Chapter 149 - Chapter 149: The Growing Stack

July came in with the heat, the lake deep and green, the garden at its full summer work — the tomatoes heavy on their vines, the peas long done, the rose in its second flush against the warm brick — and the oak, true to its kind, put on its second season's height in a single month, the way young trees do, as if it had heard the singer say she would come back when the leaves turned and meant to be worth the trip. Aaron stood over it in the mornings with his coffee, and he thought about the fall, and the fire that was coming across the water when the rains ended, and the way everything at the lake moved at the pace of the season.