My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series) (31 page)

Race sanded and finished the floors in the first and second story of the lodge. It took him until the first of November but the wide-plank pumpkin pine floors were beautiful. We covered them with rolls of paper to keep them protected while the rest of the work was still going on.

In late September, we did go on Race’s birthday road trip and celebrated our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary as well. Race drove over two thousand miles in four days. It was a great trip even though we had to spend a night in the jeep when we ended up in the Village of Warrens, Wisconsin, during The Cranberry Festival, and every hotel, motel, and inn was booked.

While Race drove, I made lists of what needed to be done before winter—close the shutters on the outside of the lodge and Rhubarb Cottage, stock-up on food, put all the outdoor furniture inside the lodge, mulch the perennials and bring the geraniums indoors.

I was looking forward to the winter, to seeing everything covered in snow, to sleigh rides, and to cross-country skiing. And after a long winter, I was looking forward to the feeling of anticipation I would have for the spring.

Race helped me hang some grow lights and move the oak dry sinks under them near the windows in the laundry room where I would overwinter the geraniums. I repotted all of the cuttings into individual containers, forty-seven in all, and then set them in the dry sinks on plastic. There, I hoped, they would get adequate light and grow until the spring.

Heat for the winter was high on the priority list. We could keep our cottage warm with the fireplace if we had to, but the lodge and Rhubarb Cottage would need a heating system to make sure pipes didn’t break and leak in the walls again.

I ordered a furnace for George’s place too even though he said, “Don’t need it, got wood.” I knew I might have to wrestle him to the ground to get it installed, but I was up to the challenge.

Since St. Gabriel didn’t have a heating and cooling company, we hired someone from the mainland. The new furnace for the lodge arrived in August and sat in the lobby for six weeks. Late September we were still waiting for the furnace to be installed and the units for the cottages to be delivered.

I’m reminded of what Benjamin Franklin said, “I will speak no ill of any man and all the good I know of everyone.” The first time I heard that quote, I thought it was something to strive for. I wish I did a better job of adhering to that policy, but honesty has its place too. I will at least not use the name of the heating and cooling man we had hired.

I called Mr. Furnace Man and asked him, “When will you be here to install the furnace in the lodge, and where are the three furnaces for the cottages?”

He griped, “Everyone wants a heater installed or repaired this time of year.”

I wanted to say, “That’s why I called you in June.” But I didn’t want to alienate the man who was clearly ready to jump ship as it was.

October arrived and still, no Mr. Furnace Man, so Ralph, Mathew, Joel, Kurt, and Race all put their muscles and heads together and got the furnace to the cellar and installed. The units for the cottages were never delivered.

In addition to the lodge, Joel had updated the plumbing in all of the cottages over the summer. We didn’t want any freezing, swelling, and breaking of the new pipes so we were frantically insulating them. Then we turned off the water to Rhubarb Cottage, drained the lines, and hoped for the best.

I was sorry I was going to miss my opportunity to wrestle with George, but when he caught Race and me stacking a supply of firewood at his place, he seemed a little irritated. I dug my heels in and kept stacking, even after Race said, “I think that’s enough.”

We stacked up a mountain of wood at our cottage, and Race wasn’t too pleased that we would be relying on the fireplace to keep warm that winter.

I kissed him and said with enthusiasm, “It’ll be like we’re pioneers.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

He didn’t kiss me back.

Ouch.

A Great Show

Paul Valéry wrote, “A man who is of sound mind, is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.” A true statement, I think.

We heard more noises in the cellar that fall and winter, no more voices, just classically spooky howling sounds. A humming may be a better way to describe it. It was never very loud and if the lodge had been filled with people, it probably wouldn’t have been audible over the day-to-day bustle of the place. Faint or not though, they were sounds that shouldn’t have been coming from the cellar.

We hadn’t had any trouble from the ghosts so we came to take it all in stride. When anyone made a remark about the lodge being haunted, Race and I would say, “Absolutely it’s haunted,” as if we were being facetious. I did talk to Race about telling Sara what we had heard, and we decided we would wait until the renovation was completed.

By mid-October the rough plumbing and electrical were finished as were the framing and the drywall. After the painting was done in the spring, Joel and his crew would be back to install the faucets, sinks, and tubs. Ralph and Matthew would install the outlet and switch plates and all of the light fixtures, including the original ceiling fixtures and wall sconces, which they would be rewiring over the winter months. Lisle and Kurt would install the wood trim and hang all of the doors.

With their work completed for the season, our renovation crew left the job to make their own preparations for the winter, and The Lake Lodge exhaled. Expecting to enjoy the peace and quiet, Race and I were surprised to find we missed the activity and our friends after just a couple of weeks.

Then something happened that put Race on pins and needles for half of the winter.

We had spent the day helping the Island Center Community prepare the skating pond for winter use. The skating pond is in the middle of the island. It sits in a small meadow that is surrounded by homes where year-round residents live. The Cummings and Lisle and Kurt live in two of those homes.

A pavilion was given a coat of paint and the pond was cleaned out as was the area around it. The pond is surrounded by low stone walls that have a ledge for spectators to sit on to watch the skaters. The walls were cleaned and loose rocks were mortared back into place. The big fire ring was shoveled out and a supply of firewood was stacked under a lean-to by the pavilion.

I hadn’t ice skated since I was a teenager, but I had planned to give it a go when the ice was ready. What I was really looking forward to though, was bundling up, drinking hot chocolate and watching others skate. That is always a chance to witness beauty and comedy play out simultaneously.

When we left that day to ride back to the lodge, Race led me up the trail to the highest point on the island with the great views, the same place he had taken me the night of my birthday. We were sitting on a flat rock with our legs dangling over the edge of the bluff when Race told me, “Lisle and Kurt have a snowmobile for sale.”

