Shelter by Sarah Stonich

Author:Sarah Stonich
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780873518000
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Published: 2011-06-15T21:00:00+00:00

My family, once so much a part of this place, has physically vanished, and when they fade from memory, it will be almost as if they never were. I’m the only one of my sisters who has kept the Stonich name, which I’ve now dragged back north to plant like a flag. If we take root here, if it works, in another hundred years maybe some curious great-grandchild will be peering back into this time to look at now, just as I am looking back to then.

Twelve

I was beginning to relish single life, having lived with one man or another with little or no breathing room between since my early twenties. For the first time, I was independent and had no intention of becoming the sort of woman who cannot be truly happy until she mutters the barfable “You complete me.” Single felt as good as trading shoes for flip-flops on the first warm day. Still, there were times when I looked around my lovely building site and felt a little bereft, like when you’re watching a good movie or a sunset and it seems a shame there’s no one to elbow. Yes, single was definitely the best route, and I determined that if I had to grow old alone, I would at least do so gracefully, without too many regrets or cats.

I’d be manless but happy—or at least content.

For a few weeks, I was childless as well. Sam and Terry were away on the big trip they’d been planning for years. Sam had wanted to go to Japan ever since I brought home an illustrated guide called Today’s Japan and a stuffed sumo wrestler doll when he was little. He got very interested in anime and read novelty books of weird Japanese inventions. He went around imitating the accents in Kurosawa films, repeating most-useful phrases for tourists from Japanese Made Easy, sounding just like an angry samurai warrior would when asking directions to the nearest train station or karaoke bar. On special occasions, he didn’t want steak, he wanted sushi.

Sam and Terry had been buddies since he was eight, when we’d become neighbors in St. Paul. By eighteen, Sam was wild to visit Japan and took off for Tokyo under Terry’s wing, though by this time he was taller by a head.

I took the opportunity to spend time in Ely in a leisurely way. The tourists were gone, and the place had settled back to normal. I hung around the library and the history center, looking up old records and reading. I spent the rest of my time just nosing around town and eavesdropping in the coffee shop, laundromat, or Dee’s if it wasn’t too busy, when I could talk the pull-tab lady into playing cribbage.

Lars had put roof trusses atop the main cabin. His construction leftovers included a pile of short four-foot scraps of 8 x 8-inch-square pine timbers. He made use of them and designed a footbridge to span the swampy area between the shoreline and the granite island, throwing it in as a sort of gift-with-purchase, like a Lincoln Log kit.

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