The Summer Cottage

by Viola Shipman

  For the next hour, I am the student, and my son is the professor, and my heart quickens and my creativity is sparked with each new thing I learn.

  “Now let me teach you a thing or two about design,” I say, picking up my paintbrush. “My app is a bit more old-fashioned.”

  I stand up and start to paint the walls of a guest room that will be themed around the cottage rule Everyone Must Be Present for Sunset. With each brushstroke, the wall brightens, a beautiful Creamsicle orange making the room glow like a sunset.

  “That’s a bold color, Mom,” Evan says.

  “I know,” I say, stopping briefly and taking a step back to study the wall. “But I’m doing a beautiful wallpaper behind the bed that will really ground this color, and the bathroom will feature framed sunset photos we’ve taken over the years.” I stop. “I want guests to feel as if they’re part of our family.” I begin to paint again, before I realize Evan is surreptitiously holding his cell. “Evan,” I say, sounding a threat and brandishing my paintbrush. “Don’t. I look too Grey Gardens to be taped.”

  “Too late,” Evan says. “And besides, what you just said is perfect. It will make great footage for social media.” He taps his screen and looks at me. “Would you mind doing something a little more dramatic now?” Evan asks.

  “Besides quitting my job and starting a B and B?”

  “For me to tape,” he continues. “I was thinking of Fixer Upper again. Chip loves demo day, and viewers do, too.”

  “I’m paying someone to do that,” I say before I suddenly remember my own demo day at the fish house with Frank.

  What an adrenaline rush, I think. And what a discovery.

  I quickly relay this to Evan. “I totally forgot about it in my excitement to see you,” I say.

  “What if we found something else?” he says. “Live.”

  The word live reverberates in my head, and my mind ricochets back in time to the spring of 1986 when my parents and I were riveted to the television to watch Geraldo Rivera open Al Capone’s secret vault. It seemed like the entire country was captivated by the spectacle of what he might discover.

  “Okay,” I say quickly. “Can you ask Frank if we can use his sledgehammer?”

  “Okay,” Evan says, before rushing toward the door, a big smile crossing his face.

  “Meet me in the attic!” I call.

  Evan returns in a flash, huffing and puffing, sledgehammer in tow. He hands it to me.

  About three-quarters of the attic has already been demoed, and new rooms have been roughed in by Frank and his team, but there is an original wall near the stairs that has yet to be touched. I was unsure initially about what to do with this awkward space. But Trish has convinced me a laundry room here would save me not only time but also my back.

  “Let’s do this!” Evan says, lifting up his cell.

  I pick up the sledgehammer, the weight of it making me take a big step backward. I can hear Evan stifle a laugh. I turn toward the cell phone and say, “An original wall in Cozy Cottage. Here goes nothing!”

  I whack the wall, and the impact reverberates through my entire body.

  “You look like a human Slinky,” Evan says with a big laugh.

  I look, and there is a round indentation in the wall. It’s not a hole really but more of a dimple. I pick up the sledgehammer and swing again, and again, again, until I’m out of breath and my shoulders and back are aching.

  “Ha!” I say when I see I’ve finally knocked a few holes as big as baseballs in the wall. I walk over and pick up a crowbar and begin to remove some of the wall. I make some headway before turning to Evan.

  “Your turn,” I say with a big smile, reaching for the cell phone. “Show me what you got.”

  Evan hands me his cell and picks up the sledgehammer. “Okay, let me show you how it’s done,” he says, blowing his bangs out of his face. Evan slams the wall over and over, and when he stops to look, he’s made about as much damage as I had. A look of frustration covers his face, and he goes to work again, whacking the wall until he drops the sledgehammer from exhaustion. Big, gaping holes dot the wall under the staircase. I return Evan’s phone to him and go to work on the wall with the crowbar again, revealing old lath and plaster underneath. I work my way down the wall until I’ve created a hole big enough for my body to wiggle through. I grab my own cell from my pocket and turn on its flashlight. I shine it around the dusty space.

