Bittersweet Summer at the Lake Cottage

Lucas never enjoyed summer. He would tell neighbors that it was a “breathing thing” or a “circulation issue,” but I always knew that wasn’t the reason. I could hear his breathing steady and calm when we sat watching television together, and I could feel the strong beat of his heart when I leaned my head against his belly. It wasn’t sickness—he simply disliked the heat, the way other people disliked certain foods. I loved cold sodas in the sun, but Lucas stuck to water. The scorching afternoons often pushed us into cool, quiet sanctuaries—an old stone chapel where air lingered heavy with incense, or the icy aisles of the video rental shop, where we browsed endlessly but left empty-handed more often than not. Sometimes, when neither of those would do, we rode the subway from one end to the other, both of us pretending not to notice how Lucas tried to stifle the yawns that stretched his jaw as wide as the river valley outside.

That final summer we spent together, Lucas decided we should stay a week at his parents’ lake cottage. It was hidden in such a way that if you placed your chair carefully on the shore, the entire world disappeared except for the dark trees, the glimmering lake, and the rustle of pines. The cottage itself, painted in fading patches of red and white, reminded me of a mushroom house from a video game. Its honey-colored wooden floors glowed whenever the sunlight poured through the wide windows. My mother, Clara, thought it looked less like a fairy-tale mushroom and more like something out of the Brothers Grimm, shadowed by the tall, whispering evergreens.

Beside the cottage stood a lean-to packed with firewood—hundreds of pieces stacked neatly like an armory of kindling. Most afternoons, Lucas rested in the shade while I chased minnows through the shallows, my net slicing the water with clumsy hope. Clara clattered inside with pots and pans, only to emerge eventually with a worn paperback in her hands.

Sometimes Lucas vanished. I would turn from the water and see his chair empty, panic welling in my chest. “Dad? Dad!” I’d cry, rushing out of the lake, searching the shadows, voice breaking until Clara dropped her book. Once, we had to wander far down a pine-needle path before finding him seated on a rock, regal as if he ruled the forest. He would look at me, nodding calmly, while I swallowed back tears I couldn’t explain.

Meals were simple—macaroni cooked to mush on the old stove or, when it was too hot, crackers from tins until our mouths felt like dust. We listened to the crackling radio powered by a crank handle that I was always made to turn. In the evenings, Lucas and Clara would settle into their card games, speaking in playful rhythms, tossing words back and forth like children keeping a ball aloft. Their conversations were full of light, unlike the endless, heavy talks they had with doctors.

At night we squeezed into the smallest bedroom. Lucas and I lay on spongy sleeping pads, the sheets so thin they seemed ready to dissolve. Clara claimed the old army cot, squeaky with every shift. Lucas’s snores echoed in the cabin, and though they irritated Clara at home, she welcomed them here as protection from the unseen creatures of the woods. When the candle was blown out, I watched the ember at the wick fade to nothing as Lucas stroked my hair gently.

Mornings were quiet spells. I’d stay motionless until one of them stirred, pretending I was enchanted and unable to rise. Clara’s cot would creak first. Her gaze always went to Lucas, then to me. Sometimes we made faces at each other, silent games to pass the time until Lucas opened his eyes. His waking filled me with a joy I never learned how to describe.

Breakfast was always oatmeal, thick and sticky with raisins. None of us liked it, but in that cottage, novelty made everything taste different. Afterward, Clara scoured pots with gravel by the shore. We spent hours clearing brush or walking forest trails that led to the parked car, our only link to the outside world. Clara compared clearing brush to combing tangles from her hair, warning that if the forest wasn’t tended, fire would spread too quickly. Her metaphors puzzled me, but Lucas laughed softly at my questions, showing me how to tell living twigs from dead ones.

Now and then, strangers crossed our path. Once, a woman in black stopped to speak with Lucas, recognizing him as his father’s son. I hated that thought—he wasn’t anyone’s child in my mind, just my father. Her words unsettled him, and when she touched my shoulder, telling me to “be brave,” I wished Clara would appear instantly. I even faked a fall, just to escape the weight of her presence. That night, Lucas brushed the encounter off, though Clara’s eyes lingered on him with quiet understanding.

That was our last summer at the lake. I didn’t know then how little time we had left. Four weeks later, we were back in the city, my life swallowed by school routines. Lucas’s days grew heavier, his laughter shorter. One afternoon, he asked me to fetch all his medications at once. He tried to lighten the moment by joking about an upcoming television interview, though laughter only made his stomach cramp with pain.

I still remember the day the film crew came. They rearranged our house, placing pill bottles and photos in the background for the cameras, turning our living room into a stage. The lights were blinding, and Lucas’s frown drew repeated reminders to “look kind” for the audience. That interview became his final public act. Later that night, he collapsed, and the ambulance’s wailing sirens carved themselves into my memory forever.

I wasn’t allowed to see him in the hospital until the third day. By then, a clear plastic mask covered his face, fogging faintly with each breath. His fingers moved weakly, as though still searching for the worn sheets of the cottage, but the hospital linens were too stiff to give way. Clara and I held his hands, watching the mist form and vanish, clinging to that fragile sign of life. Then, quietly, the mist stopped.

I never asked, but I often wonder if Lucas had watched the candle flame fade that night in the cottage the way I had. If he did, maybe he knew I would carry that tiny ember with me, even long after it vanished into darkness.