Thicker Than Water

I was newly in love with a boy from Texas when I first visited Possum Kingdom Lake, a serpent-shaped reservoir 80 miles west of Fort Worth, in the summer of 2002. We were living in Brooklyn at the time, and Dale was excited to introduce me to his father’s side of the family, who all gathered at the family lake house for the Fourth of July every year.

We arrived ahead of the crowd, and Dale showed me the cabin. It had a long, rectangular room filled with a row of beds, like accommodations at a hospital or summer camp. There was also a living room temporarily carpeted with air beds, and a screened-in porch that would house additional sleepers. Dale had been coming to the lake house for 10 years, ever since his dad, Dennis, and stepmom, Sherry, acquired the property. He’d been telling me about it ever since we got together.

Soon, the rest of the family began to arrive: Dale’s stepsisters, Kammy and Tammy; Tammy’s husband and sons; and Dale’s three paternal uncles with their spouses and offspring. I don’t think Dale’s sister, Shay, came that year, and Tammy was the only sibling who had children at the time. I grew up in Canada and Colorado, the child of immigrants, and could count on one hand the number of family members we had in the United States. Strangely, my first weekend at Possum Kingdom reminded me of visits to Cairo, where a web of family enmeshed me.

That weekend we set out to explore the lake by motorboat, a new Bayliner Dennis and Sherry had recently purchased. It’s exhilarating—a natural mood enhancer—to slice