Bob and Ann left for home shortly after that. Their original plan had been to stay until Sunday, but Ann obviously felt like she wasn’t welcome after having been rebuffed so thoroughly by her mother. Their leave-taking was cordial enough on the surface, but there was no doubt that she felt resentful that her idea hadn’t been taken up enthusiastically, let alone dumped. Within half an hour of Eunice’s final “no” Bob and Ann’s taillights could be seen on Blue Lake Lane. Mark, Lori, and Shelby were right behind them, starting the daylong and nightlong drive back to the Gulf Coast.

“I would say Ann is not very happy about that,” Eric whispered as the remnants of the family filed back inside after waving goodbye.

“No she’s not,” Eunice replied in a low voice. “She’s gotten more self-centered as she’s gotten older and I’m not sure I approve of it. But let’s talk about it later.”

“Fine with me. I think we’ve got a few other things to talk about too.”

“We certainly do, but they can wait until we’re alone.”

By then it was getting close to noon. Eric and Eunice turned to making a soup and sandwich lunch for the remainder of their guests, Justin and Lauren and their young kids, along with Brian and Elaine and their teenagers. While most everyone else was in the living room, Shanna stayed in the kitchen for a moment. “Uncle Eric,” she said. “I’m sure hoping we can do this canoe trip. It sounds like a lot of fun.”

“I won’t know much more about it for a few days,” he told her. “I’m going to have to sit down with Gary and get serious about planning. Shanna, just let me say to not get your hopes up too much. I have planned a good many more trips than I’ve been on over the years, and sometimes they just evaporate like the dew on a summer morning. This one has a little bit more against it than most, but we’ll have to see. In the meantime, keep an eye on your mailbox. I’m going to order a couple of books about canoeing and wilderness tripping for you, so you’ll have a better idea of what you’re letting yourself in for.”

“You’re at least going to try to set it up, then?”

“Yes, Shanna, I’m going to try. I can’t say if it’s going to come off, but you and your parents will be part of the final decision.”

“I’m hoping you’ll be able to make it work, Uncle Eric.”

“That’s about the best we can ask for.”

The Rosses – Brian, Elaine, Dustin, and Shanna – left soon after lunch to catch a flight back to Reno. It was still several hours before the last of the guests left, Justin and Lauren and their two children. It would be a long drive back to Iowa and they wanted to have the kids asleep for as much of it as they could. But finally, they left too, and the house was quiet again.

“You know,” Eunice said as they came back inside from waving them good-bye, “I’ve refrained from it the last couple days, but right now I think I could stand a drink.”

“Me too, on both counts,” Eric replied. “I’ll mix us a couple stiff ones, and we can go sit in the living room.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said, but stayed with him in the kitchen while he got out a rather depleted two-liter bottle of Coke, poured some into glasses and mixed rum into them. “You know, while it was good to see everybody again in a way, I would really rather it hadn’t been that way. Ann was very determined that she was going to have everything her way, no matter what had been planned. And then for her to be promoting that ridiculous notion of hers around that I should move down there with her was more than enough. I did not need that on top of everything else.”

“You sure set her down pretty good, though,” he smiled as he handed her the drink.

“She needed it. Like I told you earlier, she’s gotten to be very self-centered, and I don’t like it, not that there’s anything I can do about it. To tell the truth, if I were to be in as bad a shape as Jeff was, I don’t think I’d like living with her very much. I really doubt that she would provide the care that you and I provided to Jeff.”

“I don’t think so either,” he nodded. “I thought it was a stupid idea from the beginning, and that’s leaving the effect on me out of it.”

“That’s another thing! The nerve of her to think that I’d just turn my back on you after all these years just so she wouldn’t feel quite so guilty. Eric, I could never have done that. We’re too good friends. She doesn’t care, though. She’d be happy if you had to live under a bridge, so long as she got her way. Well, she didn’t this time, and maybe if I’m at least a little bit lucky I won’t have to ever live with her.”

“I was more than a little surprised that you and Jeff had set things up about the house the way you did.”

“Eric, I apologize for that. You should have been told long ago, but I guess it just slipped Jeff’s and my minds. What would you have done if she’d had her way and Jeff and I hadn’t set that up? I don’t want to even think about it.”

“Well, actually, I did have sort of an open-ended offer from Donna to come live with her,” he smiled. “She was hearing what was going around, and thought it might even come to pass. In a way it sounded appealing, but I really didn’t want to do it unless I absolutely had to.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s hard to explain,” he said. “But what it comes down to is that if I did have to move in with her, it would be like she’d won after all, after all these years. Somehow, I didn’t think I’d like that.”

