Fourth of July that summer fell on a Tuesday, so the weekend was an extra long one. Both Eunice and Jeff were glad to have the time off, both to relax and to get a few things done around the place. Though it was warm, it was not excessively hot, so doing things like mowing the lawn and working on some of the flowerbeds were pleasant chores.

Jeff had just finished the lawn and was putting the mower away when a strange car pulled into the driveway. It proved to be Donna and Frank, so of course the yard work came to a stop. “We were over at her folks’ house,” Frank announced. “But her mother was getting kind of crabby, so Donna suggested we drive over and see you two.”

“Well, good to see you again,” Eunice said, although she wasn’t sure how much she meant it. She had never warmed to Frank, especially after he’d gotten so drunk at the wedding reception, and there was something about the way he was looking and acting that told her she wasn’t going to have reason to revise her opinion.

But still, Donna was a friend, and Eunice felt she had to be hospitable. “Why don’t we go sit by the lake,” she suggested. “I could get you a beer or something.”

“I could really stand a beer or two,” Frank said gruffly. Something told Eunice that he’d had more than one or two already.

“I’ll pass,” Donna said. “I’m really not in the mood.”

Jeff went into the house, grabbed several long-necks, and brought them out to the semicircle of Adirondack chairs in front of the house overlooking the lake. “So how have you been?” he asked as he handed them around.

“Getting used to it,” Frank said. “Been a few problems, but nothing I can’t handle.”

There was something about the way he said it that made Eunice very uncomfortable, especially since Donna said nothing, but looked unhappy. “Sometimes it takes a while,” she replied neutrally. “You have to learn to give and take.”

“It’d be a lot better if her mother wasn’t calling up every ten minutes to whine about something,” Frank snorted. “She can’t seem to learn to leave us alone. So are you two still likin’ living on a lake?”

“We are,” Jeff said. “It’s taking a little getting used to. It’s different than living in town, more relaxed, but there still are things we have to do.”

“It’d be nice to be someplace where it was more active, so you could go water skiing or something like that,” Frank replied.

“We’ve given it some thought,” Jeff told him. “Like I told you before, his lake really isn’t big enough for water skiing, but there’s a channel to another lake a half mile or so away where it could be done. But we can’t do everything at once.”

“Damn shame,” Frank snorted. “You got to have a little fun in your life.” He turned to Donna. “Honey, you said something about wanting to go swimming. Why don’t you go get on that sexy swimsuit so we can watch you.”

“I’m not really in the mood now,” she replied quietly.

“Well, get in the mood. I want these people to see how pretty you are.” There was an edge to his voice that Eunice was sure she didn’t like.

“I guess,” Donna sighed. She looked even more uncomfortable than before. “You guys don’t mind if I use your bathroom?”

“No, go ahead,” Jeff said. Eunice could tell that he was not very comfortable with the way Frank was acting, either. Donna got up, and headed toward the house; it appeared to Eunice that she was happy to be getting away from Frank for a few minutes.

“Fine looking woman, when she listens to me,” Frank said as he watched her go to the house. “She’s got this swimsuit that’ll just about knock your eyes out. Eunice, I’ll bet you wouldn’t dare wear something that sexy.”

By that time Eunice had about all of Frank she could take, and that last comment made her just get up and head inside. Since Donna was a friend she didn’t just want to tell them to leave, but she didn’t want him staying around, either. She went up to the bathroom door and asked, “Donna, is he like that all the time?”

“Only when he’s been drinking,” came a sad voice through the door. “But he’s been drinking a lot.”

“I’m sorry, Donna. I really am.”

“I know,” Eunice heard back through the door. “I guess I’ll just have to live with it.”

Eunice thought for a moment. There was nothing she could do about the way Frank was treating Donna, although she could think of a few things that perhaps could have been done, some of them involving a shotgun. But there was one thing she could do – it might cost her a friendship, but at least might put Donna’s blowhard husband in his place. Right at the moment, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be friends with Donna if she was going to have to put up with that jerk.

It might not have been the wisest thing to do, but she was angry now. She went up to Jeff’s and her room – it was long before they’d built the addition that added two bedrooms downstairs – and started stripping off her playsuit. In only a minute or two, she’d pulled on one of the bikinis she wore around the place from time to time, and the one she put on was even scantier than the one she’d worn for Jeff at Pokagon that time a couple summers before.

