Chapter 5
5
Alice Everly (not City Girl),
I know you appreciate a list, so here’s what I’ve taken care of to ensure the cottage is suitable :
All area rugs and runners have been removed, except for the big one in the living room. I’ve taped it down and it shouldn’t give your grandma any trouble. I’ve also shifted the furniture, so she has clear paths to the kitchen, porch, bathroom, and bedroom.
I’ve taken out the trunk that John uses as a coffee table so there’s more space for her walker. You can find the games, puzzles, and a deck of cards on the shelf in the closet of the second bedroom. I’ll bring you a couple of small end tables soon.
I’ve added grab bars to the bathroom and anti-slip strips to the shower stall. Did you bring a seat for her to use in the shower? They sell them at the drugstore in town, if not. I’ve also installed a raised toilet seat. John insisted on covering the cost of all this stuff, so no need to pay me back.
I made up the largest room for your grandma. I’ve taken out one of the nightstands and shifted the bed to one side of the wall to give her more space.
I’ve put night-lights in her bedroom and throughout the cottage so you can both move around safely in the dark.
I also shuffled stuff around in the kitchen so that day-to-day items are easy for her to reach.
This place gets hot as balls. There’s a fan in your grandma’s room but let me know if you need one. I have a spare.
Boat is in. Gas tank is full.
There’s a Tupperware container of cheese and potato pierogi in the freezer in case you need an easy dinner tonight.
(How impressed are you right now? Text me a picture of your face.)
—Charlie
On the reverse side, there’s a list of odd jobs he’ll be doing for John: replacing a loose step to the lake and adding a railing, cutting back some of the brush, re-staining the dock. He’s left info about the fireplace, the Wi-Fi, and the water (drinkable, from a well). And then a final note: John asked me to take care of you and your grandma, and I promised I would. Lucky you: We’ll be seeing a lot of each other this summer.
I stare at the letter. Even his sloppy penmanship seems flippant. This man is very sure of himself. I feel a tiny pinch of envy.
“This is ridiculously detailed,” I mutter.
“I’d say we have a guardian angel,” Nan says, sounding brighter than she has all day.
I scan the letter again and snort. A fallen angel, more like it.
How impressed are you right now? Text me a picture of your face .
“I’d say our angel has a big opinion of himself.”
We do have the pierogi for dinner. They’re homemade, and they’re obnoxiously delicious.
“You know I made those curtains over the sink?” Nan calls as I’m washing the dishes.
The kitchen is tucked to one side of the cottage, a little closed off from the rest of the space, but the window has a great view of the woods. I’ve cranked it wide open, along with every other window in the cottage. Charlie was right: It’s hot as balls in here.
“It looks like your handiwork,” I say to Nan, examining the yellowing eyelet fabric strung on a tension rod.
“Joyce’s sewing was dreadful. Couldn’t even mend a seam. I hemmed all of John’s pants.”
“I’ll wash the curtains tomorrow,” I say. “I might be able to get them a bit brighter.”
“You should—”
“Hang them in the sun, I know.” Everything I know about caring for fabric and clothing is because of Nan. She can remove any stain, and she’s a wonderful seamstress.
“Should we start a puzzle?” I ask after I’ve cleaned up. We spent many nights puzzling here after the twins went to bed.
Nan’s standing at the bookshelf, holding a glass jar of matchbooks.
“What’s that?”
Her smile is sad. “Memories.”
I cross the room, and she passes it to me. I fish a matchbook out. It’s navy and silver, with the name of a restaurant I don’t recognize on the front flap and a Toronto address written on the back.
“They collected these to light the fire?” I guess.
“No. It was a game your grandpa and John used to play. They’d hide a matchbook every time they visited each other. These are the ones your grandpa hid here. There’s probably some still squirreled away.”
That sounds safe. I narrow my eyes and look around the room. The rafters would be a good hiding spot. There must be a ladder somewhere.
“Alice,” Nan says, and I turn my attention back to her. “You don’t need to hunt out the matches. We’ll be fine.”
I set the jar back on the shelf, deciding not to agree with that.
Nan stares at it for a moment longer, at the decades of friendship contained within it. It must be hard for her—coming here after all this time, without Grandpa, without Joyce.
“You’re going to have a great summer, Nan. I’ll make sure of it.” I’ve found a choir she can join. There’s a regular euchre night at one of the churches.
