“Crafty,” murmurs PopCorn, in an absentminded way. He turns sharply into a driveway and shuts the motor off. “Vel,” he says in his best Transylvanian accent, “velcome to my humble childhood home.”
Sumac thought it would be a log cabin, maybe, or quaint, at least. But it’s just a regular kind of ugly house.
PopCorn presses the end of her nose. “Beep!”
She slaps him away. “Why do you do that?”
“Because it’s cute as a button.” He does it again before she can ward him off. Then he drumrolls on his shorts and calls out like in Hide and Seek: “Ready or not, here we come….”
The front door’s not locked.
As soon as they step into the hall, the stink of smoke gets into Sumac’s throat.
“Dad?” calls PopCorn.
No answer.
“You wait outside so you’re not breathing in the toxins,” he tells Sumac.
She’s glad to retreat to the front yard and read in the sunshine.
PopCorn comes out about ten minutes later talking about drywall with Frankenstein’s monster. Well, a tall, bony old man in steel-capped work boots, jeans, and a flannel shirt that looks unbearably hot, balding, with gray hair, no eyebrows (just little scratchy bits) and a straggly gray beard. His nose is all swollen with red-and-purple lines across it, and his hands are bandaged.
You shouldn’t judge on appearances, Sumac reminds herself.
The grandfather stares at her.
PopCorn breaks off to say, in an oddly formal way, “Dad, this is Sumac.”
“Smack?”
“Sumac.” He leans on the first syllable. “Like the tree. The fourth of our seven.”
“Fifth,” says Sumac, correcting him, but the word hardly comes out, she’s so nervous suddenly. “Hi.”
The old man’s eyes are shifting between the two of them and Sumac can read his mind: She and PopCorn don’t actually look related, because her ancestors are from the Philippines and Germany, and his are Scottish all the way back.
“OK. Well, they’re expecting you, expecting us, at the nursing center, Dad,” says PopCorn, “so we’d better head over.”
“I was seen to the night before last.” The grandfather holds up one bandaged hand like an Egyptian mummy. His voice is hoarse, with an accent as strong as if he never left Glasgow.
“The dressing probably needs changing, and I’ve managed to wangle you an appointment with the doctor.”
“I’m all right.” He makes a checking-his-watch movement, but the bandage is in the way. “I play golf, the mornings.”
“Not this morning,” murmurs PopCorn, opening the passenger door for him.
“I’ll take my own car, thank you.”
“C’mon, Dad, why waste the gas?”
The rumbling volcano hasn’t said one word to Sumac yet. Has he already decided not to like her, because he doesn’t like PopCorn and she’s his daughter? Or maybe — it occurs to her — because she’s adopted, so she doesn’t have any of the grandfather’s genes? Disliking in advance, that’s prejudice. She climbs into the back.
At the nursing center, the three of them wait, wait, wait in a waiting room where the books are ridiculously kiddish and the coloring book of Creatures of Yukon is all scribbled over already.
The grandfather stares into space. He fiddles with the packet of cigarettes the nurse has reminded him twice that he’s not allowed to light up here. He’s got a horrible phlegmy cough; Sumac wonders whether it’s from smoking or whether he breathed in poisonous fumes from the fire.
PopCorn buys chocolate from a vending machine; it tastes as if it’s been melting and hardening over and over since Mesopotamian times.
The grandfather bursts out: “Load of nonsense.”
“The doctor’s only here twice a month,” says PopCorn again, “so I guess he has to see the urgent cases first.”
“I play golf, the mornings.”
Sumac’s quizzed herself on all the difficult spellings from the coloring book: cougar, musk ox, white-footed deer mouse, pine marten, ptarmigan with its silent p. She considers spelling her name Psumac from now on. Psumac, Queen of the Land of Ancient Psumer. That’s nearly as pretty a name as Seren, which is the prettiest Sumac knows; it means star in Welsh. Her cousin Seren Johnson has the hugest laugh, and loves singing and acting, and Sumac hopes she’ll remember to message Sumac from England like she promised.
