He was too far away for me to really see him, but there were signs. The angle of his shoulders. The way he lifted his feet like he was being careful not to make any noise. The way he raised his arm over his head in a very particular wave.
I hadn’t stopped missing him since we’d left Vermont. I hadn’t lost the feeling I’d had in the cabin, waiting for him to come back, wondering how he could have left me when he’d told me that he loved me as much as his life. But now, with him watching us from beyond the fence, my feet grew heavy and my fingers cold. I was afraid—not of Grandpa, but of the cold. I was afraid of the emptiness I’d felt in the cabin when I was alone.
And then the figure stepped out from the woods and into the last little light that was coming from the sky, and I saw that it wasn’t Grandpa. It was Dad.
I had never thought they looked alike, but now, I saw it. If my dad stooped a little, and cut his hair closer to his scalp, and if he got a tiny bit shorter, but stayed just as lean, my dad and Grandpa were the same.
My father stepped down over the plastic fencing and started walking toward us on the field. Gus, who was still holding the ball, tossed it to me, and I caught it, easily. I could feel his relief—but I could also feel how Gus hadn’t been worried. I don’t know if I knew this from feeling it, or if I just knew Gus well enough to guess, but he’d been waiting to start worrying until the situation was clear. Trip was more curious than anything else, and Ewan had been busy analyzing the implications. Now I could feel them relax, but it was only in the vaguest way—sort of like someone’s got a jackhammer going outside and you don’t really notice it until it stops.
“What are you doing here?” I said to my dad, when he was close enough to hear me. I think I felt a little hopeful, a little excited, though I knew better by now. It’s amazing how the door stays open. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“Yes,” said my dad. “I guess I should be. But I couldn’t concentrate today. And I think the ice is cracking up on Grandpa’s lake.”
“Yeah?” I said. I tried not to sound too interested.
“Your mom tells me this is spring break week. I was thinking maybe we could get up there for the weekend and start working on clearing out some of the woods.”
“Why?” I said, but I knew why. I hadn’t thought of it, but it was exactly the right thing, to cut down trees Grandpa had let grow up between his porch and the sight of open water.
“We need to bury Grandpa,” Dad went on. “All of us. Julia and you—your mother—we should all be there. To say good-bye.”
I didn’t say anything, because I couldn’t. I might have cried. But also, I didn’t want to interrupt my dad. I wanted him to keep talking, to finish saying what was in his head. “And for another thing,” he went on, “I want a contractor to come in and look at the cabin. Maybe we can spend time there this summer. Or on weekends. You can bring your friends. I swam in that lake every summer when I was your age. Maybe it will feel a little warmer to you now that you’re older.”
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t want to sound like I cared too much. I still didn’t know if this plan was just talk, or something that was really going to happen. But I liked the plan. A lot. I wanted to swim in the lake. I wanted my dad to teach me that dive he’d learned. And I wanted to bury Grandpa. I wanted to stand next to my dad and dig a hole in the ground at the top of the mountain where I knew Grandpa once stood looking at the view, eating a piece of salami. I wanted to tell my dad about that hike, and I wondered, was my dad going to listen?
He took a step closer, and he held up his hand. I threw a quick push pass, the kind I had made on the day Grandpa taught my body how to play basketball. My dad caught the ball and looked at me. I looked right back. I’d found Grandpa in his eyes before, and in my eyes Grandpa had found a way in. But right now, the only person I was seeing was my dad, and he was seeing me too. He spun the ball a few times in his hands, and then, still looking, he pushed it back to me, as if we were starting a game and he was checking in.
Acknowledgments
I wrote this book primarily at the New York Public Library and Au Bon Pain, and I am grateful for the use of their electricity and the banana nut muffins. I am more grateful to Rick Kahn; Sophie Bell; Claudia Gwardyak; Maribeth Batcha; Anita Kapadia; Arlaina Tibensky; Karen Shepard; Cassandra, Eve, and Ripley Cleghorn; Madeline McIntosh; Margaret Gray; Sarah Lynch; Debby Appelbaum; and Ed Mitre for reading this book while I was working on it and offering wisdom and advice. I am especially indebted to Lorri and Jordan Diggory and their mother-son book club—Logan and Alisa Kokx, and Avery and Shari Gnolek. I was blown away by their insights and inspired to keep going.
George Nicholson and Emily Hazel’s enthusiasm and knowledge came like a bolt from the blue. Melanie Cecka’s and Liz Schonhorst’s tact, intelligence, and great warmth made the manuscript confident and strong.
My extended Bell-Kahn-Entin-Diggory-Breitbart-Gwardyak-Ouk family supports and inspires me. My father told me lots of great stories, my mother taught me from a young age that I was worth listening to, my sister laughs at my jokes, my children fill me with an important kind of joy, and, most especially, my husband, Rick, has always believed that this would happen.
Copyright © 2008 by Cathleen Davitt Bell
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
Published by Bloomsbury U.S.A. Children’s Books
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
Electronic edition published in October 2011
Distributed to the trade by Macmillan
www.bloomsburykids.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request
eISBN: 9781599908700 (ebook)
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