coming home

Water slapped against the sides of the skip. The lake bubbled with the flip of a young trout’s tail. A crisp breeze rustled the tops of the poplars, perfumed with juniper and cedar. At the other end of the pond, a flock of ducks suddenly quacked and honked, flapping their wings in consternation as two mallards fought over a ragged-looking female. In the dimming light of evening, crickets in the reeds at the water’s edge began their symphonic chorus as if to serenade the waning warmth of summer.

On the dock sat a man with graying temples, his gabardine suit wrinkled from a long flight, top collar button undone beneath a loosened silk tie. Wearily, he propped a burgundy briefcase against the weathered post and stood his cell phone beside the polished Italian leather. He sighed, ran his fingers through his thinning hair, lay his tortoise-shell glasses on the splintering boards of the dock, and leaned his chin in his hands.

Across the lake, the gnarled oak that had shaded all his summers leaned beckoningly over the water. Its heavy rope swayed gently in the evening breeze, brushing the tops of the cattails edging the banks. The deepening lake shadows flickered in the light of the rising moon as the last summer fireflies began to hover over the grassy banks.

Suddenly, he felt the freedom of summer nights long past. Leaving his inhibitions on the dock with his clothes and clinging to the scratchy knots of the rope, he swung out over the cattails and beyond the gradual slope of the bank, hurling himself into the deep dark of the lake. The moonlight glinted off the spray of his splash like beaded diamonds. The water seemed to peel him in its innocence, washing him in memories it had given him so many summers ago—his first swim; first fish; first kiss.

His phone was ringing on the dock, but all he heard was the song of the frogs and the hum of the cicadas in the trees.