Everything/Nothing Changes

“Sadie, this is Lee. Text me to let me know you got into the cottage.  You aren’t going to believe what you see! Enjoy.”

Indeed, I hardly recognized the place as I parked on the grass by the cottage. Lee had attached a small porch to the front of the house, steps leading up to the porch on either side, and a roof extension decorative molding over it.  The cottage exterior was now white instead of…I paused but could not remember whether it had been yellow before or  dark green.  Lee had also purchased an adjacent lot that once had a cottage, and so the yard was much bigger.  I hardly recognized the place save for the certainty of its same location on the little island.

The short drive from Dave’s family home to here, Ochre Island, had already disoriented me from all that had changed to the place of my childhood summer vacations. The tiny resort town had once boasted an amusement park full of rides. In place of the remembered boardwalk with carny game booths and ferris wheels, stacks of lakeside condos lined the streets. The roadside bakery remained, but its sign no longer read “Hines Doughnuts.” Nor was there any trace of the lollipop stand down the street.

Lee had fought righteously for ownership of the family cottage during our lawsuit contesting Mother’s will. Finch  had quickly sold the remaining acreage from the farm that she gained from the settlement, leaving Tressie squatting on the spoils of what she’d acquired from our mother’s estate, along with the family building she’d gotten Mom to sell her for next to nothing. Eventually she sold the house she built on the estate, and moved somewhere south.

This cottage was the last piece of property from our shared past that I would ever see again. The day we settled in court over the family estate, Dave and I drove past the farm one last time. I said goodbye and thanked the land and forest and lakes for their gifts to me as a girl. I prayed for the safety of land and its non-human creature inhabitants. God only knows what awaits those whose greed for the property severs all semblance of family ties to this place.

Now I was standing in the last visceral link to my past with these people. I trembled in fear of remembering too much.  But I wanted to remember, to connect to any past self who’d dared to enjoy herself in this place, who’d relished summer here.

Texting Lee,  “Wow, this is absolutely amazing!” I marveled at all that he had preserved in balance with updates to the cottage. Originally, it had been a drinking shack that our paternal grandfather acquired to get away from his wife. When she decided that he’d been gone long enough, she would order my father, “Junior, go get your father and bring him home.” Grandma’s pride in her religious temperance didn’t seem to cure the family ills. Even on vacation, Dad spiked his Coca-Cola with rum when we were barbecuing nearby at the beach.

The returning memories of the old cottage warmed my heart with each item I recognized of my brother’s thoughtfulness. He left the old wall radio in its place, but had connected its speaker to an iPod tucked into the closet behind the wall.  He cleaned up the display case of fishing lures and postcards above the radio which, at the time held nothing of my interest.  Now I inspected each item carefully with delight.  The forest green wall paint from the original color looked to have been retouched or matched anew. Gone were the main room’s rickety table and chairs, replaced with comfortable reading chairs. On the walls were sturdy new bookcases, and a newly curated library of leisure reading that included some first editions.

Lee had invested thoughtfully into items evoking the cottage’s early era: An old Coleman lantern with original mica windows, an old golfing bag with clubs, and vintage light fixtures. In the front bedroom, the walls adorned with vestiges of an old telephone, a reminder of our family’s owning the first phone company in Marthasburg.

Even changes to the cottage brought back memories. The back porch, refurbished into a comfortable space for reading or relaxing in the cross breeze, had been a nook for meals with a long counter along the length of the back screen. I smiled in recollection of the many times the Tyne or Pace boys had lunch with us, seated along the counter with us. As if on cue to add to this memory, I recognized in the back yard the famous metal mesh chairs that the Tyne family’s company used to manufacture.  Lee had cleaned them up nicely, and they were still as comfortable as they had been.  I laughed aloud at remembering the afternoon that Lee and his pals once rigged these two chairs with perforated hoses to create a seated “human power wash.”

Another Memory Emerges

I felt vulnerable for allowing myself to remember so much. I feared one memory in particular would surface if I lingered too long, considering the likelihood of being overwhelmed emotionally. It lay past our cottage and onto the street toward the beach on the island. Another cottage held the bad memory. My curiosity to see the beach again won out. I decided to drive over in hopes that the car would protect me from the memories within another cottage. Rather than walk by that cottage, I could speed past it in my car.

