If I Forget You(45)

“This is so lovely,” she says.

“It’s hot,” he says.

“I love it.”

“Cheers,” says Henry.

“Cheers.”

“So I didn’t ask,” Henry says. “But where did you say you were going?”

“Canyon Ranch.”

“What?”

“It’s a retreat center in western Massachusetts. I have gone there before. Do yoga and clear my head. Eat healthy. I told Chad I just needed a break.”

“Well, I can’t promise you that we will eat superhealthy. But we should go swimming. The water is beautiful.”

“It looks cold.”

“Refreshing. It’s really lovely.”

Margot sips her wine. “I feel like I am on a first date. I can’t imagine you seeing me in a bathing suit right now.”

Henry smiles and waves his hand outward. There are other houses across the way, but there is no sign of another person anywhere. “We don’t need bathing suits,” he says. “We have the lake to ourselves.”

Margot laughs. “No way.”

Henry raises his glass. “Maybe if I get you drunk first.”

“You’re bad,” Margot says. “Henry Gold, what has happened to you?”

“Just making up for lost time,” he says, and as soon as he does, he regrets it, for it shatters the simplicity of the moment and brings the past roaring into the present.

Margot stands up then and walks over to the railing of the deck and looks down to the water, toward his dock, which juts out into the lake.

“How about a canoe ride instead?” she says.

“You got it.”

And Henry appreciates her grace, her ability to move them both back to here, and in the canoe they move slowly out in the lake, the water like glass as the narrow green boat slices through it. Henry is in the back with the paddle and Margot faces him, and soon they are out past the peninsula that defines the cove and into the broader expanse of the lake.

“Oh, look,” Margot says.

Henry follows her eyes to the resident pair of loons floating some twenty yards away from them. Henry, with one long pull on the paddle, steers the boat in their direction. He loves this feeling, the effortless glide, and he loves even more the look of joy on Margot’s face as they come within five yards of the large black-and-white birds, who then, one following the other, dive under the water, visible for a moment as sleek shadows before they disappear into the depths together.





Margot, 2012

She wants to love all of this, his small cabin, the deep mountain lake with the clear water where you can see the bottom even when it’s deep, the forest that goes right to the shoreline, the high she is getting from the wine, but most of all, the two of them, how easy they are together, and this part, in particular, astonishes her. How can they be so comfortable with each other when by all rights they should be complete strangers?

Margot wants to love all of it, but part of her feels claustrophobic, even in all this open air, maybe nothing more than a nagging sense of self-doubt, or as simple as the idea that he drove her here, leaving her car in the Stamford parking lot, and isn’t that such an obvious place for it to be?

They ride the entire lake in his canoe. Back at the cabin, they pour new glasses of wine and, together in the small kitchen, prep dinner, moving around each other with ease, her bending simply to his lead as he asks her if she can make the salad while he marinates the steaks. Outside, the thunderclouds have started to move in, and Margot can see them thick and heavy and dark above the hills on the other shore, while above them a bright sun still beams down.

Henry looks nervously at the sky. “I want to get these on the grill before it comes,” he says. “I never cook inside here if I can help it.”

The first crack of thunder hits just as they sit down at the picnic table inside the screened-in porch. Margot jumps a little.

“That make you nervous?” Henry asks.

“A little,” she says. “I’m not used to being out here.”

Henry laughs and they both look out at the lake, where the wind has picked up suddenly. Margot can see the trees on the peninsula bending under its weight and then she hears the rain before she sees it, like the sound of an oncoming train, and they both turn at the same time and watch it move across the water until it reaches them, pounding on the roof, some of the spray coming through the screen to where they sit.

“Holy shit,” Henry says. “Now this is a storm.”

“Should we go in?” Margot asks.

“Never,” says Henry, and as he says it, lightning strikes somewhere out near the point, just across the lake from them, a blur of light in the gathering darkness, followed instantly by an earthshaking crack, and Margot says, “You sure?”

“Positive,” Henry says. “Listen: You know what I love about this?”

“What?”

“The cruelest thing in the world is the march of time. It just keeps going and I know we can’t ever stop it. Except on days like this and in a place like this—do you know what I mean? You can slow it down if you try and maybe it’s just an illusion, but illusions are real in their own way. This afternoon, for me, felt almost like an entire lifetime. Like that canoe ride could have been a year long, in a good way. Does that make sense?”