Redstone Lake

It was a late August afternoon, the sun blazing down on the gravel roads and the limbs of the pines rustling in the breeze. It had been years since Eleanor had driven these roads, but the route was etched into her memory.

Left after the small town of Kirkfield, with the general store plastered in local advertisements where they used to go to rent movies. Jumanji. Weekend at Bernie’s.

Keep driving past the summer camp with the big green gates on one side of the road, the dock with the ski boat and the canoes on the other.

Straight on.

Right at the fork in the road by the Wildlife Centre, a timber building with a red roof top where she remembered pressing her nose up against the glass as baby wolf cubs rolled around in their enclosure.

Then, follow the lake to your right.

She turned down the final dirt track and relished in the familiar sound of the stones crunching and popping under the tires. The old cottage was just a few more properties along.  

I’m sure I can just have a look, she thought to herself. No one will be here during the week.

As she drew nearer the drive, she felt her heart beating in her chest.

It’s fine. If someone is there, I will just say I turned into the wrong place.

She reached the drive and stopped the car. The same tree sloped out into the road, and affixed to it was an engraved wooden sign. ‘Thomson’, it read. In the sixteen summers that she’d spent growing up down this drive, it had read ‘Graham’.

She slowly pressed her foot on the gas and turned right down the steep, forest-lined drive. Jostling about in the seat, she moved slowly, until panels of honey-stained timber began to peak through the leaves. The flower bed, the fire wood storage. At the base of the drive, she reached the clearing where the cars would be parked. There was no one there. No lights on, no movement through the sap-glazed windows.

She exhaled a trembling breath and turned into the lot. She turned off the car and stared at the familiar place in front of her.

To anyone else, it might not look like anything special. A simple, symmetrical timber structure. A small garage and bunkie for guests off to one side. A wooden wrap-around balcony home to a few wooden chairs and an oversized picnic table. All of this enveloped in tall, naked-looking pines. To her, it was home.

---

Eleanor stepped out of the car and stretched her legs. She bent down to take a closer look at the gravel in the drive.

Aha. Still here, she thought.

She reached down and scratched at the ground, picking up a tiny cube of turquoise translucent glass. Twenty-five years later, and there were still bits of the windshield of her dad’s car that was shattered in the tornado of ‘95. She used to collect the glass before driving back home to the city. She remembered thinking it was treasure.

She slipped the glass into her pocket and wandered around the side of the cottage, and down towards the water. She passed the front of the building, and noticed a space where her swing used to hang. Fashioned out of two lengths of yellow hardware store rope and a short plank for the seat, her dad had made it. She remembered how the rope had begun to fray, the small threads of plastic pricking her fingers as she gripped it swung her legs until she felt she was up amongst the canopy.

I guess it was pretty old when we sold the place, anyways, she thought to herself. She thought of the green mold stains on the wood.

There was another space where the tree house had been. She remembered reading Betty & Veronica comics up there with her neighbours, playing for hours on the rope swing, before the clumsy insecurity of adolescence came between them.

There was a new synthetic green hammock where the old one had been. Next to where the picnic table had been, too. On summer afternoons, she would peer down from the cottage and see just the round of her grandfather’s belly emerging from the fabric. Naptime. On other summer afternoons, she would eat egg salad sandwiches and make friendship bracelets out of vividly-dyed threads with her grandmother at the table.

She reached the water and stood it its edge, drinking in the lake air.

It was a calm day, as it often was there, and small waves lapped at the beach. A boat towing a water skier hummed along the surface in the distance. Laughter bounced across the water from a cottage on the opposite shore. The lake was small, with a way of carrying sound to your ear as if it were meant for you only.

How many times have I jumped off the end of that dock? She mused.

She remembered the fast, hollow thumping of her feet of the old wood, the moment of suspension after she exploded off the rubber-clad edge, and the cold and familiar embrace of the water. It didn’t have the potency of the sea. It was light and slippery, falling through your fingers like silk.  

Too many times to count.

She turned and looked back at the cottage.

---

She walked up the wooden staircase and onto the wrap around porch, forgetting, momentarily, that this place no longer belonged to her.

She slowly approached the sliding glass door, peering in at an angle to see if anyone was inside. Clear. She came to stand in front of the door, cupping her hands around her eyes to cut the reflection. Her heart sank.

The yellow linoleum with brown floral designs on the kitchen floor had been pulled up and replaced with hardwood. The beige carpet in the living room, too. The sofa with the scratchy brown woven upholstery was gone, and her grandfather’s chair in the corner of the living room. There had been a small table by the window, with two chairs and a stained-glass lamp, where she played ‘Go Fish’ with her brother. The wooden bar where they’d stacked mismatched glasses and boxes of Diet Coke and Vernor’s Ginger Beer. The lamb’s wool rug. The tall wooden cabinet that stored the birdwatching books, stained and crinkled decks of cards and board games had been replaced with a white, built-in unit. Everything had been painted white. She couldn’t quite remember the fireplace, but she knew it hadn’t looked like that.

