The Summer Cottage

by Susan Kietzman

  When she reached the end of the dock, Helen lay down on her stomach and peered into the clear water. At first, she saw nothing but a fish head, some green seaweed, and the submerged Coke can she had noticed the day before. But slowly, as her eyes adjusted to the slight ripple on the surface, she could see the crabs on and around the fish head. Some ate voraciously, one bite after another, while others were more cautious, taking a piece of meat and then scurrying off the head and into the relative safety of a nearby clump of eel grass. Prey assessed, Helen transferred the mussels, the smashing rock, and her crabbing line from her bucket to the dock. She gingerly descended the rickety dock ladder to fill her bucket with water. Safely back on the dock, she set the half-filled bucket down, smashed a lone mussel and then pulled away the bits of blue-black shell to expose the orange flesh the crabs adored. Meticulously, she tied the fractured mussel onto the end of her crabbing string, and then dropped it into the water, where it slowly sank to the bottom. Within five seconds, a large fiddler crab was upon it, eating heartily. Ever so gently, Helen inched the mussel and its hungry companion to the surface. In the air and halfway to the confines of Helen’s blue plastic prison, the crab suddenly let go of the bait and dropped with a plop back into the water. “Rats!” she said.

  Determined to lure that very crab back, to best him as her mother would say, Helen re-baited her line and threw it into the seaweed where her prey had scampered. In an instant, the same crab crept toward the mussel cautiously. Hearing the hum of a distant engine, Helen glanced up and saw a boat rounding the breakwater and approaching the docks. She waved as it slowed down, in observance of the five-mile-per-hour no-wake zone, to glide into a slip at the other dock. She recognized the men, not by name, but she had seen them many times before. They lived up in the Heights, like most of the boat owners at the second dock. Their dock was newer and easily accessible by cars, which the Heights residents parked along a sandy, unpaved section of the road that wound through the Little Crescent Beach community and ended at their dock. They didn’t linger, the Heights residents, in Helen’s neighborhood. They had their own swimming area, their own dock, their own way of doing things. Many of them lived at the beach throughout the year in neat, well-kept ranch houses, which Helen had observed just once on a long bike ride. When she had asked her older brother, Thomas, about the Heights people when she returned from her ride, he cautioned her to stay away. There were wolves that roamed the wooded areas adjacent to the streets, hungry wolves. And even though Thomas was always kidding around about stuff like that, Helen had never ventured back. From the tracks, when she watched trains, she could see the Heights houses and their occupants, sitting in screened-in porches, gardening, mowing the lawn, doing all the things everyone at her beach did. But mingling with the people who lived on the other side of the tracks was tacitly discouraged. They were winter people, and the Thompsons and their immediate neighbors were summer folk.

  Helen looked back down at her bait, which now hosted two crabs, and reached for her bucket. She drew up the line, faster this time, knowing she could lose one, but might keep the other. Out of the water, both crabs continued to snack, seemingly oblivious to their new, drier environment. Helen lowered them into the bucket and gave the line a quick shake, dislodging the crabs from the mussel. Helen watched them as she untied the mussel and tossed it into the bucket. She always gave her guests a meal.

  “Hey!” called Pammy, as she walked down the dock an hour later. Helen, in the middle of tying another mussel onto her line, looked up at her sister. “I know,” Pammy said as soon as she reached Helen. “I slept longer than twenty minutes. You know me.”

  “Yes, I do,” said Helen, focused on her work. “The snooze queen.”

  Pammy walked past her sister and peered over the edge of the dock at the fish head. Fish, dead or alive, reminded her of the Johanson brothers, especially Michael, who was seventeen, blond, and at least six feet tall. He talked to her on the beach sometimes and laughed at her jokes. Once, he smacked at a horsefly that had landed on her back, but he missed it. Pammy liked to think that there had been no horsefly, that he simply wanted to touch her back with his big hands that were rough from yard work and tanned from the summer sun. She pretended she was his girlfriend, instead of big-breasted Tammy Jennings, who lived down the street; Tammy had acknowledged Pammy just once in the last two summers, when she needed to know what time it was. Pammy looked down at her own chest, hoping the padding from the training bra made it look like she had something. That spring, she had pleaded with her mother to replace her undershirts with training bras, insisting that all the thirteen-year-olds wore them. I don’t care what other thirteen-year-olds are doing, her mother had said, warning Pammy about the pitfalls of peer pressure. But Claire had nonetheless acquiesced and taken Pammy to Bell’s Department Store, where they bought a package of three lacy bras, one each in pink, white, and yellow.

