Three Bird Summer (21 page)

“You mean, you’ll hire her to be Grandma’s nurse?” I asked.

“Not hire. We couldn’t afford to hire a full-time nurse, and Grandma would object if we did anyway. This is more like a trade that allows everyone to hold on to their pride. Carrie will live with Grandma and keep an eye on her in exchange for a free place to live and a hand with the baby.”

“Will they live here? Or in St. Paul?” I asked, still trying to see how this could all work.

“Both,” my mom said. “Carrie can live anywhere until January, when she reenters her program. And then St. Paul is perfect. She can commute to school from Grandma’s place.”

This was starting to sound too good to be true. “What if Carrie doesn’t want to live with an old lady as cranky as Grandma?” I asked.

“We already called her,” Mom said, her voice thick with relief and joy. “And she said yes!”

I was amazed. Here I’d thought Alice was going to make up a silly trick to lure my mom out of the house, and instead she and her mom had found a way to solve my family’s biggest problem. She really was a genius. Or maybe just one of the nicest people I’d ever met.

“So when are you going to talk to Grandma about this?” I asked Mom. The whole time we’d been talking, Grandma hadn’t moved from her spot on the dock. If she heard Mom’s car — or even our distant voices — she wasn’t letting on.

Mom looked down toward the dock. “I think now would be perfect,” she said. She squeezed my arms again and then headed for the path. She didn’t walk in her usual fast and purposeful way; instead, she worked her way slowly down the slope, radiating relief.

I stayed long enough to see Grandma turn her head in Mom’s direction and to see them start talking. I didn’t want to watch the conversation unfold. I wasn’t sure why — maybe it felt like spying, or maybe I just wanted to cut to the end and know that everything had worked out OK. For both of them.

When I went back into the cabin, I saw that Grandma had set each of the carved animals into its spot in the mantel. They looked beautiful that way — filling in what had once been just outline and empty space with their woody weight, exactly where they belonged.

ON OUR LAST NIGHT
at the cabin, we had a feast. An old-fashioned crowd-around-the-table feast like we hadn’t had since the cabin was stuffed with cousins. Uncle Martin had driven up with Carrie and her baby. Mom had invited Dottie Lewis and her daughter, and the Jensens, including, of course, Alice.

The eleven of us crowded around the long kitchen table and ate grilled walleye, biscuits, corn on the cob, salad, and three kinds of pie. Mom’s cheeks were pink — from the cooking or a rare glass of wine, it was hard to tell which — and she looked completely at ease. Dottie kept everyone laughing, including Grandma, and Mr. Jensen proved to be a pretty good storyteller, although Alice and I exchanged pained glances when he started spinning a story about the day we disappeared into the Minnesota wilderness.

Carrie didn’t say a lot at first, but she seemed to enjoy the exuberant company. So did her baby, who squealed and banged her spoon on the table whenever the group got especially loud.

When dessert was finally finished, Carrie turned to Grandma and said, “I don’t suppose there’s anyone here who knows how to play a good game of bridge.”

Grandma smiled approvingly and said, “We nurses will be a team.” Soon a card table was set up in front of the fire, with Grandma and Carrie taking on Uncle Martin and Mr. Jensen. Dottie, her daughter, Mom, and Mrs. Jensen plopped down on the couches and continued the dinnertime chatter as they took turns passing Carrie’s baby from lap to lap.

It was a lot of ladies and a whole lot of girl talk, but I hardly noticed.

Alice and I were washing the dishes together at the kitchen sink, shoulder to shoulder. It was like we were in our own separate space. Alice scrubbed the dishes in the soapy tub, then dunked them in the big basin of steaming rinse water. I dried and stacked.

“I love what your grandmother did with the animals,” Alice said.

“Me, too,” I told her. The mantel had never looked incomplete before, but now it looked alive, inhabited.

“Did you see her take me aside?” Alice asked. “She thanked me for helping find them. And she said the best part was that she now had a little part of the cabin she could take back to the city with her.”

“I like that,” I said. But the mention of the word “city” made my heart sink.

“We’ll all be back here before we know it, of course,” Alice said, as if reading my mind.

I shrugged. Next June felt like a long way away to me.

