My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series)

by Cynthia Lee Cartier

  By mid-October the rough plumbing and electrical were finished as were the framing and the drywall. After the painting was done in the spring, Joel and his crew would be back to install the faucets, sinks, and tubs. Ralph and Matthew would install the outlet and switch plates and all of the light fixtures, including the original ceiling fixtures and wall sconces, which they would be rewiring over the winter months. Lisle and Kurt would install the wood trim and hang all of the doors.

  With their work completed for the season, our renovation crew left the job to make their own preparations for the winter, and The Lake Lodge exhaled. Expecting to enjoy the peace and quiet, Race and I were surprised to find we missed the activity and our friends after just a couple of weeks.

  Then something happened that put Race on pins and needles for half of the winter.

  We had spent the day helping the Island Center Community prepare the skating pond for winter use. The skating pond is in the middle of the island. It sits in a small meadow that is surrounded by homes where year-round residents live. The Cummings and Lisle and Kurt live in two of those homes.

  A pavilion was given a coat of paint and the pond was cleaned out as was the area around it. The pond is surrounded by low stone walls that have a ledge for spectators to sit on to watch the skaters. The walls were cleaned and loose rocks were mortared back into place. The big fire ring was shoveled out and a supply of firewood was stacked under a lean-to by the pavilion.

  I hadn’t ice skated since I was a teenager, but I had planned to give it a go when the ice was ready. What I was really looking forward to though, was bundling up, drinking hot chocolate and watching others skate. That is always a chance to witness beauty and comedy play out simultaneously.

  When we left that day to ride back to the lodge, Race led me up the trail to the highest point on the island with the great views, the same place he had taken me the night of my birthday. We were sitting on a flat rock with our legs dangling over the edge of the bluff when Race told me, “Lisle and Kurt have a snowmobile for sale.”

  “And you want to buy it?” I asked, enjoying the role reversal.

  “Yes.”

  “Where would we keep a snowmobile?” I held back a grin.

  “Well, we wouldn’t have to build a palace for it.” Race tickled my side and said, “I’d keep it in the shed.”

  “You’ve never ridden a snowmobile.”

  “No, but I’ve ridden motorcycles. It can’t be that much different and we’re going to want one when winter sets in.”

  “You’re going to want one, you mean.” Then I shook my head, held Race’s cheek in my hand and with as much seriousness as I could muster, I said, “No hot-rodding.”

  “No hot-rodding,” he agreed.

  Kurt opened his shed doors and pulled the tarp off of the snowmobile that was sitting on a little hauling trailer. Race’s eyes danced like a kid on Christmas morning. He walked around it and ran his hand over the seat and the body. Then he sat on it as if the fit might sway his purchasing decision. I was taken aback by the size of it. Snowmobiles are big machines, and I was beginning to have genuine apprehensions.

  Kurt’s dray had a trailer hitch mounted at the back, and he pulled the snowmobile to the lodge. We followed behind on our bikes, and Race kept his eye on his new toy. That’s a sight I had never seen, horses and dray pulling a gas-powered vehicle. Only on St. Gabriel.

  As Race and Kurt pulled the trailer into the shed, they were careful to position it so that the snowmobile could be easily driven off the trailer when the snows came. Race closed the doors as though he was sealing in a collection of rare paintings. He then spent a good part of every day after that looking up at the sky and waiting.

  Loretta and Janie flew up from New York to St. Gabriel to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with us. We met them at the St. Gabriel Airport, which is tucked away on the northeast side of the island. You wouldn’t even know it was there if you didn’t see the planes fly in and out.

  Just like Lucy’s place, the airport is at the end of a narrow dirt road that is cut through a heavily wooded area and opens up to a clearing. Many small private aircraft and a small fleet of planes belonging to the St. Gabriel Aviation Company are parked behind a charming building where passengers check in. That building and the fields around the runway that are lined with white post and rail fencing are reminders that you are, in fact, on St. Gabriel Island.

