Updated Mar 23, 2026 • ~6 min read
Chapter 20: The lake in winter
AMY
She found him at the lake.
She had known he’d be at the lake because it was February, which should have been the least likely month for outdoor sitting, but Jake had been going to the lake every week since the December Friday when he’d told her about Devon, and she’d noticed the pattern the way she noticed all his patterns now — not tracking them, just knowing.
She had texted and he hadn’t answered, which was the other thing she’d noticed.
She drove to the Henderson’s, closed the gate behind her, and walked down to the dock.
He was there with the sketchbook but he wasn’t drawing.
He was just sitting.
She sat beside him.
She said: *Hi.*
He said: *Hi.* He said it with the quality of someone trying to produce a normal word from inside a not-normal state.
She looked at the lake.
She said: *Talk or quiet.*
He said: *I don’t know yet.*
She said: *Okay.*
She was quiet.
The lake was grey and cold and the reeds were the brown of deep winter and there were two ducks at the far bank moving in the slow way ducks moved when the water was cold. She watched the ducks. He watched the water.
After a while he said: *I’ve been thinking about failing you.*
She said: *Tell me.*
He said: *Not a specific thing. Just the—* He stopped. *The general probability.* He paused. *That I’m going to have a bad stretch. That the nightmares will come back. That I’ll be in a hardware store again and someone will drop something and I’ll be against the wall.* He paused. *And you’ll be standing there watching me against the wall.*
She said: *And.*
He said: *And I keep thinking — you should be with someone who doesn’t have the wall.*
She said: *Do you want me to answer that or do you want to keep going.*
He said: *I want to keep going.* He paused. *I love you. I know I love you. I know you love me. That’s not the question.* He looked at the lake. *The question is whether love is enough for this. For the — long version.* He paused. *Because the long version has bad stretches in it.*
She said: *Can I answer now.*
He said: *Yes.*
She said: *Love is not what makes it enough.* She paused. *Love is the reason to do the work. The work is what makes it enough.* She paused. *You’re doing the work. I’m doing the work. That’s the actual equation.*
He said: *It’s not that simple.*
She said: *No. But it’s not more complicated than that either.*
He looked at the ducks.
She said: *Jake. The bad stretches are going to happen.* She said it plainly. *I know that. I’ve known that since I started volunteering at the VA. I’ve known it since the Wednesday group. I’ve known it since I read Dr. Okafor’s second book.* She paused. *I have not learned all of that because I was hoping for an easy life with you.*
He said: *Then why.*
She said: *Because I wanted to be capable of the life I was choosing.* She looked at him. *I wanted to be equipped. Not protected from the hard things — equipped for them.* She paused. *That’s what you do when you choose something real.*
He was quiet.
She said: *You’ve been sitting here thinking about the probability of failing me.*
He said: *Yes.*
She said: *I’ve been in your kitchen for six months. I’ve been to four joint sessions with Dr. Okafor. I’ve been to nine Wednesday group meetings.* She paused. *I have run my own probability assessment, Jake. I’ve looked at every column.* She paused. *I am here. I am choosing this. That’s the conclusion.*
He said: *The bad stretches scare me.*
She said: *I know.* She took his hand. *What scares you about them.*
He said: *That you’ll reach your limit.*
She said: *Everyone has a limit.*
He said: *Yes.*
She said: *Mine is not you having PTSD.* She said it carefully. *My limit is dishonesty. Cruelty. Giving up.* She paused. *You’re not doing any of those things. You’re sitting at a lake in February being scared about a future bad stretch, which means you’re thinking about the future, which means you’re not giving up.* She paused. *That’s not near my limit.*
He looked at her.
He said: *I’m scared of this.*
She said: *I know.*
He said: *Not of you. Of the—* He paused. *The magnitude of it. Of you.* He looked at their hands. *I have never wanted anything this much.* He paused. *Wanting this much is terrifying.*
She said: *Wanting this much means it’s real.*
He said: *I know.*
She said: *Real is terrifying.*
He said: *Yes.* He squeezed her hand. *Real is also—* He paused. He looked at the lake, the grey winter sky, the two ducks at the far bank. *Real is the best thing.*
She said: *Yes.*
He said: *I’m going to stay scared.*
She said: *Good.*
He said: *Good.*
She said: *Scared and present. That’s the version I want.* She paused. *Not the invulnerable version. Not the everything-is-managed version.* She looked at him. *The real one.*
He said: *This is the real one.*
She said: *I know.*
They sat at the lake for another hour.
She thought about Robert from the Wednesday group saying *the long game* and about the February sky and about love as the reason to do the work and the work as what makes it enough. She thought about the equation: not simple, not more complicated than that either.
She thought about choosing.
She had chosen at sixteen when she’d decided to love him. She had chosen every Sunday for ten years at the Mitchell kitchen table. She had chosen the VA certification and the caregiver group and the four joint sessions with Dr. Okafor and the two library books.
She was choosing now.
He said: *Amy.*
She said: *Yes.*
He said: *Thank you for finding me here.*
She said: *I’ll always find you here.* She paused. *That’s how that works.*
He put his arm around her and she leaned into him and the lake was cold and grey and the ducks moved across the far bank and the winter light came down on the water flat and steady.
She thought: *this is the love that’s earned.*
She thought: *not the falling kind. The staying kind.*
She thought: *I’ve been staying for twelve years and I’m going to keep staying, and it is not a sacrifice and it is not noble — it is just what I want.*
She thought: *he’s starting to understand that.*
She thought: *good.*
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