If My Life Were A Novel: Lake Days, Part One

The gravel crunched and popped underneath the tires, gradually settling down as the car parked. Suddenly devoid of constant forward motion, my world imperceptibly shifted, settling, too, back into normalcy as I took off my seatbelt, swung open the door, and set my feet on the gravel driveway.

Too much driving. The feeling permeated my bones and muscles. Despite knowing that I would remain in a partially detached state of mind that inevitably comes with a four-hour road trip, I stretched, trying to shake the sedentary out of my body.

Although I greatly enjoy road trips, I was more than pumped for the end of this one. Arrival meant the official beginning of one of the highlights of my summer. Of course, it wouldn’t really begin until everybody else arrived and until we had all congregated at the local Bar and Grill for the night. But still. It was close.

While moseying to the trunk, I swept a lazy glance at my surroundings, checking out which families had already arrived. I recognized the  two cars parked on the other side of the drive, and a third car was being unloaded near the front door of the cabin.

The weather was beautiful, hinting that the upcoming week would be a great one. The Lake House looked just the same as ever. The massive lawn, feeble screen doors, peeling paint and the ancient air were familiar to me, as I had spent a portion of my fourteen summers living in this lodge.

I dragged my blue suitcase through the door and down the short hallway to the suite that the girls had managed to finagle this year. Suite was too grand a word to describe the room. Boasting two twin beds pushed together, its own bathroom and a door to the screened-in-porch, it seemed to us girls at the time very luxurious. Aged eleven to fifteen, the six of us appreciated our privacy and enjoyed being secluded from the rest of the members of the Lake Gang.

This gang consisted of seven families, totaling about thirty-five people. The parents all met through work, and the kids all grew up together. Essentially we had grown into a sort of extended family, complete with its feuds, memories, quirks, and traditions. One of these hallowed traditions was renting the Lake House for a week in August every summer.

Which is why I found myself back there again, blearily surveying the suite before turning around, exiting the building, and reentering the car to drive to the Grill, our traditional meeting spot.

Two hours later, with the smells of pizza, popcorn, and beer that wafted from Angler’s mingling with the smells of boats, fuel, and a lake, I stood with H and G on the beech of the lake that taught me to love water.

The sun was setting.

Muted conversation hummed underneath the sound of the waves, sweeping onto the shore, and the gentle bump of boats against the dock.

We were holding a quiet conversation.

“So, it’s for real then,” I sighed.

“Yeah,” H responded.

There weren’t many words to say. We had all received the news months previously, but the distance between normal life and the Lake had always, to me, made it difficult to make the inevitable in one setting, realistic in the second.

“What is it? The owners are sick? Right? And don’t want to keep renting it out?”

“Something like that.” G swept the beach sand around with her feet. “The wife always handled the renting, and now she’s sick, and her husband…well, he doesn’t want to deal with it.”

“Got it.” I sighed again, and looked up, surveying the lake before me, watching the occasional boat and admiring the undeniable green of the opposite shore. “And no word on another place to rent?”

“Not yet.”

“Right.”

There was another long pause.

“How likely do you think it is that this will…be our last year here?”

“Don’t know.”

And now, there really were no words. So we stayed there for a while longer, letting the lapping water try to soothe us. And eventually we turned back, back to the pizza and the popcorn and the family waiting for us.

Every year, we had arrived feeling as if the week stretched on infinitely before us, opening its arms to adventure and memories unbounded. This year, though, this day, we had come to the lake knowing that our time here was limited. But it was not finished. And so we continued on, forward to make those hazy golden memories so cherished in later years, dreaming that this week would last forever while knowing that it could not.