It feels ominous, Daphne says. You guys are the only ones not to have capsized.
The others have gone over on tricky rapids, shelves, and ledges. It does seem a little foreboding.
I say, How often will we get to shoot the Badger Chute? The worst that can happen, it seems, is we’ll put a hole in Max’s canoe.
Max: Dont worry about the canoe.
Daphne: Put pressure on them, why dont you?
Max: I’m just saying.
We are close to the road, so there’s no problem with hitchhiking back to the cars and getting out our gear.
Lydia: Let’s do it.
We sit by the canoe and I quietly go over the path with Lydia. Hit the lip of the chute about two feet to the left of that first bit of whitewater, okay?
Okay.
This is the first time I have seen Lydia take blind-faith instruction from me.
We kneel on the floor of the canoe for a lower centre of gravity.
As I push off I see Craig hoisting their canoe over the rock. Theyve decided to portage too.
Everyone watching at the rocks. We hit the lip perfectly, which slows us and then, gathering determination, sucks us down from the peak. Heavy water plunges over the sides. We are swamped. We avoid the big rock and strike the whitewater and float over yellow boulders and push through, the stern fishtailing but then brought back straight. We’re through. We turn and paddle hard to shore against a strong current. To hearty cheers.
Later, a moose and her calf cross the river. A horned owl blends into bark. A rabbit hunched in the undergrowth. And finally, Max’s car shining by the embankment.
We lift the canoe from the water. I hand Lydia my knife to cut open a mango. I watch her slice the fruit in half, remove the pit, and score the fruit into cubes. She pops each half up like city blocks and hands one to me.
15 Back working on the novel. Outside my window I can see Boyd Coady on an aluminum ladder. He’s scrutinizing the work of the roofer. The roofer is carefully rolling a glistening licorice mop over the aluminum edges. This mop has magic in it. They say there’s a halo around the sun today. But I can see it in the treacle of the mop. Boyd yells down, Okay, boys, two more hot!
Below, the boys fill a black bucket with steaming tar and hook the handle to a thick rope. They hoist it on a pulley lever. The liquid tar jiggles but never drips on the clapboard. The pulley is like the ones on clotheslines, except it’s made of cast iron, not white metal. I am comforted to know that pulleys are still used. Every civilization has discovered them.
The boys take a break and sit in the shade on the tailgate of their red pickup. Boyd and the roofer sit on the pressure-treated wood of his wife’s flower boxes. All over, city roofs are being tarred and shingled. Repairs have been decided on. Is this seasonal or a sign of money? The fixing of what has already been built. Maintenance.
I borrow a scalpel from Iris’s dissection kit and slit the seed pods of poppies. I make a tea slurry from the pods and drink it. It’s bitter. Nothing happens.
16 I get together with Maisie to tell her the canoe trip. She’s astonished at the falls, and sorry she couldnt go. She hates to miss anything. It makes me want to write down what I know of Maisie. I should write it now. How she ended up with Oliver. And now she’s on her own. I first knew her when she was seeing Max. Max thought Maisie loved him. I can believe it. So when they broke up, Maisie dated a lot of men (including me) and then she found Oliver. A month later Maisie was pregnant. Maisie was still in love with Max, but she knew she was pregnant with Oliver’s baby. She could feel it. It was just a weekend fling with Oliver, but enough to make her pregnant. And Max admits he still slept with Maisie occasionally. Almost for old time’s sake.