At the bottom of the book box she finds a crumpled leaflet called Fun for All in Faro. “There’s an arboretum that showcases the wonders of native flora and fauna.”
PopCorn doesn’t look up from the screen of his phone. “Let’s see how much time we’ve got at the end of the day.”
“And a sheep center where you can see those special sheep with the curly horns….”
“Don’t nag, Sumac.”
She wasn’t! She was only mentioning some things they could do when all this boring stuff is over.
“Those fellows are all up the mountain, this time of year.”
She turns to the grandfather. “Who are?”
“The sheep.”
Sumac tries to keep the conversation going. “What I’m really longing to see is the northern lights. I watched this show about them once, how the oxygen ions make the green and the nitrogen ones make the orange. Did you know the Inuit believed the lights could kidnap children?”
“Not in summer.”
Sumac blinks at him.
“You won’t see the lights. Sky’s too bright.”
Oh. So much for that, then.
PopCorn carries on swiping his screen and biting the skin around his thumbnail.
All the grandfather has said to Sumac so far is two things she can’t do. She supposes he’s trying to make sure she won’t be disappointed when she doesn’t see the special sheep and the northern lights, but still, he’s not exactly a sparkling conversationalist. Maybe PopCorn got that talent from his mother, who died years ago, or maybe it’s all his own.
She tries again, pulling the tablet out of her backpack. “Want to see some pictures of the rest of your grandchildren?”
The old man doesn’t say no, at least.
The ones from the exhibition yesterday are all blurry, of course; that’s what happens when you let the four-year-old take the photos. (It’s one of Sumac’s jobs to edit and file all the family pictures.) She clicks on Erase all taken on same date, then flicks back through July and June to find some good ones. “That’s Sic, my biggest brother, he’s sixteen,” she says, with a pang of missing him.
The grandfather squints at the screen. “The one with the clown hair?”
“It’s called an Afro.” Though knowing Sic, he’d probably like the sound of clown hair.
“Why would a person want to be called that?”
“Sic? Oh, it’s not sick, like vomit — it’s S-i-c,” Sumac explains. “That’s a special word you put in square brackets after something that looks nuts, to tell readers you really did mean it that way.”
His watery eyes blink once, twice.
Sumac finds a group shot taken in the back of the Wild behind Camelottery. “There’s Catalpa, she’s the next oldest.” In black, with a coffin-shaped zipper bag over her shoulder, rolling her eyes; it’s as if Catalpa woke up on her fourteenth birthday and decided everything was exhausting. (Whereas nine, like Sumac, is just the right age, because you’re not confused by everything the way a little kid like Brian is, but your brain hasn’t been rotted away by hormones yet.) “The one poking Catalpa with a branch is Wood, that’s short for Redwood, because when he was born the parents thought his hair was going to be red, but it turned out brown. Here’s Aspen, with Brian on her back — used to be Briar — and that’s Oak, he’s our baby.” Oak looks so adorable with his foot in Wood’s mouth, playing Alligator Attack.
“Very hippy-dippy,” says the old man with something that could be a snort or a sniff.
“What is?”
“Trees.”
“I guess names ha
ve to come from somewhere. What did — what were you named after?” asks Sumac. “I mean for.”
“A saint, was it, Dad?” That’s PopCorn.
His father furrows his brow.
“Saint Iain? Or hang on, didn’t you have an uncle Iain?”
The old man doesn’t answer.
Desperate for something to talk about, Sumac flicks through the pictures till she finds a close-up of Camelottery. “And this is where we live. It was built in the days of Queen Victoria, but the frilly redbrick style is called Queen Anne.”
She’s always found that funny, but the grandfather doesn’t seem to.
“When I was small Wood totally lied to me that it’s called Camelottery because camels used to live there before us. I mean, we really do call it Camelottery, but because of Camelot. King Arthur’s castle?”
His long face doesn’t show whether he’s ever heard of King Arthur.
