It was late on a Friday afternoon and we
were driving up to my grandparents' house
at Lake Wawasee. I hummed to myself in the
back seat, trying to ignore my parents' arguing.
Every weekend in the summer we would drive
up to my to the lake house, and every time
we made the trip my parents argued. There
weren't tape players or CD players in cars
in those days. The radio in Indiana in 1960
- if you were allowed to turn it on - probably
wouldn't play anything but static or country
music. I couldn't read in a moving car because
it made me carsick, so there was really nothing
to do. I wadded myself up in a ball with
my back against the window handle in the
big back seat, hummed, and counted cows in
the fields the car passed, until it got too
dark. Then I tried to imagine what the distant
farmhouses we passed looked like on the inside,
and made up stories about the people who
lived in them.
The way to the lake took a well-traveled
two-lane highway at first, and my dad would
honk and cuss whenever we got stuck behind
a slow-moving truck. In spite of his temper,
he babied the pistachio-green Rambler, and
always made sure there was plenty of open
road before he would pass another car. Whenever
he passed a truck he seemed to take delight
in flashing his lights just like the truck
drivers did to each other. The road took
us through five or six little towns, each
with at least one gasoline station, so that
if I or my mother had to use the toilet there
would be a place to stop. Most often we tried
not to ask, though, because Dad would get
mad when we asked him to stop. He wanted
to get to the lake in a hurry. In fact, all
the grown-ups acted like they were in a hurry
all weekend long, which seemed odd to me,
since they always said that the point of
going to the lake was to relax.
When we got close to the lake, the road grew
narrower and darker and there were fewer
cars. I could always smell the lake before
I could see it. It smelled like fish and
gasoline and seaweed. The smell made me feel
light, like my body was evaporating, or like
I was floating on one of my grandma's inflatable
rafts. The last few miles were a dirt road,
too narrow for two cars to pass, with little
bridges over the watery channels that wound
back and forth like fat snakes under the
road. One last bridge, and we were on a little
island. A dozen or so vacation houses looked
out over the lake, with boat-houses and docks
facing the channel side. In the middle of
the island there was an oval-shaped green
meadow with long grass and little pathways
worn in it. I loved to hide in the secret
spaces under the long, dark skirts of the
pine trees on the green.
On this particular trip, I was nine and a
half years old. Usually, my two younger cousins
and their parents would be there to play
with, but this time they weren't coming.
I would have to decide whether to play alone
or to join with the two neighbor kids Linda
and Richard, who, although much stranger
than my cousins, seemed hungry for company
and always made me feel like an important
visitor.
It was very late when the car crunched through
deep gravel to park. After a heartbeat of
silence, the night filled up again with sounds
- crickets' chirping, water lapping against
the dock, boats groaning inside their boathouses.
Linda and Richard's porchlight was off. It
was too late for lightning bugs. The yard
was dark, but there was a light on in our
kitchen. I could see my Grandma in there,
dozing over her crocheting in a chair at
the kitchen table. As we climbed the back
steps, Mother whispered urgently not to let
the screen door slam because it would wake
up Grandma, which I thought was pretty dumb
because Grandma always woke up, and who would
want to sleep all night at the kitchen table
anyway?
My grandma was my favorite person, and I
couldn't stand the idea of going off to bed
without a hug from her. After Mom and Dad
sneaked in with their armloads of clothes
and beach towels, I let the screen door slam
just a little, and Grandma woke up and gave
me a smile that felt like a bright light.
That was all I needed to become overwhelmingly
sleepy. I hugged Grandma and creaked across
the old wood floor to the kids' room. The
creamy, heavy sheets and musty handmade quilt
kept me from floating up from the bed and
out over the lake.
