The road to the ferry dock had been plowed just wide enough for one car. I knew because I’d delivered mail down it for thirty-six winters and spent most of them hoping nobody would come the other way. On Saturday, my husband turned down it without signaling, which was how I knew he’d been thinking about the turn for a while.
“The ferry’s closed,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Did you leave something down here?”
Walt put both hands on the wheel. “That’s one way of putting it.”
He parked above the landing. Beyond the windshield the lake was gray, with a strip of open water between the ice and the pilings. He got out and went around to the trunk. I followed him, taking the long way around a patch of ice. At seventy-two I had finally learned that taking the long way was faster than getting up.
Walt lifted out a wool blanket and a little speaker with a leather handle. The blanket had been in the back seat on the day we got married. We’d signed the papers in the county clerk’s office and taken the ferry over for lunch. On the way back, my sister had put on a song she said we ought to dance to. We’d tried it by the railing, wearing the good shoes we’d bought that morning. Then the ferry came into the slip, the deckhands called everybody back to their cars, and my sister pocketed her phone without thinking.
I’d forgotten about the song by the time we got home. At least I’d told myself I had. It used to come on at the hardware store and I’d find something in the next aisle that needed looking at.
Walt carried the blanket down the shoveled path and shook it out over the bench. Snow fell off the slats in two little strips.
He set the little speaker on the bench and asked, “Do you remember where the song cut out?”
