A Handful of Time (2 page)

“Of course—Ruth Reid! I watch her program all the time. And your father's Harris Potter the journalist. I read that article about them in last month's
Toronto Life
. Your Mum sure looks young for forty-seven.”

Patricia hung her head. She often wished she could be invisible. She didn't like being in the spotlight of her parents' prominence.

“There was a picture of
you
in that magazine, too, I remember,” said Debra as they made their way to Gate 74 to board the plane.

Patricia hated the picture. In it, the three of them were sitting on the steps of their renovated Cabbagetown home. Her parents looked handsome; Patricia looked as plain as ever, her face hidden under her stringy bangs. Still, she could remember a moment of unusual security, squeezed between her mother and father, each with an arm around her. In the magazine they looked like a happy, united family.

But the photograph was a fraud. Debra would react differently if she knew Patricia was being sent West for the summer while her parents worked out the details of their separation.

O
N THE PLANE
a chatty older couple plied her with uncomfortable questions. How old was she? How did she like school? Why was she going to Edmonton?

Patricia answered as shortly as possible but she spoke so softly they kept asking her to repeat herself. She could tell they thought she looked young for twelve. The flight attendant, too, kept disturbing her with fussy instructions.

She poked at her lunch in its plastic container and sighed. A small overdone steak, mushy green beans and a tired salad. Munching slowly on the roll, she made up another menu. Quiche would be perfect for a plane, maybe with spinach and Swiss cheese. And green beans could be marinated, the way she had tried doing them last week.

When she had gone through several possible menus, she began to think about her relatives instead of food. She had never met Aunt Ginnie and Uncle Doug and their four children; her mother had such a full timetable that the two families had always put off getting together. Every Christmas Patricia examined the photographs of her cousins curiously. They all looked so self-assured, she knew she wouldn't know what to say to them.

At least there was a baby. Maybe she could help take care of it. Once she had asked her parents if they would have another child.

“Not at my age, darling,” her mother had laughed. “I was almost too old when I had
you
! No more babies for me.”

A
T THE AIRPORT
in Edmonton Patricia waited with another passenger agent until a small, wiry man in Bermuda shorts hurried up to them. He had thick pepper-and-salt hair and a mild expression behind his glasses. “Patricia? Patricia Potter? I'm your Uncle Doug.”

He picked up Patricia's suitcase and led her out to the car. “We're going straight to the lake,” he informed her. “It's not far—about eighty kilometres out of the city.”

He spoke of “the lake” as if there were no other. So had Patricia's mother. “Your aunt and uncle have invited you to the lake this summer,” she had told her daughter towards the end of school.

Patricia had shivered, picturing a huge expanse of water covering Western Canada like a small sea. “Is there only one lake in Alberta?” she asked timidly.

Her mother sighed impatiently. “Of course not, darling. It's just an expression, like people in Ontario talk about ‘the cottage.'”

“In Vermont they say ‘the camp,'” put in her father, who had grown up in New England. He told Patricia the name of the lake and showed her in an atlas how small it was.

Patricia had tried to get her mother to describe it more, but even though she'd spent all her childhood summers at the lake, she was vague. “I don't remember much about it and it's probably changed a lot anyhow. But don't worry about it, darling. You'll have a marvellous time with cousins your own age to play with.”

Uncle Doug was asking her a few questions about her flight and the weather in Toronto, but he didn't seem to mind when Patricia barely answered. She was grateful when he switched on the car radio.

Brown, green and bright yellow fields flashed by. Over the hilly countryside arched an enormous sky. It made Patricia feel small and unimportant. Her dress was wrinkled and damp from the hours of sitting on the plane and her hair stuck to the back of her neck.

Uncle Doug turned off the music. “Your aunt asked me to talk to you about something, Patricia,” he began hesitantly. “We haven't told our children or anyone else about your parents. If you want to discuss it with us we'll want to listen, but we won't bring it up unless you do. When it becomes public at the end of the summer you and Aunt Ginnie can decide what to say. For now we're going to forget about it. We want you to relax and have a good time for the next couple of months, all right?”

