A May-September Wedding (3 page)

David looked
put out. "It’s still not right, Dad."

"I’m not going
to discuss it any more, David. I've made my decision." Cal took a
drink from his water bottle. "You said you wanted my help with the
deck. Let’s get started."

They worked in
somewhat strained silence for a while and then turned their
conversation to the Senators prospects in the upcoming NHL draft.
Around three Cal said, "I have to go pick the girls up from
soccer."

"Okay, Dad.
Thanks for the help."

"Thanks for
lunch. Call me if Brian can’t help next Saturday."

"Will do."

When his
father left, Judy said, "I don’t know why you’re still fighting
with your Dad over Felicity. He’s right about her and Lydia."

"I don’t know.
I never got why Mom would choose someone my age to be her best
friend, I guess. And I don't trust Phyl."

"We were
already married with Jason when the Schuylers met your folks." Judy
kissed her husband on the cheek. "You’re just jealous that your Mom
spent more time with Phyl and Felicity than with any of you."

"I still miss
her, Jude." He wrapped his wife in a hug.

"She was a
special woman, David. But if you continue to fight your Dad on
this, you might lose him, too."

David grunted.
Judy continued, "The odds are that Felicity will be married with
her own kids before Cal passes on. And this better not be about how
your Dad’s estate gets split. What your mom left us let us pay off
the house, so be content with that. I want Cal around for as long
as possible so he can be Grampa to our kids. I’d much rather have
him than his money."

David gave his
wife a peck on the cheek and changed the subject. "Are you sure
you’re okay with the canoe trip weekend after next?"

"Is your Dad
still going?"

"Yes, but he’s
bringing Tim Schuyler so that the girls can have a sleepover."

"The coward.
He and Harry did that canoe trip every year the weekend of the
girls’ sleepover."

David
stiffened then gently extricated himself and began to put his tools
away.

"We won, Dad!"
Felicity was in an excellent mood.

"You should
have seen the corner kick she made, Mr. Richardson. It was
awesome." Lydia flung herself into the back seat next to her best
friend.

"It was Lydia
who was awesome, Dad. She jumped higher than the defender and did a
perfect header into the top corner of the net. The keeper had no
chance at all."

"But Felicity
scored two goals on the sweetest strikes. She’s been working on
bending her shot and she nailed one. The keeper thought it was
headed outside the post, but it just caught the inside and trickled
in."

They kept up
their post-mortem all the way home. At the lights, Cal studied the
two girls, glad that there was something positive to talk about.
They were coming up on their thirteenth birthday and were starting
to exhibit the coltish look of girls about to become young
women.

Felicity was
petite and slender with dark hair like her mother’s. Her legs
seemed too long for her body but that was to her advantage when
running toward the opposition goal.

Lydia was tall
and skinny but she already had wider hips and shoulders than the
other girls in her class. She was taking after her father in having
a big and tall frame but she was blonde like her mother. Her height
and ability to score on Felicity’s corner kicks made her the
leading scorer in the league.

They pulled
into the driveway at the house and Phyl stuck her head out the
door. "Cal, Felicity!"

Cal turned
around and saw Phyl looking both ways before crossing the quiet
street. Phyl examined her daughter. "Ugh. Lydia, you need a shower
and this time you are going to put your gear in the wash right
away."

Lydia said,
cheerfully, "Yes, Mum. See ya, Beast." She grabbed her bag and ran
over to her house.

Felicity
waved, "See ya, Monster."

Phyl wrinkled
her nose. "I think both of you have been working hard, too." She
paused, "Never mind that. I just wanted to say that I made a huge
batch of chili so you’re welcome to come over for supper."

Cal noticed
the wrinkled nose. "I think we’ll shower and change first. Half an
hour?"

"Sure. We can
finalize the details for the sleepover and the canoe trip."

Cal showered
and changed into a pair of sedate walking shorts and his wildest
green and mauve Hawaiian shirt.

Felicity
stared at her father as she thundered down the stairs. "Dad, you’re
not wearing
that
shirt in public are you?"

