{"id":518,"date":"2026-05-20T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.sccs.swarthmore.edu\/smallcraftwarnings\/?p=518"},"modified":"2026-09-06T22:44:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T22:44:18","slug":"rock-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.sccs.swarthmore.edu\/smallcraftwarnings\/2026\/05\/20\/rock-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
By Alma Greenfield <\/em>

I try to outrun something or maybe it\u2019s everything but it\u2019s sixth grade and there is nothing to do about it but watch the days roll by. My father\u2019s a wreck and we scavenge for dinner. I try to press the enormity of what happened into my head, but all I\u2019ve been able to come up with is: I used to talk to my mom every (every every) day and now I never can ever again. Every day the loud new clock in the kitchen, a condolence gift from library-Joan, ticks a little more and a little more. 

I walk to the park a lot that summer and sit by the big tree or inside the goal, if no one is using it.  I stare up at the clouds and I wish to see someone come down from the sky and I want her to assure me: Soon you will be back home<\/em> 
             and in my head I ask her, do you mean me? Or you? <\/em>

I\u2019m bored a lot, and I anticipate being bored forever, but on the fourth day of seventh grade, Max who is not new but moved away for two years, sees me kicking rocks outside the grocery store, and 
             he asks are you not bored?<\/em> Of kicking rocks. 
             I ask, are you not bored? Of watching? <\/em>
             Max\u2019s mom is a dentist and his dad has a job at an office and they're always home late and he doesn\u2019t like my house because of the loud clocks and my sister\u2014so I park in front of his television for a few years. I sleep the bad feelings off and they return in the afternoon but it is enough for now. 
             My sister leaves and the house feels a little bit lighter. I feel sick for thinking it.
             Close to my fifteenth birthday my father introduces me to his girlfriend. Marianne. She is very very nice and she is very very tall and it seems like she wears a different pair of shoes every day. Soon, he says, she will move in soon. 
             When I am fifteen and a half Marianne and my father get married in the church across the street from my old elementary school, which is named after Susan B. Anthony. My sister comes home from college and we make a lot of eye contact\u2014I think we\u2019re able to say more this way than in words, and we say it better. I hope she\u2019s doing okay and I want to hear what she thought of the wedding and I want her to say she misses mom but mostly I just want to talk to her again, despite all of it, all her problems. After the service, though, she kisses my cheeks and I watch her leave again. 

             Max comes to the wedding, his hands folded in the pew. 
             Nice ceremony<\/em>, he says after, with his hands behind his back, standing asymmetrically. He places his weight on one leg, and then another. He looks like he\u2019s on a balance beam. It looks like a dance. Nice, nice ceremony. He is trying to be cool but is too sincere. I tell him this days later and he laughs and seems to snap out of it. 
             I guess<\/em>, I say. I\u2019m also balancing. 
             Marianne is still nice and she does the grocery shopping regularly enough but in the house I feel very small. I am still a child and I don\u2019t know how much they want me to talk.

I\u2019m at Max\u2019s house more and more and it doesn\u2019t matter\u2014at least not to the people who could do anything about it. We sleep on the itchy carpet in his basement and we keep trying to be people we see on television. We laugh all night long. 
             On a Thursday night he pulls his upper lip up. I had braces for too long. It feels like there is a little valley on these two teeth now, is that stupid? <\/em>
             I don\u2019t know what to say to that, so I sit and think about it. 
             He coughs up phlegm and I laugh. 

I am wrapped in a blanket, lying on the floor in his basement. He\u2019s talking about what we\u2019ll do come our final homecoming. We\u2019ll still wear the clothes, yes: a long green dress with little embroidered flowers, a pale blue suit that\u2019s too funny to hate. But we won\u2019t go: we\u2019ll talk about college in his car and drive until we see the sign that says YOU ARE LEAVING ROCK LAKE, NEW HAMPSHIRE. COME BACK SOON!<\/em> And maybe we\u2019ll catch the bored suburban graffiti, GO HOME!<\/em> or JONNY500K<\/em>, before it gets cleaned up quickly by the powerful council of retirees. And we\u2019ll go farther, to the lake two towns over, and sit on the rocks and wait for the drowned girl from the 30s, Lorna Benson, to come up and say Hello! and on the way back we\u2019ll talk about the things we want to do before we graduate and we never do them but it\u2019s alright. 

I graduate and life feels shinier. He graduates and leaves immediately. I work at Norman\u2019s Grille off Main Street, on Irving. Marianne seems emotional about my departure at the end of the summer. I am surprised, but I shouldn\u2019t be, I think. 
             The day before he leaves, we sit on a picnic bench and he coughs, so very awkwardly, into his shoulder, and we lock eyes. We shake hands before going home.
 
             I will miss you very much<\/em>, he says, standing up. Don\u2019t get taller. It\u2019s the kind of dark that causes motorcycle crashes. 
             I will miss you very much too<\/em>, I say. I hope you get much, much taller.
<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Alma Greenfield I try to outrun something or maybe it\u2019s everything but it\u2019s sixth grade and there is nothing to do about it but watch the days roll by. My father\u2019s a wreck and we scavenge for dinner. I try to press the enormity of what happened into my head, but all I\u2019ve been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.sccs.swarthmore.edu\/smallcraftwarnings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.sccs.swarthmore.edu\/smallcraftwarnings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.sccs.swarthmore.edu\/smallcraftwarnings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.sccs.swarthmore.edu\/smallcraftwarnings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.sccs.swarthmore.edu\/smallcraftwarnings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.sccs.swarthmore.edu\/smallcraftwarnings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":520,"href":"https:\/\/sites.sccs.swarthmore.edu\/smallcraftwarnings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions\/520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.sccs.swarthmore.edu\/smallcraftwarnings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.sccs.swarthmore.edu\/smallcraftwarnings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.sccs.swarthmore.edu\/smallcraftwarnings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.sccs.swarthmore.edu\/smallcraftwarnings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}