Patricia wished she could forget about it. She felt a dangerous wetness in her eyes at his kind words. Her uncle's awkwardness reminded her of her father's goodbye last night.

“I'll miss you very much, Patricia,” he had murmured, sitting by her bed. “I thought you and I could find out how to make sushi this summer. This will all work out for the best, though.” He sounded unconvinced, but he took her hand and carried on. “You know that, no matter what, I'll always be your father and I'll still … I'll still love you.”

Patricia squirmed with embarrassment for both of them. Her father was not a person who talked easily about feelings. In fact, he rarely talked at all. He seemed more comfortable with his word processor or his Cuisinart than with people.

Patricia believed what he said, though. The two of them had always had a silent regard for each other. But he sounded as if he were talking in a book, like the one her mother had just bought for her—
The Boys' and Girls' Book about Divorce
. After she had kissed her father goodbye, she pulled the blankets tightly around her, even though it was a hot night …

Now her uncle's car was pulling off the highway onto a bumpy road. “There's the lake!” said Uncle Doug. He seemed relieved to change the subject. “My brood always competes to see who can spot it first.”

Patricia glimpsed a band of blue between two hills. Then they lost sight of it as the road curved past a log building labelled Store and swung left past a series of driveways, each marked with a name painted on a board.

When they turned in at the sign that said Grant, Patricia began to twist the material of her dress in her damp hands. A black dog that looked like a wolf pelted towards them and barked hysterically, leaping up to the car as it inched down the long driveway.

“That's Peggy,” laughed Uncle Doug. Patricia slumped farther into her seat each time the dog's head appeared at the window.

They stopped at the back of a shabby-looking green cottage. It seemed as if hundreds of people were pouring out of it and running towards the car with cries of welcome, but when Patricia counted, there were really only five.

She stiffened at her aunt's embrace. The baby was part of the hug and grinned toothlessly at her.

“Patricia, we're so glad you're here! Let me take a look at you. You're not like Ruth, are you?”

Patricia was used to being told she didn't look like her beautiful mother. Now she realized that she took after her aunt—short and plump.

Aunt Ginnie gave her niece a searching, sympathetic look. Patricia averted her eyes and dropped her head as her cousins were introduced.

Kelly was the oldest. She had the kind of assured good looks that the popular girls at school had—tall, fair and slender. Trevor was stocky, with a sunburnt nose. Skinny Maggie stuck her tongue out. The cheerful baby was Rosemary.

“You're just in time for lunch!” bubbled Aunt Ginnie. Slowly, Patricia began to feel a bit more cheerful.

They ate on the sloping front lawn of the Grants' cottage. It was high above the lake, which stretched out below as far as Patricia could see, the towering sky extending its blueness. The grass prickled her legs uncomfortably as she gulped down a chicken salad sandwich. Kelly and Trevor stared at her when she took two more.

They think I'm greedy, she thought, but she was too hungry to care. At least the food was going to be good.

Uncle Doug came over to her and pointed out landmarks.

“That ugly tower far to the right is a power plant. We all hate it—it makes the water too weedy and spoils the view. And all that green to the left is an Indian Reserve.”

Patricia nodded politely but didn't reply. It was just as it had been on the plane—the more people tried to draw her out, the more she wanted to disappear.

The only unthreatening person in the family was the baby, who lolled on a blanket beside her and crowed with joy. Patricia stuck a tentative finger in her fist and Rosemary gripped it with surprising strength.

“She's the easiest baby I've had,” said Aunt Ginnie. “Always in a good mood. I think she finds us all very amusing.”

Then her aunt took Rosemary in for a nap and Uncle Doug followed them. Maggie had wandered off. Now Patricia had to face her older cousins alone. She clutched her knees to her chest and pretended to be looking at the view.

“No one wears skirts at the lake,” Kelly said flatly, stretching out the long tanned legs that emerged from her ragged cut-off jeans.

