Summer of the War (11 page)

The mulleins were easy. Their yellow flowers and gray lambswool leaves stuck up in spires, some of them as tall as Nancy. Carrie wanted to dig up the tall ones, but when Grandpa saw what she was doing, he said, “Take the smallest ones. They'll be most likely to survive.”

Carrie took the tallest ones. Digging them up killed their long roots, and by the second day they were dead. She went back and dug up the little ones.

“Well, the child's capable of learning,” Grandpa mumbled.

The wild asters were just beginning to bloom, pink ones and white ones and purple ones with yellow centers. Carrie put them in the place that Aunt Julia had marked out for them.

“How do all these flowers get onto the island?” Carrie asked.

“Bird poop,” Tommy said. “The birds eat the
flower seeds and then drop them on the island.”

Tommy discovered a large patch of trout lilies. They didn't look like much, but in the spring the plants would be covered with small yellow blossoms.

Nancy, who loved picking berries, led us to a patch of wild strawberries. We had consulted the book and found that Aunt Julia had edged the garden with the tiny plants that would bloom early in the spring and have clusters of small red berries toward the end of June. We filled in a patch of Dutchman's-breeches and another patch with evening primrose. None of us kids had known that the tall yellow flowers that bloomed in the late afternoon had a name.

“When I was a girl,” Grandma said, “we used to call them four-o'clocks because that's when the flowers started to open up.”

Everyone got involved. Grandpa found the Saint-John's-wort. We hadn't remembered it although we must have passed it a million times. Grandpa brought out his magnifying glass and showed us how all the petals had rows of translucent dots along the edges like a row of little windows.

“Why wort? Why such an ugly name?” Carrie asked.

Grandpa always liked being asked questions because he usually knew the answer. He said, “Wort, not wart. Wort is an old English word for root or plant.”

It was Grandpa who took us to the mainland to
find two blue plants we couldn't find on the island, chicory and viper's bugloss. The chicory grew along the roadside and had a root a yard long. After we searched a half dozen fields, it was Nancy who spotted the viper's bugloss.

That day in the fields on the mainland we found wild tiger lilies, and Queen Anne's lace with its carroty smell and frothy flowers, and a patch of butter-and-eggs that still had a few bright yellow blooms. Carrie laughed at the name, but it was right there neatly printed out in Aunt Julia's book.

Even Mrs. Norkin had something to give Carrie. For years she had raised lady's slippers from seeds. When she heard Carrie was looking for lady's slippers, she said, “You'd hardly notice them when they're not blooming, Carrie. I'll bring you some next time I come. They're scarce, so I don't dig up the plants. I gather the seeds and plant them.” She was as good as her word. Two days later she appeared with four healthy plants all potted up in Campbell's soup cans.

Carrie beamed at Mrs. Norkin. The soup cans might have been filled with jewels.

I hardly knew this Carrie. She plunged into the garden the way she had plunged into the water the day she learned her father had died. She was still bossy, still insisting on being in control. She was stubborn. She never let us forget it was her garden. She never gave up on a flower, even if the flowers she
transplanted died, like the mulleins had, and she had to plant them all over again. She was so set on copying her mother's garden that she was willing to do anything, just as she had been ready to run off with Ned to get away from the island. She was determined to make the garden exactly like her mother's, and she needed us to do it. We weren't the enemy anymore. We were on her side.

I had seen some of the flowers she was looking for on the storm side of the island. Carrie followed me carrying a pail and a trowel. We found tall spikes of purple loosestrife along the little steam that trickled into the lake. I pointed out tiny pale-pink flowers and their pointed seed pods that Aunt Julia had called cranesbill. We found a whole patch of them, still blooming, along the edge of the sand. Best of all were the wild roses that grew right in the sand. When Carrie saw them, her eyes got huge. She sniffed their fragrance and, ordering me to help her, carefully dug up the smallest shoots that would have the best chance of being transplanted.

“In a couple of years they'll have as many blooms as these bushes do,” Carrie said. “We'll have enough roses to cut and bring inside.”

Carrie went on digging but I stopped. I was thinking about what she had said. “In a couple of years…
we'll
have.” Of course I knew that Carrie was going to live with us, and I knew we would come back to the island next year, but Carrie had fought so hard against
being on the island, and now she was actually talking about what would happen when she returned.

My silence alerted Carrie. She looked up at me and, seeing the smile on my face, must have guessed what I was thinking. “For anyone who's here, that is.”

