REASON TO BELIEVE

         The sun won’t come up until just before seven. Clouds fill the sky, but the man on the radio promises fair weather. To the southeast, over the line of trees that shield the farmhouse on the horizon, the sky turns pink and red. Morgan would have said “Red sky in morning”, and she would have believed bad weather was coming.

         At 8:45 I am ready to go. A canvas bag on the floor holds the can of ashes, a plastic container with some pasta salad for lunch, a small paintbrush of Morgan’s, two plastic bottles of ice with water and some dog treats. Next to the bag is a shovel. The dog finishes breakfast; we head to the car for her obligatory eating of four marrowbones, but this morning she refuses the third and jumps in the back seat of the car. She is afraid I will leave without her.

         I am chilly in my battered denim shirt and jeans. I have worn boots for the first time since the day the dog and I visited the duckpond in the park in Springfield. I run back in the house. I don’t want a jacket, so I grab Morgan’s gold sweatshirt and tie its arms around my neck, letting it hang loose. Men aren’t supposed to dress like this, but it feels good.

         The sun breaks out by the time we reach the Northway. Construction and my bladder hold down our progress, but at last we are past Saratoga and traffic thins out. Above Lake George I must make my first decision and it is easy. I don’t even think about taking Route 28 to Blue Mountain Lake and Long Lake. It is pretty, hilly and can get you killed. I continue on to Pottersville, where I turn right at the Black Bear Inn, head to Olmsteadville where I pick up 28N to Minerva, Newcomb and Long Lake. From there it is thirty plus miles to the lake.

         28N is a series of turns and bends that first goes uphill and then levels out. Between Minerva and Newcomb I give my bladder another break and the dog some water at an abandoned wooden building which has a plaque in front of it. I have seen it for years and wondered about it. Today I read that the plaque dates from 1935. Theodore Roosevelt stopped here to change horses at 2:45 a.m. on September 14, 1901. He was on his way to North Creek to catch a train to Buffalo where President McKinley had been assassinated.

         It is almost one hundred years ago to the day. The road leading through Minerva and Newcomb has banners showing the Rough Rider and apparently there will be a parade on the anniversary. The fourteenth is also our anniversary. It would have been our twenty-seventh. Later, reading the camp diary I learn from her mother’s entry that Morgan died on her grandparents’ anniversary, June Fourteenth.

         The weepies had set in as I saw the mountains near Lake George. Our daughter called them ‘my mountains’, but I did not know they existed until I met Morgan. The bag is sitting in the passenger seat, but I can only tell the dog my thoughts. In Tupper Lake, twenty-five miles above Long Lake, and ‘town’ for the camp, there are too many ghosts about. The building that was first the Grand Union, and then a Rite Aid, is now for rent. I avoid looking for the playground where I would take my daughter while Morgan would do laundry.

         We reach the lake at 12:30 and walk in to the cabin. I find the spare key and open it up, find some black paint and then head back into the woods, the dog running ahead. Past the two big rocks I recognize the golden birch and see the word “Lixie” faintly. I know where I am and begin to dig. It is hard work. Macabre thoughts pop into my mind. Will I find Lixie or have a heart attack digging? A root is in the way. We go back to the cabin and bring back a lopper that cuts through the obstacle. I put the can in the hole I’ve dug and cover it up. The vicar doesn’t show up to say an invocation or magic word.

         I repaint Lixie’s name on the tree and add Morgan’s. My hand is steady. We walk back to the cabin, where Maude Bailey, in the nearest camp eighty yards away, shouts, “Peter?” “No, it’s David, Morgan’s husband. I was here burying her ashes. I will only be here a little while.” She asks if I saw the plaque for Dick, Morgan’s Uncle and her mother’s brother. I did not and tell her so. She retreats to her cabin and I head up the steps to the porch to eat my pasta salad.

         The cabin sits in the trees above the lake. The screened porch runs along the entire front. A wooden table occupies part of it. I eat and think of Uncle Dick’s plaque and the marker I saw this morning. I bring the camp diary out on the porch and make an entry for today. The weepies return as I visit the past when the ghosts of the woods: Morgan, Lixie, Dick, Aunt Dotty and Uncle Bob, and Morgan’s grandparents were sitting at this same table. I fear the woods are getting crowded but I see no solution.

         The sun on the lake breaks the mood. I see the path on the lake! If you were here, you could see it too! Look! Look through the trees on the surface of the water! See it glitter and shine. Morgan said the path leads to fairyland. Morgan explained it the first day I was here in 1974. She told Lixie about it. She never stopped telling us because I don’t think she ever stopped believing in fairy tales and having faith in the basic goodness of people. Only in July of last year when doctors told her she was inoperable did the light go out of her eyes.

         I would smile and tease her a little, but I loved her for this simple charm. How she ever married someone without belief in fairy tales and the goodness of man is beyond me. It was routed out of me at an early age, and if one little speck even chances to come near me, the wind blows it away. I will tell you that sitting there on that porch, staring at the lake, I felt I could follow that path across the water. Then the wind began to blow and it was time to bid the ghosts farewell and go home.

Valatie September 5, 2001