(Raven and Dee at her house at Torch Lake. Photo Socotra.)
Let’s be candid about the process: this is no fun. It is still filled with bright spots, though they can be spread out a little bit.
I steeled myself to go to Potemkin Village before lunch, so I could go through the mail. I drove up to the place under astonishing rich blue skies dotted by puffy little dabs of cotton-wool clouds. The rolling hills were bright green, evoking the image of the Irish province for which the county is named across the sea. The fresh breeze off the lake was refreshing, and I thought it was a crime to be feeling so good while getting ready to feel real bad.
I took the slow elevator up from the lobby to the third floor and marched down the carpeted corridor past the beauty parlor that is always busy and the billiard room that is always empty.
I used the knocker to rap on the door, and then opened the unlocked door, ready to put on my duty grin.
No one was there. I looked at the clock and saw that it was still fifteen minutes before noon, but Big Mama had apparently launched Raven early to lunch. I retraced my steps and went to the cognitively challenged dining room. Raven and Big Mama were at their accustomed seats in the corner near the window, and Raven was tucking into a plate of mac and cheese with unaccustomed gusto.
Big Mama was ignoring hers.
She brightened immediately when she saw me, and I hugged them both and took a seat next to Raven and looked across the table at Big Mama.
“How nice to see you,” she said, and the adventure began.
My brother Spike had reported the mystery of the two cities where she lives now. I asked her about the other one, after we discovered that she has become untethered in temporal time. I mentioned that she had come down to lunch early, and she explained she could not read the clock that Annook had mounted prominently in the apartment. It is a perfectly ordinary and traditional big-and-little-hands depiction of the time, if outsized, so something has lurched again.
I did not mention the conflict that the caregivers had reported about getting her in the shower. Annook had arranged for some enhanced services, to include showering, since she apparently is going through one of those moments like Raven did when he forgot how to shave.
She looked great, though, and maybe the controversy had sparked a resurgence of interest in personal hygiene. She looked wonderful in a formal lace blouse and billowing floral skirt. We talked about her campaign to get her car back, and the mystery of which airport the vehicle had been left between Annook and Spike’s visit.
“Annook flew out of Pelston,” I explained. “Spike flew in to Traverse City and rented a car, so he could not get it. I flew into Detroit, and drove up in a rental car. Sorry. We will have to sort the car out next time.” Kicking the can down the road has been my strategy so far, and it appears to be working.
She contemplated the mystery. “I have a plan to get the car back so we have one here in the Villages.”
“We do, Mom. I have one right outside. Maybe we can take a drive this afternoon after lunch.”
“And maybe we can do a hand-drawn map with all the airports on it,” she said brightly.
Raven continued to silently attack his macaroni, and finished the plate clean. He looked frail, but appeared to have an appetite, which is good. When the choice of dessert arrived, we selected the angle food cake and strawberries topped by whipped cream. Big Mama ignored hers, saying that she had suddenly lost any interest in fruit, and didn’t know why. Raven seized his with his left hand, and munched it like a doughnut, leaving a stalactite- or is it stalagmite?- of whipped cream on his nose. I waited until he was done and cleaned him up with a blue cloth napkin. Big Mama tried to get me to take her dessert, but I demurred.
“Carbs are my enemy, Mom,” I said. “Maybe Dad will eat it.” She moved the dessert over in front of him, and he attacked it with deliberate enthusiasm, producing another icicle of whipped cream from his nose.
We got him cleaned off and slowly moved back upstairs to the unit, and eventually arrived at a destination for the afternoon: Torch Lake.
They had old friends down there, and a call indicated that they were in residence. I thought the drive in the brand new Hertz Impala and a view of the Lake might be good for all concerned, and having a break in the middle useful in case there was a personal crisis in the car.
Torch is a fabulous inland lake, if you have not been there. It is almost twenty miles long, and not named for the shape, but for the custom of the Odawa Indians to light torches on the lakeshore to attract fish from the sparkling azure waters. Torch is the second largest inland lake in the state, and the deepest, with a maximum depth of 330 feet, filled with trout, rock bass, yellow perch, small mouth bass, muskellunge and whitefish.
It is a hell of a lake, and a pleasant drive down US 31, passing through the village of Charlevoix and the start of Cherry Country. Raven slumped in sleep most of the way, slowly collapsing in his seat belt toward my shoulder.
National Geographic rated Torch the third most beautiful lake in the world, which is an odd but proud accomplishment, being the Bronze Medal winner of scenic fresh-water attractions.
Anyway, once we got there and managed to get Raven out of the car and back to the deck, Dee fed him some ice cream, which got his attention, big time.
Big Mama chatted away with her old friend Dee and had a big bowl of ice cream and sliced bananas and we watched the jet-skis roar by. Life was pretty good.
I managed to get them back to Potemkin Village for dinner, and took Raven’s pork pie hat and coat back up to the apartment after I cut up his chicken. When I was up there I turned on the flat-screen television and tuned it to the old movie channel, which Big Mama likes.
I didn’t think she was going to be hungry, but you never can tell.
(Dee and Big Mama with Torch Lake in the background. Photo Socotra.)
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com