Like Always

by Robert Elmer

  “We’ve all just been doing what we can,” Stephanie put in. “It’s not—”

  “She’s even been pumping gas and taking care of dockside chores with me,” added Will. “Couldn’t run this place without her.”

  Stephanie blushed and flexed her arm. A silly gesture, but Michael laughed.

  “Tell you what, Stephanie,” he told her. “I’ll take over the gas pump if you don’t make me cook.”

  “Deal.” Stephanie looked back at the car, remembering their passenger. “Oh! We brought someone with us from town.”

  On cue, Sydney emerged from the Land Rover and stepped onto the porch, willing to shake Michael’s hand.

  “The last time I saw you, young man, you were half as tall as you are now. You ran out of my house screaming.”

  “No.” Michael grinned. “I wasn’t really screaming, was I? I don’t remember that part.”

  “You screamed as if someone were trying to kill you. Maybe you don’t recall, but I do. And you tried to bury the tofu I served you. You said it looked like it was alive once and needed a funeral.”

  “Well, give me a break, Aunt Sydney.” He wrapped an arm around her. “I was just a little kid. Now tofu’s one of my favorite foods.”

  She looked at him sideways, frowned, and shook her head. “I may live by myself with only animals for company, but I’m not naive. You like tofu as much as I like a Big Mac, which I can honestly tell you is poison from the industrial pit of despair.”

  Michael laughed, and the sound reminded Stephanie she hadn’t heard a real, honest laugh around here for a long time. And though she would not have admitted it to anyone—especially not anyone on the porch with her— it warmed her like a cup of steaming hot chocolate on a cool day.

  “Speaking of Big Macs,” Stephanie said, heading down the stairs toward the docks, “I’d better make those sandwiches.”

  No one objected, so she kept going.

  “I think I know why you came back, Michael Sullivan.” Sydney’s pronouncement caught Stephanie off guard. What would this odd woman say next? Stephanie slowed just enough to listen.

  “You do, Aunt Sydney?”

  “I do. And I don’t think you came back just to work on outboard motors or pump gas at your father’s gas dock. I think there’s a young woman involved in this somewhere.”

  Stephanie caught her breath but continued down toward the docks. She didn’t wait to hear Michael’s response.

  twenty-eight

  Yes’m, old friends is always best,

  ‘less you can catch a new one that’s fit to make an old one out of.

  SARAH ORNE JEWETT

  Oh, Cheryl, I’m so glad you and Rick decided to come.” Merit squeezed her friends hand. “You don’t know what it means to me.”

  “Well, you made me promise, right?” Cheryl squeezed back.

  Minutes after the Millers had arrived with their pop-up travel trailer, Cheryl’s three children had run down to the beach with Abby and Olivia to throw rocks into the lake and giggle. Next they explored the tree fort Michael was building them. The two moms watched the scene from the front porch of the cabin, soaking in the evening calm.

  “Amazing how little it takes to entertain them.” Cheryl smiled and sipped her mug of herbal tea as she paced the porch. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “And I can see why you and Will fell in love with this place. But you lied.”

  “What?” Merit wrinkled her nose and pushed herself in the porch swing. “Did you say lied

  Cheryl fought to hold a poker face. “Well, you told me it was pretty, but that’s not true.”

  “Really? You think we made a mistake? I was afraid—”

  Cheryl interrupted with her laugh. “No, I mean, you never told me it was this stunning.”

  “Oh. Right. I thought I had.” Merit returned the smile.

  Cheryl pointed across the bay the way Will had done the first evening they’d stayed here, a lifetime ago.

  “Look at those mountains, Merit. How they reflect on the water. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s like one of those Thomas Kinkade paintings come to life.”

  “I’ve thought the same thing.” Merit took a sip of her own tea, savoring it for a moment. Caffeine-free, the way the doctor ordered. “Like we’ve always belonged here.”

