The acknowledgment lands like a yearned-for gift. I hadn’t realized until now just how desperate I’ve been to get some praise, or at least credit, for the time I’ve put in. From day to day, no one is here to witness my work except my father, which means that my efforts largely evaporate into the wind. I’ve tried to be at peace with that, to not need a gold star. But earning Nina’s praise feels huge; it’s something I’ve sought my whole life.
“But no more prophecy stuff, okay?” She raises her eyebrows and waits for me to comply.
“Okay. No more.”
She yawns, looks at the clock, and announces that it’s way past her bedtime, but as she leaves the kitchen, she turns. “Oh, and Cricket, why are you still sleeping in that single bed, you weirdo? The mattress is so old it’s literally crunchy. Don’t you want to move into the bigger room?”
“Your room?”
She laughs, as if she has zero attachment to the room or anything else here. “I’m very happy to relinquish it.”
It hadn’t even occurred to me to move rooms, but later that night, as I lie in bed with Dandy the one-eyed lion, I have to laugh. Why haven’t I upgraded to the queen bed across the hall? Laziness? An inferiority complex? Have I been caught in a psychological sinkhole from childhood? I don’t have the answer, but I resolve to claim the adult-sized bed once Nina and Nils leave. It’s time to level up. I’m not a child anymore—I’m emerging from the netherworld that comes after childhood and supposedly leads to adulthood, and I deserve a better mattress.
The next morning, Nils tries to convince me to do an ice plunge with him. I tell him it’s a hard no, but we all agree to bear witness. Armed with blankets, towels, and thermoses of hot coffee, we make our way through the knee-deep snow down to the pond, where Nils has already prepared a large hole in the ice. I must admit, he has done excellent work. The square-shaped opening is tidy and close enough to the dock that the plungee can easily pull themselves out of the water.
Nils sheds his robe—thankfully, he is wearing trunks—and walks out onto the ice. This is the kind of thing my father would have eagerly participated in back in the day. Now, he looks on with wonder, as if Nils is performing a magic trick, as if anything could happen next.
Nils lowers himself to a sitting position, dangling his legs in the frigid water, and then slides like a seal down into the black hole. Heremains under the surface for an uncomfortably long moment while we all hold our breath in solidarity. Finally, he pops up, shakes his head like a retriever, takes a fortifying inhale, and says, “What? It’s warm!”
He continues to breathe and tread water as Nina times him for three minutes, finally counting down, “Three, two, one! Okay, you’re done. You did it.”
In no rush to get out, Nils submerges himself once more and then pulls himself up onto the dock so casually that one might think he was emerging from a tropical lagoon. He towels off and begins doing weird stretches.
“I’m impressed,” I say.
Nils gestures toward the hole in the ice. “It’s not too late, Cricket…”
“Next year,” I say.
As Nils dons his robe and we start to move in the direction of the house, my father stops, looks back toward the pond, then asks, “What about the other boy?”
“What boy?” asks Nina.
“The younger one who went in first. He’s still in the pond.”
Nina furrows her brow, perplexed, but I know exactly what is happening. He must have seen him again.
“Seth? Was it Seth?” I ask my father.
Nina looks at me with horror. “Cricket!”
Our dad looks befuddled, as if he is trying to piece something together.
“Don’t worry, Dad,” Nina reassures him while also managing to shoot me a glare. “You’re just a little confused. Let’s go up to the house and get warm.”
I relent, but this time, I can’t be talked out of it. When it comes to our father, I am the authority now. He saw what he saw, and I know what I know.
Chapter 27
2017 and Beyond
Seth’s death left a gash through my life. I approached the following years as a punishment, certain that the universe was trying to teach me a lesson about the danger of loving too much, or too recklessly, or both. After limping my way to the end of high school, I enrolled at a big university out west. At that point, I hadn’t seen my father for almost year. Feeling both rejected by him and ashamed of the hurtful things I had said, I refused to visit Catwood Pond that summer. But when fall rolled around, my father offered to drive me west and move me into my dorm. Over the course of four days, we crossed the country and did our best to reconnect. It was nice to be with him and it almost felt like nothing had changed, but beneath the surface of our easy rapport, something was different between us—a lingering sadness, a shared sense of regret. I thought about apologizing for the things I had said to him, but it was still too raw. I made a promise to hold myself accountable at a later date, once my hurt had subsided. That felt fair.
In the meantime, I asked, “Do you miss Mom?”
“Very much,” he admitted.
“Maybe you can fix things with her. I’ve heard about people doing that: getting divorced but then getting back together.”