“The turrets and gargoyles, did you notice them?” Sumac zooms in on her favorite gargoyle, the one that’s sticking out its tongue. “And also, of course, Camelottery because of our, all of our surname.” She’s pretty sure that’s bad grammar.
The grandfather reacts at last, turning to PopCorn. “You’re a Miller, same as me.”
“I changed it, Dad, remember?”
The old man takes out his cigarettes again, but the receptionist points to the sign on the wall, so he puts them back.
“He’s not a very good listener.” Sumac whispers it right into PopCorn’s ear, so as not to hurt the grandfather’s feelings.
Instead of answering, PopCorn shows her a website he’s looking at on his phone. Symptoms of Smoke Inhalation, it says at the top. She follows his fingertip. Cough, shortness of breath, hoarseness, headache, confusion. He taps the last word.
Ah, so that’s it: The grandfather’s confused because of smoke in his head.
Sumac turns back to the old man with her most helpful face on. “All four of the parents changed their surnames when we won the lottery, see?”
Definitely a snort this time. “Advertising their business to the world!”
Sumac is puzzled, because it wasn’t a business. “No, they just wanted a new name to share with Sic. MaxiMum was walking up and down the corridor in the hospital, with CardaMom and PopCorn and PapaDum all rubbing her back, which was hurting because Sic was taking his sweet time to come out of her” — Sumac’s always liked that phrase, taking his sweet time, she can just imagine her big brother in miniature form, lounging around on the placenta — “and CardaMom picked up a lottery ticket off the floor to use as a bookmark. She was reading a book called A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” Sumac adds, because the title always sticks in her mind. “Anyway, the ticket had the winning number on it, and after three months, when the company still couldn’t find the real winner, they had to give the money to us. So the parents decided we’d be the Lotterys, because they felt so lucky now they had Sic. Especially since the money meant they could buy a big house to fill with lots more kids, and do interesting stuff with us all day instead of going to work.”
PopCorn is grinning at her. “Sumac’s the keeper of the family stories, even the ones that happened before she was born.”
The old man breaks his silence. “Our ancestor must have had a mill.”
Sumac’s bewildered for a second. Oh, right: Miller.
“Or at least lived near one,” says PopCorn.
“Nae,” snaps his father, “he’d have owned it.”
They lapse into silence again until the nurse finally calls, “Iain Miller.”
* * *
Their one day in Yukon has been a total washout. So far Sumac and PopCorn don’t seem to have cheered up the grandfather at all, or found him a new place to live. All they’ve done is go to the doctor and the drugstore.
The grandfather doesn’t want to come for ice cream with them. He says he has things to do, thank you very much.
It’s vanilla or chocolate; there aren’t any of Sumac’s favorites, like blood orange or toasted pine nut or chai spice. PopCorn barely eats half of his. He says jet lag is hard on the stomach.
“So how do they suck the smoke back out of your dad?” Sumac wants to know.
PopCorn shakes his head. “It turns out he doesn’t have smoke inhalation, just a regular old smoker’s cough.”
“Oh. Do you want to hear more about the Mesopotamians?”
“Later, I’d love to,” he tells her, dumping the rest of his cone in the garbage, “but right now I have to call someone called a regional care program supervisor.”
Sumac folds her arms.
As they’re driving back to the B&B, PopCorn says, “Sorry the ice cream wasn’t much good.”
“I don’t care about the ice cream!” Does he think she’s a baby?
“OK, petal.”
“So much for our special, exciting, One-to-One Lottafun,” she says in a wobbly voice. “This is turning out to be a big old Zerofun.”
PopCorn pulls over so fast the wheels screech. Sumac braces herself in case they’re going to crash.
He parks almost in the ditch. “Look, a gold pan!”
“What? Where?”
It’s a broken, blue plastic Frisbee.
“Use your imagination,” says PopCorn. “I’m going to teach you to pan for gold like a hundred years ago.”
This turns out to mean standing in an icy creek collecting a lot of black sand with not a single speck of gold.
After about a quarter of an hour, Sumac’s feet are killing her. “No offense, but I’m not enjoying this.”
