I squinted to see the small, skinny green island pointing out from the coast of Florida. “ ‘Sanibel,’ ” I read. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“A lot of people haven’t,” Mom said. “That’s one of the nice things about Sanibel. Besides being beautiful, it’s quiet and restful.”
I thought of the fortunes from the cookies. You will find happiness in your family. And, Time is the best gift you can give to those you love. Ten days alone with my mother and sister on a beautiful tropical island. I couldn’t wait.
Three weeks later, Mom, Anna, and I said good-bye to the Long Island snow and zero-degree weather. In a few hours, we were saying hello to seventy-five-degree breezes and the bright Florida sunshine. We rode in an open convertible along the one main road that ran the length of Sanibel Island. I took in a deep breath of flower-scented sea breezes.
“This is paradise,” my mother said. She was smiling. She already looked more relaxed than she had since Dad died.
“There it is!” Anna shouted. “On your right, Mom.”
A carved sign announced The Blue Heron. The resort looked just as beautiful as it had in the brochure. There was a big two-story main lodge and restaurant, a swimming pool, tennis courts, and twenty-five guest cottages strung along a sandy beach. One of those cottages would be ours for almost ten whole days.
As soon as we were in our cottage, I dug through my suitcase for my bathing suit. “To the beach,” I shouted to Anna.
“Aren’t you going to unpack first?” she asked.
“Later,” I answered. “Come on, I’ll race you to the water!”
“I’m going to unpack,” said Anna. She’d already made a neat pile of the half dozen library books she intended to read.
I pulled on my bathing suit, tucked my hair in my baseball cap, and went to find Mom. She was in the kitchen. “Come on,” I shouted happily. “Let’s go to the beach!”
“I’m going to check out the golf course,” she said. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
I went to the beach alone. A bunch of people were playing volleyball. I watched for awhile. “Want to join in?” a red-haired man called to me.
“You bet,” I said.
He threw me the ball. “I’m Brad. I keep things moving around here. What’s your name?”
“Abby,” I shouted back to him.
“Listen up, everybody,” Brad called out. “I have to go back to the sports center. Abby, here, is going to take my place. Have a good game. Drop the ball off at the sports center when you finish.”
I played with Charlie and Tammy Karmorn and their aunt against three kids and their father. When we finished the game, we all ran into the sea to cool off. After that, we brought the ball back to Brad, and he gave us some beach towels. Then we headed over to the pool for a swim. What a great afternoon! I couldn’t wait to tell Anna and Mom all about it.
Back at our cottage, I found Mom and Anna laid out on beach chairs by the water. Mom had fallen asleep with a manuscript on her lap and Anna was reading a book and listening to her Walkman. I went for a walk on the beach by myself.
The next morning, Mom played golf and I took a tennis lesson. Anna said she was going to hang out with Laurie, a girl staying at the cottage next to ours. “Laurie plays the piano and has a lot of classical music tapes,” Anna said. “Mozart’s her favorite.”
The morning passed with Anna, Mom, and me busy with different activities. We weren’t together for lunch, either. Anna was having a picnic with Laurie, and Mom was grabbing a bite between holes of golf.
I went to the Blue Heron deck restaurant, where Mom said I could charge my lunch. The place was packed with families, including Charlie and Tammy Karmorn. I saw that there were two younger Karmorn kids, so counting the parents and aunt they were a family of seven. The Karmorns were all laughing at something their aunt had said. They didn’t even notice me.
I imagined how different our vacation would have been if Dad were still alive. How we would have been one of those families having a great time together. I didn’t want to sit alone in a restaurant surrounded by all those big, happy families.
A young woman stepped up to me and cheerfully asked, “How many of you will there be?”
“I’ll have a sandwich to go,” I told her. “A tuna sandwich.”
As I left the lodge with my takeout, I passed Brad’s sports center stand. He was surrounded by piles of clean beach towels, stacks of beach chairs and umbrellas, and a collection of athletic equipment.