In the morning I woke up just at dawn. I
would have slept 'til noon at home just to
avoid the day, but the lake made me a morning
person. I slithered into my swimsuit and
sneaked out through the front door, crossed
the screened-in porch, and walked out to
the water's edge. My grandpa and my dad always
put the pier in in the spring and took it
out in the fall, so it wouldn't be ruined
by the water freezing. It stuck out into
the lake with a little "L" at the
end. The shore was defined by a mossy old
sea-wall, about waist high. The water there
was only a few inches deep, but you had to
watch out for leeches. I walked down to the
end of the pier. If you jumped in there,
you could still touch the bottom, but only
barely. I slipped into the cold water and
paddled a few feet to where the seaweed wasn't
so thick on the bottom. Then I turned to
float on my back to watch the sky brighten.
The screen door slammed. "Brenda Kay!"
Mom always caught me. "How many times
do I have to tell you not to swim alone?
Now get in here. Right now." I climbed
up the wooden ladder, trailing bright green
seaweed, and ran up to the lawn where Mom
had left me a beach towel to dry off.
I went inside and sat on a stool in the kitchen
until breakfast was ready, and we all ate
on the screened-in porch. After breakfast,
Mom and Grandma went off to clean up the
kitchen. Grandpa and Daddy were soon gone
off to the golf course. They always went
golfing on the weekends, at least on Saturdays.
When my uncle was there the three of them
would disappear together both days in a row.
Before of after the golf trip, there might
be time for a ride in Grandpa's little yellow
fiberglass Scotty-Craft boat. I didn't how
to water-ski yet, although I would learn
the next summer.
Everybody was busy with something. I changed
into shorts and walked out the back door
and down the cold concrete steps. There was
a spring house there - just about the size
of a big cooler. It was metal and there were
always roly-polys around it. I poked at them
with my finger to watch them curl up. The
sidewalk there was always wet and cool. Big
maple trees and a couple of pines shaded
the stoop. Once when I was very little Grandma
had tried to plant vegetables in the back
yard, but since we were only there once a
week, the weeds and rabbits soon took over.
She didn't try that again. Still the occasional
cabbage popped up, and squash plants snaked
through the grass.
I walked across the green to the boathouse
we shared with a neighbor. Each family had
a speedboat, and ours also had a little aluminum
rowboat with wooden oars. The boathouse seemed
ancient. The wood looked almost charred and
you could see daylight between the boards.
The boats slipped into a little parking space
of water surrounded by concrete, covered
over by that little house, with two hinged
wooden doors on the water side. Inside, the
boats were floating in their places and little
waves slapped at them whenever a boat went
through the channel outside. Sunlight streaked
through the green water under the doors.
At the edge of the light shadowy minnows
swarmed like underwater bees. Watery green
reflections on the ceiling revealed intricate
architectures of spiderwebs.
I sat down on the edge of concrete wall that
framed the floating boats. I stuck my feet
in the water and watched the minnows. The
rowboat looked inviting. I knew how to use
it and had become quite good at snaking the
boat through green water channels clogged
with branches and lilypads. I decided to
take the boat out and look for turtles. An
old rope that dangled through a pulley let
me unlatch and open the doors. Sunlight glared
in and the little boats rocked. I untied
the rowboat and climbed in, then rowed it
out into the channel.
As soon as I got clear of the row of boathouses
I steered the rowboat into a smaller, older
channel that gave way to quiet pools. That's
where you'd find turtles, sunning themselves
on stumps and old branches and rocks near
the water's edge. You had to be really quiet
to catch one. If they sensed movement or
heard the oars creak, they would slide silently
into the green water and be gone.
The best way to catch turtles was to aim
the rowboat into a pool and glide in with
the oars up. I was an expert. The first turtle
I caught was a little one, about the size
of my palm, with a dark olive-green shell
and tiny orange stripes around its throat.
As soon as I touched it, it pulled its head
and legs inside its shell. I dropped it into
the bottom of the boat where it started trying
to walk around. Its little feet scraped on
the aluminum. Two or three other candidates
heard the noise and launched themselves off
their roosts into the shadowy water. I took
the noisy turtle and put it into my pocket
where it continued to squirm.
