Misty Morning at the Lake

It was the last good moment. We made a moment of it, the last sunrise and early morning and we were holding hands in the Adirondack chairs on the pier extending out into the glass-like lake. It was the end of the Summer of drinking and laughing. I wonder if she already imagined her single mom life again.

The Vermont reservoir was surrounded by colorful trees and maple syrup farms. The thin plastic tubes ran like spiderwebs through the forests, tapping the trees in a slow drip toward our pancakes. A sweet smoke was in the air. The low clouds gave the entire view a surreal quality. Everyone else was still sleeping in the cabin.

“Let’s make this our happy place,” I said, feeling the moment. “When we meditate to calm down, this is where we can come. Arm in arm and heart to heart. It’s been a fantastic summer. I love you.”

“It’s a beautiful moment,” she said.

We sat there sipping the first coffee of the morning and said nothing else for about 20 minutes until the cabin began to wake up. We could hear her brother, the lake cabin owner, strumming a Phish song on his guitar. Soon, her son came running down the dock to join us. He crawled into his mom’s lap like a puppy. A place I wanted to be. A feeling I was beginning to understand would be coming to an end.

We were driving back to Texas the next day. We would never find this moment again. Let me restate that, I would never find that happy place again.

It was three years ago today. Cooler weather here in Texas opens a flood of memories. How did my happy place get transformed into such loss?

Read more Short-Short Stories from John.