Back to Madeline Island by Jay Gilbertson

thing.”
    â€œYes, you do, darling.” Ruby reaches up and pulls a thread out of thin air. Swinging from the end is a big spider. “Think I’ll take our friend here outside.”
    She heads over to one of the two French doors that open to the lake and tosses him out.
    â€œThere, now where were we—oh yes, not knowing Helen.”
    â€œIt’s not like I…It just seems so odd that I never saw her…blow the candles out on all those birthday cakes…and never once gave her a Christmas gift, or made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or splashed in puddles or kissed a scratch,” I say, sighing long and trying hard not to cry.
    â€œEve—things are exactly the way they’re supposed to be. Why—you didn’t have to change one diaper and never once had a crabby baby clamped to your breast.”
    â€œHow would you know about getting clamped by a baby?” I chuckle. If men had to breast-feed, I bet things would be different.
    â€œI overheard one of your clients complaining about how sore her breasts were, poor dear.” We both suck our chests in. “She was ranting and raving about feeling like a cow and pumping at all hours of the day and night—really, darling, you lucked out, if you ask me.”
    â€œMaybe so and I guess you’re right about the other stuff, but…when will I stop this guilty feeling I have from stealing away all this good stuff?”
    â€œI should think, when you’re good and ready and not a moment sooner.”
    Â 
    It’s going on toward eleven. Ruby and I had a light supper of pasta with a pesto sauce that we made together last summer and froze. It was great. Ruby’s great, what a gem. I can hear her say, “duh.” Get it—Ruby—a gem. Never mind.
    Rocky and I are heading down the basement stairs. Ruby has gone off to bed and I’m too wound up to sleep, so we’re going to use the secret passageway to get down into the boathouse without having to step outside. This cottage used to be a front for an illegal bootlegging operation. Ed’s grandfather was quite the entrepreneur.
    All a “deliveryman” had to do (in the dark of night, of course) was pull his boat into the bottom half of the boathouse, probably blink the boat-lights to some code and presto! The back of the boathouse has a false wall that slides open, revealing a longer space that he then would pull into and unload the goods.
    There’s a passageway from the basement wine cellar leading all the way down to that backroom behind the boathouse. That’s where Johnny came from the other day. Then if you go up a spiral staircase, push up a trap door— voilà —you’re in the closet of Ruby’s Aprons. The name of Gustave’s (Ed’s grandfather) bootleg was Toad Tea. There’s a picture of a winking toad on the label of every bottle, exactly like the one in the huge stained-glass window in the cottage. Kind of explains the toads all over the place, now, don’t it? I’ve kissed a few myself, never did find the prince, well, not yet anyway.
    So, I’m heading there now. Walking past the washing machine, I pull open the metal door of our wine closet. Its shelves are filled with dusty, but full, wine bottles. The wine Ruby and Ed used to make. I reach up and yank a cord. A bare lightbulb snaps on, throwing its garish light all over. Rocky paws at the back wall. Smart cat. Pushing the wall, it clicks. I push it again and it groans outward. I snap on an ancient switch inside the passage and naked lightbulbs pop to life, illuminating a long curving corridor.
    Rocky “meows” and then steps down the metal stairs. He turns back to me.
    â€œI’m coming, I’m coming.”
    We wander down the passage; my footsteps echo off the walls, giving me the willies. Around a corner, the hallway opens up to an enormous, high-ceiling room; on either side are rows and rows of huge