The air is cool, sky clear, pinpricks of light fierce tonight. Insistent. They don’t twinkle, they burn. The front deck of the cabin overlooks the mountain-rimmed glacial lake, and this is the view that causes most visitors to gasp. But she doesn’t like the front deck as much at night, when light from the docks, the boats, and the other cabins compete for attention. She prefers it back here, in the shade of the house, in a tight, round clearing of pine and fir trees, where it’s just her and the sky, where she can see for fifty trillion miles, for a billion years. She’d never really been a sky-watcher until she married Alvis, who liked to drive into the Cascades and look for clear spots away from the light pollution. He considered it a shame when people couldn’t grasp the infinite—a failure not just of imagination but of simple vision. She hears the crunch of gravel; that must have been what woke her—Pat’s Jeep coming down the long driveway. They’re home from the play.
