A Different Kind of Summer

Typhoon Strikes China: Hundreds Dead, Missing.

Underneath that article, in smaller letters: Elton Bears Down on Caribbean.

She turned the paper over so she couldn’t see the headlines, then went down the hall to the bathroom. Chris still moved around in bed, talking quietly. His own voice alternated with a very deep one. The panda never spoke and the tiger mostly growled, so she guessed he was having a conversation with the polar bear. Getting advice about life on an ice floe, maybe.

Best not to disturb him. She shut the bathroom door quietly. When the tub was half-full, she stepped into the water and leaned back, gasping when her overheated skin touched cold porcelain. Her eyes closed and her tired muscles began to relax.

It had been a long, difficult evening. They’d had two deaths on the ward. Both were expected. That didn’t make anything easier. They were two people she had greeted every shift and tried to make comfortable with back rubs and sheepskin under their heels and fresh ice water to sip, and this evening she’d helped take them to the morgue instead. She never got used to that trip.

When she first started working at the hospital—for the summer between grades eleven and twelve—the head nurse wouldn’t let her go. All the staff had been protective, maybe because they knew her mother or because she was only sixteen. “Sweet sixteen,” everyone had said and of course one orderly had always added, “and never been kissed.” That wasn’t exactly true, but she’d never done any kissing without dwelling on the logistics. A couple of years later she’d met Duncan and all her how-to worries had gone out the window. Her worries and her education. So here she was on a different ward, but still an aide, ten years later.

By the time Gwyn dried off and changed into shorts and a sleeveless blouse, Chris had fallen asleep. In case he called, she left the storm doors to the porch and the living room open and went out to the front steps. The sun had set, but light still glowed in the western sky. People were out on bicycles or walking their dogs, taking advantage of the day’s best weather.

“Hey, you.” Her neighbor, Iris, appeared carrying a plastic watering can.

“Hey. I don’t suppose you watered my lettuce?”

“I did. And your carrots and your beans.”

“Thanks! I was joking.”

Iris emptied the can into a pot of marigolds, then cut across both lawns to join Gwyn. “That babysitter of yours had all the windows open and the TV going full blast.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll talk to her.”

“I beat you to it. She was on the phone when I came over. Had Chris parked in front of the set.”

“You won’t believe what movie she rented.”

“Sure I would. I heard every line.”

Gwyn suppressed an urge to apologize again. “Do you know any responsible, grandmotherly women who would enjoy spending time with Chris?”

“Seriously?”

“Maybe.” She’d never fired a babysitter. Usually they left under their own steam because their circumstances changed or because she gave them too few or too many hours.

“I’ll ask around. Between us we should be able to find someone who’s willing to read stories and play checkers now and then. It sounds like a great job description to me!” Iris held up a hand. “Don’t even think it. Unless you’re offering a pension and a dental plan.”

“How about all the tea and coffee you can drink and some genuine appreciation?”

“Hah.” Iris stood up, brushing the back of her shorts and retrieving her watering can. “Back to the lion’s den.”

“That doesn’t sound good. What’s the matter?”

“Dear daughter is irritated with me.” Molly was older than Chris by several years and growing out of a pleasant, companionable stage. “I interrupted an hour-long phone conversation to tell her to get ready for bed, but I know she’ll still be talking when I go in. Tomorrow she’ll be in a fog all day and she won’t be able to study for exams. There’s too much work, she says.”

“Summer holidays are nearly here.”

“That’s what scares me.” Iris waved and headed back to her house.

She didn’t seem to be joking. Gwyn hoped things weren’t getting that tense next door. Molly had a stubborn streak, but she liked to be in her mother’s good books.

The last light from the sun had disappeared. Gwyn loved this time of day, the calm and quiet, the big old elms dark against the sky, the air scented by the clove currant she and Duncan had planted when they first moved in. They’d put a pink explorer rose beside it, hosta and bleeding heart in the shade and cranesbill geranium and creamy-white day lilies in the sun. They had liked the same kinds of plants, old-fashioned ones that went with childhood springs and summers.

Even though the neighborhood wasn’t far from the center of the city, it felt like its own small town. That was what they’d liked about it. There was a corner store and a community center and row after row of modest houses built in the 1920s and ’30s. The yards were planted with crab apple trees and lilacs, lily-of-the-valley and peonies with blooms so heavy they touched the ground. Closer to the river specialty shops and three-story houses nearly hidden by hedges gave the streets a different character. Her dad had told her that her great-great-grandfather had done the carpentry in some of the houses. She wished she knew which ones.

She slapped a mosquito. If one had found her, more were sure to follow. She took the steps two at a time into the porch, where they could buzz against the screen all they liked but never reach her, and settled into one of the high-backed willow rockers that faced the street.

We’ll watch the people go by, Gwyn. That was what Duncan had said when they’d bought the chairs. It was funny because wherever he went he could never keep still. So she’d rocked while he paced to the window and the door, making plans, then back to her side to tell her she was beautiful.

He would have erased Chris’s fears in no time. Nothing scared Duncan, and being with him made other people feel as confident as he did. He would have enjoyed the movie and laughed and said it was silly, and Chris would have believed him.

Tomorrow after they went to the museum, he’d believe her, too. Better yet, he’d forget about sheets of ice by morning and get back to his usual worries—the lack of a desk or any homework in kindergarten and his inability to go to Mars anytime soon.

CHAPTER TWO

BUT CHRIS didn’t forget. When Gwyn woke up the next morning he was kneeling in front of the television in his pajamas, frowning at the screen. His polar bear sat on his lap.

“There’s a hurricane,” he said. “First it was a tropical storm but now it’s a hurricane. It’s got a name. Elton. Did you ever see a hurricane, Mom?”

“We don’t have hurricanes on the Prairies.” She knelt beside him. “Here’s our forecast. What’s in store for us today?”

“Sunny.”

“That sounds all right.”

“They give the weather for the whole world. It’s windy where Grandpa and Grandma live.” He pointed at the lower end of Nova Scotia.

“We’ll have to phone them soon, won’t we?” Gwyn got up from the floor and went into the kitchen. “Pancakes?”

When the bowl and spoon clanked together Chris hurried to join her. He reached into the fruit basket for a banana, took a plate from the cupboard, a fork from the drawer and dropped the peel into the garbage before starting to mash. He was organized in the kitchen, just as Duncan had been, cleaning up spills as soon as they happened, putting used dishes straight into the sink. Maybe there was a mop-up, put-away gene. She had a more haphazard approach.

“So, Mom?” He sank the fork through a section of banana, lifted it and pressed again. “The weather’s been the same every day, did you notice?”

“Hot.”

“Yeah, hot, no rain. For a long time, right?”

“What do you make of that?”

“Dunno.” He handed her the plate of banana and watched as she scooped the fruit into the batter. “It doesn’t sound very icy.”

That was almost a joke. Things were looking up. “It sure doesn’t. And it sounds consistent.”

“Yeah. Consistent.” He nodded appreciatively. As far as he was concerned, the more syllables a word had the better. “That must be good. Do you think so, Mom?”

“I wasn’t worried to begin with.”