She was only seconds behind Donna going out the door. As she suspected, Donna was wearing the same two-piece swimsuit she’d worn when the three of them had gone to the beach and amusement park that time. It could hardly be called a bikini, and barely could be called a two-piece.

“There,” she heard Frank say. “Didn’t I tell you that was a really sexy swimsuit? I’ll bet your wife wouldn’t wear something like that.”

“No,” Jeff grinned, seeing what was coming and thinking pretty close to what his wife had been. “She wouldn’t be caught dead in something that dowdy and ugly. That looks like it came straight from Meriwether College.”

Frank looked up at Eunice wearing her tiny bikini, and everyone could see his face turn red with anger. “Come on, honey,” he yelled at Donna. “You ain’t going swimming. We’re getting out of here.”

Within a couple minutes they were gone. “I hate to say it,” Eunice said. “But I think it’s going to be a long time before we hear from Donna again.”

“You’re probably right,” Jeff agreed. “Damn it. Poor Donna.”

It proved that Eunice had been dead right, too. They neither saw nor heard from Donna for nearly a year afterwards. It had been a shame to lose touch with Donna, not that they hadn’t more or less lost touch with her for the previous year anyway. It hadn’t taken long Eunice for and Jeff to agree right after that scene that if they had to take Frank along with Donna they’d just as soon avoid both of them.

At the time it had been pretty clear to both Eunice and Jeff that Donna had been desperately looking to find someone to replace Eric, and that she’d grabbed the wrong brass ring. But it hadn’t seemed like there was anything they could do about it. But then, they had other things on their mind, too.

For nearly three months they’d had a great deal of fun and some especially rewarding times while trying to get her pregnant. By the middle of the summer they’d begun to suspect she’d caught, and a visit to the doctor confirmed it – sometime in March the young Harrington family was going to increase in size.

Needless to say, the news was greeted with anticipation by their parents and close relatives. They’d intended on having children right from the start, but had wanted to do it on their own schedule. Now, they were taking the big step in their lives, and were happy to be doing it. To Jeff, it seemed like Eunice was even happier than ever, and they looked forward to being parents themselves.

While they’d been out at the Blue Lake house occasionally the previous summer, this was the first year they were living there, and they found that lakefront living suited them. The house didn’t have much of a beach, only a thin strip of sand between the lawn and the shore, but the sand underneath the water was firm and good for swimming and splashing around.

The place had come with a short dock that had to be put in the water in the spring and taken out in the fall. Jeff soon found an aluminum fishing boat with an outboard motor for sale on a guy’s front lawn; he bought it, had it hauled out to the lake, and tied it up there. Jeff’s father came out to the house every week or so to go fishing, and as often as not Jeff joined him. He’d never really thought about fishing very much but soon found it relaxing to go out into one of the quieter corners of the lake, drop a worm-baited hook over the side and see what happened.

Mostly they caught tiny bluegills, and after a while began to wonder why they didn’t see bigger ones. One day Jeff thought to ask their neighbor Wilt Aldrich about it, and was told the lake was filled with the stunted fish; they never got very big. “There’s been talk of planting some pike in here to try to eat up some of those tiny things,” Wilt explained. “I guess the state hasn’t made up their minds or gotten around to it yet.”

Still, it was fun for Jeff to go out fishing with his father once in a while. The fishing may not have been very good but the chance to get together brought them into a more adult relationship than the father-son one they’d had in the past; they could talk about things they would have never dreamed of at the office, or even at his father’s home.

Having the lake right out front meant that Jeff and Eunice dressed even more casually around home than they had when they’d lived in town. Jeff often wore shorts or a swimsuit, usually with a T-shirt but not always. Eunice almost always wore one of her playsuits or a swimsuit, and not one of her more conservative ones, either. Often it was the one she’d worn for Jeff at Pokagon State Park a couple years before, or one of a couple others she’d made more or less like it. If Wilt happened to not be around – and he often wasn’t – she occasionally broke out a really diminutive bikini that was little more than string and a few little bits of cloth. Jeff really appreciated her wearing it and that made her like wearing it for him.

And if that weren’t enough, sometimes they’d take advantage of the dark of night and just do without swimsuits at all for a quick swim. It was, after all, one of the advantages of living right on the lake.

