Apple Crisp
Heeling: the angle a ship leans under pressure from the wind
As the big rocks to his granddad’s laneway came into view, the breeze died down as if winded from following William’s bike so closely. The seas were still high. The breakers rolled in over the sand bar. White foam ran up the shore like a loom trying to weave water to sand.
Cinnamon fragrance wafted into the yard. Apple crisp was cooking. Harley was right; his granny was home. He threw his right leg over the rear wheel and glided, standing on the left pedal. Jumping off the bike at the stairs, he let momentum careen the bike forward until it flopped on the grass. Its rear wheel whirred a dying protest. He leaped the two porch stairs and rushed into the kitchen. He found his grandmother cleaning dishes in the sink.
She spun as he creaked the screen door open and hardly had time to wipe her wet hands on her apron. He gave her a big hug. “Oh, Willy-boy!”
“When did you get back, Granny?”
“Harley’s mother dropped me off. You must have passed her on the highway. I was just telling your mother that I hadn’t had much chance to spend time with you.”
He tensed up.
“I gather you and your mother are having a difference of opinion.”
“She’s got a new boyfriend and she wants to sell the house,” he exclaimed, certain she would side with him.
“I see.” His granny kept her voice neutral.
“She says he’s just a friend from work but he’s, like, always around. It bugs me. Especially when he tries to be nice to me.”
“I can see how somebody being nice to you can be annoying,” she said.
“He just pretends to be nice. He’s a fake. And the house? Isn’t it my house too?”
“Maybe your mother doesn’t know what she feels.”
The oven timer bell dinged. With heat-scarred oven mitts, Granny transferred the apple crisp to a trivet. She cut and slid two squares onto plates, dropped a scoop of ice cream on each, then handed him the biggest piece and a fork.
“Do you remember your Dad used to say the ice cream looked like a white octopus stretching across the apple crisp?” They watched the vanilla tentacles slither through the cracks in the baked brown sugar and laughed at the memory.
They ate a few bites before she returned to their original topic. “There isn’t a widow’s handbook to tell your mother how to deal with all this …” She circled her hands, tossing in the complications surrounding his father’s death.
“Boy, this is good. I was dreaming about your apple crisp.”
“I’m glad you like it. I think you’re having a good influence on your grandfather.” William managed a smile. “I think you came here to try to find life as it was before your father’s death. I know it isn’t the same, but we both love having you here.” He realized her shoulders were frailer than the look in her eyes tried to project.
He put his plate down and gave her a hug. He kissed her cheek, wishing it was a magic kiss that would soften her world, wishing it could bring his mother here, bring his father back, and wish- ing his world different than it was.
“Why does Granddad say Mom is responsible for Dad’s death?” He took another bite.
She gave a little shrug. “They called your granddad the Rock because he gave everybody shelter or something to anchor to. Everybody but himself, in a way.”
She stopped to eat some apple crisp and to gather her thoughts. “He was a bit distant with your father — loved him, but from a distance. Your grandfather put much stock in safety, providing a secure home. In the process, well, he lost sight of the fact Jack needed to be his own man. Daniel hadn’t had a father to show him how to do it properly.”
“Did Granddad have a bad childhood?”
“No, he just had a famous father who wasn’t around. His mother was a strong woman from a strong family. That’s what it took to bring up a son when you weren’t married back then.”
She washed their plates before continuing. “When your mother and father decided to move to Toronto, Daniel was keen to invest in your father’s sail loft. His way of keeping his son close. Then Jack died, so unexpectedly like. Well, I think he was desperate for an explanation for the horrible accident, so he blamed her. When somebody dies we often wonder if there wasn’t something we could have done to save them. That guilt can wear at you if you let it. You don’t always think clearly. In time it becomes more about the pointing than about the point and harder to accept that it was nobody’s fault. That darn stupid luck killed your dad. Everybody deals with their anger and sorrow differently.”
William stared to see if she was talking about him and how he felt about his dad. “You seem to have coped with it better than Granddad.”
“Did you get angry with your dad when he died?” He nodded.
