“So, do you think a lot about dying, then?”
“You know, I don't. At least not with any despair. I'm not scared of dying. And here's the thing: it will happen when it happens. Did you ever hear of the time I woke up beside the land mine?”
“No.”
“It was in Sicily. A fellow I knew had a Jeep and offered to take me for a ride. We ended up going farther than we should have. We lost track of time. It got dark and we were still out. So we decided we'd better stop for the night, sleep on the side of the road, and go back first thing in the morning.”
“And did you?”
“We did. We slept outside. But at dawn I woke to him grabbing my arm. He was very serious and talking slowly. He was telling me not to move. He helped me up. For the entire night I'd been asleep right near a mine. We hadn't seen it in the dark.”
She swivels from the door and bends down to the bottom drawer, where I keep the flour, sugar, and oatmeal. She opens it and takes something out, something I didn't know was in there. She must have brought the bag of cat treats from home. I must have mentioned Rufus to Grandma.
“You know, I always thought George would live longer than me. We both did. He never would have believed I'd last this long,” she says. “So what do you think, should we let him in?”
She doesn't wait for an answer but opens the door a crack. Rufus sniffs his way in and curls around her feet. She scratches his back along his spine. “What a good boy . . . you're such a good boy,” she says.
“Watch out he doesn't bite you,” I say, taking a step back behind Grandma. “Sometimes, you know, he bites.”
“No, no, he won't, he's fine. I brought something with me in case I saw him.” She shakes a pile of the tiny brown pellets onto the floor. Grandma watches in undiluted satisfaction as Rufus scarfs up the salmon-flavoured morsels like he needs them to live.
12:38 p.m.
“WELL, LOOKS LIKE
we'll need to kill some time. Sorry.”
“Oh, that's okay. How much time do we need to kill?”
“About an hour and a half,” I grumble.
“Okay, an hour and a half.”
We're sitting in my idling car. I'm watching the exhaust fumes billowing up from behind in the rear-view mirror. We're at the entrance to the ferry. The one working windshield wiper in its tauntingly
nah-nah-nah-boo-boo
way is waving back and forth at me on top speed. I've had my greatest moment of inspiration in the past four days. I decided I'd take Grandma over to Wolfe Island.
Wolfe Island is a mostly rural island in Lake Ontario. It's just south of Kingston, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. It's a summer destination, for cottagers mostly, as only around a couple of thousand people call the island home year round. It reminds me of Toronto Island, how when you get on it you feel like you're a long way away from the city you left.
We'd been sitting around after breakfast, sipping second cups of coffee while I read over glossy pamphlets I'd snagged from the tourist office. Each pamphlet was for a different museum.
“Here, what do you think about the marine museum? It looks kinda cool. Or the woodworking museum?” Each of my offers was met by an unreliable “Sure, we could do that.”
That's when I had my idea.
I told her my plan about going to Wolfe Island and was waiting for balloons to drop from the ceiling when Grandma asked what time the ferry left. On the half-hour, I told her. We had eighteen minutes.
The ferry leaves every hour. And it is on the half-hour. But that's in the morning. It shifts to on the hour after lunch. We missed the last ferry by five minutes. We could see it pulling away. The sky was just starting to sprinkle when we jogged out to my car. It's raining harder now.
“Do you want to go back home?”
“Seems a shame when we're already out.”
We're only ten minutes from home. There are limited options for things to do in Kingston on a weekday morning.
“Yeah, I guess so.” We could always go back to the café.
She brings her hands together on her lap. I sense Grandma has her own idea. “Is there a liquor store nearby?”
“Pardon?”
“Just curious if there's a liquor store. We could kill some time there.”
The thought hadn't occurred to me. It's not a terrible idea. “Actually, there is. Just about a block away.”
“Let's go,” she says, definitively.