  “Get the bucket!” shouted Helen. “I got another one!” Pammy brought the bucket to Helen, who lifted the exposed mussel and the small crab that was tearing away at it out of the water. “Slip it underneath, Pammy! I’m going to lose it!” Pammy held the bucket under the crab, which Helen gently shook until it dropped in with the others. Twelve, no thirteen crabs, Pammy counted. She smiled at Helen, who diligently tied another mussel onto her line.

  “Keep this up, Helen, and you may get a hundred.”

  “They’re really biting today, Pammy. Do you want some of my string? You can catch them with me. We may need another bucket, though.”

  “I think I’ll just watch you.” Pammy sat down on the dock, her back against a piling, and tilted her face toward the sun. She closed her eyes and listened to Helen drop her line back into the water.

  “You’re not watching, Pammy. You’re sleeping again.”

  “I’m imagining. I’m imagining you’re catching a crab right now. Look at your line.”

  “There’s nothing there,” said Helen, peering down through the seaweed at her unoccupied mussel.

  “Look again, Helen.”

  “Hey,” said Helen, “here comes your boyfriend.” Pammy opened her eyes and shielded them from the sun. In the distance, she saw the Johansons’ boat, speeding toward the dock. Pammy ran her fingers through her hair, then tucked her shirt into her shorts. “You’ve got some toothpaste on your cheek,” said Helen, teasing her sister.

  “I do not.”

  “I’m so glad I don’t like boys yet,” said Helen, looking again into the water. “Charlotte says it will happen any day now.” Charlotte, their seventeen-year-old sister, knew everything about boys.

  “Charlotte’s right,” said Pammy, retying the loose laces of one of her Keds sneakers.

  “It’s too much trouble,” said Helen, pulling up her line. The large crab that had been circling her bait suddenly snatched it when she wasn’t looking. This time, Helen decided to wrap the line around twice.

  “It’s no trouble,” Pammy said, “especially when Tammy Jennings is still in bed asleep. This crabbing idea has its merits, Helen.”

  The Johansons backed their boat into the slip, then cut the engine. Pammy waved enthusiastically and walked down the dock to meet them. Dr. Johanson, an orthopedic surgeon, said good morning to Pammy, calling her Miss Thompson as he always did because he didn’t know her first name, and then, addressing his sons, told them he’d see them back at the house. After he left, Pammy, Michael, and his younger brother William, the boys with three large bluefish in their hands, walked back toward Helen. “Hey, Helen,” said Michael. “Catch anything?”

  “A few,” Helen replied, not looking up from her task.

  “Pammy tells me you have thirteen. That’s not bad. But if I remember correctly, you had sixteen by this time yesterday.”

  “That’s because Pammy stayed in bed yesterday,” said Helen, looking up at her sister and smiling.

  “I did not,” Pammy retorted. “I got up early and went to the store with Mom.”

  “Anyway, I had no distra
ctions,” said Helen, using a word she had heard her mother use to describe Charlotte’s boyfriends.

  “It’s a wonder I can catch anything then,” said Michael, turning to leave. “I’ve got more distractions than I can handle.” At that, Michael and William let out loud, quick laughs. Pammy laughed too, more for encouragement for the boys than as an indication of her comprehension. And then the boys were gone, walking briskly to join their father who was walking along the same road Helen traveled to reach the dock. Poles in hand, the doctor seemed to be in no hurry. As soon as the boys caught up with him, however, he quickened his pace, eager perhaps for the bacon and egg breakfast waiting for them at home. Every morning Mrs. Johanson cooked a tummy-filling breakfast for her men. Plus, she was the prettiest and nicest mother in the neighborhood. Helen had once been invited in for French toast, which Mrs. Johanson made with a real baguette. When Helen had shared this tip with her mother, Claire had agreed to try it. But she never did, instead favoring the thin slices of white her husband loved with syrup and powdered sugar on Saturday mornings.

