by Beverly Banks
There is a dense fog suspended closely over the water. The lake is a place he calls home–the only part of his life that has ever been constant. He lives here with no one to talk to but the water and still, dark pines that always listen. In the early darkness of day, he stirs from rest. He cooks his oatmeal in a pot on the gas stove, like every morning. With the warm oatmeal, he sits in his rocking chair out on the porch, overlooking the lake. Though there is nothing out there, it seems no other place could be more alive. A rhythmic beat brushes through the trees and their reflections in the steel water. This is peace.
Through the fog, he notices something out there. He studies it for a while, fixing his gaze on the object until the fog clears just enough for him to see what it is. There is a person in a kayak out in the middle of the lake. They are not paddling. In fact, they are not holding an oar or anything. The water is so still it looks like a sheet of gray glass. No sign of any recent movement. The sun is just beginning to rise now. The person must have arrived super early, in the dark.
He rises out of the chair when he is finished with his oatmeal. His pajamas and blue robe are damp from the air. The warmth of the flickering fireplace surrounds him as he steps inside the cabin and looks at the clock face. It is now 09:00. Had he really been sitting out there looking at the kayaker for over an hour?
He has lived here alone for three years now.
Mom does not respond to letters anymore. He sits at the kitchen table, staring down at a blank piece of stationary and a pen. She has not sent a letter back for about six months. He used to call her every now and then, but his sister says Mom got rid of the landline. She also rarely answers her cell phone because she doesn’t want to deal with the telemarketers. Either that or she just never bothered to learn how to use it.
His focus returns to the blank paper. He peers out the window. The person is still out there in that kayak. Maybe they need help. Maybe they lost their paddle somehow and are just stuck out there.
He finds himself standing out on the porch again. He walks across the small pebbles toward the shoreline until he is about five feet away from the edge of the gray water. The pine trees surround the lake: the only indication of the presence of a horizon. Nothing else to divide sky from water.
With his hands cupped around his mouth he calls, “Hey! Do you need help?”
The person doesn’t move. Doesn’t even flinch. This is the first time he notices that the person is faced away from him. His eyes widen at the stillness of the figure. He feels frozen in place.
There’s never anyone on this lake. There hasn’t been one sign of life out in that lake in the past three years. Not even a fish. Why does this person, figure, whatever it is, not speak to him? It doesn’t make any sense. A small piece of paper floats by, propelled by the slight wind. Distracted for a moment, he reaches toward the paper but its sudden movements through the air allow it to escape into the trees. He needs to go back inside soon. It’s freezing out here, especially to only be wearing a robe rather than a winter coat.
He looks back at the figure and shouts again, “Who are you?”
...
He slowly opens his eyes the next morning and looks around the room. Were the events of yesterday a dream? Maybe there really is no one out on that water. Whatever it is, it must be gone by now; it stayed out there all day yesterday. He lays in bed for a while, watching the room gradually brighten with the sun. The shadows of leaves outside cascade across the walls of the bedroom.
He decides to check on the figure from behind the window curtain, because even though it is far enough away across the water, it seems that any other presence could disturb it. Looking out onto the lake, he instantly feels nauseated as his face turns as pale as the peeling ivory wallpaper. The figure in the kayak is a lot closer now.
Yesterday, it was stationed out in the middle. Now it is about ten feet away from the shore. There is not one ripple in that water. Before he even knows what he is doing, both doors of the home are locked. Curtains drawn.
Why had it never bothered him before to not have any next door neighbors? He shuffles into the kitchen and pours the oats in the pot. They sit there, unheated until noon.
He sits at his table staring at the blank card and envelope addressed to his mother. What can someone possibly write to another when they have nothing new to say and probably never will? An apology seems pointless. There is no relevant update of how his life is going. No job, no family of his own, no friends.
Through the window, he watches the lake until sunset. The figure stayed in that exact position the entire day. Not one movement, unless it moves whenever he blinks. He cannot even see it anymore through the darkness. But that is not the worst part–the worst part is the feeling he cannot shake. The feeling that causes him to shiver though there is no breeze passing through. The feeling that makes him want to cry as his face contorts but no tears ever fall. The feeling that even in the darkness, that figure is out there sitting–still as night, in the kayak.
He spends the next morning cleaning his room. Really there is not much to clean because he barely brought any possessions to the cabin. He tidies the bed and dusts the shelves. Now the bathroom is clean and there are no more cobwebs behind the toilet. He steps out of the shower, the room full of steam. He has not checked on the figure once this morning. It is getting ridiculous. What is he doing, looking at that thing all day? What’s the point? It is simply someone, who likes to keep to themselves, enjoying their day out on the water. It’s not like he would want to be friends with them anyway, so why should he concern himself?
After drying off, he dresses in his red and blue plaid shirt with the four buttons, one missing; puts on one of his three identical pairs of jeans.
Realizing he left his mug of coffee outside on the porch yesterday, he unlocks the door. He really does not want to go out there and disturb the kayaker, but there is no other option. He only owns one mug. He opens the door and moves swiftly, keeping his eyes to the ground. Grabbing the mug, he quickly turns back around and heads inside. He closes the door immediately and stands with his back against it. He lets out a long exhale. Why had he been holding his breath? He hears something outside. Was it a splash? He puts the mug down on the table and kneels down below the window. Hands shaking, he slowly pulls the curtain back and looks out.
He must have kneeled there for over five whole minutes before he could move from the window and grab the keys to his truck. Before he could run out there and pray the old thing would actually start.
