This Summer Will Be Different(13)
“You just happened to have that in there?” Bridget gawks at her brother.
“No,” he says. “I bought it when I stopped for gas. Just in case.”
“Just in case,” she repeats.
“Lucy gets carsick if she has an empty stomach.”
“I know that,” Bridget says, suspicious. “But I’m surprised that you know that.”
I feel like a teenager whose parents have returned home early in the middle of an unsanctioned house party. Chairs knocked over. Red Solo cups in the potted plants. Wobbly-legged sixteen-year-olds staring at the adults in horror.
We’re about to be busted.
But then Felix lifts a wry brow at her and says, “She almost puked in my truck last summer.”
Blue shimmers in the distance, and Bridget opens her window, filling the vehicle with ocean air. She casts me a sympathetic look as I take a bite. I chew slowly, and it does help a little.
After I’ve balled up the wrapper and tucked it into the pocket of my striped cotton dress, I close my eyes and press my temple to the glass.
A few minutes later, I hear Bridget say quietly, “It’s nice that you two are friends.”
There’s a long pause before Felix replies.
“Friends,” he says. “Sure.”
6
Now
Friends. Sure.
He says it so softly that I strain to hear it. For the rest of the drive, I keep my eyes shut, examining those two syllables and what they mean. We had been inching closer to something that felt like friendship before I messed up.
I don’t know if it’s the scent of the ocean, or if my body knows the twists of the road, or if Summer Wind is imprinted on me at a cellular level, but I can feel when we’re almost there. I open my eyes when the truck slows. I don’t want to miss my first glimpse. The cedar shingles, the yellow door, the red dirt road snaking through the grass, the Gulf of St. Lawrence glittering behind it.
The house stands as it always has, in all her sturdy glory. Just seeing it feels like taking a deep breath. I’m here. The place that calls to me more than anywhere else.
Felix lifts my suitcase from the back and carries it into the house. Bridget wraps her arm around my waist, and as we follow behind, she pops onto her toes, kisses me on the cheek, and says, “Welcome back, Bee.”
Summer Wind is as spellbinding inside as it is out. You enter through a shaggy mudroom. It smells like wood and damp wool. There are shoes scattered over the floor, and a stratum of raincoats and scarves and umbrellas cover the hooks. It’s the middle of summer, but the winter boots and jackets haven’t been put away. It reminds me of the closet that leads to Narnia, and just like in the story, traveling through it makes real life feel a world away.
I unbuckle my sandals and follow Bridget into the main space, feet already gritty with sand. There’s a large living area that opens into the kitchen at the far end, with tall windows that look over the wide expanse of sky and sea. The white linen couch and armchairs are rumpled and so soft, they threaten to swallow you when you drop into them. Braided rugs lie higgledy-piggledy, a patchwork of color over wide knotted floorboards. A fireplace is set into a brick wall, painted white and stained with smoke from years of use. There’s a stack of logs on one side and a vintage steamer trunk that’s full of blankets on the other. An upright piano stands under the staircase that leads to the second floor. There’s a five-disc changer on the sideboard. Bridget’s dad, Ken, is the resident Summer Wind DJ and swears CDs are coming back. When he’s home, the evenings are set to a Canadian rock soundtrack. Joel Plaskett, Feist, the Tragically Hip, Sloan. There used to be books piled on every surface, but they belonged to Felix, and he no longer lives here.
Summer Wind has never been polished or even overly tidy, but it has the feeling of being wholly loved, so different from my parents’ house in St. Catharines, with its colonial furniture and formal sitting room. I never really felt at home there.
When I was growing up, the Ashby family’s schedule revolved around my older brother’s hockey—Lyle was promising enough to capture the attention of scouts. Sometimes, on tournament weekends, my parents would send me to Toronto to stay with my aunt. Her yard was where I could get messy and be silly. Stacy showed me how to start seeds and deadhead petunias. She let me ransack her beds, picking whatever I fancied to fill a vase for her kitchen windowsill. Sometimes, if I was lucky, she’d bring me around the corner to hang out at In Bloom. With Stacy, I felt like I belonged.
Much of the Clark house is unchanged from my first visit, but the kitchen has been totally renovated. Christine had it redone after the hurricane two years ago. I wander through the space, running my hand over the cabinets. They’re sage green now, the hardware gold, and there’s a large butcher block island.
I stop in front of the sliding glass door, taking in the vista. A lawn of vibrant emerald stretches to the grassy dunes that buttress the beach. The gulf unfurls in the distance, a brilliant royal blue. It still amazes me how beautiful it is here, how my chest feels like a tightly wound bobbin in the city, but just standing in this spot loosens me enough that I can feel the difference in my lungs.
“I’ll see if I can get the Mustang started before I go,” I hear Felix say. He and Bridget are standing by the foot of the stairs. “I put Lucy’s suitcase in my old room.”