Phoebe got in the backseat with the kids. She didn’t want to sit in the front with her brother. If she did, he would start to fuss and complain, and she didn’t think she could stand that.
The drive outside the cabin was narrow, a pine-needle—covered lane threading between the birches and pines. Ian had to concentrate, steering the car as tightly as he could so that the boat trailer didn’t crash into the trees. But once he was out on the road, an open, sandy trail that circled the lake, he could drive with more ease.
He hooked his arm over the back of the seat. “Weren’t you surprised that the power boat wasn’t put in? Mom and Dad always launched the boat first thing.”
It’s not Mom and Dad anymore, Ian. It’s Dad and Gwen now. “I don’t see that it’s any big deal.”
“I didn’t say that it was. I was just surprised, that’s all.”
He was lying. But then so was she. It did seem important. Last year had been horrible. Coming up here without Mother had been so awful that they had all left after a week and a half, but this year, with Gwen and the changes…it almost seemed like this year was going to be worse.
It had started with the milk. On their way up to the lake yesterday, she and Giles stopped to buy milk. Of course they had. That’s what they always did.
All three of the cabins had refrigerators, but they were old and small, very small. They couldn’t be replaced because they ran on propane, and no one in the United States manufactured refrigerators like that anymore. When these finally died, they would have to send to Sweden for new ones.
As a result, there was never enough cold storage when the whole family was there. So on the way to the lake people stopped and bought milk. That’s the way things were done.
But yesterday after all the flurry of greetings, as Giles lifted the cooler out of the back of the station wagon, it was clear that Gwen hadn’t expected them to buy milk. She had plenty of milk. She had been to town the day before. Every inch of every refrigerator was full. There was nowhere to store three gallons of milk.
“We’ll put it in the lake and hope for the best,” Gwen had said.
The little kids, Alex and Claire, had loved the idea, putting milk in the lake. They had danced down to the water, happy as could be, to rig up some infinitely elaborate system of storing milk under the dock.
“Putting it in the lake, that’s a good idea,” Giles said as he closed the cooler. “I wonder if it will work.”
“It won’t.” Phoebe was not feeling very gracious. “You’re supposed to store milk at forty degrees, and the lake’s nowhere near that cold. It will spoil before we have a chance to drink it.”
“It’s only a couple gallons of milk,” he said mildly. “We’ll survive the loss.”
She knew that. But she had made a mistake. She didn’t like that.
There was a system to everything here. There had to be. The kitchens were so small, the arrangements so primitive, town so far away, that you needed good systems. Phoebe’s mother had established them. And Phoebe knew them. She knew how to store the boats, she knew how to light the refrigerators, she knew how to prime the pumps. She knew where the tea towels were kept, how the latrine was cleaned. She understood life at the lake.
But it had all changed. Someone else was buying the groceries; someone else was putting the tea towels away.
At least it was her family’s turn to have the cheerful, airy new cabin. As great as all summers up here were, the best years were when she, Giles, and their kids had the new cabin. Earlier in the spring Ian had tried to suggest that his family should have the new cabin again this year. “I know last summer was our turn, but we were there such a short time that it shouldn’t really count.”
“Forget it,” she had said. That’s why they had such a careful system of taking turns so that they didn’t have to negotiate everything every year.
But yesterday as she was unlocking the top carrier, Dad had spoken. He told them about Amy coming. “So with her and Holly and Jack, we need to rearrange how we sleep.”
Phoebe handed Giles the first duffel bag. “Aren’t they going to be in the bunkhouse?” That’s where Amy had slept the last time she had come.
“No. That’s not fair to them. We want Holly and Jack to feel welcome and comfortable. They’re a part of the family now.”
He outlined the plan. All of the school-age children were to sleep in the bunkhouse. Ian and Joyce, Phoebe and Giles, were to each have one of the bedrooms in the new cabin. Thomas, Phoebe and Giles’s toddler, the one born after her mother’s death, would be in with his parents, and the other three adults—Amy, Holly, and Jack—were to be in the log cabin.
