Even before I open the cover, it comes back to me. My first time away from home. My first taste of freedom. Two months of waking to sunlight bouncing off the lake and rippling on the ceiling. Diving off the dock, then swimming beneath the surface as far as I could. Barbecues on the deck. Permanently damp hair. Art projects in the boathouse. Red life jackets. Canoe trips. Picnics on the island. The Harlequins I’d sneak from Joyce’s stash. Coconut sunscreen and watermelon slices and my terry cloth bathing suit cover-up. The kids across the bay. And their yellow speedboat.
I flip through photos of shorelines and treetops, wildflowers and rocks, the twins, their heads bobbing in the water, almost impossible to distinguish. There’s one I took of myself in the bedroom mirror, my hair sopping wet. I thought it was clever: Alice through the looking glass.
Most are photographs of Nan. My original muse. Nan reading on a hammock, the twins tucked into her sides. Nanmending a rip in Lavinia’s shorts, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose. Nan paddling a canoe, waving at me onshore with an incandescent smile.
On the very last page is the photo that started it all.
I slide it from its sleeve and study the faces of three teenagers in a yellow boat. From the moment I took it, I’ve been chasing this kind of perfection in an image. The emotion. The movement. The sense of timelessness. A whole summer of practice, and I got this shot on one of my last days at the lake. I still can’t believe how well I captured them. Even now, I can smell the gasoline, hear their hollers across the water.
The older boy is at the steering wheel and the younger one stares at the girl, who’s smiling into the wind. The light is gorgeous, but not because I’ve bent it to my will. There’s a naivety to the image, a lack of artifice. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but for some reason, I still feel deeply connected to these three kids, preserved in never-ending summer.
The photo is the first chapter of my origin story, the beginning of my love affair with photography. It launched me on the path to becoming the person I am now.
I flip back to the picture of Nan in the canoe with her star-bright smile, and an inkling of an idea begins to take shape. A way to cure Nan’s blues and get her out of the house. A change of scene. Fresh air. Endless skies. Glittering water.
A second trip to the lake.
Our return to Barry’s Bay.
3
Wednesday, June 18
I find John Kalinski’s number in Nan’s address book. I haven’t seen John since his wife’s funeral more than a decade ago, but I remember both him and Joyce well. They were entwined in my grandparents’ lives.
John sounds happy to hear from me. “Stay the whole summer if you want,” he says when I ask about renting the cottage for a couple of weeks. He tells me he’s been thinking about selling it for years—the place is empty.
The offer catches me off guard—both John’s unexpected generosity and how appealing a two-month hiatus from my life sounds.
When I relay the conversation to Nan over afternoon tea, she doesn’t react with the excitement I expect. Instead, she’s silent for a long stretch of time.
“John assured me it was okay with him,” I tell her. “He can’t visit the cottage at all. He’d prefer if someone was staying there.”
And then she smiles—reallysmiles—for the first time since her hip replacement.
I do the math. I check my bank account. I pore over my invoices and am surprised to find that I’ve already made more than I did all of last year. The silver lining of the breakup is that I’ve been relentlessly productive.
I think about my last conversation with Elyse.
You’re even paler than usual, Alice. You look like a ghost. I’m worried about you.
I can afford to take a break. More importantly, maybe I can’t afford not to.
Everything falls into place after I call John and tell him that yes, we’d love to stay at the cottage until the end of August.
I manage to postpone many of my assignments and help find other photographers to cover the rest. I track down a physiotherapist in Barry’s Bay who can see Nan, and her post-surgery checkup goes well. John gives me the name and number of the guy who’s looking after the cottage for the summer—he has a spare set of keys.
“If you need a hand making the cottage more comfortable for Nan, I’m sure he’d be able to help,” John tells me.
As I dial the number, I find myself sinking back into memories of Barry’s Bay. Saffron sunsets. Fireflies twinkling in the dusk. The heat of the dock’s sunbaked wooden planks underfoot. A red-roofed cabin shaded by evergreen boughs.
The daydream ends with a record scratch when a man’s voice booms through the line.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Um…”
There’s more shouting, now muffled. I check my screen to make sure I’ve dialed the right number, and yes.
