Eight
The next day, the sheen is off our hair. Molly urges me to wear something new but I decline, not wanting to wrinkle the clothes, sitting in the car all day. The bag with the beautiful new things stays on the back seat. The outfits are too nice for a car trip. I want to save them for something special.
According to the peeling roadside billboards, we have two choices for lunch—a Stuckey’s that has ninety-nine-cent burgers, or Bubba’s Beach Shack, on the scenic shores of Lake Ontario.
“It’s a lake,” Molly says. “How can it have a beach?”
“It’s one of the Great Lakes.” I am nearly cross-eyed from sewing. The end of our journey looms closer, an outcome I can see and practically touch. I stayed up late last night, working on the quilt. Working is, of course, an elastic concept. I can be staring out at the night sky and call it “working” if I’m planning the next quilt.
“I never thought about a lake having a beach. Back home it’s just…a shore, I guess.”
“We should have taken you to see the Great Lakes when you were little.” And here it is again, that sense of things left undone, unfinished. What else have I forgotten to show her, to teach her?
She glances over at me. “You took me to Mount Rushmore and Yosemite and the Grand Canyon and the Everglades. You can’t show me everything.”
“I wish I had, though. We always had such fun on those summer driving trips, didn’t we?”
There is a heartbeat of hesitation. And in that heartbeat, I hear a contradiction. Could be, she has memories of being hot, carsick, bored. Sometimes Dan and I were short-tempered and we were terrible at picking out places to stay. Bad motel karma became a family joke. Remembrances of summers past are marred by nonfunctioning swimming pools, moldy smells, shag carpets.
“Sure,” Molly says. “We had a blast.”
“But the Great Lakes—I remember going to Mackinac Island on my high school senior trip. I saved up for months in order to go. It was so beautiful, like stepping back in time. I wish we’d taken you there.”
“You can’t take me everywhere,” she repeats.
New adventures lie ahead of her, a vast stretch of unexplored terrain. She’ll be taking trips without me, seeing and experiencing things I’ll never share. Which is as it should be, I remind myself.
Without further debate, she takes the next exit and wends her way through a threadbare town of redbrick buildings and convenience stores plastered with fading advertising posters. The route to Bubba’s is well-marked, and within a few minutes we enter Tanaka State Park in western New York, a quiet oasis on a weekday afternoon. As we head toward the water, I notice that the colors of summer are fading here, the greens subtly shifting to yellow, the wildflowers casting their petals to the breeze.
The beach shack is adorable, and I’m instantly glad we’ve come. It has a huge deck with picnic tables covered in red-and-white-checkered oilcloth, and a long dock reaching out to the deep, wind-crested waters of the lake. And it truly is a beach, fringed by sand and weathered by wave action. From this perspective, the lake looks as infinite as the sea itself. There are even herring gulls here, and I wonder if they lost their way and became landlocked, and if that would matter to a bird.
The waiter is the sort of gorgeous teenage boy who makes me feel like an urban cougar as I check him out. I can check him out as much as I want, because he has not even noticed me. He’s eyeing Molly. Who wouldn’t? Boys have always been drawn in by her pretty eyes, her smile that hints that she knows a secret.
We order the fish fry lunch, and it arrives in paper-lined baskets with French fries and coleslaw. It’s beautiful here, and graceful boats skim across the water in the distance, the sails puffed out in the breeze.
“Check that out,” Molly says, indicating a parasail kite flying from the back of a speedboat.
“Yikes, looks scary.”
“Looks awesome.” She dips a French fry in her coleslaw, a habit she acquired from Dan ages ago. She gazes dreamily at the sky, studying the little sailing man with stick legs, like a paratrooper GI Joe.
As we watch, the parasail is reeled into the back of the boat, and they tie up at the dock right below the restaurant.
“It’s definitely awesome,” the cute waiter says, coming to refill our iced tea glasses. From the pocket of his half apron, he hands her a card. “Here’s a coupon for $5 off a ride.”
