"You'll know the day," he told me last December.

"No, I won't," I said. "There are lots of nice spring days. I won't know the day."

"You'll know," he said.

He made me so mad that I walked away. But all winter I kept wondering if I would know the day. Is there really one day when spring comes and the world seems wide open?

--

Now I know. I'm driving down the road in the Buick with the windows down and the radio blasting. With every town line the old car crosses, I feel like I am falling deeper into the new sky. I swear it's new.

Whenever I worry that he won't be there after all, I turn the radio up higher.

The halfway point is the falling-down white house with green trim and the red fence. I pull over and stare at it, the colors jumping up and clamoring for attention. I've never even seen the house in spring before. He moved out in December and I followed when the lease was up in January. The chipped Christmas-colored paint and beat-up shutters suited us in winter, huddled under blankets when we couldn't afford to heat the place. Staring at it now, I can't imagine living there when things are as easy as the springtime. It starts to make me sad so I pull back onto the road and speed dustily away.

--

"I'll be at the boathouse," he said. What a stupid plan, I thought then. Wait for the first real spring day, then drive for two hours to the run-down boathouse in the park where we used to meet. Would that make up for anything? Why did he even say it – just to be cruel?

Arriving at the park, I pull into a parking spot and start walking down to the boathouse, heart pounding, feet quiet on the dirt path. New leaves are sprouting on all the trees and I can smell that fresh water-smell and catch glimpses of the giddy blue sky through the tree-branches. I think someone could get drunk from looking at such a sky.

I see the boathouse. I picture him there, sitting on the dock, feet planted on the weathered wood planks, one elbow resting on one knee. Chain-smoking, probably, cigarette clasped loosely in his fingers as he turns around, sees me, and smiles that slow crooked smile. I hate that I want to see that smile so much.

Closer. I think my feet are moving my themselves now. Around the corner – there –

An empty dock. Canoes in the boathouse, safe from the lingering thought of winter. I am alone with the sound of the water lapping against the posts and that spring sky about to swallow me whole.

I sit on the dock in the place where I imagined he would be. I look over my shoulder like he would've. Then I realize that maybe I didn't even really want him to come.

Sitting here, I remember bonfires by the lake where everyone was a shadow-dancer in summer, when things were still good. Later in the stale winter air, we threw stones and cracked the ice while we tried to have serious talks. That world is gone, along with my life in the white house and the past two hours I just spent driving here through the intoxicating air. I'm sitting here in the new world, with scuffed shoes, dirty hair and an inability to comprehend how wide the world has stretched today.

I know why he told me to come here. He knew that otherwise I would have missed this day. It's just like him.

"Forget it," I tell him.

Except he's not really here. Just me. And from the sky, from the still lake water, I get a thought: He doesn't love you, but this day does. So I get up, take a quick look around, then strip down to my underwear and jump into the lake. It's freezing and I scream with exhilaration. Floating on my back, my vision is filled with vibrant blue and suddenly I've been remade. I lose myself the moment the sky opens its mouth.

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