“Name what?” she asked. “Oh, Adam, I don’t know.”
“OK, then two things you didn’t like about her,” I suggested.
She wrapped the cord of her hair dryer around its handle, then tucked it into the side of her suitcase. She still wasn’t answering me.
“You’re no fun,” I said.
She sighed and combed her fingers through her hair. “OK. Two things I liked most,” she said first. “How strong she was — the canoeing and swimming. And how steady.”
“And two things you didn’t like?” I asked.
“Well, her hairstyle,” Mom said. She frowned. “That hasn’t changed,” she added, speaking quietly even though my grandmother was out on the dock.
“What else?”
Mom paused and looked a little pained. “Well, I didn’t always like the way she treated people — me, Martin, even my dad.”
I could imagine Grandma being hard on Uncle Martin and my mom — she still was. But my grandfather, too? He was a legend in the family: like Paul Bunyan or something. Grandma boasted about his accomplishments more than anybody else.
“Was she mean?” I asked.
“No, not mean exactly,” Mom said. “Just testy.”
“Like you?” I asked.
“Not like that at all,” she answered quickly, and her face turned red. Just then she became aware of my work with the sock balls. “Hey, what are you doing?” she said, catching the last one in midair. “Those are supposed to go in the suitcase!”
“Sorry.”
“Listen,” she said when she had all the socks back in her bag, “I told the neighbors that you two would be here on your own. Mrs. Jensen is very nice. She said you could come over day or night if you need anything. And they’ll take you into town if Ma won’t drive, OK?”
“Four days, Mom.”
“And you can keep in touch with your dad, of course. Oh, and if you’re lonely, Mrs. Jensen said that Alice will be back from camping tomorrow.”
“Mom,” I said. “Enough about the neighbor girl. How many times do I have to tell you? I like being on my own.” I stood up and headed for the door, ready for my swim.
Mom planned to leave very early the next morning, so I said good-bye to her that night. She was sitting at the kitchen table when I went to bed, writing down names and phone numbers and lists of instructions. Sometimes I felt like my mom was only vaguely interested in being a parent until there was some big event or crisis, at which point she became as focused as a general. If you could read affection in someone’s to-do lists, my mom’s love was deep and very organized.
Early the next morning, I heard the slam of the hatch and sound of the engine starting up, followed by the grinding of tires on dirt and rocks. Eventually the car sounds gave way to a lone loon wailing across the water. This, I thought, this is when freedom begins. I closed my eyes and fell back asleep.
AFTER BREAKFAST, Grandma finished washing up, pulled on her cotton hat, and said, “Come with me.”
I followed her out the door and down the steps of the deck. For a moment, I thought she was planning to take me for a drive in the Taurus, which would have been a shocking way to begin our first day on our own together. But she turned down the path toward the lake, stopping at the storage area under the cabin to grab a life jacket and a paddle.
“Are we going canoeing?” I asked.
“Just you,” she said, thrusting the paddle and life jacket into my hands.
I swallowed hard. If she expected me to take off alone across the lake, she was dreaming. A strong breeze was kicking up the water, making it too choppy for easy paddling. Two people could handle it without real difficulty. But it was no place for a beginner to solo.
“Put the canoe in the water,” Grandma said.
I was so used to following her orders that I didn’t have time to wonder if I was strong enough. I grabbed the far side of the overturned canoe and flipped it over onto the grass. A bigger guy would have carried the whole thing to the lake upside down on his shoulders. But I gripped the deck and dragged the canoe slowly across the mud and into the water.
“Watch the rocks!” Grandma barked. Scratching the bottom of the canoe was considered a major sin in our family. Grandma always shook her head and made an audible tsk if we ever passed rocks streaked with the colors of lesser paddlers’ boats.
“I won’t hit the rocks, Grandma,” I said. Amazing. This was my first day of freedom, and my grandmother was already ruining it.
“Get in, get in,” she said.
I zipped up the life jacket and stepped into the canoe.
