Chapter 30: The Isles

On Thursday Elin took Wren for the night and told me not to come home before noon.

She said it in front of the whole street, from her porch, with the baby on her hip.

"Not before noon, Lin. I mean it. I've got diapers, a bottle and a very high opinion of myself."

I drove down to Lake of the Isles in my own car, in the green dress.

I had not planned that.

It had hung at the back of my closet for a year.

On Thursday afternoon I took it out and put it on.

It still fit.

It no longer belonged to him.

Soren opened the door in shirtsleeves with a dish towel over his shoulder, and smoke was coming down the hall behind him.

"I burned it," he said.

"What did you burn?"

"Dinner. It was going to be risotto."

I started to laugh.

It came up from somewhere I had not touched in a year, and I leaned on the door frame and could not stop.

He stood there, helpless, and then he laughed too, with the dish towel in his fist.

We ate toast and cold chicken on the dock with our shoes off.

The lake was black and gold, and the lamp at the end of the planks made a path on the water.

He told me about the camp's new dock, and the lifeguards, and a ten-year-old he had already put on the list.

I told him about the Bach I was learning for the spring.

At some point I noticed that I had moved along the bench until my shoulder was against his.

He had noticed it first.

"You said take as long as you like," I said.

"I did."

"I've taken it."

He set down his glass.

"Linnea."

"I'm sure." My voice was steadier than I felt. "It's you. It was never the whistle. I'd have wanted you if I'd never heard of a lake in my life."

He took my face in both hands, the way he had in the kitchen, and this time he did not stop an inch away.

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