She wanted to ride the steamboats. We chose the Minne-Ha-Ha.
“Ha-ha-ha,” we said. “Ha! Ha! Ha!”
We ran up the gangplank, dodging the crowd, because we wanted the best view of the paddlewheels. We hung as far over the rails on the upper deck as we safely could, and after a toot from the calliope, the boat left the dock, and we were showered with a chilly mist from the paddles. Meadow screamed, drawing other children to us, several of whom stuck their heads through the rail bars until their parents called them back. We didn’t care. I mean, we were wet already. Behind us, the shoreline fell away, and a chaos of seagulls hung over our wake like bridesmaids holding a veil. The wind picked up, soft and clean.
She said, “Here’s a joke. Where does a dog do his grocery shopping?”
“I don’t know. Where?”
“The Stop ’n’ Smell.”
“That’s brilliant.”
“I made it up. I can roller-skate, you know.”
“You can swim, you can roller-skate. What else can you do?”
“I can fly.”
“Of that I am skeptical.”
“Knock-knock,” she said. “Orange.”
“Wait. You forgot to let me ask who’s there.”
“Who’s there?”
“Ha! No, I ask you.”
The steamboat chugged up the eastern bank of Lake George. Dusk was falling as the boat came about, and we saw the yellow ball of sun disappear in a glint through the keyhole of the northernmost mountains.
“Poof,” she said. “Good night!”
“Yeeeeer outta here, sun,” I said.
“Yeeeeer out, sun!”
“You’re goin’ down, sun.”
“Way down,” she said. “All the way downtown.”
“You’re goin’ downstate.”
Grinning, she climbed a metal bench on the deck. “But I can fly,” she said. “Watch.” Stretching her arms out for balance, she placed both sneakers on the armrest, and started wheeling her arms, looking ungainly.
“Careful,” I said although she was well clear of the railings. Her shorts were bunched up over either thigh accordion-style, and her T-shirt rode up over her belly as she seesawed above the bench. When she jumped, her wind-knotted hair trailed like streamers.
“I’ll eat my hat,” I said. “You can fly.”
“I told you.”
“Come on, you crazy kid. Your lips are purple.”
We entered the warm inner cabin, where most of the families had fled from the afternoon bluster. An infant given free range was crawling across the tacky linoleum floor, batting an empty soda can in front of her.
“I’m hungry, Daddy.”
I looked around the cabin. “We should get you some dinner.”
She pointed. “How about something from that venting machine?”
“Brilliant,” I said. “It can vent us some dinner.”
Famous Amos cookies and a Yoo-hoo for her. Grainy hot coffee for me.
“Voilà,” I said, choosing a bench. “Dinner.”
Underneath us hummed a powerful motor. The vibration was loud and emptied my mind. I watched the green wall of mountain pass on the starboard side, near enough to see the play of songbirds in the branches.
Meadow said, “Daddy, am I allowed to marry you when I grow up?”
Involuntarily, I winced and looked at my shoes. “Nah,” I said, warming my hands on my paper cup. “You can’t. Besides, you don’t want to marry me anyway. But that’s sweet of you to ask. Truth is, you really ought to find someone closer to your own age.”
“Mariah’s my age. Am I allowed to marry Mariah?”
“In certain states.”
“I’d like to marry you. That’s my choice. Knock-knock. Daddy? Knock-knock.”
I looked at her, trying not to look as sad as I felt. “I love you, you know.”
“I love you with my whole soul,” I said. “I wish I could explain it.”
“I know it already.”
“Good.” I smiled. “So you know what a soul is?”
“Sure,” she said, straightening. “The soul keeps the body up.”
I watched the vast sky absorb the darkness, my head buzzing, my heart too full.
“You have a wonderful way of putting things,” I said. “You have a wonderful way of seeing things. You have a wonderful mind.”
“I know,” she said, shrugging. “You say that all the time.” She fished in her bag for another cookie.
A blur of happy sensations and half-glimpsed intentions, and we were back inside the Mini Cooper, Meadow strapped into the booster seat, tucked under a large new beach towel that read “Queen of American Lakes.” We were driving again. North. The moon doggedly following us through the gaps in the trees. I turned on the radio. Al Green. I’m so tired of being alone. I’m so tired of on-my-own. In the rearview mirror, I watched Meadow surreptitiously stick her thumb in her mouth. Immediately her eyelids grew heavy.
“Doesn’t the dentist want you to stop sucking your thumb, sweetheart?” I said, remembering some injunction delivered via Pop-Pop. “So your teeth don’t get bent out of shape?”
“I’m not sucking my thumb,” she mumbled, mouth full.
“You sleepy?”
“Nope. I’m wide-awake. I’m going to stay awake all night.”
“Good. Then you can keep me company.” I smiled at her in the rearview mirror. “Turns out, I don’t like the quiet. G.K. Chesterton called it ‘the unbearable repartee.’ Silence, that is.”5 I was driving—just driving—Lake George constant alongside, the moon skipping through the branches.
“And it’s too quiet without you around,” I said. “No knock-knock jokes. No songs. I feel like I missed a year of your life, really. It’s not your fault. But you can swim and I didn’t even know it. It’s like my life’s been on pause, but yours—yours kept going.” I laughed at myself. “God. Your mom used to hate this about me, how I would just talk and talk—”
Predictably, there was no response from the backseat. Her thumb was suspended in front of her mouth, but her head had fallen to one shoulder, her glasses resting on the bulb at the end of her nose.
People say that I’ve found a way
To make you say that you love me
Hey baby, you didn’t go for that it’s a natural fact
That I wanna come back show me where’s at, baby
We lost the radio signal somewhere north of Ticonderoga.