The Last Letter from Alpine Lake

“You can’t just pretend, Erin! He’s not walking through that door again!” My sister’s voice cracked through the morning stillness, louder than the blue jays that had woken me at dawn. I’d come out to the porch, coffee in hand, needing a minute of peace. But peace had been a stranger to this house for years, ever since Dad’s heart gave out while he chopped wood by the lake three winters ago.

I set the mug down, my hands trembling. “I’m not pretending, Jess. I just… I don’t know how to be here without him.”

She looked away, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the glassy surface of Alpine Lake. The porch swing creaked between us, the sound as familiar as Dad’s laugh used to be. Our old cabin, with its pine walls and faded quilts, should have felt like home. Instead, it felt like a time capsule, packed with memories we weren’t ready to face.

Jess and I hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words in almost a year. She’d moved to Seattle, said the air in Denver was too thin, the house too full of ghosts. But Mom had insisted we come back, just for a long weekend, to sort through Dad’s things. “We’ll scatter his ashes together,” she said when she called, voice trembling. “It’s what he wanted.”

So here we were, three women—one grieving, one angry, and one desperately trying to hold them both together—trapped in a cabin meant for laughter and lazy afternoons.

Inside, Mom was cooking too much breakfast, humming off-key. She’d been like that all weekend—scrubbing, baking, fussing—anything to keep her hands busy. I watched her through the window, my heart aching. She caught my eye and smiled, but there was sadness in it, like a flicker behind glass.

“Why do you always defend her?” Jess muttered, pulling me back to the porch.

“I’m not defending anyone,” I said softly. “I just… I can’t do this by myself.”

She shook her head, jaw clenched. “You always take her side. You never cared that Dad was tough on me. You never saw how he looked right through me.”

That stung. I opened my mouth to reply, but the words tangled up with all the things I’d never said. About how Dad used to wake me early to go fishing, leaving Jess behind. About how, when she brought home her girlfriend in high school, Mom fussed and Dad just grunted, and how Jess never came to another holiday after that. About how I’d pretended not to notice the distance, thinking it would close on its own.

I stared at the lake, the memory of Dad’s whistle echoing in my mind. I remembered the day we found him, the snow still clinging to his boots, axe dropped in the drift. I’d knelt beside him, my hands shaking, and realized too late that there was nothing I could do.

“I miss him too,” I whispered. “But I don’t know how to fix any of this.”

Jess’s eyes filled with tears, and she turned away. After a while, she said, “I’m going for a hike. Need to clear my head.”

I watched her disappear into the pines, her boots crunching on the frosty earth. I wanted to call after her, to say I was sorry for all the years I didn’t see her pain. But the words stayed stuck in my throat.

Inside, Mom set a plate of pancakes in front of me. “She’ll be back,” she said quietly, sitting across from me. Her hands shook as she poured coffee. “You two need each other.”

I stared at my plate, appetite gone. “I don’t know how to reach her, Mom.”

She sighed, rubbing her temple. “After your father died, I thought I’d lost both of you. I don’t want to lose Jess too.”

The day passed in fits and starts. I wandered the trails, picking wildflowers, trying to remember the last time all three of us had been happy in this place. By afternoon, the sky had clouded over, the lake turning steel gray. Jess hadn’t come back.

Worry gnawed at me. When I finally found her, she was sitting on the old dock, knees hugged to her chest, staring out at the water. I sat beside her, the wood cool through my jeans.

“Remember when we used to race canoes?” I ventured. “You always won.”

She sniffed, smiling despite herself. “You let me win.”

“No, you were just better. Stronger.”

We sat in silence, the air thick with all the unsaid things. Finally, Jess spoke. “Did Dad ever tell you he was proud of you?”

I hesitated. “Sometimes. But he was hard on me too. I just… I tried to be what he wanted.”

She nodded, hugging her knees tighter. “I spent so long being angry at him. At you. At Mom. I thought if I just left, it’d stop hurting. But it doesn’t.”

I reached for her hand. “I wish I could go back. I wish I’d noticed how hard it was for you.”

Her fingers tightened around mine, and for the first time all weekend, I felt hope flicker.

That evening, we scattered Dad’s ashes by the lake, where the mountains met the sky. Mom read the letter he’d left behind—one I hadn’t known existed—where he apologized for his distance and told us how proud he was of both his daughters, in his own clumsy way.

We cried together, the three of us, the sound swallowed by the vastness of the night.

Back on the porch, beneath a sky littered with stars, Jess and I sat side by side. The swing creaked, and I realized it sounded less like a lament and more like a lullaby.

I wonder, as I sit here now, if anyone ever truly heals from losing a parent, or if we just learn to live with the cracks. What would you do if forgiveness felt like the hardest climb of all?