The first time Shem was about to light up inside the car, Cassie snapped, “Dad! Ask first! You’re going to smell up the car and all of us!”
Harry stopped so that Shem could enjoy his cigarette at one of the many lookouts along the scenic highway. At the house, when he flicked a smoldering butt on the path that led to the beach, Rose stepped up behind him and quietly picked it up. She disappeared into the house, where she put the butt under running water before disposing of it in the garbage can. She contemplated the flower wands in the vase on the dining table. Outside, she asked Harry if he knew whether or not those flowers in there—delphiniums, he informed her—might grow back home. She was indeed mesmerized by the size of the rhododendron blossoms. She used a pocket camera to take a photograph of Harry standing beside the bush. She took pictures of the mountains backdropping the Sound, of Shem and Cassie with the Sound behind them, and one of Harry in front of the house. She wanted to know how cold the water in the Sound was and if anyone ever swam in it. Before Harry could answer, Shem did. “It must be like ice water, but of course people here would swim in it. They do all kinds of crazy things here, just to say they did them.”
Shem asked Harry if he did his own gardening or if he got the workers to do it. Shem said, “But you have all of this and no wife, man? It’s time you got married, don’t you think? There must be someone we don’t know about. Not so?”
Harry was compelled to take them to the water garden. They were uncomfortable traipsing through a private yard until they realized there was no one around, that the owner was away on holiday. Rose paid attention to the variety of roses, to the groupings of colors, and to the juxtaposition of differently textured plants. She sniffed open blooms and pinched old leaves and spent buds from the flowering plants.
Cassie had wandered off, leaving Shem and Harry together.
Shem persisted. “So, the owners tell you what they want, don’t they? Do they supervise you?”
Shem walked around surveying the pond, the work mess on the lawn, and at the outside edge of the property, a natural spring that bubbled out of the ground and flowed into a canal. He approached Harry. “But you didn’t go to a university and get a degree, did you?”
Back in the car, Shem, sitting in the front passenger seat, was pensive. Harry drove down the main street in Squamish, trying to decide upon a restaurant that might serve Canadian beef, a good steak, as that was what Shem had announced he wanted to eat. Suddenly, Shem perked up and said he had a suggestion. Harry should tap in to the spring and direct it upward, and in so doing create a fountain, or build a wall and let the water from the spring come up behind the wall and cascade down the front, a waterfall! He turned back and said to Rose, “Now, if there were a spring near my property, that is what I would get a contractor to come and put in, not so?” Rose lifted her chin in the air and said, “Uh-hm.” Encouraged by her response, Shem asked hadn’t Harry thought of that? It seemed so obvious to him.
Cassie spoke out, attempting to sound as if she were teasing her father. “Dad! But why you interrogating him so? Since when do you know anything about landscaping? And how would you like it if we came telling you how to do your work?”
Shem retorted, “I am only trying to understand the difference between a regular gardener, a designer, and a landscapist. It seems like the boundaries blur in this country. But I am sure that up here, a notary public wouldn’t offer to defend in a court of law.”
In the rearview mirror, Harry noticed Cassie roll her eyes. Rose’s teeth were clenched. She had pressed a finger to her lip, indicating to Cassie that she leave the issue alone.
Fortunately, at that point, they were coming upon a spaghetti house advertising on its billboard that it served steak. Harry asked Rose if Italian food was good enough for her. She said, “Oh yes, anything, as long as they also serve steak.” Harry said that almost any place in the area would serve steak, so if she preferred something else, they could carry on. Watching Harry in the rearview mirror, she reiterated that as long as there was steak on the menu, they could go there.