A Different Kind of Summer

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 parents, food and announcements went together.

Once—he was in high school at the time, grade ten or eleven—his mother had tried to make Chicken Kiev from scratch. He’d never seen her so exasperated. She’d shaped sticks of garlic butter and wrapped pounded, torn pieces of meat around them. As she’d worked, egg and bread crumbs had encrusted her hands and got dabbed here and there whenever she needed to scratch her nose or push her hair out of her eyes. Finally, a row of breaded lumps had sat ready to cook. She’d said with a kind of desperate cheerfulness, “They’re not pretty, but they’ll be absolutely delicious!”

As it turned out they came apart in the deep fryer, making a greasy sort of stew. His dad had taken them to A&W instead, and there his parents had announced they were moving to Africa for a year or so, leaving their regular jobs—Miranda was a producer at a local TV station and Richard was a mechanical engineer—to teach in Zambia. The kids could come, too, they said, or move in with neighbors and finish school at home. When they changed their minds about the trip there was no explanation or special meal. Weeks had gone by and no suitcases appeared in the hall, so their children had decided they must be staying.

He heard a knock on the window behind him. There was his father, leaning his forehead on the glass, his mouth moving silently. David banged and pulled the wooden frame until it scraped up a few inches.

“Come on out.”

“I’m watching sausages.”

“Sausages don’t need watching. Come out.”

David turned the heat down under the pan and went through the back porch to the stone patio, where his dad waited.

“I want to show you something.”

“A catfish?”

“No, no, no. There aren’t any catfish in this river. If there were I’d have caught one by now.” He strode toward the three-car garage, stopping by the door farthest to the right, the one that led to his workshop. “This is much better than a catfish.”

David helped lug the door up. “You and mom are being kind of mysterious.”

His father went to a workbench against the rear wall and turned around holding something dull and gray. It was narrow and about four feet long.

“You’ve started a new model?”

“A helicopter. For you.”

“Dad!” It was a remote-control helicopter for collecting upper-level weather data. Richard had already made a plane for the same purpose that David used every week.

“Thought something that went straight up would be useful when you’re operating from the top of your building.”

“For sure. That’s great. It’s going to be a beauty!”

Miranda’s voice came from behind them. “I knew those sausages would be left to their own devices!”

She didn’t seem to mind. The look on her face reminded David of Christmas morning. She loved secrets, and she loved revealing them.

“What’s going on, Mom?”

Her smile widened, and was quickly suppressed. She began to lead the way back to the house but before they reached it the back door opened and a pajama-clad figure came out, yawning.

“Sam!”

He was thin, and his face tight with strain. But home, weeks before expected. David felt himself grinning. He opened his arms for a back-thumping hug.

THE BRETTON FAMILY got together for two weeks every year. The date varied depending on when Sam had leave, but they tried for Christmas at The Castle or summer at the cottage. This year it was supposed to be the cottage, in early August. After the initial pleasure of seeing his brother, David realized having him turn up before his scheduled break was unlikely to be a good thing. Sam didn’t offer an explanation, though, so David didn’t ask for one.

They had breakfast on the porch with Richard still talking about the remote-control helicopter and Miranda continually touching Sam as if checking that he was really there. When the meal was done she insisted “the boys” go outside rather than help with the dishes. They compromised by clearing the table then strolled down to the river, Sam still in his pajamas, bare feet stuck into a pair of olive green rubber boots left by the door.

“This place never changes,” he said. “That’s kind of nice and kind of creepy.”

“The Yard Time Forgot.” It wasn’t so much time’s fault. It was David and his dad not getting around to mowing and pruning often enough. The whole yard was overgrown, but especially where it met the river. They’d always left it a bit wild there—even before the word ecosystem had found its way into everyday conversation. Some people had parklike yards. This one was more of a storybook forest, with unexpected benches and flowers wherever Miranda decided to tuck them.

Sam kicked at the twisted shrubs and mounded grasses.

“I’ll bet we’ve got skunks.”

“And in case we do, you’re trying to annoy them?”

The absentminded kicking stopped. Sam bent over, tugging at the grass purposefully. “Look at this!”

David went closer. Lying upside down under a tangle of grass was their old cedar-and-canvas canoe.

Muttering his annoyance, Sam kept clearing away vegetation. “Out in the weather like this? Didn’t we leave it in the garage?”

“Someone must have brought it down to use.”

“Sarah!”

“Well—”

“Sarah for sure, and some guy. She’d get excited, oh my, such a romantic outing, and then she’d forget all about it.” Sam knocked on the hull. “What do you think?”

“It looks fairly solid, considering. Not past repair.”

Sam lifted one side and peered underneath. “The paddles are here.” He pulled one out. It had a rounded, beaver-tail design and only reached to his chest, just right for when he was a child. A daddy longlegs ran off the weathered wood and fell into the grass. “I’m going to have to talk to that girl.”

