“keep her memory alive.” Mrs. Berke had said that to me after Granly’s funeral, before giving me an uncomfortable, hairspray-scented hug.
I didn’t want to forget Granly, but I didn’t really want to think about her either. Every time I did, I felt claustrophobic, the same way I feel every time I get on an elevator.
It’s a well-known fact in my family that I’m a mess on an elevator. My ears fill with static. I clench my fists, take shallow breaths, and stare intently at the doors until they open. When they do, I’m always the first one off. Then I have to inhale deeply for a few seconds before resuming normal human functioning.
I wondered if this whole summer in Bluepointe would feel like that. Without Granly there, would I ever be able to take that deep breath and move on?
We spent most of Illinois in silence because we were so hot. And cranky. And completely sick of each other. Hannah had even consented to skipping the Ojibwa museum in favor of just getting to Bluepointe—and out of the car—as soon as possible.
Just when I started contemplating something seriously drastic—like borrowing my mother’s needlepoint—we began to follow the long, lazy curve around Lake Michigan. We couldn’t see the lake from the expressway, but we could feel it there, waiting to welcome us back.
I’d always preferred Lake Michigan to the ocean. I liked that it was a moody, murky green. I liked that it was so big that the moon mistook it for an ocean, which meant it had waves. But not loud, show-offy Pacific Ocean–type waves. Just steady, soothing, unassuming undulations that you could float in for hours without feeling oversalted and beaten. Lake Michigan was like the ocean’s underdog.
As we drove through Gary, Indiana, which was riddled with paper mills that spewed sulfurous plumes of smoke, I daydreamed about jumping into the lake. It would wash away the ickiness of too many fast-food french fries and too many gas station restrooms.
I pulled a pen and a little notepad out of my backpack. Lethargically I flipped past page after scribbled-on page until I found a blank one.
Gary, Indiana, I wrote in green ballpoint. Our motto is, “The Smell of Rotten Eggs Is Character-Building!”
What’s it like to live with that smell in your pores, your tears, your breath? What’s it like to smell a smell so much that you don’t smell it anymore? But then you take a trip. You go to Chicago for the weekend. You go camping in the woods. You go to summer camp in Iowa, where the air smells like fresh corn. And you come back and realize that your hair, your clothes, the sheets on your bed, you, smell like Gary, Indiana.
I flipped my notebook closed and tossed it back into my pack. Then I breathed through my mouth until we reached Michigan.
Finally we pulled up in front of Granly’s squat, shingled house on Sparrow Road and all limped out of the car. As my sisters groaned and stretched, I was stunned by the sudden wave of happiness that washed over me. The air smelled distinctly Bluepointe-ish—heavy and sweet with flowers, and pine needles, and the clean aftertaste of the two-blocks-away lake.
I tromped up the pea gravel drive to the screened-in front porch, where everything looked just the same as it always had. It was neatly furnished with deep-seated wicker rockers and a couch, lots of glass lanterns, and a big bowl full of shells from the lake.
My mom, already in to-do mode, bounced a big roller suitcase up the steps and joined me in the screened porch. She gave me a big grin before turning the knob of the front door.
It didn’t turn.
It was locked.
Of course it was. My parents had probably locked the house up after the funeral. It made sense.
Mom shook her head and grinned at me again, but this time her smile was tight and her eyes looked a little shiny. She fumbled with her key chain for a moment before finding the right key.
Even though part of me didn’t want to go into the cottage, I took a deep breath and went to stand next to my mom at the door. I pressed the side of my arm lightly against hers as she unlocked it.
Maybe it’s mean to say, but it kind of helped me to realize that my mom might be in even more agony than I was at that moment, that she needed my support as much as I needed