An envisioning . . . 2015 and the cottage in Sippewissett.

Oh to be here.

Summer come around again in all its glories. A different house rented but almost the same as the other. Row of cottages up a dirt lane from the road and the one at the other end.

But the same porches and Edwardian everything. Like one of those great camps up near Canada that they talked about in the old days at the estate on Long Island. All wood other than the glass in the windows with no stone or at least not where one could see. The same wood wrapping around just about everything outside but made out of driftwood, not tree branches that had grown around rocks.

But camping in. Parlor with a kitchen behind, stairs so steep they could break your neck and two bedrooms up at the top. A tiny dining room with enough room for a doll family to sit and eat but that not mattering. No, together. Impossibly hard, grandchildren that lived around the edge of all seven seas and every airport in creation seemingly visited while making their way to Cape Cod.

But all right. Two weeks with everyone and the rest of the summer to research for the new book. Big advance from the people in New York but getting going a bit complicated. Crate after crate of papers about grandfather before he got old and famous and a need to spread the contents out over every inch of floor space.

But the smallest opened. Half the bed it takes up but a start. Old letters with drawings of childhood homes and pictures of long-dead pets whose names no one knows. But a photograph down near the bottom. All dressed up like a ring boy in a wedding next to enough flowers to fill a florist’s shop.

Hair the wrong color. . .great uncle it must be. . .Easter maybe or perhaps dancing school . . . unlucky with the ladies and divorce after divorce but no way to know then . . . happy in the moment. . . all one has.

Envisioning itself is wrapped around the photograph. The location with the row of Edwardian cottages is based on a summer house my friend Lynne L. lived in one summer many years ago.