Why in the world anyone would choose to build a tiny little cabin on a tiny little island in the middle of a tiny little lake is something I've never figured out. But there it is and there I was going. It'd come down from my wife's side, and when her parents died she and her siblings had turned it into a sort of family trust. We all split the costs of the upkeep and share a vacation destination. The unwritten by-laws still work fairly well. The obvious hot dates are doled out democratically; we had the long Labor Day weekend last year and won't see it again for at least half a dozen more. We're barely an hour's drive away and come up once or twice a month during the summer, but if we have plans then hear the California Gang has decided to fly in for the same dates, we of course do the gracious thing. Things have gotten a bit more crowded, if cheaper, now that all our children are growing up and buying in.

It's a primitive place and there's no way out except by boat. There is a great family story dating back to a particularly bitter winter back in the days of the Model A when a hardy group drove out to the island. Oh, and they made it. The proof is apparently still at the bottom of the lake about halfway back. There's not much to be done when one wheel breaks through a patch of bad ice except curse Henry Ford for your own stupidity. The gang scattered safely back to the mainland, talking already of safety lines and chains and a winch set up on shore. Later in the day they returned with the necessary equipment, and luckily someone thought to bring a prehistoric camera. And there is the actual proof. A wall of the cabin is adorned with framed and matted copies of the series, shot as they approached the site but were still safely away, the images capturing the few minutes before the final cra-a-ack that set the automobile deep diving.

The island has a little cove with a little beach and a little pier. The cabin itself is one fair sized room. One wall sports a huge stone hearth that is the furnace. Cooking is done on a cast iron wood stove that was rowed over piecemeal way back when. If you need a bath, someone hands you a bar of soap and tells you to go jump in the lake. The toilet is a half-step above dragging a shovel behind you on your way out into the woods. The water source used to be a bucket but anymore you bring your own, fresh and safe from a tap. The lake's not toxic but even boiled it's not good for the bowels. We're curious creatures, us humans. We soil our own nests, then bitch about it later.

Still and all it's a nice cozy place. There's no worry of being stuck out there with some big family bash because it really is too tiny. The upcoming visit would be pushing all known limits, setting records and in fact the logistics hadn't really been worked out. There are two double beds in the place, but they date back to when people were much smaller. We'd be banging against the rafters, I just knew it, but in the face of so much enthusiasm I decided to play along. My wife and I, our daughter Melissa and her husband Dale, and their two little ones.

Truth be told my favorite time out on the island is when I'm out there alone playing the handyman. The peace and quiet and the chill of a six-pack sunk in the shadowy cool water under the pier. Nothing to beat it. There were some minor chinks in the mortar between the logs that needed attention and I knew of a prime piece of dead fall that should be perfectly seasoned for firewood. And I've recently acquired the luxury of being bound by no work week, which is a blessed feeling for a man in his mid-40s who had been resigned to shoveling shit for the rest of his life. Reason enough to motor out to the island a day early. Get things ready for the rest of the crew.

So I was all set for a little solitude when Melissa suddenly announced that she wanted to join me. My heart sank but I kept it from my face. Sure, she's my wonderful daughter and all, but mostly I was telling myself don't be such a fucking ingrate. It was her doing that I was able to be doing this.

