A Drop of Rain by Heather Kirk Page B

proverbial mid-life crisis? No, I really need more freedom and creativity.
    On the other hand, it would be terrible to be without a decent pension in ten years, like this Polish doctor. She’s cleaning floors. Where’s the freedom in that?
    I guess I just have to hang on for a while yet. At least I feel needed. Occasionally.
    Eva’s got herself involved in some committee looking into purchasing new industrial robots for the technology department at the college. She has an amazing capacity for hard work and for compartmentalizing her life.
    But she needs a hobby—something to relax with and regain perspective.

Week Seven
Naomi
    Sunday, October 24, 1999
    Today I spent eight hours at the Rec Plex, working with Mary. It’s amazing how little I knew about her, when I thought I knew a lot. Mary told me that she is all alone here in Canada, because her older brother and sister are dead. Mary stays here because she can earn more money with minimum-wage jobs in Canada than she can earn with a doctor’s job in Poland. If she stays, she can help her kids financially.
    She says she had three grandchildren when she left Poland, and now she has five.
    â€œTwo of them I have never held in my arms!” she says. She says she hasn’t seen any of her children or grandchildren for eight years.
    â€œHow can I afford to go to Poland?” she says. “I am starting from zero, just like my Daddy did after First World War, just like my Grandpa did after Second World War.”
    Mary is working three jobs. As well as cleaning, she sews and babysits.
    â€œEven with three jobs,” she says, “I have barely enough to live on, because I must help my children.”
    I told Mary that my Great-grandmother Goralski worked as a cleaner at the University of Alberta for fifteen years. Great-grandma Goralski saved up enough money for my mother to study at university. But then, after my mother graduated from engineering, she had trouble finding a job in her field, because she was a woman with a small child.
    Mary has lots of problems, but she doesn’t get as depressed about them as Hanna did. Maybe this is because Mary has religious faith and goes to church all the time. Or because she has children and grandchildren she has to help. Or because she trusts capitalism more. Or because she trusts people more.
    Mary and I didn’t talk just about our problems. We talked about travel, education, medicine and fashion, as well as sewing. We’re going to borrow her landlady’s sewing machine this evening, and Mary’s going to give me my first sewing lesson. Mom and Hanna are silent mostly, but Mary is almost never silent. Her stories bubble up like a spring of pure water. She tells hundreds of stories that all flow into each other. Her stories have endings, yet they never end. Maybe she does this because she is a doctor. Maybe she uses stories to help cure people.

    This is a few days later: Wednesday, October 27. I know I’m supposed to write my diary entry at one sitting, but I didn’t have much to write about before,and now I’ve got lots. Today Sarah invited me to her house for the first time. She invited me to eat dinner and study for our biology test. I was delighted that Sarah had time to visit with me after school, and I was eager to see the inside of Sarah’s gorgeous house and get to know her better. Furthermore, I wanted to go say something to Curtis, who lives near Sarah.
    Curtis does live on the same block as Sarah, but he does not live in a big, beautiful, new house like Sarah’s. Instead, he lives in a small, ugly, old house like ours. Curtis told me on the plane that his parents are divorced, and that his dad lives in Edmonton. I guess his dad doesn’t send much support money, and his mother doesn’t make much money working as a secretary.
    When I knocked on Curtis’s front door, I started worrying that he would think that the clothes I was wearing were too