“I came here straight from the plane, that's why I'm dressed up,” mumbled Patricia. “I have shorts in my suitcase.”

“How old are you?” Kelly asked her.

“Twelve.”

“Twelve! Are you sure? Mum said you were my age.”

“I turned twelve in May,” said Patricia, suddenly feeling as if she weren't actually sure.

“You don't
look
older than me,” said Kelly doubtfully. She undid a knife she had strapped to her belt and began whittling on a twig.

“How come you're staying for the whole summer?” asked Trevor. He made it sound like an eternity.

Patricia tugged some clover out of the lawn. “My parents both have a lot of work to do. They wanted me out of the way.” That, at least, was the truth.

“We've seen your mother on TV and Mum showed us your dad's column. What's it like having such famous parents? Have you ever been to the TV studio? Did you like being in that article your mum sent?” Kelly seemed really curious and her voice was friendly for the first time.

But Patricia stiffened. “I'd rather not talk about that stuff,” she said abruptly.

“You don't have to be snobby about it,” said Kelly. She turned to her brother and nodded.

“I guess we'll give you our present now, Patricia,” announced Trevor. His round freckled face grinned as he pulled a small blue box out of his pocket and handed it over.

Patricia took it warily. She lifted the lid, then squealed as a tiny brown toad dropped into her lap.

“It's just a toad—are you afraid of it?” Trevor captured the toad and held it close to her face. “Here, take it.”

This was a test Patricia knew she would fail. She just couldn't touch the dry, throbbing skin. “N-no thanks,” she mumbled, getting up. “Where can I go and change?”

Kelly shrugged, looking disappointed. “Mum'll tell you,” she said, dismissing her.

For the rest of that first day Patricia's cousins ignored her and she tried to stay away from the advances of her well-meaning aunt and uncle. As she wolfed down the comforting dinner, she was tempted to tell Aunt Ginnie about her own recipe for carrot cake. But then she'd have to speak; it was safer to remain silent.

The end of the day was the worst. She had to share a bed with Kelly. She had never slept in the same bed, or even in the same room, as anyone else. Patricia lay stiffly on the inside edge, as far away from Kelly as she could get. “I hope you don't kick,” was all her cousin said.

The wind in the trees sounded like rain. Patricia shivered and drew the flannelette sheets and heavy satin quilt closer around her neck. She didn't get to sleep for a long time.

3

T
he second day, the one that ended so disastrously with the canoe, began with meeting even more cousins—Christie and Bruce Reid, whose cottage was four doors away. Both had narrow faces and wavy red hair, Christie's falling down her back and caught at the sides with barrettes shaped like horses. She was ten and her brother was nine, like Trevor. The two of them eyed Patricia suspiciously, and then squatted with Kelly and Trevor in a corner of the screened verandah as if they were banding against her.

Their parents, Uncle Rod and Aunt Karen, came over with them. They explained that their two older boys were travelling in Europe for the summer. Patricia looked down, away from the curious gaze of all these relatives. Because they were family they seemed to have a special claim on her.

“So this is Ruth's daughter!” said Uncle Rod heartily. He had an almost bald, gleaming head. “Come over here and show me your teeth.”

Christie giggled and Patricia flushed a deep red. Why would he want to see her teeth?

“Leave her alone, Rod,” objected his tiny wife, who looked much younger than her husband. “Your Uncle Rod's a dentist,” she explained. “He can't resist examining people, even when he's supposed to be on holiday.”

Patricia clamped her mouth shut and remained sitting on the floor. But Uncle Rod wouldn't leave her alone.

“Do you floss?” he demanded.

Patricia nodded miserably.

“Every day? Nothing like flossing to prevent cavities.”

“Rod!” Aunt Ginnie gave her brother a warning look.

It was a relief when Maggie provided a diversion. “
I'll
show you my teeth, Uncle Rod.” She opened her mouth wide. “See? I lost two!”

“Did the tooth fairy leave you some money?” asked her uncle.

“Yup.” The little girl waited expectantly as Uncle Rod dug in his pockets.

“Here's a supplement.”