I shake my head. “We won’t be needing—”
“Thanks.” Molly snatches the card. “Thanks a lot.”
“We’re not doing it.” I dole out cash to cover our tab, leaving a generous tip even though I wish he hadn’t put ideas in Molly’s head.
“Come on, Mom. We’ve got time.” Ignoring my protests, she heads down the stairs to the dock, her steps light with excitement. When I get to her side, she’s already talking with the guys in the speedboat.
“It takes fifteen minutes,” she says, “and we won’t even get wet, except maybe our feet.”
“We’re not doing it.”
“Ma’am, it’s very safe. I’ve been doing this for years,” the boat driver assures me.
I hate looking like a stick-in-the-mud. But I also hate the idea of dangling several hundred feet above the lake, tethered to the world by a rope no bigger than my finger.
Molly has that expression on her face. I don’t see it often, but when I do, I know she means business. The stubborn jaw, the fire in her eye. A minute later, she’s signing a faded pink form on a clipboard without reading it, and asking if I’ll pay the fee. I haven’t read the disclaimer, either, but I’m sure it absolves the boat guys of any liability if we happen to wind up at the bottom of Lake Ontario.
Studying the form over her shoulder, I point out one line. “It says here you need to weigh at least a hundred pounds. Last I knew, you were just under that.”
She shrugs it off. “After this summer, I’m well over a hundred.”
The boat guys seem to believe her. They put her in a high-tech life vest and helmet and she kicks off her shoes.
“A helmet?” I ask.
“Just a safety precaution,” the man says.
I want to ask how a helmet is going to keep her safe if she plummets into the lake. I want to say that she’s never tipped the scale past a hundred pounds, but I stop myself. It’s my nature to cite the potential disaster in every situation. I recognize that. So, apparently, does Molly, because she learned to dismiss my fears years ago. She has gone mountain biking, horseback riding, scuba diving. A spirit of adventure is good, I remind myself. It’s small and mean of me to dampen it.
Just the other day, I was thinking about what a pushy mother I’ve been. But the things I pushed her to do didn’t place life and limb at risk. Especially pointless risk.
She’s grinning ear-to-ear as they harness her to the sail. “’Bye, Mom,” she says. “See you when I come back around.”
“Be careful,” I can’t help saying, and now there’s a fire in my eye as I send out warning signals to the boat driver and his helper.
Then there is nothing more to say as they head away from the dock, the big engine cutting a V-shaped wake behind the boat. My heart is in my throat as they reach open water, and the rainbow-colored sail fills with wind. Then, a moment later, Molly is aloft, a tiny doll tethered by a slender cord. She flies like a kite tail, higher and higher until they run out of rope. I shade my eyes and look at her, silhouetted by the sun.
Then my heart settles and I wave both arms wildly over my head. “Go, Molly!” I shout, jumping up and down on the dock. “Go, Molly!”
Watching her fly is incredibly gratifying. I fumble with my mobile phone, try to get a picture to send to Dan. She’ll probably look like no more than a speck against the sky, but he’ll get the idea.
A gust of wind ripples across the water in a discernible path. I can actually see the gust filling the sail and then turning it sideways. Molly’s stick figure legs swing to and fro like a pendulum.
“Omigod,” I say. “Omigod, she’s going to fall.”
Apparently the boat driver knows something isn’t right. His partner starts cranking in the cord, his movements fast, maybe frantic. I stand motionless on the dock, my feet riveted to the planks, my stomach a ball of ice. Here is the definition of hell—knowing something terrible is happening to your child and being completely powerless to stop it.
If she dies, I think with grim clarity, so will I.
The wind whips her like a rag doll. Her screams sound faint. I wonder if she’s calling my name. I send up a prayer, pushing it out with every cell of my body and soul.
The screams grow louder, and then I realize she’s not screaming at all. She’s laughing.