Summer's End (12 page)

Such a clean kitchen seemed so unforgiving, as if not a drop or a smudge would be excused.

“I didn't know what to do,” Ellie said. “It all felt different.”

“It is different,” Phoebe said. “We're going to have to
get used to it.” She hoped she sounded like Giles, accepting, strong.

Even the pump, the old iron long-handled pump at the side of the sink, had been painted. It was a pump, for God's sake. Why would anyone paint a pump?

Ellie spoke again. “Down at the lake you called her ‘Gran.' Is that what we should call her?”

Tears stung, sharp, hot tears. “Honestly, honey, I wasn't thinking. It just came out, and I was talking about Gran as if she would be here.” Phoebe couldn't imagine her children ever calling anyone else “Gran.” “We'll ask her what she would like to be called. Now let's see about a snack.”

Phoebe stepped out onto the enclosed roadside porch where the pantry shelves were. The table in there was pulled out from wall, and it too was set. Six places at each table. Clearly Gwen was planning an adults' table and a children's table. Mother had never done that. She had always opened the big table all the way and put everyone together.

Phoebe opened a couple of cupboards, looked into the refrigerator. “You were right,” she said to Ellie. “It's hard to know what she”—they couldn't go on calling Gwen “she” and “her”—“what Gwen has planned.”

There were several boxes of crackers, both the kinds that were always there and some kinds that Mother never bought. The wire hanging basket was full of fruit, oranges, apples, and bananas. Mother would have intended them for snacks, but maybe Gwen was planning a fruit salad. Phoebe didn't know.

And she wasn't used to that, not knowing.

“Look, Mom,” Ellie called out. “This might help.”

Posted on the wall beside the refrigerator was a list of
menus. Phoebe quickly scanned them. Nothing seemed to require unusual amounts of fruit or any of the crackers. Gratefully Phoebe gathered up some apples and told Ellie to pick a box of crackers.

And she tried not to notice how ordinary the apples were. Mother had always bought interesting apples, Prairie Spies, Harrelsons, Honey Golds. These were Red Delicious.

The afternoon had lost its glow. There was no pretending that things were the same, and it wasn't much longer before she heard the horn honk and car doors slam. Ian had arrived.

Alex and Claire dashed up the bank, eager to see their cousins. Phoebe followed more slowly, carrying Thomas, matching her pace with Giles. By the time they rounded the cabin, everyone was out of the car. The two little girls, Emily and Claire, were shrieking and hugging. The boys, Scott and Alex, were jumping off the stoop in front of the bunkhouse. They were all happy. But among the adults Phoebe could sense the tension. Her father was tight-lipped, disappointed. Ian looked harassed, Joyce defensive. Gwen seemed calm, but she wasn't smiling.

Phoebe greeted her brother and sister-in-law, then turned to Gwen. “I gave the kids apples and crackers,” she said. “I hope that was okay.”

“That's what they're there for,” Gwen answered pleasantly. “And there are tons of cookies.”

Phoebe hadn't thought to look for cookies. Mother hadn't liked sweets. “Where are Maggie and Ellie?”

“I think they went to the biffy” Gwen answered. That's what they all called the outhouse, a “biffy.” Phoebe had no idea why, but that's the word they had always used.

And a moment later Maggie and Ellie did come down
the path that led to the biffy. Ellie was pale, her features pinched. Maggie was clearly sullen and angry.

So this was it. Maggie wasn't happy about something, and she was making sure everyone else knew it.

The four little kids were now running in and out of the bunkhouse, slamming the two doors, thrilled at the notion of sleeping there. Hal and Ian were unloading the top carrier. A bright pink duffel bag was clearly Emily's. A Mighty Ducks soccer bag was Scott's. Simpler cases came, and when Ian directed Hal to put one in front of the bunkhouse, Maggie whirled toward Joyce and burst out, “Mom! You said—”

“We said we would talk about it,” Ian said.