“I know you will.” She pats my shoulder. “I want you to have a great summer, too. Let your hair down. Do something stupid. Do something selfish .”
“I’m spending two months on a lake with no plans except to hang out with my dear grandmother. How much more selfish can I be?”
“You’ve invited your niece for a week to give your sister a break,” she says.
My brows furrow. “So?”
“And you’re paying for Luca and Lavinia’s car rental when they visit for your birthday.”
“I haven’t spent much time with the twins this year,” I say. “I don’t want it to be a hassle for them to come.” I’m not sure they would unless I covered the cost. Financial responsibility eludes them. I’m pretty sure our dad still pays their rent. Not that I’m complaining—he helped me with the down payment on my condo.
“You’ve booked me in for my hair appointments,” Nan says.
“Every Monday.”
“And you’ve found a physiotherapist in town.”
“She comes highly recommended. And I’ve got the newspaper delivery set up so you can do your crossword.” Nan says it keeps her brain sharp, but she’s addicted to the satisfaction of completing it, which she never fails to do. Her brain needs no sharpening.
“You’ve been very considerate of my needs, and I’m thankful. But I don’t want you playing nurse to me all day. What are you going to do for yourself?”
“I have some editing work to do.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I’m going to relax.”
“And what does that look like?”
“Well…” I pause. “I’ll read, swim, take some photos.” I say it like it’s a question.
“And what else?”
I shift my weight. Now that I’m here, the thought of filling an entire summer of empty days seems daunting. When was the last time I didn’t have a schedule? “Does there have to be more?”
She smiles. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
Nan loves to keep busy. She golfs, sings in multiple choirs, makes butter tarts and peach jam for church fundraisers. When Heather and I stayed with her as kids, she kept our hands and minds occupied, too. She taught us how to weed the flower beds and water the hanging baskets. We decorated cakes, cross-stitched birds and butterflies on scraps of fabric. We learned how to sew simple cloth bags and knit hats for the twins. I loved it all, but Heather was easily frustrated. She claims she doesn’t have a single artistic bone in her body, but it’s not true. The way she structures an argument is its own kind of poetry.
“You know,” I say as Nan settles into her armchair, “I haven’t sewn anything in ages.”
She holds up arthritic fingers. “That makes two of us. I miss it. Remember your graduation dress?”
“Of course.” It was midnight blue with a ribbon at the nape of the neck that cascaded to my waist. “Maybe we should do another collaboration this summer. Your expertise and my hands.” A project to keep us busy.
Nan smiles. “Do you have something in mind?”
“We should start with something easy.” I mull. “We could make new curtains for the kitchen?”
Her eyes spark, and I feel warm from the inside out.
“Curtains, yes,” she says, surveying the space. “This whole place has become a little weary, hasn’t it?”
“It’s…rustic.” The furniture has seen better days, but I don’t mind. John’s cottage is cozy, lived in. The antithesis of my apartment.
“We could freshen it up,” Nan says. “It wouldn’t take much. Curtains. Pillowcases. A new tablecloth.” She looks at the rafters. “What do you think, Joyce?” Nan does this sometimes—talks to dead people, my grandfather usually. Her eyes return to me, decisive. “We’ll need a sewing machine.”
“Done,” I say, though I have no idea whether I can get one in town, or whether online retailers would ship here. We’re kind of in the middle of nowhere.
“And fabric,” Nan adds. “Stedmans used to have a good selection. We’ll start there.”
“Do you think John will mind? Maybe I should ask first?”
Nan scoffs. “John wouldn’t notice if we painted the walls hot pink.”
I laugh. Grandpa was like that, too. “So, what do you think? Should we start in on a puzzle?”
“I don’t feel like I have it in me tonight.” She yawns. “It’s been a long day. I might just head to bed and read.”
I move her walker into place and kiss her on the cheek.
“Sweet dreams, Alice,” she says. “And remember…”
I smile. Because until this moment, I’d forgotten how every day ended the summer I was seventeen.
“Good things happen at the lake,” I finish.
She nods once. “Good things happen at the lake.”
Even with the windows thrown open, the cottage is still sweltering, so I take Nan’s words of wisdom literally and put on my striped one-piece and a white cotton caftan. It has pretty blue embroidery at the neck that matches my bathing suit. I bought it not knowing how I’d spend my summer but sure that this dress would be involved.
