The Yard She Chose

The walleye was local. I'd been saying that since we moved here. Local walleye. Like it proved something.

Thursday dinners were my idea. Most things on this block were my idea. I'd found the neighborhood, forwarded the Zillow links, sent the articles to friends when they were still in Phoenix and Austin. I'd made a spreadsheet. Elevation, flood risk, projected temperature bands through 2060, school ratings, distance to the hospital. I'm good at spreadsheets.

The haze had been sitting over the lake for three days. Not thick enough to cancel anything, just enough to soften the tree line and turn the light this copper color that was almost beautiful. My phone said 87. The AQI was 94. I'd checked it twice before anyone arrived and then put my phone in the kitchen drawer, which is something I do now.

Tom had the grill going. He'd looked up the lake temperature that morning. I saw him at the counter, saw him close the tab. I didn't ask. Three years of not asking each other certain things.

The air just sat there. No wind off the lake, no relief coming down the hill. Priya showed up in a tank top and didn't mention it, but I remembered our first summer here, how we'd joked about needing fleece in July. Nobody joked about that anymore.

Priya brought a salad with tomatoes from her garden. Gardens up here still feel like accomplishments. Dan opened a bottle from the Finger Lakes and said the winery had just expanded, planting varieties that wouldn't have survived there ten years ago. He said it like it was good news. Priya reached for the salad tongs.

The Cohens' daughter was nine. She'd been swimming at Park Point that afternoon and came to the table with her hair still damp, smelling like lake water and sunscreen. She told everyone the water was like a bathtub. She said it was the best water she'd ever been in.

Her mother smiled and said that's wonderful, honey.

I watched Priya's hand tighten on her wine glass. Just slightly. Then she asked the girl if she'd seen any fish.

The Lindgrens' chairs were empty. I'd stopped setting them after April. They'd lived on this block for twenty-two years before we showed up, and for the first year they came to every dinner, brought bars, asked about Houston. Then less. Then not at all. Carol Lindgren and I still waved from our driveways. Once she'd said something about her property taxes that she turned into a joke before it became anything else. I laughed. She laughed. We went inside.

Their house was worth sixty percent more than when we'd arrived. I knew because I'd looked it up, which is the kind of thing I do and then feel bad about.

Tom flipped the walleye. The smoke from the grill mixed with the smoke that had drifted down from Ontario or Manitoba or wherever it was this time. Campfire smell without a campfire. The first summer it happened, people on the neighborhood app were asking who was burning. Now nobody asks.

Dan was going on about the new brewery on Superior Street. Priya had moved to the elementary school's cooling system, how they'd finally approved the funding. The Cohens were planning a trip to the Boundary Waters in August, if the air cleared up.

If.

I poured more wine and watched the sun do that thing it does through haze, where it gets too large and too orange and sits on the horizon like something painted there. The girl said it was pretty. She was right.

People started gathering their things around nine. Still light out, which still surprised me. Priya hugged me at the door and said she loved these Thursdays. She meant it. I meant it. The walleye was local and the schools were fine and we'd driven north with our kids and our data.

I did the dishes. Tom took the dog out. I stood at the sink and looked at the yard through the window. The haze was still there. It would probably clear by the weekend, or it wouldn't. The grass was thick and green, greener than I'd expected when we moved here.

I dried my hands. I left the kitchen light on. Through the window I could see the Lindgrens' porch light was on too. It had been on every night since we'd moved in.

I figured that was something we had in common.