Tommy came upon a patch of violets, the one flower missing from the garden. They were long past blooming, and the tiny heart-shaped leaves were hard to see in the grass. Carrie planted the violets in the part of the garden where a nearby maple tree would give them shade in the summer. She had found an old garden book of Grandma's and read about each flower she planted: which ones needed sun and which ones needed shade, the ones that did best in sandy soil and the ones that needed moist soil. When we had gone several days without rain, Carrie lugged pails of water the hundred-foot stretch from the lake, tipping the water into the sprinkling can.

After Grandpa noticed Carrie bent over to one side as she carried the heavy pail, he went to the mainland and bought a second pump to connect to the pipe that brought our water in from the lake, rigging up a faucet right next to the garden. Carrie watched all afternoon as Grandpa worked. When he was finished, Carrie put her arms around Grandpa and gave him a hug, surprising his glasses right off his nose.

Grandpa flushed. “I should have done it long ago. This way you can all rinse your feet after you come up from the beach.”

Nancy sat down next to Polo every morning to explain that the garden was off limits. I didn't know whether he understood her or he remembered the scolding Carrie had given him when he had trampled the wild asters, but he obeyed.

Emily had forgiven Carrie the marigolds. “The garden will be so pretty next spring.” She sighed. “Like the one in the book.” Emily was reading
The Secret Garden
.

Grandma said, “What a lovely garden you have created, Carrie.”

Carrie seemed surprised and then pleased. Later she said to me, “I can't believe I actually did something right.” She grinned. “The garden will be my part of the island.” She stood there looking down at the garden, which was mostly green now. I was sure she was seeing it as it would be in spring, with the lady's slippers and violets and trout lilies all in bloom. The amazing thing was she looked like she wanted to be here in the spring to see it. I thought all winter long she would be thinking of the island, just like I would, and just like me she would be eager to get back here.

While we were all busy helping Carrie with the garden, the August days had grown shorter. There were cool days when you had to pull on a sweater, the rough wool strangely scratchy against your skin. The fishing fell off—only sunfish and perch. The trees lost their fresh green and got a dusty look. Much to Tommy's sorrow the summer birds began to fly south; blackbirds flocked and the gulls were restless, swooping down on Gull Rock and then taking off again. We didn't want to, but little by little we began to think about returning home. It was like opening a book you had read before.

On a hot afternoon when not a leaf fluttered and Polo was so warm he watched a squirrel get within a foot of him and never moved a muscle, Grandpa said, “Mirabelle, why don't you take Caroline out and get her up to speed on the runabout.”

Carrie and I both looked at him and then at each
other, amazed. It was as if Carrie's accident with the runabout had never happened. Grandpa didn't miss the look. “Well, it makes sense. Caroline is going to be here every summer.”

Carrie already knew the basics, so I pointed out all the red buoys and where the shoals were and we practiced docking the runabout. Out on the water together, away from the island, Carrie seemed different, less sure of herself. “I suppose everyone at your school will think I'm weird and hate me.”

“Carrie, that's crazy! You'll have the boys falling all over you.”

“What about the girls? What about friends?”

I was going to say that it would be easy for her to make friends with the girls, but I wasn't sure, so I didn't get the words out fast enough.

“You don't think they'll like me.”

“It's just that you come on so strong. You don't give people a chance to know you—you tell them what they ought to know.”

I waited for Carrie to be angry. Instead she said, “I know that. When I was living with Papa, I was always with adults. I think Papa encouraged me to show off to his friends. He thought it was cute. This summer was the first time I was so close to someone my own age. You guys should have come with directions.” She grinned at me. “But we're friends,
n'est-ce pas
?”

“We're friends, but go easy on the French.”

“
Mais oui
.” She took the wheel of the runabout and brought it expertly into the boathouse.

That evening I saw Ned sailing a little distance out from the cottage as if he wanted to be sure I was by myself. When he could see Carrie wasn't there, he sailed in and picked me up. I had forgotten how quiet a sailboat was. You didn't hear the roar of a motorboat, just the quiet lap of the water and the wind that was only a whisper.

“You don't have to be afraid of Carrie anymore,” I told Ned.

He bristled. “I'm not afraid of her. I'm just not interested in being a part of her wild schemes. Mom says she's all wrapped up in some garden.”

“It's so strange, Ned, how important the garden is to her. She didn't care anything about the island until she discovered what her mother did here. She even wears her mother's old dresses. I know she loved her father, but I don't think she knew that much about her mother. Now that she's discovered how her mother felt about the island, it's changed how she feels about it.”

