The Lake

Growing up, I had the privilege of visiting my neighbors’ vacation home once every year or two, usually for a week. My family was always welcome to use it, provided we left no trace. If given the opportunity, I would have spent my life in that house in the middle of nowhere, so remote even radio stations barely found it.

The house sat resolute on a lake whose name I never bothered to learn—in my mind, it was always simply “the lake.” Since all other lakes were secondary, it did not require a name to distinguish itself. Similarly, I never had any idea of the location of this house, beyond the fact that it was in a town called Lyman somewhere in Maine and it was near Harris Farm, where we bought our vacation milk, because they had all the best flavors and two dogs and some cows that made funny noises (we once heard one give birth up the hill).

My most vivid memory at the house is my tenth birthday. I remember waking up to find one of my dad’s famous egg breakfasts waiting for me in the kitchen. On my plate were scrambled eggs with cheese, sausages (the good kind—not the weird smooth ones that made me hyper-aware I was eating an animal), and, lurking below my English muffins with jelly (not jam, because the chunks felt weird in my cheeks)—green grapes. I gave my mom one of my famous “Did you really think you could pull this again?” looks. She was always forcing me to try new foods, even going so far as to hide strange, alien meats in the folds of my sandwiches. I didn’t—don’t—like change, and these sandwich surprises were not well-received.

After sneaking grapes onto my sister’s plate and feigning compliancy, I emerged onto the porch overlooking the lake and took comfort in its familiarity. From my seat at the highest table, I could see all the way to the boat bobbing in the water. The house had a great sloping backyard, never put to any use beyond dirtying our feet on the way back to the house after swimming. Towering trees surrounded the property, and a forest extended for a mile before any road was accessible. A long dirt road led through the woods, serving as a driveway, and I had made a habit of counting the blueberry bushes and deer on the way down. On that particular day, I remember pondering my presence at the house and wishing my temporary joy was not followed by a miserable year of missing it. I never felt more at home than in moments like these, when I breathed in and my lungs filled with the taste of the forest and the wonderfully unkempt grass and the wood of that porch. I could have stayed forever.

I spent much of my birthday tubing on the lake, dragging my hand through the waves. I liked how it got all frothy like root beer, and the water felt like silk between my fingers. I could have comfortably spent my entire day in that tube, but there comes a time when the fingers are wrinkled and the wet grows uncomfortably cold and the parents are sick of the boat. Still, every night I would lie in the top bunk in that dusty basement full of spiders and I would imagine I was in the tube again, floating forever on the lake, my skin never pruning or growing cold because the lake didn’t want me to leave either.

I was awake early the next morning. I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, maybe a foot from my face in that top bunk. I could see the textured paint there, so intricate and so rarely noticed. The bland, off-white color was just like that of any average ceiling, but something about it was comforting to me. It was dull enough to avert attention, and bumpy enough that it could scrape my skin if I got too close. The ceiling wanted to be left alone. It was perfectly content to exist, ignored, in that dark basement in Nowhere, Maine. It cared not who stood under it, or walked above it, or slept a foot away from it. It simply was.

The last time I stayed at the lake, there were three distinct changes. One, I was not a kid anymore. Everything felt smaller, and in that room in the basement I stretched closer than ever to the ceiling. Two, we didn’t bother digging through the garage for the tube—I was older, and I sat in the boat with the adults now. And three, I knew I wouldn’t return.

Today, I know the exact address of this house, and the name of the only lake that matters. Today, I can only see them if I drive up myself, and go down that long driveway without looking at the blueberry bushes because I have to focus on the road now, and look at the outside of the house and remember. I can only look at that ceiling in the basement if I go on Zillow and I scroll through the pictures and zoom, and even if I focus my eyes really hard, I still can’t quite see that textured paint.