Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between

As they near the lake, the houses start to get bigger, sprawling mansions set back on enormous lawns. It’s such a far cry from their end of town—where the lots are the size of postage stamps, and the houses sit shoulder to shoulder—that it almost feels like they’ve traveled from somewhere a lot farther away.

With her window rolled down, Clare can already hear the rush of waves from the beach below. Aidan turns onto the drive that leads down to the lake, a winding road that cuts a path along a ravine, and when they reach the bottom, there’s nothing but the water and the sand and a narrow strip of parking lot dotted with a few scattered cars.

They park and walk out along a stone path, moving away from the pavilion with the picnic tables and grills, and the playground, which stands quiet now in the dusk, and out toward where the length of sand is wider and a little bit rougher. The sky is streaked with orange, bright against the violet backdrop, and the water is golden in the last of the light. Clare’s breath hitches in her throat at the sight of it.

“I’m going to miss this,” she says as she slips off her sandals. Beside her, Aidan is kicking off his sneakers, so that they go arcing out onto the beach. They step off the path, their bare feet sinking into the sand, to collect them again.

“I’ll still be pretty close to the water, I think,” he says as they begin to walk toward one of the enormous piles of boulders that act as breakers against the waves, jutting out over the water in regular intervals along the coast.

“You think?” she says, staring at him. “Haven’t you looked at a map?”

Aidan shrugs. “I figured it would be better if it’s all a surprise.”

“All? Have you even read any of your orientation stuff?”

“I looked at some of the lacrosse packet,” he says, and before she can reply, he gives her a hard look. “You sound like my parents.”

“Unfair,” she says, stopping abruptly.

He slings an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close, and they half stumble forward again in the soft sand. “Sorry,” he whispers, his mouth close to her ear. “I’m just…”

“I know,” she says, circling an arm around his waist.

They climb the rocks together, stepping carefully where the waves have made the surfaces dark and slick, and once they’ve reached their spot, they sit together with their feet dangling off the edge.

Far out in the water, they can see the winking light of the tall yellow weather buoy, which was put in a couple of years ago to send environmental data back to a lab somewhere in Indiana. With its broad base and skinny top, and the sensors that appear more like googly eyes than anything else, it looks to all the world like a drowning robot, and they’ve grown rather fond of it over the years, dubbing it Rusty after a lively discussion about the effect of salt water on metal.

Worrying over Rusty’s well-being has become one of their favorite pastimes, and last summer Scotty suggested that someone should swim out and give the poor guy a life jacket or an inner tube or something. A few of the guys made a halfhearted attempt, but the buoy was a pretty long way from the shore, and nobody was quite committed enough to the joke to go the full distance. Still, every time they went down there, someone inevitably brought it up again, and the challenge was passed around once more as they wondered who would finally save poor Rusty.

Now Aidan squints out at the buoy, which flashes white against the pale line of the horizon. “Guess he’ll have to live without us for a little while.”

“I have a feeling he’ll make it.”

Aidan turns to look at her. “I think this is my favorite stop yet.”

“That’s just because it’s the first one you actually remember,” she points out, and he laughs.

“True,” he says, scooting closer. “But I’m in it more for the reenactment.”