It’s early. All the suitcases are in the car. Fétiche, our cat, is in her wicker cage. She’s already started to meow. The return to Montreal is going to be long. Our vacation in Kennebunk is over. A short week quickly flew by. Time to rest a little and change colors. Although we’re already starting to pluck. I know, we should say “desquamer”. But it’s so much funnier to “pluck”. It sounds like a little chick.
The whole family is feeling down, or rather, since we are at the seaside, we are feeling down. We would stay again. The salty air, the seabirds, the beach, the tides, the rocks, the village, the beautiful New England houses. We feel like tourists here only for the first two days, after that, we feel like we have always lived here as the rhythm of the place takes the place of our rhythm. We calm down. We soothe ourselves. The proof: there is always traffic on the road that runs along the edge of the beach. Well, we don’t care. We look at infinity, while waiting, and we think about it too. It’s so rare to think about infinity.
The Infinite has just finished. We get into the car. When I said that the whole family is feeling down, I was excluding my father. My father is all sprightly. My father’s favorite part of vacation is the return. Seven days of reading the USA Todaythat’s enough, he can’t wait to read his Press.
Dad is sitting at the wheel, smoking a cigarette. To his right, my mother, with a road map on her thighs. Behind, my brother, my sister and I, with something to read: Bob Morane, Michel Vaillant and the Countess of Ségur.
We drive on Highway 1. The way is clear, early in the morning. We pass the sea one last time. My sister and I whisper: “bye bye, sea”, waving, like we did when we were babies. My mother tells my father to stop:
” For what ?
— Just park here. It won’t be long.”
My mother gets out of the Impala. She opens the trunk of the car. We think she has to check if we forgot anything at the cottage. She takes out a towel, takes off her sundress. She has her swimsuit underneath. She tells us: “I’m just going to take a last dip.” And starts running towards the ocean. My father nods: “Oh come on!” She didn’t give him a choice, if she had given him a choice, he would have said no, that we didn’t have time, that we had to go to Montreal. He lights a cigarette.
We look at our mother from afar, squinting our eyes. She is already so small in life, imagine in the sea. My mother is like a fish in water. We can only see her head. In Kennebunk, it is an achievement to get completely wet. The water is so cold that most boaters only bathe their feet. The more adventurous ones catch a wave at the height of their buttocks and rush back to dry them in the sun. My mother can stay in the sea for hours. Without turning blue. It is the sky and the ocean that are.
This time, she only stays for five minutes. But they are her five minutes. It never happens to her, five minutes without a husband, without a child, without running, without a worry. In the lightness of the water, in the accompaniment of the wind, in the reflection of the sun.
We look at her, surprised that she didn’t take us, but at the same time, we understand, it’s her five minutes. Her vacation.
All week long, she was the chief organizer, taking care of everything, our food, our games, our sunburn, our depression when it rained.
Before returning to the city, before becoming responsible for everything, for everyone in our days, this all too brief freedom was taking away from her.
My mother is seizing this moment to bring it home. To put it in a corner of her mind and return to it when the daily grind starts to overflow.
On this last Sunday of August, just before the start of the school year, I invite you to do like her. Give yourself one last moment of vacation. Just for you.
In the water, in the forest, on a terrace, on a balcony, contemplate the horizon. Just be there. Vacant. Don’t even do yoga. Do nothing. A vacation must end like a movie, on a frozen image. So that it remains in us. Without being crushed by everything that is coming.
My mother got out of the water. She runs towards us. Opens the suitcase. Contorts herself to take off her swimsuit, hiding herself with the towel, puts on her sun dress and takes her place in the car again.
My father said to her: “So, are you happy?” My mother replied: “Yes.”
This is the final word. And of everything that begins.