{"id":2130,"date":"2025-01-12T13:57:36","date_gmt":"2025-01-12T18:57:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/?p=2130"},"modified":"2026-10-07T18:55:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:55:23","slug":"man-of-the-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/12\/man-of-the-north\/","title":{"rendered":"Man of the North"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was a disappointment to my parents. \u202fThey never said so, but sometimes walking into a room, where I heard a whispering conversation seconds before and then an embarrassed silence after I walked in was clue enough. \u202fMy mother was always the first to recover. \u202f\u201cThere you are, dear; your father and I were just discussing the fact that we should go out and find out what you are about.\u201d\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I suppose I could be considered the black sheep of the family, though I have a brother who would be a close second. \u202fHe has, since his days of illicit drugs and bourbon barrel parties,\u202fsettled down, married and has three children. \u202fHe\u2019s the only protestant of the family shouting to all who would hear him out that the Catholic Church failed him in so many ways. \u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut no matter what, Susan, I\u2019m a sinner. \u202fMy decisions were my own. \u202fI just wanted to escape instead of facing things like a man. \u202fThank God for His mercy.\u201d \u202fHe was sitting by my fire one fall evening, his family tucked away in my guest bedrooms. \u202fHis words sounded trite and memorized, but his face conveyed his conviction. \u202fI think that is why I remain the final back sheep. \u202f\u202f\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My parents went through many trials with my brother while keeping their faith and instilling in me and my other brothers and sisters our own faith in God. \u202fNo small feat in the late 20th century. \u202fI\u2019m not without pity for them. \u202fYet, their concern for me is weighed down with suspicion. \u202fHow do I afford a home and property? How do I afford clothes, food, utilities, all the things they consider necessities? \u202fMy other siblings, including my once backsliding brother, work hard at a profession and (or) a trade. \u202fI seem to survive on air. \u202f\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When they insisted I go to college, I left. \u202fI sent them a letter; told them I was fine and would let them know when I settled down. \u202fI drove north to find the lands of James Oliver Curwood and thought (I wouldn\u2019t admit it at the time) I would find an older man, roughly handsome and well versed in the stories of the Great Lakes. I found both. \u202fThe land was as beautiful as it was brutal and the older man as well read as he was old. \u202f\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We met in a coffee shop, where I stumbled in, half-starved and as clean as a sink in a public restroom would allow. \u202fI was frightened. \u202fI was looking for work and too far north to turn around and retreat back to my parents. \u202fPeople were embarrassed and mumbled their response to how sorry they were, but they had no work for me. \u202fI left, and he followed me out and asking me if I had read Jane Eyre. \u202fI had, in fact, along with what most of the 19th century offered in fiction. \u202f\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not her, though. I\u2019m no Jane Eyre. \u202fNa\u00efve, afraid and sorry, I left home but simply running away from what I don\u2019t know.\u201d \u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He found me a job in one of two local pubs and told me that women around there married, had children, tilled gardens and waited for their husbands to come home off the long boats. \u202fI stayed and, for the first year, avoided all of those expectations.\u00a0\u00a0 \u202f\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I wrote to my parents every week for a year. \u202fThey could have easily found me even though I used a PO Box as a return address. \u202fThey wrote back, filled me in on the goings on and prayed I was happy, and I was relatively so. \u202fI went home for my sister\u2019s wedding. \u202fI went home for my brother\u2019s graduation from college. \u202fI went home for my black sheep brother\u2019s graduation from his 12-step lessons in recovery. In between my comings and goings, I quietly wed the ruggedly handsome old man who decided I was just the woman he needed to see him to his grave. \u202f\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Eyebrows were raised in the coffee shop the first time we came in together. \u202fThe pub was disappointed to lose me. \u202fI spent our first year together cleaning and painting and listening to the horn of the longboats and how to garden and preserve what the garden gave us. \u202f\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want children?\u201d he asked one night.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I said, wondering at that moment how I became the person who sat and watched the fire burn in the hearth and if I needed to find fuel for my car and move on.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGood,\u201d he said. \u202f\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I returned to my cloth covered books and let fiction comfort and calm me. \u202f\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then it happened. \u202fOne cold morning I made my way to Huron, to walk the shore and listen to the stories of ghosts and ships and heartbreak and madness. \u202fI would return to make sure he had his coffee and ask him about his time on the Great Lakes, the ghost ships he saw and the men he knew. But that cold morning the stories stopped.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His funeral was quiet, and his lawyer brief. \u202fThe property was prime and worth a good amount this close to the shore, but if I sold, I would lose the fortune he had stored up for one such as me. \u202f\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe saw you, you know, said the man in the tie. \u202fHe saw you years before you showed up, disheveled and jaded. \u202fYou haunted him, he would tell me, when I would come out and talk money and will and property.\u201d \u202fThe lawyer shuffled his papers into order and placed them back in his leather briefcase. \u202f\u201cDo you know what he would say to me?\u201d\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I said.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou wait and see. \u202fI\u2019ve been haunted by her for years and I\u2019ll get even. I\u2019ll haunt her for the rest of her days.\u201d\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I wear my wedding ring, thick gold and heavy, on an equally heavy golden chain around my neck. \u202fI learned how to paint the shores of Huron and the ships that sailed upon the solemn waters through the ages. \u202fMy family wonders about me and how I survive this solitude, storm and eerie silence. \u202f\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Simple. He keeps me here, this ruggedly handsome man of the north. \u202f\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was a disappointment to my parents. \u202fThey never said so, but sometimes walking into a room, where I heard a whispering conversation seconds before and then an embarrassed silence after I walked in was clue enough. \u202fMy mother was always the first to recover. \u202f\u201cThere you are, dear; your …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,29,3,19],"tags":[11,36,21,23,25],"class_list":["post-2130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-story","category-ghost-story","category-short-fiction","category-writing","tag-amwriting","tag-amwritingfiction","tag-shortstory","tag-writing","tag-great-lakes"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lydiaink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Man-of-the-North.png?fit=1536%2C1024&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2130"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2144,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2130\/revisions\/2144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}