Cameo Lake by Susan Wilson

intermittent, disturbed by the light of another scorching day. By eight o'clock I was up and back at my computer. The kids slept on and I didn't chide them awake.
    The humidity was layered over the lake like whipped cream over a pie. I sat in a tank top and running shorts, hunched over my laptop, rereading the last few paragraphs from the night before and trying desperately to get back into that groove where no other world but Jay and Karen's existed. Where the betrayals and disappointments were products of my controlling imagination and not about me.
    Morning had not brought with it a lessening of my anger at Sean. The anger was less white hot, but no less real. It reminded me of another anger long ago. If Sean couldn't hold up his end of the bargain in this situation, why did I think he could maintain his end of a bargain now almost eight years old? He had been so contrite, so sorry, so boyish in his belief that he could be forgiven for his infidelity. So assured and yet grateful that I would be like his mother had been when Francis McCarthy cheated on her.
    My parents divorced when I was sixteen. Typically, they neverspoke of the cause of their separation, but I knew deep down that Mr. Ramsey was the catalyst. The separation and divorce came suddenly, without warning and without negotiation. I never saw Mr. Ramsey again. It was as if they had needed an excuse to go their separate ways, a minimum of fuss. When Alice discovered Francis cheating, she screamed bloody murder and threw a lamp at him. They stayed married and seemed content.
    I looked up from my screen, still exactly as it had been an hour before, and saw Ben paddling north, up the widest part of the lake. I picked up the binoculars and focused on him as he drew the paddle through the still water. Under the scrutiny of my gaze his strokes were graceful, making the motion seem effortless, rhythmic, and strong. He switched sides and paddled on the starboard side of the Old Town, digging deeper into the lake, the motion etching fine muscle against his strong back. Thinking myself entitled to a mean thought, I compared him to Sean. My husband's physical fitness was limited to an occasional business round of golf. In spite of my chiding to be active, he remained sedentary. His natural body type saved him from being overweight, although, as I had noticed earlier in the summer, his lifestyle was beginning to catch up to him. By the time he was Ben's age, he'd pretty much look like his father. Rusty red hair faded to yellow, paunch outlined by expensive suspenders. Good suits to disguise the bandy legs.
    I shook myself out of the visual punishment. It wouldn't be that bad. Sean's legs were pretty good. I lifted the binoculars again and watched my neighbor bend the trajectory of the canoe toward the pier belonging to the lakeside general store. The store had only opened for the season just before July Fourth and I found it useful only for Popsicles and the kid's bait. The price of milk was absurd and the owners carried only one kind of bread, the “squishy white bread” which my kids loved and I wouldn't let them have.
    I lowered the binoculars and wondered for a moment when I had become such a nosy neighbor. I admitted to myself that I was fascinated with Ben Turner because he let so little of himself out. He was niggardly with details, letting clues drop here and there, obviouslyprotecting himself from saying out loud that he hurt. I had meant what I said out there in the middle of the night on the middle of the raft. I could be a good listener. I hoped that he understood it wasn't really just nosiness, it was an offer to be the neutral wall he'd offered me.
    Lowering my binoculars, it occurred to me that my interest had not been entirely on his story. Thinking of our midnight visit on the raft, the warm breeze on our bare skin, I recalled the sense I felt sitting there, as if we were doing something very naughty. Playing with fire.
    “I know you probably have a