OUR DOWNTOWN LIQUOR
store is a one- or two-minute drive from the ferry terminal. I'm usually there with expediency as my aim, to run in and out, to grab a bottle of wine or a six-pack of beer. It's a large store, with lots of varieties of wines and spirits. I've never just wandered around inside before. The store has never been a means to me. Just an end. But Grandma and I have time to kill.
Usually the few parking spots come at a premium. At peak hours, between 4 and 6 p.m., it's unheard of to land a spot. At this time of day, when alcohol is rarely a priority, there are no cars at all. The grocery store lot across the street isn't even half full. Grandma chats as we walk in under the umbrella. We are getting used to the small space underneath the ripped nylon.
“The last time I was in the liquor store back home, I was very embarrassed,” she's saying. “I took a young guy aside and asked for a bottle of Crest sherry. He couldn't find it. I was adamant. I said I knew they had some because I'd bought it there before. So he had to go and get their ordering sheet and bring it out, and we tried to find Crest sherry, which is my favourite. Anyway, it finally dawned on me. Crest is my damn toothpaste. The sherry is Croft.”
We're just inside when Grandma finishes her toothpaste story. She's winded from the stroll, and giggly. The store's only just opened. Customers are clearly unexpected. Apart from the two employees on shift, we're alone with all the glass and booze.
One worker is standing at a cash register. The other is handling a mop in the sparkling-wine aisle. He stops his mopping as we stroll by. He nods hello, but his expression is one of surprise. Yet again, seeing an old, small, white-haired lady accompanied by a (much) younger, bespectacled, bearded guy has surprised an onlooker.
Liquor stores like this are built to accommodate large crowds. They aren't meant for two people. We both know we aren't searching for anything specifically. Neither of us knows much about wine.
We start our ramble in Australia. I tell Grandma I've tried the Little Penguin Merlot before. That's the only one I've sampled. Next is New Zealand. We make our way over to France, and then Italy. I point out the Pinots like they're somehow significant. We stop at any oddly shaped bottles. We point out the whimsical or gimmicky names to each other. “Sibling Rivalry,” says Grandma. “Have you ever tried that?”
I shake my head. “Only the real thing.” She doesn't hear me and continues along. She half hums, half whistles, faintly.
With her a few steps ahead, I can discern she's still favouring her left leg. This is the first time I've had this perspective, a couple of steps behind. I thought maybe she'd been limping worse this morning, but haven't been able to confirm it until now. She never lets on if asked directly. It must be that sore knee still bothering her. The one from her fall.
Our voyage continues along the wall of whisky, a soft spot for Grandma. Scotch of all varieties, blends and single malts, acknowledges us from the shelves as we pass.
“Maybe we should get a small bottle, Grandma. You still like the odd pinch of single malt, don't you?”
“Oh, well, sure. Grab one. I was just thinking, I can still remember the first time I ever had a drink. It was a week or so before Christmas. I'd been out babysitting for a neighbour.
“When the parents got home from their party, they'd been drinking and were feeling good and offered me a glass of wine. My mother wasn't a drinker at all, so when I got home, I remember rushing in and going right up to her and just breathing in her face. She could smell it on me, all right.”
With the store empty like this, it's like we're in a museum of sorts. Not one advertised in any of my pamphlets, but a museum of our own reflections. Each bottle is holding a liquid memory. At least for Grandma.
“I can't remember my first drink,” I tell her. “I don't think it would make much of a story, anyway.” I have a cloudy image of shotgunning a warm king can of Milwaukee's Best behind the sheep barn at my parents' farm.
We continue along to the clear spirits. “Now you should get something for yourself. You like gin, don't you? I'm buying, my treat.”
“I thought I was buying.”
“No, no, dear. Let me treat you.”
“I feel like you've been doing all the treating.” I'm unequivocally certain she has.
“No, I want to get this,” she says. I oblige and pick a small bottle of gin to go along with our Scotch. “And what about a nice bottle of wine for supper?”
“What do you feel like?” I ask.
“Whatever
you
want, dear.”
