The Day I Stop Wanting to Look Out Over Open Water

It begins like any other blinding under a cool sun

The day I stop wanting to look out over open water begins like any other—an unusually brilliant morning in November, North Center Lake blinding under a cool sun.

This time of year, the lake bounces so much light into our house that our whole kitchen burns with it. Until the lake skins over with ice, that is. John is making biscuits with mushroom gravy, his specialty. I am frying eggs. Cat Stevens is crooning “Oh Very Young,” and John is singing along in his enthusiastically tuneless way while also trying to tell me something about work. “She said I’d make a great principal,” he says between lines of the chorus—something about denim blue and sky, something about lasting forever—a kickass principal, is what she said.”

“Who said?”

“Gretchen. My student teacher?”

“Hand me that metal spatula,” I say. Max is on my hip—he’s big for two, and heavy—and John is closer to the utensil crock. At the table, Sophie colors feverishly, then erases until she tears holes through the paper, flimsy as newspri…