There were some disadvantages to having a lakefront house. As soon as the lake got warm enough they often had visitors from among the people they knew, both from Wychbold and from Amherst, to take advantage of the place to go swimming. Often those visitors would bring along a crowd of kids of all ages, which meant that occasionally things got a little crazy.

“You’d better get used to it,” Wilt advised. “It’s one of those things that happen when you live on a lake. You’re going to find that you have friends you never knew you had.”

Although it was occasionally a pain in the neck, in one sense they didn’t mind their sometimes surprise visitors, because it allowed them to get a little more closely acquainted with people they knew, but not well, from when they’d been in high school. In the long run, that part of it worked out fine; neither of them had had many friends in their younger years, and eventually some solid friendships resulted, although nothing like they’d enjoyed with Donna and Eric, who were now both far away.

Once in a while Jeff and Eunice’s thoughts turned to Eric. If they hadn’t heard much from him while he was in the Army at Bad Würslingen, they were hearing even less from him now – just an occasional postcard, usually bearing a mountain scene or buildings of obviously European gingerbread architecture. The cards didn’t say very much, other than that he and Chip were going up a lot of mountains.

One day in early July they received an air-mail letter of more importance from him. Things were going fine, the letter said, but he and Chip were going through their cash more quickly than they’d planned. In the letter Eric asked that the seven hundred dollars he was still owed on the Triumph be transferred to his American Express account; he hoped that would keep the two going for a while yet.

“I guess it’s not surprising.” Jeff commented when he told Eunice of the request. “He probably wants to wring all the fun he can out of his summer. Can you take care of doing the transfer?”

“Sure, it’s not a problem. We’ve had that seven hundred stuck back for him ever since we’ve been married. I figured he was going to need it sooner or later. I still say it sure is going to be hard for him when he has to break down and get a job, though.”

“I’ll bet he’s not looking forward to it the least little bit,” Jeff laughed. “He’ll have to break down and join the real world sooner or later, but he might as well have his fun while he can.”

Summer raced by, as summers have a way of doing, especially when living on a lake. All too soon the weather cooled off, and with it the lake, which was too cold for swimming. While they could still expect a few warm days, they knew there wouldn’t be very many. One sad day in mid-September Eunice had to break down and admit to reality; the time had come to pack away her swimsuits and playsuits for the winter. Although she wasn’t really showing her pregnancy yet, she was well aware of it, and knew that when summer eventually rolled around again things were going to be considerably different for both of them.

All too soon the leaves were down; one October day the two raked them into a huge pile and burned them down by the lakeshore. Winter was on its way, and things were getting busy at the oil company; it was getting to be heating season and people were burning more fuel oil, which meant that it was getting to be Jeff’s busy season.

They couldn’t help but wonder about Eric; they’d heard a little from him over the course of the summer but not much, just the occasional postcard. And then, one November day, Jeff found Eric hitchhiking down the road toward the Blue Lake house.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Eunice glanced at the clock; it was after noon! A couple of hours had slipped away while she’d been mentally going over those old days, and there were things to do. Among them was that she’d promised to make lunch, and Eric was probably wondering about it. Soup and sandwiches ought to do it, she thought. It would be simple and quick, although she realized that she was now only going to be cooking for the two of them. Neither of them were heavy eaters anymore; even Jeff had taken to eating pretty lightly, which accounted for his losing a lot of weight in the past couple of years.

Fortunately, it wouldn’t take long to make them. She hunted around on the shelves until she found a can of chicken noodle soup, which appealed to her. She got it warming on the stove, then hunted in the refrigerator until she found the remnants of some tuna salad that Eric had made a couple days before. It probably needed to be eaten up, and there was just about enough for the two of them.

She put together the sandwiches, then called the cell phone to tell Eric that lunch was on. “I was starting to wonder,” he said. “I’ll be right in.”

Sure enough, he came in the door in a couple minutes, carrying an armload of bedding. “So how’s it going out there?” she asked.

“That’s not easy to say,” he said. “I pretty well have all the loose stuff packed away and the worst of things cleaned up. It was getting a little dusty in there. I still need to wash the bedding, but when I get that done it won’t be any problem for someone to stay there. I could do more, but on a deal like that sometimes it’s hard to say where to call a halt.”

“I’d say to not overdo it. I expect Bob and Ann here in the next few hours, and there’ll be other things to do.”

“That’s what I was thinking. It’s probably going to take a couple loads to do the bedding, so I’ll get started before we eat.”

