even be a stay and she says what does he mean? sheâd love having him but they donât have that much room in their house, comfortable as the place isâeach boy has his own bedroom and thereâs no family room and now no playroom to convert, that room has become Glenâs home office and the basement his woodshop and the only other places are an unventilated attic and an airless crawl space, but maybe the two youngest boys can double up and he can stay in one of their bedrooms for a few days. âI donât want to put anyone outâI can sleep on the porch if you have one and the weatherâs not too damp or coldââhe doesnât know Portland or really any part of the States west of the Shenandoah Ridge he thinks it was and itâs called which he visited with a friend and his friendâs folks more than fifty years ago, âWe slept in pup tents, made bacon over a log fire,â but maybe it gets like that there summersâcoldâunlike here, and she says they do have a porch in front but itâs not screened in and if itâs bug season, which all depends, at least on how bad the bugs are, on how much precipitation they had that spring and how chilly the summerâs been, theyâll feast on him, so porch-sleepingâs out because itâs either bugs or cold so you just canât win, besides that their house is on a relatively heavily traveled street. Anyway, he says, they have something going hereâstarted, in plansâand heâs looking forward to it already, if it works out that is, and if it doesnât work out, no sweat, sweetheart, heâll more than understand, and hangs up and thinks she doesnât want to see him out there or Glen doesnât or them both or itâs the kids and theyâve discussed it with their folks and donât want any old something or another staying there for even a week and the parents or one of them went along with the kids, but itâs never going to happen, whatever the reasons he just knows heâs never going out there, thatâs all. Hey, worse comes to worst and he wants to see her that bad, which he knows he will, he can fly out there without telling them, stay at a nearby hotel and call from there and say heâs here, always wanted to see the West Coast and for sure shouldnât die without doing it sometime in his life and if they want to see himâno, he wonât be that toughâand he wants to see them too and had planned to but if they have something better to doânot âbetterâ; âsomething more importantâânot even thatâjust something already planned that canât be put off like another Alaskan trip tomorrow or this time the South Pacific or Japanâheâll understand and see Portland himself and then continue his trip south by bus for the rest of his two weeks to San Francisco and places like Mexico and L.A.
Late that fallâhe calls his daughter about once a week and they talk a few minutes and then he usually asks to speak to one of the boysâa young man comes into the luncheonette, no more than eighteenâbut things with Margo like âHow are you?â âWeâre all fine,â âHowâs the weather?â âCould be worse,â âHear from your mom?â âSheâs always the same: couldnât be better,â âHowâs work? howâs school? whatâs doing in Portland these days? Iâve been reading the weather map in the paper lately and itâs been saying youâre getting tons of rain,â sometimes sports talk with the boys which he has to read the paper or talk to some of his customers to know about, for a week a lot about their trip to Alaska: lot of driving around, didnât seem too interesting to him for all those miles, bunch of seals, loose bear or two, some kind of antelope or moose, could have been a modern zoo like even one thatâs in his city
Sharon Kleve, Jennifer Conner, Danica Winters, Casey Dawes