My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series) (32 page)

With the exception of Mission Hill winter residents, like Celia Alexander, the event brings out just about everyone who stays on the island all year. Sara asked if I would mind if she invited Celia to come to the Bazaar with us.

“Why would I mind?”

“You know why, her being James’ mom.”

“James and I were friends, Sara.”

“I know. But it’s awkward for you and for Race. Don’t tell me it’s not.”

“If Celia wants to come with us, I would love to see her.”

Celia accepted the invitation. When she walked in with us, the Gabies all looked at her the way some of James’ friends had looked at Sara and me as we arrived for his July 4th barbeque, ridiculous.

Sara introduced Celia around and those that took the time warmed up to Celia Alexander right away. Even if they hadn’t, Celia and Sara were having such a wonderful time it wouldn’t have mattered to either of them anyway.

Race was taken with Celia as well, as almost everyone is, but when he realized I already knew her, he seemed somewhat surprised. “You had met his mother?” The revelations about James Alexander seemed to have no end, which was not my intention, but I could see that it bothered Race.

Later in the evening after Lila Meaks, Larry’s mother, had given Race the history of her family’s deep roots on the island, the two of them got into a spirited conversation about what it takes to become a Gabey.

“You’re here for a time or for life. It takes time to become a Gabey.”

Race laughed and asked, “Oh really, and how long does that take?”

“Some says this and some says that. I have my own idea.”

“And what’s your idea?”

“I’m just sayin’, people who live on the island are either timers or lifers. Those that move here, who weren’t born and bred, are usually timers.”

I left the two of them to their little discussion and went to the kitchen to help Sherry Oliver serve up plates of spaghetti.

At the end of the evening, Race drove a surrey full of people to Main Street for the lighting of the tree. Afterwards we took both Sara and then Celia home. Race walked Celia up the front steps of the big Alexander home, and when we were riding back to the lodge he asked, “That’s quite a house. Have you been in it?”

“No.”

“You said you went to a barbeque.”

“At James’ apartment.”

“Hmm.”

“Sara was with me,” I offered.

Race just nodded.

Paul’s call Thanksgiving Day
led Race and me to make a decision to get out the checkbook and fly our son and daughter to the island for Christmas. Meanwhile, Race continued to study the sky on a regular basis and he was doing just that when I walked out to the porch and handed him a cup of tea.

While looking up, he said, “I hope we have a white Christmas. The kids would love it.”

I wrapped my arm around his waist and looked up into his eyes, smirking. “Yes, the kids would love that.” And they would have, maybe not as much as their father, but they would have.

The seventh of December there was still no snow, but on the eighth, I was in the kitchen making breakfast and Race came running down the stairs from his study, yelling, “It’s snowing!”

Outside we stood at the porch railing for at least five minutes and looked up at the sky. No snow. Then Race startled me when he excitedly pointed out in front of him and yelled, “There, can you see it?”

And, by golly, I did see it, one lone flake wafting to the ground and Race’s finger was tracking it the whole way. I’m not sure how he managed to spot anything from his study window, but I was impressed.

That lone flake was soon followed by a googillion more and it snowed for the rest of the day. As the winter blanket covered the ground, it created a sea of white that stretched out across the lake, which made it look like the largest, wide-open plain we’d ever seen, and we were from Texas. By the next morning we had twenty-eight inches piled precariously on the porch railing.

We were still in bed when we heard a thunderous sound that shot Race to his feet like a rocket. He was dressed and outside before I had tied the belt of my robe.

From the living room window, I could see Kurt, Joel, Lisle’s brothers, and five more men pulling off their helmets and greeting Race. It was a big ol’ boy bash.

Before Race put on his helmet and climbed onto his snowmobile, I stood up to my knees in the snow and held the collar of his jacket. “No hot-rodding,” I said.

“No hot-rodding,” he agreed.

But I knew my husband and his definition of hot-rodding and mine were not the same. Race waved as he followed the group down the hill and to the road. My gut tightened the way it had when I watched Paul and Janie drive away by themselves for the first time when they were sixteen. I said a little prayer, went inside and made myself an omelet.

I spent the morning with the animals, gathering eggs and having a nice visit with the hens. I stopped in to see Tasha and was polite to Collard Greens. Cat was curled up asleep on the edge of the loft with her big bushy tail hanging over the side. She opened her eyes briefly and didn’t even bother to turn her head away. She was slacking. While I was there, George came in and we had our usual ten words or less conversation.

As I tramped back to the cottage, it occurred to me that George would have seen my tracks in the snow but he came into the barn anyway, progress. I was inspired. I turned around. George was still inside when I opened the barn door and walked back in.

“Hi again,” I said.

“Hello.”

“George, I was wondering about Collard Greens’ name. I’ve never asked you about it.”

“Nope.”

“Why is his name Collard Greens?”

“Got into a patch a collard greens when he was a colt, almost died.”

“Oh, so it’s kind of a reminder for him, huh?” I laughed.

“Yup.”

“You named him, then?”

“Nope.”

“Who did?”

No answer. Why couldn’t I have just left well enough alone? I was then more curious about who named Collard Greens than why he was named Collard Greens, foiled again. George Miller is a formidable opponent.

I shoveled the snow from the front porch and steps of the cottage and found it to be terribly relaxing, and then I stoked the fire and reclined on the sofa to read a first edition from the lodge library of
The House at Pooh Corner
.