  Pammy watched the boys go and then sat down next to Helen. She looked down into the water, head in hands, bent elbows on crisscrossed legs. “You got one,” she said. “Pull it up.”

  CHAPTER 3

  2003

  Helen put the magazine aside when she heard her mother shift in her chair. Claire enjoyed sleeping in the car and in her bed, but recently she did not like to wake up in what she considered to be a strange place, which the other day meant the couch in her own living room, but mostly referred to chairs in medical building waiting areas. And while the cottage that had been the Thompson family summer retreat since before Helen was born was far from strange, it would be vaguely unfamiliar this first visit this year, Helen guessed, due to her mother’s exhaustion. Helen switched chairs to be next to her mother. As soon as Claire opened her eyes, blinking in the afternoon sun that filled the porch with the golden light she loved, Helen laid her hand upon her mother’s shoulder. Claire looked in the direction of her daughter, the medication she had taken to ease her pain that morning still working its way through her system. “Did you have a nice rest?” Helen asked, knowing the sound of her voice brought her mother back faster.

  Claire nodded her head then, mentally grounded, placed her hand on top of her daughter’s. “What time is it?”

  Helen looked at her watch. “About four.”

  “Yes,” said Claire, sounding pleased with Helen’s answer.

  “Would you like some tea?”

  “I don’t think so.” Claire was now fully awake and looking past her daughter at the giant maple tree across the street. “I’d like to see the beach.”

  “Good idea,” said Helen, rising from her chair. “Do you want to walk or shall I put you in your chair?”

  “The chair, I think. I’m a bit unsteady on my feet.”

  Helen grabbed the walker that was resting against the wall and positioned it in front of her mother’s wicker chair. Claire grabbed on to the handles and slowly lifted herself until she was vertical. Helen, who had her right arm behind her mother’s back to stop her from falling, knew better than to touch her. There was so little Claire could do herself. It was a daily discussion: how much she used to be able to do just a few short years ago compared with how little she could do now. And then there were the days that Claire wanted to talk about how strong she had been as a young woman—a couple times a week, it seemed to surface. Helen, who could have told her mother’s story probably better than her mother could at this point, routinely listened attentively. Being her caregiver was more tolerable when Claire was in a good mood and chatted joyfully about her accomplishments. It was less so when she was achy and morose. On those days, she was tough on herself. Helen could do little to appease her at these times, Claire’s agitation ending only with sleep.

  “Let’s head to the back door, for your chair, and then we’ll go to the beach.” Helen walked several steps behind her mother as Claire rolled and pushed her way toward the kitchen; Helen resisted the urge to walk in front, to set a pace her mother could not match. Once they reached the kitchen, it took Helen and Claire a few minutes to transfer from one transportation device inside the house to the other that Helen had placed just outside the back door. Claire sat down heavily. “There,” said Helen, to ward off any complaints. “We’re all set.”

  “You’re all set,” said Claire, looking up at her daughter. “I haven’t been all damn set for three damn years.”

  “Mom,” said Helen.

  It had been three years and two months since Claire’s diagnosis: Her breast cancer had returned. She’d had a lumpectomy and radiation therapy in 1992 and had been diligent about her follow-up visits, always complying with the requests of her medical team, a word that she found ludicrous in this usage, and the wishes of her husband John, a pediatrician, even though she felt fine. And for eight years she had been fine—until the morning she noticed some bruising on her left breast. And when she inspected it with her fingers, she felt the mass under the skin. A month later, both breasts were gone. Two months after that, bald from chemotherapy and weak from the cancer’s progression, she knew she would not recover. Those burdened with the unhappy diagnosis of secondary angiosarcoma had less than a one in five chance of survival. As a swimmer, she’d once considered twenty percent as fairly good odds in the pool. As a sick old woman, she knew better. “What day is it, Helen? Tuesday?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And when is everyone coming?” They were rumbling along the grassy right-of-way now toward the beach. Claire’s chair was what she jokingly called an all-terrain vehicle, with large nubby tires that traversed uneven ground almost as easily though certainly less steadily than flat pavement.

