Once there we fly into a well-rehearsed unfolding as the car is unloaded, things are unpacked, chairs set out on the porch, the dog taken for her first cruise of the ‘hood to check her pee-mail. Within a half hour we’re sitting on the porch with cold drinks on the coffee table between us, looking out at the water, happy to be together, discussing what we hope from the weekend. But what is there to discuss when you’re alone?
Phoning home
On Friday night I phoned my dad. I’ve been calling home a more often since my mom died last month. Conversations with my dad have always been lively because he’s so good natured and filled with life but lately there is the added richness that sadness adds to the soul. Conversations get taken to deeper levels. He worries that I’ve lost my mother. I worry that he’s lost his sweetheart, friend and wife. I’ve been at the cottage without the Elaine before but this is the first time since my mother passed away which might explain why I felt like some kind of amputee. This weekend I understand a little better what my dad is going through.
Without Elaine there on the weekend, the cottage isn’t the cottage. It’s a half-empty little house with a half empty bed, an extra toothbrush and one lawn chair too many. I’m often alone at the house in Moncton but there has always been so much coming and going there that alone is a relief. There always seems to be something needing doing and I do it on my time. Get up at the time I want without worrying who gets woken up at 4 a.m. We have shifts, appointments, engagements, obligations all over town, all around the clock. Our schedules rarely synchronized.
But the cottage is us. It’s us being us together. We plan together, drive together, are entertained together. We go to bed together, we get up together. I feel slightly lonely when we do anything that’s not together, even if we’re in the same room. That’s what the cottage is to us. So this past weekend not having Elaine there was like not being at the cottage, at all, but like drifting. I slept too much, movied too much, drank too much. I brought way too much stuff that I didn’t touch.
If I ever need to be alone, the cottage would be the best place, because without Elaine there, it’s the most alone place in the world I know.














