It was the absence of things that made it so good. Not yet worrying about things like how to look for school, homework every night, and that unnatural “get to know your classmates” first-day-of-school, forced interaction between kids that obviously know each other by now, (for God’s sake we’ll be seniors), this brief stay at my aunt’s rented lake house was a sigh of relief to catch my breath before it all started. On this one mesmerizing day, for a brief while my life moved in slow motion, and I couldn’t be more grateful. The scary reality of college and big decisions were just months away, but in this place it felt like years.

Over a still lake, I hear family talking and laughing, with some of the kids still playing in the water, splashing off the waning heat of the season. It was a soft summer. And in this place, with the orange and red sun setting behind the trees across the lake, lying down to sleep for the night, I wish that I could join it, fall into an endless peace I knew I would miss in September. I try to soak it in and hold onto the moment as long as I can. I hear my parents and aunts and uncles talking about their kids, and I feel my ears practically perk up the way they usually do, as instinct, to listen close, driven mad by curiosity, but this time something miraculous happens, and I stop over thinking and worrying and figure they talk about everyone, and decide not to listen. Olivia, my six year old cousin, gets out of the lake after almost half a dozen calls from her mother. We call her a fish like everyone used to call me at that age- more comfortable in the water than out. Every finger is a little prune but Liv and I, we know it’s worth it. With a Cinderella beach towel she dries off her curly blonde hair, the kind my aunts faun over and wish they had. I’m enjoying just observing everything, and I look out at the stilling water and lone canoer off in the distance, thinking, this must be what Gandhi felt like, when I feel a sudden cold pressure on my leg. I look down to the water and see my “big” brother aiming at me with a water gun. He’ll be a college guy in just a few weeks. I smiled. Maybe I don’t have to grow up as fast as I thought.

I feel a pudgy little hand grab onto my calf for support and turn to see Olivia trying to pull herself up on the hammock with me. I help her up and she is all smiles, that fleeting utter joy that’s only accessible to us at six. She sits across from me and starts telling me about the boy she likes in school. Well, then there’s Jimmy, so that makes…she holds five little fingers up, a full handful of boyfriends, and tells me how Matty steals her Nemo erasers so she doesn’t like him as much as Jeff but Jeff says he has a pet snake but Sammy said he’s lying, and I’m laughing and tuning her out for just a minute (she could talk to a rock just as easily, I don’t feel bad) when she asks me who I “like” at my school. The question jolts me not because I feel bad for not having a boyfriend, but because I have not thought about that for a long time. I don’t exactly have her same problem.
“There’s more to life than boys”, I spit out, because I don’t have an answer. I think briefly about going on a feminist rant on the subject, but see her playing with the stem of something, placing it behind her ear. It looks like a dandelion- I know she doesn’t know it’s a weed- and then I realize it was such an innocent question. The truth is I can’t think of anyone, and I look at her dreaming about boys and how her Cinderella towel taught her all the wrong things, but that I can’t change all that between now and the ten minute warning my uncle just called out for dinner. So I pick my brain for a name and make up Billy Mc something, who plays lacrosse and works at Friendly’s-
“Is he…?”
“What?”
“Is he, you know?” she giggles.
I stare at her hoping this isn’t something weird. She nods and smiles at me like I’m a dummy for not knowing.
“Oooooh! Yes, Liv, he’s very friendly!” We laugh at her silly pun together. She asks me more questions about Billy and I make up this whole scenario of how we met and how he’s smart and sweet. Her eyes are wide, soaking in every word. Part of me cringes for perpetuating this, but I think she’s just fascinated with it and decide to talk to her for real about how fairytales are outdated by the time she’s in middle school.

I think about how she’s at a beginning and she and her classmates all have that clean slate maybe of turning out great. Jeff doesn’t smoke weed yet and Sammy didn’t drop out of school as soon as he got the chance, and I think, in the dumbest, cheesiest, but only phrase I can come up with, (I blame not being in school for a couple months) right now at six, the world is their oyster. We were all there once. I don’t remember having half a dozen boyfriends; maybe because that was never me- but I do remember swimming in the lake until my hands were lumpy and soft like a kid’s hard day’s work. One day she’ll be in my position with mixed feelings about moving away, and get that butterfly feeling of nervous excitement just like jumping off the dock into the thrilling water. We hold our breath. In three, two, one, we’ll jump into our separate courses. She won’t have swimmies to keep her up and I won’t have my friends and family from home but we’ll learn to swim on our own.