4 Every Day a Special Occasion
Every Day a Special Occasion
The staircase at Wonderland was the kind you’d see in a movie, with some beautiful woman descending in a gorgeous evening gown. At the top was a long, wide hallway that led to the rooms that housed each of the children—also (strangely, to me) separate bedrooms for Forrest and Regina.
Photographs of the Emersons lined the hallway—the children mostly.
In one of the few pictures featuring the parents, Forrest looked handsome and happy—not so different, in fact, from how he looked still.
The surprise was Regina. You couldn’t have called her expression joyful, but it conveyed something that was missing in Regina as I saw her now: hopefulness.
In the picture she was looking up at Forrest with an adoring expression.
I might not have recognized her as the same person who spent her days on the chaise, letting hours go by without speaking, her knitting needles always clicking, staring out at the lake.
On past visits, my parents and I had stayed in a guest suite at the end of the hall, but at the moment, these were unavailable, Hayward explained to me.
“My dad started this company where he was going to South America all the time, buying baskets to sell to department stores to put things like chocolate and fancy pears inside for Christmas presents,” he said.
“But it turned out nobody wanted to buy them, so we ended up with all this junk.” He waved his arm in the direction of the bed I’d slept in the previous summer, piled high with unsold merchandise. “Typical,” he said. That grin again.
At the far end of the hall stood another door, one I’d failed to notice in the past. I figured this must lead to the room where I’d be staying and reached for the doorknob. Hayward flung out his arm, blocking me. His voice took on a force absent until now. Anger or fear, hard to tell.
“Don’t even think about going in there,” he hissed.
“You keep poisonous snakes or something?” I asked him. I thought I’d make a joke.
“It’s my mom’s stuff,” he said. He pointed to a narrow set of stairs leading to the third floor. “Your room’s up there.”
He set my bag down just outside the door. “Word of advice,” he told me. “Don’t ask my mom about that other room, the one with the lock. It makes her act weird.” He paused for a moment. “Like she isn’t already, right?”
The bedroom they’d prepared for me was probably the smallest in the house, not that I minded.
I liked that the ceiling sloped down over the wooden daybed, with a skylight overhead.
A second window looked out toward the lake and the boathouse.
With the window open, as it was even now, late in the evening, I could hear the sound of the water lapping against the shore, the hum of a single motorboat.
A small chest of drawers sat alongside one wall. As few things as I’d brought with me—my bathing suit, naturally, three pairs of shorts, two sleeveless cotton shifts, underwear, and some other basics—I wouldn’t need more than a couple of drawers.
My clothes were all wrong. But what mattered was just being here.
Everything about the room where I’d spend the summer felt like a dream—the bedspread with its matching bolsters and cushions, milkmaids and cows marching across the wallpaper.
In the corner was a desk painted robin’s-egg blue.
I pictured myself writing stories there, and letters to my friend Martha back home, though only if I had time.
I might be too busy having fun. A person could do anything she wanted in a room like this. In her mind, anyway.
It was all so beautiful. Outside now, a pair of loons called out to each other.
Lace curtains fluttered at the window, moonlight glittering.
From the other side of the lake, someone was setting off fireworks for no particular reason except that at Lake Catherine every day felt like a special occasion.