I let my gaze drift out the window as we drive, wondering if anything will jog my memory. But as we whiz by the cutesy bookshops, the store that seems to only sell candles, a Dunkin Donuts with gold trimming on the outside, I realize that any mark this place left in my memory has long been erased, expunged by the transformation this town has undergone from rural outpost to summer colony.

We wind down some more roads, bounded by dense forest on either side, until finally we’re turning into a driveway and it’s like I’m seeing a silhouette I’ve known all my life, like seeing the Eiffel Tower in person for the first time after years of studying souvenir postcards of Paris.

Rising above a hill on the right, the house is a magnificent vision. Austere and whimsical at the same time, with white clapboard siding and period details—fanciful gingerbread trim, pillars with Ionic capitals, and a pergola extending off one wing. In the middle of the circular driveway there’s a garden that I imagine in the spring is robust, bursting with lush color. We arc around that knoll, and the driver pulls up right by the front door, painted pomegranate red, like the welcoming mouth of a beautiful beast.

He wraps an arm around his seat and shifts his head so he’s facing me. “Well, here we are. Give me a ring if you need a pickup. Or we can schedule it now if you’d like?”

I shake my head. Despite the cold, I have no idea if I’ll need mere minutes or hours out here. I don’t want to be tied down to a hard exit. He shrugs and clucks his tongue again as if to say, suit yourself, and I watch as his yellow Camry makes its way down the drive, the color clashing with the gray of the sky.

I begin by circling the house, noticing the enormous front and back porches, naked for the winter. I try to imagine wicker chairs, a glass table, Aperol spritzes and humidity coating bare skin. But it’s difficult in the dreary weather. I take a picture anyway.

The view from the back porch is outstanding, though. Whoever takes care of the house now has cut down all the trees I’d seen in photographs, leaving an unobstructed view of the lake. Its cold glassiness is so pristine, so picturesque, that it almost seems a desecration to take a photo, too embarrassingly easy to come home with only this image, to paint the shimmering light on the ice, the way the ground slopes down and kisses it. I want a bigger visual challenge.