I was early in college when a faulty gene revealed my true destiny. C'mon, it shouted, drop out and paint. A painter in the sense that the only walls I'd be covering would be those in museums. I still don't know why Betsy chose me to be her husband. She's terribly intelligent and driven and creative, but she has a pragmatic sense I totally lack. She supported me for a year, but with no real nibbles and the advent of Melissa I made the decision to become a lifer at the fucking warehouse. It paid the small bills of the time. I still painted like crazy, and never stopped. Once it became practical Betsy reentered the workforce and went corporate in a big way. Every glass ceiling she encountered, hell, she just threw some bricks and crashed her way through. Within ten years she was earning enough I could have comfortably quit but I didn't. It was never a big male ego provider thing, I just didn't want my selfworth to revert to that of dead weight. The kind of husband and dad who stays home drinking coffee all day, engaging in basically a hobby, taking the odd dance with the vacuum cleaner to make myself feel productive. If I'd possessed any innate culinary skills perhaps things would have been different. If I'd had a wonderful way with mops. I still shopped around. Some gallery owners had kind words but rarely any space for me. I met a few enthusiastic people with very little money. I'd sell a painting now and then and be content with the progress. But, you know, to be ecstatic about a year in which my gross income managed to push beyond the three-digit range, that wasn't quite me. It didn't even pay for the fucking supplies. I was never sure what Melissa felt about all this growing up. Telling her class at the beginning of each school year, oh, my daddy has a shitty job in a warehouse and paints on the side. Lissa always was in many respects very much of her mother. Completely different, but tolerant. She whipped through her four years as a Business Major in three, and then went on to grad school. No one was more surprised than me that first Christmas break when she came home and announced that her MBA program had mutated into an MFA. Feeling particularly fatherly I threatened to take off my belt and convince her otherwise. But when she showed us some of her work I used it instead as a sling to keep my chin from dragging on the floor. Damn, but my girl was fucking good. I was instantly intensely proud. Not because my genetic material had finally shone through. But because she had distilled it into greatness. There was the brief period where she would visit and I'd chase her from the threshold shouting, "You can't fool me! You're not here because you love us; you just want to steal my supplies." And sure enough she'd leave and my brand new tiny $20 tube of cadmium red would have gone missing. I'd call her up and bitch her out, "Those cadmiums and cobalts are not only expensive, they're toxic. They're not meant to be in the hands of children." Then she'd show me her latest series and of course she'd have put the pigment to far better use than I ever could. Was I ever jealous? No, not really. There was never any room for that. I was too busy being enthralled. And then very quickly she married Dale her old MBA beau. He ran up the ladder of success. Melissa didn't bother wallowing in that bohemian thing. Fuck all the galleries. She started her own while starting their family. Two small children later hers is the preeminent gallery in the entire region. I never said a word until the day she showed up and marched straight to my storage. "What do you want?" I shouted. "This and this and this and this... " she replied. I got barely half the stuff back. Lissa rarely hangs her own stuff there anymore, and then almost as a lark. She organized the daddy/daughter show several months ago even though most of her work was tagged NFS. One was officially the property of the Whitney in New York. It was their second purchase, and the head curator called angling for a third. All twenty of my meager entrees wound up walking out the door opening night. That was a Friday. Monday I called in to the warehouse and spoke to my boss. "Remember how on Friday you were my supervisor?" "Yea, whatcha gettin' at?" "Well, today is Monday, and you aren't."

So goes the story of how I managed to be guiding a small outboard motor towards a dinky little island in the middle of a lake in the middle of the day in the middle of the week when by all rights I should be deep in the bowels of a warehouse bitching at a forklift driver, "Pallets of product, right. Wrong fucking row!"

I'm the skipper of my own boat, with a lovely young passenger who happens to be my daughter my savior. Does life get any better than this? I think not. Melissa is indeed a delightful creature, and the happiness she exudes is infectious. My darling little daughter, my sweet Princess. Daddy's little girl. All those wonderful intonations from the days when I was King. When I was Daddy the Hero Who Could Do No Wrong. When I was the man who she wanted to marry when she grew up. Betsy, well, she could have a bedroom all her own in our new house. These were the memories that nearly made up for the subsequent eras when I became Daddy, that bastard, and later a seemingly bottomless pot of money. Honey, if you only knew. Which I suppose she actually did. What is the measure of success in parenting other than that they grow into adults without despising you? And really that is the best success. Melissa sat in the bow of the boat as charming an adult as I cared to have as company. As I dared to hope to have as company.

As we puttered across the tranquil surface of the lake I was thinking that I didn't like the looks of the horizon. It wasn't anything a novice might notice, just a slightly darkish string laid along the tree tops. In all likelihood it meant nothing. I didn't care to mention it, not wanting to spoil the gay mood of Melissa chattering away. She was going on and on about the success of the last show. Then she paused to add in a cryptic voice, "Everything I've ever wanted I've learned from watching you."

I shrugged off the tone. "You snagged a few tubes of paint and did the rest on your own."

She just sat there, silent, her head in a minor shake of dissent. "That's not the art I'm talking about," she finally whispered.

I shrugged clueless and guided the boat towards the approaching pier. My first mate tied us off with the knot I'd taught her ages ago. We lugged the provisions up to the cabin and opened the place up. Then I went out and circled the perimeter, making mental notes of where I'd want to work.

Then it struck me. "Goddamnit!"

Melissa was fast in the doorway with a worried look. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing. Nothing. Not a thing," I scoffed. "Just you know that bag of mortar?"

She picked it up real quick. "Oh, you mean the one you left in the trunk of the car."

"You got it," I grinned.

She paused. "You going back to get it?"

"Naw. Hell with that."

"Want me to go?"

"Nonononono. Manana, baby, manana."