Another pool, and another, and my pockets
were stuffed with about ten small turtles.
They were crawling over each other in my
pockets, trying to escape. I turned the boat
and headed back to the boathouse with noisy
splashing pulls. As I clambered of the rowboat,
one turtle escaped and rolled around on the
concrete. I scooped it up while its head
and legs were still pulled inside its shell,
then closed the boathouse doors and wound
the old rope around two nails. I ran back
to the house hugging my pockets to show Mother
and Grandma my haul.
In a rare moment of "relaxation,"
the women were out on the pier, lying on
beach towels. Mother was sitting up, pointing
her toenails. She had kleenex wound between
her toes to keep them apart as she applied
bright red lacquer. Grandma was dozing in
the sun. I walked down the pier and dropped
a turtle down the back of Mother's bathing
suit. "Oh my God, Brenda Kay!"
She acted mad but she was laughing. While
she wiggled I scooped the turtle out and
held it up for her to see. By this time Grandma
was sitting up too. "I caught 'em! Ten
or twenty of 'em!"
Grandma started to laugh. "Well, what
are you going to do with ten or twenty turtles?"
I hadn't thought about that. I was simply
the mighty hunter. I remembered seeing turtles
for sale at the dime store in North Webster.
"Maybe I can sell them to the dime store.
They have to get those turtles they sell
from somewhere." I could make some money!
I didn't feel bad about it. The turtles weren't
bound for a soup bowl, but for the loving
care of children who would buy them little
plastic ponds with palm trees and coral painted
on them. Turtles would be good pets. You
fed them flies, I knew, and bits of hamburger.
They would live fine lives with their fawning
child-parents.
"Time to fix dinner first," Grandma
said, "then we'll go into town."
The angle of the sun told me it was just
about noon. Dinner in Indiana happened at
2 or 3 in the afternoon and it was the big
meal of the day. Supper was later, near dark,
and usually just leftovers or cheese and
crackers and soup.
"Where should I put the turtles?"
They were squirming like mad in my pockets.
Grandma took me out back and found me a galvanized
bucket back by the spring house. I dumped
the turtles into it and let water drip from
the spring house until they were good and
wet. Then I covered the bucket with a board
to keep them from climbing out.
Grandma and I went into the kitchen while
Mother hobbling in from the pier with her
kleenex-wound feet. I could smell meat already
roasting in the oven. Eggs had been boiled
in the morning and I was allowed to peel
them. Then Grandma cut them in half and scoop
out the yolks all into a bowl. She mixed
then with mayonnaise and paprika, salt and
pepper and a little sweet pickle juice, whipped
them up with a fork, then scooped the fluffy
yellow stuff back into the empty whites.
Somehow she managed to make a little yellow
curl on the top of each egg. Then we peeled
potatoes to boil them for salad.
I got the job of pulling the green tops off
of a quart of strawberries, a fruit that
I truly hated. Grandma sliced them into a
big glass bowl and poured a cup of sugar
over them. She stirred them with a big wooden
spoon until they were all coated and their
juice combined with the sugar to make a watery
pink sauce. I remember sitting on one of
the kitchen chairs, watching her standing
there in her bathing suit stirring the strawberries,
and the loose skin under her arm jiggled
with every stroke. Later in life, my dislike
of strawberries would be intensified by that
memory. I got to stir the heavy batter for
the shortcake and was rewarded with a bowl
and spoon to lick. "You shouldn't eat
raw batter," Mother said. She always
said that. Grandma rolled her eyes. We had
an understanding, Grandma and I, that Mother
was what Grandpa called "a worry wart."
I finished off the batter with a guilty look
and put the bowl in the sink where Grandma
ran water into it.
About two o'clock, when the potatoes had
cooled and celery was chopped for the potato
salad, the men rolled in from their golfing.
