Summerlong (23 page)

I have loved this life so much.
I was prepared to wait out there forever.

—Charles Baxter, “The Cousins”

Superior!

It appears on the drive north suddenly, the landscape shifting from scrub pine and dead grass along the interstate to a vast expanse of water as they round a corner outside Duluth. Both ABC and Charlie gasp, in unison, and when Charlie glances in the rearview he sees Ruth Manetti’s face in a kind of rapture, a broad grin squinting into the brilliant blue lake ahead of them.

“It’s been too long,” she whispers behind them. “Why do we do that to ourselves? Why do we stay away so long from the places that make us whole?”

North of Duluth, each time they see the lake, ABC rolls down her window more and pushes her face into the clear, crisp air. Charlie yells back to Ruth: “Too much wind?”

To which Ruth replies, “No such thing!”

This, Charlie thinks, is the closest thing to joy that I’ve felt in years.

About a hundred yards down the highway, Don and Claire sit in the front seats of the Suburban: Claire’s at the wheel and Don’s in the passenger seat, with a migraine. His sunglasses on, he drinks from a bottle of Smartwater. “Buying this water always makes me feel dumb,” he jokes after the final gas station stop. The kids find this to be hilarious. They begin to call it Dumbwater. Claire chews fiercely on a wad of gum, which she rarely does, but she’s been
craving a cigarette, a new secret habit that the children don’t know about yet.

The children would probably not notice anyway; they’re both zoned out on personal DVD players that Don’s mother had bought them at Walmart the week before, and now, the carefully selected library books that Claire had checked out two days earlier sit untouched in a heap on the backseat. Both of the kids wear headphones.

“Why don’t you guys look out of the window?” Claire suggests. “Look how beautiful the lake looks.”

“How beautiful the lake IS!” Don says.

The kids say nothing in response.

“I’ve deliberately resisted those machines since the kids were infants,” Claire says.

“Everything’s changing,” Don says. “We’ll have to lower our standards. Divorce ain’t for sissies.”

“Why am I doing this?” Claire says.

“Doesn’t matter now,” Don says. “You’re here. We’re here. So, one more time: Charlie will be in the cabin. And ABC and Ruth will take the guesthouse. We’ll stay in the lodge with the kids. Don’t you think?”

“Sure,” Claire says. “That is what we already decided, right?”

“The lodge is big enough for us to have separate bedrooms, if you prefer.”

“Since we’re separated in Iowa, let’s not confuse the issue in Minnesota.”

“Yes,” Don says. “That’s sound.”

“For the kids,” she says. “They need some consistency in their lives.”

“Have you thought any more about my idea?” Don says.

“You mean staying there for the year?”

“Yes. That’s my best idea,” Don says.

“I said I’d think about it once we were up there. It’s hard to picture that place in the winter.”

“I know you like the cabin,” Don says. “I don’t want you to be disappointed, but with the kids”—he glances into the rearview to make sure they still have on their headphones—“it just makes the most sense if we all stay in the same place.”

“Don’t worry about my disappointment.”

“Give us a year, Claire,” Don says.

“I can’t.”

“I’m sure they’ve figured some things out on their own. But,” Don says, “you know. We can spare them this upheaval.”

“It’s a family vacation. And it’s the last one, Don. Do you want me to lie to you? Pretend there’s hope?”

“There’s always hope.”

“No there’s not, Don. Things die every day.”

She hasn’t meant for this to sound hurtful, but, instead, pragmatic, tough minded. Still, she sees Don Lowry throw his head back as if he’s been punched.

“Look, if we’re here the whole winter, we could, I mean, you could stay in the cabin if you’d like. What we could do is, I could go down and get more of our things, what we’ll need for the winter. Or you could. We’ll order up some firewood, lots of it. We could have some time alone, all of us, in whatever way we need to have it.”

“Let’s just get there and then talk about your plan.”

“You could stay up there alone too, Claire. For the fall? I could handle everything at home. Maybe you could finish a book?”

“And you’d live where?”

“Whatever you need, Claire. That’s what I am saying. I can make it happen, whatever it is.”

“I’d love some time alone, to think. Maybe to write. But I’d miss the kids. I don’t think I could do that. And I am not sure that’s what I need.”