What did you expect? It’s been 20 years.

She continued to search through the glass, as though maybe if she looked long enough, it might begin to look familiar.

Eleanor stepped back and turned to look out over the balcony into the tree canopy. She ran her fingers across the wooden railing as a heaviness settled into her.

There was a sadness in learning that a place she knew so well no longer existed. At least not in the same way. The memory of this space that she’d held in her mind’s eye for so many years suddenly felt unbelievably precious. She worried it might escape her, like the fleeting memory of a dream as you wake, slipping through her fingers like the water. She closed her eyes and remembered the inside of the old cottage, burning as many details into her memory as possible.

As she retraced each detail in her mind, in the distance, the crunching and popping of tires on the track drew nearer.

She froze. Oh my god, she thought to herself. Someone is here.

The sound became louder, and she ran to the end of the porch to get a look at the drive. Between the cottage and the bunkie, the nose of a car pulled in and stopped. A door opened and closed, and heavy footsteps moved across the drive. Across the small shards of blue glass.

My car. Oh my god. The car.

Eleanor turned and quietly ran down the stairs. She’d make a break for it across the front yard and around the side where the logs are stored, and just get in and go.

It’s fine. It’s fine. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ll just say I got lost.

She bolted across the front of the cottage, and as she rounded the corner by the logs, she came face-to-face with a man. His skin was weathered, with patches of red, his hair and beard salt and pepper.  He wore a navy-blue sports sweatshirt, stretched across his stomach, blue jeans and a pair of yellow workman’s boots.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he bellowed.

‘I, I’m so sorry. I got lost. I was looking for a friend’s place.’

He stared at her, looking about as stunned as she felt.

‘Is this Jess’s cottage? Do you know Jess?’ she lied. She felt sick with panic.

‘No, I don’t know any Jess. This is my place. What are you doing ‘round this side? Is that your car in the lot?’ He continued to stare at his, his mouth hanging open.

‘Oh, no. Oh god, I’m sorry. I just got here and I came around the front to see if I could find her…’

‘This is private property.’ He interrupted her, the anger in his voice growing.

‘Yes, of course, I’m so sorry, sir. It was an mistake. I’ll go now. I’m so sorry.’ She smiled at him, and quickly shuffled past him and back to the drive, heart pounding.

‘You’re lucky if I don’t call the police’, he shouted after her.

She picked up into a run as she got closer to the car, and jumped in the driver’s seat. She went to close the door, but hesitated. She quickly reached down and pried a small piece of blue glass from the dirt. She slipped it in her pocket, closed the door, and set off up the steep drive. Treasure, she thought.

---

Her heart slowed as she made it to the top of the hill and out of the drive. She set off back on the dirt road and away from the cottage. She began to laugh, intoxicated by the adrenaline, and after a moment, she began to cry.

She gripped the wheel as tears ran down her face. Desperate sobs, that sounded alien even to her, came rolling out of her. She passed the Wildlife Centre on her right.

As she drove back home, passed familiar landscapes, she thought about the place she had known.

She remembered the dull squawk of the old screen door opening, and the smack of it closing shut behind her as she set off down to the lake behind her brother. She remembered the way the water embraced her when she pushed herself off the dock.

She remembered her dad cooking burgers and hotdogs on the barbecue for lunch, and the smell of the old neoprene wetsuits they’d squeeze into before being towed around behind the boat. She remembered watching her mom and her grandma swim across the bay and back, an impossibly far distance. She remembered seeing her grandfather set off in his small tin boat to go fishing before dinner.

She remembered the itch of the brown sofa against her skin, and the tinny sound of her favourite movies broadcasting from the small, square television with the dials. She remembered bumping elbows with her family as they ate dinner huddled around the small dining room table, and standing on a chair so she could reach the counter to dry the dishes afterwards. When she thought about it, she could feel the heat of the bonfire on her shins, and the tackiness of the marshmallows as she pulled them from the stick.

She remembered the smooth sounds of Finkleman’s 45 radio filling the room while her grandparents embraced, dancing across the beige carpeted floor.

She remembered the place that raised her, and that had been so special to her, even after she had to let it go. She hadn't been back since, but it had always been a comfort to her knowing it was there.

---

She pulled into her driveway back in the city, and turned off the car. She sat in the quiet for a moment, deflating into the leather seat. She pulled down the mirror from the roof of the car and rubbed the make up from under her red, puffy eyes. She was angry with herself for going.

She took a deep breath, and reached for the door handle.

Perhaps there are some places that we just can’t go back to, she thought as she opened the door and placed her foot down on the pavement. But maybe that’s okay.

As she walked towards her house, she reached into her pocket, feeling the rounded edges of the blue glass between her fingers.