On the top shelf behind the TV, reachable only by standing on a ladder-back chair carried in from the kitchen, above the ranks of bargain bin VHS tapes and books swollen with humidity, decks of cards worn soft and long-ignored board games (Flinch, Aggravation, Mastermind), as if a last resort, resided the puzzles. Here, haphazardly piled to the ceiling, in boxes reinforced at the corners with browning cellophane tape, one might find Van Gogh’s Sunflowers or a map of the ancient world or Old Ironsides decked out for the Bicentennial. The subject barely mattered, only the degree of difficulty. There were hundred-piece puzzles of puppies and the Steelers logo and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and an inlaid wooden tray of the United States with stars for the capitals and cartoon cotton bolls, crossed pickaxes and sawtooth-roofed factories representing each state’s major industry, but these occupied the children at most a few hours, while the rain might last for days. When Margaret and Kenny were kids, five hundred pieces was the maximum. Now, with the sharpness of digital imaging, a thousand was common. There was even a three-thousand-piece monster of the Great Hall at Versailles that had taken them most of a housebound August, a feat never repeated, though Arlene, a puzzle nut like their mother, regularly lobbied for it.
The collection had gradually amassed over the years. Some, like the clumsily hand-tinted photo of the old mill pond in autumn, Henry remembered from childhood. Others, like the panoramic shot of Niagara Falls with its misty rainbow, Arlene could vouch for, but in most cases the provenance was shaky, lost to the ages. Whether gleaned from yard sales or the flea market at Dart Airport, or Christmas presents to the whole family from Santa, bought expressly for the cottage, the best puzzles were loved for their ability to tease them once again. When Emily said, “Oh, I hate that one,” it was the deepest compliment.
There was no list of which puzzles they’d done last summer. Ella, typically, had taken a picture of each completed masterpiece, but had deleted them when she was low on memory, leaving Henry to guess.
“How about the Taj Mahal?” he asked, gripping the shelf with his fingertips like a man hanging from a ledge.
“We always do the Taj Mahal,” Arlene said.
“Biplanes.”
“Pass,” Emily said.
“Westminster Cathedral.” They’d been there on vacation, and he knew she couldn’t resist it.
“Let’s save that for later. We’re only here till Monday.”
“Something we haven’t done in a while,” Arlene said.
“The Grand Canyon.”
“I know for a fact we did that last year,” Emily said. “Ella, why don’t you pick?”
“Yes,” Arlene said. “Your grandfather’s not making this easy.”
“I’m just telling you what we have.”
“We know what we have,” Emily said. “What we want is a recommendation—and not the Taj Mahal.”
“Windmills and tulips. Carlsbad Caverns. Winter in Vermont. The Fox and the Hounds. Stop me when hear one you like. Maine lighthouses. The clipper ship.”
“The clipper ship,” Ella said.
“The clipper ship it is,” Emily said.
“Good choice,” Arlene said. “The water.”
“The water’s hard,” Margaret, who’d abstained so far, agreed.
Painted by some imitator of Winslow Homer, the three-master was breasting heavy seas in a gale, scuppers streaming. Henry remembered working on the sails and rigging, but whether that had been last year or ten years ago, he had no clue. He excused this lapse as trivial, reflecting that he’d been paying attention to more important things.
Naturally it was at the very top. On the dusty lid, mice had left tracks like footprints in the snow. He wiped it off with a tissue before handing the box to Ella.
Traditionally the card table went against the front windows, beside the loveseat, to take advantage of the good reading lamp and its three-way bulb. In her later years, before she fell ill, every Thursday his mother hosted her bridge club, her church friends gossiping over finger sandwiches and Prantl’s almond torte as they doubled and redoubled one another. The table and padded folding chairs hailed from that era, a matching set in dark avocado Naugahyde. Shoulder to shoulder, Ella, Emily, Arlene and Margaret huddled around the light like a team of surgeons, turning the pieces right side up, culling the straight edges that formed the border.
“Are we using the picture?” Ella asked.
“No,” the other three answered in chorus, and Margaret tossed the box on the floor, where Rufus sniffed it before settling again. Though the worst of the storm had passed, he was sticking close to Emily.
Henry stood behind her, watching them sort through the pile. Outside, the lake was gray, the rain falling in long streaks through the black background of the garage roof. It might have been evening. The room was silent, only the peeping of the boys’ video games sifting down from upstairs. For dinner they were having his favorite, chicken à la king, and any minute Kenny, whose sweet tooth rivaled his own, would be back from Haff Acres with hot pies.
“We can squeeze in if you want,” Emily said.
“I’d just slow you down.”
No one denied it, the silence prompting laughter. He didn’t mind.
“Ta-da,” Arlene said, fitting two edge pieces together.
“It’s a little early for a ta-da,” Emily said.
“Ta-da,” Margaret said.
“All right,” Emily said, “if that’s how we’re going to play it. Ta-da.”
“Ta-da,” Ella said.
“You guys are sharks.”
“You know what you could do for me,” Emily said, and for an instant he feared she was going to ask him for a glass of wine in front of Margaret. “You could build us a fire.”
“Yes,” Arlene said as if she’d been thinking the same thing. “I’m freezing.”
“Your wish is my command.” It was a saying of his father’s, lifted from some movie about a genie, and as he knelt and shoved crumpled newspaper under the grate, he thought it was true, he would do anything to make them happy.
It took quickly, roaring, warming his cheeks. “Ta-da.”
“Thank you,” Emily said, and turned back to the table.
Rufus waddled over to lie on the hearth, using Henry’s foot as a pillow.
“You are one spoiled dog.”
Outside, the rain came down. He stood at the mantel, ignoring his craving for a scotch, transfixed by the sight of the four of them working side by side. If they could just stay this way, but the spell was delicate, and their happiness, like all happiness, temporary. He thought he should take a picture.