The Weight of Memory

And this is that same lake. The same shoreline. The same far-off horizon. For a second, I want to lean forward and shout at Tom to turn the boat around. I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can go back to that cabin.

But I want you to see it. I feel this strange, deep desire for you to see the last place I saw your grandmother, the last place your father was held by her. There is something important about place, something that grounds us deep into our memories. And without memory, we might float away.

You lean in closer to me, and I squeeze.

“Grampy!” you say, laughing. “Not so tight.”

Tom looks over his shoulder. “Almost there,” he says, and his emotionless words come across more as a warning than an excited announcement.

I see it from a long way off: The Point. I feel like I might have a panic attack. Breathe in your nose, out your mouth. In your nose, out your mouth.

“Grampy,” you complain again, shrugging away from my tight grip around your shoulders.

The rocky promontory rises out of the water, above the trees.

The Point.

That was where they said she went under.

The boat makes a wide turn around The Point, and we rotate toward a deep inlet. In the midst of that inlet, like a shining jewel in the dark, glimmers the cabin. The almost-midday sun glares off the east-facing windows.

I stand, take a few wobbly steps to the front of the boat, and sit in the seat beside Tom. Approaching that cabin is like approaching the past at light speed from a galaxy away. I see the four of us skinny-dipping under the moonlight, much farther from shore than we should have been. I see Tom and me fishing from the boat, the sun burning our skin, our one-gallon water jug empty. I see Mary and me sitting on the dock, my hand on her pregnant stomach. I lean down and sing against her skin, making her laugh. Somehow I see the three of them heading off in their kayaks, leaving me behind on the couch, holding one-week-old Johnny.

I don’t see Tom’s face, but I can feel his gaze. You are standing in between us, bouncing with each wave, leaning forward involuntarily as the boat slows and the motor dims into a low rumble like distant thunder. The three of us drift forward like that, right back into the past, and I have a panic-filled moment. What have I done? Why did I bring you here? What monsters might still be lurking in the deep water of those long-ago years?

Strange thoughts to have when the sun shines so bright, when the air is so clear.

Mary, where did you go?

We drift up against the cabin’s pier with a thud, and Tom cuts the engine. I don’t stand up. I don’t know if I can’t or if I won’t, but I sit there staring at the bright glass windows of the cabin. Tom takes one large step up onto the pier and winds the rope around one of the posts before reaching back and lifting you up by one arm.