I pour sparkling water over ice and wander through the screened porch and out onto the deck, where an ancient-looking triangle dinner bell hangs next to the door. I’d forgotten about it, but as I run my fingers over the metal, I have a flashback of Luca standing on a stool and whaling on it until Nan told him to cut it out.
The deck is a wooden platform that rests on a rocky ledge over the water—a prime perch for admiring the view. It’s even more beautiful than I remembered. Open water stretches for more than a mile straight ahead, with the green hills of the western and eastern shores on either side. The sky is an endless swirling canvas of lavender and rose against dusky blue, reflected on the lake’s flat surface.
Stairs run from the upper deck down to the dock, which travels out from the rocky shoreline. An aluminum boat with three benches and a small motor is tied to one side. I think I can remember how to drive it. Nan made me get a boating license before we came when I was a teenager—not that I’ve used it since then. There’s a short sandy strip of beach, and the boathouse sits beyond. It has a stone base, a second-floor loft, and a small deck over the water. I set my towel and caftan on the back of a red Muskoka chair and sit at the end of the dock, my feet dangling in the water.
Not sure how deep it is, I slide in rather than jump. It’s like slipping into the sunset. Here I am, days away from my thirty-third birthday, in the same spot where I swam as a teenager, when my eyes began to open to the vastness of the world beyond my own.
“Go explore,” Nan told me when she gave me the camera sixteen years ago.
And I did. I photographed every angle of this shoreline. I tromped through the bush and documented birds and bugs, mushrooms and moss. I snapped pale green lichens clinging to rocks and the wildflowers that grew along the contours of the driveway. Columbines and lilies and asters. I’d pick bunches of them for Nan, and she’d arrange them in a striped ceramic milk jug. I shot that, too.
I haven’t stopped exploring. My camera has been my passport, my permission slip to see new places and meet new people, safe behind my lens.
I float on my back, arms spread, and stare at the dimming sky, the deepening purple and red. I’m not sure when I start crying, only that I’m overwhelmed with how big the galaxy is and how insignificant I am.
Six months ago, I thought I had it figured out. Work, boyfriend, condo: all sorted. And then Trevor dumped me, and I spiraled. I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong when I tried so hard to do everything right. I took on one job after another, needing some sense of control. When, two months after our breakup, he told me he’d met someone else, that they were getting married, I signed on to even more work. Headshots. Weddings. Creative work for car companies and banks. Before Nan’s fall, I hadn’t had a day off in nine weeks.
It’s been the busiest season of my career, but far from the most fulfilling. I’ve built my reputation on giving clients exactly what they want—my collaborators trust me to get the job done without headaches. I told myself if I worked hard enough, I’d reach the end of the rainbow and be rewarded with a windfall of artistic freedom. But the rainbow never ends. I’m stuck.
After my swim, I wrap myself in a towel and fold into the Muskoka chair, breathing in the sweet evening air and attempting to forget about my Toronto problems. I scan the cottages around the bay. There’s a big white house on top of a hill with a Jet Ski resting on a lift and a floating raft. Next to it, a small A-frame. They’re probably less than two hundred meters away, and both are familiar. It’s where the teenagers from my photo dived and swam and hung out for hours. I can picture them jumping into the water. Laughing. Flirting. Arguing. I envied them. Unburdened. Free. Happy .
A few minutes pass before two kids appear on the dock of the A-frame. As they cannonball into the water, one after the other, I feel like I’ve slid back in time, watching a reel from my past play before my eyes.
The unmistakable taunting of siblings travels across the water. They’re younger than the trio I spent my summer observing. They swim toward the floating raft at the white house next door and climb up the ladder. I laugh as the girl pushes the boy into the water. They clamber back onto the raft and begin a game of who can jump the farthest.
I relax into the chair, shutting my eyes as I listen to their happy squeals. I’m used to the din of the city. I grew up with the white noise of traffic and sirens as my bedtime lullaby. But I forgot how much I love the serenity of the lake. I breathe deeply, letting it fill my lungs.
I stay like that until the kids have dried off and gone inside, and there is nothing but the lapping of water and the laughter of adults from somewhere on the bay.
But then I hear it.
The motor is so loud it disrupts the tranquility even before it’s in sight.
I straighten as a boat angles around the bay. I blink a few times, covering my mouth. Maybe I have fallen through time. Because the boat is yellow.
And it’s coming straight for me.