A Different Kind of Summer. Caron Todd

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