The Johnboat Ramp at Lake Week

Then I ran carriage bolts up through the deck and frame for the seat pedestal, with fender washers on both sides, and tightened the lock nuts until my wrist hurt.

I stood on that seat and leaned my full weight over the side. The boat dipped and came back level. It held.

The ramp was two long pieces of plywood on two-by-four rails, carpeted on top. I tied the top end to the dock cleat and the bottom to the oarlock socket.

Then I ran a ratchet strap from the bow handle to the dock post, so the boat could not drift off while anybody was on that ramp.

At six o’clock exactly, the screen door of our cabin squeaked, and Kelly came down the path pushing Walt in his chair.

Emma was walking next to him in her pajama pants and a sweatshirt, with her hair in the braid her mother had done the night before, holding his fishing hat.

Walt saw the boat before he saw me. I watched his face change.

He did not say anything.

He just looked at that seat bolted to that deck, and at that ramp running down to it, and his good hand came up off the armrest and went to his mouth, and stayed there.

“Morning, Walt,” I said. “Thought you might want to check that rock bar.”

He took his hand away from his mouth. “Well,” he said. His voice was rough. “Well, Michael. I guess I’d better.”

That was when the door of the other cabin banged open and Brad came down the path with a coffee mug, with Tara and the boys behind him carrying towels and the cooler.

They were going out early, for the morning bite. Brad had been talking about it at supper.

He stopped at the top of the dock and looked at my boat for a long moment.

He looked at the ramp and the seat and the ratchet strap and the empty space on the dock where his father’s chair was about to be.

He did not say anything. Neither did I.

Tyler, his oldest, twelve, said, “Whoa. Uncle Mike. Did you build that?”

“This morning,” I said.

“Cool,” Tyler said, and Brad put his hand on the back of his son’s neck and steered him past us down the dock to the pontoon.

We put life jackets on everybody first. Walt’s was a gray one with a collar, and Kelly buckled it and snugged all three straps the way the nurse had taught us to snug a gait belt, firm but not tight.

Emma put on her pink one by herself and showed me the buckle. Mine was the old orange one that lives under the bench.

Then I rolled Walt’s chair down the ramp, nice and slow, with me walking backward in front of it and Kelly holding the handles behind.

The ramp flexed a little and held. The front wheels came off onto the deck, then the back wheels. I set both brakes.

I swung the seat around so it faced him and locked the swivel. I flipped the armrest up on his strong side.

“Same as the bed,” I said. “On three. Right leg does the work.”

“I know which leg does the work,” Walt said.

I braced his left knee between mine and took hold of the back of his life jacket. Kelly had his left arm.