  “Here goes nothing again,” I say, hunkering my body and stepping inside the wall.

  I scan the flashlight around the space, expecting to see a mouse or two, but it is quiet. I squat and again look around the space, this time more slowly.

  “What’s that?” I ask, my voice echoing in the cramped quarters.

  Evan approaches and turns on his flashlight, too.

  There is a small wooden box—almost like a built-in chest—directly under the staircase.

  “Can you reach it?” he asks.

  I nod and crab walk toward the stairs, finally taking a seat on the floor when I reach it. I try to open the box, but it won’t budge. “Hand me the crowbar.”

  Evan extends his body as far as he can and passes the tool to me. I position it under the lid and put my weight on it. There is a loud crack, and the wooden top splits in half. I pull off part of the top, get on my knees and point my flashlight inside.

  I scream.

  “Mom!” Evan yells. “What is it? Are you okay?”

  I look more closely into the box and, against my better judgment, stick my hand into it as if I’m on the old game show Fear Factor. I turn to Evan, holding up the item that made me yell.

  “What in the hell is that?” Evan asks. “Gross, Mom.”

  The look on Evan’s face freaks me out, and I suddenly toss it toward him as if I’ve lost all control of my body.

  Evan’s scream matches my own.

  “Sorry, Facebookers,” Evan says, moving toward the mysterious item with his cell aimed directly at it. He kneels and says, “I think it’s a cow’s foot.” Evan turns his cell back toward me.

  “What else is in there?” he asks.

  “More of the same,” I say, reaching into the box and pulling out another one that looks exactly like the first.

  “What do you think it is?” Evan says, his voice now panicky.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I just know I want to get the hell out of here.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Evan and I are seated on the leather couch in the living room, legs crossed, facing one another, camp blankets draped over our laps. We are on our cells furiously Googling what we have discovered, which are scattered across the coffee table in front of the fireplace.

  I look up and laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Evan asks.

  “Darryl,” I say, nodding at the moose. “He’s looking at those things on the table like Whoopi Goldberg looked at Demi Moore in Ghost when she said, ‘You in danger, girl!’”

  Evan laughs. “You and your movie references. What’s that old-timey one you and Trish love so much?”

  “Ice Castles,” I say, putting my hand over my heart as if he’s just said the most hurtful thing in the world.

  “Didn’t mean to offend you,” he laughs.

  “It’s not that you forgot the name of the movie, it’s that you actually said ‘old-timey.’ It’s not like I grew up churning butter and wearing pioneer dresses like Little House on the Prairie.”

  Evan stares at me. “When was Ice Castles released?”

  I scan my brain and then quickly double-check on my cell. “Nineteen seventy-eight.”

  “That was more than forty years ago, Mom,” Evan says. “I think it qualifies as old-timey.”

  My heart flutters for a second as I think how quickly forty years have flown. I remember my mother telling me to savor every moment and to not regret a
thing because, in the blink of an eye, life would pass and I would be her age. I thought she was crazy and that it would never happen.

  I scan the cottage, thinking of its life, my family’s life and how much history lives within these walls.

  “I’ve got the answer!” Evan says, the excitement in his voice making me jump. “I’ve been sending photos and a little bit about our cottage, including all the Capone stuff, to an American history professor whose class I’m in at college. He just sent me some background and a few links.” Evan grows quiet for a minute, reading.

  “Don’t leave me in suspense,” I say.

  Evan laughs. “Sorry. These aren’t cow’s feet, they just look like them. According to Dr. Samuels, they were part of the bag of sneaky tricks that bootleggers used during Prohibition. He says bootleggers used all sorts of ingenious methods to evade Prohibition agents, from hollowing out Bibles to camouflaging trucks with a faux brick facade, so they could transport liquor.”

  “So, what are these things?” I ask.

  “Dr. Samuels believes they are what was called a ‘cow shoe.’”

  “A what?”

