Daughter of Ashes

FIVE

‘Oh, call it by some better name…’

Thomas Moore, Ballads and Songs, 1841

In the end it was my granddaughter, Chloe, age twelve, who inadvertently started the friendly family argument that led her to win, almost by default, our unofficial ‘Name This Cottage’ contest. Shortly after we bought Legal Ease, Emily telephoned to set up a time when she could drive over with the grandchildren to check out our new place. I could tell from her tone of voice, however, that the trip was primarily to reassure herself that her parents hadn’t totally lost their minds.

Fortunately, we hadn’t. She was as bewitched by Legal Ease as we were.

‘Spending my inheritance, I see,’ Emily commented with a grin as we gazed out the living-room window together watching Canada geese circle overhead, honking.

‘That is our devious plan,’ replied her father.

Leading the flock, the head goose, wings spread wide, glided to a landing in the marshland on the opposite bank of the creek. ‘Splashdown,’ Emily whispered as the rest of the flock followed suit.

‘You are going to rename it, aren’t you?’ Emily asked as we watched the geese settle down and begin rooting through the marshland, feasting on eel grass and spartina. ‘Legal Ease is so totally groan-worthy.’

‘All suggestions welcome,’ I said.

‘Your aunt Ruth suggested Looney Dunes,’ Paul told her.

Emily moaned. ‘Figures.’

Chloe, who had been observing the geese with interest, suddenly piped up, ‘Where am I gonna sleep, Grandma?’

‘There are two bedrooms upstairs,’ I told her. ‘Why don’t you run upstairs and pick one?’

When Chloe reappeared a few minutes later – ‘I like the yellow bedroom, Grandma’ – she found us in the kitchen, putting groceries away, still trying out names. ‘You could name it Fawlty Towers,’ Emily was suggesting when her daughter entered the room.

I snapped her playfully with a dishtowel. ‘You’re as bad as your father. If we don’t come up with something soon he swears he’s going to name it Base-2.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘And they say mathematicians don’t have a sense of humor.’

Chloe poked me with a chubby finger. ‘I think you should call it Pooh Corner, Grandma.’

Timmy screamed with laughter and punched his older brother in the arm. ‘Poo! Poo! Grandma’s house is poo!’

Jake scowled in a brother-what-brother? sort of way. ‘You’re stupid.’

‘Poo!’ Timmy hooted, punctuating the word with a second well-aimed punch.

Jake consulted the referee. ‘Mommy, make him stop hitting me!’

‘Poopyhead!’ Timmy said.

‘No, you’re a poopyhead!’ Jake countered.

In time-honored tradition, Emily ignored her sons, turning to me instead. ‘Honestly, Mother, sometimes I’m at my wit’s end.’

Wit’s End. I considered the name thoughtfully, then discarded it, too. ‘A little potty humor never hurt anyone,’ I pointed out. ‘Look, boys,’ I said, leaning down to speak at their level. ‘Your grandfather is out in the shed. Go find him and ask him to take you to see the crab pots.’

After the children had scampered away with Chloe in the lead, I said to Emily, ‘Back in the day, you were fascinated with the word “tush.” You’d even make up songs about it.’ I paused for a moment, remembering. ‘“The wheels on the tush go poop, poop, poop…”’ I sang after I was sure the children were out of earshot.

Emily laughed. ‘Well, it made sense to me at the time,’ she said. ‘Why else would they call that roll hanging on the bathroom wall tushy paper?’

I laughed, too, then added, ‘After “tush” it was “booger.” I thought you’d never outgrow the booger phase.’

‘That must have been high-larious.’ She gave me a quick hug. ‘The bullshit I put you through, Mom. I’m so sorry.’

I don’t think I ever loved my daughter more than at that moment, standing in my new kitchen holding a can of baked beans in one hand, a package of string cheese in the other, tendrils of her fine blonde hair curling softly over her cheeks and forehead. Emily had been responsible for a number of my prematurely gray hairs. Following her graduation with honors from Bryn Mawr College, she’d shocked us by eloping with a college dropout named Daniel (please call me Dante) Shemansky. After a quickie wedding at a chapel in Las Vegas, they’d become dedicated Phish Heads, following the popular rock band all around the southwest before settling down in Colorado where Dante trained as a masseuse and Emily worked in a bookstore.

‘All’s well that ends well,’ I quoted after a moment, thinking about the posh spa they now owned and operated on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis. Spa Paradiso had recently been featured in SpaLife Magazine. Mr and Mrs Shemansky wouldn’t be depending on handouts from us to keep their growing family afloat.

‘Is Chloe reading Winnie the Pooh?’ I asked, wondering what prompted my granddaughter to make the Pooh Corner suggestion.

‘That was ages ago, Mom, but recently she’s been listening to a collection of tunes we downloaded to Timmy’s Kindle Fire. Remember that song, “The House at Pooh Corner?”’

‘Kenny Loggins,’ I said. ‘Popular in the early seventies.’ I hummed the first line of the ballad to demonstrate that my mind, although aging, was a veritable steel trap. ‘They knew how to write songs back then,’ I mused. ‘Girls, fast cars, heartbreak, momma said, hey, a twangy bit of guitar. Sadly, no more. I don’t know what to make of what I hear on the radio these days, Emily. Lady Gaga I can take, but Miley Cyrus? Eminem? And that dreadful rapper – what’s his name?’ The memory was so horrible that I waved it away.

Emily paused, her arm half in half out of the refrigerator. ‘Did you and Dad have a song?’

I looked straight into her astonishing blue eyes, so like my late mother’s. ‘Oh, yes. It’s “Your Song” by Elton John. He still sings it at every concert.’

Emily launched into the oh-so-familiar tune.

‘That one, yes,’ I confirmed, joining in on the word ‘funny.’ At the beginning of the second verse I cut her off at the word ‘no’, my hand raised like a conductor. ‘Drumroll, please!’

Emily waited, one eyebrow raised.

‘We shall name this cottage Our Song. I have spoken.’

‘Perfect!’ my daughter said, grinning.

‘What’s perfect?’ my husband asked, coming in through the kitchen door.

‘Where are the kids?’ Emily asked, sounding alarmed.

‘Not to worry, Em. I’ve set them up with the garden hose and some old rags. They’re washing the kayak.’ He wrapped me in his arms from behind and rested his chin on the top of my head.

‘Emily suggested we name the cottage Our Song after, well, ‘Our Song’. I hope you don’t mind…’ I sang.

I felt his chin move. ‘I like it. Very much.’ He spun me around by my shoulders, took my right hand in his left. Slightly stooped, with his cheek pressed to mine, my husband waltzed me from stove to refrigerator to kitchen sink singing in his gravelly baritone about how wonderful life was with me in his world.

At the kitchen table, he twirled me under his arm and executed a perfect dip, pressing me back against the tablecloth and planting a kiss on my exposed neck.

‘Mom!’ Emily cried, sounding exasperated and breaking the spell.

I glanced at my daughter over Paul’s shoulder. ‘What?’

‘You’re sitting on the grapes.’