He finished unloading the top carrier and then came over to Phoebe. “Maggie's really upset about having to sleep in the bunkhouse with the little kids,” he said quietly, “so we figured if it was all the same with you, she could sleep on the sofa in the new cabin. She can keep her stuff in our room. She won't be in the way.”

Maggie not in the way? Maggie was a slob, her stuff would be everywhere.

Although Ian had adopted her, Maggie was Joyce's daughter, born during a brief first marriage. While she was a very bright girl—Ian and Joyce certainly never let you forget that, how smart Maggie was—she was also, Phoebe thought, selfish and indulged. Joyce gave her all the privileges of being an oldest child and none of the responsibilities.

“I'm not going to have Ellie in the bunkhouse all by herself with four little ones.” Phoebe was firm on this. “It's not fair, it's too much responsibility. I don't mind having her have occasional responsibilities for Alex and Claire.” Phoebe had done the same in her time. “But not
all four of them. If Maggie sleeps in the new cabin, then either you or Joyce need to sleep in the bunkhouse with your two.”

Joyce heard half of this. “You know I don't think it is fair to expect Maggie to do a lot of baby-sitting. The younger children are not her responsibility.”

“They aren't Ellie's responsibility either. Either all”—Phoebe stopped and counted up—“all eleven of us sleep in the new cabin, or we stick to Dad and Gwen's plan.”

“I don't see why we can't do what we've always done.” Joyce's voice was close to a whine. “Why can't Gwen's kids sleep there?”

At home Joyce wore long, loose skirts in earth-tone tribal patterns topped by either roughly embroidered peasant blouses or cotton poet's shirts under handwoven vests. The clothes suited her. The gauzy layers softened the sharp angles of her face and hid her extreme thinness. But at the lake everyone wore jeans, and without the flowing fullness of her normal wardrobe, Joyce looked gaunt, and the poorness of her posture was exposed.

“Gwen's kids aren't kids, they are adults like us,” Phoebe returned. There was nothing like opposition from Joyce to turn her into Gwen's ally. “I don't want to sleep there. You don't want to sleep there. Why should we make them sleep there?”

She pivoted, marching off before they could answer.

Ian and Joyce had insisted, had absolutely required, that everyone come to their house for Christmas last year. It had been awful, and in one of their rare moments alone, she had fussed about it to Giles.

“Remember,” he had said, “if we lived in a patriarchal culture, Joyce would be holding all the cards.”

She had stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“In a real patriarchy, what happens when the queen dies? Who runs things at the castle? Who plans the menus? Who gets the good jewelry? The oldest son's wife, not the daughters.”

“We don't live in a patriarchy.” And Mother's will had had a clause about her jewelry; it was to be divided between Phoebe and Amy. That had mortified Joyce. She had expected a third of it. She had adored Eleanor, even been in awe of her, and so had insisted, at every turn, that she be thought as much of a daughter as Phoebe or Amy—or as much as Phoebe and a whole lot more than Amy.

Of course, this wasn't about jewelry—although since Amy had said she didn't want any of it, Phoebe had it all—it was about who had power in the family, who made the decisions, and Joyce clearly wanted that too. “Given Joyce's politics, it's awfully strange of her to be counting on patriarchal property laws.” Joyce professed herself to be a socialist.

“I know,” Giles had agreed. “That's why this has all been so interesting.”

But since that conversation the King had found a new Queen. As strange as it might be to have Gwen in Mother's place, that was probably a whole lot better than having Joyce there.

Phoebe walked over to the main cabin. Gwen was in the kitchen. “What can I do to help?”

“Nothing this evening,” Gwen answered. “I was thinking tomorrow that we might post a duty roster. We can't have you, me, Holly, Joyce, and Amy all trying to help at the same time, to say nothing of Ellie and Maggie.”

You certainly didn't need to worry about Maggie
helping. The girl wouldn't. Nor would Amy either, for that matter.

