“I can show you!” Mickey said, looking toward the woods between her house and the Watersons’, where the lawn went from cropped green grass to underbrush. She didn’t fully realize how much she had worried about Ruth’s seal of approval until she received it. Now her heart thumped with pride.

Ruth dropped her towel back in the sand.

“Lead the way!”

The woods were as untamed as always, and Mickey regretted not putting on her flip-flops. The path was still there, but branches weaved under the fallen leaves in unknowable places, unpredictable patterns. She stepped quickly but with caution, picking her way down a hill. Ruth followed.

“Mick, this is seriously so beautiful.”

Ruth had used the word many times since they arrived. She said it about the lake, and the view of the house from the wooden float off the dock. She said it about the sand and the grass and the way the tied-up canoe slapped the surface of the water.

“Come on,” Mickey said, stepping over a fallen log.

The woods opened up to a small clearing. Instead of being all sand like the little man-made beach next to the boathouse, this clearing was mostly trampled grass and the mulch of old leaves. There were exposed roots and flat stones perfect for skipping. A small slope like a dirt tongue extended into the water, which made quiet sounds as it met and remet the earth.

“This is so cool!” Ruth said, spinning in a circle, her arms out and her eyes directed up at the treetops. In the middle of the clearing there was a firepit, sloppily made but resilient. Stones encircled a pile of wet pine needles and old ash like sediment.

“Did you and Sean make this?”

“My dad did,” Mickey said. “With my uncle, when they were our age.”

Ruth squatted over the firepit. She lifted up a curled strip of aluminum, a piece of a crushed beer can burned beyond brand recognition.

“Your dad is kind of a badass, isn’t he?” Ruth asked, the aluminum glinting in the light of the low-hanging sun. “Or at least he was, in high school.”

Mickey laughed. She ran her finger over a rock from the shore, examining it.

“He definitely was,” Ruth went on. “He’s a total babe.”

“Gross!” Mickey shouted, kicking shallow water toward Ruth.

“I’m just saying, with those eyes and those arms, I bet he slayed.”

“That’s when he met my mom.” Mickey threw the stone in Ruth’s direction, missing on purpose. “High school.”

“No way!” Ruth said.

“They started dating junior year. She came up here with him that summer, and every summer since.”

“I would love to hear those stories! I bet they had some crazy parties down here.”

“My dad would love to tell them. He’s addicted to the glory days.”