“We’ve discussed every other arrangement,” Hal said. His voice was firm, this decision was made. “This is the best.”
“The kids will like all sleeping together,” Giles said. He reached up for another duffel bag.
Something in Phoebe shrieked.
She hated to admit it even to herself—and she would have never said a word to her mother or father—but Giles, her dear, wonderful husband, was not crazy about the lake. He never complained, he came year after year because she loved it so, but he would have been happier at a resort where a tanned college girl in track shorts and a tank top served frozen margaritas on the beach.
Giles was disabled, having been born with a withered leg. With his special built-up shoe, he could walk adequately, but there was enough of a lurch to his step that hiking was no pleasure. He certainly couldn’t water ski or bike.
Two things made the lake tolerable for him—fishing in the old wooden rowboat that he had restored himself and having his own family all in one cabin. They spent the day with everyone, but mornings and nights were theirs, just the five of them—now the six of them. At night the kids would pile into bed, and Giles would read and read to them. Then once the kids were sleeping in the other bedroom, she and Giles would make love under heavy quilts as quietly as they could, listening to rain fall on the roof. In the mornings she would often go over and help her mother get breakfast started, but Giles would stay in the cabin with the kids, chatting, playing games, doing all the things that you did when there was no newspaper to read, no TV to watch. He never cared whether they were in the log cabin or the new cabin, as long as he and she were in it alone with their children.
Phoebe watched him swing the duffel bag onto the pile with the others. He was a realist; his disability had made him so. It made him great at his job; he was one of the most able general counsels that the University of Iowa had ever had. He accepted setbacks, he moved on, he didn’t look back, he didn’t regret.
But he was disappointed with these new arrangements. Phoebe could tell. And she minded for him, she minded terribly.
They had to unload quickly because the car was needed. Mother and Dad had stopped driving a big family car a couple of years ago, and so Phoebe and Giles’s station wagon was used to pick Ian’s family up at the little airport an hour away in Hibbing.
It was a sensible arrangement, the wisest thing to do, but there were problems. Ian didn’t really like it that her family was already settled and organized before his. On the other hand, it meant that she and Giles had to make their plans around Ian’s, and sometimes it did seem that he chose a flight precisely so that it would be inconvenient to them.
The top carrier was empty. Phoebe hopped down and nodded to her father. The car was ready.
“Are you coming, Gwen?” He spoke to his new wife.
She turned to Phoebe. “Do you need some help with the children? I’ll be happy to watch them while you unpack.”
In the past Giles had watched the kids while she and her mother unpacked. Phoebe had always liked that hour or two, that private time with Mother. Then her mother would leave her alone, and she would have the cabin to herself. She could arrange it just as they liked it, shifting a few little odds and ends that Joyce and Ian had rearranged the year before. “No, we’ll be fine. If you want to go into town, go on.”
“I am eager to meet Ian and his family.”
Phoebe picked up Thomas so he wouldn’t stagger behind the car, and holding his sturdy little body, she leaned against Giles. Together they watched the station wagon ease out of the narrow drive. The kids’ bags had been set in front of the bunkhouse, and down the woods-lined path that ran parallel to the road, she could see her and Giles’s suitcases set in front of the new cabin.
She felt Giles’s arm close around her shoulders. “Let’s not unpack. Let’s just swipe the best room, make a big mess, and go swimming.”
It was a wonderful idea. They called out to fourteen-year-old Ellie, telling her to get the little blue bag, that all the kids’ suits were in there.
Giles changed quickly and hurried back to the bunkhouse to help Ellie get Alex and Claire ready. This was one problem with the kids being in the bunkhouse. Ellie was going to end up working harder, doing more for the younger ones. If she would be helping with only Alex and Claire, Phoebe would not have minded. But Ian’s kids were also going to be in the bunkhouse, fifteen-year-old Maggie and little Scott and Emily, who were the same ages as Alex and Claire. And Maggie was not helpful. It was going to be a struggle all month long to be sure that Ellie didn’t end up responsible not just for her own little brother and sister, but for Maggie’s too.
