Lake Effect by Dayle Furlong

Author:Dayle Furlong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC019000 Fiction/ Literary FIC029000 Fiction/ Short Stories (single author) FIC048000 Fiction/ Urban
ISBN: 9781770865730
Publisher: Cormorant Books
Published: 2022-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

After we’d eaten tuna sandwiches and soup, William brought me a glass of lemonade. He’d squeezed the lemons himself, added a teaspoon of sugar and a sprig of mint.

“Thanks,” I said.

I went to the kitchen to stuff a plastic bag full of crackers and to pour the rest of the lemonade into a thermos. Twenty minutes later the pontoon was moving along a narrow section of river. The shores were lush with mottled birch trees. The rock cliffs on either side were a dusty peach with black rings of shale. William pointed to a bird. I could barely see it, so I raised my hand above my brow to block the sheath of sun. I finally saw it when William nudged me with his elbow — white and scabby with the psoriasis he’d had since adolescence — and hooted with joy at witnessing such a fine bird. The heron stood daintily on one leg the width of a drinking straw. As the boat swayed in the mild current, the bird swooped upwards with one ferocious flap of its blue wings.

That is why William loved living here. To be close to marvels such as this. He found aquatic life and waterfowl fascinating. I was bored. My dolt of a husband was craning his neck to watch a stupid bird take flight. I wanted to get out of the boat and float on my own, but the lake was full of snakes. There was no getting out. William and the boat would not drift away from me.

He tried to engage me, told a story about a man in his office who’d bought his wife two peach-faced lovebirds. I was certain that he was hinting, wanting permission to bring caged birds in the house.

“We have enough already,” I muttered, hoping he’d catch my snide hint. I felt like a caged bird.

“Yes. Just us lovebirds,” he said and smiled.

I stifled the urge to yell. How could he not see how bored I was? How meaningless my days? With all the dreary housework I already did, he wanted me cleaning birdcages too? I woke up the other morning and the pile of laundry, hand towels and socks piled over William’s white work undershirts looked like a marble bust. A sock for a long Roman nose, a white shirt for the marble skin, a hand towel for a tunic. I must have been over-tired to see such sculpture in a pile of clothes to be folded, but it looked like the Roman hero Caesar, who’d conquered Gaul, forever memorialized in stone.

My life paled in comparison. All I did was contribute to William’s work life: cleaning his clothes, stocking the fridge, keeping his toothbrush upright in the holder so it wouldn’t breed germs. I wanted an adventure, not a dreary office job, but something exciting. Sex was the something that would dissipate the dullness. Pauline had this with another man. I wanted to have what she had no use for.

After William docked the boat and helped me ashore, I made a light supper.

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