I jog back to the nearest region, France. I haven't had Beaujolais in a long time. I should have grabbed a basket when we came in. I didn't know we'd be buying so much. When I get back to Grandma, she's distracted by another bottle. It takes her a few seconds to intuit my presence.
“I can't believe this,” she says without looking up. “I haven't seen this in years and years.” She holds up a plastic mickey of Southern Comfort.
“Huh, I don't think I've ever had that.”
“It was one of the first drinks I had with George. Neither of us had tried it before. We hadn't known each other very long, only a few weeks, and we decided, I can't remember why, but we decided to take a little trip for the weekend. You see, we were
always
doing that. So we went down to the States. I can also remember how his sisters really didn't approve.”
“Oh?”
“Well, we didn't know each other very well yet, or for very long, and of course we weren't married. That was a no-no.”
“But you went anyway?”
“Of course. We'd decided to go away and we did. Anyway, that's what they served us, wherever we were, I can't remember. We even bought a bottle when we got home. Although we never really drank it. It was more for the memory.”
“Do you guys need a hand finding anything?” It's the guy with the mop.
“Actually, I think we're fine, man. Just on our way to the cash,” I answer. Grandma smiles at him. He carries his filthy mop back to his bucket of water.
Walking to the car, I stop. “Here, take the keys and I'll meet you in the car. I'll be right back.”
I almost slip when I catch my foot on the curb, jogging back into the store.
1:38 p.m.
THE SKIES HAVE
opened.
It's raining harder now than it has at any other point of the trip. It's raining harder now than at any time in my life, or human history. Not drops but beefy, biblical sheets of water are falling on the windshield.
Without the wipers (even the one that's not broken), visibility would be nil. There are two cars in front of us. Four behind us. To our left is the high grey metal side of the ferry boat. To our right is another car, actually a truck that is at least two or three feet higher than my low-riding Toyota. Even without the wind and rain our visibility would be nil. We are sardined into place.
“It's so fun to be on a ferry,” Grandma's insisting, “out on the water like this. It's just so fun.” Irony and sarcasm don't suit Grandma, so I'm taking her comment at face value.
“Yeah, well, it's not really what I pictured when I had the idea. I was kinda hoping we could actually see things.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don't know, the lake for one.”
“It's still fun,” she says.
I brought some more tapes out to the car with me this morning. I slide one in the deck: a homemade Woody Guthrie mix. Twenty or so seconds in, I switch it off abruptly, turning toward Grandma. “We could go up to the observation deck. We'd need the umbrella, but at least . . .” As I'm suggesting it, I catch the absurdity. Neither of us wants to be out in this storm. And that's what it is â it's a full-blown spring storm.
Grandma has started her tuneless humming again. I'm watching an elderly fellow exit the indoor seating area. He looks around and walks out into the rain. He moves past a few cars, walking purposefully down the middle aisle. He's not dressed to be out in the rain.
He shuffles between the two cars in front of us, squeezing by the side mirrors. He's standing right outside Grandma's door now. He's drenched. There's a firm tap on her window. She looks at me as if to say,
What the hell?
I shrug my shoulders. She lowers her window. Instantly her forearm is soaked.
The man doesn't waste any time, gripping the half-opened window and bringing his face into the car. His bushy white brows look like carports for his eyes. Grandma leans away from the window, from him. He's staring directly at her when he poses his question. “Have you seen the Amish girls?”
Grandma stares back. She swivels her head to me. I answer for her. “Sorry, what's that?”
“Have you seen the Amish girls?” This time he sounds more aggravated than curious. Again Grandma and I look at each other. I know we're both thinking the same thing. Who, pray tell, are the fucking
Amish
girls? Is this some musical theatre performance on Wolfe Island? Maybe he's trying to sell tickets â a Gilbert and Sullivan I'm unfamiliar with?
“I'm not sure,” says Grandma.
He's getting more flustered and wet. He seems angered by our lack of concrete response. He's ignoring the rivulets of water flowing freely down his wrinkled face.
“Sorry, but no, we haven't seen the Amish girls.”