Phoebe changed slowly. She could hear voices down at the lake, the first splashes and shouts. She found her book, gathered up Thomas, and crossed back toward the main cabin. On this side of the lake the bank was steep, and a set of logs embedded in the sand served as steps leading down to the water. A short dock ran about fifteen feet into the lake, and anchored out in the deeper water was a wooden raft.
It was a beautiful afternoon. The lake was a rough oval, about three-quarters of a mile in length, perhaps a half mile across. The bottom was sand, trees ringed the shoreline, and the water was tinged a rust red. They had always thought that the redness of the water was from the rich veins of iron ore that lay under this part of Minnesota, but recently some people had suggested that the color might come from the needles of the tamarack trees. Phoebe didn’t know which was right, and it didn’t seem to matter.
They had a wonderful time. They swam, they swamped the canoe, and they sat on the raft in the sun. Phoebe had brought down cards, and they played Hearts and King’s Corner on a towel spread over the planking of the raft. It seemed all so normal, to be at the lake again, with the sun shining on the water and the kids splashing. Thomas fell asleep inside an inflated ring. Phoebe covered him with a towel. It was so good to be back. She couldn’t imagine life without the lake.
“Mom, we’re starving.” Ellie splashed over to the raft. “Can I go get us something to eat?”
“Sure. Do you want me to go?”
“No, no, I’ll be glad to.”
“Then go see what Gran has.”
Phoebe watched her older daughter scramble up out of the water and hurry up the bank. It was like watching herself. She remembered doing that, offering to help, liking to help, feeling important because she was the one helping. She knew what it would be like for Ellie to walk into the cabin alone, feeling so pleased to be responsible, to be the one whom your mother trusted. That’s how Phoebe had always felt when she had helped her mother. They were in a line, the three of them, Eleanor, Phoebe, and Ellie, each one the oldest daughter. It meant something.
“Mom?”
Phoebe looked up. Ellie was back down on the bank, empty-handed. “Mom, would you come up here?”
“Sure, sweetheart.”
She checked to be sure that Giles knew she was going and then splashed back to the dock. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t quite sure what to get.”
Phoebe followed her daughter up the steps and across the narrow lakeside porch of the main cabin. Ellie held back. Phoebe opened the screen herself.
The table was set for dinner. That was the first thing she saw. Then she realized that she hadn’t been in the main cabin yet this year.
All the furniture was in the same place. The little braided rugs, the candlesticks and hurricane lamps, were all in the same places. The mugs were stowed on cup hooks, the books were on the right shelves.
But it was all different. It was so clean. The windows sparkled. Every single tiny little pane had been washed inside and out. The floors had been oiled. A faint lemony, woodsy smell rose from the narrow pine planks. The globes of the gas lights shone. Even the dark build-up around the edges of the door latch was gone.
Gwen must have cleaned for days and days. Washing all those tiny window panes would have taken forever.
Why had she done it? The cabin had always been good enough, clean enough.
Mother had looked down on people who were fanatic about cleanliness. It seemed petty to her, small-minded.
A bouquet of wildflowers was set in the center of the table. They were tansies, a vivid yellow flower with button-like blossoms. They were arranged in a blue pitcher that had been in the back corner of one of the upper cupboards. Phoebe didn’t think that her mother had ever used the pitcher. It was always the wrong size, too big for a creamer, too small for anything else.
Why had Gwen set the table so far in advance of dinner? Of course, it made sense. They would all be getting back from the airport just at dinnertime, but still Mother wouldn’t have done it, and there would have been a mad scramble to get everything ready. But Mother had been no more afraid of a mad scramble than of a little dirt. These careful preparations felt too fussy to Phoebe. It seemed bourgeois to worry about details like that.
This was not getting the children their snack. Carefully Phoebe went into the kitchen, her mother’s kitchen, the kitchen she had been working in for more than thirty summers at her mother’s side. She felt like a stranger. It too was immaculate. Every window pane, the edge of every shelf, every canister, gleamed.
