Rennie’s Log Slide Dream (What Happens Next): Part Three

The day she picked was cold and clear. Thin plumes of clouds floated over a Lake Superior that was spring blue, indigo blue, like the massive lake had rested all winter to flower on this day. The wind came from the northwest, swooping its way from Canada, and it was cold but gentle on her face. She kissed her hand and put her hands over her face and then she started down, with the same pack and the same provisions as when she made the trek in October. It was easier this time because she knew what to expect and took about half the time, no stopping to catch her breath or quell her panic. Going down the dune, Rennie felt strong like a mountaineer rapelling down the rock face of a mountain.

            The log where she’d sat before was in its same place, a little more buried by the sand that had been thrown up by the lake during the winter. There were more rocks, too, hundreds more, and she considered constructing a cairn for Peter. Yes, that is what she would do. That could be her purpose in coming. She breathed in all the air and let it out, happy that she’d found a reason to be there. It wasn’t morbid or guilty or any of that. It was an honoring thing, commemorative, loving. She found the best rocks and put them in her pockets. Up and down the beach, the reddest rocks, the flattest ones, the ones with veins. Her pockets bulged.

            She sat in Peter’s place and leaned against the dune under the grassy overhang. The rocks spilled out of her pockets and she took to arranging them by size. Considering them, their suitability for the cairn. It needed to be built to last – at least a little while – kids would knock it down over the summer. With her right hand, she started to smooth the sand. Everything needed to be level, the sand clear of little rocks and twigs, the stuff the lake throws up in the winter.

            Her fingers caught on a tiny red plastic edge of something. Peter’s lighter. His beat-up lighter that looked like he’d just found it on the beach. She remembered him pulling a cigarette out of a pack, and tapping it on his watch. And then lighting it with this lighter, this very lighter. She kissed the lighter and then flicked it. No flame. She blew the sand away and rubbed the lighter on her hoodie. Tried again and again. And then, at last, the lighter lit. So, she kissed her hand and put her hands over her face. And then she dug a very deep hole and put the lighter in the hole and built the cairn on top, believing in that moment that she was giving Peter a proper burial and not just leaving him to the elements to fend for himself.

            Rennie walked to the water’s edge and knelt down. She washed her hands in the icy blue water and dried them on her pants. And then she climbed back up the dune and drove home, having done what she had come to do.