  “A cow shoe,” Evan says, picking one up off the table. “He says it’s a wooden block carved to resemble the hoof a cow, which was attached to a strip of metal that could then be strapped to the shoe of a bootlegger or moonshiner.” Evan stops and studies it before handing it to me. I take the cow shoe reluctantly, but begin to admire the craftsmanship and ingenuity of it the more Evan explains.

  “So Dr. Samuels says these were used specifically by bootleggers to cover their footprints, especially in the snowy or muddy woods,” Evan continues. “The hoofprints deterred agents who were tracking them. Essentially, bootleggers could crisscross remote fields or even wander behind restaurants, and agents would just think cattle was roaming. And get this—Dr. Samuels thinks the inventor behind this got the idea from a Sherlock Holmes story in which the villain made his horse’s prints resemble a cow’s.”

  “So does he think Capone and his gang used these?”

  Evan nods excitedly, his bangs bouncing. “He does. He thinks they probably ran a small operation from this cottage and supplied many west Michigan restaurants and speakeasies. Resort areas wanted their booze, it seems. Dr. Samuels says they likely ran the liquor in the winter, and these threw the Prohibition agents off.” He stops and looks at me. “Just think of the history under this roof.”

  It’s like he can read my mind, I think.

  I watch Evan’s face grow serious. He scans the cottage as if he sees it for the first time. “Capone, Sadie’s letter, your grandparents, my grandparents...you.” He stops again. “This is more than just a cottage. It’s alive.”

  The emotion in my son’s voice touches me, and I reach out and pat his leg. “It is.”

  Evan grabs his phone again. “Mom, you should see all the comments we’ve already received about finding this stuff in the cottage.”

  “Really?” I ask.

  Evan nods. “Yeah. We had a few hundred people watching on Facebook Live.”

  “Is that good?”

  “It’s really good,” Evan says, “especially considering very few were my friends. And we got a ton of comments.” Evan begins scrolling, and his smile grows bigger as his eyes scan. “A lot of folks already want to book when you open. So, we have to get your website and online reservation app now. And, oh, my gosh, Mom, listen to this. A local TV station out of Grand Rapids heard about our discovery, and they want to interview you about the cottage’s history and renovation. It’s exactly what you need to launch the inn and get the word out.”

  “Oh, Evan,” I say, my heart racing. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  I reach over to grab his hand, but instead grab the fake cow’s foot he’s still holding. I take it from him and hold it up to my ear as if it were a telephone. “Hello? I’m trying to reach Evan.”

  He rolls his eyes. I continue, since he refuses to play along. “Okay, then. U-Haul? I need a truck. I’m moooo-ving. Last name, Patty. First name, Cow.”

  This time, Evan groans, and then another serious look overtakes his face, and he reaches over and grabs the cow’s foot from my hand. “I have an idea,” he says, his eyes growing wide. “Pardon yet another cow pun here, but I think we’ve found your bargaining chip, Mom.”

  “What do you mean?”

  As Evan explains, a grinchesque smile—much like one I’ve seen before—slowly covers my face.

  “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Evan says. “Isn’t that exactly what Capone would do?”

  Part Eight

  Rule #8:

  Ice Cream Is Required

  TWENTY-SIX

  April

  Sunlight is tumbling into my nearly completed master suite, and the space is filled with light. I can picture where my bed will be placed and my reading chair will be angled. The bedroom is warm, the reading nook in my little sunroom even warmer, and I do a spontaneous pirouette as I walk into my en suite bathroom. The tile is complete, and I run my hands over the walls and counters before taking a seat directly in the middle of my oversize shower.

  Budget be damned, I think, looking up at my rain showerhead before feeling my tile again.

  “Carrara marble, you sure are pretty,” I say out loud to my bathroom. “Okay, faux Carrara marble, you sure are pretty.”

  I listened to Trish, Frank and Evan, who all encouraged me to splurge on my master suite, telling me I would need a spa-like refuge and retreat at the end of every day. Even the faux marble was more than I wanted to spend, but...

  A smile crosses my face.

  ...I have a plan.

