits no matter how bad the sales pitch. My father too was intrigued, but I could tell by the way his cigarette migrated back and forth, from one cornerof his mouth to the other, that he was going to play a bartering game.
    At the end of the table the salesman took a slurp of tea, then looked over the porcelain mug and asked, ‘Ever seen your home from the air?’ A smear of purple huckleberry tart hung at the corner of his mouth.
    Certainly neither of my parents had ever been in an aeroplane, but both–though father was trying hard not to show it–were fascinated by the pictures spread out on the table. Mom leaned over them; she ran her fingers slowly, lightly, almost reverently, down the roads, over the fields, without touching the paper. She held her other hand to her chest as if she were having trouble breathing.
    â€˜It looks so beautiful,’ she crooned. ‘So beautiful.’ Her fingers found the house, the barn, and the dairy. ‘Everything seems so close. Oh, look Natalie, you can see the lake, the old miner’s cabin.’
    My father leaned forward for a quick glance, trying hard to put on his stern, in-control face. Even to my young scrutinizing eyes, he failed.
    â€˜So. How much?’ he asked.
    â€˜Well,’ said the salesman, with the confidence of someone who knew that a sale was in the bag. ‘That all depends on size and framing. The portrait size—’
    â€˜How long?’ my mother blurted.
    â€˜Pardon, ma’am?’
    â€˜How long will it take to paint, frame, and deliver the large portrait size?’
    My father coughed, ‘Now wait a minute, Nettie,’ he said. ‘We haven’t decided anything yet. Let’s just hear the