What the Summer Knew

The lake house smelled of pine and old paperbacks, the way it had every summer since they were boys. But this year Tom watched him differently — across the dock, across the dinner table, across the narrow hallway where the floorboards gave everyone away. They had shared that hallway for fifteen summers. It had never been narrow before. "You are staring," said Ben, without looking up from the book he had not turned a page of in twenty minutes. "I am reading," said Tom. "You are holding the atlas upside down." The lake house smelled of pine and old paperbacks, the way it had every summer since they were boys. But this year Tom watched him differently — across the dock, across the dinner table, across the narrow hallway where the floorboards gave everyone away. They had shared that hallway for fifteen summers. It had never been narrow before.