"I could add
my fishing hat if you like." Cal smirked. "Or I could wear my
Buchanan Ancient kilt with it."

"Not a chance.
I’d die of embarrassment. Really. Besides you can't wear that many
colours at a time without people's eyeballs exploding. It wouldn't
be fair to the Schuylers."

Cal rolled his
eyes then went into the kitchen to fetch a bottle of the Marechal
Foch red from Jost Vineyards in Nova Scotia that Jeremy had given
him and Brenda for Christmas.

Felicity
looked suspiciously at the wine. "I thought you weren’t supposed to
have wine with chili because it spreads the heat around."

"I wouldn’t
dare with your mom’s chili, but Phyl’s is pretty wimpy."

They both
paused, feeling Brenda’s loss once more. Felicity moved forward for
a hug. "This will get better, right, Dad?"

"That’s what
the counsellor told us." Cal tilted his daughter’s chin up and
kissed her nose. "I’ve seen too many of my friends work their way
through similar losses and they all said it will get better...
Someday."

"Will I ever
stop missing her?" asked Felicity in a small voice.

"Not really,
no. One of the guys at work says it gets less painful as the years
go on, but you always miss the special people when they’re gone. I
still miss my parents." Cal gave Felicity a squeeze. "Now, we have
to go. Phyl’s expecting us."

Dinner was
companionable, although there were strange pauses here and there.
Tim ran from the room after one story about his Papa and came back
silently, with a blotchy face, about five minutes later. He excused
himself from the table as soon as he could and ran up to his
room.

The girls gave
each other a speaking look and Lydia rolled her eyes. They excused
themselves from the table and went to the family room to monopolize
the television. The theme song for
Total Drama Island
came to their ears.

Cal helped
Phyl clear the table then brought their wine glasses out to the
deck. Cal heard the dishwasher start and Phyl joined him a few
minutes later.

"That wasn’t
too bad," Cal offered.

Phyl let out a
big sigh. "No, it wasn’t. Tim’s been a bear since Brenda died. I
think he’s trying to grieve for both of us."

"Is he looking
forward to the canoe trip?"

"Yes and no.
He was pretty close to Harry. I know you’re not supposed to have
favourites, but Harry did spend more time with Tim than Lydia. I
don’t know how he’s going to be without Harry along."

"David and
Jason are also coming and there are two more father-son pairs from
church going along with a couple of the university guys. And we
won’t do one of Harry’s normal routes this year. That might
help."

Phyl looked
pensive. "That should work. Eventually you’ll have to go back to
Wolf Lake with him. He loves the island campsite up there."

"I do too.
Maybe we should take you and the girls sometime. Do it in four or
five days so we don’t have to knock ourselves out. Harry was a
pretty hard taskmaster."

Phyl smiled.
"Only on camping trips. Most of the time he was a teddy bear."

"I know." Cal
sipped his wine. "How is the job search going?"

"I might have
to go back to school so that I'm qualified for something. I went
from high school to being a stay at home mum, thanks to Harry's
ability to sell anything to anyone. I’m looking into seeing if I
can get my nursing degree. What about you? Are you still planning
on retiring?"

"I was
planning on it and doing some contract work in the winter, but
without Brenda to share the time off it seems pointless. So, no, I
haven’t put in my papers. I can’t retire until my birthday anyway.
Or I could wait until my anniversary date in January. Although... I
really can afford to retire now. Brenda had a couple of insurance
policies I wasn’t aware of and I have all of her investments to
fall back on, so I could afford to retire next month."

"Harry had a
couple of big policies, too and the standard double salary policy
with his job. And we got some money from my parent's estate. That’s
why I can consider going back to get my degree. But the house is
paid off and I have enough in the bank to live on for several
years. So I don’t want to make a big decision right away. And I’m
too late to apply for nursing school this fall."

"So you'll be
a stay-at-home mom for a while?"

Phyl frowned.
"Probably until a year September. I'll be happier with that anyway.
Lydia and Tim will both be a year older. And I'll have a chance to
prepare them for it."

"I'm going to
need your help soon."

"Oh?"

