The house on Chappaquiddick, the one we like to believe we own but only rent, is a solid tank on a hill. Shingled and gray, with a massive mouth of a porch, it seems bust out from the earth, grown up from its perch. Its roots twist with the shrubby beach roses and the prickly grass all around it and all together, they burrow down to the ocean below.
Though I know it was built with metal and man-shaped wood, a massive chore one hundred years ago when oared boats hauled the lumber and nails from Edgartown, the house is as natural as every living thing around it.
Which is what we become when we're there.
Mushed in between our toes and diven deep in our salty pores, the dirt becomes our dirt, the sand our sand. Within hours of arriving, we are twenty prodigal children salty and come home.
The porch rails bear welcoming gifts for us from the surf -- chipped clam shells, horseshoe crab carcasses -- and we add to it: bottles and cans and wet towels and clothes. The limitless lawn, untended in parts, fills with popsicle wrapper-hurling children and flying footballs, frisbees, and laughter. Our noisy chaos fills the inside too. We unpack massive amounts of food like professional eaters, unfurl sheets that will be damp-less for this last time, seek out what has changed and what will never change ("a new stove!" "that old chair!").
Meanwhile, the house ushers us in and out and waits.
The house waits for our furious homecoming to settle. We take stock of growing children, of our cute dresses, of the weather. We debate dinner and decide quickly, like always: easy. We are organized and clean for the last time all week. We are happy and funny and flibberty and jibberty and we have no use for phones or TV or trouble.
A child, my child, snaps a bone by a football in a way that would make a weak stomach churn. Keys turn engines over and away she goes, packed in ice and smothered in kisses. She has a ferry ride, a drive, a hopeful journey away.
Xrays, weather charts: everything seems daunting.
To be continued...
13commentsBrilliant Person Wrote...
Oh i am sorry about about snapped bones; we are doing that a bit at the moment. The rest sounds lovely.
Oh ouch!
That hurts.
And, you've described summer.
With an unforgettable memory in the making.
THAT'S no good. Puts a damper on the relaxed vacation, that snapped bone does.
I hope she gets a very cool cast for lots of people to sign.
Oh shit.
I'm sorry I didn't call Saturday. I'm imagining you had your hands full...
Oh No! And with school coming too...Hope she's ok and won't have to endure the cast for too long!
Beautiful.
She is very proud of that snapped bone!
such beautiful writing. You make me want to learn to tell a story.
First- That was Lovely. (as usual)
Second- Try and resist the temptation to sketch the Miller Lite label on the cast.
The snapped bone will become part of your family summer lore. Beautifully written as always.
Girl, you can write.
Have YOU recovered from the snapped bone? Damn rights of passage, must we really put up with them?
Oh, and have you listened to Zee Avi? Her stuff reminds me of you, somehow.
So funny with you and me. Reading the posts is always like seeing the movie after you already read and loved the book.
But I'll still buy the ticket.
Yikes. Sounded like an idyllic vacation until that SNAP.
You have such a nice, evocative writing style. But the bone...ouch.
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