“Now,” she said, “are you feeling a little chicken?”
“There’s probably a nicer way to say that,” I mumbled, but my words were lost in the wind.
“It’s easy,” Grandma said. “You’ve paddled your whole life. You’re strong enough to cart that canoe around. You can do this alone.”
“I know I can, Grandma,” I lied. I sat down in the stern, then pushed off the side of the dock. I pulled a few strokes on the right side of the canoe, then a few on the left. The bow of the canoe rose high above the water, listing back and forth like a bloodhound that had lost its scent. I wasn’t going to win any style points, but at least I was getting somewhere. I pulled past the end of the dock and hit the harder waves. Almost immediately I felt what it was like to lose control. A strong wind caught the bow and shoved it hard to the left. My heart started racing. I dug the paddle in a few times on my left, but I wasn’t doing it well. The wind still had me beat by a mile. I listed back toward the shallower water, made a couple of quick strokes on the right side, and managed to turn myself back fully around. Luckily I was out of the harder waves now, too. I slowly brought the canoe back to the dock.
I glanced up at Grandma. She was smiling knowingly. “Is that how your parents taught you?” she asked.
I shrugged. Truth is, I didn’t remember anyone teaching me anything — just Max and Rocky and my other cousins showing off their skills and expecting me to watch.
“Let’s start at the beginning,” she said.
My heart sank. This could go on for hours. Why couldn’t Grandma just leave me alone? I had my whole life to learn how to solo canoe.
“First off,” she said, “what are you doing in the stern?”
“What?” I asked.
“Your weight back there is what’s lifting up the bow. That’s why the wind could fling you around like a plastic bag.”
Grandma sure had a way with words.
“You sit in the bow seat, facing the stern!”
Of course. I’d seen this done before. No wonder the paddling had felt so hard.
I climbed into the bow seat and faced the middle of the canoe.
“Now,” she continued, “you can paddle on both sides like you were doing out there. That’ll work easy in a solo canoe. But you might want to pick a side and do your J’s and draws, just like you’re steering. See which works better for a kid your size.”
I ignored the comment about my puny stature and gave it a try.
J strokes were just what they sounded like: you pulled the paddle along the edge of the canoe, then finished with a twist, making a J shape. The twist of the J turned the paddle into a rudder and kept the bow straight. For a draw stroke, you pulled the paddle toward the canoe before finishing your stroke. That made the canoe turn toward your paddling side. Both of these maneuvers worked easily with a partner, who was usually paddling on the opposite side as you. A little J could even out the power, which was greater in the back than the front. Without anyone paddling in front, though, I didn’t know if I could really control the canoe just by executing these moves. Grandma made it sound so easy.
I made a few attempts to paddle as Grandma had instructed, but I preferred paddling on both sides. I wasn’t making much better progress, though. Even with my weight more toward the middle, the stern now rose out of the water enough to catch the wind.
“Maybe I should try this again later,” I sa
id, returning to the dock. “When it’s not so windy.”
Grandma didn’t reply. She walked back down the dock and picked up a melon-size rock from the shore. I was amazed she was still strong enough to lift a thing like that. Then she made her way back to where I was waiting and squatted down with the rock still in her hands.
“If it’s really gusting, you can always kneel in the middle of the canoe,” she said. “But this usually does the trick in ordinary wind.”
She placed the rock in the stern. The weight was enough to bring the end of the canoe down into a normal position.
“Cool,” I said.
She looked me up and down and shook her head. “You’re a funny one, Adam,” she said. “All these summers on the lake, and the only thing you’ve ever done by yourself out here is dock-sit. I don’t think you’ve come down even once and fooled around with this stuff on the water.”
I looked away, feeling the weight of her judgment. Grandmothers were supposed to shower you with praise, not make you feel like a loser.
I don’t know if Grandma realized that she’d hurt my feelings or if she’d just gotten tired of the day’s lesson. But she stood back up, brushed off her hands, and turned toward the cabin. “I’ll leave you alone to practice,” she said, her captain’s voice gone.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll be up in a bit.”