"I'm almost
out of leave and I'll have to either go back to work or properly
retire. I'd like to go back to work but Felicity will need a place
to come to after school and the summer is almost on us."

"Cal. You know
she's always welcome here. The girls might as well be sisters. It's
actually easier to take care of the pair of them than either one
individually. Lydia's either on the phone with Felicity or she's
bugging me to either invite Felicity here or let her go over to
your place. So, believe me, it's no problem looking after the
Beast."

Cal looked
relieved. "I can help you out, too. You know, handyman stuff, heavy
lifting, that sort of thing."

Phyl looked at
her neighbour. "Well, Harry had a fairly long 'honey do' list that
he didn't get around to. Are you sure you want to do that for
me?"

"If Brenda was
still with us, what would she have said?"

Phyl got an
odd sad look then smirked. "She would have said, 'Phyl, Cal's
headed to Bytown Lumber to pick up some paint for the deck. Didn't
you say you needed a patch for some drywall?' or light bulbs or
whatever else I'd been getting irritated at Harry for putting off."
Phyl went silent for a while.

Cal reached
over and patted Phyl's hand. "I miss her, too. I wish I'd had more
time to say goodbye, but then I think about you and Harry."

"She was a
good woman, Cal." They both sat in silence with their memories
until they heard the girls clattering about in the kitchen.

Cal pulled
into the driveway at 4:45. He folded his stiff body out of the car
and stretched before sauntering over to the Schuyler's house.
Seeing a shadowy form moving in the kitchen, he called through the
screen door. "Hi Phyl, where are the girls?"

Phyl gave a
startled shriek. "Couldn't you knock like normal people, Cal?"

"You know I'm
light on my feet." Cal opened the door and walked into the
kitchen.

Phyl looked at
her handsome older neighbour. "Yes, but everyone else in my life
gives me some warning they're coming. Just knock next time."

Cal teased,
"But maybe I like the way you shriek when you're surprised."

Phyl hit him
with her tea towel. "Monster."

"That's Lydia.
I'm a savage Scot. So where are the girls?"

"The Andersons
invited all three of the kids to a barbeque at Mooney's Bay. I'm
supposed to walk over to get them around seven-thirty."

"Well, I can
use the time to get some laundry started." Cal turned to leave. "I
was going to make a stir-fry for me and Felicity to use up some
leftover chicken and sausages. You're welcome to share."

"Let's see, I
could have a can of chicken noodle soup by myself or I could have a
good looking man cook me a hot supper. I'll have to think about
that for maybe half a second." Phyl smiled. "I'd love to, thanks."
She paused. "Why the suit?"

"We had an all
day meeting with a bunch of people from the Navy and the naval
architects. The Navy wants to get some preliminary concept designs
for some new coastal defence boats. Of course there were six of
them and the five naval engineers and me from Public Works so there
must have been at least twenty competing ideas on what would be
needed." Cal stretched again.

"Poor you."
Phyl noticed the wince when he stretched. "Sitting in a room all
day right after the canoe trip. You must be sore."

"It was okay
while the meeting was on. It was only when I was getting up that it
was a problem. One of the managers from the naval architecture firm
snickered at me. I'll try not to say 'I told you so' when he hits
forty."

"He'll
probably have a beer gut by then. Anyway, this isn't getting my
kitchen clean."

"And it isn't
getting supper on the table either."

"See you
around six, then."

Cal walked
back over to his house and changed into shorts and tee shirt.
Gathering laundry in the too quiet house was an awful chore. There
were too many reminders of Brenda, too many things he always relied
on her to remember.

The week after
the funeral he'd almost ruined Felicity's favourite white cotton
blouse by washing it with colours. The rest of the evening was a
set of weepy tirades that were really all about missing her mother.
Cal had felt like a worm.

The blouse had
been one of Brenda's peasant blouses that was left over from her
high school days that really suited Felicity. Fortunately, he
hadn't put it in the dryer and Phyl knew what to do to bleach it
back to white. When Phyl returned it, Felicity had apologized to
him and they both had a good cry while Phyl retreated rapidly to
her house with tears forming in her eyes.