  Loretta was a little unsteady and green as she walked across the tarmac. When we were loading her and Janie’s luggage into the surrey, Loretta said, “Now I remember why I don’t fly small planes.”

  Janie was buzzing and said to Loretta, “Come on, Aunt Lo, it was like a ride.”

  “Yes, it was, my dear, a ride from hell.”

  Janie sat up front with Race and he showed her how to drive the horses. When we got to the lodge, they dropped Loretta and me off and made a loop around the island.

  It was Loretta’s first visit since we had moved, and I was appreciative to the island for putting on a great show. The summer temperatures had hung on for a long season, and the foliage was late in coming into all its glory. Typically the leaves would have already carpeted the ground, but that Thanksgiving the forest canopy was on fire with every shade of autumn color. It was spectacular and she was impressed.

  But what Loretta would feel about the accommodations had me a bit uneasy. Loretta is a five-star girl. Restaurants, hotels, she’s used to top-notch, but when she walked into Rhubarb Cottage she gushed over its charm, “Oh, Cam, it’s like a storybook. I love it.” And I think she meant it.

  I think Race would agree that Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday. In Texas it had been a matter of course for us to invite all of our family and friends and anyone who might not have a place to go for their Thanksgiving meal. We would spend the day with students who couldn’t go home for the holiday, neighbors whose families lived too far away for them to be together, and anyone who didn’t have plans.

  A huge buffet would be spread out on the dining room table, which was loaded with three turkeys, four kinds of stuffing, a dozen other side dishes, and at least a dozen different kinds of pie. Once their plates were filled, our guests would find seating at one of the many tables that were placed around the house, or they would balance their plates on their knees while sitting on the sofas and chairs.

  That Thanksgiving we had invited George but he already had plans, of course we didn’t know what they might be. Sara wasn’t coming out to the lodge—she had an aversion to dining with ghosts, and so she jumped at an invitation from Celia Alexander.

  We had been invited to the Alexander home as well, but I didn’t even mention it to Race. Even if he had agreed to go, it would have been awkward and that wasn’t how I wanted our first Thanksgiving on the island to be. Larry Meaks and his parents would be spending the day with relatives on the mainland. I saw Lucy downtown and asked if she wanted to join us. She giggled and said, “No.” It was the curtest and most pleasant rejection I had ever had.

  We didn’t stop there but apparently, Thanksgiving had been celebrated quite successfully before we had arrived on St. Gabriel, and everyone was well established in their traditions.

  So, Loretta, Janie, Race, and I sat around our little kitchen table in the cottage, which was draped with a vintage white linen tablecloth and set with mix-and-match china from the lodge. We joined hands and gave thanks while a fire crackled in the fireplace, then we ate a candlelit turkey dinner for four. It was lovely.

  Paul called while we were eating and he said to me, “Mom, I wish I could have come home.”

  After Thanksgiving the island continued to hold back the winter weather, so when it was time for St. Gabriel’s Winter Bazaar, it felt more like an Oktoberfest.

  The event is always held on the first Saturday of December and is a fundraiser for the St. Gabriel Public School, which has an enrollment of fewer than a hundred students, kindergarten through grade twelve.

  The day includes a snow softball game
that is played with an orange ball so that it can be found in the snow. An orange softball was not needed that year. If there had been snow, there would also have been cross-country ski dashes and snowman building competitions. Instead, there were potato sack races, a traditional softball game, and volleyball. In the evening the annual spaghetti and meatball dinner was held in the school cafeteria, and the night ended with the lighting of the Christmas tree on Main Street.

  With the exception of Mission Hill winter residents, like Celia Alexander, the event brings out just about everyone who stays on the island all year. Sara asked if I would mind if she invited Celia to come to the Bazaar with us.

  “Why would I mind?”

  “You know why, her being James’ mom.”

  “James and I were friends, Sara.”

