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Grandma & Grandpa Roy's
Cottage |
Newly baptized in the waters of marriage, my skin still wrinkly and funny feeling, I sat next to Dave as he threw his old green Toyota Corolla into fifth gear. We rode west, then north, stopping only for gas until we parked, after dark, at the docks in St. Ignace, Michigan. A small motor boat bounced us across choppy waters to the docks of Mackinac Island. There, for a remarkable week, we warmed ourselves in the rays of the Michigan sun as it sifted its light through mist that rose from morning dew. White gauzy curtains, lining the windowed walls in the George Washington room of his grandparents cottage, whispered “good morning” against the rhythm of waves slapping themselves into the West Bluff. The only other sound was the clip clop of horse hooves from the delivery wagon making its way leisurely up the hill from the Grand Hotel. This divine orchestration, along with the streaming sunlight, softly lifted me from my dreams each morning. It was surreal, and divine, and everything a girl who loves Jane Austen and Louisa Alcott could have only imagined and never dared to think real. The cottage itself was nothing like the cottages I’d seen in fairy tales; little quaint houses with thatched roofs and tiny rooms. No, this was one of the grand ones, one of the renowned eight that stood in stately glory overlooking the Straits of Mackinac, just up the road from the glorious Grand Hotel. Nowadays, over four decades later, they call it the Honeymoon Cottage, which makes me feel proud and forsaken all at once. It was sacredly ours that one week in June, 1977. Now they sell little wooden replicas of it in the shops in town, and it’s no longer just ours.
But once upon that time, when it belonged to David’s Grandma and Grandpa Roy, it was given to us for our honeymoon. They packed their bags and left the island to spend the week at their other cottage in Tawas, so we could have the magic to ourselves. Grandma left the kitchen stocked, and the phone number of the grocer in town, with instructions to put whatever we needed on their bill. It was a gift indicative of the goodness of the people who bore and raised David’s mother.
Even with the filter of Michigan humidity and plentiful shade, I ended up with a dandy sunburn on my shoulders and the back of my legs. I should have known. I had spent my summer days, prior to the wedding, with every inch of flesh covered in fire resistant gear. My days, and nights, depending on my swinging shift, were spent on the hot, dark coke ovens of the Clairton Steel Works. The work was so exhausting, coupled with the preparations for a wedding, that I slept the rest of the time. My snow white skin was not ready for so much sun.
Now, so many wrinkles later, I can muster the sting on my skin, hot and blistered. I can hear the waves, and see the floating shadow of curtains in the breeze. And smell the green, and the blue, mixed with the new scent of aftershave on the pillow beside me. I know it is far away now, those days when so much was new, but I swear… I swear… it was just barely on the other side of last night’s dream.
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| The Grand Hotel |
