Seasonally Affected

A little, blonde, seven-year old head splashes out of the water, cheeks flushed red from excitement and the cold May weather.

"Mommy! Daddy! I can hear the fish!" Alexandra exclaims, announcing her discovery to the world.

"What are they saying, Al?" her father asks, a smile splitting his face in two.

"Well, they don't speak, silly!" With that, Alexandra descends under the water once more, splashing her parents and not particularly noticing or caring, lost in her own world.

"She sure has a lot of energy," Alexandra's mother says to her father. "I wonder where she gets that from." A hint of a smile plays on her youthful face and her blue eyes seem to sparkle, reflecting off of the water.

"I have literally no idea," he replies, adopting her smile. Alexandra's father reaches toward his wife and lovingly wraps his hand around the back of her neck, pulling her lips toward his. In that moment, he feel so much love for his family that he wishes he could freeze the moment in time so that nothing would ever change.

"Ew, gross!"

Still in his arms, Alexandra's mother looks toward her daughter lovingly and smiles.

"What, Alex? This?" she says, kissing her husband with a joking grin.

"Stop, stop!" Alexandra shouts, climbing up the ladder and tackling the two of them. Her parents, completely oblivious of the attack and fully clothed, stumble and tumble into the water behind them.

"Alex!" her mother shrieks, laughing, grabbing her daughter and tossing her through the water. Alexandra giggles, looking up into her mother's kind eyes and wishing that she could stay in this moment forever.

"I'm going to get you, Al!" her father says, scooping her out of her mother's arms and dunking her into the unthawing lake.

He brings her back up and she coughs, sputtering, "I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to!" Her father brings her face up to his.

"You didn't?"

"Well, maybe I did."

"That's what I thought!" He dunks her under one more time, then hauls her back onto the dock, his wife following behind him. "Al, you better get inside. It's cold out here."

"No, it isn't! It's warm." She makes to jump back in, but her father stops her.

"Why are your lips blue, then?"

"They aren't!" she exclaims, covering them up.

"And what is that I hear? Teeth chattering?"

"No!" she shouts, clamping her teeth together.

"Come on, Alex. Let's get you inside," her mother says, wrapping her up with a towel.

"Well, only because you are making me."

"Okay, honey," her mother replies, laughing.

Alexandra takes the lead back to the cabin, sprinting away quickly to get out of the cold.

"She is a special one, Jules."

"Yes, Tom. She really is."

He wraps his arm around his wife's shoulders.

"You're shivering, too," he says slyly, glancing at her side-long.

"No!" she shouts, mimicking her daughter. He lets out a deep chuckle and whisks his wife into the air, carrying her into the cabin as if she is a princess, because, in his eyes, she is. And when they enter the cabin, she looks at her husband, at her child, and at their quaint cabin, and she wishes in that moment that her life would never change.

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"Do you remember the time when we were down here swimming at the beginning of May and you told your daddy and me that you could hear the fish?" Alexandra's mother says as she stares out across the frozen lake, thinking of the irony, of the coldness, of the death.

"How could I hear the fish?"

"I don't know. You could. Sitting here on the dock just reminded me of that, I guess."

"Well, maybe I could at one point, but I am pretty sure that little girl died along with my father." There is an edge to her voice, a hardness, a masked pain that she swallows with anger.

"Alexandra, please. Please don't be like this. It's difficult enough as it is." Alexandra looks at her mother, and she sees her mother's pain - her graying hair, her worry lines, her slouched shoulders. Yet, she cannot bring herself to feel sympathy for her, because, although her mother is going through so much, she is hurting, too. At the age of seventeen she has had to face the world by herself, because her father died in vain and her mother let herself become consumed in her grief. She has had to play the role of the parent for so long - taking care of her mother when her mother cannot take care of herself, taking care of herself even when she feels as if she cannot take care of herself - that she has grown tired, frustrated, and perhaps a bit angry.

"It's difficult for me, too, Mother. Don't you see that?" Her voice breaks on the last word, but she holds it in as she always does. Remain strong. Remain confident. Hold this splintering family together. The two of them, at least.

"I know, honey. I know." And when Alexandra's mother looks at her, she believes it, believes that her mother truly does know. And a part of her hates her mother for it. For feeling sympathy. For feeling her pain. For loving her. Because she cannot find the strength to love herself.

"It's cold out here, Mother. We should go inside." Her mother's lips are blue, and she is shivering. Yet, she doesn't budge. "Please. Come, Mother."

"Just a few more minutes, honey. I'll come inside in just a few more minutes."

