LISA PIAZZA | A SHADOW, A SNAKE

October 6, 2024

A Shadow, a Snake

It’s not every day you see a bald eagle at Serene Lakes, but I’ve seen a few before. Flying, perched in trees, their white feathers showing or skimming the lake to grab some trout, then speed off.

Today the one above me keeps its distance. Circling, circling.

The kayak I’m in belonged to my dad back when my parents owned the cabin together. After the divorce, my mom owned it, and now I share it with my sister, her husband, and their three kids. My sister’s already said she will pass her part on to her kids, and if I ever marry (and God forbid that person has a kid), the cabin should stay in the family. I’m told it’s cheating for someone else’s kid to end up with half of something that isn’t theirs.

My sister prefers my future loneliness.

My present sadness, too. Next to my life, hers is more than fine. Fully formed and growing.

The lake water is cold. In June, the mosquitoes take over, and there’s not much you can do to avoid them. Snow melts. Puddles form. Mosquitos breed. Even now, in June, there is more than a little snow left. Hiking yesterday, I lost the trail for a bit due to a pack of snow knee-deep. Next to it, clumps of wildflowers – purple, orange, pink.

If I knew the names, I’d name them.

Wild Iris is one.

Back at the cabin, a meadow mouse is gnawing on a crust of toast. Later it will chew through the box of Life cereal in the cupboard. Knowing this doesn’t mean I can stop it.

I forgot mosquito repellent, but the real mistake I made was calling my sister this morning to ask her to bring some up. It would have been easier to drive to Soda Springs and buy my own.

“You’ve been there how many days, and you’re just now calling about repellant? I mean, did you even check the master bathroom? I’m sure we left some there last summer.”

Sure enough, there it is.

“You must really want those bug bites; that’s all I can say!”

“Sure, yeah.” I always agree – even when she’s joking. Even when I am the joke. It’s an old habit.

“We’ll be up around 5. All three of my boys are coming, FYI. Hope your guy doesn’t mind! Can’t wait to meet him.”

One of the easiest ways to kill a mouse is to set out the sticky traps; that’s also the least humane. That and poison. The mice get too smart for the snap traps after the first kill. Up here, poisoning a mouse means poisoning everything. Maybe that’s everywhere. Being in the mountains, it’s easier to see the connections – tree roots, streams, rocks, run-off, branches, pinecones, mountain lions, bears. Mosquitos. Trout. Eagles. Mice.

That I know the mouse is here doesn’t mean I’m going to kill it.

From the kayak, the bald eagle takes its time circling. It could come my way. Or not. My sister’s been trying to see a bald eagle up here for years. She sees bats, hears frogs. But no eagle. She’s told her husband about the time I was a baby out on the grass by the water, and our mom swears an eagle dipped down, talons out, and almost carried me away.

I don’t remember it, but a story is true if someone tells it enough. 

I want the eagle to fly this way, glide down to the middle of this lake where I am now, dive, dig its ---

                    No.

                                     That’s an old thought.

                                                                                    The kind I am trying

                                                                                                                            to

                                                                                                  break.

There are other ways to escape.

When she arrives, my sister will see that my guy, Grey, isn’t here. Her boys will barrel in, unaware. If she told them to be on their best behavior to meet someone new, they’ll have forgotten all about it. They’ll get out the paddle board, root around in the garage for the fishing poles, ask about bait. Their dad will set up his work computer in the master bedroom where he and my sister always sleep, and we’ll see him for meals and the occasional card game.

This is his idea of a vacation! My sister will laugh.

The problem with Grey isn’t a problem. It’s just that he’s a good guy. We have known each other for seven months. That sounds like a long time, but we only make time to get together once a month, so over seven dinners, what I can tell is he’s a nice person – has a job, two kids, drives a Tesla, pays his taxes, likes art films and 80s punk.

I never invited him up to the cabin, so I wouldn’t have to bail at the last second. I know myself at least that well now. It’s progress. I didn’t want to end up lying to him, saying the cabin trip was off for all.

It’s the overlap I’m not ready for. One self meshing with another. Who I am alone, meeting who I am with my sister, meeting who I am with Grey.

Happiness is there somewhere in the middle, but I am not ready for it yet.

I can’t say why yet, and I don’t expect my sister to understand.

Now, I watch the eagle home in on something, dive down as I dip my paddle in the lake, and pull back. Dip and pull. Let the water make its own movement.

Later, when my sister asks how it’s been going all alone up here by myself, I’ll lie easily to her: she missed an eagle swooping down, pulling a rainbow trout from the lake right next to me in the kayak. Wings wider than you’ve ever seen. She’ll gasp, but only because the mouse is tiptoeing across the kitchen counter, half-hidden by the tile backsplash she put in when she decided to remodel the kitchen.

I liked my mother’s cracked sink, the wooden countertops. I liked the way my mother could stand on the deck and point to things in the distance. Rowton Peak, and that other one whose name I can’t remember. She would explain the different types of rocks: granite, volcanic, sedimentary. Metamorphic.

At dusk, my mother would water her potted flowers, and the water lines looked like snakes making their slow way across the patio. A shadow can be a snake, she would say. Now that she’s gone, a shadow is a shadow again. A snake, a snake. 

My sister will buy mouse traps in the morning. They’ll sell her the sticky ones, and she’ll cry when the poor thing is caught. One of her boys will put it in a bag and carry it out to the trash. She’ll throw her arms around her son, taller and stronger than she is now: “What would I do without you?” she’ll coo, and he’ll shrug.

About Grey, she’ll say, “We’ll have to meet him the next time.” And I’ll almost shrug, too. Old habit. A child again in her presence, believing the future to be a circle. Like it makes any sense to say you can have whatever you want as long as you’ve had it before. 

It doesn’t.

Lisa Piazza is a writer, educator, and mother from Oakland, Ca. Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, and the Pushcart Prize. She is an Assistant Poetry Editor for Porcupine Literary and a poetry reader for Lit Fox Books and The Los Angeles Review. She has recently finished writing a collection of linked stories.