The Dirt Road to Eternia Lake

Despite his “safety first!” cruising speed and the tired engine of Dad’s ‘72 Chevy, the winding highway curves made my stomach churn. I slammed my fist against the door’s peeling leather – an effort to make the back window crank ease up – and scrunched my nose at the sudden blast of Redwood sap, motor oil, and forgotten cigarettes. This was a long, tortuous drive to nowhere.

* * * * * * * *

For Dad, it was a joyride. Despite its age, his beat-up truck (“it’s called a classic, Sam,” he reminded me) was the proudest purchase of his life. “$20,000! Do you know how many zeroes that is?!” he’d screamed, dancing around the room, waving a winning scratcher. That prize was purchased with my insistence, I reminded him – during a late-night ice cream run to the mart across the street.

And with that $1 ticket in hand, covered in shiny scratched tin and three winning cherries, Dad started planning “the ULTIMATE” road trip the minute he cashed in, shaking his head at the luck of it all.

“Never thought I’d see the day I could take you both back to this place, girls,” he said. “You’re going to love our family cabin. I was going to wait until you were much older to share it with you… there’s nothing like it.”

At least I had a commiserator on the road, though she wasn’t much comfort at the moment. Marley was a carefree seatmate in the backseat, headphones blaring cheerfully to the croons of some favorite-of-the-moment boy band. She was busy chowing down a turkey sandwich from the bait shop, making sure to flick a crumb at my face before returning back to her role as backup singer. She closed her eyes and wailed along to her imaginary crowd. “Where would I beeeee,” she belted, “without sweet you, babyyyy?”

Suitcases, two ice chests, a rusted gas stove, and a pile of blankets jingled in the bed behind us. It was summer vacation, and the next 3 months of our lives were supported by a v6.

It would’ve all seemed quaint, I thought, to the passengers in boats, cars, and trucks driving past us, headed down dirt roads to cabins nearby.

It wasn’t until we got on the road that I realized our trip might not be so ordinary. None of us knew how to fish and Dad had no intention to teach us. That was clear, after our stop at The Rusty Hook, when we didn’t pick up any lures and worms – and what I thought was a collection of poles in the back had turned out to be one. And despite all this talk of a lake... I still hadn't seen one nearby.

The cashier rang up our salty snacks and warm sodas and told Dad to go ahead to the storage room, where I watched him slip something into his pocket from a box in the back. It looked like a pack of Newports – the kind Grandma used to sneak in the kitchen – but that couldn’t be right. Since when did Dad smoke?

After too many long hours bumping along exits to dirt roads and finally, a growly, dusty gravel driveway, the truck engine spluttered to sleep, and Marley leaped out right away. “Which way is my room?” she asked blankly, tilting her head in confusion at the one-room log stack staring right back at her. “Is this where all of us sleep?!”

The sun was melting into a tropical shade of orange as Dad ignored her and looked at his watch. “Grab the red cooler from the back, won’t you Sam?”

“We better get settled. Tomorrow is a big day,” he said with a twinkle.

I walked up the carpeted steps, twinged with blue triangles and the shoe prints of decades of visitors, lugging the ice chest with clumsy strength. I entered a room – the cabin’s only room – cloaked in stale, sweet air and the hum of a grandfather clock busy ticking and flashing its gold pendulum nearby. It chimed on the hour just as Dad and Marley walked in behind me, the three of us screaming in unison. “Well, that woke me up,” Dad said. “Girls, make sure to set out your all-weather boots before you go to bed. We’re heading somewhere special first thing in the morning.”

That night, sleeping in a bundle of blankets on the floor, my dreams were flooded with animals I knew and missed. The class hamster from Ms. Perez’s room. Our beloved family labrador Betty, who had died the year before. I wanted to hold them and pet them with my outstretched hand, but they faded away before I could reach.

I woke up, teary-eyed, wondering where they’d gone, blinking away the worry as my Dad handed me and my sister a hot thermos of cocoa. “Are you ready for our big adventure?”

