We fell silent and watched a canoe traverse the width of the lake near the north shore. Even at this distance it was easy to distinguish its long glide from the rapid joined strokes of a kayak. The canoe spun slowly in place before sliding back across with mysterious intent, barely wrinkling the surface.

The coming of Maddy had divided my life into before and after, the kind of line that I’d imagined could never be drawn again. The name? As a child I knew by heart the Madeline books—Madeline and the Bad Hat, Madeline in London, Madeline’s Rescue; I loved their slanted drawings and cheerful orphans under the care of Miss Clavel, who allowed the girls any number of adventures but always tucked them up in two straight lines at the end of the day. The name Madeleine had a certain solemnity about it, but a playfulness too, particularly the diminutive form, which I soon started using.

By the time Maddy was four months old, she no longer had the look of a being from another world trying to enter this one. She was curious and for the most part serene, what people call an “easy baby.” Even so, many nights I went to bed more exhausted than I thought was physically possible. I leaned on my parents a great deal, and on a Saturday mothers’ group at the local library. Three of us started meeting in one another’s kitchens, and jiggling one another’s babies to sleep, and that first summer, we spent some weekends together at the lake house. I’d assumed at the time—why would I think otherwise?—that Ella and Beth would remain my lifelong friends.

One long weekend in June, I decided to make the trip to the lake with Maddy on my own. I arrived with misgivings, but once we were there, just the two of us, I did not feel lonely in the least. The first morning, I walked around with her in my arms, reminding her of the layout of the rooms. On the terrace, we peered together into the hole of the wooden birdhouse my father had made in his cellar and nailed to the railing. It was late in the season for breeding, but the box was full of bulky life. We withdrew and watched from behind the sliding glass door. When the mother flew off—a tree swallow, judging from the small head and beak—we rushed out with a flashlight to get a look at her eggs. I lowered Maddy’s face level with the hole so she could see them glowing in the hairy nest. That was the first time I ever heard her laugh.