I set the table with heavy Fiestaware plates,
all different colors. I always gave myself
the green one, because it was my favorite
color. The men opened cans of Pabst Blue
Ribbon beer and Mother made iced tea for
the rest of us. We sat down to eat - pot
roast, potato salad, canned peas, and deviled
eggs. The men talked about their golf game.
Finally Dad asked what we'd been doing. I
told him about the turtles and my plan to
take them to the dime store and try to sell
them. The men laughed and laughed. "That
girl's going to make something of her life,"
Dad said. Grandpa, who rarely spoke, smiled
and shook his head. "Turtles,"
he said.
I helped with clean-up because I was in a
hurry to get to the dime store before it
closed. When the last dish was dried, I said
to Grandma, "let's go into town now.
Please?" We walked down the back steps
to look at the turtles. I took the board
off the bucket. They were still in there,
but they had calmed down. One or two of them
were sitting on top of the others. The water
had gotten warm. "Let's put them in
some jars," I suggested. Grandma got
some big Ball jars and we put the turtles
in with a little water, three or four to
a jar. "They can't breathe if we put
the lids on," Grandma told me. So we
cut waxed paper squares and secured them
to the tops of the jars with rubber bands,
then Grandma poked holes in the paper with
an ice pick. I carried the jars out to her
big Oldsmobile and wedged them against each
other on the front seat. Grandma drove and
I held onto the jars from the other side
as we bumped down the dirt road and onto
the highway to North Webster.
The turtles were subdued in the car. We parked
at the dime store and Grandma and I went
inside to find the owner. I remember that
he was skinny and old with a white mustache.
I explained that I had turtles to sell him.
We walked back to the old aquarium where
he kept his turtles to sell. There was only
one left, and it didn't look very good. It
shell was turning white around the edges
and its eyes were rheumy. It didn't move
around and it didn't retract its head and
legs, either. It just sat there in on a rock
in the bottom of the aquarium. "This
one needs company," the owner said.
"Let me see what you've got."
We brought the jars in and he offered me
a dime apiece for the turtles. He would sell
them for fifty cents. I took the deal - a
dollar was a lot of money! We dumped the
turtles into the aquarium where they started
crawling around again. He poured some more
water over them. They scrambled to climb
up onto the rock, but it was too small to
hold all of them. "There's not much
room on that rock," I said. "They'll
be all right," he answered. "I'll
sell most of them this weekend, I reckon."
He went to the cash register and gave me
my dollar. I was ecstatic. Grandma gave me
a pat and we headed back to the house.
The next day - Sunday - was the day that
the adults did "maintenance." They
cleaned up everything, mowed the grass, washed
the windows, changed the beds, brushed cobwebs
off of the screens. There was a thunderstorm
in the morning and the afternoon was gray
and drippy. There would be no speedboat ride
that weekend. At about 4:00 we all piled
into our cars for the long drive home. I
slept in the back seat. It was dark by the
time we got back to Indianapolis. Mom and
Dad and I watched TV and ate supper on our
TV trays. Dad and I crumbled up saltines
and put them in big glasses of buttermilk
with lots of pepper and salt. After that
we had some ice cream and I went to bed.
That night I dreamed about the turtles. In
my dream they all looked like the one that
had been in the store. Their shells were
white around the edges and they didn't move
around much. I felt sick. In the morning
I asked Mother, would the turtles be O.K.?
She said we should ask my Dad when he came
home from work. Over supper at the kitchen
table, I told Dad I was worried that there
wasn't a big enough rock in that aquarium
at the dime store. I told him I was worried
the turtles would get sick. He explained
that turtles couldn't stay in water too long.
They needed to breathe sometimes, and sometimes
they needed to dry off. Their shells might
get soft, he said, but I shouldn't worry
about that because kids would buy them and
they'd be well taken care of.
