The Free Reunion at the Lake

I waited for her to call me. She did not call me.

I sent her a message the next week, a short one, because I did not want her to think I was hiding anything from her. I wrote: “Tracy, I booked the pavilion this year, I hope that’s okay. You and Doug and the kids are always welcome. Please come.”

It said “seen” under it after an hour. She never answered. Her post about the seventy-five dollars came down sometime that week. Nobody mentioned that either.

My mother called the night my post went up. I could tell she was crying a little, though she pretended it was allergies.

“I’ll pick up Edna at ten,” she said. “She’s already asked me twice what she should bring. I told her the rhubarb bars, and she said she can’t stand at the counter that long anymore, so I’m going to stand at the counter and she’s going to sit and tell me I’m doing it wrong.”

“That sounds perfect,” I said.

“It does, doesn’t it,” my mother said.

July 11 came up hot and bright and still. Josh and I drove out to Pine Lake at seven in the morning with the truck loaded: two folding tables from the church, four coolers of ice, a borrowed grill from our neighbor, and every lawn chair we owned.

The lake was flat as a plate. The early fishermen were already out in their boats, and a loon was calling somewhere down the shore. The pavilion smelled like old pine and lake water, exactly the way it smelled when I was ten.

Josh had both grills going by ten. People started arriving at a quarter after, and they did not stop.

They came in pickups and minivans and one long Buick that belonged to my mother’s cousin Dale, who was eighty and still drove like he was being chased. They came carrying slow cookers wrapped in towels, nine-by-thirteen pans with foil over the top, watermelons under their arms like footballs.

The tables filled up. Hot dish of every kind. Three different potato salads, which caused a small and friendly argument. Baked beans with bacon on top. The cousin from Pierz backed his truck right up to the pavilion and dropped the tailgate on a bushel of new potatoes.

By noon the tables were bowing under the dishes, and the kids were already in the lake, and somebody had set up Grandma’s croquet set on the lumpy field by the boat landing where we used to play softball.

I stood at the entrance with the guest book my mother had bought at the dollar store, and I asked everyone to sign it. I wanted a count. I wanted to know.

My mother pulled into the lot at eleven. I saw her car from the pavilion and I put down the guest book and walked down the hill to meet her.

The passenger door swung open. Edna’s cane came out first, like a periscope. Then Edna.

She was smaller than I remembered. She had on a lavender blouse buttoned to the neck and a white sun hat, and she was holding on to the top of the car door with one hand and a brown photo album with a cracked spine with the other.

“Amy Lynn,” she said, when she saw me. “You got fat.”

“I did,” I said. “Hi, Aunt Edna.”

“It suits you. Your grandmother was fat too. All the good ones are.” She held out the album. “Carry this. Don’t drop it. It’s older than your mother.”