Fireworks From My Half of the Dock

My sister called me at the salon on the thirtieth of December, while I had Mrs. Halvorsen tipped back in the shampoo bowl with a head full of toner. I tucked the phone against my shoulder and kept rinsing, because that is what you do.

“Hey, Missy,” Rachel said, in the bright voice she uses when she has already decided something. “Just a quick thing about tomorrow. We’re going to keep it adults only this year. You understand. It’s a grown-up party.”

I stopped the water. Mrs. Halvorsen opened one eye. Across the salon, the dryer hood was humming over somebody’s roller set, and the radio was playing the same Christmas song it had played every hour since Thanksgiving.

“Adults only,” I said. “Rachel, the kids have been counting down since the twenty-sixth. You told me to bring them. You told me to bring the food.”

“And I still need the food,” she said, as if that settled it. “Can you have it up there by four? Hal’s picking up the ice, but I need the meatballs in the crockpot early or they won’t be hot by seven.”

I had already bought the food. I had spent $180 at the grocery in Grayling two days before, on her list, in her handwriting, which she had texted me as a photo so there would be no mistakes.

Two packs of Hawaiian rolls and a spiral ham for sliders. Three bags of frozen cocktail meatballs and the grape jelly and chili sauce to go with them.

A veggie tray, two blocks of cheddar, crackers, and the sour cream and soup mix for Daddy’s onion dip.

I had it all in the extra refrigerator in my garage, labeled with masking tape so Steve would not eat the cheese.

Hailey had helped me write the labels. She had written “for Aunt Rachel’s party” on every single one in purple marker.

“Rachel,” I said. “Where are the kids supposed to go?”

“They can stay home with Steve,” she said. “Or you can get a sitter. Lots of people get sitters on New Year’s, Missy. It’s not a crime to have one night for grown-ups.”

“Steve’s on call,” I said. “He’s on the line crew. He’s on call through the second, same as every holiday since we got married. You know that.”

“Well,” she said. “I’m sorry. I really am. But I’ve already told everybody. I’ll see you at four with the food, okay? Love you.” And she hung up before I could say anything back.

I finished Mrs. Halvorsen’s rinse and did not cry, because there were three more ladies in the book before five. But I thought the whole afternoon about Daddy’s lake house, and the dock, and the last New Year’s Eve he was alive to see.

Our father was Don Kuehl. He drove a plow for the Otsego County Road Commission for thirty-one years, which meant every winter he was gone before light and home after dark, smelling like diesel and cold air.

He bought the house on Pickerel Lake, a little lake east of Gaylord, the year I was born. It was not much then and it is not much now.

Three bedrooms, one bathroom, a knotty pine living room, and a walkout downstairs where Daddy built bunk beds out of two-by-sixes.

The best thing about it was the dock. Daddy put it in himself every spring and pulled it out every fall, except the last fifteen feet, which he built on posts so it could stay in all year. In winter the ice locked around those posts and the dock just stood there, waiting.