Ned didn't want to talk about Carrie. He was caught up in his own plans to join the Navy in the spring. I worried about Ned being in the middle of the ocean—an ocean would be very different from the channel—but he was so excited, I kept my worries to myself. Next summer, I thought, when we come, Ned won't be here. I hadn't wanted things to change on
the island. First Carrie had come and now Ned was leaving.

“If you join the Navy, how long will you be gone?”

“Depends on the war. One year, two years.”

A lifetime. “And then will you come back?” I wanted a time when I could think of being with Ned again.

“There's some talk of giving anyone who has served in the armed forces tuition for college. If that happens, I'll take it. Mom and Dad can't afford to send me. With fewer tourists Dad isn't guiding anymore, and Mom isn't selling a lot from her stand.”

“After college you'd come back?”

“Probably not.”

“Why not? It's perfect here,” I insisted.

“It's perfect for you because you're just here in the summer, doing nothing. It's different if you live here and have to work all summer to make a living. I'm not crazy about fishing like Dad. I don't see any future for me up here. You ought to try one of our winters. It starts snowing in October and it's still snowing in May. You should see this town in January. It's one big snowdrift, with everyone sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for you summer people to come so we can work again.”

I was devastated. I didn't know what was more crushing, thinking that I might never see Ned again or having him refer to me as “you summer people.”

He must have seen the hurt on my face. “I'm not saying there's anything wrong with summer people. Mom and Dad think of your folks as family. It's just that I want to see more of the world. I haven't even been to Detroit, and I promise when I get there, I'll look you up. Anyhow, that's enough about me. What about you?”

“We'll be back, only this time Carrie will come with us.” I sighed. “I'm not sure how that'll work out.”

“Your mom and dad'll have their hands full.”

“Carrie's changed. She's more a part of the family here, but I'm not sure how she'll fit in at home.”

“Look, that's her problem. Let her be Carrie. Why are you worrying about it?”

“She's so different.”

“You're all different. Your kid brother and your sisters are all characters. Mom says each one of you has a unique personality. You don't notice because you're used to each other. You'll get used to Carrie, too.” Laughing, he splashed water on me. “So will you show me around Detroit when I visit you?”

Darkness was coming earlier. Ned and I tried to see the green flash that came just before the sun set into the water. Dad had explained the flash's scientific meaning, but I liked to think that, like a rainbow, it was a promise of another summer's day. As the boat skimmed over the water and the gulls hovered and plunged, Ned and I talked about what the
future would be like. I sighed, because I knew whatever it would be like, it would never again be like this.

 

It was the Thursday before Labor Day. None of us wanted to think about the holiday weekend and how it would mean returning home. We were pretending the summer would go on forever. Except for Carrie we were all on the porch. Grandpa was reading the newspaper. “Those Danes are brave people,” he said. “They're refusing to collaborate with the Germans.”

As I listened to Grandpa, I was thinking that next year at this time Ned might be on a warship and in the middle of a battle. Half of Grandma's attention was on what Grandpa was saying and half on the beans she was stringing for supper. Emily was painting her toenails with Carrie's polish, hoping Grandma was too busy to notice. Tommy had his binoculars trained on a hawk perched on the top of a pine tree. Nancy, sprawled on the floor, was brushing Polo's coat, promising him she would visit him back in the city at Grandma and Grandpa's. Ned was right. We were all different from one another.

Carrie walked through the porch. I thought she meant to do some last thing in the garden. Instead, without a word she headed for the dock. A minute later she was unhitching the lines to the runabout, turning on the blower, switching on the ignition.

Grandpa stood up, the newspapers sifting down
from his lap to make a little pile on the porch floor. I waited for him to call to Carrie, to tell her to stop, but he just stood there watching her carefully ease the runabout out into the channel. I thought I saw her wave, but it all happened so fast, I couldn't be sure. I knew what she was doing. Grandpa had said she should learn how to use the runabout. She was showing him that not only had she learned, she had learned well.

Grandpa marched down the path to the dock with all of us like a string of ducklings right behind him. We stood there, hypnotized, as Carrie disappeared around a bend.

“Maybe she won't come back,” Tommy said.

“Shame on you, Tommy,” Grandma scolded. She had a worried look on her face.

“She'll be back,” Grandpa said. He headed for the porch.

In fifteen minutes Carrie was back. She docked the boat without effort and secured the lines. When she reached the porch, Grandpa was reading the newspaper. He didn't look up.

Grandma said, “We're having iced raspberry juice, Carrie. Will you have some?”

“Yes, please,” Carrie said. She looked at Grandpa; Grandpa put the paper down and looked right back. Carrie's look said she would be one of the family but she would still be Carrie. Grandpa's look said, “Yes, but it's my decision to let you be Carrie.”