  As they chatted, Will took Rick off on a grand tour of the premises. A few customers wandered here and there, puttering on their boats or cleaning up their catch after a day’s fishing. Thank God for Stephanie, who didn’t seem to mind putting in endless hours down at the snack bar, answering the phone, or occasionally pumping gas. Between her and Michael, Merit wondered if she and Will were even necessary. Although Will…

  “I think it’s been the hardest for Will,” Merit said. “He’s always working so hard, trying to keep things together, scurrying around, asking if there’s anything he can do for me. He’s sweet, but I worry about him. The look he gets on his face.”

  “What kind of look?”

  “Like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. He’s been talking with Pastor Bud, Stephanie’s dad, once in a while. But I don’t know. I still don’t know.”

  “But…,” Cheryl hesitated, “you can understand how he feels.”

  “Oh, definitely.” Merit stared off at the lake. “It’S just that…oh, I’m sorry. Here I go again with my problems.”

  “Not at all. And please don’t feel like you’re all alone. Like it’s just your problem. That’s why we’re here, girlfriend. And if Will can’t see straight sometimes, you know it’s only because he loves you to death. I mean—” She slapped a hand across her mouth and groaned.

  Merit had to smile at her friend. “Please. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Well, then.” Cheryl’s hand came down, and she took a deep breath. “What about Abby and Olivia? How are they doing?”

  “Oh, the girls. I think they’re worried, especially Abby. But they’ve got themselves convinced that Mommy’s going to be okay, somehow. That the doctor is going to figure out how to make me all better. That God’s going to send a miracle.”

  An uncertain smile played at Cheryl’s lips as she lingered by the porch railing.

  Merit went on. “And you know what? Maybe they’re right. Maybe adults are too cynical to recognize a real-life miracle, even if it bites us on our noses. Do you…do you believe in miracles like that?”

  Cheryl chewed her lip. “I know that God can if He wants. We’ve been praying, you know.”

  “I know, and you know how much I appreciate it. The people here at the church have been amazing. They bring dinner—casseroles—all the time. They’re so sweet. They watch the girls… I don’t know what I would do.”

  She hadn’t meant to choke up. But that brought Cheryl down to the bench beside her, a comforting arm around Merit’s shoulder. They rocked together in silence for a moment, savoring the lake smells and the kid sounds around them. A raven cawed in the distance, and an outboard motor buzzed somewhere off the point. Cheryl was the first to speak again.

  “So you remember what it’s like to be pregnant?”

  “Do I!” Merit gasped for effect. “Only it’s so different this time. I’m totally wiped out. I mean totally. Zero energy, like I can’t even get out of bed. Some days I don’t.”

  “What does your doctor say?”

  “We had to find another doctor.” She almost chuckled. “The first one was so upset about what we were doing, so bent out of shape, that she just couldn’t deal with it. She said if we weren’t going to follow her advice, she wanted us to work with someone else.”

  “Very noble.”

  “Yeah, in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one who told the media.”

  “Oh, the media!” Cheryl finished her tea and cradled the mug in her hands. “Do you have any idea how many national programs have been playing the Merit Sullivan story?”

  “Do I know? Ha! They’ve even been mentioning my ‘right-wing’ lending library.”
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br />   “Oh! That reminds me! I brought a few more boxes of books from the Bookworm girls. They’re in the car. They wanted you to have some more right-wing propaganda.”

  Merit released her breath in an easy chuckle. And despite her numbing headache and the claws of fatigue that threatened to pull her right back to bed, it felt good.

  “I saw that program where they showed the store and those ‘right-wing’ books,” Cheryl said. “If they only knew what a compassionate liberal you really are.”

  “Yeah, we saw a lot of those cable news shows.”

  “At least Sean Hannity was nice.”

  “He’s Catholic,” Merit said.

  “I heard that too.”

  “Well, the good news is that the media circus died down after that first frenzy. I don’t think I would have been able to take it much longer, the way they came after us.”

