A Different Kind of Summer

IT WAS ONE OF THOSE rules that everything happened all at once in hospitals. Just as Gwyn was about to leave the ward Mr. Scott was discharged, three patients were admitted and another went into respiratory arrest. In between helping people into gowns and rushing samples to the lab she called the kindergarten mom who had agreed to pick up Chris, found out she was about to leave for a soccer game and, now that Iris was back from work, arranged for him to go there instead.

Almost two hours late she finally got home. There was no fence between her yard and Iris’s so as soon as Gwyn walked up her sidewalk she saw Chris and Molly playing. They lay on the grass reaching for each other, right arms outstretched, fingertips barely touching. Chris clutched long cardboard rolls under his left arm. When she got closer she heard them half gasping, half shouting.

“I’ve got you!” Molly said desperately.

“Take the samples!”

“Throw them here!”

“Ahhh!” Chris rolled away, his voice fading, the cardboard tubes flying into the air.

Iris appeared at the door. “Long day? Come have a cold drink.”

“I’m so sorry about this. Thanks for looking out for Chris.” Gwyn followed Iris inside. When she looked out the kitchen window the children were on their stomachs again, but their roles were reversed.

Iris handed her a glass of lemonade. “They’re playing The Day After Tomorrow.”

“Shoot.” The mild word didn’t feel like enough to say. She repeated it, with feeling.

Iris took a cigarette from a nearly full box. “The ground is cracking apart, they tell me, and they take turns being the guy with the ice core samples who’s about to fall to his death.”

Maybe acting it out was a good thing. Chris could make it a game. He seemed happier now than he had trudging into school.

“Don’t look so worried. Didn’t you ever play Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?”

Gwyn smiled, feeling a little sheepish and nostalgic. “National Velvet. I trotted everywhere and jumped over things.”

“Now that’s a picture I’m going to hang on to.”

“But our kids are playing The End of the World.”

“No, no,” Iris said lightly. “Just the end of the world as we know it.” She lit her cigarette, smelled the smoke appreciatively, then put it out.

“Think I should quit my job?”

“No, I don’t. What brought that on?”

She only worked part-time. Maybe subtracting her small paycheck wouldn’t make all that much difference. Then she would be there when Chris needed her, bug spray at the ready. “There’s Duncan’s pension and life insurance. We’d get by.”

“Getting by is all right for a while. You wouldn’t like it in the long run. I can tell you for sure from now until he’s grown up and settled into his own job you’ll always need more cash.”

Iris would know. She had longer experience than Gwyn at raising a child alone. There wasn’t an ex-husband in the wings, no child support check, no pension. An aunt who lived on a farm not far from the city helped out with fresh produce and a place for free holidays, but that was all.

“How do you do it, Iris?”

“Do what?”

“Work full-time, take care of the house, raise Molly.”

Iris shrugged. “Badly?”

Gwyn gave a snort. “You’d better not do it badly. You’re my role model.”

“Uh-oh.” They both smiled, then Iris added, “You can’t fix everything for him. It wouldn’t be good for him even if you tried.”

Gwyn nodded. The urge to make everything better was there, though, along with the terrible feeling of falling short when she saw him struggle. Next year he’d be in school morning and afternoon. That would help, but it brought its own worries. School could be an uncaring place to leave a child for so many hours of the day.

She watched Chris pull Molly back from the imagined precipice again. “He was calming down until he saw the hurricane coverage yesterday. The weather channel should come with an R rating.” After churning over the tip of Florida Elton had gathered strength before hitting the coast of Mexico. Their TV screen had been full of shattered houses and drowned livestock.

An idea struck her and she turned back to Iris. “How old is Molly?”

“Twelve, why?”

“I thought she was about ten.” Ten forever.

“Ten would be fine. That was a good year. The next one I’m looking forward to is, I don’t know, twenty-five?”

It was a spur-of-the-moment idea. She should probably wait and think it through, but it seemed like a perfect solution. A pretty good solution, at least. “Would you mind if I offered her a summer job?”

Iris looked at Gwyn blankly for a second, then started shaking her head. “Oh, no.”

“No?”

“You need someone reliable. A grandmother. Remember?”

“This is the happiest Chris has been for days.”

“I don’t know.” Iris’s head was still going back and forth. “It’s up to you, I guess.”

That seemed to be as close as she was going to get to permission. Gwyn hurried outside, Iris right behind her. The kids stopped playing when they saw their parents. Chris lay on his back, cardboard rolls held to his stomach.

“We saved the ice core samples, Mom.”

“I noticed, well done. How’s the bite?” She meant the one on his forearm. It had been giving him the most trouble.

“Good.”

“Let’s see.” A scab had started to form over the top, so at least she knew he’d stopped scratching. A large area around the bite was pink, swollen and warm to touch. “I bought some ointment that’s going to help it feel better.”

Chris pulled his arm away. “I hate ointment.”

She turned to his fellow scientist. “Your mom told me you’re twelve.”

Molly dropped her cardboard roll, discarding all appearance of childhood as she rose from the ground. “Nearly thirteen.”

“Twelve,” Iris said firmly.

“Not for long.”