“Talking’s never been that useful.” From birth Sarah had been impervious to her brothers’ view of things. The canoe had been a regular source of conflict. Sarah would insist on going with them whenever they took it out on the river, but then she’d free any minnows or crayfish they caught and refuse to do her share of the paddling because it interfered with being the Lady of Shalott.

David thought Sam would want to spend a few days cleaning the canoe, patching it, maybe giving the cedar a fresh coat of marine varnish and the canvas some waterproof paint—or at least stick on some duct tape here and there—but he was already pushing it into the water.

“Are you going to help?”

“You’re doing fine, Sam.”

“You can pull it in, then.”

“The sweaty stuff’s up to you. I have to be at work in an hour.” But something got to him while he watched his brother struggle with the heavy craft. The squish of river mud or the smell of the water, he didn’t know. He kicked off his shoes and tugged off his socks, then stooped to roll up his pant legs. By then the canoe was floating. Sam knelt in the stern, his paddle hard against the riverbed.

“You’re going to get wet.”

David had already noticed that. He took a giant step from the muddy shore, one foot slipping as he heaved himself into the canoe. It rocked and he nearly tipped them both into the river.

“Idiot!” Half laughing, Sam grabbed David’s belt and pulled him down. “Never stand, remember?”

“Oh, right. It’s a gondola you stand up in.”

They didn’t have life jackets. David always used one in his own canoe, but as close as they were to the river, his parents had never owned any. The Bretton kids had grown up with the feeling that danger didn’t lurk anywhere. They were never told to be careful, never watched, never scolded for taking risks. Looking back, David thought they must have been just plain lucky.

“Better stay close to shore,” he said.

Sam ignored him. With his paddle acting as rudder he was in control of where they went, and he steered them to the middle of the river. David didn’t push the point. There was a brittleness about Sam, as if he’d be glad of a chance to push back. It was enough to feel muscles pulling, hear the dip of the paddles and know his brother was safe at home. A kayak passed them and a mother mallard led a line of fluff balls away from them into the reeds, but other than that they were alone.

Here and there dampness seeped through the canvas. “Have we got anything to bail with, Sam? If we need to, I mean?”

“Nope.”

“I don’t want much of this river in here with us.”

Sam didn’t answer. Maybe he’d forgotten about the variety of unpleasant things that were dumped into the Red. The water could cause a rash were it touched skin, or cramps in anyone unfortunate enough to ingest it.

“Is this your leave instead of August? We should tell Sarah to come now if she can.”

“Don’t bother.”

“But you’ll want to see her.”

“Not really.”

David wasn’t sure what to make of his brother’s tone. He didn’t sound angry, but he wasn’t joking around, either.

“Sam.”

“What?”

“Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?”

“It’s just a canoe.”

“It’s not just a canoe. It’s our canoe.”

They were out of the slow-moving loop. The farther they went the harder the paddle back would be and he’d arrive at work sweaty after all. Unless the steady seeping became leaking and they sank. Swimming to shore through this brown soup would be one way of solving the sweaty problem.

“It’s good you came home early, Sam. Mom and Dad missed you.”

“They’re all right, aren’t they? Sarah’s not driving them crazy?”

“Sarah’s not the problem, not for Mom and Dad, anyway.”

“So there is a problem? I thought there was.”

“It’s nothing serious. Dad’s bothered about the big 7-0.” It wasn’t the age, his father had told him, not the nearly three-quarters of a century behind him. Feeling like a wise old man was fine. The problem was he wanted to keep on being one for another three-quarters of a century.

The canoe had slowed. David looked over his shoulder. Sam wasn’t moving. He stared at the riverbank, his face unguarded, exhaustion in every line.

“Sam?”

“I thought it would be…like it usually is. Greener.”

“The trees are stressed. One year there’s flooding, the next it’s dry. We’ve had thaws in January. It’s not what they need.” David angled his paddle, pushing away from the current as best he could from the bow. “You all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” Sam began to turn the canoe around.

TO CHRIS, nice clothes meant matching. He came to breakfast wearing blue jeans and a blue T-shirt, and when it was time to leave he added a blue baseball cap. Although he seemed a little wound up about what he might learn at the museum, Gwyn thought he was happy to be going.

She set the pace, fast enough for them to reach the stop before the bus, but slow enough to accommodate Chris’s frequent pausing and squatting to watch ants drag dead bugs across the cement, bumblebees bounce from clover flower to clover flower and caterpillars invite almost certain death on the slow crawl from boulevard to nearby lawn.

“Caterpillars are sort of like snakes,” he said.

Gwyn took his hand and hurried across the road just before the light changed. “How are caterpillars like snakes?”

“Same kind of bodies.”

“Long and squiggly?”

“Yeah. Why is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then there’s larva. Same type of body, too.”

