When I was about seven years old, my family bought a house on a lake in Connecticut. The house looked ugly and unassuming from the outside—it sat at the bottom of a hill, shrouded by pine trees. It was a reddish-brown with forest-green trim. But on the inside, it was built of light wood, with high, vaulted ceilings and big windows that allowed the natural light to stream in. The second floor was a loft, making the house feel open and airy. Our neighbors were much farther away than they were in the town where I grew up. I was used to seeing the Hydes playing basketball in their yard less than twenty feet from my window, and knowing that they could see my family having dinner at night through theirs. Here, at the lake, that closeness was gone. I couldn’t hear the rush of the train, traffic whirring by my house, or the neighborhood kids playing outside the way I could at home. It was completely secluded. In fact, my mom recently confided in me that she often felt scared at night there; for a New Yorker the silence was terrifying. But as a child I didn’t ever have that feeling; my parents were there, so I was protected.
My mother furnished the house with the help of a friend, who was an aspiring interior designer. The furniture matched the mood, with understated but oversized couches which seemed to swallow me up. My dad once remarked that it looked like a big treehouse, which perfectly described how I felt about it as a kid. It was a playground; the rules of my typical, suburban life did not apply at the lake. My parents definitely felt the same, as they loosened the reins quite a bit whenever we were there. They, too, were enjoying the carefree disposition that seemed to strike anyone who entered the house. We would have friends over during the summer, and we took full advantage of my parents’ unlikely nonchalance. Back in New York they kept a close eye on us, knowing where we were and what we were doing at all times. But at the lake we wandered as we pleased, and they seemed to assume that the powerful, calm sensation of the place would protect us. We scared them by going out alone into harsh waters and capsized more than a few times into the frigid lake. We kayaked to the pool club, sneaking in without a membership by tying our kayaks to the dock on a nearby island and walking over a bridge into the back entrance. We took late-night games of manhunt and capture the flag very seriously; the yard became a battleground. The excitement of being up past our bedtimes only added to the thrill of these competitions.
My family would also spend Christmas there. The house seemed as though it should have a Christmas tree year round. The warm glow of the lights on the tree illuminated the darkness as we spent evenings adding homemade ornaments to the pine branches, or watching Nightmare Before Christmas. My dad and I, being the only two skiers in the family, would go to a nearby mountain. In reality the mountain was on the small side, but to me, young and inexperienced, it was scary and imposing. My dad mitigated the fear by racing me down and letting me win. I began to associate skiing with rushes of adrenaline and the heartfelt conversations we had while dangling from a chairlift.
For many years the lake continued to hold that same, special magic that it did the first time I visited the house. The cabin walls were a comfort, shielding me from the outside world. But when I was twelve years old, my connection to the house was severed in an irreversible way. It was a chilly October morning, and my parents had gathered my brother Isaac, my sister Josie, and me in a circle in the living room. I was sitting on the cushy couch that had gifted me many spontaneous summer naps and joyful movie nights by the fire. I was probably fighting with my brother, or joking around with my sister—I don’t remember. I don’t remember the words that my parents said to convey that they were getting a divorce, but I do remember the feeling of needing to get out. Get out of the room, get out of the house. In that moment, something changed. I would never feel the same way about the lake that I had before. The wholesome love and innocence vanished. It’s funny, because I no longer feel any sadness over my parents splitting up. I know it was the right thing, and if I could snap my fingers and get them back together I definitely wouldn’t. I’m happy with the way our lives are now—five years later—but my feelings for the house never recovered.
In the years following, the lightness and the warmth that had always been invisible forces in the house were nonexistent. Nobody ever said it explicitly, but I think everyone in my family felt the same. The wooden beams of the walls appeared blank and suffocating. I no longer felt at peace hearing the eerie whistle of the wind at night, but instead felt lonely. I remembered my mother’s dread of the silence, and finally understood. We stopped visiting as often as we used to, and when we did we were not the family I once knew. The house had been an escape from normal life, but after the divorce we seemed to carry our problems with us. My mother tried to maintain our traditions—going there for Christmas or having friends visit during the summer— and my father took me skiing there a few more times, but it never felt the same. My memories of the lake became inextricably linked to the concept of my family changing forever.
Eventually, my parents sold the house. It was the one thing that they still legally shared, other than us kids. I wasn’t sad, which in a way makes me sad. The last weekend we visited was purely to clean out the house, and instead of it being an emotional goodbye, it just felt like a chore.
I can remember one time after that day in October when I felt the same serenity that I had for all of those years as a child. It was a brisk autumn day, and I was pushing my little sister on a makeshift swing that hung from a tree branch in the backyard. My freezing hands gripped the worn rope of the swing, and she giggled and shrieked as I pushed her. Orange leaves were falling from the trees, landing in my hair. I could see the lake beginning to freeze over. The wind blew in my eyes, making me tear up. I felt the same pure happiness that I usually felt at the lake on that day with her, but once we went inside it was gone.