The raft is thirsty. It waits patiently behind my dad’s garage, weeds growing through cracks in the parched pine deck, some sort of crusty brown mold staining the blue foam pontoons. “Been a bit,” I say aloud, taking a seat between the oarlocks, pretending to row. “When did we last get on the lake together—two summers back, three? I’m sorry, buddy, really, but life, dammit, life slips away. The things that matter. The important stuff. We’re gonna make it happen soon, I promise. We’re gonna have ourselves another awesome drink.”
A phoebe lands on a springy maple branch nearby, the same species that nested under the garage’s eve fifteen years ago, during the June that I devoted to puzzling out the raft’s design, sawing planks and tightening screws, fretting and anticipating, wondering if this was the smartest idea I’d ever had or the stupidest.
The idea was simple. Instead of Everest and Antarctica, instead of the Amazon
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