Then I’ll fix that window in Dad’s study so I can work there. After—she sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed—doing a proper grocery shopping first thing Monday. She stretched, looking out her window at the lake, sparkling where the early morning sun touched its slightly rippled surface. Coffee. That’s the first thing now. And another swim. Fuzzily, still in the t-shirt in which she’d slept, Liz padded down to the kitchen, started the coffee maker she’d brought from New York, and went out to the dock. “Good morning, world!” she shouted, taking a deep breath of the cool but rapidly warming air. A warbler called from the woods behind her, and two darning needles danced, skittering, across the lake’s surface; a fish—pickerel, she judged from its size and shape—leapt up, grabbing one. Liz winced; bio teacher or no, she’d never been able to shake off a mild squeamishness when confronted with the food chain in action. No one seemed up. No boats marred the surface of the lake; no motors disturbed its stillness; no shouts came from the one or two cabins, hidden by trees, that faced hers from one side of a large plot of heavily wooded vacant land on the opposite shore.
