Once upon a time, before I knew what clinical depression was, I had cross-country skied over this lake. It was a hazy memory, but a nice one. I shuffled over the snow-covered surface at night by the light of candles gleaming in hollowed-out ice blocks. My parents were still together back then and they stood by my side, helping me along. At the finish line there were ice pyramids stacked on the lake like tombs for frozen pharaohs.
Now, of course, the lake was wholly thawed, but it was the idea of the frozen surface that pulled at me. Come winter, my computer would have an icy burial mound, all my communications with Jonah encased inside.
As I walked toward the lake, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that if things had been different, I might be with him right now instead of doing this. All spring, we had been building toward a second meeting. We texted about it every day, trading job listings at all hours, convinced we could work at the same place after school was through.
Anywhere would do. The more ridiculous the better.It would make a good story for our grandchildren, Jonah said. And a bizarre new beginning to our relationship. So we started a list and said yes to everything. A clowning camp in Alaska? Sure. An arts initiative at a women’s prison in Oklahoma? Why not? A summer at sea on the Bosporus Strait? Sign me up!
Anytime we saw summer work for teenagers, no matter how strange, we sent it to the other. It became a code between us. A declaration of our desire to unite as walking, talking actual people. To be together the way everyone else was.
I’d write:
On a scale of 1 to 10, how do you feel about inseminating salmon eggs?
And he’d write back:
Nine! Who’s going to inseminate them if not us?
Then, an hour later he’d write:
Cooks needed at nudist colony in Spokane. Nightly wiener roast?
After a while, however, I noticed that I was the only one sending jobs.
You down for organic beet farming? We could be the Beet Generation! Hahahahahahahaha (punches self in face).
Or simply:
Rodeo clowns?
And nothing would come back.
Not even that emoji he was so fond of, the one with the smiley face sticking its tongue out. The one I’d always assumed meant “You are cute and funny and clever and did I mention cute?” but now I think probably meant “I am not actually engaging with you, Tess Fowler. This stupid grinning face is a BS substitute for real communication.”
I passed the top of the hill and felt the ground beneath me begin to slant. The far bank of the lake came into view. It wasn’t quite dawn yet, but the clouds were just beginning to glow a buttery yellow. And, seemingly against my will, I began to narrate to Jonah about what was happening.
In my head, I saw the little blinking cursor on my e-mail’s chat function. Then I saw my usual string of text starting to fill it in one word at a time, like it had so often.
Me:Things I’m seeing without you:
This was a game we played on occasion, looking out thewindows of our respective rooms, half a country away, and just describing what we saw. If we were doing it simultaneously, it was possible, Jonah said, to be in two worlds at once.
He was cheesy like that.
Me:Steam coming off the pavement. Motion detector lights popping on and off like little lightning flashes.
Me:Rabbits. Baby rabbits? How can you tell a baby rabbit from a small adult rabbit? Are small rabbits confused for babies in the rabbit world? Is it humiliating?
A couple of times we tried the game with video chat, pointing our laptop cameras out the window, actually seeing what the other saw, but it wasn’t the same. It was always better with words. Translating the world for each other.
Me:Automatic sprinkler systems. Fountains. A few covered pools in backyards.
At the bottom of the hill, I crossed the road to the lip of the path around the shore.
Me:The lake. Looked so big to me when I was a kid. Now it’s just a little guy. An oversize swimming pool with fish. So clear today. A lone rower is out. Is she trying for a moment’s peace before her crappy day begins? Is she training for something? Who are you, lady rower? Why are you working so hard? You have badass arms.
In the days after he was gone, I could tell immediately that something had shifted. At some point, I didn’t know when, life had only started to feel real when I wrote to him about it. I was a better, funnier version of myself when I told him things. Life was manageable that way. My brain was manageable. Now, the days I was living felt robbed of something, and I needed to find a way to get it back or things were going to get really, really bad.
Me:The steps of the wooden dock. The green algae on the water. The rower looking at me through reflective sunglasses. The cool morning breeze that kicks up. And then the full light of the sun finding its way over the horizon.