He pulled the pack of menthols out of his heavy coat jacket, and just as I was nearly going to rage on him for a secret habit, he slapped the bottom of the box to reveal a single key, threaded on a red satin ribbon.

He reached toward the grandfather clock resting heavily against the room’s corner and unlocked its old glass door. Sitting there, plainly – how had I missed it before? – was a small, black notebook. Its corners were crinkled and bookmarked. The sign of a story well-lived.

“DAD, whaaa---” he cut me off before an inquisition, grabbing the book quickly. “If we’re going to get there by sundown, we’ve got to haul,” he explained. “Put on your boots and meet me out back. Just let me read you something first.”

Marley and I stared at him curiously, boots in hand, with complete confusion on our faces.

He sat quietly, flipping to the middle of the book, staring at a set of well-known pages. “To Eternia,” he began, his voice booming solemnly, “we ask of you – show us three the love of those we remember dearly,” he read. The book closed with a loud flop.

With no human hands behind it, the back door of the cabin shoved open with the force of a chilled wind, revealing a view that made Marley and I gasp in combined delight and fear.

There, behind our humble room, we met a hidden fortress for the first time: a vast, calm, and crystal blue lake surrounded us in every direction, fenced by an old-growth forest and wisteria vines. A dock was directly in front of us, leading to a canoe anchored to an old post with “Anthony” carved in its grain. Dad’s name.

We walked down the dock, climbing into the canoe, as my Dad instructed each of us to grab one side of an oar.

“This place has been in our family for generations,” he began. “A place dreamed up and preserved by the hopes and dreams that live in one precious and special book.” He tapped the front pocket of his old flannel shirt. “Whatever is clear in your heart when you read from this book will be shown to you. Remember, you can bring to life anything you find in its pages.”

We paddled to the middle of the lake, tired from over-enthusiastic rowing, and floated in the water, hearing the boat click and splash to the sounds of a current beginning to gather force.

“Now, I know you’ve been missing Betty lately, Sam,” he said. “But she lives here now, as a happy resident at this lake, and inside these pages. Now that you know the secret, you can visit her any time you’d like.”

I turned my head to the right, where a sudden sploosh jolted my attention. Paddling towards us was Betty, boasting a tennis ball in her mouth. A freewheeling hamster held a tuft of fur with both tiny hands, holding onto Betty’s shiny black coat like reins, as both came happily towards us. Betty bumped my outstretched hand with her wet nose.

My eyes tearfully turned to Dad. “Is she real?” I asked. “Can she come home with us?”

“That’s the magic of this place, and the book you read here,” Dad said. “Betty will always come to you, any time you choose to remember her. She lives here, now. In Eternia.”

With a vocal peep, the hamster pointed westward, and we watched the pair paddle to a nearby shoreline – not before Betty turned to us, shook her head, and barked twice – just like she’d always done in the morning, to get me up for school.

“She’s not a dream, then?” I asked. “She can come back, whenever I speak out to her?”

“With this book, yes,” Dad said. “But keep the book closed when your heart is full enough with memories and you don’t need to see her. That’s why we don’t visit the lake often. That way, other families can read from their own books, and visit their loved ones when they miss them, too.”

I smiled and held my sister’s hand, waving to Betty as she trotted up the muddy shore. 

“Is this where Grandma lives, too?” Marley asked, her hand shielding her freckled cheeks and light eyes from the bright mountains and sun.



“Sure is,” Dad said. “Everyone we love lives here. They visit us from these shores. The magic notebook is here with us at the lake this summer. So is everyone we’ve ever missed… and loved.”

We didn’t spend a minute inside those summer months. It turned out, nothing about the cabin made our vacation special at all that year. The three of us had all we needed in a tiny notebook. It was an heirloom. A time capsule. A place where eternity was true...

I closed my eyes, letting a rush of water raise and lower our canoe. I was surrounded by everything I'd ever loved. It was a powerful hum, brought to life by words.

***