The frozen lake cracked beneath his feet. John grew up on this lake and he would spend his summers and weekends at his grandparents' lake house. His grandpa taught him how to fish here and how to swim in this lake. In the wintertime when the lake would freeze over the whole family would skate on the ice. His grandpa taught him how to tell when the ice was thick enough to walk on, that is why he was surprised when the ice began to crack.

John wanted to come up to the lake to feel closer to his grandpa, this was the first winter without him. The first time in sixteen years that the whole family would not be out on the lake for the first good freeze of the year. Johns' grandpa Robert had passed away only two weeks prior and no one else wanted to make the usual weekend lake trip. Now that his grandpa was gone, John’s mom and uncle would have to decide whether to sell the lake house, seeing it now set empty. He hoped the family would decide to keep the lake house. He had amazing memories with the entire family, but he also had special memories of Grandpa. John and Grandpa have a strong bond and would spend a lot of their time together on the lake.

John’s mom Ann had tried to get Grandpa to come live with them after grandma had passed a few years ago. His grandpa refused to leave the lake house, he and grandma had saved their whole life to live in a house on a lake. Right before John’s birth they had finally saved enough money to buy their lake house. Grandpa said it was his and Grandma’s dream to live there for the remainder of their days and he was going to stay there. John’s mom hired a housekeeper for the lake house so that way someone was there multiple times a week and grandpa could still stay at the lake house. Of course, John’s family and his uncle’s family would drive out to the lake house every weekend.

John remembered learning how to ice-skate on this lake at eight years old. His family loved to ice skate even Grandpa even though he was well into his seventies when John was learning to skate. One year John had tried to run onto the lake in late December, but Grandpa had stopped him because the ice was not fully solid yet. This is when Grandpa taught John how to tell if the ice was solid yet or not. Grandpa taught him that if there were four inches of clear ice then it could hold a person's weight. After that winter John always checked the thickness of the ice before getting out on the lake. That is why John was surprised when the ice began to crack beneath his feet.

John tried to move very slowly towards the shore. The ice had just started to crack, he did not want to move too fast for fear that the ice would completely give way beneath him. He tried his best to shift his weight as she skated more and more towards the shore. He watched as the ice began to become increasingly cracked. He was sure he checked the thickness of the ice before he skated out to the middle of the lake. John slowly glided and the ice was quickly cracking. He could see the shoreline inching closer he had made it about a quarter of the way there when he heard a loud crack and fell into the icy lake below.

There were four other houses on the same lake as John’s grandparents. None of them were full-time residents, two belonged to other families and were mostly only used in the summer. Another was up for sale, and the last one was used as a vacation rental, vacant then. John was completely alone on the lake, that was what he wanted, he wanted to be alone just him and the lake. He wanted to just spend some extra time at the place where he spent most of his time with Grandpa. He had not told his mom or dad where he was going, he just got in the car and drove up there. No one in the world knew he was there, no one saw him on the lake, and no one was there to see him fall through the ice into the water.

John was struggling, he was trying to get his head above water. He was lost and could not find his way to the surface. He had done everything on this lake, he never thought he would die in it. John finally made it back to where he fell through the ice and came up to the surface. He grabbed ahold of the ice, but he could not keep a grip, and he kept falling under the water. He kept bobbing up and down trying to get out, but he could not, he felt all the strength in his arms start to leave him. Every time he would get his head above water, he would yell for help in hopes that someone just might be around. John was quickly losing strength when all of a sudden, a pair of hands reached down into the water and pulled him out.

He lay on the ice a few feet away from the hole he fell through. John was coughing and choking trying to catch his breath. Once he felt like he could finally breathe again, he wanted to thank the man who saved his life. He sat up and looked around for him but there was no one there, he looked in all directions and there was not a soul in sight. He hurried off the lake as fast as he could. Once he got to the shore, he looked around and there were no footprints in the snow. That did not make any sense, the road to the lake was a dead end and it went around the lake. Everyone had to go past his grandparents' lake house to get to any of the other houses. As he was standing there, he caught just a hint of his grandpa’s aftershave. He could not prove it, but John believed his grandpa had saved him one more time like he had all those years ago.

Robin Stephens

@robinl_14

Robin Stephens has not written a story.