12 Hours to St. John

It was 12 hours to St. John - a long and tedious drive with my grandparents, my mother, my brothers and two dogs and me all bickering every mile - Nana was in favor of spending the night at Brooks Bluff, a charming and rustic little collection of cottages off the beaten path in the Maine woods but my mother wanted to drive straight through and the feud escalated until my grandfather lost his temper and threatened to a) turn around and drive straight back or b) leave us all, dogs included, on the side of the highway.

“Oh, for Christ's sake!” he finally bellowed and slammed one meaty fist on the steering wheel, “If you don't all shut the hell up, you can damn well hitchhike for all I care! One more word is all it's going to take!”

I didn't know about anyone else but I wasn't completely sure this was an idle threat - the old man was known to be hot tempered, unpredictable and willing to cross a line to make a point – so I burrowed down with the dogs and hoped he'd forget about me. The outburst had the desired effect with my mother and grandmother withdrawing to their separate corners and the boys doing the same. The tension was heavy and oppressive but at least it was quiet.

In my family though, things were never forgiven and forgotten and having the last word might well have been an unwritten gospel. The remainder of the trip was uneventful but the sense of dread never faded. Even as we arrived on the island by dinner time the next day, I was waiting for it to spill over and drag us all under. Instead, we unpacked and made ourselve scarce, anxiously pretending that nothing was amiss. Just as we'd been taught. Just as we always did.

Also as usual, we had no company for the week that my grandfather stayed. Aunt Pearl and Aunt Vi and Miz Clara had readied the house as they always did but they were conspicuously absent. None of the local fishermen dropped off anything from their daily catches to welcome us home. No children visited. The old telephone was silent. It wasn't said outloud, of course, but we all knew the cause of this cold shoulder and knew it would pass. To the village, my mother was a middle aged good time girl, sass-mouthed and affable but with deep roots. She was well liked and popular. My island-born grandmother was respected, adored, and maybe just a little feared. She and my mother fit in. But my grandfather was seen as a contemptuous outsider, loud and boorish, with only his money to recommend him, what I once overheard Miz Hilda refer to as “Alice's unfortunate choice”.

Precisely a week later, Nana drove him to Yarmouth to catch a flight back to the States. The house she came back to was filled with food, friends, warmth and hospitality and it mostly stayed that way the remainder of the summer. Life out of the shadows became good again.