My favorite spot in the whole community is the dock and the boathouse. It’s so all-American with its decorative Victorian scalloped roofline, its prime position in the heart of the place. I can just imagine the important visitors arriving by boat back in the day. I like the way I feel when I stand at the end of the dock. The backdrop complements me like a movie set: oh, look, there’s handsome, wealthy city-dweller Paul Strom enjoying a carefree day of leisure at his lakefront community. Very presidential.
Not sure any current-day presidents even make it to Cleveland, our distant neighbor to the east, let alone to our little haven by the lake. But that’s just fine with me. Enough people have discovered it already. When the boys were tiny, we’d come up once a summer and stay with the Boones, our neighbors two doors down back in Columbus. That lasted about three summers or so, and then we started to rent our own place. When we saw the Boones at the pizza parlor after, it wasn’t even that awkward. They’d moved on, invited other neighbors to take our place at their huge cottage. We weren’t able to buy a place of our own until last summer and when we did, it was a cottage on the very same street as Greg and Doris Boone’s stately second home. Not as big, of course. Ironically, though, because we’re up the street we’re on a higher lot so we look down over their property now. It was a dream come true, especially for Mia.
We like visiting Lakeside best just before and after season. Season is the ten weeks in the heart of the summer when the place is crazy packed with tourists and the gates are down. Even homeowners have to pay the stupid gate fees during the summer. That doesn’t make any sense to me, but it’s the way it is.
But, on the plus side—and today is a day for positivity, I remind myself—Lakeside is wonderful, especially during the relatively deserted off-season times like now. I remember our first trip up here, back when we were newly married, the Boones having invited my wife and me up to stay for the weekend. We were thrilled for a chance to leave baby Mikey at home with my parents and have a weekend on our own, just the two of us and some other young parents. It was the start of the good times at Lakeside, and it was all thanks to the Boones. We’d play card games, especially euchre. Drink too much, eat too much, and then the guys would smoke cigars on Greg Boone’s back porch while the women relaxed in oversize white wicker chairs with pink cushions on Doris Boone’s front porch and gossiped. We could hear them, laughing and making fun of things, probably us, from the back porch. Us guys all rolling our eyes; women will be women, you know.
If you ask me, I’d tell you I’m still not really sure what happened, why the Boones stopped inviting us up, but it doesn’t matter. We managed to take ourselves up here every summer, no invitation necessary, and rented great places all on our own. And now we actually own a cottage, perched on a grassy lot above the Boones’ place. If I sit on my screened-in porch at night, I’ve noticed I can even watch Greg on his back porch, with his male guests du jour, smoking all his smuggled-in Cuban cigars. But who needs lung cancer? Not me. No, I think it all worked out beautifully.
Like the Boones’, our primary residence is located in the highly coveted Grandville suburb of Columbus, the city’s nearest northwest suburb, and is approximately two hours south of Lake Erie. All of what we own in the world is in Ohio, in this politically decisive, coastally deprived state. I am a native, born in the suburb we are raising our family in. Don’t tell anyone, but it wasn’t considered upscale back then. No, Grandville has grown into its—well, grandness, to use an apt term—as the Ohio State University and Columbus grew in prominence and wealth. Before, Grandville was a community filled with butchers and factory workers and the like. Now it’s filled with country-club brats and men like me who don’t ever have calluses on their palms. It’s like my dad and me, actually. Callous versus refined. But as far as picking a place to call home, not only did the apple not fall far from the tree in my family, but our crab apple tree was actually started by a seed from the apple tree in the next yard over. Literally my parents had lived right next to us. Before the accident.
Yes, I bought the home next to my parents, even before I met Mia. I knew where I wanted to live, and when it became available, I was there. Life requires planning, don’t you agree? My wife had grown comfortable with the arrangement, though of course, like any new bride, initially Mia had her concerns. She wasn’t from here, so she didn’t understand how close family can help you out, how nice it would be for the kids to know their grandparents and be able to toddle over to their home. She came to appreciate the setup, after our home was whipped into shape. Naturally, I let Mia and her mom completely renovate the place. You wouldn’t even recognize it from my primitive man cave days. But that was all part of the plan. I provided the shell, a “fabulous 1931 masterpiece,” according to the Realtor’s brochures, “that just needs some TLC.” Mia and her parents provided the TLC and much more. Our wedding gift. As a thank-you, I presented Phyllis, Mia’s mom, with a vintage Italian Mosaic pillbox.
“This is fabulous, thank you. I’ll add it to the collection, next to the other one you gave me. You are just so thoughtful. And I don’t have any mosaics, how did you know that, Paul?” Phyllis’s bony arms had wrapped around my waist. I tried not to flinch.
“Just a lucky guess, Phyllis,” I managed, although of course I knew. I’d saved a photo Mia took of Phyllis’s collection, the little trophies displayed on a mirrored table in Phyllis’s dressing room. It’s very important to keep your mother-in-law on your side.
On mornings like this, before my parents died, we would have walked the boys across the green grass of our lawn and then over to the front walk of my mom and dad’s one-story house, depositing them for safekeeping for the weekend. My boys weren’t old enough yet to notice how small their grandparents’ home was, compared to the rest of the street. I’m just waiting for the new owners to smash it down, build a McMansion.
But anyway, back when the boys were little the smell of my mom’s famous chocolate chip cookies would have greeted us at the door and the comforting sound of cheers from fans at some sporting event would be blasting from the television set my dad turned up too loud. The rocking chair my mom had used to calm me as a child had been returned to the corner of my parents’ bedroom. The tub of wooden blocks I’d played with as a kid magically appeared in my parents’ family room as soon as Mikey was old enough to start creating forts.
Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? Just as life should be for my privileged sons. Doting grandparents next door, a luxurious home to live in filled with pricey furnishings, a stay-at-home mom and a hardworking dad. My boys had it made. And they loved my parents, especially my mom. As for me, as long as my dad and mom both followed my rules everything was perfect. Family is family. Family first, and all that. If you aren’t needed, then fine, make other plans. But grandkids come first. They only violated that rule once, my parents. In my book, you always make time for your favorite son’s kids, no matter what. I’m sure you agree.
Of course, now that my parents are gone we rely on babysitters of varying skill levels. In retrospect, my parents, despite their age, probably would have done a better job of keeping my sons safe than the gangly teenagers we now employ and overpay.
My parents would have been a better choice for this weekend, for example, undoubtedly more effective than Claudia, who arrived this morning looking overwhelmed. Big dark circles hung below her wide eyes and her nails were bitten to the core. Maybe she’s on drugs, I think suddenly, wondering if I should ask Mia her opinion. Better not, though. She’d want to turn around and rescue the boys. We need this time together, this great day together. Claudia isn’t the only one who is overwhelmed; she just looks the most like it.
I’m pretty adept at covering my emotions. For instance, my wife always wonders if it bothers me, living next to the ghosts of my parents. She doesn’t put it that way, just says things like it’s odd seeing the new family painting the front door a different shade of brown. I think it’s odd they haven’t torn the thing down, but I don’t say that. Things like that, the little things, don’t get to me. Big things, those bother me, but still I might not show it. “Poker-face Paul,” my friends called me growing up. I’m proud of that. It has served me well in sales.