“You’d better get busy, since lunch will be ready as soon as I dish it up.”

Of course, Eric helped her with it, along with getting juice from the refrigerator. “So what have you been doing all morning?” he asked as she sat at the table.

“I have to admit, not a great deal,” she told him. “Donna called, and I had a nice long talk with her. It sounds like she’s going to be coming into South Bend on the same plane as Bradley.”

“Maybe someone ought to go down and pick them both up,” he suggested. “That’ll save a little on rental cars, and we’re going to have plenty of cars around here anyway. I doubt if the Hackers next door are going to be here for the funeral, and even if they were here their place is all buttoned up for the winter so they wouldn’t be staying there anyway. We can probably park several cars there.”

“That will be a help. They’ve parked their friends around our place enough the last couple of summers that they shouldn’t complain if we do it for a couple of days in the winter. But as to the idea of picking Donna and Bradley up in South Bend, it might work. I’ll have to make some calls right after we get done eating, though.”

“Is there anything else we need to get done before Bob and Ann get here?”

“Good question, Eric. I can’t think of anything major, other than to make up our minds if we’re going to eat here tonight or go out with them.”

“Frankly, I’d just as soon eat here. It wouldn’t be any big trick for me to throw something together. There are pork chops in the freezer, and that would be plenty for the four of us. From what I understand from you, we’re not looking at having any more than that tonight, anyway.”

“Unless someone surprises us, that’s all I expect. I don’t even want to think about how many we’re going to have here tomorrow night, and at that I’m still not sure about Elaine’s kids. Twenty wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Twenty sounds like a darn good reason just to load up and go someplace for dinner,” he said. “I mean, I could do it, but there are other things I could be doing too.”

“I’m sure one or more of the girls would help.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Eric shook his head. “It’s hard enough to make a big meal like that by yourself, you know that. But how much harder is it going to be for me to make one when every time I reach for something there’s a feminine butt in the way? And especially making suggestions about how to do something I knew perfectly well how to do before they were born?”

“You have a point,” she smiled. He was right and she knew it; she’d gone through the same hassle often enough. “That argues for eating out tomorrow night.”

“Maybe we could just order in some pizzas,” he suggested.

“We probably don’t want to let that go until Friday. Everyone will be stuffed from the buffet the United Methodist Women are putting on, so we could do it tomorrow. Besides, I have no idea how many people will still be around by then and we could easily have extras from people not in the family. Pizza is flexible, at least; we don’t have to know how many to order until the last minute.”

“Good thinking,” he agreed. “I suppose we don’t know about Saturday, either.”

“We’ll certainly have fewer people but I don’t want to guess how many. Eric, look. I don’t want you hiding away in the kitchen all the time. Let’s try to keep the eating simple. There’s going to be at least half a dozen women here and probably more, so you don’t have to do all the work. Whether you’re a blood relative or not you are part of the family and you’ve been one as long as any of the kids can remember. This is going to be a time for remembering for them, not just for you and me, and you are a big part of some of those memories. You were closer to Jeff than anyone else was but me, and that includes Ann, Mark, and Elaine. I need to have you socializing with all the guests, if for no more reason than to take a little of the stress off of me.”

“You know,” he replied thoughtfully, “you’re probably right on that. I certainly knew Jeff longer than anyone else who’s going to be here, and that includes you.”

“Very true,” she said. “And you shared a great deal with us in that time. I know you were gone as much as you were here, especially when the kids were growing up, but ‘Uncle Eric’ was a big part of their growing up. And though you continued to be in and out until just a few years ago, at least you came back. All three of the kids, well, once they were out of high school they were mostly gone. Oh, they’d come back for a short visit once in a while, but they weren’t a major part of our lives after that. You’ve always come back and been around for a while. I’ve really regretted that I haven’t been able to play grandma very much, but at least you’ve stayed a friend. My word, how many memories have you, Jeff, and I shared? How many times did Jeff and I sit in the living room or around this table listening to the stories of your adventures? We never got a tenth of that from the kids after they moved out. I still remember the time when you came back from Europe that first time, while I was pregnant with Ann. We sat around this very table listening to you. The things you did were very exotic to us, Eric. They were the kinds of things that Jeff and I would never have dreamed of.”

“Well,” he grinned. “I guess I’d had a few adventures at that.”

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