Since he drove down the path through the woods to civilization, he has not taken in a full breath. He finally becomes aware of his surroundings when he turns off the exit to get to his childhood home. Where Mom is.
He will never speak aloud what he saw when he looked at the lake that day. And he will never be able to forget, as it's there waiting every time he closes his eyes:
The kayak was still ten feet away from the shore. But the figure was not in the kayak. No, the figure was standing, submerged in the water. At first he wondered if it fell in by accident, but it made no effort to get back in the kayak. It just stood there, the water level a little below its shoulders. Still faced away from the cabin. He could not see the face. But now he knows what he had been looking at: A man who was wearing the same plaid shirt as him and has the same color hair. Before, the fog shielded those details and its distance from the house didn't help.
He couldn’t call the police on this man. The man wasn’t technically or legally doing anything wrong. Never before had the act of doing nothing been more unsettling.
...
There is something he needs at home. It’s the last place he really wants to be. The last time he went there was two years ago. But he has no choice. He rarely ever thinks about it, nearly forgot it was there. Until now. It must still be there, behind the picture frame.
Opening the front door of his home, he steps inside and walks down the hall toward the staircase. He stops. What is that beeping noise? He follows the sound to the back room and is met with the sight of something he never would have expected. He stands there for a moment, shocked at what he sees. His mother is lying in a hospital bed in the middle of the room by the television. There are wires connecting her to the nearby, lifeless monitor.
“Mom. What is this?” he rushes to her side and grabs her hand. “Mom! What is wrong with you?”
“My son. You’re here.”
“What are you talking about Mom? Why are you laying here in a hospital bed?”
“What are you doing here?” a woman’s voice cuts through the constant beeps and thick air filling the dusty room.
He turns to see his sister. “What is going on?”
“Mom’s sick. She’s on hospice care now. We just want her to be comfortable," her voice trembles at the last word, betraying her sharp gaze and showing the vulnerable side he has only seen about three times total in their whole lives.
“Why would no one tell me this?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t make this about you.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You had to have known I’d want to know about–" he pauses, unsure what to say. "That I’d want to know Mom’s–” he gestures toward their mother. Her eyes are closed now.
He suddenly remembers what he was here for in the first place. He needs to get away from her. It’s all too much. He heads into the kitchen and notices some familiar envelopes on the counter. Both with his mother’s address written on them. His sister appears in the doorway, arms crossed.
“Did you even show Mom the letters I wrote to her?”
“It doesn’t matter. Mom can barely open her eyes anymore.”
“How could you do this? You knew I’ve been trying to contact her. I didn’t realize moving to the cabin for a few years would cause me to be isolated from the entire family.” “Don’t give me that. You and I both know this is not because you have been living in a cabin. I was trying to protect Mom. It’s all I’ve ever tried to do.”
“Protect her! From what?”
He steps forward, challenging her to respond. She seems to look right through him, like he's not there. They both know the answer to that.
He passes by her before she says a word and ascends the staircase to his former room. Fortunately, the same faded painting is still hanging on the wall. He takes it off the wall and turns it around. Slowly opening the back of the wood picture frame, he sees the paper–right in its place. That piece of paper has been there for nearly three decades. His family used to go to the cabin every summer. Once when he was eight, he found a note tucked under a floorboard in his room:
I don’t know what is going to happen to me so I’m writing this in hopes that someday someone will find this. I don’t know where I’ll be...But he’s always out there. He never leaves. He just sits out there all day in his boat.
He suddenly becomes very aware of his own heartbeat. He feels as though he just ran two miles. He knew it: That note meant something. All these years, he never understood why he had a need to keep it; until now. Someone else had seen that figure out on the water.
He races downstairs two steps at a time to his sister and mother.
“I want some time alone with Mom,” he states, not even looking at his sister.
Without a word, she slowly leaves the room. He sits down beside his mother's bed and takes her hand in his.
“I wrote to you a few times, Mom. I didn’t want things to turn out this way.”
Her eyes are still closed, as she lets out a shallow breath. He cannot believe how fragile she looks.
“You need to look at yourself,” she says softly.
He looks back at her to see that her eyes are open wide now. When did she last blink?
“What?” he asks.
“You don’t know who you are.”
After that day, he never saw his mother again. She died about a week after he returned to the cabin. At the funeral, a few people there asked between whispers about her absent son. The only one who could have answered was the woman in the casket with her arms wrapped around an old wooden picture frame.
...
He drives along the winding road and eventually turns the engine off. Leaving the truck on the path halfway to the cabin, he starts walking toward the lake. The bare trees shield those who walk through from the sunlight. Behind the cabin, he sees the pile of broken glass and metals, now covered in dirt. There was a day long ago when he decided he no longer had any use for mirrors.
Just before reaching the shore of the lake, he remembers the note in his pocket. He finally reaches the water and takes off his shoes, leaving the note in the left one. The cold water burns his ankles and sends a chill through his body. Is this what life feels like? After so long, he had almost forgotten. He turns and looks at his cabin. After standing there for about five minutes, staring, he sees the curtain suddenly move.
“He’s home,” he says aloud.
He immerses himself fully into the freezing water and goes under. He stays under for a long time, wanting to see how long he can. A minute or so later, he finally comes back up. He doesn’t need to gasp for air. The kayak expectantly sits upon the water a few feet away. He swims over to it and climbs in. He sits and looks down at his own reflection in the water. This is the first time he has looked at his own face in two years.
Across the lake at the shore stands a man in a blue robe.
“Who are you?” he calls.
He doesn’t stir. Doesn’t look up from the water. There is no need to answer.
He will know soon enough.
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