The narrator reflects on the power of a great photograph to make viewers feel they know its subjects and inhabit the moment. This thought leads the narrator back to being seventeen, at a lakeside cottage at the end of summer.

Across the bay, the narrator hears three familiar voices: two brothers and a girl. The trio has spent the season swimming, flirting, and skimming across the lake in a yellow speedboat, and the narrator has watched them since late June, noting their beauty and freedom.

On this day, the older brother calls to the others as the younger brother and the girl lounge on a floating raft in their bathing suits. They soon climb into the boat, with the older brother taking the wheel and the other two sitting up front, while the narrator stands on a dock preparing a camera.

In a brief, heightened moment, the narrator hears their laughter mingling with the engine as the speedboat turns toward the dock. The narrator raises the camera, adjusts the aperture, and frames the approaching trio.

The scene culminated in a single decisive action: the narrator pressed the shutter—“Click”—capturing an image that would define the memory and the prologue’s mood.