What She Found in the Woods

11 JULY

I’ve always felt relaxed in airports.

I don’t know why, but the chaos that eats away at everyone else’s well-being creates a dome of serenity around me. I guess that’s a terrible thing to say, but it’s true. In airports, I’m compact. Boiled down to the few items I’ve chosen to take with me. I know where I’m going, I know what I have with me, and I don’t need anything else.

Airports used to be my favourite place to write. The solitude that I feel when I’m completely surrounded by strangers is better than uppers. I have a notebook hidden in my coat pocket, but I don’t take it out. I don’t have time, anyway. My grandparents are already at the airport, driving around so they don’t have to park. I poke my head out between other seekers and find them.

Always there’s that jolt – that moment when you put all the features together, and a stranger becomes your relative. Makes you wonder how big of a difference there actually is between the people you’ve known your whole life and someone you’ve never met. I wave, and they pull over.

Hugs first, and then, ‘You got so thin!’ from my grandma.

‘I haven’t lost a pound,’ I say, shrugging. ‘They weigh you every morning.’

My grandfather shrinks away from me, and from the unfortunate circumstances that have brought me to stay with them for the summer. And, possibly, forever. But he soldiers on, tacitly letting me know we will not talk about it. Not even if I need to.

‘Let’s get your bags in the car,’ Grandpa says cheerfully. ‘Where are the rest?’

‘This is it,’ I tell him, wheeling my carry-on to the back of their Range Rover.

‘But, you’re staying for the whole summer, right?’ Grandma asks, confused now. She’s the type of woman who changes her clothes for every new part of the day. Morning frock. Gardening ensemble, complete with wicker hat and mud clogs, and she still dresses for dinner. Always wears jewellery to the table. Nothing ostentatious, but enough so you notice.

My grandfather tries to help me with my bag, but I won’t let him. ‘I got it, Grandpa,’ I say with a smile, and then I hoist it into the trunk easily.

‘You pack light,’ Grandma says while I settle into the back seat and put my seat belt on.

‘Summer clothes,’ I say. ‘If I remember right, it gets hot out here when it isn’t raining.’

Trust the weather to soothe their Waspy souls. Grandma and Grandpa eagerly launch into a diatribe about the weather in the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest. They have all their descriptive adjectives honed. Every simile has been carefully chosen. They lavish the never-ending rains of western Washington State with all the fiery contempt of true love. The weather is their solace. As a topic of conversation, it safely delivers us back to their summer home on the edge of the forest.

It’s not the largest house set back from the street. There are other big constructions dotting the fringes of the wild, but my grandparents’ Tudor revival place has a cosy storybook feel to it. And it’s buried the deepest, tucked right in between the ocean and the forest, which are the two things that make this a summer destination for the stupid wealthy. The working-class people who live in this town year-round would never have a house right here. They couldn’t afford it. We go down their long drive, and the updated two-storey springs into view among the tangle of trees and moss.

‘Your garden is lovely, Grandma,’ I say. It looks almost wild, except for the artfully placed splashes of colour and the perfectly tiered native ferns and perennials.

‘I could use some help with the vegetables out back,’ Grandma offers, making it clear that the flowers in the front are hers. That suits me.

‘I’d be happy to help,’ I say.

My grandmother punches a long code into the alarm panel, and we go inside. We have Long Island Iced Teas in the salon. Mine is virgin. Theirs definitely aren’t. My grandparents hold firm to their inalienable right to cocktail hour, like it’s written somewhere in the Constitution.

I look around at the Chippendale furniture, Great-Grandma’s collection of Fabergé eggs, and . . . oh yes, the Degas that hangs so casually on the far wall in its hermetically sealed protective frame as I listen to my grandparents talk. They’re thinking of selling after this season and buying a new summer home in Santa Barbara.

‘The area’s changed a lot . . . That reminds me. I’ll have to give you the code for the door,’ Grandma says primly. ‘It’s not like it used to be when we summered here with your mother, or even when you were younger, and you used to spend July with us.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I tell them. ‘Everyone says Santa Barbara is lovely, though,’ I add. It’s bad manners to linger on depressing things. In my family, you are expected to change the subject as soon as anyone says anything unpleasant.

When I’ve finished my refreshment, I take myself to the guest room I used the last time I stayed with them four summers ago. As soon as I open the door, I’m immediately transported back to my thirteen-year-old self.