Page Utilities
Lainie Cohen, ECW Press (page 1 of 5) Page 1 of 5
One Family's Journey Toward Healing
Chapter One
When I awake, the cottage is hushed. The kids are still sleeping, but Joel is already on the screened-in porch, eating breakfast and reading a section from yesterday’s newspaper. No need to hurry here, a place where time doesn’t matter. That’s one of the things I love about it. That and the calm glassy lake that beckons my canoe. I grab a plum and brush Joel’s bent neck with my lips, before setting off across the bay.
Little things are etched into my memory of that Sunday, the last one of August — Jonathan parading around with the canoe overhead. “Mom, this is how I portaged on our trips in the wilderness. Remember, it was much harder with all those mosquitoes and a seventy-pound pack on my back.”
I marvel at the lean muscles in his fourteen-year-old arms. My youngest child looks so much like his father, the same lanky build, gangling legs, long skinny face. He and Joel share the same colouring too, fair skinned with green-grey eyes, just like Alyssa, our eldest. Right now, she’s relaxing in the hammock, enjoying light summer reading before boring into her university texts. She stretches. Her skimpy bikini straps pull tautly and then settle back into place. Even when she crosses her ankles, her thighs don’t touch.
Maybe in my next life, I’ll look like that: 5’4”, slim and with cleavage. I stare down at my thighs, rubbing together on the edge of the dock. Middle-aged spread indeed. At least no varicose veins spider their way up my legs yet. I unbutton my beach top and slip into the water, swimming a few laps of front crawl back and forth to my neighbour’s dock. As I dry off, Daniel and his friends stride down to the lake, flicking each other with their towels. Three of his friends are spending the weekend, so we’ve had a full house of laughter, music and the constant roar of the boat engine. Water-skis, kneeboards, tubes — it doesn’t matter. The boys are happy to be pulled on anything so long as they can go fast.
“Hi, guys. Had any breakfast?”
“Yes. Thanks for the blueberry muffins, Mrs. Cohen,” John says. “They were delicious.
Daniel doesn’t waste any words. Peeling off his T-shirt and exposing a bronzed tan, he dives off the end of the dock, barely rippling the surface; his powerful arms slice through the water. When he emerges from the lake, he shakes his head back and forth like our dog, squeezes the excess water from his long hair and then pulls it back into a ponytail. He’ll never have to worry about being bald like his father, I think. Daniel has my family’s thick dark hair, deep brown eyes and long eyelashes that his sister so envies. I turn to look at my husband, whose shiny dome is covered by a wide brimmed hat, even in the shade. No point taking any chances, he feels. Grey hairs sneak out from behind his ears and infiltrate his trim brown beard.
Was it just last month that we celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary? Our first holiday in years without the children — what a treat. Ten days of touring the Normandy coast through towns of cobble-stoned streets and stone houses so close to the road that I could practically pick the flowers from the window-boxes as we drove by. I recall the fragrance of fresh ocean air and the smell of buttery croissants wafting from the patisseries. I look at Joel absorbed in his book and think about walking hand-in-hand through paths in the woods, my head just brushing his shoulder.
“Hey, Dad. We’re low on gas. Where’s your credit card?”
Daniel bounds up to the cottage and quickly returns, swinging the boat key in one hand. The credit card is tucked into the waistband of his bathing suit. He and his friends scramble into the boat. The dog jumps in too, claiming her favourite seat on the right hand side of the boat just behind the driver. When he pats her, she settles down, curling up with her head neatly tucked on her paws.
He primes the engine. It revs briefly, then sputters and dies. “Dad, when are you going to replace this tub with a real ski boat?”
“Maybe when you give up camp, so you can use it. It serves us just fine,” Joel replies.
The engine roars to life again, drowning any further talk. Daniel reverses the boat slowly out of the boat port. When the bow is pointing eastward, he guns the motor and takes off down the bay.
After lunch, Alyssa announces, “I’d like to leave soon so I don’t have to sit in traffic for hours. Besides, I’ve made plans tonight. Daniel, do you want to drive back with me?”
“Naw, I’ll catch a ride later with one of the guys. They’re talking about heading out to another cottage soon, but one of them will be driving back around five.”
Joel and I welcome the quiet that descends when our son and his friends leave. My husband pours himself a glass of red wine and I arrange a plate of veggies and dip to nibble on. We walk back to the dock together, finding the bay peaceful now with the boaters gone. The other shoreline is already in shadow, the sharpness and rough edges of the pine and spruce needles transformed into blurry smudges of green. Silver slivers of birch reflect in the stillness of the water. In the quiet, there’s just the sound of our voices and the swish of a canoe paddle. The lengthening shadows signal us. Reluctantly, we gather our things and head back to the cottage. During dinner, we watch as the sun — burnishing to a coppery ball — starts its slow descent behind the hillside.
Jonathan is setting up the video he’s rented when the phone rings.
“I’ll get it,” he shouts and seconds later calls out, “Mom and Dad, take the phone. It’s Alyssa.”
I pick up the phone in the kitchen and Joel gets on the extension in our bedroom.
“Hi Alyss,” I say cheerily. “I thought you were going out tonight.”
Her voice trembles and cracks in reply, “It’s about Daniel.” She relays the message in telegraphic fragments: “Police called…car crash…both boys thrown…no seatbelts on…”
“What? Where is he?”
“York County Hospital.”
“Is he okay?” Joel asks.
“Badly hurt. Head injury — that’s all they said. John was hurt too. Got to go. Meet me there.”
From Crooked Smile by Lainie Cohen, published by ECW Press, LLC. Copyright © 2003 by Lainie Cohen. All rights reserved. www.ecwpress.com. For more information about author Lainie Cohen, go to www.crookedsmile.org.
See All TBI Topics