“But you can stay here and talk to me,” Gwen said pleasantly. “I've already told this to Ian and Joyce. We picked up the mail on the way in, and apparently my nephew—actually, he is my grand-nephew—is coming out with Holly and Jack. He's sixteen. He can sleep in the boys' half of the bunkhouse, and help Ellie and Maggie out with the children.”

My Ellie doesn't mind helping. It's not Ellie who's objecting to sleeping out there
. But Phoebe kept her mouth shut. Gwen was a smart woman; it wouldn't take her long to appreciate the difference between the two teenage girls.

As Mother had always done when they were all together, Gwen had set up a buffet line on the narrow pine server, but when everyone was coming in, Gwen asked Phoebe to help her move the server away from the wall. “That way we can have two lines at once.”

“This is how I met her,” Hal laughed. “She was having the caterers move the buffet table away from the wall.”

Gwen smiled at him. “At least there are no extension cords for me to stand on.”

It was obviously a private joke, but Joyce insisted that they explain it. Of course, once explained, the incident didn't seem very interesting, but things like that never were. Phoebe didn't blame her father or Gwen for how mundane their story was; Joyce shouldn't have asked.

It was amazingly easy to get dinner served. For thirty seconds Phoebe tried to pretend it was because the kids were all older than they had been last year, better able to manage for themselves. But it wasn't just that. Everything was better organized this year. Nothing had been forgotten on the buffet or left off the tables. There were two
serving spoons for each dish. The bread and butter, the salt and pepper, the drinks and the napkins, were on the tables, not on the buffet. Gwen had done a good job.

Phoebe filled her plate, sat down next to the high chair, and started cutting up food for Thomas. She felt Giles nudge her under the table, and she looked across at him. His smile was questioning—
Are you okay?
She nodded.
Yes, for the moment
.

There were more flowers on the mantel above the fireplace. They were goldenrods; vibrant, heavy-headed blossoms arched over a tall stone jar. The oak mantel glowed a soft honey-yellow. Last year the mantel had been almost brown. The aging varnish had grown sticky, and it had trapped a haze of dust, dulling the wood's sheen. Gwen must have stripped the varnish and refinished the oak. The actual work probably hadn't taken all that long, but there were so many different stages involved in refinishing wood, and it was such a mess…Phoebe wasn't sure that she herself would have ever bothered to do it, but it did look wonderful.

She glanced over her shoulder. Her father and Gwen were getting their food. Gwen was going last, as if she were the hostess, which of course she was.

Gwen laid her plate down at the end of the server and put the covers back on the pots to keep things warm. She picked up her plate again and turned to sit down. There were no more places at the adult table.

Maggie had taken a place at the adult table.

Before dinner Gwen had said that the kids were to eat on the back porch. She had been absolutely clear. Maggie had to have heard her. But Maggie had gone and sat at the adult table anyway.

Phoebe was furious.

Ian instantly scooted his chair over. “Here, Gwen, there's plenty of room. We can get another chair.”

But Giles was already on his feet, lifting his plate. “No, I'll go out and help Ellie. She's stuck out there with the little ones. Here, Gwen, please sit down.”

This wasn't Giles on vacation, this was Giles, general counsel of the University of Iowa, thinking quickly, acting quickly, being so decisive that no one had a chance to argue. He had already taken Gwen's plate from her, was already guiding her to the chair. “I haven't touched a thing. Everything—glass, napkin, fork, they're all clean.”

But being general counsel was exactly what Giles did not want to do on vacation.

Ian was flushed, mortified. He knew he should have made Maggie move. Phoebe could see Joyce start to bristle. Joyce would have defended Maggie.
Maggie enjoys adult conversations so. She is simply too intelligent for some other teenagers
.

And just whom was Maggie too intelligent for? Ellie was the only other teenager here. Phoebe's own sweet, helpful, responsible Ellie.