  “Oh, Merit.” Cheryl turned on the porch swing and grabbed her friend’s shoulders. “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you how sorry I am that—”

  “Please don’t.” Merit closed her eyes and raised a hand. “I mean, I just wanted it to be—”

  “I know what you’re going to say.”

  “Do you?” Merit didn’t open her eyes, but she suspected her friend was right.

  “You wish Will didn’t have to worry so much, and that it was just like it always was when our kids played together and we had barbecues on the back patio and Easter egg hunts in the Abells’ backyard. When we took them trick-or-treating around the neighborhood and when we would go camping at Fallen Leaf Lake.”

  “Exactly.” Merit didn’t mind a little syrupy reminiscing. A little schmaltz. Let the violins play. “Remember that campground we used to go to, with the store that had the—”

  “The swinging screen door that squeaked like the one on The Waltons,” Cheryl finished the thought with a chuckle. “And that cute little chapel right in the middle of the campground where they rang the bell on Sunday morning, and we’d all troop in with our wet kids and our unshaven husbands?”

  Merit smiled at the memory. “We used to love that place.”

  “We all did,” Cheryl agreed, but her voice was serious now “What is it?”

  “You know what happened to that campground, don’t you?” Cheryl frowned.

  “Happened?”

  “I just read about it in the San Francisco Chronicle!’ Cheryl looked out at the lake. “They’re tearing it down. All of it. Somebody bought the land for luxury condos, with swimming pools and tennis courts and all that.”

  “Oh no.” Merit assumed Cheryl’s blank stare. Will and Rick were finally returning from the grand tour, trooping up the gangplank from the docks, sharing a joke. Merit sighed. It was probably time to get something together to eat. “I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. That kind of thing always seems to happen, doesn’t it?”

  “Not always. Look at you and Will out here building the Great American Dream.”

  “You think that’s what it is?” She laughed, and it felt good. It was easy to forget reality and talk the way they always had, like girlfriends in high school with big dreams of husbands and kids, of making a difference in a few lives, of maybe traveling the world. Cheryl had always talked about going to France or Italy or Rome. Maybe she would someday.

  “The Great American Dream,” Merit repeated, clearing her head with a little shake. “Is that what we’re doing? Right now I’d settle for getting out of this swing without looking like an idiot.”

  “Oh, sorry! Here.” Cheryl put her feet down to stop the swinging.

  “No, no. Actually, if we keep the swinging going, and if I time it just right…oh, this is silly. I don’t know why I’m so weak-kneed. I’ve turned into an eighty-year-old woman overnight. Why I even—”

  “Moooooom!” Olivia came screaming down the path, chased by a crew of other kids.

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Abby insisted, arriving at the same time as her sister to defend herself.

  They could see blood between Olivia’s fingers as she clutched her knee and grimaced. “She pushed me and I fell!”

  The rest of the story came out in a torrent of tears, but the details and the blame didn’t really matter. Merit gritted her teeth and pried Olivia’s fingers away enough to see that this time she wasn’t acting.

  “Ooh, that’s a nice one.”

  “No no no!” Olivia squeezed her eyes shut and winced with her entire body. “It’s just a scratch. It’s just a scratch!”

  Merit clicked her tongue and wished somehow she could use the same technique. Just deny it, wish it away, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

  There’s no place like home, she thought.

  “I wish it was, sweetie,” Merit said, taking stock of the situation and trying not to let the butterflies in her stomach get the best of her. The blood had run down Olivias shin and soaked her sock.

  “Just a bandage. That’s all I need, Mom. Please.”

  “I’m afraid not.” Merit sighed and took one last peek at the wound. “This one might need some stitches, honey. Keep pressing your hand down tight, so it doesn’t bleed all over the floor. We’ll get it cleaned up inside.”

  She turned to Cheryl, giving her the look only moms can share, a look born from kissing boo-boos, sitting up with feverish toddlers all night, and fashioning splints for sprained wrists. “Like always, right?”

