The Lie of the Lake House
The Day Started Out So Well.
Bad news is the plane falling out of the clear blue sky. “The day started out so well,” you tell people, as you recount it, shaking your head in disbelief. You felt its ordinariness, even a swell of well-being as you drank your coffee and considered the day ahead. What would you make for dinner? And then, you get the call, or see the ambulance in front of your neighbor’s house. You watch the second plane fly into Tower Two. Everything turns on this moment, like a fulcrum, not a swivel chair. That’s how bad news works.
The biggest lie is the attractive silver-haired couple in their glass lake house, sipping their coffee by the dock, superior and deeply content because they found the right investment company to manage their retirement wealth. They have saved for a sunny day, a day in which no planes fell, a day their lab reports came back perfect and their neighbor, riding around on his lawn mower, waves to them. There’s wine in the cellar and salmon in the refrigerator. Maybe these liars will kayak around the lake together, laughing about how crazy it is that they’re so lucky.
We all get our share of the satisfying days we feel like we’ve gradually built our fortress, and the days we understand it’s just a childish sand castle and the tide is coming in, or maybe the tsunami has already crashed. Bad news days come for us all. You want to yell that at the smug rich couple in the lake house, sipping their wine and staring out at the lake in their matching Adirondack chairs, but you see the storm clouds gathering on the horizon. Maybe you’re being petty; even, to be honest, vicious, but you’re hoping they’ll get caught in it.