eat it on the trail, but we can tonight.” He hauls out the Papa Bear cast-iron cauldron and over the campfire concocts a rich, herby cioppinno. Lauren assists.
“I want to be a chef,” she declares. “But a pastry chef.”
As we fill our bowls, her dad rummages in his pack and produces a canister of “Slap Ya Mama” Cajun seasoning. Don thinks of everything. Cheers and subsequent slurps all around.
•••
After our steaming spicy bowls, another bottle of Scotch appears. Don stands and motions to Lauren.
“We have a present for you, Jim.”
I smile. I have a present for him, too. A very special bottle. But not until our last night.
“Lauren and I invented this a few trips ago.”
They lay a brand-new nylon tarp and Sharpies on the ground.
“It’s a Story Tarp. Every day, we each draw a pictograph of our most memorable moment. Then the whole story goes home with Jim.”
We all grab markers and scramble to record the day. I look up from drawing me fly-casting. Jim’s drawing the same thing.
Then Ro says softly, “I’ve written a song for the trip. Wanna hear it?” (Curiously, from her earliest days, Ro’s asked permission to sing.)
Of course we do. Firelight flickers over her notebook, gilds her gently knit brow. She sings a yearning ballad of “wild Montana,” of her hope to shed her fear and sorrow here. Closest to our late brother, his death and absence weigh on her, but fear and sorrow have slipped, admittedly or not, into everyone’s pack. Her last verse asks for laughter, “grand and holy.” Shining eyes ring the campfire as her last note fades.
Soft applause, congratulations and gratitude ripple from us all.
“Gotta call it a night,” says Mike at last. “We need to get up before dawn, break camp, wolf a bagel, and get to the outfitters.”
Heartened by her song, we peel away to our downy nests under the stars.
Between the Lines
This Family Journal item is one tip-off that not all is well in Tangletown:
“The race between MK and Tommy is waxing hot and heavy. This battle is to see who can grow long nails.” What’s making these children anxious? Why are they biting their nails?
Skipper joins the contest, showing “strong will power.” He is only three years old, and he is already chubby as well. What makes him so nervous at this tender age? It is he who wins the competition.
Kako and Tom continue the contest between the two of them; Tom wins. He spends the $5.00 prize on a new Missal and Valentines (which indicate the breadth of his values).
Why does Kako lose? The pages answer. Kako, not Mom, reads us bedtime stories. Kako is making doughnuts and cookies and raspberry pie, comforting us and herself with them. O’Brien stress goes into our mouths.
Kako is even buying my clothes: when I’m a year old, she brings home “sox, a shirt and a darling little plaid dress—blue top and a plaid skirt, on the pocket in red it says ‘Me.’ ”
I wear it the next night when the family goes to a restaurant—a rare event, indeed. According to the paper I try “out-staring the ladies at the next table and won.”
Kako, not Mom, takes note and proudly reports.
The most startling entry concerns a little brown bump of birthmark at the nape of my six-month-old neck. It lies smack in my hairline.
“Have it cauterized,” the doctor advises. “Hairbrushing will aggravate it later on.”
Dad drops us downtown at the Medical Arts Building, but it says here—surprise—Kako, not Mom, accompanies me to the procedure, then takes me home on the streetcar. Mom stays home to print the paper.
“You sure didn’t like the elevator,” they said when I was older. “You wailed all the way up to the twelfth floor and all the way down.” Yeah, and I might have been wondering where my Mom was.
I still do.
And I am not the only one.
A Crystal Cave
Whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on in ’56. Dad’s radio station turns to a Top 40 format, and he wants out. WCCO-TV snaps him up as on-camera weatherman and movie host. (He also tries to create a children’s show featuring himself as a friendly pirate, but no go.)
The Olders are now in high school. Tom’s a freshman at the military academy, Pogo’s a junior, and Kako graduates in June. The phone is either ringing or monopolized, and there’s a flurry of shaving, corsages, and other dating accoutrements. Well, not so much for Kako. She has steadily gained weight and lost confidence.
For graduation, Mom and Dad buy her a suitcase and take her out to dinner. Just the three of them. The kicker comes over dessert.
“I’ve decided to become a nun. A Benedictine.”
Clink go their coffee cups. They are openmouthed.
“Honey, you’re too young,” Dad insists.
“No I’m not. I turn eighteen in December, and I can enter then.”
“I know it sounds exciting now, but please, honey, wait a year. You need to live a little.”
“I’ve lived enough to know it’s what I want, Dad.” She is adamant. She wants to be out of the house and free of her undeserved duties of motherhood, but of course cannot state her true feelings. So she insists on her “vocation.”