All week I thought about the turtles and
I kept dreaming about them. I started to
feel guilty about taking them away from their
homes. I remembered that one of my school
friends had a turtle with one of those plastic
turtle-houses, and it had died. Its shell
had turned white and it had stopped eating,
then it died. I started thinking I needed
to put those turtles back in the lake. I
was worried that the old man had sold them
all to kids who wouldn't take care of them.
I was worried they were all going to die.
The next weekend when we started out for
the lake again, I asked if we could go to
the dime store first thing Saturday morning
and see about the turtles. "The turtles
are O.K.," Dad said in an exasperated
voice. "The turtles are all sold by
now," Mother said. I looked out the
window and thought about what I was going
to do. When we got to the lake house, I found
Grandma in the kitchen and told her about
my worries for the turtles. All of a sudden
I was crying. "I bet I killed them,"
I said. "I bet they all turned white
and died." My Grandma held me on her
lap. "We'll get up real early,"
she said, "and we'll go to the dime
store and see about those turtles."
I went to my bedroom and put my pajamas on
over my clothes. I wanted to be on the way
to the dime store in a hurry as soon as I
woke up.
In the morning I heard Grandma in the kitchen.
I stripped off the pajamas and ran out of
my room. "We have to go," I said.
"NOW." Grandma looked at the waffle
batter she was making, but then she unplugged
the waffle maker and got her car keys and
her purse. "Let's go," she said.
The dime store was still closed when we got
there so we waited in the car for about half
an hour. Finally the old man drove up and
got out of his truck. I jumped out and ran
to him as he was unlocking the door. "Did
you sell the turtles?" "Not all
of them," he said. "Why, do you
want one? You'll have to buy it, you know.
A deal's a deal." I followed him into
the store and ran back to the tank.
Two turtles were left. They were humped up
on the rock with their heads and legs inside
their shells. My evil heart shriveled in
my chest. Eight other turtles - nine if you
counted the sad one that was already there
- had been sold to kids who wouldn't take
care of them. And it was all my fault. "I'll
take both of them," I told him. He gave
my Grandma an exasperated look, but she shook
her head slightly. They reached a silent
agreement. I fished the same dollar he'd
given me last week out of my pocket. He reached
in and picked up the turtles and dropped
them into a cardboard box. "O.K.,"
he said.
Grandma and I drove back to the lake house.
I kept looking inside the box. The turtles
weren't crawling around. As soon as we pulled
in to the driveway I jumped out of the car
and ran to the boathouse with the turtle
box under my arm. I put the box in the rowboat
and opened the doors. Mist was still rising
from the water as I padddled out into the
channel. I took them back to the pool where
I had found them and dropped them carefully
into the water. They sank. I sat there in
the little rocking boat and cried. After
a few minutes I saw a little snout break
the water near the shore, then another. Two
turtles lumbered up onto a branch. I thought,
these must be my turtles, and they are O.K.
The relief of it made me weak. I just sat
there and watched them as they positioned
themselves in spots of sunlight among the
leafy shadows. They were beautiful like that.
Finally I decided to go back home. As my
oars sliced into the water I heard a splash
from the other side of the pool. A big old
turtle was making its way off of a rock into
the water. I could see it there, just under
the surface. There was something white on
its shell. Before I knew what I was doing,
I grabbed it and plopped it into the boat.
It was about seven inches across and it had
seaweed growing on its back. I picked it
up. The white spots were decorated, I saw,
in what looked like a calico pattern. Each
quarter-sized section of the big turtle's
shell had a little bit of that pattern on
it. I figured out what had happened. Somebody
had caught it when it was little and had
painted a design on its back. Evidently they'd
put it back into the lake, where it had grown
old and big, and as its shell got larger
over the years the little painted parts had
grown apart.
I put the elderly turtle back into the pool.
Immediately its head and legs came out and
it swam down into the underwater shadows,
out of sight. A turtle really can survive
a person's meddling, I thought. But I resolved
quite firmly that I would never catch a turtle
again.
And I never did.
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