Anna often liked to take me down to that lake, the private lake behind her property that was a refuge from the noises. In the winter she said it was a sparse white nothing, but during the summer months, when I was in town, we sat in a verdant wilderness, isolated and comfortable. We listened to the hesitant splashes of random fish and weird eerie songs of the pine trees in the wind.

We didn't speak very much but we would sometimes comment on the sudden fog that eclipsed the sky or the star patterns that turned the darkness into a heavenly lattice. I have to confess I never did figure out Anna. She was buttoned up a little bit, afraid of pain or maybe ambiguity. She would often tell me her friends were her family. A much wiser man than I could knit those red flags into a scarf, but all I wanted was her attention.

I taught her how to fish and she taught me how to draw. Or tried to. I remember one evening after catching nothing we sat across from one another and sketched each other’s faces. I remember thinking this was unfair, I would turn Anna into some golem-like creature, a gross thing without a soul. The whole point of sketching somebody is to reveal what you see, right? Bring out their spirit? I don't now. Who even knows? But I sensed I would pervert it, taint her visage with my unskilled hands. Okay whatever. Anxiety again. I lost myself in it anyway, watching her hard brown eyes as she looked into mine: confident and comfortable. They were narrowed in concentration, intense concentration, flicking rapidly from the paper and to me, the paper to me, the paper to me. I forgot how terrible my attempt turned out but I remember feeling embarrassed. That feeling disappeared when we exchanged our work. Above my rough scratchy portrait were the words I like this person.