When Dottie and her daughter announced that it was time to go, the Jensens said they ought to be heading home, too, and everyone made for the door. Mom and I were leaving at the crack of dawn the next morning, so these were our final farewells. I was disappointed that I’d have to say good-bye to Alice in front of all the grown-ups, but there didn’t seem to be any way around it. Then Mom asked the Jensens if Alice could stay a little longer and help me watch the baby while she and Carrie made up the guest beds, promising that we’d be sure to get Alice home safely. She said it so naturally that not a single grown-up chuckled, not even Grandma. But I knew she was thinking about me, because when the beds were done, she handed me a flashlight, saying, “I wouldn’t want to walk on Poison Ivy Parkway even if I
could
find it. You go!”

“Sure,” I said. I think she knew how grateful I was.

It was the first time Alice and I had ever been out in the woods in the inky Minnesota dark. The air was cool and fragrant. Insects clattered around us. The world felt bigger and more full of possibility.

“Do you think we can find the path?” I asked Alice.

“Sure,” she said. “Follow me.”

We pushed our way through the branches and brush, following the small circle of light from the flashlight.

“I wonder where our mink are right now,” Alice said.

I smiled at the thought of them as ours, but I didn’t have an answer.

It was the perfect August night. It felt like we should have been embarking on a new adventure — staying up all night, starting a week-long camping trip — not bringing summer to an end. All too soon, I spotted the Jensens’ porch light in the distance.

“Here we are,” Alice said.

“Yep,” I said.

We stood tentatively on the edge of the woods. Across Alice’s yard, fireflies punctuated the darkness with their secret signals.

“So will you guys be back again next summer?” Alice asked me.

“Of course,” I said. “How about you?”

“Yeah. I’m definitely done with Geek Camp. This place is a lot more fun.” She hesitated and then looked up at me. In the faint illumination of the flashlight, I could see a slightly impish smile on her face. “Do you think, next summer when we’re thirteen . . . do you think maybe then you’ll be ready to kiss me?”

I was glad it was too dark for her to see my red ears. “Maybe,” I said.

“I mean, if you’re not still dating Grandma!” she added.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, grateful to have her break the tension. Then I remembered something. “Oh, hey, I have something for you.” I reached into the pocket of my sweatshirt and brought out the rubber crayfish I’d bought at Thompson’s Dime Store. I wiggled it in front of the flashlight, making its pinchers sway back and forth like the moves of a really bad dancer. Alice burst out laughing.

I put it into her hands. “Maybe it’ll help you on those bad days at school.”

“How could it not?” Alice said, giving it another shake. “When the going gets tough, the tough dance like crazed crayfish!”

“Exactly.”

“Thanks. It’s awesome. Really.” She glanced toward the house. “I guess I’d better go, then,” she said, turning away. “So, bye.”

“Bye, Duck,” I said with a slight wave. I took a step toward the woods but then stopped. “Wait.”

“Yeah?” she asked.

“I was just thinking,” I said, walking back toward her. “I’m Memory Guy. I mean, he’s a superhero. He’s the kind of fellow who saves the world and then gets the —” My voice caught.

“Girl?” Alice asked hopefully.

“Yeah,” I said. I took another step to close the distance between us and leaned forward. She smelled like wood smoke and cherry pie and the Minnesota night. I planted a kiss on her lips. Just like that.

It was absolutely electrifying.

I think Alice felt it, too. She grinned so broadly, she practically made her own light.

“See you next summer, then,” she said.

“Definitely,” I told her.

I stepped into the woods, turned off the flashlight, and bounded home.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A book such as this one incorporates a lifetime of experiences and influences, more than I can possibly cite. I do want to acknowledge my paddling partners: my childhood friends in Ann Arbor, John and Anne Knott, and the intrepid Cone-Miller clan. Four teachers — Lois Theis, Phil Rusten, Helen Hill, and Jim Shepard — nurtured important parts of this storytelling. The Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation and its network supported every turn in my professional path with uncommon broad-mindedness and trust. Blyth Lord never stopped believing. I thank my wonderful editor, Kaylan Adair, for taking on a quiet novel at a time when quietness is often in short supply. I thank my family members —
todos santos
— especially Addie and Margot, my wondrous readers, and Robin, my everything. Most of all I acknowledge my mother, Lloyd, the first and most loyal supporter of my writing, who I wish with all my heart were here now to hold this book in her hands.