The kitchen still has orange countertops from the late seventies, and the living-room couch is older than I am.
My father bought the place the year I was born.
He paid for it after saving money from years of overtime at the paper mill.
He used to say it was the only thing he ever bought that became worth more to him every year.
Dad died when I was nineteen.
A heart attack.
Right there on the dock while fishing.
Afterward, Mom almost sold the cabin.
She couldn’t bear being there.
For two summers, she stayed away completely.
Then one June morning, she called me.
“I think I’m going to open the lake house.”
And she did.
She has spent every summer there since.
