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My children are silent as I pull into the dirt track that serves as a driveway. Pine Cottage sits huddled against the shore of the lake as if it is ashamed of itself, which perhaps it should be, considering its neighbors. Painted a drab olive green that is peeling off in long strips in various places, the cottage squats in the looming shadow of a huge, gorgeous lake house of dark blue shingle with a massive deck jutting right over its hundreds of feet of lakefront, and a three-story picture window overlooking the sparkling water.
On the other side of our cottage, a bit farther away, is a sprawling modern house of white stucco with three different terraces and a dock that extends far out into the lake, a gleaming red motorboat moored at its end. How on earth did poor, pathetic little Pine Cottage survive the arrival of all these showy upstarts? I feel a surge of protective affection for it, simply for being there, for clinging to hope, if only just. Kind of like me.
“So, shall we go in?” I ask brightly.
Katherine and Ben still haven’t moved or spoken as I get out of the car and stretch, my back aching. I glance at my children; Katherine is chewing a strand of hair and Ben is back on his tablet, thumbs moving so rapidly they practically blur.
“Come on, guys.” I can’t keep my tone from turning the tiniest bit frustrated at their lack of involvement in this moment. “Let’s go check it out.”
“Let me finish my level,” Ben grunts, and something in me starts to fray.
“No, Ben.” I yank open the back door of the car and then reach in, managing to snatch the tablet from his sweaty hands, a move I’ve practiced over the years, although admittedly it has a limited success rate. “Let’s go now. You can play this anytime.” Although not that often if I can help it.
I pocket the device and walk across the scrubby little yard to the cottage’s front step, a slab of cracked concrete. From behind me the car doors slam. At least the kids are following me. I fish in the FedEx packet I was sent a few weeks ago for the keys, and then a second later, I open the door and step across the threshold of Pine Cottage, blinking in the gloom. The pine trees that gave the cottage its name droop over the house, making it feel a bit like walking into a cave. There is a smell of must and damp in the air, but once we open the windows I’m sure it will be fine.
“So,” I say as I flip on a few lights, illuminating the small living room with its orange sofa and fake wood coffee table, “at least it’s clean.”
Ben snorts and Katherine hovers in the doorway, a strand of hair still trailing out of her mouth as she looks askance at our summer home. I can’t blame her, but I still feel a little frustrated, a little sad. I want us all to share in the excitement of this summer.
I head into the small kitchen with its laminate cabinets and cracked linoleum, determined to see the bright side of everything. So the house is shabby? Big deal. The kitchen feels like a tacked-on afterthought, and the fridge is making a wheezing sound that suggests it is not long for this world, but none of this matters. I peer out the back door, which leads to the little porch, that, unlike in the photo online, is filled with junk and, for the moment, unusable.
I breathe in deeply, clinging to my optimism. We’ll be outside most of the time anyway, enjoying the sand and the sun and the lake. We don’t need a gourmet kitchen or acres of indoor space.
“I saw mouse poo in the bedroom,” Ben announces from behind me. He sounds gleefully disgusted. “On thebed.” Katherine lets out a little shriek at this, and I try for a smile.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get traps.” And marshmallows to toast, and citronella candles, and a blanket for picnics. I’m holding on to that hazy montage, trying to make it seem more real, the kind of life I always thought I’d enjoy, once I had kids. The kind of life I’m sure I had once, even if I don’t feel as if I can always remember when things were different. Before my mom got sick, before she died. “Let’s go take a look at the lake.”
With Ben and Katherine trailing behind me, I leave the cottage and make my way across the yard, the scrubby dirt turning to sand, until I come to the shore. Pine Cottage is no more than twenty yards from the lake, and as I kick off my sandals and let the cool water lap over my feet, digging my toes into the pleasingly squishy sand, I feel the tightly held parts of myself finally start to loosen.
“Look,” I say. Ben and Katherine are huddling by the shore, as if the water might be toxic. They’re city children, no doubt about it. Grandly, I sweep out an arm to encompass the shining waters stretching nearly to the horizon, a fringe of evergreens darkening their edge on the other side, dotted with lake houses. A raft bobs about fifty yards out. “Isn’t this amazing? This is why we came. This is all we need.”
“Can I have my tablet back?” Ben asks after a few moments when he’s been kicking the sand with his sneaker. Katherine is sitting down, her knees clasped to her chest, looking woebegone.
“Why don’t you get your swimsuits on? We can christen the lake with a dip.”
Katherine crinkles her nose uncertainly. “Christen…?”
“I just mean, let’s go swimming.” I’m suddenly seized by a near-panicky determination to make this into a moment. “Why not? Let’s do it! Right now!”
Ben and Katherine simply stare as I hurry past them to the car. I open the trunk and yank our suitcases out, opening them right there on the drive.
“Mom.” Katherine sounds both fascinated and appalled. A pair of her underpants has spilled onto the driveway, and she snatches it, mortified even though no one’s looking.
“Here.” I throw the pale pink suit we bought at Target last week and it hits her squarely in the chest. “And here.” I toss Ben his blue-and-white striped board shorts and then grab my poor, faded tankini—I wasn’t able to find a suit I liked this year, surprise, surprise. The ten extra pounds around my middle are not going to shift, no matter what I keep telling myself. Still, I don’t want to buy a new suit and admit defeat, and in any case until now there hasn’t been much point.
We change inside the house, Katherine barricading herself in the bedroom and shrieking when Ben rattles the doorknob, cackling. Over the last few months she’s become increasingly self-conscious about her budding body, and Ben torments her over it. I shout at him to stop as I wriggle into my tankini in the minuscule bathroom, avoiding my reflection in the foggy mirror above the sink and what I know I’ll see there—frizzy hair, eyebrows that need some serious maintenance, and a body that reminds Ben, as he so kindly told me once when he poked my stomach, of dough.
We emerge from the cottage, each of us like a shy caterpillar from a shabby chrysalis, blinking in the sunlight, conscious of all the bare skin. Or at least Katherine and I are. Ben lets out a primal yelp and barrels toward the lake, letting out another one as his feet touch the water.
“It’scold!”
“You’ll get used to it.”
Ben shivers theatrically and I laugh. This is what I dreamed of. This is what we all needed. Ben starts wading into the shallows, his city skittishness abandoned, but Katherine stands by the edge like a shy foal.
I glance at her, as ever unsure what she is thinking or feeling. My firstborn, my only daughter. She’s been an enigma to me for so long, and I can’t help but feel like it is my fault. Where is my mother’s instinct when it comes to Katherine? Where has it ever been? We always seem to be reaching for each other and missing, and it’s become more and more noticeable as she’s got older.
“Come on in, Katherine,” I say, my tone hopelessly cajoling. “It’s not that cold, really.”
