It was a short trip. Four stoplights, to be exact, and then another turn onto a two-lane road, past a big sign with blue faded letters that said WELCOME TO NORTH LAKE: YOUR FAVORITE VACATION. Just past it, the motels began.
I lost count after six different establishments, each very similar in appearance. They were all one-story concrete buildings with grass driveways and parking lots, cars in diagonal spots lining the room doors. Most had an office, identified by a hand-lettered sign or an occasional one in neon proclaiming it as such, and many featured flower and rock gardens with yard art out in front. They had names like NORTH LAKE MOTOR INN and LIPSCOMB COURT and THE JACARANDA. Mixed in here and there were trailer parks, but not the kind with big double-wides. Instead, these were the small type you attached to a car and towed, some silver and stainless, others white or painted bright colors. There was so much to see, and all of it new, that even though we were going slowly, I couldn’t process much but a glimpse at a time before the scenery turned to something else.
In fact, I was looking ahead at two mini-golf courses that faced each other from opposite sides of the street—could an economy so small sustain this, I wondered?—when my dad slowed, turning into a drive on our right. It was another hotel, this one a single story of yellow painted concrete and bright blue doors, with a big scripted sign that said only CALVANDER’S. NO VACANCIES.
We pulled in, parking outside the office. As we climbed out of the car, I got my first glimpse of the water, blue and wide. Jutting out into it were a series of long wooden docks. On the one closest to us there were two porch swings hanging by chains, and in the quiet that followed the engine cutting off, I could distantly hear them clanking.
That was the first time I felt it, that twinge of recognition as something from my long-lost past reached out from my subconscious. Splinters, I thought as I looked at the docks again. But as quickly as the memory came, it was gone.
“Matthew? Is that you?”
A woman in shorts and a faded tie-dye T-shirt had come out of the office, the door in the process of shutting slowly behind her. She had white hair cut short, spiking up a bit at the top, and she was small in stature, but formidable in the way she carried herself, like she owned the place. Which, as it turned out, she did.
“Mimi,” my dad said, breaking into a wide smile. “How are you?”
“Better than a woman my age has any right to be,” she told him. As they embraced, I saw she really was very small, with tiny feet, like my mom’s. “You haven’t changed one bit. How is that?”
“Look who’s talking,” my dad said, stepping back to look at her and taking her hands. “You Calvanders, I swear. You don’t age.”
“Tell that to my hips and my knees.” Then she gave me a wink. “And this can’t be Saylor. Can it?”
I suddenly felt shy, and concealed myself a bit more behind the car.
“Emma,” my dad said, correcting my name kindly but clearly, “just turned seventeen. She’ll be a senior this year.”
“Unbelievable,” Mimi said. She looked at me for a minute. “Well, girl, come give your grandma a hug. Lord knows I’ve missed a few.”
I went, still feeling self-conscious as I approached her. As soon as I was close enough, she pulled me into her arms, her grasp surprisingly strong. I returned the hug, a bit less enthusiastically, while towering over her despite the fact that I am hardly a tall person.
After a moment, she released me, then stepped back to study my face, giving me a chance to look at her as well. Up close, I could see the effect of years of the dark tan she’d clearly cultivated in the leathery skin of her neck and face, as well as a penchant for gold braid jewelry (necklace, bracelet, knot earrings) that almost glowed against it. Most noteworthy, though, were her eyes, which were bright blue. Like mine, and my mom’s.
“I’m so glad you came, Saylor,” she told me, now squeezing both my arms. “It’s about time.”
“Emma and I,” my dad said, trying again, “are both really grateful you agreed to let her come visit. We know it’s literally last-minute.”
“Nonsense,” Mimi said. She winked at me again. “You’re family. And you’re not just coming. You’re coming back.”
A car drove by then, the first one other than our own we’d seen in ages. Actually, it was a truck, bright green, and when the driver beeped the horn as they passed, Mimi waved, not taking her eyes off me.
“Dad says I was here before, but I don’t really remember,” I told her, because it seemed like I should start at an honest place, considering. “When I was five?”
“Four,” she replied.
“I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.”
“I’m good as my word, so I’d welcome that.” Then she turned back to the office door, pulling it open. “But just in case, come inside a second. I want to show you something.”
As I followed her, stepping over the threshold, the temperature dropped about twenty degrees, thanks to the window A/C unit blasting cold air from across the room. I felt like my teeth would start chattering within seconds and saw my dad wrap his arms around himself, but Mimi was unfazed as she walked to the wooden counter, which was covered with a sheet of glass.
“We’re almost out of room here, after so many summers,” she said, leaning over it. “I’m thinking I may have to expand onto a bulletin board or something soon. Not that anybody prints pictures anymore, though, with all this digital this and USB that. Anyway, let me see . . . I used to know right where it was. . . .”
I stepped up beside her. Under the glass, I saw, were what had to be hundreds of pictures, from old black and whites to dingy Polaroids to, finally, color snapshots. Across them all, as the faces and clothing changed, the scenery and backgrounds remained the same. There was the water, of course, and those long docks, the swings beneath them. The rock garden under the Calvander’s sign. And those yellow cinder blocks, broken up by blue doors. So many faces over so many years, both big group shots clearly taken for posterity and candids of people alone or in pairs. I leaned in closer, looking for my mom, the one face I might be able to pick out. But when Mimi found the snapshot she was looking for, tapping it with a long fingernail, all the people in it were strangers. Small ones.
“Now,” she said, gesturing for me to come closer, “this was the Fourth of July, I believe. Let’s see . . . there’s Trinity, on the far left, she would have been, what, nine? And next to her is Bailey, she’d be four then also, and Roo and Jacky, who despite the age difference might as well have been twins . . .”
I wanted to be polite, but was so cold I was losing feeling in my extremities.
“. . . and then there’s you.” She looked at me, then back at the picture. “Oh, I remember that cute bathing suit! You always did love giraffes. See?”
Me? I bent over the counter. Five little kids—three girls of varying ages and sizes, and two little towheaded boys—sat lined up on a wooden bench, the lake behind them. All held sparklers, although only a couple seemed to still be lit when the shutter clicked. The girl on the far left had on a bikini, her rounded, soft belly protruding; the younger one beside her, long blond hair and a one-piece with a tie-dye print. Then, the two boys, both in bathing suits, shirtless and white-blond, one of them squinting, as if the camera were the brightest of lights. And finally, me, in a brown suit with a green giraffe and the pigtails and home-cut bangs I recognized from other shots of the same period. I was the only one who was smiling.