Family

    She ran her hand over the table’s honey-colored surface and thought about her parents Gina Boston sat with her brother and grandmother at the old, well-used kitchen table in Grandma’s farmhouse. They were eating breakfast, which was mixed cereal, composed of six different kinds. Gina and her older brother, Caleb, were used to this because they had always had mixed cereals when they had lived with their parents. Maybe that’s why Grandma mixes different kinds of cereals—to make us feel better, Gina thought as she pushed her spoon around. She ran her hand over the table’s honey-colored surface (scarred and faded from years of baking and sunlight) and thought about her parents. They had both died in a car accident when Gina was ten years old. Gina and Caleb had not been in the car when the accident happened; in fact, they had been seven miles away, visiting their grandmother who lived in the country in a beautiful old farmhouse, where outside there was a cow, eight chickens, and four pigs. Before the accident happened, in 1967, Gina and her brother had lived in Maple Brook, Alberta, with their parents and the family’s fluffy white cat, Queenie. Gina did not know exactly how or when her grandmother had gotten the news, but it had been late one February night three years ago, and she and Caleb had been asleep. The next morning, Grandma had sat with them on the blue flowered couch and gently broken it to them that their parents were dead. Caleb and Gina had been numb for a minute and then had sobbed and sobbed. Now Gina could not remember what else had happened that day. In a few days they had all gone to Gina and Caleb’s house on Carlson Avenue, had taken everything out and chosen which things to give away and which things to move to Grandma’s farmhouse. This was not an easy task because items which had a week ago seemed unimportant now held special value and memories. A glass elephant that had always stood on the shelf, a bottle of Mom’s perfume, Dad’s favorite tie—now all these things had suddenly become priceless heirlooms. Grandma had sold the house in Maple Brook. Because she was their legal guardian, Gina and Caleb were to live permanently at her farmhouse. And now it was 1970, three years later, and they had finished breakfast. They put their bowls away, and Grandma asked what they were going to do that day. Caleb answered gloomily that he might as well stick around because there was nothing else to do until swimming in the late afternoon. “And plus,” he added hurriedly, glancing at Grandma, “my bike needs fixing anyway. The, um, gearshift is, uh, stuck.” “Is it, now?” Grandma chuckled softly. “Well, I guess you’ll have to fix it while you’re ‘sticking around.’ It’s funny, though; last week I thought you said the chain was stuck. And before that the chain needed oiling. Hmm. Your bike sure needs a lot of fixing.” Gina was laughing so hard she was doubled over and her glasses were falling off. She and her grandmother both knew that Caleb’s bike did not need to be fixed. For some reason her brother didn’t like riding his bike, and it was hilarious watching him try to make up excuses not to. Too bad for him, Gina thought, straightening her glasses. Grandma doesn’t want to use all that gas taking us to town, so that’s why she got us bikes. Gina said she was going to ride to town, to read at the library. “I actually like riding my bike. I don’t have to just sit at home pretending to fix it!” Her brother scowled at her. Grandma smiled and winked at her. “That sounds great, Gina. Have a nice time!” she called as Gina went out the door. “I will, Grandma! ’bye!” Gina ran to the back to get her bike. It was a glorious August day, and she said hello to the pigs and chickens before getting her bike from the barn. The barn was divided into two parts. One part was the garage, and the other part was Blossom, the cow’s, stall. She stroked Blossom and wheeled her bike through the yard. In seconds she was pedaling along the road. She loved riding her bike. Caleb did not. He grumbled about living in the country and not getting to ride his skateboard, which apparently was much cooler. But Gina was happy with where they lived, just far enough away from town, and close enough to bike to the library and other places. She still missed her parents, her home, and her old life terribly, but she loved riding her bike alone on the country road with her red hair blowing behind her and the wind in her face. She loved being alone with the grass and the sky—and the occasionally passing cars, and the birds, flying with her, were the only others on the windswept prairie. She got to Maple Brook and biked to the library. She stayed there for about two hours, and then she got on her bike and rambled up and down the old familiar streets. She came to her old house and stopped. A new family was living in it now, and with plastic riding toys and balls cluttering the untrimmed front lawn, the white paint peeling and shabby, and the hinges on the once-gleaming door rusty, her home looked nothing like the beautiful place it had once been when the Bostons had lived in it. Yet Gina could still (she always did this when she came by) see past the grimy walls with a dog-eared Sesame Street poster on one of them and handprints on another, and the broken coffee table tipped sideways where Mom’s piano had once stood, see past the dirty laundry strewn around, and someone else’s little kids running around wildly with jam on their shirts, and imagine her own family—Mom, with