He talked about animal bodies all the way to the museum. Shapes of snouts, lengths of necks, reasons for tails. When Gwyn stopped to put the change from the admission in her purse he hurried ahead into the galleries. She caught up with him watching a video about the Earth’s changing tectonic plates. A male voice narrated while colored jigsaw pieces floated around two attached blue ovals, finally taking the shape of a modern map of the world. When the video ended Chris pushed a button and watched the whole thing again.

“So-o,” he said. “Things used to be different. All the land in the world was in one place.”

“A supercontinent.”

“I kind of thought it was more, you know…”

“Nailed down?”

She was trying to lighten the mood, but he nodded seriously. “I don’t really like that idea, Mom. What if it’s still doing it?”

“Still moving? I don’t think so. Not enough to make a difference to us, anyway. Not enough to make the trip to Australia any shorter.”

He gave her a look she would have called world-weary in an older person.

“It is a strange idea. You expect the ground under your feet to stay in one place.”

“Right.” He seemed more satisfied with that response. “All the time, too.”

“Because it’s not a boat. It’s a continent.”

That got a smile. He led the way around the corner and found what he’d come for: a floor-to-ceiling painting of a woolly mammoth.

Gwyn skimmed the small box of text provided. “It doesn’t say anything about your mammoth, Chris. Just about mammoths in general. They lived until around ten thousand years ago, at the time of the last ice age, and then they became extinct. They had long shaggy hair and long curving tusks. Several complete specimens have been found.”

“Does it say anything about grass?”

“Not a thing.”

Chris frowned with concentration while he tried to sound out the text for himself. He was doing fine at home with Dr. Seuss, but whoever wrote the museum’s plaques wasn’t into helpful rhyming.

“I’m not sure where to look next, sweetheart. Maybe the library.”

“Can I be of any help?”

A man stood a few feet away. Gwyn got the feeling he’d been there for a while. He was tall and dark, with an air of quiet authority. How he pulled that off in casual clothes with his pant legs damp and wrinkled below the knee, she didn’t know. A name tag hung from a long string, like a shoelace, around his neck. She got as far as David, then found she didn’t want to look at his chest long enough to read the rest. His eyes were dark brown, coffee brown. It was hard to meet them, but hard to look away, too.

He took care of that, turning to smile at Chris. “Did you want to know something about mammoths?”

After all the museum employees Chris had happily questioned on other visits, older fatherly ones and young motherly ones and gangly brotherly ones, he chose this moment to remember not to speak to strangers, not even strangers with name tags. Gwyn looked at the man’s collar instead of his warm, dark eyes and explained about the movie and the mammoth.

He nodded, with some enthusiasm. “I know the specimen you mean. A number of surprisingly well-preserved mammoths have been found. I’ve heard that the scientists who dug up one of them actually cooked themselves a few steaks.”

Gwyn’s stomach lurched at the thought.

“Eew,” Chris said. There was nothing like a disgusting thought to dispel shyness. “But the one in the movie, with grass in its mouth, do you know about that one?”

“Sure. Grass and buttercups in its mouth and stomach. Not digested yet, which led some people to conclude it might have died and frozen very quickly. Is that the part that got your attention?”

“Yeah. Like, in the movie, cold air froze people solid as soon as it touched them.”

“That was strange, wasn’t it? Pretty unbelievable, too. I don’t think that’s what happened to the mammoth. One possibility is that it fell into a crack in a glacier.”

That was what Gwyn had expected from the museum, a comforting dose of reality. “So it’s not a sign that an ice age erupted out of nowhere while the mammoth was eating?” She wanted to make that completely clear to Chris. “It’s not suggesting there’s going to be a sudden change in our climate?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Her neck muscles tightened.

“A change in the climate is happening.” He glanced at Chris then looked back at Gwyn, apparently deciding she was his target audience. “It’s complicated and there’s still disagreement about the details. Whether or not the Earth could experience another ice age is difficult to say. If it did, it would be a response to excessive warming.”

She should have left well enough alone. The mammoth had fallen into a crevasse, end of story.

“Warming?” Chris asked. “You get ice from warming?”

“We have a video that explains how that works. If you like I can take you over to watch it.”

“Not today,” Gwyn said quickly.

The man glanced at Chris again. “I’d say a true ice age is unlikely. It’s speculation at this point. Some changes we can observe and measure, though. The planet’s temperature is increasing. So is the level of carbon dioxide in the oceans. The polar ice caps and all the world’s glaciers are melting. Permafrost is thawing. We’re seeing more extreme weather events—like the hurricane that’s pounding the Caribbean today.”

How could he talk that way in front of a little boy? Chris had drawn closer to Gwyn’s side. She took his hand in hers and smiled, trying to communicate all her confidence and none of her anger. “He’s guessing, hon. That’s what scientific people do. They make hypotheses and then they disprove them.”

She thanked the man for his time and started away from the painting. She would emphasize part of what he’d said and hope Chris wouldn’t worry too much about the rest. The message was that weather was a complicated thing to understand, but scientists thought a new ice age was unlikely. That was the main point. Not a very reassuring main point, but it would have to do.