Instead I wound up in the woods. I had cut the dead fall into draggable lengths the last time I was on the island. Nothing to it but the little bitch of pulling the stuff down and out. Lissa came and helped for a while. I could tell she was having second thoughts almost immediately but didn't know how to back out of the team. Finally I said gently, "Princess, I know it's sick, but I actually sort of like doing this. So why don't you go run off and do something you want, okay? This is supposed to be Fun Island, you know."

She beamed. "Okay. Thanks Daddy. I think I will go and have an explore."

"Just mind the Heffalumps!" I called out after her.

I set to work cutting the stuff down to size. The ax went clunk clunk clunk... and after ten minutes I'd raised a tiny scattering of wood chips. I realized I wasn't going to cut through anything with this method, or if I did it'd only be my foot. The old saw worked moderately better but after going at it for ages I'd only gone through one section. I used the ax to split all that, and then I sat down on a stump. At some point when I wasn't paying attention, my motivation had seized its chance and run away.

It was the saddest sight in the world, that tiny pile of mine. All that effort, and I had maybe a few hours worth of firewood. It was an illustration of my life. Oh my intentions are always the best, but all my plans just turn to shit! Gloomy thoughts, what wonderful companions they make. I shook it off, because the situation was so archetypical and amusing. It was laughable, and then there was laughter. I turned to find Melissa, all snuck up on me, her hand over her mouth.

"I'm sorry, it's just that you look so... you."

"That's okay. I know. It's no news to me. I've been living with it for 46 years now. And actually that's basically exactly what I was just thinking about."

"Why didn't you use the chainsaw? I kept waiting for that manly explosion of sound."

"Well, aside from the fact that I didn't feel up to walking all twenty-five of those feet to the cabin to fetch it, I plain didn't want to deal with the noise. I mean, sure, you get all the work done, but only because there's someone yelling in your ear the whole time."

"That's my father," she smiled and tousled my hair, "very funny, a little strange, and decidedly unique."

"Carve that on my tombstone okay?"

"Remind me when you're not a hundred years away from it. Anyway, I came out here to see if you'd be interested in a little dinner."

"Dinner? What's that?"

"Just one of the sundry uses for that yap of yours." She gave it a quick peck, then helped hoist me to my feet.

Section B

Dinner it was, and what a feast! What smells and so many bowls. Nicely spiced chicken chunks and beans refried from scratch. Several kinds of grated cheese which didn't come from bags. All sorts of vegetable stuffing, and warmed tortillas to wrap it all up in. "For god's sake," I complained, "is this fresh cilantro minced up here?" It made my heart just swell to see how warmly Lissa took the compliments. "How do you do it?" I continued. "I can barely get that fossilized stove to boil water for coffee."

Melissa was shrugging and blushing, "Well what would you be doing for dinner if I wasn't here to take care of you?"

"You'll notice," I nodded towards the counter, "that I did not leave the bag of chips in the trunk. I have my priorities straight. And chilled in that cooler is a six-pack of liquid nourishment known as sandwich-in- a-can."

"Gawd, my incorrigible father," she rolled her eyes. "Though now that you mention it a couple of beers would be perfect with all this."

And so they were. The clean-up was easy as always if a bit primitive. Melissa got a fire roaring in the hearth, then fed it the gunky paper plates and bowls. I swiped out the pans, then filled them with clean water and a little bleach and let them boil for a bit.

Evenings on the island tended to end early. Aside from the fireplace the only light is from a pair of antique oil lamps. You can read only if you want to ruin your eyes. We chatted frivolously for a while, then ran through our patience for double solitaire and gin rummy and poker. There was a short serious discussion of art while we both kept picking up our respective cans of the last beer on the island, pretending or forgetting that they weren't really already empty. Eventually we went taking turns darting outside to empty our bladders of beer. Then we shared a basin of precious water to brush our teeth. The lowering of the lamp wicks away to nothing. I discreetly changed into my pyjamas and slid into my bed. Melissa slithered out of her pants and bounded into her bed in just her t-shirt. Which wasn't so long that I didn't catch the golden dying fire glow of her bare butt. There was the slight delay before I thought, hey, she shucked off her panties along with her jeans. And another before I considered, or else she wasn't wearing any to start with. I certainly started feeling positively old- fashioned in my pyjamas. It was a positive sensation though, because even in summer the nights on the island got pretty chilly, especially once the fire went down to embers. But what did I care? My era as Father Knows Best was like that of the television show, residing solely in the history of memory. I curled up and prayed that sleep would somehow find me in this relatively early hour.