6
IMOGEN
By 4:00, after packing up the office, I’m ready to quit for the day. Boxing one room in the house isn’t much compared to the work ahead, but it feels like enough progress to end the day without feeling like a total failure. I sink into the couch with a flicker of accomplishment, though Amelia’s words gnaw at me—I hope you’re actually getting things done over there!—until I force myself to do one last task, something small but necessary: list the boats for sale.
With the unpredictable recent storms, there’s no reason to ride out on the water during our final days in Blair. Not like I have the time or desire to anyway. Plus, the sooner I post the boats to Facebook Marketplace, the less likely I am to drastically slash prices in a panic.
Wearing a wool coat and sweatpants, I jog down the steps to our private dock, wood creaking beneath me the whole way down. The wind picks up, sending the boats rocking against the waves, murky blue water splashing angrily around them.
I start with the pontoon—the one from the boat party photo in my bedroom. Pushing away the memories that these boats hold, I snap the photos one after the other, getting different angles. Next, Mom’s pedal boat.
It’s just a boat,I force myself to believe.Take the picture. Move forward.
The images aren’t anything fancy, and the overcast lighting isn’t helping. But I do the best with what I’ve got.
They’re just boats.
The next gust of wind nearly sends me toppling into the lake. I imagine the water is frigid—summer didn’t bring enough sun to warm it or make swimming any fun. I lean down and poke a finger beneath the surface. It’s bitter.
Mom must have been so cold.
“Oh my god,” I huff, frustrated at my racing thoughts.
I reach into the pedal boat and yank the drain plug to release pooled rainwater in the bottom, taking deep breaths as it allglug glugsout.
Snap. Snap. Next.
The kayak.
I stare at it blankly. And the next thing I know, tears are streaming down my face.
How did this thing even get back here? It almost seems cruel to return it to this dock, as if we want anything to do with it. Its tail end is rippling like a flag, waves ribboned below it. Despite its journey in the storm, it’s in perfect condition, except for the pooled rainwater in the bottom.
I drop to my knees, shove my phone back into my pocket, and reach for the damned thing. As I grab hold, the tears keep flowing. I sniff hard and flip the forest-green kayak over to get the water out, asit doesn’t have a drain plug like the pedal boat. But doing so feels like I’m reenacting Mom’s death.
I collapse on the dock next to the kayak, cross-legged, my face in my hands. The wind turns my streaming tears to ice, making my cheeks feel like they’re on fire.
“I miss you so much, Mom,” I mutter, my voice breaking. The words feel too small for the ocean of ache inside me. “I wish I could have saved you.” My whisper is carried out, but I send it upward anyway, desperate for her to hear me—if she’s anywhere at all.
For a while, I sit with my sorrow, the lake vacant and still, thinking of her, of what happened. I wipe my suddenly running nose. I collapse in the fetal position right here on the dock. Overtaken by loneliness, I let myself weep against the gently swaying wooden planks, pretending it’s her soothing me.
I feel tiny amid the cavernous lake, insignificant among its grand being. I find myself conflicted between its beauty and its beastliness. I cry knowing it took her. I gape at its wonder. I hate it here. But it’s home. Alongside its darkness, it evokes her presence. Her warmth, her affection, her tenderness. Warmth and affection and tenderness she can never show me again.
A madness grows in me. Gloom overtakes me. I meet the darkness at its door. I almost wish I could die, too.
I shake the thoughts away and practice breath work. I let nature relax me—the sloshing waves, the tweet of a blackbird, the distant hopping of a rabbit onshore. I cry until nothing but silent peace is left. Then I lift my head and sit up. I admire the setting sun, remembering how it used to glow on my mother. And I breathe deeply.
When I’ve calmed and wiped the wetness from my face, I pull my phone out and snap a few photos of the kayak.
My head hurts.
Even the idea of selling this thing is grim, and there’s something I just realized: Will anyone on the lake want it, knowing that it was used by a woman in her final moments? Our name is clearly scrawled in black on the bottom. And as I know too well by now, word spreads fast around here. Everyone who sees my post will know exactly what boat this is, won’t they? Do I have to mention that someone technically died in it, like you have to do with houses in some states? It’s not a character flaw of the vessel itself, but of the storm it was taken out in. Surely that’s not the fault of the boat.
I scoff at the ridiculousness of such questions and finish up the photos. The end of the weekend can’t come soon enough.
I tip the kayak on its front so it doesn’t continue to collect water as it rains, and I leave it on the dock’s edge.
Sorry, pedal boat. You’re shit out of luck.
