They walk to the lake in their coats, though it’s June and the heat clings. The path is mostly dust now, cracked and thin with thistle. They don’t speak.
Ella carries the jar. Just a wide-mouthed mason jar, damp from her grip. Inside: water, clear and sloshing. She watches the water as they saunter as if it might change if she looks away.
“I’m not sure it matters,” Jonah says.
She shrugs. “I want it to.”
The lake is lower than she remembers. Drawn back from its edges, the color of old coins. Along the shore, they spot bottle caps, bones of long-dead fish, and a single boot with a daisy growing through the laces.
They find the rocks where they used to sit with their feet in the water, telling secrets between them. Ella wades in. The water is cool against her shins.
At knee height, she unscrews the jar.
“What was in it?” Jonah asks.
She hesitates. “The last melted piece of snow. From January.”
He doesn’t laugh, but he watches her pour it in.
The lake takes it.
She holds the jar to her chest. They sit a while until the sky cobalts and the lake’s surface smooths over like breath settling.
That night, it rains for the first time in weeks.
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