“Me neither,” admits PopCorn. “And it strikes me now that the water’s probably laced with contaminants from the mine. Sorry it didn’t pan out.”
Sumac moans, because PopCorn’s puns are the worst.
He clambers out and starts rubbing his feet on the grass to dry them. “Faro makes me feel fourteen again.”
Sumac thought adults were always wanting to be young again, but PopCorn says it kind of grimly.
Back in their B&B, when he finishes leaving one message (for someone called a chief geriatrician) and starts dialing again, Sumac asks quickly, “Why does being conservative mean your dad doesn’t like us?”
PopCorn presses the red button to cancel the call. “He doesn’t not like you, munchkin. He doesn’t know you yet.”
Sumac’s chewing her lip as if it’s licorice.
“Basically, the old buffer’s ticked off that I married a man instead of a woman.”
She stares. “But that was donkey’s years ago.” What, more than twenty? In the last century, anyway. Which is a long time to stay mad.
“Yeah, well, it’s hard to teach a dumb old donkey new tricks,” says PopCorn, and adds a pretty convincing hee-haw.
Not as good as Aspen would do it, but it makes Sumac grin.
Then PopCorn says he needs to go in the bathroom and have a Dull Conversation with the other parents by Skype before they’re all in bed, even though it’s only seven here in Yukon and the sun’s still high in the sky.
A Dull Conversation means an Adult Conversation, because Sic once heard the phrase wrong. Sic got to make up most of the family slang just by being born first, which isn’t fair, but there you go.
Sumac’s listening to her summertime playlist, but she presses pause when PopCorn’s voice goes up. “I know it’s a lot for you all to take in,” he’s saying, “and I’ve no right to spring it on you like this, it’s just that I’m in such a state, I can’t — a score of twenty-two counts as mild, but still, if that’s what it is, it’s only going to get worse.”
Sumac wonders what’s a lot to take in, and what PopCorn scored twenty-two at. Technically she’s eavesdropping, but it’s because she’s stressed and she needs more information so she can calm down.
“Only for a while, obviously, just to get him properly checked out and see what the options are…. You’ve frozen, hon.” That must be PapaDum he’s talking to. PopCorn lets out a growl of frustra
tion.
Nothing for a minute. Then CardaMom’s voice, shouting: “— hear us?”
“Just audio, no video. This Wi-Fi’s pathetic,” PopCorn tells her.
“I was asking, what about a live-in?” That’s PapaDum, gruff.
“No, I suggested two of them, working in shifts, and Dad completely freaked out about strangers under his roof.”
A silence. “We’d be strangers too.” MaxiMum’s calm voice.
“We’re his family,” protests CardaMom.
Sumac wonders how the Lotterys can count as this grandfather’s family when they live five thousand kilometers away and he’s never met most of them.
“Only in a technical sense,” says MaxiMum.
“Do you have to sound like such a robot?” CardaMom roars at her.
At this point, Sumac puts her music on again, fast, because when sibs argue it doesn’t really matter, it’s just like weather, but when parents do it —
She listens grimly to two and a half tracks about walking on sunshine and fish jumping and cotton growing high.
Finally PopCorn comes out of the bathroom wearing a crooked kind of smile and says, “Guess what? We’re going to bring my dad home with us for a visit.”
Sumac tries to look pleasantly surprised.
At seven the next evening, PopCorn pushes open the front door of Camelottery. “Greetings, earthlings!”
Sumac’s behind the grandfather, looking at the worn-down heels of his boots.
Limbs flailing, knocking a long mirror askew, Aspen gets to PopCorn first and jumps to hang around his neck.
“You brung presents?” asks Brian, behind her.
PopCorn says, “Ah …”
Sumac’s face falls. They completely forgot.
“Where the presents?” demands Brian.
“I’ve got half a candy necklace,” Sumac offers.
“We’ve brought my dad,” says PopCorn, too brightly, gesturing toward the old man in a ta-dah way. “Everybody, this is Iain. Your fourth grandfather.”