She stood on the landing long enough to recognize that the cottage felt different to her in ways she couldn’t explain. The window boxes had been repaired and filled with geraniums. The intricate spiderwebs that once cluttered the overhangs were gone. There was a raw stump where the elm tree had once stood, another victim of the Dutch elm disease that had ravaged the trees on the square. The once-lush lady ferns that had been sheltered by the leaves shrank pitifully in the harsh glare of the sun. She knocked again. The only movement was a hornet with a drooping stinger that hovered in front of her. She was scared to death of bees and turned, running for the lake. She should have known better than to wear yellow this time of year—the bees loved that color.

At the resort, she’d been sheltered from what she knew of late August. It was the time of year when Wisconsin summer overstayed its welcome. Fruit flies congregated around the drain of the kitchen sink and carpenter ants skittered across countertops. Winter, as harsh as it was, seemed a necessary antiseptic, a chance to wipe away the overabundance of life and start fresh.

“Is that you, Sher?”

Arthur’s head floated above the still surface of the turquoise lake, followed by a dripping, waving arm. He climbed the wooden ladder on his pier and made his way up the small bluff behind Goldie, who ran ahead and pressed her damp head against Sherri’s legs, her fat tail thumping madly. Sherri wondered who’d watched the dog while he’d been in Europe. Arthur wore a pair of teal-colored swim trunks. He looked a little bit like the runner Sebastian Coe with his lean frame and muscular legs and his hair that was black as oil when it was wet. “I thought I was going to see you yesterday. What happened?”

“Oh, everything,” Sherri said. The tenderness in his gaze when he looked at her made her feel as awful as she deserved to feel. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re here now.” He reached his hand out and twirled a strand of her hair in his fingers, tentative in a way he wasn’t before. He pressed his damp forehead against hers. She could feel his breath. His voice was low, guttural. Adult. “Damn I’ve missed you.”