Summer Cousins

There was magic in our lake.

That’s what Grammy always said. But then again, Grammy had a bit of magic in her, too. Each year on the last day of summer, Grammy packed her picnic hamper and together we’d carry it down to the old dock where the reeds were thin and the ducks liked to gather. We’d sit for hours with our feet dangling in the water, just Grammy and me, because I was the oldest and (I suspected), that made me the favorite. We ate cheese sandwiches wrapped in crinkled brown paper and thick slices of Great Aunt Millie’s angel food cake, and Grammy told me stories about when she was a girl. I’d swat at the horseflies and watch the rich people’s boats sway in the breeze while I imagined a little girl version of Grammy splashing in the water and racing her older sisters across the shoreline. On these Last Days, I could tell Grammy all of my secrets, and Grammy only ever listened as she stroked my hair until the sky turned purple and one last lonely boat fluttered on the horizon.

Up a short foot path a few hundred feet from the dock sat the family’s lake house. Grammy’s father bought the land in 1927 and built it from the ground up with a kit he ordered out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog. It took him two whole summers to finish because it rained so much and Grammy’s mother was so ill. Thanks to generations of tradesman uncles and cousins, it slowly grew by stories and sun lit rooms over the years. Every summer those rooms were filled to bursting with the cousins that we rarely saw during the year; the Summer Cousins. Our days were consumed with sun soaked adventures on inner tubes in the middle of the lake, and our nights were filled with campfires and marshmallows and ghost stories until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer. Grammy and PopPop said that they got no greater joy than letting us do exactly everything our parents forbid us to do.

It was the kitchen, though, that held the best secrets. Large and sunny, with delicate white and blue Formica countertops and a farmhouse table long and large enough to fit the whole family. The far wall was just one big window with a sliding door that opened onto a deck that overlooked the whole lake. My memories of that kitchen were warm and cinnamon scented and full of big moments. It was in that very kitchen where Pop Pop asked Grammy to marry him. He was 18 and penniless, and Grammy’s father famously chased him away with a rifle that he swore wasn’t actually loaded. This was the place where Mother told Grammy that she was going to be a grandmother for the first time. This was the place where Uncle Joey announced that he had joined the army, and it’s the same place where we all found out that Uncle Joey had been killed in a training accident on his base. It was at this table where the four of us oldest kids; Jaime, Michael, Danielle and I made ourselves ridiculously sick playing Truth or Dare in the middle of the night with a bottle of PopPop’s Wild Turkey. This kitchen was haunted by laughter and tears and arguments; by coffee fueled morning hangovers and Sunday dinners.

The sun is just about to set behind the shoreline when I pull into the long driveway. It’s been five years since Grammy died and while it’s comforting to see just how unchanged the place is, the absence of summer toys and bikes that had littered the yard throughout my entire childhood is jarring. This is a house of adults now.

Danielle sits on the top step of the large front porch that wraps around most of the house, her face illuminated by the soft blue glow of her phone screen. I see a cigarette between her fingers, which means that her teenage twins aren’t with her. Danielle has always been just as wild and carefree as I was calculated and careful, and our lives have taken very different paths. I lived up to every expectation the family had of me without question; good grades, good college, good job, good kids. Danielle rebelled, and she lost herself for a long time.

Danielle looks up when she hears the crunching gravel under my tires and flies towards me in a blur of cutoff jeans and jangling bracelets.

“Annie Annie Annie!” she half shouts in a sing-song voice, and as she throws her arms around me, I can tell she’d already had a few Bud Lights.

“Danny Danny Danny!” She feels smaller than I remember, although I have gotten significantly bigger in the last few years thanks to a dangerous mix of late night snacking and the prescription steroids I use to control my recently diagnosed Rheumatoid Arthritis.

The house has two sets of interior stairs; the main ones in the entryway and the secret stairs that lead from the closet in the back bedroom to the kitchen pantry. Grammy used to tell us that it was a magic staircase that only appeared to us kids when we wanted to do mischief, and though we knew better even from a very early age, it certainly came in handy throughout our teenage years when we came stumbling home drunk after closing down the Clubhouse Bar in the village. I was always absolutely sure that Grammy was sure to catch us at any second or were waiting at the top of the stairs to ground us forever. Michael always said that he’d cover for us if that happened, but it never did.

As I step into the foyer I am 10 years old again, and it’s the first full week of summer vacation. Familiar, nervous anticipation washes over my skin as I wait excitedly to see who is already here and pray silently to any summer god that might be listening that I haven’t missed any of the inside jokes that will define the next eight weeks. As if on cue, Jaime bounds down the staircase with a crooked smile and open arms.