Such a clean kitchen seemed so unforgiving, as if not a drop or a smudge would be excused.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Ellie said. “It all felt different.”
“It is different,” Phoebe said. “We’re going to have to get used to it.” She hoped she sounded like Giles, accepting, strong.
Even the pump, the old iron long-handled pump at the side of the sink, had been painted. It was a pump, for God’s sake. Why would anyone paint a pump?
Ellie spoke again. “Down at the lake you called her ‘Gran.’ Is that what we should call her?”
Tears stung, sharp, hot tears. “Honestly, honey, I wasn’t thinking. It just came out, and I was talking about Gran as if she would be here.” Phoebe couldn’t imagine her children ever calling anyone else “Gran.” “We’ll ask her what she would like to be called. Now let’s see about a snack.”
Phoebe stepped out onto the enclosed roadside porch where the pantry shelves were. The table in there was pulled out from wall, and it too was set. Six places at each table. Clearly Gwen was planning an adults’ table and a children’s table. Mother had never done that. She had always opened the big table all the way and put everyone together.
Phoebe opened a couple of cupboards, looked into the refrigerator. “You were right,” she said to Ellie. “It’s hard to know what she”—they couldn’t go on calling Gwen “she” and “her”—“what Gwen has planned.”
There were several boxes of crackers, both the kinds that were always there and some kinds that Mother never bought. The wire hanging basket was full of fruit, oranges, apples, and bananas. Mother would have intended them for snacks, but maybe Gwen was planning a fruit salad. Phoebe didn’t know.
And she wasn’t used to that, not knowing.
“Look, Mom,” Ellie called out. “This might help.”
Posted on the wall beside the refrigerator was a list of menus. Phoebe quickly scanned them. Nothing seemed to require unusual amounts of fruit or any of the crackers. Gratefully Phoebe gathered up some apples and told Ellie to pick a box of crackers.
And she tried not to notice how ordinary the apples were. Mother had always bought interesting apples, Prairie Spies, Harrelsons, Honey Golds. These were Red Delicious.
The afternoon had lost its glow. There was no pretending that things were the same, and it wasn’t much longer before she heard the horn honk and car doors slam. Ian had arrived.
Alex and Claire dashed up the bank, eager to see their cousins. Phoebe followed more slowly, carrying Thomas, matching her pace with Giles. By the time they rounded the cabin, everyone was out of the car. The two little girls, Emily and Claire, were shrieking and hugging. The boys, Scott and Alex, were jumping off the stoop in front of the bunkhouse. They were all happy. But among the adults Phoebe could sense the tension. Her father was tight-lipped, disappointed. Ian looked harassed, Joyce defensive. Gwen seemed calm, but she wasn’t smiling.
Phoebe greeted her brother and sister-in-law, then turned to Gwen. “I gave the kids apples and crackers,” she said. “I hope that was okay.”
“That’s what they’re there for,” Gwen answered pleasantly. “And there are tons of cookies.”
Phoebe hadn’t thought to look for cookies. Mother hadn’t liked sweets. “Where are Maggie and Ellie?”
“I think they went to the biffy” Gwen answered. That’s what they all called the outhouse, a “biffy.” Phoebe had no idea why, but that’s the word they had always used.
And a moment later Maggie and Ellie did come down the path that led to the biffy. Ellie was pale, her features pinched. Maggie was clearly sullen and angry.
So this was it. Maggie wasn’t happy about something, and she was making sure everyone else knew it.
The four little kids were now running in and out of the bunkhouse, slamming the two doors, thrilled at the notion of sleeping there. Hal and Ian were unloading the top carrier. A bright pink duffel bag was clearly Emily’s. A Mighty Ducks soccer bag was Scott’s. Simpler cases came, and when Ian directed Hal to put one in front of the bunkhouse, Maggie whirled toward Joyce and burst out, “Mom! You said—”
“We said we would talk about it,” Ian said.
