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Summer 2014
The first time the cottage encountered Shane Hollander, it was a skeleton. Bare-boned framing resting on top of a solid foundation, an idea as tangible and unfinished as a sketch. But Shane had a vision. He had plans. He knew what he wanted, and he did not waver. As he walked between the future walls, each sure step started to shape a pulse — big windows, wooden floors, a stone patio for a fire pit. A deliberate shaping of a desired future, terribly close and yet still hidden just behind the horizon.
Every visit after, the cottage came to understand many things about Shane Hollander. The first was that he was meticulous. He checked in often throughout the building process, giving the contractors plenty of feedback. He was very involved in the selection of finishes, the graining pattern of the wood floors, the grouting of the tiles, the speckling of the granite countertops.
The cottage could sense the love and care that Shane had to give, felt it radiate through the framing. As the sun warmed the exterior walls and streamed through the glass, the cottage longed to know those Shane might bring to such a carefully crafted place, to have their voices fill the halls.
During the building process though, Shane only ever brought two other people who were not working — his parents, Yuna and David. His father was quiet but kind, and he spent much of his time observing Shane, cataloging him like an archive, always hung on the surety of his words. Yuna was more vocal, more opinionated, seeking the best for Shane, demanding the best of him.
As the summer came to a close, the coming and going of tradesmen dwindled. A driveway was edged and dug out before being filled with gravel. Trucks came and went, delivering and assembling furniture and installing appliances. Shane’s own car came and went too, bringing lamps, bedding, electronics, the comforts of a home. The final delivery was entirely for the patio, furniture, a grill, and a fire pit.
After that, no one else came, and Shane did not leave. The following days passed in a comfortable rhythm — Shane would wake with the first light, brush his teeth, and make a cup of coffee in the kitchen. Then he would go outside, and watch the sky change from orange and pink to gold that faded into blue as the sun rose into the sky. When the mug was empty, he would return inside and wash it before stretching and going for a run. After he got back, he would go to the gym in the basement and spend an hour or two there, the metallic clanging of the weight-lifting equipment a welcome echo in the silence.
Once everything had been wiped down and the lights had been turned off, Shane took his shower. It never lasted longer than ten minutes despite the large water heater in the basement that must have been purchased for something. Shane did not use the oversized sunken bathtub, but the cottage thought it was more suited for two anyway. The rest of the day after breakfast would be spent on the couch, or outside at the lake’s edge. Rarely, he would turn on the TV after dinner, always the same program, the same questions asked, the same answers given in the same accented tongue. Sometimes when it ended, Shane would start it over again. Other times, he would put on something else, something fast paced with constant commentating, an unsteady rhythmic clacking, and the occasional blare of a horn.
The times Shane repeated the program more than once, he would sit on the couch in the dark, cocooned in the silence of the woods, and he would stare at the glowing box in his hand. There had been one time Shane had doused himself in true darkness, leaned back into the couch, face tipped toward the ceiling. Rain had begun to pour outside, and the cottage thought it had failed, as rain drops rolled down Shane’s face too.
On the seventeenth day, Shane packed a bag.
On the eighteenth day, Shane woke up early. He brushed his teeth, he made his cup of coffee, and he went outside. He stayed there much longer than it took to just finish his coffee, the empty mug pressed into the grass beside him, the sun high in the sky. His eyes were closed as he leaned back on his elbows, the light haloing his face.
When he came back inside, he handwashed the coffee mug, dried it, and returned it to the cabinet. He took his time wiping down every surface, emptying the fridge, putting out the trash. Stacks of sheets were pulled from the closet, and Shane went room by room covering all the furniture to stave off dust. The beds were stripped, the linens put to wash. Shane closed all the curtains, packed the last of his things. When the laundry had been put to dry, Shane stood in the foyer, suitcase beside him, shoes on, keys in hand. He gave the room one last once over, the curtains muting the evening sun into a cool amber glow, and then he left. His hand lingered on the door frame, but then the door was closed, the locks slid back into place. Shane got in his car, and disappeared down the driveway.
He did not come back.
xxx
Summer 2015
Ten months after Shane had left, a woman arrived. It was not Yuna.
She let herself in, and she left her shoes on, left the front door open as she brought in grocery bags from the car and put things away in the kitchen. Next, she walked to the back wall, and opened all the curtains along the floor to ceiling windows. Rays of golden sun warmed the floor for the first time in months. The windows were opened, and the cottage breathed in again.
