My own daughter left me a breezy little voicemail saying, “Mom, you don’t need to come this summer. Paul thinks it’s better if we keep the lake house for our family,” as if the cedar walls, the sage green door, the dock, the porch swing, and every nail in that place hadn’t been paid for with my money

After he died, I made him a promise. I sat alone on my side of the bed with my hand resting on the hollow his body had left in the mattress and whispered into the dark.

I told him I would build the lake house. We had talked about it for years in the quiet practical language of people who love a dream long enough to make room for it.

Every time we drove through the Lake Martin area, Arthur would slow the truck just enough to look at the water through the pines. He would say, “One day, Dotty. Just something simple. Big porch. Good chairs. A dock for the grandkids.”

He used to sketch it on napkins in restaurants. He wanted a porch swing facing west so you could watch the sun drop without having to turn your neck.

He wanted a kitchen big enough for holiday breakfasts and a screen door that slapped shut behind children running in wet from the dock. After he died, the house stopped being a someday and became a promise.

I used the life insurance and part of my retirement savings and bought a lot on the east side of Lake Martin. Eighty seven thousand dollars for the red Alabama dirt.