Something happened one summer in that nearby cottage. Either our family stayed there while our cousins stayed in our cottage, or they were billeted there there and we visited them. I still see, in my mind’s eye, the ugly red and pink floral design of that cottage’s cheap carpet, because I fixated my gaze on the pattern to block out what Mother was doing to me.

I had run into the cottage from the beach, my hair wet and my bathing suit full of sand from playing on the beach all day. Alone in the cottage with her, she subjected me to a very uncomfortable hand cleaning of my private parts. Taking no notice of the pain she caused by rubbing the sand into my skin, Mother abruptly stopped at the sound of the front door opening, pushing me away hurriedly. From then on, I would forever hate the red striped bathing suit I had been wearing at the time. It became a reminder of my shame at being caught, trapped once again.

But that was long ago. She was dead. I no longer needed to run away. And so, I got into my car, locked the doors, and steeled myself to drive past the “bad cottage” on my way to the beach.  I paused before turning onto the street where it stood in a row of other bungalows across from the marina. I held my breath.

And then I gasped in surprise at what I saw. Nothing. The cottages, including the one where my mother had hurt me, had all been razed. Nothing remained but grass and an array of boat trailers. Erased from the landscape, the marker of that terrible day had vanished.

Stunned, I drove onward to the entrance to the beach.  The bridge across to it was familiar enough, but I found no grounding in familiar sights of my past.  The cement block changing rooms and toilets that I remembered were all gone, as were the lifeguard tower seats. Gone were the barbecue stands and wooden tables.  What had once seemed a large expanse of land to me when I was a kid now it seemed rather dinky. I spent entire days at this tiny beach, thinking it a huge expanse of land. Now it looked…dinky.

I wondered what else had vanished from the landscape of my memory of this place. We had taken swimming lessons from Miss Pace off of the boat launch point at a resort. It was a quick drive back over the bridge and to the boat launch point, however I found nothing of the resort buildings or grounds. Ostentatious new homes now crowded the lakefront. Perhaps the general store remained, I thought as I turned the car away from the lake and onto a side street. There general store had been just around the bend from the resort, so I knew the way. It too, was gone. Nothing but grass and huge trees stood where once the kids from all over the island clamored to buy candy from the Pace matriarchs.

This little island suddenly seemed incredibly small and desolate. I returned to the cottage and parked the car, deciding to walk along the streets that had been well-known routes for me to walk or ride my bike.  I set out on foot to find the Tyne’s cottage. Some of the old cottages along the way still stood, most in rather poor shape.  In no time, I found the house, surprised at how short the time took compared to my memory if a long bike ride between our cottages.  Standing in front of it now, I ruefully assessed the damage that time had wrought, both to the property and the family of five sibling boys that had spent summer there with their parents.

Looking Back

I walked slowly back to the cottage, ruminating and taking care to walk all the streets in the neighborhood. Yes, here was that same old row of mobile homes, most of them the worse for wear.  Yes, here was that spot where you could look across the lake and see the edge of what had been the amusement park, where there had once been a garish monument to some saint. Yes, it had all been transplanted with condos.

Turning to walk along another street, I recognized an old woman standing in her driveway talking to a workman. The house had belonged to friends I had met when Mom and I were building our new relationship, post-confrontation.  Mom had happily introduced us because the husband played the piano and composed, and there was a concert grand Steinway in the great room.  We spent many brunches in that house, hoping that our past ills were being healed.

Indeed, it was the friend in the driveway now, and I hastened toward her.  Then I reconsidered.  Would she be happy to see me after all these years?  Or would she, like my former teacher at the funeral home, scowl and chew me out for ruining my mother’s life with my lies? Uncertain of the outcome, I continued toward the home with composed cautiousness.

The woman paused in her conversation with the workman to look at me. For a moment I thought I saw a flash of recognition in her face. But then she turned away and resumed her conversation, and I walked past her without greeting.

Back at the cottage again, I picked up my phone to check my messages. “Take a swim in the new saltwater pool, behind the marina office. Towels on the bathroom shelf!” Lee had texted. I decided to take a dip on this chilly day the heated pool all to myself. I lingered in the luxury of the outer silence, allowing past and present to flow around as buoyantly as I was, floating in the warm salty water.

Everything had changed. And nothing had.