Phoebe turned back to the high chair and started mashing up Thomas's lasagne again. Now it was too fine, and he was having trouble eating it.

None of this would have happened if Mother was still alive.

There were four of them in a space designed for three. Amy could tell that Jack didn't like having to crowd his passengers like that, but she wasn't uncomfortable. Neither he nor Holly seemed to mind being bumped and poked—being touched drove Henry nuts—so Amy wasn't having to hold herself forward and stiffly upright as she would have if crowded between Henry and Tommy.

She was having a good time. She really liked these people. Of course, the boy Nick, fair-skinned, dark-haired, seemed a typical sullen teenager, but compared to the teenagers Amy knew, the determined little nearanorexics who viewed Amy as the once-idolized enemy, the person they wanted to dethrone…compared to them, Nick was just fine.

Holly was great, the ideal person for Amy to share a long car trip with. She had a cooler, more detached nature than Amy herself did, but like Amy, her clothes and shoes had the place in her life that other women reserved for husband and children. She was also dreading the inconveniences of the lake even more than Amy. “I don't know how I'm going to survive without a hair dryer.”

“You have to tell your stylist,” Amy had laughed, “that
you are going to Europe and don't have room to pack an outlet adapter. That's the only way to make them understand that you really won't have a hair dryer.”

Physically Holly and her brother were attractive people. They both had rich, warm coloring—their eyes were a hazely topaz, they had freckles across their noses, and their hair was chestnut with coppery highlights…although Holly freely admitted that while Jack's highlights were natural, streaked into his hair by the strong Kentucky sun, hers was a product of her hair salon. “I made him go in with me,” she said, “so that they could see exactly what I wanted.”

“Every woman should have a brother,” he remarked. “We're so useful.”

He was driving easily, his left hand cocked at the top of the steering wheel, his right arm stretched along the back of the seat to give Amy and Holly more room. Holly played up her coloring; she was wearing a shirt of tobacco brown that looked marvelous on her. Jack's waffle-knit, Henley-collared shirt was navy, and the best thing that Amy could think of to say about his choice of color was that it proved that he wasn't vain. His hair was shaggy—Holly had already asked why he hadn't had it cut—but Amy liked how soft and rumpled it looked.

He seemed like a familiar type to her. He was a guy, one of life's practical types. She knew a number of such men. In her world they were road managers, sound engineers, and lighting technicians.

They were great. Outgoing, easy-tempered, and strong, they could always put a smile on your face; they could always get things done. They could open car doors when the keys were locked inside; they could get electricity back to an arena when the main circuit kept blowing; they could
get the ice to refreeze when the rink was covered with huge puddles only hours before a show. They never gave up; they believed they could fix anything. They were wonderful people to have around.

But they were impossible to get to know. They hid behind all that practicality. They never asked themselves any of the hard questions; they were too busy trying to get the streets clear. They lived entirely in the moment; the past was over, the future had not yet happened. So as fun as they were to be around, they weren't very interesting.

But they got things done. If anyone could persuade Dad and Ian to get light into the bunkhouse, it would be someone like that.

 

Amy had last seen her family at Christmas. It hadn't been easy to arrange. The holidays were always busy for her. She was either riding a float in a parade, skating in a big holiday ice show, or both. The Christmas one month after her mother's death had been no different. She was fulfilling commitments made long, long before her mother had gotten sick.

But the following year, this year, she had been determined to join her family for at least part of the holiday. Christmas Day would be out of the question, of course, but she carefully arranged her schedule on the twenty-sixth so that she could make the best possible connections from New York to Iowa.

Then the day after Thanksgiving Phoebe left a message to say that the family would be gathering at Ian's house in California this year.

Amy called her right back. “California? Why?” They had always celebrated everything at home.

“We were all pretty miserable last year,” Phoebe answered. “So Ian suggested we do something dramatically different this year. Break the pattern. And Dad agreed.”

“When did we decide?”

