Friend of My Youth

after Anita had dressed her sores, she said, “So glad. So glad to have—a
daughter
.”
    Margot didn’t seem to approve or disapprove. She seemed puzzled, in an indolent way. Anita began talking to her about some things she might do, but they kept being interrupted. Margot’s sons had come in, bringing friends. The sons were tall, with hair of varying redness. Two of them were in high school and one was home from college. There was one even older, who was married and living in the West. Margot was a grandmother. Her sons carried on shouted conversations with her about the whereabouts of their clothes, and what supplies of food, beer, and soft drinks there were in the house, also which cars would be going where at what times. Then they all went out to swim in the pool beside the house, and Margot called, “Don’t anybody dare go in that pool that’s got suntan lotion on!”
    One of the sons called back, “Nobody’s
got
it on,” with a great show of weariness and patience.
    “Well, somebody had it on yesterday, and they went in the pool, all right,” replied Margot. “So I guess it was just somebody that snuck up from the beach, eh?”
    Her daughter Debbie arrived home from dancing class and showed them the costume she was going to wear when her dancing school put on a program at the shopping mall. She was to impersonate a dragonfly. She was ten years old, brown-haired, and stocky, like Margot.
    “Pretty hefty dragonfly,” said Margot, lolling back in the deck chair. Her daughter did not arouse in her the warring energy that her sons did. Debbie tried for a sip of the sangria, and Margot batted her away.
    “Go get yourself a drink out of the fridge,” she said. “Listen. This is our visit. O.K.? Why don’t you go phone up Rosalie?”
    Debbie left, trailing an automatic complaint. “I wish it wasn’t
pink
lemonade. Why do you always make
pink
lemonade?”
    Margot got up and shut the sliding doors to the kitchen. “Peace,” she said. “Drink up. After a while I’ll get us some sandwiches.”
    Spring in that part of Ontario comes in a rush. The ice breaks up into grinding, jostling chunks on the rivers and along the lakeshore; it slides underwater in the pond and turns the water green. The snow melts and the creeks flood, and in no time comes a day when you open your coat and stuff your scarf and mittens in your pockets. There is still snow in the woods when the blackflies are out and the spring wheat showing.
    Teresa didn’t like spring any better than winter. The lake was too big and the fields too wide and the traffic went by too fast on the highway. Now that the mornings had turned balmy, Margot and Anita didn’t need the store’s shelter. They were tired of Teresa. Anita read in a magazine that coffee discolored your skin. They talked about whether miscarriages could cause chemical changes in your brain. They stood outside the store, wondering whether they should go in, just to be polite. Teresa came to the door and waved at them, peekaboo. They waved back with a little flap of their hands the way Reuel waved back every morning—just lifting a hand from the steering wheel at the last moment before he turned onto the highway.
    Reuel was singing in the bus one afternoon when he had dropped off all the other passengers. “He knew the world was round-o,” he sang. “And uh-uhm could be found-o.”
    He was singing a word in the second line so softly they couldn’t catch it. He was doing it on purpose, teasing. Then he sang it again, loud and clear so that there was no mistake.
    “He knew the world was round-o
,
    And tail-o could be found-o.”
    They didn’t look at each other or say anything till they were walking down the highway. Then Margot said, “Big fat nerve he’s got, singing that song in front of us. Big fat nerve,” she said, spitting the word out like the worm in an apple.
    But only the next day, shortly before the bus reached the end of its run, Margot started humming. She invited Anita to join, poking her in the side and rolling her eyes. They hummed the tune of Reuel’s song; then they started working words into the humming, muffling one word, then clearly singing the next, until they finally got their courage up and sang the whole two lines, bland and sweet as “Jesus Loves Me.”
    “He knew the world was round-o
,
    And tail-o could be found-o.”
    Reuel did not say a word. He didn’t look at them. He got off the bus ahead of them and didn’t wait by the door. Yet