“Well, for now, are you sure you’re okay with these arrangements?” Don says. “With the lodge. All of us sleeping there, all the Lowrys?”

“The lodge is fine. It’s great. It’s huge.”

“But the carpets. I think Merrick said that he had new ones put in in the spring. They might give you a headache,” Don says.

“You’re the one with the migraines,” Claire says.

“If I smoke some weed,” he whispers, “I don’t get headaches.”

She glances in her rearview for Charlie’s van, but does not see it.

“You don’t have any in this car, do you?” she says. “I don’t want to get arrested.”

“They have it,” Don says. “Ruth has it, actually. Person cops are least likely to frisk if they get pulled over for some reason.”

“Are they ahead of us?” Claire asks.

“I just know you have preferences. If you want, we can put Ruth and ABC in the lodge, with Charlie, and you and Wendy can stay in the cabin. It has wood floors, of course, and the best view. And Bryan and I can be in the guesthouse.”

“Are you ever gonna stop talking about this? I thought we made a decision about where everyone is gonna sleep.”

“Well, if you want the cabin,” Don says, “I just want you to have what you want.”

“Give the cabin to Charlie. He should have some space to himself. We’ve been surrounding him for a month in his house.”

“He didn’t have to come, of course,” Don says. “If he wanted space. Anyway, if you want me to, I can sleep in the boathouse instead of the lodge. There is the sleeping porch there.”

“It’ll be too cold,” Claire says. “It’ll be in the forties at night.”

“It depends on the wind.”

“Jesus, Don. Stop thinking. Stop trying to make everybody happy,” Claire says, and tight lipped, she accelerates them forward with a sudden jerk, easing to the left then gunning the gas in order to pass a logging truck.

ABC told herself, many months ago, that she had seen enough of the world—in college, she traveled every break—had spent time on
the African continent (Namibia, Ghana, South Africa), had been across Europe, had been to China and Thailand, had been through the Rockies and up and down the coasts of North America, from Vancouver to San Diego, from Maine to Key West. She told herself that being resigned to a mourner’s life in Iowa was okay.

But when they arrive at the house—the houses—near Little Marais, she knows she’s been wrong about that. She has not seen everything. Here is something she never has seen before—it’s almost like Maine, but not quite: there is something clearer about it, and, compared to the moody and fierce North Atlantic, the vista of the icy blue lake seems to make your heart swell rather than tremble. And it swells inside her now, brings about moodiness and longing, but something more than that too. Ruth was right. This is the landscape of her dreams, the dreams she has about Philly. This is where Philly’s spirit has gone, and this is where it is waiting for her, and she has come to the right place, she feels, and Ruth, and the whole summer, her whole friendship with Don Lowry begins to make sense. It has all led to this. Now she wonders if she has the courage to do what Ruth has told her to do. Just as she wonders this, they are pulling down a long wooded dirt road to the Merrick estate, and they find the lake again after driving maybe half a mile or so, and when they see the lake, they see an eagle take off from the tallest pine and glide out over the water, as if, ABC thinks, it is a confirmation from the spirit world.

She turns around to look at Ruth, who has grown silent, entranced, a smile on her glowing face. She does not squint into the sunlight, but instead seems to reflect it off her face through the whole car.

“Look at her face,” ABC says in a whisper to Charlie, and he looks at Ruth in his rearview.

“What?” he says.

“Her face is glowing.”

“God, what were we thinking, coming here?” Charlie says. “Do you know how awkward this is going to be?”

“We’re here,” ABC says, softly, so as not to startle Ruth.

“Home again, home again,” Ruth says, “jiggity jig.”

As soon as they park, ABC walks off ahead of the group and down to the rocky beach, hoping nobody has noticed all the tears coming down her finally happy face.

To the water, to the waves that crash and roll in as foamy and loud as any ocean, she says, “I’m coming.”

Ruth goes up the three steps to the guesthouse’s deck with ease. ABC barely holds her arm.

“Ruth,” ABC says. “You’re doing so well.”

“The water is magic,” Ruth says. “The air is magic. You’ll see! You’ll see! We’ll sleep so soundly. So soundly! We used to call it the Merrick effect, when we all came up here. We’d all sleep so well, even the kids, and in the morning you wake feeling so rested.”