What I wanted to do was drag the canoe onto shore and retreat to the hammock. But I knew Grandma would see me there and be more disappointed than ever, so I stayed on the water. I paddled in tentative circles near the shore where the wind wasn’t as strong. It felt juvenile and absurd — like riding a pony in a ring. But the idea of heading into open water felt even worse.
I’d been out for about half an hour when I heard voices over in the neighbors’ yard. Shouts. Laughter. It sounded as if Alice and her cousins were back from their camping trip. If they came down to the dock, they would see me and my infantile paddling.
Quickly, I steered the canoe to shallow water and heaved it onto shore, more grateful than ever for the sheltering trees.
IN THE EVENING, Grandma made me pancakes for supper, just as I had hoped.
“Don’t expect these every night,” she said.
“It works for me,” I said.
“You need protein. Vegetables.” Grandma had been a nurse in her younger years, and she still liked to assert her medical knowledge now and then, even if it was sometimes outdated. When I was a kid, she’d caught me stuffing my face with popcorn while I watched TV. “You can’t eat that much popcorn,” she’d told me then, “or your stomach will explode. I saw it happen once at the hospital. A kid your age.”
Her words had terrified me so much I hadn’t eaten more than a few kernels at a time for years after. When I was ten, I finally told a friend what she’d said. Just putting it out there in words had been enough for me to realize the ridiculousness of her warning. We’d laughed so hard our stomachs almost did explode. And then we’d gone ahead and eaten two bowls of popcorn and not even felt a cramp.
When Grandma and I finished dinner, she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat back down. She glanced at the clock. “Your mother should have arrived a while ago. I wonder why she hasn’t called.”
“She stops a lot,” I said. I’d almost said “to pee” but Mom was right: that really wasn’t something to share with Grandma.
“That so? I don’t usually see her slow down for anything,” she said crossly.
I shrugged. “Driving’s different.”
“When are you going to learn to drive?” she asked me.
“I can’t even take driver’s ed till I’m fifteen,” I pointed out.
“You need to know how to drive,” Grandma said.
“Grandma, I’m twelve,” I said.
Grandma’s lips pressed together in a flat line. She looked that way a lot — just kind of annoyed with everything. There were frown lines between her brows that had formed permanent creases. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen her smile.
“You wash up the dishes,” she said now. “I’m going to turn in.”
“Already?” I asked. This time of year, it could be light for another hour. It hardly seemed like time to go to bed, even for an old lady.
“I like to read awhile,” she said. She stood up and set her cup down next to the sink. “You need anything else?”
“Nope,” I said.
“Good night, then,” she said, making her way back through the living room. “Don’t forget to turn off all the lights when you go to bed.”
“I won’t,” I said.
After she left, I stayed sitting, absorbing my new freedom. I’d never been the last one awake at the cabin. I’d never had a chance to feel alone. Maybe I really could stay up till midnight every night that Mom was away.
I got up and filled a bowl with a heap of chocolate ice cream, then went out on the deck to eat it. A motorboat bumped across the lake, and a bird called out a sad two-note song from the pine trees. Grandma would know what kind of bird it was. I’d ask her in the morning.
Thinking of Grandma reminded me that I had dishes to do. I went back inside and filled the yellow tub in the sink with sudsy water, then slid our plates and cups and silverware inside. Grandma didn’t have a dishwasher at the cabin, and we’d been using the same tin plates and ceramic mugs my whole life. Probably Mom’s whole life, too.
Washing dishes wasn’t so bad when there were only two people eating pancakes. Two plates, two cups, two forks, and a batter bowl. Then I was done. I rinsed everything off and placed it on the drying rack. When we had a crowd, someone always dried the dishes by hand, but I couldn’t see any reason for that now.
It was still only eight thirty. I tried calling my dad, but he didn’t pick up. When the phone rang a few minutes later, I assumed it was him calling back.
“Hi,” I said.
