I finish chopping the tree up, and I load it into the back of my old Ford pickup. It’s a relic but I still love it, mainly because I can take it anywhere and do anything with it without having to worry about messing it up. It belonged to my dad, and my mom gave me the keys the day she picked me up from the detention facility. The truck has more rust on it than metal, and the wheel wells are nearly rusted straight through. But it’s mine, and it’s one of the very few things I now own. I’ll drive it until it dies.
I drive my pickup back to my campsite, with my little duck sitting next to me on the seat, and I unload the wood. The tree I’d cut up fell a few months ago, so I can probably use it for firewood right away. Either way, I stack it neatly next to the fire pit in my camping area, and unzip my tent, reach inside, and plug my phone up to charge. All the campsites have running water and electricity, so I ran a power cord into my tent on day one so I can charge the few electronics I possess.
Jake thinks it’s strange that I prefer living in my tent to living in one of the empty cabins, but I like my life. I like having a place to go home to that’s mine, even if it is a tent. And I like cooking over the open fire every night. I like bathing in the lake in the late evenings when no one is around. I like the solitude of the empty campground. I don’t want to move into one of the cabins where people occasionally still come and go. I prefer to do exactly what I’m doing, at least for now.
I have bills to pay, and the more money I can put toward the things that matter, the better off I’ll be.
I walk to cabin twenty-four, and nostalgia hits me straight in the chest. When I was around thirteen, I used to come here all the time, mainly to see Abigail. She hated to have her name shortened, and she would give anyone a death glare who shortened her name to Abby or, heaven forbid, Abs. On Friday nights when my parents and I would get here and claim our spot in the campground, we’d set up our tents, and then I’d run straight over to Abigail’s. We’d ride around on our bikes, or after dark we’d play Monopoly or Uno under the porch light on her grandmother’s front porch. Occasionally, we went fishing.
Abigail and I weren’t of the same social class. Her family had money, and mine had none. But nobody cared about class when you were at the lake. The campfire warmed your legs exactly the same no matter how much money you had, and the roads all led to the same sections of the lake. Nobody cared that we didn’t have a lot. The lake was special like that.
I let myself into Maimi Marshall’s cabin and look around. I close the door so the duck doesn’t come in, and he sits down on the porch directly outside the door and squawks the whole time I’m in there. The little cabin hasn’t changed, even in the years since I’ve seen it. My family had stopped coming to the lake when I was fifteen, after my dad died, and I lost touch with everyone, including Abigail. I haven’t been back at all, not until a month ago when I pitched my tent and moved into it.
I notice that Mrs. Marshall still has the same old couch, draped with the same old afghan, against the same wall, and the same old refrigerator, which you know is an antique because of its rounded corners, sits in the same corner of the kitchen. I bet if I open the tiny freezer compartment, it’ll still have those metal ice trays you have to run under hot water before you can crack the ice out, the ones with the levers that give your arm a workout every time you want a cold drink.
On one wall, there’s a picture of Abigail and the person I assume is now her husband, since she’s wearing a wedding dress in the picture. I stare at it. He looks like an asshole. But then again, I never did think anyone was good enough for Abigail, even if they were. In fact, I’d gotten into more than one fight over her that she probably didn’t even know about. I reach up and touch the bridge of my nose. Little Robbie Gentry had broken my nose in one such encounter. I’d charged at him like a bull for making Abigail cry, and he’d punched me right in the face.
I turn on the water, flush the toilets, make sure the hot water heater fills up, and make sure everything that is supposed to come on does. When I see that everything is okay, I walk out the front door. The duck is still there, patiently waiting for me, and it follows me off the porch as I leave.
I get almost to the bend in the road when I hear the crunch of tires on gravel, and a small blue sedan comes around the corner. It turns into the drive at number twenty-four, and my heart starts to beat a little faster. It’s stupid, I know. It has been almost twenty years since I’ve seen Abigail. We’re both different people now. And she’s married.
He’s a lucky bastard, whoever he is.
I watch from the bend in the road as Abigail gets out of the car, stretches, and retrieves a few bags of what looks like groceries, which she must have bought at the local tackle shop. Everyone who lives at the lake shops at the tackle shop, if they want to avoid running all the way to town for necessities.
She’s wearing a pair of blue scrubs, like someone might wear at a hospital. I wonder what she does for a living. I smile when I see that her hair is still a riot of curls that bounce around her face. When we were younger, she used to spend hours trying to straighten it so she could look like the other girls. But Abigail wasn’t meant to be like the other girls. She was made to stand out. And stand out she did. And still does, apparently.
Abigail bumps her hip against the car door to close it, and then she walks up the steps and lets herself inside. I watch, thinking that she will certainly have to come out to get her suitcase, but she never does.
“The Marshall girl is here?” a deep voice asks from behind me, and I nearly jump out of my skin. I get clammy when I realize Mr. Jacobson has been standing still behind me and I wasn’t even aware of it.
“Looks like it,” I reply.
“You going to go talk to her or just stand here staring like a stalker?” he asks. He pulls a toothpick from his pocket and sticks it in his mouth.
“I wasn’t stalking her,” I protest.
But I realize by the playful glint in the old man’s eye that he’s giving me shit, and he’s enjoying it, too.
“How old is she now?” he asks.
“Around thirty-five, I’d guess.” Because I’m about to turn thirty-six, and her birthday is exactly one month after mine.
“Ancient,” he says.
It does feel ancient, some days. But mostly it just feels like time has marched on and swept me along with it. After seeing Abigail today, it feels almost like I missed a few steps along the way.
“She’s married?”
he asks.
I shrug. “I know she got married. There’s a wedding picture on the wall.”
“Hmm.” He twists the toothpick between his lips.
“I had better get back, see if Jake needs me to do anything else.” I start to walk off.
“You stay away from her, you hear?” he says, his voice harsh, his words clipped with impatience.