All the sheets Shane had laid over the furniture were removed, and put in the wash. Everything was cleaned, a vacuum and then a mop passed over the lightly stained flooring, and the cottage wondered if this was who would be staying here now, but she was not there long. The cleaning supplies were returned to their cabinets, the windows were closed. When she left, the curtains remained open.
Three days passed before another car came down the driveway. It was the same car Shane had driven when he left. It was the same Shane who stepped out of the car, who removed two suitcases from the trunk, who put his key in the door. He took his shoes off by the door.
He brought the bags upstairs and unpacked, putting everything in its place before storing the suitcases in the closet. When Shane showered, bracing himself against the wall, the cottage took in the new colors on his skin — yellow, green, purple — and thought that perhaps it had been mistaken, that this was not the same Shane it had come to know.
The shower lasted almost twenty minutes, twice as long as before, and when he was dressed, he brushed his teeth even though it was early evening. Shane closed the blinds in the bedroom, and slipped between the sheets. Before his eyes drifted shut in sleep, he pulled a pillow from the empty side of the bed to his chest.
Shane slept completely through the night, and well into the morning. When he finally woke, he did not get out of bed immediately. When he did rise, he moved slower, leaned on the counter with one hand as he brushed his teeth with the other. When he finally made his way downstairs, he did not make coffee. He made breakfast, and he ate, and he loaded the dishwasher when he was done.
He lay down on the couch, face to the ceiling, phone on the coffee table. He stayed there for hours. A few times, his phone lit up, the soft hum of a vibration filling the quiet space, but Shane never reached for it. The sun peaked in the sky, a glittering orb reflected in the lake’s surface, before it began to fall. Just as it dipped below the horizon, Shane got up and went to the basement gym. There was no clanging of weights, no push and pull of the rowing machine, no whirring of the belt on the treadmill. Only dim lights and a haunting silence as Shane stretched on one of the mats, moving through and holding different poses in front of the mirrors along the wall.
The rest of the evening passed in a similar silence. Dinner was cooked, eaten, and then cleaned up. Shane sat back on the couch after, the room bathed in the warm light from a single tableside lamp, and turned on the TV. He fiddled with the controller for a moment before the familiar cadence of a man’s accented English filled the room, chasing away the silence. He stayed there for a while, sometimes pressing buttons on the remote again, but it was always the same voice coming through the speakers.
When Shane turned off the TV, he turned off the lights and went upstairs to shower, not quite as long as yesterday, but still not as short as before. In bed, he put on glasses and read before going to sleep. The next few days passed in a similar rhythm, Shane gradually sleeping less, returning to his normal gym routine. By the end of the week, he was drinking coffee outside as the sun rose before going for a run.
The next few weeks were normal. Sometimes Shane left, but never for longer than a few hours. Sometimes his parents came over, and Shane would cook for them. He would smile with them and laugh with them. When it was time for them to leave, he would stand in the open front door, hand resting on the door frame, waving goodbye as their car disappeared down the driveway.
When the sun went down, when the moon hung heavy among the twinkling stars, the silence crept back in with the darkness. Shane would sit on the couch, alone, staring at the glow of his phone, scrolling through rows of alternating blue and grey bubbles. Sometimes he would type things, sometimes he would smile in a way that he never had in front of his parents before.
Those moments were rare though, a hidden treasure the cottage took in with greed. Shane could be happy here. Shane was happy here.
Just not all of the time.
The rest of the summer passed the same. A comforting repetition every morning and every evening, with a different afternoon squeezed in between. There were more times where he left, more times that his parents came over. Sometimes he spoke on the phone, the cottage learning a familiar rotation of names — Mom, Dad, Hayden, Jackie. But none of them sounded like the voice from the TV, none of them filled the space as often.
That was decidedly the cottage’s favorite — a private nightly sacrament that never failed to put a soft, fond smile on Shane’s face.
Nine weeks after Shane had arrived, more cars came down the driveway. People with cameras and bright lights, giving directions and asking questions in different places. They left late in the evening, and Shane was quieter than he had ever been before, a sort of weariness sinking through the couch and into the floorboards. He ate dinner in silence, and when he turned in for the night he propped his phone up against one of the pillows, the familiar voice lulling him into sleep.
Another two days passed before bags were packed, sheets were draped over the furniture, and the curtains were drawn shut again. Shane left the same as he had before, hand lingering on the door frame giving the silence one last touch of warmth. He closed and locked the door behind him, disappearing down the driveway for a final time.
The cottage would wait, would hold onto the hope that Shane would come back again.
xxx
Summer 2016
Ten months came and went again before the cottage welcomed the housekeeper back.