  Cheryl paused and nodded, returning the look, the tears brimming in her eyes. “Kids certainly do make sure ofthat.”

  “This week, at least. I just wish you guys could stay longer.”

  twenty-nine

  You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die. Or when.

  You can only decide how you’re going to live. Now.

  JOAN BAEZ

  Does this mean summer’s almost over?” Merit.dangled her hand over the side of the boat and traced rings in the still blue water. Will leaned his head back and caught the early September sun full in his face. They bobbed gently in the middle of the lake, and he listened for any sign that they were not the last surviving people on the planet.

  “Summer is not over,” he murmured, barely loud enough for her to hear. “In fact, they’ve canceled autumn, and this summer is going to last for the next fifty years. Maybe a hundred.”

  “Is that why you brought me out here?” she asked. “To end fall?”

  “Exactly, my dear Mrs. Sullivan. When all else fails, a little dose of denial.”

  He felt a cold splash of water on his bare chest. “Hey!” he shouted.

  His wife might have been sick and pregnant, but she could still have a respectable water fight. And so could he, for that matter. It didn’t end until they’d soaked each other like little kids and she lay back on the bench in the back of the boat, panting and giggling, obviously exhausted.

  “You act like you want to be thrown in,” he teased, and she weakly held up her hands.

  “Please, no, Will. You don’t want to be accused of drowning your sick pregnant wife.”

  “Shows what you know.” He kneeled next to her and wondered if the past several months had all been a bad dream. He ran his fingers along her glistening tanned shoulders, then brushed back her hair and buried his face in her neck. For all the times he had watched her sleeping, wondering if she might not wake up. For all the times he had caught himself thinking, This could be the last time…

  “Are you sure there wasn’t a rapture, dear, and we got left behind?” Merit asked.

  Will sighed at the thought, knowing his turn to be left behind might be coming sooner than he liked. He squinted out at the water and scanned the lake.

  “I don’t see anyone. I guess we’ll have to camp out here and wait for the apocalypse.”

  With that unspirituàl comment, he flipped himself over the side of the boat with a whoop. This time of year, the lake was cooler, but not enough to take his breath away. He swam around to the bow, retrieved the rope that normally tied up the front of the boat, and gripped it in his teeth.


  “Honey! There’s a walrus in the lake!”

  Will turned over on his back and did his best imitation, and Merit’s laugh felt like a salve to his soul.

  He removed the rope from his mouth. “Well, this walrus is going to tow you into shore, ma’am.” He did the backstroke until he had the boat moving along at a good speed, headed directly for the gravel beach just south of the abandoned lime mines and the bare remains of old piers where lake steamers had once docked generations ago. For this generation, the site served as a perfect camping spot, quiet and shaded, with a picnic table and a fire pit.

  Will pitched their nylon pup tent, then started a fire and cooked a rather tasty one-pot camp stew of specially spiced sirloin, potatoes, and onions. They ate in silence as an orange and pink sunset lowered against the far western shore, the backdrop of mountains partly covered now by descending clouds.

  “This is perfect,” Merit whispered, snuggling against him.

  “What—the food or the chef?” He slipped an arm around his wife, drawing her as close as he could. The fragrance of sun and the breeze lingered in her hair.

  “Yeah.”

  He felt her shiver. The shadows had darkened, and the lake’s chill turned to mist, blending with the smoke of their campfire. Will unzipped one of the sleeping bags and draped it over her shoulders.

  She smiled up at him. “What happens if one of the kids needs us… or there’s an emergency? or if I want to listen to the Giants’ game?”

  “I told Michael he could call us on the handheld if he needs us for anything. You know the Heimlich if I choke on a russet. And baseball can stay at home this time.”

  “No, seriously. Is the radio in the boat?”

  “Yeah, it’s…” Then he remembered. “Actually, I think I left it on the counter back at the resort. But I’ll check.”