May came in green, the way spring comes to a lake that has been patient all winter — the reeds standing tall along the shore, the water holding the sky in a different key now, warm and open, the garden along the south wall running riot the way gardens do when you stop worrying about them. The peas had climbed their strings. The tomatoes had outgrown their cages and been staked again. The rose had budded, and Aaron checked it every morning before coffee, the way some men check the weather, and it was coming back, true to the nurseryman's word.
The house had settled into the season. Doors stood open. The dock was in, dry and waiting, and the cassette shelf in the kitchen held two house songs, with room for the one that was still being written somewhere on the road.
Daisy texted from the tour with a line and a question: *The dock keeps what the water promised it. That's the first line of the lake song. The rest comes from the dock in July. Is the dock still keeping its promises?*
