There's a lake on the West Virginia border we went to the day after finally saying this wasn't going to work out. It is hard to unstick sticky things.
I drove the two hours under sunny skies, radio loud. We were drinking beer out of aluminum cans every mile. You'd have to drink fast; it was summer and pretty hot. All the coldness would be gone in about fifteen minutes, leaving that bad warm Bud Light taste in your mouth. So we drank fast. And sang along.
At the lake, we had a cheap tent from Wal-Mart. We set it up together; it was our first mutual purchase, about two years earlier. The tent belonged to us, not me and not her. It was ours. We didn't try for a fire yet; it was too hot. I was still drinking.
We went to the beach where I'd watch her swim. I'm not a strong swimmer. I had gotten one of those 22 oz. cans now, wrapped obvious in a brown paper bag. I didn't care much about anything at this point. Just keep drinking. She was long out of sight, swimming, I knew, out to the big island way out in the middle of the lake. Speedboats roared by every now and again. I prayed she hadn't been hit by one, the lone swimmer in a giant lake, bloodied and out of my sight and hapless protection, both of which had weakened with the years.
That night, we got enough of a fire going to roast hotdogs and marshmallows. We'd restocked on beer and she was catching up to me. It was humid and the smoke hung low and drifted into our eyes and noses. It smelled like guilt and disappointment. We didn't mention that part. The talk was flying fast and went everywhere except the places where our minds were. We went for a walk. It must have been late; the lightning bugs were up in the trees like little Christmas lights in June. There was a moon bright enough to cut through the forest and blunt the entire right side of our vision. Moonlight like a tumor. If you looked at it off the water, you'd be blinded for a short time. All the insects and all the frogs sang their lakeside songs. A buzzing in the ear. I felt terminal.
We packed in the morning amid a light sprinkling. The tent had gotten all soaked and filthy. I was dehydrated and a little stupid from the beer the day before. Folding was out of the question and we just threw the tent in the back of my car, muddy, stuck with fallen pine straw and bugs, and eased down the road. I needed my coffee. She needed to get home.