  “I know. But it’s awkward for you and for Race. Don’t tell me it’s not.”

  “If Celia wants to come with us, I would love to see her.”

  Celia accepted the invitation. When she walked in with us, the Gabies all looked at her the way some of James’ friends had looked at Sara and me as we arrived for his July 4th barbeque, ridiculous.

  Sara introduced Celia around and those that took the time warmed up to Celia Alexander right away. Even if they hadn’t, Celia and Sara were having such a wonderful time it wouldn’t have mattered to either of them anyway.

  Race was taken with Celia as well, as almost everyone is, but when he realized I already knew her, he seemed somewhat surprised. “You had met his mother?” The revelations about James Alexander seemed to have no end, which was not my intention, but I could see that it bothered Race.

  Later in the evening after Lila Meaks, Larry’s mother, had given Race the history of her family’s deep roots on the island, the two of them got into a spirited conversation about what it takes to become a Gabey.

  “You’re here for a time or for life. It takes time to become a Gabey.”

  Race laughed and asked, “Oh really, and how long does that take?”

  “Some says this and some says that. I have my own idea.”

  “And what’s your idea?”

  “I’m just sayin’, people who live on the island are either timers or lifers. Those that move here, who weren’t born and bred, are usually timers.”

  I left the two of them to their little discussion and went to the kitchen to help Sherry Oliver serve up plates of spaghetti.

  At the end of the evening, Race drove a surrey full of people to Main Street for the lighting of the tree. Afterwards we took both Sara and then Celia home. Race walked Celia up the front steps of the big Alexander home, and when we were riding back to the lodge he asked, “That’s quite a house. Have you been in it?”

  “No.”

  “You said you went to a barbeque.”

  “At James’ apartment.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Sara was with me,” I offered.

  Race just nodded.

  Paul’s call Thanksgiving Day led Race and me to make a decision to get out the checkbook and fly our son and daughter to the island for Christmas. Meanwhile, Race continued to study the sky on a regular basis and he was doing just that when I walked out to the porch and handed him a cup of tea.

  While looking up, he said, “I hope we have a white Christmas. The kids would love it.”

  I wrapped my arm around his waist and looked up into his eyes, smirking. “Yes, the kids would love that.” And they would have, maybe not as much as their father, but they would have.

  The seventh of December there was still no snow, but on the eighth, I was in the kitchen making breakfast and Race came running down the stairs from his study, yelling, “It’s snowing!”

  Outside we stood at the porch railing for at least five minutes and looked up at the sky. No snow. Then Race startled me when he excitedly pointed out in front of him and yelled, “There, can you see it?”

  And, by golly, I did see it, one lone flake wafting to the ground and Race’s finger was tracking it the whole way. I’m not sure how he managed to spot anything from his study window, but I was impressed.

  That lone flake was soon followed by a googillion more and it snowed for the rest of the day. As the winter blanket covered the ground, it created a sea of white that stretched out across the lake, which made it look like the largest, wide-open plain we’d ever seen, and we were from Texas. By the next morning we had twenty-eight inches piled precariously on the porch railing.

  We were still in bed when we heard a thunderous sound that shot Race to his feet like a rocket. He was dressed and outside before I had tied the belt of my robe.

  From the living room window, I could see Kurt, Joel, Lisle’s brothers, and five more men pulling off their helmets and greeting Race. It was a big ol’ boy bash.

  Before Race put on his helmet and climbed onto his snowmobile, I stood up to my knees in the snow and held the collar of his jacket. “No hot-rodding,” I said.

  “No hot-rodding,” he agreed.

  But I knew my husband and his definition of hot-rodding and mine were not the same. Race waved as he followed the group down the hill and to the road. My gut tightened the way it had when I watched Paul and Janie drive away by themselves for the first time when they were sixteen. I said a little prayer, went inside and made myself an omelet.