“Hey, Abby,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“Great,” I said. “Just great.”
“We have a van going over to the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge in half an hour. Maybe you and your folks would like to go.”
I wondered if Anna and Mom would want to do that with me. Then I remembered that Anna was playing with her new friend and Mom was taking a golf lesson in the afternoon. “Not today,” I told Brad.
I went back to the cottage and ate my sandwich alone. Well, I wasn’t exactly alone. Anna and her new friend Laurie were hanging out on the screened-in porch. But soon after I got there, they decided to go over to the lodge and check out the books in the library room.
“Want to come with us?” Anna asked. “We’ll wait until you’ve finished eating.”
“Go to a library during vacation!?” I replied in horror. “Never!”
By the time Mom came back from golf, it was time for the Blue Heron volleyball game.
“I have to go,” I told Mom when she came in.
“That’s okay,” she said. “I have to go over to the lodge and fax something to Steve. You have fun.”
Later, as I floated on my back in the pool, I thought, The pool is wonderful and I feel great from all the exercise I’ve been getting. And I am having fun. Tears came into my eyes. But it’s not the vacation we planned. We took this vacation to be together and we’re not really together. We’re not acting like a family. I rolled over and dove under the water to wash away my tears.
The next day, when I went to pick up my solitary take-out lunch, Brad called, “Hey, how’s it going?” like he always did.
“Great,” I said, like I always did.
I wondered what new activity he’d propose that my mother and sister wouldn’t want to do with me.
“So,” he said, “you and your folks joining us for the Family Night New Year’s party?”
A nighttime activity. Maybe we could do that. After all, Mom couldn’t play golf at night, and Laurie would be with her own family for New Year’s Eve. Brad told me all about the party. It sounded perfect.
“I’ll ask my mom,” I told Brad. I grabbed a towel and headed toward the cottages. “Hey,” I called over my shoulder. “Thanks.” I couldn’t wait to tell Mom and Anna about the Family Night New Year’s party.
Anna and Mom were on the beach. Mom’s eyes were closed and she was listening to her Walkman. Anna had on her Walkman too, and was reading a book. I knelt in the sand in front of them and waved my arms to get their attention.
They came out of their separate worlds and smiled dreamily at me.
“Hi,” Anna said.
“Hi,” Mom said. “What’s up?”
“Great news,” I told them. “There’s a family New Year’s party with a big dinner and entertainment and even dancing. Brad’s signing people up. Can we go?”
“Laurie and her family are going,” Anna said. “It sounds like fun.”
“Okay,” Mom said. She closed her eyes again.
I grabbed her hand. “Let’s all go sign up now.”
“Abby, you do it for us,” Mom suggested. “I’m sooo comfortable.”
“Mom, I’m sick of doing everything alone. Can’t we go over there and sign up together?”
Mom looked disappointed. “Aren’t you having a good vacation?” she asked.
“I am,” I protested. “I really am. And there’re lots of kids for me to play sports with. But I just thought … I don’t know … couldn’t we all … ”
Anna was picking up my vibes on our twin wavelength. She grabbed Mom’s other hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”
We pulled Mom out of her chair. None of us spoke on the way to the lodge. We were in our own worlds. Mom was probably thinking about a manuscript. Anna was still listening to her Walkman. And I was wondering if I’d ever feel like I was part of a real family again.
When we reached the lodge, Mom walked to Brad’s stand.
“I would like to sign up my family for the New Year’s party,” she said.
He looked at her with surprise. “Oh,” he said. “I didn’t know you were here with a family. I thought you were alone.”
Mom looked hurt and confused. “I’m here with my girls,” she said. Anna and I ran up beside her.
Brad looked from Anna to me. “Twins!” he exclaimed. “I thought you two were the same person. I’ve never seen you together before.”
Brad turned the sign-up sheet around for Mom to sign. “You’ll have a great time at the party.” He grinned at Anna and me. “You sure did have me fooled.”
