Kevin thinks the lake house should be just for our family

A year is a long time in the life of an old house, and a very short time in the life of a family’s pride.

The legal threats from Buckhead died a quiet, whimpering death by mid-August.

Paul Henderson had sent Richard Sterling a single letter—three paragraphs on firm stationery—reminding him of the disciplinary rules regarding frivolous litigation against unencumbered titleholders, along with an itemized accounting of the twelve thousand dollars in unauthorized structural alterations Ryan had made to the property, which Paul intended to counterclaim as damages for waste under Georgia property law.

Sterling never responded. Two weeks later, Claire called Daniel to ask if he could get Ryan’s sound system back from the lake house.

Daniel’s answer had been short: “The Colonel says it’s an improvement to the leasehold. He’s using it to listen to the Atlanta Braves on the porch while he cleans his fish. Don't call me back about this, Claire.”

Claire did not speak to me for seven months.

She did not come to Thanksgiving. She spent Christmas in New Jersey with Kevin and Lorraine, where, according to a cousin who saw the photos online, Lorraine had presented her with a set of monogrammed luggage that didn't match Ryan’s.

Daniel came to Atlanta for Christmas Eve. He brought three cords of oak for my fireplace, a basket of dried morel mushrooms he had gathered in the Cohutta wilderness, and an envelope containing three hundred dollars—his half of the property taxes for the coming year.

“I don't need your money, Daniel,” I told him as we sat by the fire in my living room, eating the chicken and dumplings I had made fresh that afternoon.

“Take it, Ma,” he said, his boots resting on the hearth stones. “A house belongs to the people who help hold the roof up. That’s what Dad said.”

I took the envelope and set it on the mantel beside Thomas’s picture.

In April, Colonel Harris called me. His house on the south shore was finally finished—the framing repaired, the drywall hung, the fresh coats of white paint dry in the spring sun.

“Mrs. Ellis,” he said, his voice as steady as ever. “Our twelve months are up on June thirtieth. The place is clean. Earl Bennett came by yesterday and touched up the trim around the front door where that lock was. Martha planted some yellow canna lilies by the dock slip. They ought to be blooming by the Fourth.”

“Thank you, Jim,” I said. “How does the water look?”

“Clear as glass, Margaret. The crappie are biting down by the sunken timber.”

On the first of July, I packed my Buick.

I didn't bring much. My clothes in an old leather grip Thomas had carried when we went to the mountains, three boxes of groceries, my grandmother’s cast-iron skillet, and the framed sketches Thomas had drawn on the diner napkins.

I drove down through the pines in the middle of the afternoon.

The gravel lane was quiet, the dust rising softly behind the LeSabre. The red clay on the banks of the cut was covered in honeysuckle and wild blackberry brambles, white and yellow blossoms heavy with bees.

I pulled into the circular driveway. The cattle trailer was gone. The tractor was gone. The crushed stone was raked smooth and clean.

I walked up the three steps to the porch.

The sage-green door stood waiting. The brass deadbolt gleamed in the three o'clock sun, solid and simple. I took the brass key from my purse—the one Earl had cut for me at the hardware store in Eatonton—inserted it into the cylinder, and turned it.

The bolt slid back with a soft, clean snick that sounded like an old watch being wound.

I walked inside.

The house smelled of clean pine, beeswax, and the faint, sweet scent of Martha Harris’s strawberry preserves. The floors were spotless. On the kitchen island sat a half-gallon mason jar filled with fresh water and three large yellow canna lilies, their broad green leaves catching the light from the lake windows.

Beside the jar was a note in Martha’s neat, round hand:

Margaret— The tea pitcher is in the pantry. The key to the boathouse is on the hook behind the door. We left a jar of fig jam in the crisper. Thank you for the shelter. —Jim & Martha

I carried my bags into the master bedroom.

I didn't change the curtains. I didn't replace the duvet. I opened the sliding glass door wide, letting the breeze from the cove blow through the room, lifting the white linen shears until they danced like river fog.

Around five o'clock, a blue pickup truck pulled into the driveway.

It wasn't a luxury Suburban. It was an eight-year-old Toyota with a dent in the tailgate and a magnetic sign on the door: Bennett Construction.

Earl Bennett stepped out, carrying an old wooden toolbox in one hand and a brown paper sack in the other. He walked up the steps, took off his grease-stained cap, and nodded through the screen door.

“Heard the door was open,” Earl said.

“Come on in, Earl,” I said, walking out onto the porch. “The tea is cold, but the kettle’s on if you want it hot.”

“Cold tea’s fine for July,” he said, setting the toolbox down by the wall. He reached into the brown paper sack and pulled out a small, flat piece of pine board, about eight inches long, with letters carved deep into the wood with a gouge chisel and sealed with clear marine varnish.

“Found this in the back of my shop last week,” Earl said, not looking at me as he turned it over in his rough fingers. “Thomas gave it to me about two months before he went into the hospital. Said he wanted it nailed to the post by the swing, but we didn't have the cedar posts set yet when he took sick. Figured it belonged here now.”

I took the board from his hands.

The wood was dark Georgia heart pine, the grain tight and resinous. Carved into the surface in Thomas’s neat, draftsman’s block lettering were four words:

THE VIEW IS FREE.

I held the board against my apron for a long moment, looking out past Earl’s shoulder to where the dock stretched into the green water of the cove. Across the channel, the pines on the far point were beginning to turn purple as the sun slid down behind the ridge.

“Got a hammer in that box, Earl?” I asked.

“Always got a hammer, Miss Margaret.”

He took two brass finish nails from his pocket, held the board against the corner post three feet above the floorboards, and drove them home with four quick, rhythmic taps that echoed out across the water and died among the trees.

We sat together on the porch until seven. Earl drank his tea and told me about his granddaughter who had just passed her nursing boards in Augusta, and about how the county was planning to pave the north end of the road next spring.

We didn't talk about Ryan. We didn't talk about Claire. We didn't talk about New Jersey.

When the sun finally touched the tops of the sweetgums on the western point, Earl stood up, put his cap back on his head, and wiped his hands on his trousers.

“You going to be all right out here by yourself tonight, Miss Margaret?” he asked, looking down at me from the steps.

I looked at the sage-green door, solid on its hinges. I looked at the long dock where the yellow lilies were glowing like candles in the dusk. I looked at the brass plate by the swing where Thomas’s letters caught the last amber light of the evening.

“Earl,” I said, leaning back into the cedar slats of the swing until the chains creaked their familiar, quiet song, “I have never been by myself in this house for a single second.”

He smiled, touched the brim of his cap with two fingers, and walked down to his truck.

The engine started, the headlights flickered on through the pines, and the sound of his tires faded out onto the asphalt.

The dusk deepened into night. The first tree frogs began their chorus down by the water’s edge, high and clear in the warm air. Out on the main lake, a boat moved slowly past the mouth of the cove, its red and green running lights leaving a long, glassy furrow across the reflection of the stars.