“Adam, are you surviving?” It was Mom.
“We’re great,” I said, trying not to sound disappointed.
“Did you get a good dinner?” she asked.
“Yep,” I said, deciding it wouldn’t be wise to mention the pancakes.
“Good. Well, I’m here. I made it to town in time for tea with some friends.”
She paused, but I didn’t say anything.
“Heather and Julie from my old office are here,” she continued, “and a college friend named Anne Marie. She hasn’t changed a bit, even though she’s gotten married and had three children. Including twins! I don’t know how some people stay looking so young.”
I stared out the window at the green trees, their colors getting even richer in the fading light.
“So where’s Grandma?” Mom asked.
“She turned in,” I said.
“Already?”
“She’s fine. She had a book to read. It’s no big deal.”
“What did you two do today?”
“The usual,” I said. “I paddled solo for a while.” I pictured myself paddling the length of the lake, as steady as a loon, and hoped that’s what Mom was picturing, too. “We’re fine, Mom.”
“Well, good. You’ll call if there’s any trouble?”
“There won’t be,” I said.
“OK. Good night, then, sweetie.”
“G’night.”
After we hung up, I looked at a couple of ancient National Geographics I found on the bookshelf and then walked down to the dock in the fading light. Grandma’s dad, my great-grandfather, had chosen his lakefront property so he’d have the best view of the sunset over the lake. It must have been fun being alive when you could still make choices like that — when every lake wasn’t overrun with people who had already claimed the best spots.
Standing on the dock, I could see the smallest lines of red and purple at the horizon as the water became gunmetal gray. A loon was swimming off the dock, dipping down below the surface, then popping up as if through an invisible seam. I held my hands together like a ball in front of my mouth and blew through them to make a l
oud whistle. I could change the pitch by flapping the fingers of my left hand back and forth, creating a pretty great imitation of a loon call — or so I thought. But maybe I was better at playing trumpet than whistling through my hands. The loons didn’t respond. They always seemed to save their piercing cries for when we were all in the cabin trying to fall asleep.
I don’t know how long I sat there on the dock, my eyes straining to make out familiar shapes even as the light grew dimmer and dimmer. Eventually I wandered back up to the cabin. It couldn’t have been midnight yet — probably far from it — but I avoided looking at the kitchen clock so I could at least imagine I’d stayed up that late.
I shut off the cabin lights and felt my way back to the bedrooms. Cabin dark was the purest darkness I knew, and I hadn’t yet gotten used to walking blind. The door of my room was shut, and I felt for the knob. As I turned and pushed the door open, I heard the sound of something light and papery slipping to the ground. I closed the door and switched on my bedside lamp. There on the floor was a folded-up piece of paper. What was this — a note? Did Grandma think I needed a reminder to wash the dishes or turn out the lights?
I unfolded the paper, prepared to take a glance and toss it in the trash. But the greeting caught my eye.
My love,
I buzz around the cabin all day thinking of you. Don’t forget to pick up crackers tomorrow. Mole’s in the meadow! Beaver’s in the lodge!
Viola
I read the note three times. Viola was my grandma’s name, and I recognized her handwriting, but what did she mean? I wasn’t going anywhere where I could get crackers, and she’d never called me her “love” before. Clearly the note was for somebody else. My mom, maybe? But why would she need crackers at her conference? Besides, Grandma wouldn’t call Mom her “love,” either, and she would have signed it “Ma.” So who was this note for? And why had she stuck it in my door?
I folded up the paper again and put it on my bedside stand. As I brushed my teeth in the bathroom, I puzzled over the mystery. Maybe it was left over from the time when my grandfather was still alive, and it had been stashed away in the bookcase across from my room. When I’d pulled out the National Geographics, I’d probably knocked the note loose. Grandma must have seen the folded paper on the floor, assumed it was mine, and stuck it in my doorway. It was nice of her, actually, not to invade my privacy by reading it or putting it in my room.
Three Bird Summer Page 3