One summer afternoon, Michael was in the attic of the Mayer home. His mother had sent him up there with a box of stuff for storage. He had no trouble managing the box as he climbed the ladder into the attic, the third floor of the house. He put the box with the others stacked there and was proceeding to organize empty boxes, fitting one into another, to bring down to his mother to fill. Phillip had climbed into the attic shortly after him. Michael was nine years old at the time and Phillip was fourteen. Michael barely turned to acknowledge Phillip and this flooded Phillip with fury. The attic window was open to let out the hot air accumulating naturally in the uppermost portion of the house. While calling Michael all sorts of obscenities, Phillip grabbed hold of Michael's shoulders, wrenching him upwards and heaved him out the window. Michael was yelling and fighting back, no match for Phillip. As he was being pushed out head first, Michael saw the driveway below. His foot caught the window sill. Phillip yanked it off. Michael would have fallen straight down to the ground but as his arms were flaying frantically in the air, he caught hold of a drain pipe from the roof with one hand. His body and legs whipped around and swung to a halt as he held on. The drain pipe was coming away from the wall under the strain. Mary, with the two helpers right after her, in response to Michael's calls for help, rushed out the side door and saw Michael hanging there.
Mary called up, "What are you doing?" as though Michael were showing off on purpose. Phillip's face was at the window above and when he saw Mary, he dropped a rope down to Michael as though he were going to rescue him yelling at him to grab it and hold on, but as soon as Mary was back inside the house and running upstairs, Phillip dropped his end of the rope and it tumbled down. Meanwhile, the helpers were putting up a ladder they had taken from the garage hoping Michael would be able to come down it. One of the helpers held the base of the ladder while the other climbed up and released the extension so that it became double in height. She climbed up further and guided one of Michael's feet to the top rung and held on to his legs so Michael could work his way until he was sturdily on the ladder and they came down. The helpers were hugging Michael and crying in relief. It was a close call. Michael was fine. He put the ladder away and calmed them all down over a fresh pot of tea.
Ross never found out about this incident. He knew the boys fought and admired the way Michael was able to keep his own ground. Mary loved both her boys but since Phillip was so relentless in his complaining about Michael, Mary would agree with him just to keep the peace and her own peace of mind. Michael was certainly not suffering from any of it. The boys were rarely together anyway. Before he was married, Phillip was always with Mary, except for times when he was working for his father when it couldn't be avoided. Phillip was obsessed with his mother and psychologically depended on his mother's exclusive devotion, so that he stayed away from work as much as possible which suited his laziness. In contrast to his brother's chronic bitterness, Michael was happy and bore no grudges. It was the love and care of the helpers that formed the foundation of Michael's trust in the world, as well as the love of his parents despite the precious little time they had for him. Strong bonds of friendship with his age group also kept him sane and strong.
Michael learned quickly at school and did his homework under the watchful eyes of the mother's helpers. He made friends easily and enrolled himself in all the sports the school made available and though he never excelled at any of them, he was good enough to be an appreciated team player. The family stopped eating together. Ross would take a working supper with one or more of his managers to discuss daily business. Mary would eat with Phillip and Michael ate with the mother's helpers. Ross took every effort to teach Phillip about the work involved with the family business, encouraging him all the way, and virtually ignored Michael's future because it seemed to be unfolding favourably on its own. Michael, completely on his own initiative, without his father's knowing, took on a job in his father's forestry company. He trained under other workers and learned the art of being a lumberjack and worked at that in the back bush for twelve hour days. Later he began a reforestation project and worked tirelessly planting new trees in the areas where intensive cutting had cleared the land. All business in the region was owned by Ross Mayer, big and small, so it was inevitable for Michael to work for his father in one form or another. Michael loved the region and saw no attraction in going elsewhere when everything he loved and thought beautiful was right there around him.
