Look, there’s a cardinal, he said.

We sat on the once-blue border of the trampoline, now ripped and faded with age. It had been a consolation prize from our parents one summer when there wasn’t enough time or money to go to Noah’s Ark. Its main purpose now was to support the elongated bodies of tanners and stargazers, depending on the time of day and the prevalence of mosquitoes.

Where are those binoculars when you need them? Gosh, look at its beak.

The trampoline, like the swing set, had once sat past the border of “our property.” We technically only owned the land from the road to the back porch, but the rest of the lawn extending down to the lake was owned by the power company and was too enclosed to develop. Dad planted trees, a boat dock, and a fire pit in the absence of houses. We had neighbors, but we couldn’t see them.

Then, the power company scaled down. Developers got a hold of the woods. Somebody chopped down half of our oak tree and put a big sign claiming “LOT 15—WATER-FRONT” in our garden. The trampoline was moved. The swing set was dismantled. We were frightened by the threat of actual neighbors, armed with big, expensive condos, who would tear down our woods and scare away all of the birds.

Fortunately, developing without road access was too expensive, and the lots were marketed as investment property. We joked about how bad it could have been as we walked on their new “nature path” in the mornings.

But we had lost small pieces of our Wisconsin.

The swing set now rested by the garage. It was sad, really—broken pieces of weathered wood and rusted nails were collapsed in a heap, with the occasional bit of bright plastic stubbornly protruding. The wavy gray slide sat on its side in the dirt.

And now, he had lost his memories.

I remembered. I remembered the exact location of the corner of the swing set, right by the forsythia bush. The rope ladder hung from there, and next to it was my swing, bright yellow and blue. I got the one right under the jack pine, whose branches I could hit if I went high enough. He had the other one, the lower one, because he was so much shorter. We both knew mine was better. Monkey bars crossed over the top, right by the hangings for the swings. They were way too high, Mom said, almost thirteen feet up. We could hurt ourselves. On the other end, by the hill, there was the tower, the slide, and the pirate’s ladder. We sometimes attached a zip line from the tower to the ash tree, but one summer I got to be too big, so no one else could use it anymore. In the winter, the swing set was our base, a perfect foundation for elaborate snow forts. Snowball fights were always delayed, as we were both engrossed in engineering our tunnels and stockpiling weapons. Dad helped us construct a toboggan run once, digging out a trench and then icing it over, creating a terrifying ride down to the lake. It was dangerous. It was fantastic. I helped build the swing set when I was four, with my miniature tool belt and my desire to accomplish the simpler things in life. I hammered my fingernail more than once, but I never cried.

Hey Jenna, I’m going to refill the sunflower seeds in the feeder, he said, and he left me alone with the trampoline. I jumped for the first time in years.


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