The Last Summer

Nora and Felix had not spoken properly in three weeks.

Not the kind of not-speaking where you ignore someone and walk past them in the hall. They still said things like pass the salt and have you seen my shoes. They still sat at the same dinner table every night. But the real talking, the kind they used to do for hours lying on the grass in the back garden or walking home from school, had stopped completely after the argument.

The argument had been about their grandfather.

His name was Grandpa Ren and he had lived alone in a small stone house at the base of the Hartwell Mountains for as long as either of them could remember. Every summer they spent two weeks with him. He took them hiking. He cooked enormous breakfasts. He told them long, wandering stories about the mountains that sometimes had a point and sometimes did not, and both of them had always loved him very much.

In March he had fallen ill. Not a small illness but a serious one, the kind that changed things. He was better now, the doctors said, but slower. Quieter. He tired easily and could not hike the way he used to.

Nora, who was thirteen, had said they should still go for the summer visit. That Grandpa Ren needed them around, that it would do him good to have company.

Felix, who was ten, had said he did not want to go and watch Grandpa be sick. He had said it badly, the way ten year olds sometimes say things badly, without meaning it to come out as harsh as it did. And Nora had said something back that was also not her best moment.

Three weeks of pass the salt had followed.

They went to Grandpa Ren\'s anyway, because their parents decided for them, which was fair enough. They arrived on a Saturday afternoon to find him sitting in his garden in a low chair with a blanket over his knees even though it was warm. He looked smaller than Nora remembered. But his eyes were the same, bright and dark and paying attention.

He looked at the two of them getting out of the car and he looked at the space between them, which was larger than it used to be, and he did not say anything about it.

He just said: Good. You are here. I have been waiting.

That evening after dinner he told them he had something to ask them. He wanted them to do the Hartwell Ridge walk. The one that started at the village, went up through the pine forest, crossed the ridge, came down through the cave system on the north face, and ended at the old shepherd\'s hut on the other side.

It was a two day walk. He had done it with their father when their father was young. He had always meant to do it with Nora and Felix but there had never been quite the right summer.

I cannot do it myself this year, he said. He said it simply, without any fuss. But I would very much like someone to do it for me. Will you go?

Nora looked at Felix. Felix looked at the table.

Yes, Nora said. We will go.

Felix said nothing. But he did not say no.