Canada Day Afternoon

Betty was on a tear. The afternoon was radiant, and she was out with Noah, and so everything that crossed her mind became, at least to her, a song of celebration.

“I felt too old to toss water balloons, or balance eggs, or get my face painted, but you did it too. We both did it, and it was fun as ever. And the little children were all laughing. Even the bicycle parade from the church down to the playground felt right. It just felt right. It all did. And now here we are, on the water together, and the quiet and the fog are so calming, even loving. It makes me feel the way I feel when Mother brushes my hair. You know? Of course you don’t. Your hair is cute but I don’t think it gets much brushing from your mother. Or you either, for that matter. Oh, and the boats! The boats are like … like heavenly chariots about to take off. The light on them, that’s angel light, Noah…”

“Betty,” said Noah, shipping the oars that he was hardly using anyway, the calm being so profound, “you’re right, but…”

“And, and, Noah, I’m having a vision, I think I’m having a vision. I see the future rolling out. It’s rolling out like a carpet, a carpet of light from the angels, and there we are getting married…”

“Okay, Betty, I’ll say it. I don’t know what it means. I mean I’m not exactly sure. But I do know that you want to hear it, so okay. I will say it. I love you. Okay? Now can we enjoy, can we please just enjoy? Let the quiet be quiet, and the light be the light, and just sit here. Okay? Can we, please?”

Stopping the torrent of her words was not an easy task, but she had indeed heard what she wanted to hear, and so she gave it her all, and that meant reaching forward from her seat in the stern of the boat to take her boyfriend’s calloused hands in both of her tender ones and squeeze them as hard as she dared.

On the other side of the mounded seawall, the breakers could be heard, restlessly voicing their endless complaint. And along the road into the village of islands, behind them, a car ghosted by, as the last hangers-on at the holiday party drove home to their house farther up the peninsula. And a gull came down out of the shining obscurity to feast on a half-eaten burger abandoned in the playground’s madly trampled grass.

3 July 2024
Texas Jim
Prospect, Nova Scotia
www.granitecoast.ca