A Family Outing

The family takes a little trip on a sunny afternoon.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Wayne Jones. Welcome to Lies I Tell My Kids. This is episode 10, “A Family Outing.”

I’m always a little nervous when we’re packing things for a family outing when the destination is far from a store or even a canteen where you could pick up something that you forgot. I’m doubly nervous this afternoon, right after a quick lunch of nachos, because I spent the morning arranging for a professional private investigator to start following my wife.

“And the other stuff, too,” he said.

“Other stuff?”

“Yeah, I do research online, and by the way well beyond just scrolling through her Facebook page.”

I make a mental note to bring him his $2,500 in cash the next day, and then shake it all off as best I can and resume double-checking food, first-aid kit, toys, food again making sure there’s lots of fluids, and on it goes. Sadee has a less systematic method involving just going from this room to this drawer and back to the fridge, and then often just accidentally stumbling (sometimes literally) on something to bring just because the kids have drawn her attention with a noisy interaction in the living room.

The kids are excited but they do not help in the least. They have the attitude of entitled aristocrats, toggling between TV and videogames, as they shout orders to their two indentured servants.

“Mom, are we going to have enough M&M’s? The peanut ones.”

“Don’t forget my sabre.”

But the exalted time arrives when I lock the door of the house and turn to the stuffed but neatly packed SUV. I slide relievedly onto the front passenger seat and strap in. It’s an hour’s ride when I don’t have to be responsible for anything, don’t have to be on the lookout for anything or looking for anything (like a job, for example). I’m strapped into a seat, a good driver is at the wheel, and the kids are in the back busy with one thing or another that’s electronic or made from paper. I watch the scenery go by but not so much taking in the details of its beauty as we attain the outskirts of the city, but more like a blur of colour and action, a whir of abstract art in motion and alive, like a movie that’s fast-forward. A blur, yes, but for some reason details jump out at me and my attention is roused, however briefly.

“Smooth drive,” I say to Sadee.

“Yeah.”

“Be mindful of the moose though.”

“The moose? What are you talking about?”

I continue the ruse. “I heard on the radio this morning, or a podcast or something, that a family of moose, like a mother and father and two calves, have been criss-crossing the road. The experts say they’re making their way down the sides of the highway and crossing over when they run out of food on one side.”

“Jesus, John, you’re kidding me.”

“No, and these things are huge. Well, not the calves, but the male one weighs like six hundred kilograms and is taller than I am. And there’s also those antlers.”

“Antlers. What’s six hundred kilograms in pounds?”

I do a quick calculation in my head from the metric equivalents that were drilled into me in high school, and have remained there taking up space from other brain activities that I might want to exercise.

“Thirteen hundred and twenty pounds and change.”

“Fuck,” Sadee says, and Lolly pops up immediately from the back with, “Mom, not that word, please.” We’ve taught her well.

“Yes, dear, I’m sorry,” Sadee says, turning her head slightly but keeping her eyes on the road. “So, John, you’re the navigator. Keep an eye out on both sides of the road.”

I agree verbally and nod my head but warn her also that though moose are big, they can dart pretty quickly up the embankment from the woods and before you know it they’re right in front of you on the road and you don’t have a chance to hit the brakes and when you ram into one, its legs are broken and the whole thirteen hundred pounds comes in through the windshield.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Sadee shouts.

“Mother!” Lolly shouts back correctively.

The game is up and I’ve had my fun. “One more thing about the moose,” I say.

“I’m afraid to listen.”

“There’s no moose out here. But in my defence I did hear all those details on a podcast, but it’s mostly in Newfoundland.”

I can feel the force of her absolute silence. “John,” she says, just, “John,” and then returns her full attention back to the road. I watch the art go by some more.

The ride is mostly silent and uneventful except for Grady having wrested his sabre from its confines in the back of the car and attempting to stab one or other of us. Sadee turns off onto a dirt road and we travel about five minutes until we arrive at a perfect clearing. A place to park the car on the left, a place with small stones leading to sand on the thin beach of a small trickly stream, and just enough sunshine.

We park and start to unload the car. Lolly and Grady want to go into the water immediately but I tell them to wait until we’re all set up so that I can get a chair and sit by the water and watch them. The stream is shallow and remains that way right across to the other side, but I always have a memory of Shawn when I’m near the water, and even more vivid when I’m with my family. He was our family too, the start of it, and it took Sadee and me some hard guilty years before we were able to forgive ourselves for his drowning and decide to have another child.