The very air buzzed with anticipation at the expectation of Shane’s impending arrival. The curtains were open, the sheets were fresh, the fridge was stocked. Everything arranged to his liking, eager to provide comfort after months apart.
Shane arrived the same as he had the previous year, car crunching down the driveway, bags unloaded. This time though, he was grinning at his phone, typing and waiting, typing and waiting, eyes rarely straying from the screen in his hand.
Shane unpacked and made dinner in the same manner, completing part of a task before typing something on his phone again. When he got into bed, he fell asleep with the screen still lit, a dim glow of alternating grey and blue facing skyward, two new grey ones silently pushing the rest up, waiting to be seen when he woke.
Shane quickly fell back into his old routine, phone never far now. It was clear that whatever it held allowed a previously unmet fondness to flow from Shane freely, but the cottage couldn’t help missing the familiar voice in the silence of the evenings, the quiet still of the nights. Its comforting cadence, a brightness that filled the room in light and sound.
As the weeks passed, Shane’s fixation ebbed and flowed, a tide greater than the seiches the lake held. When Shane would rest his phone on the table, there was more blue than grey taking up the screen. By halfway through the summer, Shane still clung to it, but he no longer typed with a smile. He did not fall asleep with the screen still lit. If the cottage really watched Shane, it was like he was on the other side of a rain spotted window, his most tender parts exposed and yet still out of focus.
The night the voice returned, Shane lay on the couch under a blanket with all the lights off. The sound should have mimicked the comfort of the heavy fleece, a warm felicity. Yet the cottage only felt the ache of more miles than the span of the ocean, a coldness the sunsoaked floors could not chase away. Something missing, incomplete.
The less Shane’s phone lit up, the more evenings he spent in front of the TV. The cottage hoarded every vowel, every consonant, ghosts that dripped down the drywall and gathered in the baseboards. In the mornings, Shane left his phone inside, sat in the yard longer, mug empty beside him, melancholy seeping into the ground, contaminating the well.
The routines stayed the same, but Shane did not. He had always been quiet, but somehow he was quieter still, subdued, stripped back down to studs. Another reminder that the cottage could shelter Shane, but could not hold him.
A week of rain came with a week of disappearing into books, a week of eating dinner in front of the TV. When Shane laid the suitcases on the bed, he packed slower than normal, weighed down with a reluctance the cottage couldn’t quite name. The same heaviness clung to the sheets thrown over the furniture, made the curtains conceal the expanse of windows slower.
When Shane left, the sadness and longing burned into the door frame under his tight grip. As he drove away, he looked back.
It felt like goodbye.
xxx
Summer 2017 — July
It was so late in the summer, the cottage had begun to think that maybe Shane wouldn’t come at all.
The housekeeper had come in the beginning of June, the same as every other year. She had gone through her usual routine — opening all of the curtains to let the light in, opening all of the windows to let the air in — a first breath that had always signaled an impending homecoming.
Same as ever, she removed the sheets that had been draped over the furniture, tossing them in the laundry before she went room by room dusting everything until the wood glowed warm. The counters and bathrooms were cleaned, the whole place was vacuumed and then mopped. The smell of cool lake water and the hum of cicadas filled the place, a buzzing calm of anticipation.
Before the housekeeper left, she went back around and closed all of the windows. Any day now, Shane would be here, and he would open them again. This year though, days passed and still he did not come. Days turned to weeks, until a whole month had passed by. Maybe this was a good thing. Maybe Shane had found a way to feel less alone. The cottage could wait for him. It would wait for him.
When Shane did finally arrive, he was a man the cottage had not yet met — square in the shoulders, a strong line of endless determination. The first thing Shane did was not smoothing the blanket over the back of the couch, nor was it opening the windows, or even unpacking. He set his things down when he came in through the front door and walked straight back out the door to the patio. He left the slider open, and he stood at the edge of the stone. He tipped his head back towards the sky and just stood there with his eyes closed.
The cottage knew something had happened, and Shane’s continued strange behavior only served to prove that. Shane spent the next few days cleaning things the cottage had never seen anyone else clean before — all the cushions were removed from the couch so it could be vacuumed, the mattress was flipped, the curtains were washed, the walls were wiped. Shane even spent an entire day polishing the windows, making sure there were no streaks in sight. The cottage felt the nervous energy Shane bled into the floors as he rearranged pillows, refolded blankets. Stranger still was when at the end of the week, Shane left and returned with groceries. Suddenly, things the cottage had never witnessed any guest consume, let alone Shane himself, took up space in the fridge and on the counter. Shane took an inventory no less than three times.
