The Inheritance (3)

Controlled chaos! It was the only way Lisa could describe breakfast and the ensuing dance of getting four adults, two teenagers and three pre-teens ready for a day at the lake.  From packing the coolers to a last minute crisis of her older daughter not being able to find her favorite shorts, which she just couldn’t go without, it seemed they would never get out of the door.  Finally, with the boat hitched up and who was riding with who decided, Lisa’s husband pulled out of the driveway onto their quiet residential street with the others following in the rental car.

In the momentary quiet of the Yukon, before the two young girls in the back seat began asking for the radio to be turned on, Lisa leaned her head back against the headrest, closed her eyes and let herself relax.  She would need every ounce of energy and patience she could muster to get through the day if her brother showed up.  He had not committed a hundred percent to joining them at the beach, reluctantly agreeing at his wife’s insistence it was a, not to be missed, opportunity for their children to get to know their cousins.

Lisa knew very little about the disagreement between her siblings.  Neither one of them had been willing to discuss it with her at the time and to maintain contact with both of them she had dropped it.  At least she had been willing to up until Lily’s phone call the year before when she told Lisa she had cancer.  Although it was now in remission Lisa had felt the chill hand of time running out and the further fracturing of her family.  She remembered her older sister always being there for her, first when they were young and Lily would hold her hand at the bus stop while they waited for the school bus and then as an adult and Lily was just a phone call away to talk about the day to day trials of career and raising a family, of managing a marriage and finding time for herself.

It had been ten years since they had all been together and Lisa was hopeful Lily and Mike could mend their differences.  Yet, as she rode along listening to her daughter and her sister’s daughter chatting in the backseat she felt concern about her sister’s visit, something felt off with Lily, something she just couldn’t put her finger on.  Maybe Mike could or maybe all these years apart had solidified the gulf between them, something she had not picked up over the phone or through the electronic notes sent back and forth and she would have to accept her sister as she is not as Lisa remembered her.

“We’re here.”  Lisa’s husband said.  “Can you get out some cash, there is an entrance fee.”

Lisa opened her purse, fished out a five-dollar bill and lowered her window to pay the park attendant.  She could see the nearly empty parking lot in front of them and smiled to herself.  It paid to come early, now they would have their pick of tables.

To be continued…