Chapter 143 - Chapter 143: The Ice

The new year came to the lake the way new years come to places that know their seasons — not with noise, but with the turning of a page in a quiet room. The cold deepened through the first week of January, the ice going from grey to a pale white that held the sky, the snow standing deep across the yard, the house burning its wood in the old steady rhythm, and Aaron stood at the kitchen window on the first morning of the year with his coffee, looking at the lake that had given him everything, and he thought: another season of crossings. Another season of carrying.