He finished unloading the top carrier and then came over to Phoebe. “Maggie’s really upset about having to sleep in the bunkhouse with the little kids,” he said quietly, “so we figured if it was all the same with you, she could sleep on the sofa in the new cabin. She can keep her stuff in our room. She won’t be in the way.”
Maggie not in the way? Maggie was a slob, her stuff would be everywhere.
Although Ian had adopted her, Maggie was Joyce’s daughter, born during a brief first marriage. While she was a very bright girl—Ian and Joyce certainly never let you forget that, how smart Maggie was—she was also, Phoebe thought, selfish and indulged. Joyce gave her all the privileges of being an oldest child and none of the responsibilities.
“I’m not going to have Ellie in the bunkhouse all by herself with four little ones.” Phoebe was firm on this. “It’s not fair, it’s too much responsibility. I don’t mind having her have occasional responsibilities for Alex and Claire.” Phoebe had done the same in her time. “But not all four of them. If Maggie sleeps in the new cabin, then either you or Joyce need to sleep in the bunkhouse with your two.”
Joyce heard half of this. “You know I don’t think it is fair to expect Maggie to do a lot of baby-sitting. The younger children are not her responsibility.”
“They aren’t Ellie’s responsibility either. Either all”—Phoebe stopped and counted up—“all eleven of us sleep in the new cabin, or we stick to Dad and Gwen’s plan.”
“I don’t see why we can’t do what we’ve always done.” Joyce’s voice was close to a whine. “Why can’t Gwen’s kids sleep there?”
At home Joyce wore long, loose skirts in earth-tone tribal patterns topped by either roughly embroidered peasant blouses or cotton poet’s shirts under handwoven vests. The clothes suited her. The gauzy layers softened the sharp angles of her face and hid her extreme thinness. But at the lake everyone wore jeans, and without the flowing fullness of her normal wardrobe, Joyce looked gaunt, and the poorness of her posture was exposed.
“Gwen’s kids aren’t kids, they are adults like us,” Phoebe returned. There was nothing like opposition from Joyce to turn her into Gwen’s ally. “I don’t want to sleep there. You don’t want to sleep there. Why should we make them sleep there?”
She pivoted, marching off before they could answer.
Ian and Joyce had insisted, had absolutely required, that everyone come to their house for Christmas last year. It had been awful, and in one of their rare moments alone, she had fussed about it to Giles.
“Remember,” he had said, “if we lived in a patriarchal culture, Joyce would be holding all the cards.”
She had stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“In a real patriarchy, what happens when the queen dies? Who runs things at the castle? Who plans the menus? Who gets the good jewelry? The oldest son’s wife, not the daughters.”
“We don’t live in a patriarchy.” And Mother’s will had had a clause about her jewelry; it was to be divided between Phoebe and Amy. That had mortified Joyce. She had expected a third of it. She had adored Eleanor, even been in awe of her, and so had insisted, at every turn, that she be thought as much of a daughter as Phoebe or Amy—or as much as Phoebe and a whole lot more than Amy.
Of course, this wasn’t about jewelry—although since Amy had said she didn’t want any of it, Phoebe had it all—it was about who had power in the family, who made the decisions, and Joyce clearly wanted that too. “Given Joyce’s politics, it’s awfully strange of her to be counting on patriarchal property laws.” Joyce professed herself to be a socialist.
“I know,” Giles had agreed. “That’s why this has all been so interesting.”
But since that conversation the King had found a new Queen. As strange as it might be to have Gwen in Mother’s place, that was probably a whole lot better than having Joyce there.
Phoebe walked over to the main cabin. Gwen was in the kitchen. “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing this evening,” Gwen answered. “I was thinking tomorrow that we might post a duty roster. We can’t have you, me, Holly, Joyce, and Amy all trying to help at the same time, to say nothing of Ellie and Maggie.”
You certainly didn’t need to worry about Maggie helping. The girl wouldn’t. Nor would Amy either, for that matter.
