Between Sisters

“Don’t talk about my butt. I know it’s getting bigger. Now, dance on over here and give your old man a hug. ”

Claire did as she was told.

His big, strong arms enfolded her, made her feel safe and adored. He smelled faintly of disinfectant today. That was when she remembered the bathroom that needed fixing.

“I’ll leave in an hour,” she said. “The toilet in cabin—”

He spun her around and pushed her gently toward the door. “Get going. This place isn’t going to fall apart without you. I’ll fix the damn toilet. And I’ll remember to pick up the PVC pipe you ordered and to stack the wood under cover. If you remind me again, I’ll have to hurt you. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. ”

Claire couldn’t help smiling. She’d reminded him about the pipe at least six times. “Okay. ”

He touched her shoulders, forced her to stop long enough to look at him. “Take as long as you want. Really. Take three weeks. I can handle this place alone. You deserve a break. ”

“You never take one. ”

“I’m on the down side of my life, and I don’t want to get out much. You’re only thirty-five. You and Alison should kick up your heels a bit. You’re too damn responsible. ”

“I’m a thirty-five-year-old single mother who has never been married. That’s not too responsible, and I will kick up my heels in Chelan. But I’ll be home in a week. In time to check the Jefferson party into their cabins. ”

He thumped her shoulder. “You’ve always done exactly what you wanted, but you can’t blame a guy for trying. Have fun. ”

“You, too, Dad. And take Thelma out for

dinner while I’m gone. Quit all that skulking around. ”

He looked genuinely nonplussed. “What—”

She laughed. “Come on, Dad. The whole town knows you’re dating. ”

“We’re not dating. ”

“Okay. Sleeping together. ” In the silence that followed that remark, Claire walked out of the house and into the steely gray day. A drizzling rain fell like a beaded curtain in front of the trees. Crows sat on fence posts and phone wires, cawing loudly to one another.

“Come on, Mommy!” Alison’s small face poked through the car’s open window.

Dad hurried ahead of her and kissed his granddaughter’s cheek.

Claire checked the trunk—again—then got into the car and started the engine. “Are we ready, Ali Kat? Do you have everything?”

Alison bounced in her seat, clinging to her Mary-Kate-and-Ashley lunch box. “I’m ready!” Her stuffed orca—Bluebell—was strapped into the seat with her.

“We’re off to see the Wizard, then,” Claire said, shifting into drive as she yelled a final good-bye to her father.

Alison immediately started singing the Barney theme song: “I love you, you love me. ” Her voice was high and strong, so loud that poodles all across the valley were probably hurling themselves to the ground and whining pitifully. “Come on, Mommy, sing. ”

By the time they reached the top of Stevens Pass, they’d sung forty-two Barney theme songs—in a row—and seventeen Froggy-Went-A-Courtings. When Alison opened her lunch box, Claire rammed a Disney audiotape into the cassette player. The theme music to The Little Mermaid started.

“I wish I was like Ariel. I want flippers,” Alison said.

“How could you be a ballerina then?”

Alison looked at her, clearly disgusted. “She has feet on land, Mommy. ” Then she leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, listening to the story of the mermaid princess.

The miles flew by. In no time, they were speeding across the flat, arid land on the eastern side of the state.

“Are we almost there, Mommy?” Alison asked, sucking on a licorice whip, bouncing in her seat. The area around her lips was smudged with black. “I wish we’d get there. ”

Claire felt the same way. She loved the Blue Skies Campground. She and her girlfriends had first vacationed there a few years after high school graduation. In the early years there had been five of them; time and tragedy had whittled their number down to four. They’d each missed a year now and then, but for the most part, they met there year after year. At first they’d been young and wild and driven to pick up local boys. Gradually, as they’d started dragging bassinets and car seats with them, the vacation had settled down a bit. Now that the kids were old enough to swim and play on the playground alone, the girls—women—had refound a slice of their previous freedom.