Me:Noted.
Me:Strange that he thought your word would have sway with me.
Charlie:Strange that he didn’t listen when I told him you were a redhead with a big mouth.
Me:A big mouth and a lifetime supply of cucumbers. Thank you for that.
Charlie:A thank you? From Alice Everly? Whoa.
Charlie:No reply? It’s eleven at night. Surely you can make time for me.
Me:Time for what exactly? Don’t you have someone else to bother?
Charlie:Is this your roundabout way of asking whether I’m single?
Charlie:You disappeared again.
Me:Goodnight, Charlie.
Charlie:Sweet dreams, Alice.
14
Monday, June 30
63 Days Left at the Lake
Iwake to the sound of hammering across the bay and sunlight flooding my small bedroom. From my pillow, I have a clear view of the lake, Charlie’s yellow boat included. I catch myself staring at it and throw back the sheet.
“I’m sorry I overslept again,” I say to Nan as I pad out to the living room. She’s in her armchair, turning through the pages of a photo album. “Can I make you breakfast?”
“No, dear. I fixed myself toast hours ago.”
“What are you looking at?”
“Summers gone by.” She smiles to herself. “This is from one of John and Joyce’s first few years at the lake. Before children.”
I stand over her shoulder. The picture is of my grandparents and Joyce sitting on the front steps of the cottage—John must have taken it. The three of them are so young.
“This would have been the late sixties,” Nan says. “They hadn’t built the deck yet. Or the steps to the lake. There was alittle path through the bush to the water. There was no washing machine, so we cleaned everything in the sink. For years, John and Joyce spent almost all their time up here working. Your grandfather and I helped when we could.”
“Charlie said something yesterday about you not having spoken to John in a long time.”
Nan turns the page. “It’s been a while.”
“How long?”
She turns another page but doesn’t answer for several seconds. History clings to the corners of the room like cobwebs. “It’s been years.”
“Why? You were all so close.”
Nan and David. John and Joyce. They’d known each other since childhood. They all grew up in Leaside, the same area where they would one day raise their families. My grandmother and grandfather started dating first, but only by a few weeks. Each couple had one boy, born within months of each other. Joyce and Nan were homemakers. John and my grandfather commuted downtown together; my grandfather worked in insurance, John in the head office of a department store chain. They were a unit. A four-sided structure. Until my grandfather died.
“Things can change when you lose people,” Nan says. “But let’s leave the past in the past, Alice.”
I take the hint and go fix myself breakfast.
“I think I’ll eat outside,” I tell Nan. “Do you want to join me?”