“You’re probably right,” she grinned. “But it would be amusing, wouldn’t it?

“Amusing for a while, but I think it would get very old, very quickly. Eunice, what it comes down to is that I would really rather stay here with you. I know in a way this isn’t my home, but for a good many years it has been in a practical sense. I’m no more ready to move out than you are. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the first of the week, I’ll get around to moving my stuff back out to the guest cottage.”

“Eric, no,” she said immediately. “I don’t want you moving back out there. In the last two years I’ve gotten very comfortable with the way things are. I like having you close at hand. However, I wish you would move down from Mark’s old room to Elaine’s old room.”

“I suppose I could, but I don’t see much need to.”

“Perhaps you don’t but I do,” she replied. “Eric, you may have once been a great mountain climber, but that was years ago. I worry every time you go up and down those steps, especially in the dark. Besides, if you’re downstairs, we can close off the heat to the upstairs and save a little on the propane bill.”

“I can’t really agree on the first part of it, but you may have a point on the second,” he conceded. “I don’t really have a problem with stairs, but I suppose if it makes you feel better I could do it. But what is Ann going to think?”

“I don’t care what Ann thinks, especially after today,” she sighed. “I don’t want to say she made herself unwelcome, but she lost a lot of credibility with me on that one. I’m sorry if it affronts her sense of propriety, but that’s the way it is.”

“Your choice, and you’re the one who has to deal with the consequences with her.”

“I’ll deal with it when the time comes. Eric, we don’t need to be in any rush about it, but now that Jeff is gone things are going to be a little different around here. We don’t have to make any plans about how they’re going to be different but we should be thinking about them.”

“What kinds of things do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “One of the things that irritated me about Jeff, not that there was very much, was that as he got older he was less and less inspired to travel. He became pretty much a homebody, and that was before his stroke. But for all those many years you came back from some trip or other bearing tales of faraway places. I wouldn’t mind getting out and seeing some of them.”

“We couldn’t do anything much like I used to do,” he pointed out.

“Of course not,” she smiled. “But how many stories have you told about Yosemite Valley? I’ve seen pictures of the place, but I’d like to be there for once, just to see what it’s really like. You could point out some of the walls you’ve climbed just so I could see how crazy you once were. I doubt if either of us would be up for sailing a boat up the Inside Passage anymore, but there are cruises we could take.”

“Yeah, that could be done,” he nodded. “Maybe fly out west someplace, maybe like Reno. That would give you the chance to visit Elaine and Brian and the kids. We could rent a car and go from there, just taking it easy.”

“That sounds like a perfectly good idea. Jeff and I were only at their house once, and that was a long time ago. We were hardly at Mark and Lori’s much more, not that it’s a whole lot closer, but there’s no reason we couldn’t go there. Or visit Disney World, another place I’ve always wanted to see but never had the chance.”

“If we got that close, maybe we ought to drop in on Donna, too,” he suggested.

“I can’t see any reason why not. And another thing. Sometimes these Michigan winters get to be awful cold. What would you think about finding a winter home, maybe around Panama City Beach so we could get closer with Mark and Lori?”

“Might not be a bad idea, especially in the long run,” he pointed out. “Let’s face it, there could come a time when I’m not around, but you’re still capable of taking care of yourself with a little help. That would work out well, even though it would piss Ann off to no end.”

“It would,” she grinned. “In fact, that was part of my thinking, but at least I could tell her that Panama City Beach is warmer than Evansville.”

“I’m not opposed to any of it,” he replied. “I’ll be the first to admit that my feet have been itching a little the last few years, what with having to be stuck here with Jeff all that time. But the two of us going out and doing those kinds of things together, well, that offers possibilities, even though it might seem strange to some people.”

“Let it be,” she smiled again. “It’s none of their business. Look, Eric. I’m going to be missing Jeff an awful lot, especially the next few months, but maybe doing a few things like that will help me put him behind me. You and I may be old, but we’re not dead yet. We still have some life ahead of us and we might as well make as much of it as we can.”

“Eunice, are you suggesting what you seem to be suggesting?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. As I said, it’s much too soon after Jeff’s death, even though the last two years you and I have been closer than he and I were in that time. All I can say is that we’ll have to see what develops.”

“I can go along with that,” he smiled. “I guess I’m of an age where whatever we work out will be fine with me. Now what do you say if we watched The Misfits like we planned to do a few days ago?”

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