area, but up a bit where they could see a small waterfall
caught between two large outcroppings of snow-covered
rock. The sun was setting, and the mountains’ long shadows
reached far across the silent world of white.
“This is when I wish I’d learned to ski,” Renie said, puffing
a little with exertion.
“You did try,” Judith responded. “That’s more than I ever
did.”
“I quit after I skied between some tall guy’s legs,” said
Renie, stopping and leaning precariously against a fallen
evergreen limb. “It was up here, at the pass. Gosh, that must
have been thirty-five years ago.”
Judith gazed upward, taking in the majesty of winter.
“Doesn’t it seem weird to talk about things that happened
so far back in the past? I remember hearing our mothers
mention things they’d done when they were young and
thinking how old they’d gotten. That was years ago, when
they were a lot younger than we are now.”
Setting her gloved hands on her hips, Renie glowered at
Judith. “What’s with you? Suddenly you’re obsessed with
getting old. For God’s sake, coz, you’re two years younger
than I am, and it never even occurs to me! Besides, we took
a vow. Remember?”
Judith looked puzzled. “What kind of vow? A suicide pact?
Or is it the promise I asked your daughter Anne to make,
that when I got old and impossible like my mother, she’d
put a pillow over my face, slip a
in the VCR, and wait for me to peg out?”
“Jeez!” Renie threw up her hands. “No! It was a few years
ago, when our kids were teenagers, and they were accusing
us of not acting our age. We told them we never would, because we might get
“What did the kids say?”
“Who cares? That’s not the point.” Renie began tramping
around in the snow, leaving a circular pattern of foot-prints
between the fallen branch and the tree. “It was our
that mattered. I remember, we looked at each other as if to
say,
wasn’t part of it. We would always keep our sense of humor
and our slightly screwy perspective on life and uphold the
old Grover mantra of finding something to laugh about even
when things got really grim.”
Judith knew what Renie meant. Grandma Grover, who
had endured her share of tragedy, had never, ever, lost her
ability to laugh. “Keep your pecker up,” she’d advised. “It’s
always better to laugh than to cry.” Such homely, even trite
counsel had been the family by-word, and it worked because
it was practiced rather than preached.
“I guess it’s this retirement thing,” Judith admitted.