With a sigh, Alexandra gets up and walks inside, leaving her mother in the cold. She paces the house, wondering how to fill the emptiness of this cabin that has one too many spots at the dinner table, one too many spots in the living room. When she finally settles down, she finds herself on her parents bed lying on the side her father did for years and years, and she realizes that even the bed is too big without him. So, she gets up, and, when she does, she realizes that her mother is still outside, staring at nothing.

Alexandra sighs and decides that she can play the role of the adult one more time. She grabs a blanket, her father's favorite blanket, and she breathes in his scent. Walking outside with it, she makes sure it doesn't touch the ground, because she couldn't stand for this blanket to be anywhere near the ground that has taken so much from her, that has buried so much from her. When she reaches her mother, she sees the tears streaming down her face silently, some frozen to her cheeks, some fresh. And she wraps the blanket around her mother and brings her inside, because her father cannot take care of her mother anymore, so, even though she is hurting, even though she is tired and frustrated and angry, she will take care of her mother, because she could not stand to lose them both.

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"The trees look so beautiful this time of year," Alexandra says, staring across the glassy water for perhaps the last time and taking in the magnificent golden and red hue of the leaves.

"They do," her mother replies. Alexandra looks at her mother and sees her almost completely gray hair and her slackened skin, but she also sees that her shoulders are pushed back. Straight. She stands tall once again.

"I wish we didn't have to let go of it all."

"So do I, honey. But we hardly come out here anymore. You're twenty-seven, all grown up. You have your job in the cities, and it hardly makes any sense to come down here alone. Besides, it costs too much. You know I can't afford it anymore."

"I know." And she does. But she cannot shake the feeling that her father lives and breathes in this cabin, and, when they sell it, he won't be with them any longer. They won't remember him any longer. She won't remember him any longer. Mother and daughter stare out at the water, wondering how they could have gotten to this point.

The dock creaks, and Alexandra turns around to see who approaches. A smile unconsciously stretches across her face and splits her face in two as the man she loves comes behind her and squeezes her reassuringly.

"Al," he says, his body warming her chilled body, her frozen heart, her quivering soul. "Come inside. It's freezing out here." She turns her head toward him and has to hold back a laugh as she sees his cheeks almost the same color as his naturally red hair.

"Just one more second, okay?"

"Okay." He starts to move away, but she grabs his arm.

"Stay."

"Okay." So he does, and they sit there, staring across the lake, staring across the vast expanse of their lives, and she wonders if this is the end of a chapter or the beginning of a new one. Or, perhaps, both.

Eventually, he drags her inside, and he pulls her mother along as well, because it is too cold outside to remain there for too long, and it is too depressing outside to dwell with the changing leaves and the freezing water.

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"Where are you taking me, Alex?" her mother exclaims, laughing. A blindfold is wrapped over her eyes, and she is led along with only the help of her daughter's guiding hand. Her hair has gone completely gray and her wrinkles have deepened, but they have deepened from laughter, not sorrow.

"You'll see. We're almost there." There is a twinkle of excitement in her voice.

"Well, this proves it. You've gone crazy in your old age, honey," she says, chuckling.

"Mother! I'm only thirty-seven!"

"And tell me again why your husband and child aren't coming with us?"

"They are already there. Now, just wait. Watch your step." The creak of old wood shuddering reaches their ears, and Alexandra has to coax her mother into continuing on. They slowly make their way, step by step, to the end.

"Okay. You can take off the blindfold now." She does. And her heart stops. She turns around, speechless, flailing for a words, finding none. Looking out at the calm water and the bright green trees and the quaint little cabin, tears come to her eyes. She smiles.

"It's the cabin," she chokes out at last.

"It's our cabin," Alexandra replies.

"But, Alex, we sold it!"

"Well, you know I got a promotion last fall. We had a little extra money, and it just so happened that this place popped up on the market."

"It's ours?" Her mother's face is set in a look of disbelief, a look of awe.

"It's ours."

Just then, a tiny pair of feet comes pounding down the dock, followed by a bigger set.

"Watch out!" a little voice shouts as it rushes past and plunges into the water.

Alexandra's husband joins his wife and mother-in-law down by the dock and laughs as they all get sprayed. "Sorry. He really wanted to go swimming."

A little, red-headed, seven-year old head splashes out of the water, eyes alight with a childish joy and resilience.

"Mommy! Daddy! Grandma! I can hear the fish!" Tommy exclaims, announcing his discovery to the world. His grandmother laughs and realizes that she is no longer broken. She is finally healed. In that moment, she realizes that her husband never left. He was always right here. She looks at Tommy and thinks of her husband, Tom, and she misses him. But, she can breathe again. As Tommy bursts out of the water and knocks his parents in, she laughs, and she finds herself wishing in that moment that her life would never change.