On the lake

The tide rolls slowly in sprinkling the air around her. A menacingly crisp chill stands on the edge of the lake like the whiter rim of a cherry red icicle. She throws her baggage on the scarred wooden deck chair and walks over to the pebbled beach. Driftwood lies inert in the sun, candid and weightless. She picks up a couple of sticks and throws them on the lawn: she will need them to light a fire later.

She kicks the dry weeds around with her new sneakers, made in Indonesia they say, child labour she thinks: her daughter’s gift to her. Brand name. She too, now, is a walking publicity.

She picks up the flattest stone: it skips three times on the water for her. She is surprised. She has never been able to do that before.

“It’s that wacky elbow of yours”, he’d say, “it screws up your coordination”. But he isn’t around to say anything now. 

She brushes the sand off her new shoe and looks back towards the house. The grass needs some sun, and the ratty looking bushes some trimming. If only spring would come finally.

She sits on one of the two old Muskoka chairs under the birch overlooking the lake, her chair. Her nails dig into the rotting wood forming half moons; there are years of half moons along the armrest.

If she closes her eyes, she can see his profile as he fishes just a short distance from her on the beach. 

“Stop staring at me”, he laughs, “You’re scaring the fish away”. 

He never caught anything, of course. His fanciful bait, bits of corn or marshmallows, or leftover rice crispy squares, didn’t attract anything edible. Once the marshmallow had stuck to a condom, and he’d laughed about that. She had been horror-stricken. She’d never seen one before, and certainly not stuck to a marshmallow. 

“Hey, get me a beer, will ya’?” he says. She opens her eyes, startled by the force of his deep voice, and looks around her. She is, of course, alone. God, she could use a beer. 

She drags her new sneakers across the grass and picks up her luggage. The deck needs a coat of paint; the screen door is bug infested; the door, solemn looking with its ridiculous  shiny brass knocker, is uninviting. The knocker was his idea. A joke. “The fish that got away”, he’d say winking slyly: a naked mermaid with a flapping fin. His name Henry, and hers Manuela, were tattooed on her belly.

She puts the key in the lock but turns back to the lake and sits down on the porch steps. She wonders how long it would take her to get back to the city if she left right away. It was a bad idea to come: she can’t stay here all by herself. She has no idea how to light a fire or get the pump going. He’d always done that. She was only his sidekick, simple and sweet and totally useless without him. She’d never known the punch lines and her silence outweighed her words.

Somewhere off a phone is ringing. She looks around her but the neighbours' homes look abandoned. She wonders why they don’t answer. Maybe they are in the shower or making love under warm quilts with multicoloured maple leaves stitched on them. She’d always wanted one of those quilts. They brought visions of fair haired women with frilly bonnets sitting hunchbacked in the candle light. She could see their long trembling shadows reaching out dimly as they stitched silently: a sense of belonging prevailed. 

They belonged, unknowingly and simply, because belonging is an unconscious thing. Only people who do not belong are conscious of it. 

She gets up again and walks over to the new brass knocker. Her wrinkled expression looks back at her distorted by the reflection. A prominent nose stands out on a tiny oval grey coiffed head. She is shocked by how pale age has made her. She wonders where her olive skin has gone. It has drained from her like the colour from her hair.

She does not belong here. Not without him. She has no right to be here without him.

She turns her shoulders to her own reflection, walks down the faulty steps and to the water's edge.

The lake is flat and a slight mist rises off of it as the sun starts to warm the day. Cold. The water is always cold, summer or winter. She sits in his wooden chair, closes her eyes and searches for him there. She runs her fingers along the rotting wood arm rests. It is does not hold her half moon nail marks, but is not smooth. She traces the incisions with her fingers: they are heart shaped.

She opens her eyes and looks down. Her tired eyes see merely a blur, but her fingertips read the words effortlessly: Henry loves Manuela.

Matilde Colarossi