Race came roaring up the hill well after I had eaten my second meal of the day. I looked out the window and watched him swing his leg over the snowmobile and dismount like an old pro. He knocked the snow from his clothes onto the porch, came inside and said, “Let’s take a hot bath.”

For the next half hour, I listened to my calm, collected husband excitedly recount his adventures of the day. Occasionally, he splashed water onto the floor with a sweeping gesture. The stories continued for the rest of the night, during dinner, and afterwards in front of the fire.

When I woke up the next morning, Race was sitting in a chair at the side of the bed with a wrapped present in his lap.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“An early Christmas present.”

I sat up and Race joined me on the bed. Inside the package was a new riding helmet and I thought to myself,
His gift-giving ability, he’s lost it
. I was sincerely grieved.

“You’ll love it. I promise,” Race assured me.

I agreed to ride into town with him that day if he didn’t speed. Even though we were riding slower than I guessed made it any fun for Race, the scenery was still moving so fast that I was missing it. It was a completely new face on St. Gabriel Island, another beautiful face.

Past the library and below Mission Hill, Race pulled over and pointed to a spot off the shore. “That’s where the ice crossing will form, and we can ride across it to the mainland. Joel said he thinks it will happen by mid-to-late January this year.”

Yippee,
riding across one of the deepest lakes in the world with five hundred pounds of machinery between my legs,
sign me up.

As we entered downtown, I remembered one of the original pictures of St. Gabriel I had cut out of a magazine. The street was covered with snow, pine wreaths hung from every street lamp, and a lit Christmas tree was in the middle of the intersection where Fort Hill runs into Main Street. It looked exactly the same. Sara met us for breakfast at Chums, which is one of the few restaurants that stay open during the off season.

Downtown St. Gabe also has another face during the winter and it’s a familiar one. In the summer the streets are crowded with tourists, and the locals can walk from one end of town to the other without recognizing a soul. In the winter it feels as if Disneyland has been closed to the public, and you’re there for a private party for you and a hundred of your closest friends.

We knew everyone in the restaurant, well, maybe we didn’t know them, but we had met them or recognized them. What socializing the locals don’t do during the busy summer season, they make up for when the shingles are taken down. The restaurant was packed.

After breakfast we went with Sara to her weekly Winter Nertz Club. Nertz is a fast-paced card game of group solitaire that requires quick thinking and rapid card-placing skills. We had never played before and found out that Race and I are quite good at it and we both had a great time.

On the way home Race drove us out to the fishing pier. That first snow had brought with it a drop in temperature that began the Jack Frost Jiggy. Ice in a glass was all I had known, really. Even growing up in Big Bear, I had never seen anything like it.

What St. Gabriel can do with some water and temperatures below thirty-two degrees is worth spending some time to wonder over. There’s drift ice, feather ice, glazing ice, ice pellets, ice spikes, huge walls of ice, ice pushing up on the shore like piles of broken crystals, and ice covering the rocks, making them look like giant caviar.

We stood on the pier and watched the waves pull apart huge chunks of snow and ice and then slam them back together with their next swell. It was a great day.

Maybe Race hasn’t lost his gift-giving ability after all. Thank goodness!

Muddy Luck

The ferries stopped running two weeks before Christmas that year, and the only way to get on and off the island was by plane until—and if—the ice crossing formed. For Race’s sake, I hoped it would. Another storm blew in, leaving an additional ten inches of snow and Paul and Janie were assured a white Christmas.

Race took advantage of the snowfall and was out every day on his snowmobile. He always returned smiling. I went with him for trips into town, and each time Race was driving faster, and I was squeezing his ribcage harder.

One morning when Race woke up, I was sitting by the bed with two pairs of cross-country skis wrapped with bows.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“An early Christmas present for both of us.”

Sara took us out for our first cross-country ski lesson that day. We put on our skis downtown and took Shoreline Drive to an unmarked trail below the Fort. Race, of course, picked up the sport immediately. I did okay if there was a slight downhill slope, but no slope or a slight uphill incline, and I would shuffle back and forth and not gain any ground. When we skied down a steeper hill, I felt as though I was trying to balance on a couple of very long toothpicks, and I’d lose control.

My worst collision was with Race. I couldn’t steer, stop, or even slow down and crashed into him from behind. I fell back, Race fell on top of me, and my poles stabbed him in the back on his way down. I am happy to report I did improve, and we clipped along quite nicely when something whipped down the hill and slid right over the front of my skis, and then disappeared into the trees on the other side of the trail.

“Did you see that?” I called back to Race, who no longer trusted me to ski behind him.

“Yes.”

Then we heard a whooshing sound from the hill above and could see a brown blur speeding toward Race and then over his skis.

Sara turned around and asked, “See what?” Then another brown shot flashed down the hill but this time not over anyone’s skis; instead, it slammed right into Sara’s ankle and knocked her off balance. Teetering back and forth, she was trying to stay upright when she stepped out with her left ski to catch herself, and she landed on the side of her ankle.

I heard a distinct crack and Sara let out a little yelp. She fell to the ground almost landing on the otter that was staggering around, shaking its head, tail, and legs as if it was being electrocuted.

Race rushed over to Sara and pulled her to her feet and away from the otter. We watched the creature as it slowly recovered from the impact. Then the otter staggered back and forth to the downhill side of the trail where it laid on its stomach and slid out of sight.

“Sara, are you okay?” I asked as I scooted my skis to reach the spot where Race was holding her up.

“I can’t put any weight on my leg. It really hurts.” She was trying not to cry.

“Oh, honey, sit down. We’ll look at it.”