“I did too.” She looked out to the ocean. “Angry thoughts are like pieces of an ice floe that promise rescue. But they just break off and plunge you deeper into the cold waters of despair. Daniel blamed your mother, then got depressed. I cried a river of tears, then got angry with Jack. I mean, how could someone with such a good heart have such a bad one? I used to think that Jack should have done something to take better care of himself.”
“Me too. How’d you stop thinking that?”
Mary opened the pantry door and pulled out a book. It had a worn leather cover. She opened it at a page marked with a dried rhododendron bloom. “Here, read this.”
It was his father’s handwriting. “Mom and the Rock held a BBQ for the family and I finally got to meet baby Harley. When Dad took Harley’s parents sailing, she ran down the hill crying, waving her little arms. Ferne called Harley, who turned around, took her hand, and walked back up to the veranda. She’s the mother I want for my children.”
“Doesn’t sound like the observations of an uncaring man, does it?”
He shook his head no.
“Whenever I get depressed about his death, I read a passage. I get to know what he was thinking. In a small way I feel like he’s talking to me.” Here she put her palms to her eyes and shook away a tear. “Was your father right about Ferne being a good mother?”
He shook his head yes.
“Sometimes life seems long, sometimes short. But we’re only passing through, so dwelling on anger is just a waste of good time. Love of another is not an easy thing to find, to cultivate and grow. But it’s the best thing this life offers.” She hugged William.
Two pieces of paper fell from the book. One was a photograph of Trenton digging by the boathouse with the hexagonal box beside him. The other was the photo of Cavendish’s face with the markings. So Emmett was right, his father had tried to prove to Daniel that McCoy wasn’t a killer.
“You, ah, you think Granddad will be okay?”
“It’s a storm that had to run its course.”
Then she looked back out to the Atlantic. “I wish he’d take to the sea again. There’s nothing like a big ocean to help him get his bearings.” Her face got sorrowful.
They both stopped talking for a moment. The house was filled with the sound of the ticking clock, the tinkle of wind chimes, and the distant surf rubbing against the shore. It sounded like the soft snores of a man sinking into a peaceful sleep.
“I think he’s going to take Mr. Trenton’s offer to provide a mortgage,” said William.
“Trenton? His company turned us down for a mortgage.”
“Mr. Trenton came by the sail loft, offered Granddad a mortgage … if he doesn’t race on Saturday. I think Granddad’s going to take the offer.”
His grandmother squared her shoulders, walked to the phone, and dialled. “Daniel, what’s this I hear you’re thinking of not racing?” She listened to his grandfather’s explanation then cut him off. “I will not be your jailer, Daniel. If you don’t race you’ll be thinking of that race till it kills you, and it will kill you in short order. Please don’t interrupt me, Daniel. I’d prefer to live in reduced physical circumstances than reduced spiritual ones. I’ll be hungry and poor before I’ll be a widow.”
William heard his grandfather start to say something. She cut off his explanation. “I will not see you trade the security of this place at the cost of your soul.”
William marvelled at her strong, steady tone, not bullying, just sure of itself. She finished with, “Then I suggest you find a way to get those sails. I won’t keep you from that task any longer. Goodbye, Daniel.” She placed the phone back in its cradle and gave William a nod as if to say, “That’s that, then.”
“I pushed Jack to leave,” she confessed to him. “I knew he looked up to his father so much he’d put his own happiness on hold to stay with him. I told him to strike out on his own and to come back as his own man. It’s time Daniel forgave the sea what she took from him and remembered what she gave him.”
Her earlier frailness was gone. Maybe that’s what you needed in times of trouble: to be more worried about someone else, someone else’s cause.
“We just have to find a way to get money for sails,” he said, summing up their predicament.
That made his granny smile. “Your father always scrounged stuff he’d find on the beach. He stored it in the shed, and when he wanted something badly enough, he’d find somebody to sell it to. That’s how he was able to buy that dinghy that’s in the shed.”
The shed. A light went off in his head. He knew where to get money.