She called me from the cabin and I could hear her friends’ voices in the background. I pictured them gathered in the kitchen laughing and talking over each other, some scattered, or sitting around the coffee table near the heavy stone fireplace working on a large puzzle.
I sipped afternoon coffee on our deck a thousand miles away behind the Goldenrod and Black-Eyed Susan’s growing next to me. The sun moved behind our broad green umbrella, while she told me about the events from her day and revelations about our relatives and their unlikely connection to her newest friends. Clouds passed between the umbrella and the sun, my coffee cooled, and I remembered when she was four and we talked through cans connected by a string while nesting in her fort built of sheets, blankets, and chairs. I’d always planned to re-imagine how we supported the fort. It could have been with thin nylon cords stretched tight from strategic locations in the room. It would expand the footprint and allow any breeze upstairs to move more easily through it. We lit the fort with two flashlights and one small battery lantern that caste shadows and shapes that moved and changed.
After we shut down her fort for the night, we usually read two books, both would have been from our usual rotation of dozens. One was often a longer Dr. Seuss book, or the one about the people who made doughnuts because the illustrations made us crave doughnuts, and sometimes we read Old Hasdrubal and the Pirates. I usually hid the later book at the bottom of her large piles of books after she fell asleep because I didn’t like to read it. I couldn’t pronounce the protagonist’s name easily, and I was uncomfortable with the story for some reason. I thought maybe she’d forget about it, but it would reappear the next night, or nights later because she’d found it. I didn’t admit I was hiding it until many years later. She never asked me where it was and didn’t admit looking for it every time she noticed its absence. Then we’d transition to her bed where she’d get settled in and I’d sat next to it. She’d reflect on her day, and sometimes we told each other one of the stories we’d invented. We might alter and embellish them depending on our mood, or If one of us had something significant happen during the day, we might introduce it which would shift our story.
One involved an enormous village of mice that lived in our detached garage. They were quiet by day and active at night. Our visits were random, but they’d always be there and seemed to expect us. We didn’t interact with them much. We’d sit for a long time though just watching and clapping while they performed with miniature acrobatic equipment, circus animals, and special lighting effects.
Our other story involved a small family of deer that lived next to the lake near the family cabin. Sometimes we’d see them when we canoed close by. There were large areas of lily pads and shallow grasses near the shore that brushed against the bottom of the canoe, so they always heard us before we saw them. Just beyond the beach was a doe, a buck, and a fawn staring back at us. They seemed to expect us just like the mice did and always invited us to join them. I beached the canoe and helped my daughter out. We walked to a small clearing not far from shore, protected by pine trees, huckleberry bushes, with two logs for seating. The buck stood at the opposite end of their cozy clearing watching us, and the doe and fawn laid down in in the soft, thick grass in front of him near their well-tended fire. The doe asked us questions about our cabin, others in our family, and how long our visit was that year. We asked them questions about their daily routines, if they’d visited Morrell Falls or the giant Larch tree recently, and if anyone else knew they lived here. They said no one else knew and if other people did pass by, they’d become invisible. We didn’t ask how they could magically vanish and speak like us, because we didn’t think it was unusual.
Songs :: Plains (Eastern Montana Blues) by George Winston, Side Tracked by Dave Mason, Here We Go by Joe Walsh, June Hymn by The Decemberists, and Cool Water by Joni Mitchell
© C. Davidson