Murmurs of the Lake

The screen door slaps against the yellow pine frame and soft footsteps echo through the cabin when my father makes coffee and packs the boat for fishing--red plaid coffee thermos, tackle box, a box of unfrosted brown sugar cinnamon PopTarts. His shadow casts across me as he gently touches my shoulder.

Time to get up, he says, the fish aren’t going to wait all day, you know. I grumble a little, but rise. Stars prick the skin of night as we settle into the blue wooden rowboat. Small ripples lick the sides of the boat. The weathered oars clunk into the aluminum locks.  I sit in the front, rubbing the sleep from my ten-year-old eyes as we cross tiny Round Lake near Brighton, Michigan. The oars creak and softly splash, splitting the quiet.  I lift the heavy coffee can anchor over the side of the boat and it splashes and sinks. Dad hands me a bamboo pole and the container of night crawlers. I take a night crawler, split it in half with my thumbnail and bait my hook. A breeze rises off the lake while a light grey creeps across the eastern sky. Wispy pink clouds stretch their backs across the sky.  After catching a few bluegill, sunfish, and lake perch, the sun winks up and we return to the cabin.

In an old cast iron skillet, thick slices of bacon sizzle. My father’s shoes squeak across the warped linoleum floor as he hums “Anchors Aweigh.” Bedsprings complain beneath my younger brothers huddled under blue and white striped bedspread. As I sit cross-legged on the dock, my mother shuffles across the linoleum and I think I hear Mom and Dad kissing, her warm, sleep-rumpled body pressed against his back. The refrigerator hinge creaks while a kingfisher ratchets over the wrinkled lake. Waves lap at the dock as morning mist rises outside the little yellow pine cabin at Round Lake. My brothers, still in cotton pajamas, and I come to the table for breakfast. We scrape the tall wooden chairs over the worn pine floor, settling into the tan wicker seats.

            In the evening, crickets chirp and small insects splatter into the screen. The radio crackles while my two young brothers chase fireflies across the grass. Willie Horton is the batter, Ernie Harwell says, he’s 0 for 3 tonight, with two strikeouts, a pop out to second base and an intentional walk. Horton’s been struggling lately, Ray Lane comments. Harwell says there’s another full house tonight at Tiger Stadium and the fans sure would like to have a win tonight after losing three in a row to the Yankees. I hold a deep breath, cross my fingers, squeezing my green eyes shut. Harwell says it’s a long fly ball to deep center field, that…ball…is…outta here. The crowd crescendos. Lane says, he was due. You can’t just throw one over the plate and expect Horton to lay off--he got all of that one.

Dad whoops from the next room. I smile, pulling the white chenille bedspread up over my legs. Listening to Harwell and Lane, at the cabin by the lake that summer, I go to sleep with the Detroit Tigers in a tie for first place.