“But we had chili dogs after ball last night,” Angus groaned.
“Sometimes the universe unfolds as it should,” I said.
Angus frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I gave him a short jab in the shoulder. “It means there was a cosmic decision that, despite your best efforts, our family was destined to eat chili tonight.”
The road to Ed and Barry’s was winding and muddy. Twice, we were within a hair’s breadth of sliding off the road, and twice, Eli, who had been entrusted with holding the hot food, manfully swallowed his yelp of pain when he got splashed. By the time we got to the cottage, the rain had stopped, but I was still edgy. Two of my children still had to drive that road, and one of them was with her husband and my only grandchild.
Ed and Barry had waterfront property. The cottage was new, built five years earlier, but they had designed it to be timeless, and it had a rambling, wicker-and-wisteria grace, a closed-in porch overlooking the lake, two full bathrooms, and a Jacuzzi. In short, it was perfect, or it would be once everybody had arrived safely. As soon as we parked, Taylor and the boys flew out of the car. Willie was right behind them.
“Can we just look at the lake?” Angus said.
“After you’ve carried everything in from the car, you can look at the lake all weekend,” I said.
There were only two bags I insisted on handling myself; both were paper, and both bore the logo of the Saskatchewan Liquor Board. By the time I walked through the front door with them, the car was cleaned out, and the boys and Taylor and Willie were racing past me on their way to the beach.
When I touched a match to the already-laid fire in the fieldstone fireplace in the living room, it roared to satisfying life. I carried on to the kitchen, placed my paper bags carefully on the table, found the kind of Dutch oven I dreamed of owning before I died, dumped the chili in, and turned on the burner. Dinner was under way. Some nights, I just had all the moves. As a reward, I poured myself two fingers of Glenfiddich and wandered out to the porch, so I could have a good view of Willie and the kids chasing each other along the shoreline. When Willie loped onto the dock, I knew there was nothing between his ears that would allow him to make the correction necessary to avoid disaster. His cannon-ball into the lake when he came to the end of the dock seemed as inexorable as a law of physics. So was the fact that as he splashed to shore, Taylor, Angus, and Eli waded out to greet him. It was a grey day, but I could see their laughter, and warmed by the whisky, my nerves began to unknot. Fifteen minutes later, Peter’s ancient Jeep rolled in, followed closely by the sensible Volvo station wagon that had replaced Mieka and Greg’s bright yellow Volkswagen Bug the week after Madeleine was born. Suddenly, the odds that I would make it through the weekend had turned in my favour.
The first moments of the reunion of my two oldest children were shot through with the currents of love and competitiveness that had always flowed between them. They were eighteen months apart, and their feelings for each other still had the primal intensity of the nursery. It didn’t surprise me that, after the initial round of hugs and greetings, they ended up together, arms draped loosely around one another’s waists, connected again. Physically, they were very different. Peter was tall, reed thin, pale, and serious, the inheritor of my late husband’s black Irish genes; Mieka was dark blond, hazel-eyed, with skin that tanned easily and pleasing curves that would become roundness after forty, and Rubenesque after fifty. Seeing them side by side again, I felt the familiar rush of pleasure.
My son-in-law looked at them with amusement. “The road company Donny and Marie.” He leaned down and brushed my cheek with a kiss. “Good to see you, Jo.”
“Good to see you, too.” I said. I took my granddaughter from his arms. “And it’s wonderful to see you.” As she gazed at me, Madeleine dimpled with the look her mother described as “crazed with delight.”
“Look at that smile,” I said. “I knew she’d remember me.”
Greg shook his head. “Hate to break it to you, Jo, but the old geezer who pulled us out of the mud at the turnoff showed Maddy his gums and got the same response. That little lady’s smiles go everywhere.”
“You’d better start reading ‘My Last Duchess’ to her,” I said. “Promiscuous smiling can get a woman in a heap of trouble.”
Mieka’s mind wasn’t on Robert Browning. She narrowed her eyes at the beach. “What are the kids doing down there?”
“Resisting temptation,” I said. “I told them it was too cold to swim, and you’ll notice that they are obeying the letter of the law – wading only up to their kneecaps.”
Peter turned to his sister. “Race you down there,” he said. “And since you’re still packing those new mum pounds, I’ll spot you thirty seconds.”
After they took off, Greg shrugged and picked up a suitcase. “Must make you proud of your parenting skills when you look at those two, Jo. Come on inside and I’ll buy you a drink.”
“I’m way ahead of you.” I said.
I led him through the living room, pointed out the liquor-board bags, and took Madeleine out to the porch. There was a rocker in the corner by the window and I commandeered it. I rested my chin on top of my granddaughter’s head and pointed.
“Look down there at the lake,” I said. “Your mum’s pushing your uncle Pete into the water.”
Greg came in carrying a bottle of Great West beer. He snapped the cap, leaned forward, and peered out the window. “It’s great to see Mieka happy again,” he said.
“Is something wrong?”
“Not with us,” he said quickly. “But Ariel’s death has hit Mieka hard. The minute we heard about it on the provincial news, I wanted to call you, but Mieka said this was something she had to talk to you about face to face. She and Ariel have been pretty tight the last couple of months.”
On the beach, Eli, soaked to the skin, waved wildly. I waved back, then turned to Greg. “I had no idea they’d even kept in touch.”
“They hadn’t, but when Maddy was born, Mieka found Ariel’s address on the university e-mail and sent her an announcement. Then they picked up where they left off.”
He touched the bottom of his Great West to his daughter’s bare stomach, and she gave him a look that would have curdled milk.
“There goes Father of the Year,” I said.
“I’ll win her back,” he said. “She can’t resist my version of ‘Louie, Louie.’ ”
“Who can?” I tucked Madeleine’s shirt inside her shorts. “Greg, I’m glad Ariel and Mieka connected again.”
“Me too,” he said. “It seemed to mean a lot to both of them, especially after Ariel got pregnant.”
“After Ariel got pregnant?”
Greg flushed. “Maybe that wasn’t supposed to be general knowledge.”
“Everything about Ariel’s life will be general knowledge now,” I said grimly.
“It’s going to be a zoo, isn’t it?” Greg said.
Instinctively, I drew my granddaughter closer. “Yes,” I said, “it’s going to be a zoo.”
Dinner that first night at the lake was close to perfect. Semi-penitent about their forbidden swim, the kids threw themselves into dinner preparations. Taylor laid out the plates and cutlery, the boys cut up fresh vegetables, Peter made garlic bread, Greg poured the milk and opened the wine, and Mieka sugared the berries and whipped the cream for strawberry shortcake.
Finally, we gathered at the round oak table and, enclosed by the circle of light cast by the overhead lamp, we ate and laughed and ate some more. When Angus proposed a vote on the question of whether this chili was the best I had ever made, the ayes triumphed. By the time Willie was licking the last of the whipped cream off the strawberry-shortcake plate, Madeleine’s eyes had grown heavy. At Taylor’s insistence, we took Madeleine down to the bedroom she and I were sharing. Mieka positioned her daughter in the centre of the king-size bed, and Taylor crawled in beside her; then Mieka and I sat on the edge of the bed and took turns making up stories about the patches on the quilt that covered them until they were both asleep.