A Different Kind of Summer. Caron Todd

by several years and growing out of a pleasant, companionable stage. “I interrupted an hour-long phone conversation to tell her to get ready for bed, but I know she’ll still be talking when I go in. Tomorrow she’ll be in a fog all day and she won’t be able to study for exams. There’s too much work, she says.”

      “Summer holidays are nearly here.”

      “That’s what scares me.” Iris waved and headed back to her house.

      She didn’t seem to be joking. Gwyn hoped things weren’t getting that tense next door. Molly had a stubborn streak, but she liked to be in her mother’s good books.

      The last light from the sun had disappeared. Gwyn loved this time of day, the calm and quiet, the big old elms dark against the sky, the air scented by the clove currant she and Duncan had planted when they first moved in. They’d put a pink explorer rose beside it, hosta and bleeding heart in the shade and cranesbill geranium and creamy-white day lilies in the sun. They had liked the same kinds of plants, old-fashioned ones that went with childhood springs and summers.

      Even though the neighborhood wasn’t far from the center of the city, it felt like its own small town. That was what they’d liked about it. There was a corner store and a community center and row after row of modest houses built in the 1920s and ’30s. The yards were planted with crab apple trees and lilacs, lily-of-the-valley and peonies with blooms so heavy they touched the ground. Closer to the river specialty shops and three-story houses nearly hidden by hedges gave the streets a different character. Her dad had told her that her great-great-grandfather had done the carpentry in some of the houses. She wished she knew which ones.

      She slapped a mosquito. If one had found her, more were sure to follow. She took the steps two at a time into the porch, where they could buzz against the screen all they liked but never reach her, and settled into one of the high-backed willow rockers that faced the street.

      We’ll watch the people go by, Gwyn. That was what Duncan had said when they’d bought the chairs. It was funny because wherever he went he could never keep still. So she’d rocked while he paced to the window and the door, making plans, then back to her side to tell her she was beautiful.

      He would have erased Chris’s fears in no time. Nothing scared Duncan, and being with him made other people feel as confident as he did. He would have enjoyed the movie and laughed and said it was silly, and Chris would have believed him.

      Tomorrow after they went to the museum, he’d believe her, too. Better yet, he’d forget about sheets of ice by morning and get back to his usual worries—the lack of a desk or any homework in kindergarten and his inability to go to Mars anytime soon.

      CHAPTER TWO

      BUT CHRIS didn’t forget. When Gwyn woke up the next morning he was kneeling in front of the television in his pajamas, frowning at the screen. His polar bear sat on his lap.

      “There’s a hurricane,” he said. “First it was a tropical storm but now it’s a hurricane. It’s got a name. Elton. Did you ever see a hurricane, Mom?”

      “We don’t have hurricanes on the Prairies.” She knelt beside him. “Here’s our forecast. What’s in store for us today?”

      “Sunny.”

      “That sounds all right.”

      “They give the weather for the whole world. It’s windy where Grandpa and Grandma live.” He pointed at the lower end of Nova Scotia.

      “We’ll have to phone them soon, won’t we?” Gwyn got up from the floor and went into the kitchen. “Pancakes?”

      When the bowl and spoon clanked together Chris hurried to join her. He reached into the fruit basket for a banana, took a plate from the cupboard, a fork from the drawer and dropped the peel into the garbage before starting to mash. He was organized in the kitchen, just as Duncan had been, cleaning up spills as soon as they happened, putting used dishes straight into the sink. Maybe there was a mop-up, put-away gene. She had a more haphazard approach.

      “So, Mom?” He sank the fork through a section of banana, lifted it and pressed again. “The weather’s been the same every day, did you notice?”

      “Hot.”

      “Yeah, hot, no rain. For a long time, right?”

      “What do you make of that?”

      “Dunno.” He handed her the plate of banana and watched as she scooped the fruit into the batter. “It doesn’t sound very icy.”

      That was almost a joke. Things were looking up. “It sure doesn’t. And it sounds consistent.”

      “Yeah. Consistent.” He nodded appreciatively. As far as he was concerned, the more syllables a word had the better. “That must be good. Do you think so, Mom?”

      “I wasn’t worried to begin with.”

      He looked at her doubtfully and she suddenly felt she had failed at something. He let her off the hook. “You didn’t see the movie.”

      “And you didn’t wash your hands.”

      Guiltily, he rubbed them on his pajamas.

      “I don’t think so. Off you go.” She called after him, “Get dressed while you’re at it, okay? Nice clothes, because we’re going to the museum after breakfast.”

      She put the first cooked pancakes in the oven to keep warm and spooned more batter into the pan. Eight tiny circles this time, then one pan-size. The contrast would amuse him.

      THE SMELL OF FRYING SAUSAGES greeted David when he let himself into his parents’ house.

      “Is that you, David?”

      “That’s me.” He went down the long hall past the turret room, the living room and the dining room to the kitchen, where he found his mother in her nightgown, spatula in hand. Her hair, still a natural dark brown with only streaks of gray, was tousled as if she’d just gotten out of bed. In spite of the clear signs that she wasn’t ready to be awake and busy there was a bit of a sparkle to her. Again, David wondered what was up. Something good, it looked like.

      He handed her a pint basket of strawberries. “See what Johansson’s had this morning? They’re farm-fresh, no pesticides, grown an hour from the city.”

      Miranda held the fruit close to her nose and inhaled deeply. “Lovely! Picked by virgins in the moonlight, were they?”

      He never knew how to respond when his mother said things like that. “They’re early for a local crop. The warm spring must have accelerated the plants’ maturation.”

      Looking amused, she kissed his cheek and put the basket in the fridge. He supposed that meant he wouldn’t be having any.

      “You find me less prepared than I’d intended. Sausages take such a long time to cook. Why on earth are they considered a breakfast food?”

      “Want me to watch them while you get dressed?”

      “Would you? Thank you, dear.” She handed him the spatula and hurried away. He heard her footsteps light on the stairs, a door closing and then silence.

      He stuck his head into the hall. “Dad?” The rooms he’d passed heading to the kitchen had all looked empty, but his father could be burrowed in a corner somewhere with the Saturday Globe and Mail.

      The house was too big to search while he was responsible for the sausages—it had three stories, including a turret room on every floor. The neighborhood kids used to call it The Castle. Richard might not even be inside. He could be in his workshop, or out for his morning constitutional, or at the end of the yard trying to hook a breakfast catfish. David used to try to catch them, too, he and Sam, while Sarah went on about horrible, awful, cruel boys.

      He rolled the sausages over, counting as he went. Even if they could eat six each there’d be leftovers. That definitely suggested an announcement. For his