“And you want to buy it?” I asked, enjoying the role reversal.

“Yes.”

“Where would we keep a snowmobile?” I held back a grin.

“Well, we wouldn’t have to build a palace for it.” Race tickled my side and said, “I’d keep it in the shed.”

“You’ve never ridden a snowmobile.”

“No, but I’ve ridden motorcycles. It can’t be that much different and we’re going to want one when winter sets in.”

“You’re going to want one, you mean.” Then I shook my head, held Race’s cheek in my hand and with as much seriousness as I could muster, I said, “No hot-rodding.”

“No hot-rodding,” he agreed.

Kurt opened his shed doors
and pulled the tarp off of the snowmobile that was sitting on a little hauling trailer. Race’s eyes danced like a kid on Christmas morning. He walked around it and ran his hand over the seat and the body. Then he sat on it as if the fit might sway his purchasing decision. I was taken aback by the size of it. Snowmobiles are big machines, and I was beginning to have genuine apprehensions.

Kurt’s dray had a trailer hitch mounted at the back, and he pulled the snowmobile to the lodge. We followed behind on our bikes, and Race kept his eye on his new toy. That’s a sight I had never seen, horses and dray pulling a gas-powered vehicle. Only on St. Gabriel.

As Race and Kurt pulled the trailer into the shed, they were careful to position it so that the snowmobile could be easily driven off the trailer when the snows came. Race closed the doors as though he was sealing in a collection of rare paintings. He then spent a good part of every day after that looking up at the sky and waiting.

Loretta and Janie flew up from New York
to St. Gabriel to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with us. We met them at the St. Gabriel Airport, which is tucked away on the northeast side of the island. You wouldn’t even know it was there if you didn’t see the planes fly in and out.

Just like Lucy’s place, the airport is at the end of a narrow dirt road that is cut through a heavily wooded area and opens up to a clearing. Many small private aircraft and a small fleet of planes belonging to the St. Gabriel Aviation Company are parked behind a charming building where passengers check in. That building and the fields around the runway that are lined with white post and rail fencing are reminders that you are, in fact, on St. Gabriel Island.

Loretta was a little unsteady and green as she walked across the tarmac. When we were loading her and Janie’s luggage into the surrey, Loretta said, “Now I remember why I don’t fly small planes.”

Janie was buzzing and said to Loretta, “Come on, Aunt Lo, it was like a ride.”

“Yes, it was, my dear, a ride from hell.”

Janie sat up front with Race and he showed her how to drive the horses. When we got to the lodge, they dropped Loretta and me off and made a loop around the island.

It was Loretta’s first visit since we had moved, and I was appreciative to the island for putting on a great show. The summer temperatures had hung on for a long season, and the foliage was late in coming into all its glory. Typically the leaves would have already carpeted the ground, but that Thanksgiving the forest canopy was on fire with every shade of autumn color. It was spectacular and she was impressed.

But what Loretta would feel about the accommodations had me a bit uneasy. Loretta is a five-star girl. Restaurants, hotels, she’s used to top-notch, but when she walked into Rhubarb Cottage she gushed over its charm, “Oh, Cam, it’s like a storybook. I love it.” And I think she meant it.

I think Race would agree that Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday. In Texas it had been a matter of course for us to invite all of our family and friends and anyone who might not have a place to go for their Thanksgiving meal. We would spend the day with students who couldn’t go home for the holiday, neighbors whose families lived too far away for them to be together, and anyone who didn’t have plans.

A huge buffet would be spread out on the dining room table, which was loaded with three turkeys, four kinds of stuffing, a dozen other side dishes, and at least a dozen different kinds of pie. Once their plates were filled, our guests would find seating at one of the many tables that were placed around the house, or they would balance their plates on their knees while sitting on the sofas and chairs.

That Thanksgiving we had invited George but he already had plans, of course we didn’t know what they might be. Sara wasn’t coming out to the lodge—she had an aversion to dining with ghosts, and so she jumped at an invitation from Celia Alexander.

We had been invited to the Alexander home as well, but I didn’t even mention it to Race. Even if he had agreed to go, it would have been awkward and that wasn’t how I wanted our first Thanksgiving on the island to be. Larry Meaks and his parents would be spending the day with relatives on the mainland. I saw Lucy downtown and asked if she wanted to join us. She giggled and said, “No.” It was the curtest and most pleasant rejection I had ever had.

We didn’t stop there but apparently, Thanksgiving had been celebrated quite successfully before we had arrived on St. Gabriel, and everyone was well established in their traditions.

So, Loretta, Janie, Race, and I sat around our little kitchen table in the cottage, which was draped with a vintage white linen tablecloth and set with mix-and-match china from the lodge. We joined hands and gave thanks while a fire crackled in the fireplace, then we ate a candlelit turkey dinner for four. It was lovely.

Paul called while we were eating and he said to me, “Mom, I wish I could have come home.”

After Thanksgiving the island continued to hold back the winter weather, so when it was time for St. Gabriel’s Winter Bazaar, it felt more like an Oktoberfest.

The event is always held on the first Saturday of December and is a fundraiser for the St. Gabriel Public School, which has an enrollment of fewer than a hundred students, kindergarten through grade twelve.

The day includes a snow softball game that is played with an orange ball so that it can be found in the snow. An orange softball was not needed that year. If there had been snow, there would also have been cross-country ski dashes and snowman building competitions. Instead, there were potato sack races, a traditional softball game, and volleyball. In the evening the annual spaghetti and meatball dinner was held in the school cafeteria, and the night ended with the lighting of the Christmas tree on Main Street.