I realized with a shock that Grandpa didn't mind
a little independence, that you could be independent and he'd still be there watching over you to see that you were safe. Carrie had opened a door for me. I saw that like the stone cribs, Grandpa and the rest of the family supported us, holding us together, but like the stones in the cribs, each one of us was different from the others and that was all right.

That same day a letter came for Carrie from Mom. She sent Carrie pictures of the room she was fixing up for Carrie. I found Carrie out on the porch studying the snapshots. She was frowning, and I thought something about the decoration was making her unhappy.

Carrie gave me a reproachful look. “There's only one bed in this room. I suppose you told your parents you didn't want to room with me.”

I felt my cheeks burn. Mom had written to ask if I thought Carrie would like to share my bedroom or have a room of her own. Thinking of the mess that was our room in the cottage, I had written back that Carrie would probably like her own room. What I really meant was that I wanted my own room. But it wasn't just selfishness; I honestly believed that Carrie would be happy to be rid of me.

I managed to get out, “I thought maybe you wouldn't want to room with me.”

“I never said that,” Carrie answered.

“I'll write to Mom. I'll tell her we want to be together.”

“That would be
très intime
.” Carrie grinned.

“Carrie was disappointed not to be sharing a room with me,” I wrote to Mom. Then I added, “We like being together.” Amazingly, I decided it was true. We had grown together like the tangle of lavender plants that had made a hedge in Carrie's garden.

Labor Day weekend we closed up the cottage. It was a routine we went though each year. We packed our clothes, stored any food in tins so the mice wouldn't get to it, stripped the beds, and threw sheets over the upholstered chairs and davenport. Grandpa dragged the canoe up from the beach and with Mr. Norkin's help hoisted the runabout and the Chris-Craft in the boathouse. Grandpa cleaned the ashes out of the fireplace, drained the water pipes, and put up the shutters, shutting the eyes of one room after another.

I thought Carrie would be eager to get away, but instead she seemed uneasy about leaving. Her suitcases were strewn all over the bedroom, so we were always stumbling over them, but nothing seemed to get packed. Carrie spent her time curled up on the porch studying gardening books.

“It says to mulch your garden,” she said. “What does that mean?”

“In a city garden,” Grandma explained, “you would put down a layer of straw, but if you do that here, the mice will make their nests in the straw and nibble all the plants. Just let nature's mulch do the
work. The leaves from the maple tree and the pine needles will settle over the garden.”

At lunch Carrie said, “September might be dry.” She had a worried look on her face, as if the whole world might burn up. “Some of the flowers were transplanted just last week. They'll need water.”

Mrs. Norkin, who had come over that day to help close the cottage, said, “Ned will be out sailing. I'll have him stop by every couple of days and give them a watering.”

Carrie blushed. “He probably wouldn't want to.” I knew she was thinking about his reaction when she'd asked him to run away. She was sure he didn't want to have anything more to do with her.

“He'll do it if I ask him. He'd better.” Mrs. Norkin patted Carrie's shoulder. “That garden's going to be just fine. Next year with Ned gone, you can come over and give me a hand with my garden.”

We couldn't all fit into one car, so Tommy, Nancy, and Emily, along with Polo, would be driving back with Grandma and Grandpa. Carrie and I would go back in the bus. A couple of months ago I would have hated the idea of the long ride with Carrie, but now I was looking forward to showing her all the landmarks we watched for. When we returned next year, it would all be familiar to her. Carrie and I had been two islands. Little by little we had moved into each other's worlds until it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended.

There was time for one quick visit to the storm side of the island. Carrie was busy with her garden, so I went by myself. The leaves of the birch trees were turning yellow. Lake Huron nudged the sand, pulling it away from the island and washing it back. The restless gulls flew inland and then sailed back over the water as if they were rehearsing for the day they would leave. I realized it had been weeks since I had come here to dream of adventure in distant places. I hadn't needed to. The summer had been full of unexpected things happening. We had spent three months away from Mom and Dad. Ned was going off to war. Uncle Howard had been killed. But Carrie had been the real adventure. She had brought out the worst in us and the best in us.

I knew there would be problems when we got home. Carrie would have to get used to Mom and Dad and they would have to get used to her. It was hard to imagine her in our school, walking home with the kids, going to basketball games. But then I hadn't been able to imagine her before she came to the island. That's what had been so exciting about the summer. My books were exciting, but they ended. Carrie wouldn't end. With Carrie you would never know. She would go on changing us and we would go on changing her, but our war was over.