Vacations rarely work out as planned. In 1980 devastating news arrived during a trip to Prince Edward Island, Canada with my aunt and uncle. My mother wrote from San Francisco to inform me my best friend from junior high, Patty Vance, was murdered. I went momentarily deaf. Whatever my mother said after that failed to register. She might as well have been talking under water. Years later she explained how she’d learned of the news. A family acquaintance had told her. But with no details. Despite that I had no details and that we’d been estranged for four years, I was blindsided.
Our rental cabin was one of six tumbledown buildings built back in the 50s fronted by a stretch of lawn and dotted with picnic tables. The day my mother phoned with the news I wandered off by myself far from the hive of activity. I slumped at a table and stared out beyond the rise and fall of the hills to the flat gray water of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A clam bake was planned for that evening and scads of in-laws were expected to turn up. My uncle, Don, the moderating force in the tightly-wound family he’d married into moseyed over. A frisbee was tucked under his arm.
“What’s the matter? You’ve been sulking all day.”
Crying in my family was considered weak. Sulking the height of self indulgence.
“Nothing.”
“Want to play?” He waggled the Frisbee.
“No.” I kept my eyes squarely on the horizon.
Don knew me well enough to know if I refused to play, something was up. He was accustomed to my moods by now. This was my third melt down in two weeks, and our vacation was only half over. I was more surprised than he was. I ping ponged between resentment, “how could you go before you had time to clean up?” and regret, “I wished we’d have behaved better.” I asked myself how Patty would have wanted me to react. She’d probably say “don’t cry for me.” She wouldn’t abide being pitied.
Don turned on his heel and wandered off. Normally he could cheer me up. But there was nothing normal about that day. He lobbed the Frisbee into the air and when it boomeranged back, he caught it behind his back. He didn’t need me to have fun. Still. I willed myself to follow him, but couldn’t budge.
Dusk was settling. The sun dipped down behind the cabins and the sky turned a dish water gray. Up the hill the din of voices grew louder. The salty odor of a pot of shellfish usually drove me to loiter around the fire, to be the first one to heap my plate, but tonight it just made me feel nauseous. I wanted as far away as possible from that smell. It reminded me too much of celebration and bounty. Neither felt appropriate.