  I cross my legs and position myself like a Buddha in the middle of my huge shower. I quiet my brain, align my mind and body and outline my plan of action. After a few seconds, I feel something in my lap, and I open my eyes to find Sonny—now much bigger than he was weeks ago—trying to lie down.

  “You’re squashing my organs, big guy,” I say. “And I need those.”

  I give him a kiss on the head, push him off my lap, stand and walk back into my bedroom. I slide open the newly installed French doors to test them. As I do, I brace myself for the shock of cold air, but instead a warm breeze greets me.

  I sigh and inhale.

  There is something about the first warm day of the year in Michigan. It arrives unexpectedly, like a message in a bottle that just suddenly washes up to shore.

  I call Sonny, and we walk out onto the small wooden porch that Frank has built, just big enough for two chairs. It is hidden from the rest of the cottage—set behind the wall of the new bathroom—but is bathed in sunlight. Sonny immediately lies down on the patio, his body soaking up the sun. I kneel to pet his fur, already warm, when I see a cluster of snowdrops blooming just behind the patio. I smile.

  The first warm day is just like these delicate white flowers, I think. It comes as a pretty surprise. Yes, there will be more cold, but this offers promise.

  I stand and look around. Just like the progress on the cottage.

  I tilt my face toward the sky, shut my eyes and let the sun warm me, calm me, lull me.

  “I can almost taste summer,” I say to myself.

  Suddenly, an image of Saugatuck’s local ice cream shop fills my mind.

  Lick Effect Ice Cream—possibly the corniest but most appropriate name for an ice cream shop ever—has been a mainstay in town ever since my mom was a little girl. The shop is tucked just off the main drag—Water Street—and down a narrow alley in a tiny space. The shop makes its own ice cream and waffle cones, and the only sign that the shop has opened for the season is when a mannequin—outfitted in a wig and sequined bikini—is positioned in a window over the storefront, its legs—which have been made over to resemble waffle cones—jutting into the alley. When its waffle cone legs are uncrossed, Lick Effect is open
for business. When they are crossed, it is closed.

  Like spring in Michigan, Lick Effect has no definitive opening date. The first warmish early spring day, the mannequin will appear and the shop will suddenly open. The first frigid fall day, the mannequin will disappear and the shop will be closed for winter.

  “Do you think?” I ask Sonny, who has now rolled onto his back so the sun can warm his tummy.

  The hopeful lilt in my question causes Sonny to roll onto his feet, amble over to me, jump into my arms as if he were giving me a bear hug and emit one loud bark.

  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  Sonny and I drive into town, windows down, and we both inhale the scents of and listen to the sounds of Michigan coming back to life after winter: the warming of the ground, the scent of fresh pine and lake humidity in the air, the birds chirping, chain saws buzzing. Saugatuck, too, is coming back to life: though it’s too early for the shops to plant their window boxes, cheery flags now flap in the breeze, storefront doors are open, tourists walk the streets and I can smell fudge being cooked in big copper urns in the local candy shop.

  My heart quickens as I park on Water Street and grab Sonny’s leash. We walk down the street and turn into the alley. I keep my eyes on the ground, the anticipation almost too much to take.

  “Is she there?” I ask Sonny, who cocks his head at me.

  I look up and let out a little squeal of delight. There sits the mannequin—dressed in its summer bikini—its waffle cone legs jutting into the alley.

  “Sonny! I knew I could taste summer!”

  There is a little hitching post for dogs in the alley, underneath a sign that reads Pet Parking. I secure Sonny’s leash and say, “Wait! Back in a jiffy!”

  Bells on the front door announce my arrival, and an older woman I recognize as the owner greets me.

  “I knew it!” I tell her. “I had a feeling today would be the day.”

  The woman laughs, her cheeks quivering. Her hair is white and pulled up under a pointy cap that features the store’s logo—a lake effect storm of white over the lake, the snow swirling into a perfectly formed ice cream cone over Michigan. She is very tan, almost the color of the saddle-brown leather seats in my car.