“Why dint you pull the tarp over you?”

Peter looked at the sheet of tarpaulin at the foot of the canoe and shrugged. Cooper rolled his eyes, planting a kiss on him, then laid out long across Peter’s lap in ways that usually indicated very little was about to get done.

Scores of little fish darted beneath the canoe and Peter placed his hand across Cooper’s chest. “Your eyebrows have gotten so blond. I can hardly see them.”

“Is Junior OK?”

Peter looked across the lake towards Skipping Mouse where Snowball Junior was busy grazing beneath the shadow of the tree house. After Snowball died, three years went by before Cooper had the spirit to break in another horse. Now, they’d built a raft to transport him from the boathouse and back so he didn’t have to be left alone on the mainland. But unlike Snowball, who got low when left cooped up for too long, Junior would’ve been quite happy if he was given a blanket and some snacks in front of the log burner given half the chance. But he needed a stretch on the mainland and besides, the herd was coming.

Cooper lifted his head from Peter’s lap. “Well, is he?”

“Yeah. He’s fine. He’s up on the top deck with a cup of tea, reading Tolstoy.”

“Toy Story?”

“Tolstoy.”

“Huh?”

“Forget it,” said Peter. “Why, what’s Toy Story?”

“Well—”

Peter kissed Cooper on the lips and shoved him forward. “Save it for later. We better get ready.”

The canoe rushed through the water, beaching itself on the shore, and Cooper made his way back towards the tree house, threatening to cook something for dinner that night. Peter picked his T-shirt up off the rock but held back at the foot of the rope ladder for a moment. In her first year on the lake, Marge had built a bench up in the tree house for him to remember his dad by. And while he often felt closer to him on the waiting bench beneath the falls where Rider, Emmett and Teddy’s names had now been carved, in hope that one day he might emerge through the waterfall having found his way back to him, Cooper rarely passed Tom’s Bench without having a word.

“Pa,” Cooper whispered. “We better have lost them scissors. I like Pete’s curls just fine.”

Peter smiled to himself. Cooper had taken to calling Dad their pa some years back now, but it still had the power to move him.