  “They’re coming in stages, Mom,” said Helen, trying to be patient with this the fourth or fifth run-through of the weekend itinerary. “Pammy will be here tomorrow, and Charlotte is scheduled to arrive on Thursday afternoon. Thomas, if he does come, will be here on Saturday.”

  “We don’t know if he’s coming? I thought you said he was coming, Helen.”

  “You know Thomas, Mom. He never commits.”

  “He’ll be here,” said Claire as Helen stopped the chair several feet from the top of the seawall and set the brakes. “I do, indeed, know Thomas. He’ll be here.”

  Helen nodded. “Do you want to stand?”

  “Yes,” said Claire. Helen held out her arm, and Claire held on to it as she lifted herself out of the chair. The cancer, which had spread from her breasts into her lungs and then into her bones, made breathing and moving, simply existing, an effort. Her legs, once strong enough to kick her body through the water to the raft in just over a minute, ignored her pleas for support, hanging from her fragile hip bones, as ineffectual as wind chimes on a still day. Helen and Claire both gazed out at the horizon.

  “Top ten, I think,” said Helen.

  “I think so too.”

  “And it’s only the end of June.”

  Claire smiled at her daughter. “Good old reliable Helen.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You know damn well what I mean,” said Claire. “Let’s sit on this top step a moment, so I can concentrate on breathing in this salty air. It’s good for what ails me.”

  “So you keep telling me, Mom,” said Helen, helping her mother sit and then encircling her shrunken waist with her arm.

  They sat for several minutes, neither woman speaking, until Claire said, “It’s times like this that I miss him the most.”

  “Me too.”

  “He was a good man, your father, a strong man.”

  “Yes.”

  “I keep wondering if I should have kept him home that night.”

  It was an evening they talked about more often than Helen cared to—a recurring, never-ending conversation, like those about Claire’s swimming days and her cancer. When the phone rang at two in the morning the night their “city” home neighbor Joellen’s daug
hter, Bethany, went into labor, it had been raining hard for several hours. You can’t go out in this, Claire said at the time, mindful that her husband had been battling a bad cold for a week. But they had discussed the imminent birth, John and Claire, and agreed that he would go to the hospital, even though he had recently retired, instead of leaving Bethany in the capable hands of his young, taciturn partner. Normally, neither John nor his partner needed to be present in the hospital’s birthing room, but Bethany was expecting triplets, the product of fertility drugs she had been taking for two years that had finally resulted in pregnancy. He won’t talk to her the way you would, Joellen had said to John about his partner the day she knocked on the back door with a loaf of warm banana bread and the request that he preside over the birth of her grandchildren. So, John put on his galoshes that night, his heavy raincoat and hat, and drove to the hospital and helped with the delivery of the three small but healthy children, two girls and a boy. And he was just about home when a traveling salesman, drinking the last of six beers that had been sitting on the seat next to him, drove his rental car through a red light and into the driver’s side of John’s Jeep, killing him instantly.

  “He wanted to deliver Bethany’s babies,” said Helen. “There’s nothing you could have done.” The tears that rimmed her eyes each time she had this conversation with her mother reappeared. She dabbed at them with the sleeve of her T-shirt.

  Claire took hold of the railing at the side of the steps and slowly stood. “I think about it every time I see those children—although they are darling,” she said. “After that night, I never again cared for banana bread.”

  Back at the house, Helen again settled her mother into the wicker chair on the porch. “How about that tea now?”

  “Yes. I’d love some.”

  Helen busied herself in the kitchen while the water in the kettle boiled. She washed the lettuce for the dinner salad, set the dining room table for two, and peeled the summer squash, her mother’s favorite vegetable. When the kettle whistled, Helen poured the hot water into two mugs that held Constant Comment tea bags and dunked the bags several times. She put the mugs on a tray, along with a salad plate of chocolate chip cookies she had made the night before, and walked back out to the porch. Wanting to change topics, to lighten her mother’s dark mood, Helen kissed Claire on the forehead. “Well, what’s that for?”