As soon as we were out of earshot, Mom said, “I can’t believe he didn’t know we were together,” she said. “Isn’t it his job to keep track of people?”
“Mom, we’re never together!” I exclaimed. “We do different things all day long! How would he know?”
I felt ashamed for yelling. I didn’t want to ruin the vacation for Anna and Mom. But I had said it and it was too late to take it back.
Mom took us each by the hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go someplace where we can talk quietly.”
“How about the deck restaurant,” Anna suggested. “Lots of families eat there. I see them all the time.”
I gave Anna a grateful smile. I wasn’t the only one who had missed being a family.
“To the deck,” Mom said.
A few minutes later, we were drinking pink lemonade, but none of us knew what to say. Finally, Mom spoke. “I wanted you to have a good time on this vacation,” she said.
“We are!” Anna and I exclaimed in unison.
“It’s just that we … ” Anna began.
“ … thought we’d spend more time together,” I said, completing the sentence for her.
Anna and I smiled at one another. We hadn’t talked together like that in a long time.
“We see all these other families doing things together,” I explained. “It doesn’t feel like we’re a family.”
Mom looked hurt by that, but she understood what I meant. “I see those families too,” she said. “It reminds me of all the wonderful times we used to have. I find it upsetting, with Jon not here.”
“We’re still a family,” I said. “A new kind of family.”
“Abby, I don’t think I can handle that big party at the lodge,” Mom said.
“We don’t have to go,” I said. “As long as we do something together.”
Mom and Anna decided that we should spend New Year’s Eve day as a family. That night, at dinner, we wrote up our daytime activities for our special Stevenson New Year’s celebration.
We started our New Year’s Eve morning by going for a walk on the beach. Mom pointed to the sea. “Look! Porpoises!” she exclaimed.
Three porpoises were swimming and playing a hundred feet or so from the shoreline. We watched their dark shapes gracefully leaping and diving.
“Come on,” I shouted. “Let’s keep up with them.”
We held hands and ran along the beach.
When the porpoises swam out to sea, we watched them until they were out of sight. Then we went into the ocean for a swim. Anna and I did great porpoise dives for Mom.
After that, we rented bikes and rode along a trail that led to the wildlife refuge. On the way, we stopped at an outdoor restaurant for lunch. During lunch, Anna read to us from a guide book about the history of the wildlife refuge and all the cool things we would be seeing there.
After lunch, we rode our bikes through the refuge. We took our time and stopped to read signs and observe the animals and birds. We saw alligators and a crocodile and a zillion birds. I imitated how some of the birds walked and ate, which cracked up Mom and Anna. We were having a lot of fun together.
Back at the Blue Heron, we jumped in the pool. After a swim we all fell asleep in the beach chairs. Then we swam again to wake up. At six o’clock we went to our cottage to prepare a special New Year’s Eve dinner.
We had decided to cook on the gas grill by the pool. We cut up fish and vegetables and put them on skewers. Then Mom made a tasty sauce to go with the fish and Anna and I concocted a punch. We wrote down our recipe.
As the sun set, we sat facing the ocean, sipping our drinks and listening to our dinner hiss on the grill.
Mom took a long sip of her drink. “We should give this punch a name,” she said.
“Let’s call it New Year’s punch,” I said, punching the air.
“And let’s always have it on New Year’s Eve,” added Anna.
“Perfect,” said Mom with a satisfied smile. “What else can we do every New Year’s Eve?”
“Make dinner together,” said Anna.
“And grill it no matter where we are and whatever the weather is like,” I said. “Even if there’s four feet of snow.”
Mom patted me on the arm. “That’s the sort of thing your father would have said.”
“He was really into that tradition stuff, wasn’t he?” I asked.
Mom nodded.
“Remember how every Fourth of July we had to eat that cold tomato soup?” I said.
“Gazpacho,” Mom said. “And those awful hot dogs. He insisted we have the brand he ate on July Fourth when he was a kid.”