“I don't know. I guess we started talking about it in the summer, but we really didn't decide for sure until yesterday.”

In the
summer?
Amy couldn't believe it. Why hadn't they told her? If she had known this in the summer, she could have scheduled her holiday appearances for LA and been with them the whole time.

Tommy had had his family in LA a couple of Christmases ago, and they had all had a great time. He had gotten tickets for the Rose Bowl parade and had set up a “back-door” tour of Disneyland so that his nieces and nephews could get on the best rides without ever waiting in line. The local promoter had provided suites for everyone, and the kids had used room service and had gone swimming in the hotel pools, and the women had had facials and massages. It had been a Christmas they would remember forever.

Phoebe had said the Legend family needed something dramatically different. How about Christmas in a luxury hotel, arranged by Amy? That would have been different.

But it was too late now. She was committed to being in New York.

So she had to reroute herself, and then she almost missed the plane. Pestered by a talkative seat mate—someone traveling on a frequent-flyer upgrade who was thrilled, so
thrilled
, to be sitting next to
Amy Legend
—that Amy could not sleep during the flight. She was exhausted by the time she got to Ian's.

As was the rest of the family. Ian and Joyce's house wasn't big enough, and everyone felt the lack of privacy. Joyce had planned extraordinarily elaborate meals, and every other plan had to be subordinate to their preparation. Ian and Joyce were very environmentally conscious—and Amy knew that was right—but feeding thirteen people three meals a day and never using a single paper plate or cup? Amy felt as if she and Phoebe and Joyce were chained to the kitchen, and she hated kitchen work.

Let's go to a restaurant
, Amy wanted to shriek.
Call for pizza, Chinese, anything. I'll pay for it
.

But this was clearly Joyce's show. Her sister-in-law was determined to be as in charge of this holiday as Mother had been of all holidays past. So Amy said nothing about pizza, nothing about Disneyland. She just loaded and unloaded the dishwasher over and over.

And at the lake there wouldn't even be a dishwasher.

Suddenly Amy wanted to warn Holly and Jack—these two nice people she was squeezed between—about her family. She wanted to caution them about what the lake meant to Ian and Phoebe, how odd her brother and sister were about so many things.
Please be careful. Let them have their own way
.

But why should Holly and Jack have to accommodate Ian and Phoebe? Why couldn't Ian and Phoebe be generous, why couldn't they compromise?

Because they couldn't.

Nick was listening to his CD player so loudly that Amy could hear a tuneless rasp coming from the headphones. Holly and Jack were now talking to each other about the financing of a business deal he had just done. They had carefully explained it to her so that she would not be excluded from the conversation, but once she started
thinking about Phoebe and Ian, it was hard to concentrate on anything else.

For the early part of the drive they had been on the interstate; the terrain had been open, the Minnesota prairie falling away from either side of the graded highway. For the first half hour there had been billboards for an outlet mall, then ones for casinos on Indian reservations. After they passed the reservations, they left the interstate, and then there was nothing to advertise. The fields were dry, and slender-trunked trees lined the streambeds.

The afternoon shadows lengthened, and they entered mining country. The road curved around huge mounds of earth excavated from open-pit iron mines. This was the Mesabi Iron Range. Ore from under this earth had been mined and made into the steel that had won two world wars.

“I'm going to stop at Nashwaulk,” Jack said. “My sense is that that is the last place to get gas.”

“That sounds right,” Amy said.

Nashwaulk was a very little town, perched close to the edge of a mine. It was T-shaped; the county road ran along the edge of the mine, and Main Street ran perpendicular to it, meeting the county road and dead-ending at the mine. The town had an odd air to it. As small as it was, the houses were built close to the street on cramped lots. Even the churches crowded toward the curbs. No one wanted to waste on building lots land that might have ore beneath it.

The filling station was at the intersection of the county road and Main Street. Jack pulled up to the pumps, and Holly and Amy got out to go to the bathroom. This wasn't only the last gas station; it was the last flush toilet, the last running hot water.

