“So, you were old friends, huh?” you ask.

“We were. Inseparable.”

“Only the two of you?”

“Well, your grandmother and I spent a lot of time with Tom and Shirley. But I left Nysa with your father . . .”

“After Grandma went away?”

Have I told you that already, or is this one of those strange facts you seem to pull out of thin air?

“That’s right. After Grandma went away, I scooped up your daddy and left Nysa. I couldn’t bear to stay.”

“That must have been sad,” you say, and it was—the saddest thing ever—but I can’t put that into words.

I nod, clear my throat, and keep following Tom’s car as he winds his way into the countryside. At first it feels like we’re going to the old cabin—we seem to be heading in that direction. Am I ready for that so soon? I think again of the things the man in the diner said about the drownings, about staying away from the lake. I make a mental note to ask Tom about that later.

But we turn off the roads I recognize and drift through fields I don’t remember. There are road names I am unfamiliar with—did I know them at one time? Forty years ago, would I have known where we are?

At some point we turned onto a private lane with fewer potholes than the country road. Tom slows down, the lane narrows, and tree branches reach in over us like fingers. His car is sleek in the afternoon shadows, and slants of sunlight fall through the forest. Even though the windows are closed, I can smell the fall leaves and the fields we left behind and the approaching lake.

You are peeking up over the edge of the window again.

“What do you see, Pearl?” I ask, but you won’t answer.

The narrow lane with trees pressing in on all sides suddenly opens up into a large clearing, and we arrive at Tom’s house. We have also arrived at the lake. There is green grass on both sides of the drive, and the lane which widens into a small parking area. His BMW pulls lazily into a yawning garage door.

The house is massive, part cabin, part stone house, and laid out in an irregular way. There are strange peaks and dormers and windows in places you wouldn’t expect, like some of the floors of the house are in between the main floors. It looks more like a stretch of uneven, ancient row homes than one house.

Beyond the grass, beyond the house, is the lake. This is not the lake house where we spent the summer, but that is the same lake. I feel the weight of the past.

“Oh, Grampy!” you squeal, clicking the door handle and hopping out.

I know you’re taken by the water and the size of the house—I should probably call it a mansion. I can hear your footsteps on the pavement, but the sound vanishes as your feet enter the grass.