From the Bookshelf of Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge…

In spite of the fact that there is nothing in particular to do, the days assume a pattern. There is a certain stringency to life, a willful doing without. In the mornings they wake early to the frenzied

In spite of the fact that there is nothing in particular to do, the days assume a pattern. There is a certain stringency to life, a willful doing without. In the mornings they wake early to the frenzied chirping of birds, when the eastern sky is streaked with the thinnest of pink clouds. Breakfast is eaten by seven, on the screened-in porch overlooking the lake where they have all their meals, homemade preserves slathered on thick slices of bread. Their news of the world comes from the thin local paper Gerald brings back each day from the general store. In the late afternoons, they shower and dress for dinner. They sit with their drinks on the lawn, eating pieces of the cheese Gogol and Maxine brought from New York, and watch the sun set behind the mountains, bats darting between the pines that soar as tall as ten-story buildings, all the bathing suits hung to dry on a line. Dinners are simple: boiled corn from a farm stand, cold chicken, pasta with pesto, tomatoes from the garden sliced and salted on a plate. Lydia bakes pies and cobblers with berries picked by hand. Occasionally she disappears for the day, to go antiquing in the surrounding towns. There is no television to watch in the evenings, just an old stereo on which they sometimes play a symphony or jazz. On the first rainy day Gerald and Lydia teach him to play cribbage. They are often in bed by nine. The phone, in the main house, seldom rings.