Crow Lake

As an adult, Kate has a dream that she and Matt are back at the ponds. He’s trying to teach her about surface tension, even though she now understands ponds much better than he does. It’s Kate’s first year of assistant professorship, and she’s gloomy about her students’ lack of dedication. She feels ashamed thinking of her dream and her feeling that explaining her work to Matt would be insulting. 

While Kate grades papers, Daniel finds the picture of Simon. Kate is tense, wondering if he saw the invitation. She met Daniel’s parents a month into dating, but she barely talks about her own family. Kate remembers an instance a month prior: She and Daniel went out with a colleague and his wife, and the other couple told stories about splitting the holidays between their two families. On the way home, Daniel asked where their relationship was going. Kate assured him their relationship was important to her, but he felt she didn’t show it. She promised to try to involve him more in her life, but secretly she couldn’t imagine introducing him to her siblings. 

Daniel asks if she’s okay, and she says she is, privately thinking that she absolutely cannot invite him to Simon’s birthday.