The strangest thing yet though was the following morning. Shane was normally an early riser. The cottage remembered more mornings than not where Shane would sit outside, mug of coffee in hand, and watch the sun rise over the lake. When he was done, he would come back inside, eat something small, and go for a run. This morning however, Shane was up well before the sun. The first thing he did was not to make coffee, but to take a shower, a much longer shower than he was known for. He changed his clothes four times, and had to fix his hair for a second time after running his hands through it so many times. He changed the sheets on the bed, fluffing every pillow before putting it back in its place.
When he finally made it downstairs, he did not make coffee, or even breakfast. He did not go outside to watch the sun rise. Instead he walked through the cottage like an officer inspecting a military barracks. When every room had been scrutinized, Shane stood in front of the floor to ceiling windows, plagued with a bone deep restlessness the cottage had not thought Shane capable of possessing.
An hour later, Shane was leaving, the bolt on the front door sliding back into place, the car pulling out of the driveway. How long would it be before Shane returned? The cottage waited, as it always did. The lake lapped against the rocks along the shore, a loon called from far away, the tree leaves rustled in the breeze.
When gravel crunched beneath tires again, Shane parked the car close to the front door. He got out and went to the trunk, grabbing a bag. The cottage had not been expecting another man to get out of the passenger seat. The man Shane had brought took in the cottage’s exterior, and it didn’t feel like a judgement, it felt like a commitment, a reverent study. He followed Shane through the front door, took off his shoes and lined them up next to Shane’s without having to be asked.
The man, who Shane called Ilya, was taking in the space, standing in the same spot by the windows Shane had occupied hours earlier. He listened to Shane speak, a nervous excited rambling the cottage had never known. The cottage did not recognize his face, but when he spoke it recognized his voice. It was the same one that played from Shane’s TV, his laptop, his phone. The cottage knew his voice better than Shane’s, as Shane did not often talk to himself. But he had spent hours watching this man — Ilya — and now he was the first visitor who was not Shane’s parents.
Shane walked through the kitchen around the island, still talking, until he stood in front of Ilya, and fondness was bleeding out of both of them, a deep yearning that soaked into the foundation beneath the careful carpentry of sturdy subfloor and strong joists. Ilya took Shane’s face in his hands, and when their lips met a stillness settled in the air, a peace like a summer night spent in front of the fire, under the stars, surrounded by blinking fireflies, an aching joy trembling in the privacy the cottage had always been intended to provide but had not yet been given the opportunity to offer.
From that moment, one always orbited the other, a gravitational pull that refused to allow them to part. The sure routine Shane had followed every summer before was no longer found. He did not rise with the sun, instead he slept tangled in Ilya’s embrace until well after he would have started his run. Shane moved slow, as time moved slow. He let their coffee mugs sit in the sink, left the blanket unfolded on the couch when they went up to bed.
For the first time, Shane used the bathtub, held Ilya’s hand to help him in. They both fit comfortably in it, the same as Ilya’s head rested against Shane’s shoulder, the way his face was pressed to his neck. The water was warm and Shane held Ilya to him, palm pressed over Ilya’s chest, at peace.
As long as the cottage had known him, Shane had never laughed like this, never smiled like this. They swam in the lake, kicked a soccer ball around the yard, played video games in the living room. Ilya was one man, one voice made flesh, and yet the cottage had never been so full.
On the sixth morning, dawn broke in an ethereal nautical blue streaked with a peach-fuzz orange. Shane and Ilya had been awake for some time already, their voices a welcome back and forth. There came a point where Shane and Ilya clung to each other, rain glimmering in their eyes, being wiped away from their faces. This time the cottage knew that though rain did not fall outside, inside contained the cleanse of a summer storm, washing away a suffocating humidity, strong rays of golden sunlight slicing through grey clouds, a rainbow reflected in the surface of the lake.
When Ilya sat outside next to Shane’s usual morning spot, when Shane brought out two mugs of coffee and a blanket, the cottage knew it was no longer just Shane’s. When they leaned on each other, two halves of a whole, the cottage knew it was theirs. Every year, the cottage had waited, and every year Shane had returned, Ilya's voice not far behind him.
The seventh afternoon brought an unexpected tragedy. Shane’s father arrived, but never before had he spent a shorter amount of time within the walls. He left quickly, empty handed, and Shane tried to follow, but he was not fast enough.
David’s car left back down the driveway and Shane stood outside staring after it. Ilya hovered at the threshold, waiting to take Shane’s lead. Eventually Shane came back inside, a spring coiled tight, shutting the door firmly behind him. Ilya followed him, back to the windows, watched as he rested his hands against the glass. The cottage wished it could comfort Shane at the same time Ilya pulled him into his arms. It knew the faultline was not between them.
