Letter to the Lake - Tapa dura

When I think of you, I think of rocks hiding under the waves, like secrets. Remember me, your friend Rosie? Remember me?

It's a morning for such questions, still dark beyond the frosty window. On the sill are some rocks from last summer at the lake. They're cold now. Rosie slips her favorite, shaped like a house, into her pocket for company at school. After breakfast, she and Mama must shovel the car out of the snow, then rustle up Becky, a neighbor, to help jump-start it. But in her mind, Rosie is not stamping her feet in the cold, she is floating dreamily in a silver boat. Her two worlds are memorably opposed in the paintings: warm-toned for summer wishes, cool for the bitter winter day. And the house-shaped stone? In the end, it is handed to just the right person.