When they came out, Jack was going inside to pay for
the gas. “Do either of you want a soda?” he called over his shoulder.

They shook their heads. “Is Nick in the bathroom?” Holly asked.

“I don't think so.”

Holly made a face. “Where can he have gone?”

There was a bar across from the filling station. In fact, there were several bars along Main Street, almost more bars than stores. Holly sighed. “I think we're about to have to turn ourselves into Carrie Nation.”

“There's an observation platform over there,” Amy said, “where you can look at the mine. Maybe he's there.”

At the end of Main Street was a small wooden tower outside the high fence that surrounded the mine. There was someone up on the platform. It was Nick. Amy and Holly went over to it. “This is sort of cool,” he said as they were climbing the steps. “What is it?”

It was the first time he had initiated conversation. “It's an iron ore mine.” Amy reached the top of the platform. “Well, no, I guess it's now a lake.”

The last time she had climbed this tower had been in her childhood. The mine had been closed for only a year or so then, and you could see down into the pit, into the glowing orange-red earth. It had been a man-made canyon, with roads gradually spiraling down the walls to the floor of the mine.

But over the years it had filled with water, dark, still water that looked icy and deep. All you could see of the mine was a steep rust-colored bank topped by a cyclone fence designed to keep people out. The water was not used for boating, swimming, or fishing. It was just there.

Holly started asking questions about mining, most of which Amy couldn't answer. “My dad will know.”

Jack joined them on the platform, and the platform suddenly seemed smaller. He took one look at the water and shuddered. “This gives me the creeps.”

“It does?” Amy was surprised. “Why? It's so peaceful.”

“I guess that's it. It sort of looks like a thousand people drowned there, and that's why it's kept so peaceful, because it's a graveyard.”

“It's not,” she said. “At least not that I know of. It filled gradually. Long after the mine closed.”

“I know.” He shrugged. “I guess I just don't like deep water.”

Amy looked at him. Was she wrong about him, thinking he was like the sound engineers and the lighting technicians? Those men would have never admitted even to themselves that they didn't like deep water.

The business deal that Jack and Holly had been talking about, the one that had kept him from getting his hair cut, had been his. The kind of men she had been thinking of also didn't start their own businesses. They became head supervisor in someone else's.

“Why don't you like deep water?” she asked. “You can swim, can't you?”

“Yes, but how is swimming going to help you if you're stuck in a submarine?”

Amy didn't understand. Puzzled, questioning, she glanced at Holly.

“Our father was a submariner,” Holly explained. “He was under water deeper than this for long periods of time. Jack doesn't think it would be his cup of tea.”

“Jack doesn't
think
anything,” Jack answered. “Jack
knows
.”

“You've never been down in a submarine,” Holly said.

“I have too,” he protested. “When I was thirteen. The
male-dependents cruise.” He turned to Amy and Nick, explaining. “We were in South Carolina and Dad had his own boat, so he set up a three-day male-dependent cruise—the guys on the boat could take their sons or nephews out. Some of the younger ones took their own fathers. And Dad took me.”

“I had forgotten about that,” Holly said, obviously now remembering.

“That's because you didn't have to go,” Jack told her. “If you'd gone you would have remembered.”

“I remember how mad I was,” she answered. “I couldn't believe that you got to go and I didn't. I was the older; I felt that I should have gone.”

“They should have let you. You probably would have liked it fine, and right now you'd be in dress whites with a couple of stars on your shoulder.”

“I could never be in the navy,” Holly said. “I look horrible in blue. I'd have to be in the army. I can wear olive.”

Those sounded like good reasons to Amy. After all, she had chosen her career because it was one of the very few that allow a person to wear marabou. “I take it that you didn't like the submarine,” she said to Jack. Her body was still facing the water, her elbows propped up on the top rail of the tower's protective fence, but she had turned her head so she could look at him.