“But you can stay here and talk to me,” Gwen said pleasantly. “I’ve already told this to Ian and Joyce. We picked up the mail on the way in, and apparently my nephew—actually, he is my grand-nephew—is coming out with Holly and Jack. He’s sixteen. He can sleep in the boys’ half of the bunkhouse, and help Ellie and Maggie out with the children.”
My Ellie doesn’t mind helping. It’s not Ellie who’s objecting to sleeping out there. But Phoebe kept her mouth shut. Gwen was a smart woman; it wouldn’t take her long to appreciate the difference between the two teenage girls.
As Mother had always done when they were all together, Gwen had set up a buffet line on the narrow pine server, but when everyone was coming in, Gwen asked Phoebe to help her move the server away from the wall. “That way we can have two lines at once.”
“This is how I met her,” Hal laughed. “She was having the caterers move the buffet table away from the wall.”
Gwen smiled at him. “At least there are no extension cords for me to stand on.”
It was obviously a private joke, but Joyce insisted that they explain it. Of course, once explained, the incident didn’t seem very interesting, but things like that never were. Phoebe didn’t blame her father or Gwen for how mundane their story was; Joyce shouldn’t have asked.
It was amazingly easy to get dinner served. For thirty seconds Phoebe tried to pretend it was because the kids were all older than they had been last year, better able to manage for themselves. But it wasn’t just that. Everything was better organized this year. Nothing had been forgotten on the buffet or left off the tables. There were two serving spoons for each dish. The bread and butter, the salt and pepper, the drinks and the napkins, were on the tables, not on the buffet. Gwen had done a good job.
Phoebe filled her plate, sat down next to the high chair, and started cutting up food for Thomas. She felt Giles nudge her under the table, and she looked across at him. His smile was questioning—Are you okay? She nodded. Yes, for the moment.
There were more flowers on the mantel above the fireplace. They were goldenrods; vibrant, heavy-headed blossoms arched over a tall stone jar. The oak mantel glowed a soft honey-yellow. Last year the mantel had been almost brown. The aging varnish had grown sticky, and it had trapped a haze of dust, dulling the wood’s sheen. Gwen must have stripped the varnish and refinished the oak. The actual work probably hadn’t taken all that long, but there were so many different stages involved in refinishing wood, and it was such a mess…Phoebe wasn’t sure that she herself would have ever bothered to do it, but it did look wonderful.
She glanced over her shoulder. Her father and Gwen were getting their food. Gwen was going last, as if she were the hostess, which of course she was.
Gwen laid her plate down at the end of the server and put the covers back on the pots to keep things warm. She picked up her plate again and turned to sit down. There were no more places at the adult table.
Maggie had taken a place at the adult table.
Before dinner Gwen had said that the kids were to eat on the back porch. She had been absolutely clear. Maggie had to have heard her. But Maggie had gone and sat at the adult table anyway.
Phoebe was furious.
Ian instantly scooted his chair over. “Here, Gwen, there’s plenty of room. We can get another chair.”
But Giles was already on his feet, lifting his plate. “No, I’ll go out and help Ellie. She’s stuck out there with the little ones. Here, Gwen, please sit down.”
This wasn’t Giles on vacation, this was Giles, general counsel of the University of Iowa, thinking quickly, acting quickly, being so decisive that no one had a chance to argue. He had already taken Gwen’s plate from her, was already guiding her to the chair. “I haven’t touched a thing. Everything—glass, napkin, fork, they’re all clean.”
But being general counsel was exactly what Giles did not want to do on vacation.
Ian was flushed, mortified. He knew he should have made Maggie move. Phoebe could see Joyce start to bristle. Joyce would have defended Maggie. Maggie enjoys adult conversations so. She is simply too intelligent for some other teenagers.
And just whom was Maggie too intelligent for? Ellie was the only other teenager here. Phoebe’s own sweet, helpful, responsible Ellie.
Phoebe turned back to the high chair and started mashing up Thomas’s lasagne again. Now it was too fine, and he was having trouble eating it.
None of this would have happened if Mother was still alive.