All the cottage could do was watch as Shane and Ilya put on fresh clothes and left out the front door. As they drove away, disappearing into the cover of the trees, the cottage could only wait for them to return.
xxx
When Shane’s car returned, the sun was setting, bathing the cottage in hopeful shades of orange and pink. Ilya and Shane both got out of the car, and Shane walked around to meet Ilya. They stumbled through the front door laughing, tangled in each other. The cottage did not know where they had gone or what had transpired, but their steps were somehow lighter as they moved blindly into the bedroom. They did not leave there for the rest of the night.
The next two weeks passed by in a blissful blur of unwavering sunshine and laughter. Yuna and David stopped by more than once, sharing meals and exchanging warm words.
The time Shane left every year was fast approaching, so it should not have come as a surprise when the atmosphere shifted and stilled. No one had visited in three days, and in that time Shane and Ilya had stayed closer than before, a tongue and groove desperate to lock together.
The morning Ilya packed his things, he took more than he brought — things Shane had given him, things he had taken, precious keepsakes of the time they had shared — a carefully folded flannel shirt, a flower from the garden pressed between the covers of a book, a polaroid photo of the lake tucked into his wallet.
Suitcase by the door, they shared a final cup of coffee by the lake, the sunrise haloing their silhouettes. When they returned inside, Shane placed two empty mugs in the sink, and Ilya lingered by the windows, looking out into the yard. The cottage tried to hold him still while he trembled, an anxious rattling of aching bones. But not even Shane pulling Ilya into his arms, holding him tight and stroking his hair, was enough to make it fully cease. The reluctance to part was palpable, a scream that scattered splinters through the floor. The sky was clear, all the pipes were intact, but their faces were wet all the same.
Shane waited, and Ilya rested his hand on the door frame over the ghost of Shane’s. He looked back into the cottage, and gave it a tremulous smile. Shane said something that made Ilya kiss him, a reassurance, a promise, a vow.
As the car disappeared down the driveway, Ilya looked back, and it felt like a plea — a desperate need for reassurance that this had been real, that the cottage would still be there the next year and every year after.
The cottage would wait for him.
The cottage would wait for him forever.
xxx
When Shane’s car came back down the driveway, he sat in it for some time before getting out. When he stood in the shelter of the porch, he leaned his forehead on the door frame, keys dangling in hand. No one else got out of the car.
There was weight to the deadbolt when Shane finally turned the lock. He opened the door to dozens of echoes — the mugs in the sink, the blankets heaped on the couch, the PlayStation controllers on the table, the towels draped over the patio chairs, the soccer ball in the yard, the extra cup in the bathroom.
Shane left it all as it was. He did not change the sheets. He slept in the same shirt he had slipped from Ilya’s bag during one of the scarce moments they had not been in the same room together. The cottage knew that when Shane packed his things, he would find two more shirts and a hoodie neatly folded in his drawer, the bottle Ilya had sprayed himself with every morning resting on top of them.
Five days passed, a new routine. The mornings were the same sun, the same mug, the same run. But he ate breakfast on the phone. Sometimes there would be a video on the screen, Ilya’s voice coming through the speaker. Sometimes Shane moved from room to room talking or completing tasks. Sometimes Shane would sit on the couch with the TV on, video still open on the smaller screen. Sometimes Shane would go outside, down to the edge of the lake, speaking words the cottage could not hear but that breathed warmth and certainty into the soft breeze.
On the end of the fifth day, Shane erased the evidence. Blankets were folded, towels were washed. The controllers and the soccer ball were put away. The mugs in the sink and the glasses from the bathroom were loaded into the dishwasher. Shane covered all the furniture room by room. He packed his bag, held the hoodie Ilya had left behind to his chest for a few desperate moments when he found it, but still he did not change the sheets.
When Shane woke early on that final morning, he held the pillow Ilya had used close. He lingered in bed the same as he lingered in front of the windows before closing the curtains on the glittering view of the lake. The scrape of the grommets was a harsh finality, a signal to the start of the cold that had already begun to take root when Ilya had not returned.
This time, when Shane lingered in the doorway, he looked back, letting his thumb worry over the wood. Something had happened here. Shane had put away the proof, but the cottage could still see it, would hold onto it forever.
As Shane’s car disappeared down the driveway, the cottage hummed with the last words Shane had spoken to Ilya as they had hovered in the threshold.
We’ll come back next year.