“Well…” I pause. “I’ll read, swim, take some photos.” I say it like it’s a question.
“And what else?”
I shift my weight. Now that I’m here, the thought of filling an entire summer of empty days seems daunting. When was the last time I didn’t have a schedule? “Does there have to be more?”
She smiles. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
Nan loves to keep busy. She golfs, sings in multiple choirs, makes butter tarts and peach jam for church fundraisers. When Heather and I stayed with her as kids, she kept our hands and minds occupied, too. She taught us how to weed the flower beds and water the hanging baskets. We decorated cakes, cross-stitchedbirds and butterflies on scraps of fabric. We learned how to sew simple cloth bags and knit hats for the twins. I loved it all, but Heather was easily frustrated. She claims she doesn’t have a single artistic bone in her body, but it’s not true. The way she structures an argument is its own kind of poetry.
“You know,” I say as Nan settles into her armchair, “I haven’t sewn anything in ages.”
She holds up arthritic fingers. “That makes two of us. I miss it. Remember your graduation dress?”
“Of course.” It was midnight blue with a ribbon at the nape of the neck that cascaded to my waist. “Maybe we should do another collaboration this summer. Your expertise and my hands.” A project to keep us busy.
Nan smiles. “Do you have something in mind?”
“We should start with something easy.” I mull. “We could make new curtains for the kitchen?”
Her eyes spark, and I feel warm from the inside out.
“Curtains, yes,” she says, surveying the space. “This whole place has become a little weary, hasn’t it?”
“It’s…rustic.” The furniture has seen better days, but I don’t mind. John’s cottage is cozy, lived in. The antithesis of my apartment.
“We could freshen it up,” Nan says. “It wouldn’t take much. Curtains. Pillowcases. A new tablecloth.” She looks at the rafters. “What do you think, Joyce?” Nan does this sometimes—talks to dead people, my grandfather usually. Her eyes return to me, decisive. “We’ll need a sewing machine.”
“Done,” I say, though I have no idea whether I can get one in town, or whether online retailers would ship here. We’re kind of in the middle of nowhere.
“And fabric,” Nan adds. “Stedmans used to have a good selection. We’ll start there.”
“Do you think John will mind? Maybe I should ask first?”
Nan scoffs. “John wouldn’t notice if we painted the walls hot pink.”
I laugh. Grandpa was like that, too. “So, what do you think? Should we start in on a puzzle?”
“I don’t feel like I have it in me tonight.” She yawns. “It’s been a long day. I might just head to bed and read.”
I move her walker into place and kiss her on the cheek.
“Sweet dreams, Alice,” she says. “And remember…”
I smile. Because until this moment, I’d forgotten how every day ended the summer I was seventeen.
“Good things happen at the lake,” I finish.
She nods once. “Good things happen at the lake.”
Even with the windows thrown open, the cottage is still sweltering, so I take Nan’s words of wisdom literally and put on my striped one-piece and a white cotton caftan. It has pretty blue embroidery at the neck that matches my bathing suit. I bought it not knowing how I’d spend my summer but sure that this dress would be involved.
I pour sparkling water over ice and wander through the screened porch and out onto the deck, where an ancient-looking triangle dinner bell hangs next to the door. I’d forgotten about it, but as I run my fingers over the metal, I have a flashback of Luca standing on a stool and whaling on it until Nan told him to cut it out.
The deck is a wooden platform that rests on a rocky ledge over the water—a prime perch for admiring the view. It’s even more beautiful than I remembered. Open water stretches for more than a mile straight ahead, with the green hills of the westernand eastern shores on either side. The sky is an endless swirling canvas of lavender and rose against dusky blue, reflected on the lake’s flat surface.
Stairs run from the upper deck down to the dock, which travels out from the rocky shoreline. An aluminum boat with three benches and a small motor is tied to one side. I think I can remember how to drive it. Nan made me get a boating license before we came when I was a teenager—not that I’ve used it since then. There’s a short sandy strip of beach, and the boathouse sits beyond. It has a stone base, a second-floor loft, and a small deck over the water. I set my towel and caftan on the back of a red Muskoka chair and sit at the end of the dock, my feet dangling in the water.
Not sure how deep it is, I slide in rather than jump. It’s like slipping into the sunset. Here I am, days away from my thirty-third birthday, in the same spot where I swam as a teenager, when my eyes began to open to the vastness of the world beyond my own.