  I spent the morning with the animals, gathering eggs and having a nice visit with the hens. I stopped in to see Tasha and was polite to Collard Greens. Cat was curled up asleep on the edge of the loft with her big bushy tail hanging over the side. She opened her eyes briefly and didn’t even bother to turn her head away. She was slacking. While I was there, George came in and we had our usual ten words or less conversation.

  As I tramped back to the cottage, it occurred to me that George would have seen my tracks in the snow but he came into the barn anyway, progress. I was inspired. I turned around. George was still inside when I opened the barn door and walked back in.

  “Hi again,” I said.

  “Hello.”

  “George, I was wondering about Collard Greens’ name. I’ve never asked you about it.”

  “Nope.”

  “Why is his name Collard Greens?”

  “Got into a patch a collard greens when he was a colt, almost died.”

  “Oh, so it’s kind of a reminder for him, huh?” I laughed.

  “Yup.”

  “You named him, then?”

  “Nope.”

  “Who did?”

  No answer. Why couldn’t I have just left well enough alone? I was then more curious about who named Collard Greens than why he was named Collard Greens, foiled again. George Miller is a formidable opponent.

  I shoveled the snow from the front porch and steps of the cottage and found it to be terribly relaxing, and then I stoked the fire and reclined on the sofa to read a first edition from the lodge library of The House at Pooh Corner.

  Race came roaring up the hill well after I had eaten my second meal of the day. I looked out the window and watched him swing his leg over the snowmobile and dismount like an old pro. He knocked the snow from his clothes onto the porch, came inside and said, “Let’s take a hot bath.”

  For the next half hour, I listened to my calm, collected husband excitedly recount his adventures of the day. Occasionally, he splashed water onto the floor with a sweeping gesture. The stories continued for the rest of the night, during dinner, and afterwards in front of the fire.

  When I woke up the next morning, Race was sitting in a chair at the side of the bed with a wrapped present in his lap.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “An early Christmas present.”

  I sat up and Race joined me on the bed. Inside the package was a new riding helmet and I thought to myself, His gift-giving ability, he’s lost it. I was sincerely grieved.

  “You’ll love it. I promise,” Race assured me.

  I agreed to ride into town with him that day if he didn’t speed. Even though we were riding slower than I
guessed made it any fun for Race, the scenery was still moving so fast that I was missing it. It was a completely new face on St. Gabriel Island, another beautiful face.

  Past the library and below Mission Hill, Race pulled over and pointed to a spot off the shore. “That’s where the ice crossing will form, and we can ride across it to the mainland. Joel said he thinks it will happen by mid-to-late January this year.”

  Yippee, riding across one of the deepest lakes in the world with five hundred pounds of machinery between my legs, sign me up.

  As we entered downtown, I remembered one of the original pictures of St. Gabriel I had cut out of a magazine. The street was covered with snow, pine wreaths hung from every street lamp, and a lit Christmas tree was in the middle of the intersection where Fort Hill runs into Main Street. It looked exactly the same. Sara met us for breakfast at Chums, which is one of the few restaurants that stay open during the off season.

  Downtown St. Gabe also has another face during the winter and it’s a familiar one. In the summer the streets are crowded with tourists, and the locals can walk from one end of town to the other without recognizing a soul. In the winter it feels as if Disneyland has been closed to the public, and you’re there for a private party for you and a hundred of your closest friends.

  We knew everyone in the restaurant, well, maybe we didn’t know them, but we had met them or recognized them. What socializing the locals don’t do during the busy summer season, they make up for when the shingles are taken down. The restaurant was packed.

  After breakfast we went with Sara to her weekly Winter Nertz Club. Nertz is a fast-paced card game of group solitaire that requires quick thinking and rapid card-placing skills. We had never played before and found out that Race and I are quite good at it and we both had a great time.

  On the way home Race drove us out to the fishing pier. That first snow had brought with it a drop in temperature that began the Jack Frost Jiggy. Ice in a glass was all I had known, really. Even growing up in Big Bear, I had never seen anything like it.