“I liked the potato salad,” Anna said. “And how we always played badminton after the picnic.”
“Even in the rain!” I shrieked. “Remember?” We all cracked up remembering the Fourth of July when Dad insisted we play badminton in a torrential downpour.
“The birdie couldn’t make it over the net. It kept getting beaten down by the rain,” Mom giggled.
“That birdie deserves to live in the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge for the rest of its life,” I told them. Anna and Mom laughed. I pictured the plastic shuttlecock perched on a reed at the edge of the lagoon amidst herons and short-billed downwichers.
Mom spoke in a soft, sad voice. “Before you girls were born, your father and I talked about how we would have lots of family traditions for you two. That we would celebrate holidays in ways that would be special and memorable and that would be repeated year after year.”
Anna and I nodded. We wanted her to go on talking about the past, when our father was alive.
“I liked how we did those things,” I said.
“But now that your father’s gone, I can’t bear to do all the things we did with him. Not yet. It’s too painful.” Her voice chocked up on those last words. “It’s a little easier, being here in new surroundings. But still … ” Her voice trailed off.
I patted her arm. “That’s okay, Mom,” I said. “We can start new traditions. And this time Anna and I can help figure out what they should be.”
“Maybe we could still do some of the things we did with Jon,” my mother said.
“Remember how we always shared New Year’s resolutions,” said Anna. “Maybe we could keep that tradition.”
“Dad’s first resolution always was, ‘I will not lose one pair of glasses this year,’ ” I said.
Anna giggled. “That’s a resolution he could never keep.”
“And you, Miss Abby,” Mom said, pretending to be cross, “always resolving to do your homework early on the weekends.”
“That’s a tough one to keep too,” I said.
“Let’s do resolutions again tonight,” said Anna. “And every New Year’s Eve from now on.”
Suddenly Mom jumped up and screeched, “The grill! We forgot.” We ran to the grill to see what remained of our dinner. The fish was so overcooked that it was dry
as cardboard. The onions and peppers were black, and the mushrooms were shriveled up to the size of peas.
Mom looked disappointed, but I started to laugh. “Is it going to be a new tradition that we have to ruin the dinner on New Year’s Eve?” I asked.
“No,” Mom said. “Absolutely not. But it may be a new tradition that I take you out to a restaurant on New Year’s Eve. Let’s see if we can crash the Blue Heron party. I feel enough like a family with my two girls to handle that scene.”
So we threw away the ruined meal and changed into our best dresses. “Don’t forget those resolutions,” Mom yelled to us from her bedroom. “I can’t wait to hear them later.”
“You too, Mom,” I yelled back.
When we arrived at the lodge, the guests were already choosing dessert from the big buffet. The waitress said she still had a table for three available, and that there was plenty of food left. Then she told us to have fun.
A reggae band was playing and a buffet was piled high with Caribbean foods. Even though it wasn’t midnight, everyone was wishing everyone else “Happy New Year.” Charlie and Tammy Karmorn came over to our table. I introduced them to my mother and sister. They were cool and didn’t go on and on about Anna and me being twins.
Then, on the way to the dessert table, we stopped to say hello to Laurie’s family.
After dinner, there was entertainment — a juggling act, a barbershop quartet, an acrobat, and more reggae music.
We decided not to stay in the lodge for the midnight celebration. We wanted to be alone — just the three of us — on the beach, as we had planned. So at eleven-thirty we headed back to our cottage, wrapped ourselves in blankets, and lay on the sand watching the stars.
At midnight we wished each other “Happy New Year” and shared our resolutions. Anna resolved to practice her violin even more than she already did. I resolved to do my homework earlier on the weekends. Mom resolved not to rush around so much and not to talk on the phone during dinner. And we all had one resolution in common: We would spend more time together.
“Dinner at home, just we three, every Wednesday and Sunday night,” Mom said.
Abby's Book Page 5