“Annie.” He pulls me into a bear hug, and I am taken aback at how different he seems. Jaime and Michael grew up far away, and their lives outside of our summers on the lake seemed big and complicated. Jaime and Michael were technically step brothers; Jaime’s father hadn’t stuck around after Aunt Lizzy got pregnant and when Jaime was two, Lizzie married Michael’s father. Grammy told me the whole story when I was very young and got curious about why Michael had different colored skin as the rest of us. Grammy swore that a long time ago she wished on a star for a bonus grandson to spoil, and Michael was the living proof that wishes came true.

Even though he was only a year younger than the rest of us, Michael was the Big Brother. He was the first to step in when I was 12 and some local boys started calling me Whale Baby at the ice cream stand. He was the first one that Danielle called the first time she got arrested for shoplifting, and when Corbin and Colin’s father put Danielle in the hospital for the third time, Michael was the one that drove 10 hours straight across four states to get the three of them out for good.

As a kid, Jaime was every bit as kind and gallant as his brother. But unlike his brother, Jaime kept his feelings and emotions close to his vest. Jaime wasn’t a talker; Jaime was a watcher. As an adult, Jaime has a relaxed aura about him. His smile is broad and genuine, and his eyes twinkle a bit. He is happy, and it radiates from him.

Jaime is the most successful of us all. We quietly assumed that he'd chosen a career in medicine because of Michael’s accident, but Grammy insisted that Jaime was a born healer and forbid us to say anything to the contrary.

“Is your family here?” I ask.

“They’re coming down next week.”

“It’s just us three until Sunday,” Danielle says. “Kid free and carefree!”

If we had been 10 years old again, we would have immediately run down to the lake and jumped in, clothes and all, as was the yearly tradition. As adults, we make small talk and then go our separate ways for a while. I am staying in the back bedroom, and stepping through the door is like stepping back into 1997, Nirvana blasting on the CD player and 14 year old me sharing my first sloppy tongue kiss through the open window with a scrawny local boy named Chad.

Later I find my way down the magic staircase to the kitchen. I am not surprised to find Danielle and Jaime already at the table playing cards and drinking out of Grammy’s old jelly jars with a half empty bottle of Wild Turkey between them. When I sit, Danielle pours some into a mug that says “Walter’s Water and Heating Est. 1984” across the side and slides it to me.

“Truth or dare?” she says.

Our version of Truth or Dare would be better called Take a Shot and Tell the Truth, because none of us ever chose Dare. There are two unspoken, unbreakable rules to our game: we must tell the complete truth, and we do not comment on another’s Truth. I drain my mug in one gulp. The whisky burns the back of my throat, and I am immediately filled with a tingly warmth that has eluded me for years.

“Truth,” I say. “My kids like Jeff’s new wife better than me.”

Danielle gives me a sloppy grin and chugs from her glass. My heart aches for her. Danielle has never learned her limits.

“Truth,” she says, her voice thick with drunkenness. “Corbin got his girlfriend pregnant. I’m gonna be a grandma. A 37 year old grandma. How fucking white trash is that?” She chuckles sadly.

Jaime sips his whisky slowly and there is a long pause. The wind coming off the lake has picked up and gently rattles the sliding glass door to signify an impending summer thunderstorm. Years ago, Grammy taught us how to be still and smell the rain before it comes. The house is filled now with that sweet, slight stormy air.

Finally, Jaime says, “Truth. Michael meant to kill himself.”

Saying it out loud makes it real for all of us. For years we called it a tragic accident for Jaime's sake. But Michael never liked guns; he cringed at the mere mention of one. On those summer evenings when the rest of us gathered around the rocking chair on the porch and begged PopPop to tell us stories about his grand hunting adventures as a small boy, Michael quietly slipped away to the kitchen to help Grammy wash dishes while she snuck him extra cookies. But Michael had demons; dark demons that led him to PopPop’s gun cabinet one stifling night in early August 15 years ago.

I am the one to break the long silence. “Truth,” I whisper. “I think it’s time to sell the house.”

I spend the rest of the summer in blissful relaxation. I cook large dinners. I drink too much and laugh a lot, doze in the sunlight, and relearn how to kayak. On the Last Day, I wrap a cheese sandwich in crinkled brown paper and walk to the edge of the old dock. This is the very last Last Day; next year the house will be filled with a new family who will bring new magic to it. Now, though, I allow the warm breeze to caress my hair, and I watch the rich people’s boats sway gently in the breeze across the lake.