The Cabin

There was a distinct smell of wetness. The place hadn’t been boarded up tightly enough in the winters lately. The panelling on the walls was warped and discolored around the edges. The green shag carpet felt too stiff under her feet. 

When was the last time he’d had guests? Samantha had stopped coming probably fifteen years ago. She’d stopped receiving the invitation after ten of those.

She had paced around the little house before landing here. Stepping through the tiny kitchen, still dark wood and yellows and greens and linoleum. Pyrex from the 70s. Hand-painted mugs. Then the bedroom, almost empty now. Just the old bed and the television on the dresser. There was a constant sound of moving water coming from the bathroom. She flipped lights on her way through, but most of them were out. 

The colors of the house all seemed darker than Samantha remembered. It was darker in a way she couldn’t blame on the lights. Like someone had adjusted the brightness. The vibrance had been drained out of the house. Maybe when her uncle passed, but maybe before then.

Uncle Rich used to have a long dark beard and a ponytail. He wore a style of glasses that always made him look like a relic. Working in the yard in ripped up t-shirts and cargo shorts. He smelled like fish if he’d been out on the lake or cleaning them in the garage or burying the dead ones that washed up on the beach in the garden. He watched over the house as a caretaker in the summers. A constant when the rest of the family went about their lives, only popping in every few weekends depending on the kids’ baseball schedules or summer camps.

“We should check up on him more.” Her mother had said several times during Samantha’s childhood.

“He’s just fine out there. That’s how he is. He likes the quiet.” Was the sort of answer she’d always received from her husband.

So Rich was mostly alone out at the lake. Samantha imagined his activities were the same whether or not the family was there. He moved around lazily. He would pull a weed here. He would inspect the damaged trees. Some days the lawn needed to be mowed. Some days he would grill. Some days he would have a beer and lay in the hammock for hours. Samantha would beg him to take her out sailing and he would nod. He would get the boat ready while she put on her suit and fished out the old orange life vests. He would putter around the lake while Samantha just watched the water and imagined the fish underneath. They didn’t talk much on those trips. She was always the first to want to go in. 

Samantha had to cross through the living room to get pretty much anywhere, but she hadn’t let herself focus on it until now. There was too much to do. Everything to sort through. The room looked like a shrine to her and her brother and their cousins. Rich had never asked his siblings or their children to clear anything out. He had let them store toys and games and clothes. All conglomerating into piles in this room. 

The rain was drenching the yard outside, fat drops hitting the windows in a way that was just barely too loud to be comforting. The clouds were a dark dark gray and the trees were bending. 

It was the kind of day that used to drive the family inside. If it had been nice in the morning they would all be out on the water. Uncle Rich would tell them it looked like rain. He could read that kind of thing through the clouds or through his joints. Or maybe he just listened to the weather on the radio in the morning. But the rain would always hit when Rich said it would and the cousins would scream and run inside. It would be a mad dash to grab floaties and fishing rods before the wind picked up. When everyone was inside the moms would throw them in hot showers and then pajamas. They would all curl up in front of the tiny television they used to keep in the living room. The tv was in the bedroom now but the stack of movies looked untouched on the floor. It was like carbon dating. VHS tapes on the bottom and then DVDs. Organized by the last time they had been watched but inadvertently by release date.

Trying to mobilize the cousins to sort through the old house had been a nightmare. Jenny worked the night shift at the hospital so daytime was a no-go. Trevor was too much of a hot-shot to come into town. Eric was free anytime but wanted time alone at the house. Ava was a teacher, so she could only come at night. And Samantha could be here now. She was the first one in. The one to deal with the house untouched. There were still dirty dishes in the sink and clothes in the laundry. Samantha didn’t want to think about that. 

The funeral had been a quiet affair. Mostly family and family friends. The conversation in the old church basement revolved around the crops this year. The rain. Where all the young people from town had dispersed to. Which family had bought which cabin this year. Who had renovated. Whose children were having children. Family names. Why “Gunter” was “Gunter” and “Elizabeth” was “Elizabeth”.

Samantha felt like she had dug herself out of a time capsule. Being back in town with all her parents’ friends had made her accent thicker. It had reminded her how to talk about the rain and the cousins and the home renovations on the lake. It had slowed her down. 

As she started sorting through the toys and books and movies she realized there wasn’t a lot that she wanted from this place. She had brought a few tubs she had imagined herself filling with trinkets. Things she would want back home. Things she would explain to her husband with bright, nostalgic eyes. But she wouldn’t need them. 

In the end she would box the kitchen. She would scrub the tub and the sink and run the towels through the laundry. She would take pictures of all the furniture on her phone and send it to the group in an email in case anyone wanted anything. And she would walk out only filling an old canvas bag for herself. She would only take a necklace he used to wear, a gold eagle on a chain, some mugs she had always liked, and the book on his nightstand with a dog eared page halfway through. Someone should finish it.

Really she wished she had taken more when she was young. That she had come back that summer in college when she worked as a camp counselor instead. That she had visited Rich at Christmas five years ago, when she was free but worried about the drive. That she had learned to sail.

She thought Rich would appreciate being honored in this way as she finally turned the lock on the front door. A day of hard work. No tears. Leaving with only memories and what would hopefully be a pretty good book. It’s what he would have done.