Sky Lake Summer. Peggy Dymond Leavey
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home in Massachusetts, but seeing as it’s summer and I’m not tied to a job anymore, or to my poor old mother, God rest her soul. Not that ‘tied to’ is the right word, but I did look after her all those years.”
“We’re lucky, I guess,” said Jane. “My grandmother doesn’t need looking after. ’Though Mom feels better knowing I’m with her for part of the summer. Nell, that’s what we all call her, goes up to My Blue Heaven every year at the end of May, and she stays right through till late October.”
“My Blue Heaven on Sky Lake,” Mim smiled. “How quaint.”
“It’s named after a song my grandparents liked,” said Jane.
The bus was traveling now through a varied landscape, rocky terrain dotted with white birch. There were low-lying swamps at either hand, filled with the skeletons of drowned trees and sudden glimpses of lakes in the distance. When the familiar procession of roadside stands that sold home-baked treats and promised blueberries in season began, Jane knew they were nearing their destination.
The bus made the final turn into the dusty parking lot at the Sky Lake Marina, and Jane spotted Nell right away. She was fanning herself with her straw hat and talking to the boy who was filling her car with gas. Nell talked to everyone.
“She’s got her car,” Jane said, waiting for Mim to gather her floating scarves and get to her feet. “We can give you a ride to the place you’re staying.”
Once they were on solid ground, the driver cranked the door shut, and the three stepped clear of the fumes as the bus lumbered off. Jane introduced her grandmother to Mimosa Granger, Nell repeating Jane’s invitation of a lift to her accommodations.
Mim eyed Nell’s car with trepidation. It had so many dents and scrapes, such an accumulation of dirt, that it was hard to say what colour it had been. Mud colour, kind of. There were bits of loose chrome and rusted metal hanging off it everywhere, making it a challenge to get into it without tearing something. Nell called it the Lake Car. Back home in the city she used public transit.
“It’s really no bother at all, Miss Granger,” Nell insisted, misinterpreting Mim’s hesitancy. “We go right past the Bide-a-Wee cabins.”
Having no alternative, unless she wanted to wait for a taxi to come from the village out on the highway, Mim climbed into the back seat and sat with her bag clutched in both hands. They took off in a cloud of yellow dust, fishtailing their way to the top of the hill, Nell practically standing on the accelerator in order to force the car though the fresh gravel on the road. When they had crested the hill and started down the other side, Nell gave Jane a satisfied smile.
They dropped Mim off at the tourist cabins, and Nell refused to pull out of the driveway until Mim’s wave from the door of the office indicated that her cabin was indeed ready.
Then began the final ascent, the road climbing above the roofs of cottages, the waters of Sky Lake dropping further below them on the left. It was all so familiar, it was like coming home. Jane smiled to herself, remembering the first time she’d come to Nell’s summer place, how she’d wakened one night to the sound of music and had discovered her grandmother downstairs, dancing, swirling to the music, the hem of her skirt in either hand, a look of utter happiness on her face.
After witnessing that, Jane would amuse the two of them by inventing exotic past-lives for her grandmother. Surely, Nell Van Tassell had been a famous ballerina who had fled to this country to escape a corrupt government, or was the widow of exiled royalty, or a gypsy princess, even. In truth, she was just Nell, the widow of a man who used to sell farm equipment, but someone who had always been there for Jane.
“You still dancing, Nell?” Jane asked. Afternoon sunlight flickered through the trees as they passed.
“Every time the spirit moves me,” Nell replied, gripping the steering wheel in front of her narrow chest and concentrating on the next curve in the road.
My Blue Heaven was at the end of the road. Just when Jane was sure the car was about to go slamming into the black and yellow checkered sign on the rock dead ahead, Nell yanked on the wheel and whipped the car to the left, coming to an abrupt halt at the back door of the cottage.
“We’re here!” Nell announced, adjusting her hat back onto her head and looking as surprised as Jane to have survived the journey. And then, “Oh, I’m so glad you came, Janey.” She put a hand on the back of Jane’s neck and pulled her close.
“Didn’t you think I would?”
“Well, I know how it is with teenagers. And you turned thirteen this year, didn’t you? I wouldn’t have been surprised if you had decided to stay home with your friends.”
“You know me better than anyone,” Jane admitted, undoing her seat belt and trying in vain to get it to rewind. “Actually, Mom and I did have a fight about it. But now that I’m here, I know I’d miss this place if I didn’t come for at least part of the summer. And you too, of course.” Jane planted a kiss on the soft cheek before reaching for her knapsack.
Stepping out of the car, she was met by a familiar scent, the fragrance of warm grass and wild daisies, the earthy smell of moss and trees and old wood. She took a deep breath and was truly glad to be back. “Come on,” she said. “I want to check things out. See what you’ve been up to while I’ve been gone.”
Among the rituals the two of them performed each summer, putting the dock into the water was usually the first. Together they would wheel it down to the shore, digging in their heels to hold it back against the incline, and then finally heaving it out so that it met the water with a tremendous smack.
This year it was already in place, the old row boat tied to one of the rusty pipes at the end. Jane dropped the knapsack by the back door and jog-trotted down the slope to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.
“You didn’t wheel that dock down here all by yourself, did you?”
“Oh, no,” Nell assured her as the two of them stepped onto the bleached boards, which rocked and bobbed under their weight. “I’ve got the nicest young fellow helping me out with odd jobs this year. All I have to do is let him know I need a hand, and over he comes in his boat. Jesse’s a lovely boy.”
Nell had never needed anyone to do odd jobs before, and that caused Jane to look a little more closely at the small woman beside her. “You feeling all right, Grandma?” she asked. The clear blue eyes still held the same sparkle, the pale skin under the braided crown of white hair didn’t look any different. She had never thought much about Nell getting older, and she wasn’t sure she liked the idea of some stranger doing the things she used to do for her.
“I’m perfectly fine, dear heart,” said Nell. “And thank you for asking. Now, let’s go up. I made us some lemonade before I went to fetch you.”
My Blue Heaven was long past needing a coat of paint, being now more silver than blue. It seemed to Jane that every year it settled more comfortably into its surroundings. The rocks, with their embroidery of lichen, nestled against its stout foundation, and the feathery pines spread their branches to draw it more closely under their shelter.
A screened-in porch extended around the front and east side of the cottage. It was more like an outdoor living room, a shady space filled with small tables, piles of ancient books and magazines, mismatched lamps and pieces of old wicker furniture with fraying cushions. It had a throat-biting, musty smell to it. On days when the wind drew cool rain up from the lake, they could close the French doors to the porch and keep the bad weather out.
Jane awoke on her first morning at Sky Lake to find sunlight flooding her upstairs room. From below came the comforting sounds of her grandmother moving about, closing windows against the chill of the new morning, lifting the lids of the cookstove. Jane snuggled deeper into the bed again, pulling the comforter up to her ears. Nell, she knew, would be making breakfast—oatmeal porridge with lots