I was younger, early 20s maybe. I was with a girlfriend and her family. Her father was driving the car and we were in the back. I was sleepy and we cuddled and faded in and out of sleep. I don’t remember being aware of where we were going. The light in the car was faint, dim, it was a night drive for the most part. We were close and quiet and contented. She was soft against me.
It was dinner time. We had arrived at the house and everyone was moving plates and food around to ready us for dinner. My girlfriend had two younger brothers, they might have been 8 and 12 or something. They were at the table and ready to eat. I could feel the presence of the mother but I could not see her. Her father sat at the table waiting patiently for things to settle. There was also a youngest sister, maybe 6 years old. The family asked me to pick a seat. As the guest, it seemed like I had the honor of choosing my own seat—this felt like a family tradition of sorts. I looked at the youngest sister and said that I would give my choice to her—that she could choose whatever seat she liked. She beamed at this and the family stirred a bit. I knew what I was doing. I wanted to impress these people and I knew how to do it. I wasn’t overconfident, I wasn’t so sure I would be successful, but I was glad for the response to this tiny show of gallantry.
I recognized that the father’s expression was neutral, hard to read, maybe I hadn’t succeeded there. I was asked to get wine glasses for my girlfriend and myself. We were having white wine. The wine glasses I found in the cabinet were dusty, very dusty. The mother suggested some regular thick-glassed tumblers. I took those instead and placed them on the table. I became aware that we were the only two drinking alcohol and that we might not be old enough. I wasn’t sure if I was making a mistake or not. I poured the wine and tasted it. It was like magic on the back of my throat. It changed the feeling of the world and shone in bright contrast to the overall mood of this world. I was very unsure of this, aware it was going to show on my face, and I set the glass down trying to hide my feelings.
At some point in the meal I suggested that I could have helped with the driving—I could have, and should have, offered to drive part of the way here. The mother suggested we go back and redo the drive so I can help and everyone laughed little bit. In suggesting this I somehow communicated to everyone my years of experience with this drive, this lake.
The next day we were standing in the laundry room looking out the screen covered windows to the property outside. It was a large room and the sunlight dappled through the trees all around the property before falling into the room. My girlfriend’s father was there and a few others. One of the others was a tall black man I didn’t know but who was very freindly.
I looked out the windows into the beautiful light and was reminded of all the hundreds of weekends I had spent on this lake. I started a conversation with the group that was not at all a conversation, in hindsight.
I asked if they remembered the dirt roads that used to bring us to the TriCounty Boat & Ski Club, or the dry oak tree shaded hill where we stored our boats during the weekdays, or the smell of BBQs all around at the end of the day and the drunken laughter of those cheating at Uno as it started to get dark? I really expected everyone to remember these things and bathe in the nostalgia of childhood with me. Like my other efforts to charm the father, this didn’t work. I knew he was from that time, and that he knew the things I was talking about, but still, no response.
The tall black man opened the screen door and went outside. We all watched him. He walked through the pools of summer sunlight that come through the trees. He walked across the bare spots on the ground where we used to park the boats.