The Little Cabin Across the Lake

“Marcia,” she said. “It’s nice to see you. I hope you’re comfortable over there.” Her voice was very careful, as if each word had been set down on a shelf.

“I’m very comfortable,” I said. “It’s the prettiest little cabin you ever saw. The kids have been keeping me company.”

Something passed over her face when I said it. I could not tell you what. It might have been embarrassment. It might have been something sadder.

Nate grilled walleye that he and Cooper had caught off the pontoon, and we ate it with the sweet corn and a pan of Ashley’s cheesy potatoes.

It was a good supper. It was also the quietest supper I have ever sat through with three children at the table.

Diane barely ate. She pushed her walleye around with her fork, cut a piece of corn off the cob and left it there.

Every so often she looked out the window at the water like she was waiting for someone to come across it.

Ashley kept getting up. More butter, more lemonade, napkins for Max. She did not look at me once that I saw.

She talked to the children, and to Nate, and to the dog, but not to me.

And then Addie, who had been sitting next to me and holding my hand under the table, put down her fork and said, loud and clear as a dinner bell, “Grandma’s dock is the best part of the whole lake.”

It went very quiet. Max went on eating. Cooper looked at his plate. Nate looked at Ashley. Ashley looked at the stove.

And Diane put her napkin to her mouth and got up and went into the downstairs bedroom and shut the door.

Nobody answered Addie. After a minute Nate said, “Who wants pie,” in a voice that was a little too cheerful, and everybody wanted pie, because children always want pie, and the moment passed the way those moments do.

I stayed until the dishes were done. I dried. Ashley washed. We stood shoulder to shoulder at that big farmhouse sink and talked about whether the corn was as good as last year’s. That was all.

When I left, I stopped by the closed bedroom door. I could hear Diane in there, crying, very quietly, the way you cry when you do not want anybody in the house to hear you.

I stood there with my hand raised to knock. Then I put it down. It was not my place, not yet, and not in that house.

I let myself out the side door and drove back around the lake in the dark.

Thursday morning the canoe came across at seven, same as always. If the children had heard anything said about supper, they did not let on.

Cooper caught a perch. Addie read to the minnows. I flipped pancakes.

But I noticed something that day I had not let myself notice before.

On the far deck, while Nate stood on the dock watching the canoe, Ashley stood up at the rail. She watched every stroke too. And she watched them all morning.

Friday was hot and still. The kids paddled over with Nate behind them in the kayak, and Max rode in the canoe this time, sitting in the middle in his shark jacket, very serious about the job.

After pancakes, Cooper and Nate took the canoe out to try for bass along the lily pads, and Addie went up to Jean’s office to buy a Popsicle with a dollar I gave her. Max stayed with me on the dock.