“I can feel that magic,” ABC says.

“This place has always been sacred. I grew up seven miles west. We’ll drive out and see it, if you want. Though the house is no longer there. They tore it down and built a palace. But, I told you—this is a sacred place. There’s so few of them left.”

Out in the water, some black rocks, dusted with orange in the dusky light, are descended upon by a flock of squawking gulls.

“Those rocks,” Ruth says, “they know more than we can imagine.”

Later, ABC finds Ruth wrapped in a blanket, sitting on the beach with Claire. ABC, still uneasy around Claire, goes to them tentatively.

“Just checking in,” she says.

“We’re fine,” Claire says, smiling.

It is, or it at least seems to be, a genuine expression of contentment and ABC feels the nerves at the base of her spine untangle and relax. She sits down on the other side of Ruth.

“Ruth,” she says. “Are you cold?”

And Ruth holds up a translucent shard of stone and says, “Look, ABC, it’s an agate!”

ABC takes it and examines the rings in the glassy stone.

“Put it in your pocket,” Ruth says.

There is a natural tendency in couples, Claire knows, to attempt to restore order, solve problems, and rekindle passion while traveling. Claire has never understood this. She is not sure how breaking one’s routine is conducive to an action as complicated as repairing a relationship. That should be done in a grueling way, day after day of hard conversation at the kitchen table. Sober, focused, dedicated. She and Don have not done that work. They have, she has finally realized, not
wanted
to do it. She had not wanted to do it. A window opened and she went through it so fast she hasn’t even thought the details through; she just went.

And she knows that you can’t restore anything after you give it up entirely. After complete destruction, it’s only rebuilding that’s left to do, and sometimes it is easier to do the work of rebuilding alone. Two small kingdoms separated, built from scratch, rather than one complicated castle rising from ruins.

She doesn’t agree with Don’s idea that being away from home might give them perspective they might not have at home. She does not think a year spent splitting wood and homeschooling in northern Minnesota is the thing they need. Better to solve problems at the breakfast table in one’s own home, if one has such a place, where the pale, clear light of morning shines over everything, where nothing is hidden. If you solve your problems in some idyllic place—and looking around she has to admit, it is pretty amazingly idyllic—you have an artificial crutch. You have help. And when you return home, you will not have really solved anything. In the dim light of the place you left, you will come home in the first hours of the evening, and you will look around at the unpaid bills and the laundry and the crooked molding along
the kitchen floor and smell the faintly mildewed wall behind the shower surround and you will say to each other,
We weren’t gone long enough.

She thinks not of Don but of Charlie as she unpacks the children’s clothes in the lodge. He’s been cool to her of late, but perhaps he’s trying his best to be discreet around the kids. They’ve not had any moments alone since the night of the heat wave party. One night, she saw him sitting out alone by the pool, drinking beer, but she was afraid to sit with him that night, the kids were still awake in the house, and the look on Charlie’s face was pensive, sad, far away, not there but elsewhere.

The next day, the car unloaded, the lodge and cabins opened up, the fridges stocked with groceries and supplies from Zup’s in Silver Bay, everything feels as if it is secure, safely and happily set up in the place they almost had decided not to come, and Claire and Don go out to the lodge’s deck overlooking the lake.

“I’m glad we all came,” Claire says.

Don nods.

The children are building a series of castles with the endless rocks on the beach. Charlie is sitting on the porch of his cabin, reading. Ruth and ABC sit on the porch of the guesthouse, drinking tea. And the sight of all this contentment moves Don and Claire to sit down together, side by side on a wooden Leopold bench that is on the deck. Don puts his arm around his wife and she takes it from her shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Claire says.

“Me too,” Don says, but he doesn’t know if she is apologizing for wanting his arm off her body, or if she is apologizing for something bigger, harsher, irreversible.

The surf of the lake rushes in roaring and retreats in a whisper. They have looked at this shore so many times now; this is their ninth summer here and they had done just this so much—sit
on this bench and stare at this water, and Don now knows, they will not tell each other the long, long thoughts they were thinking.

“What are we going to do?” Claire asks. “We need to be less crazy. We need to be happier. Whatever happens next.”

“I know.”