*
Eby spent time in cabin number 2 today, the cabin she always reserved for young mothers who wanted to get away from a screaming baby for a while. She’d fallen asleep on the fainting couch in the living room, and when she awoke, the sky was so low and dark that she thought for a moment she’d slept the day away. She lifted her wrist and looked at her watch. It was an hour past noon. She’d missed lunch, and her stomach began to growl.
She slowly sat up. Her knees popped, and she rubbed them before standing and going to the window. The picnic-table umbrellas were swaying in the wind, and leaves were rushing across the lawn, following one another frantically, as if they knew of a safe place to go. The sky was the color of old pewter. A flash of lightning illuminated the tree line at the far end of the lake. These flash storms happened a lot around the lake. They never actually produced rain, just a lot of drama. It took years to realize that. George and Eby used to scurry around and secure things and bring in tablecloths and food when the sky grew dark and the wind picked up, until they finally understood that nothing ever happened. Rain, when it came to Lost Lake, was like an old woman watering her garden. It always gave plenty of warning. It was always steady. And it never made a lot of noise. George used to laugh and say that when one of these flash storms in the distance finally produced rain at Lost Lake, it was time to worry.
Eby left the cabin and went straight to the lawn, feeling the wind blow wildly through her hair and the electricity in the air bounce around her. She stretched her arms out and lifted her face to the sky. She closed her eyes and waited. Her heart was beating quickly, alive. Her hands tingled with energy, as if forming something solid she could ball up and throw.
She waited. And waited.
Minutes later, she felt the wind die down, then she felt the light on her face. The storm had passed without a drop of rain.
She opened her eyes and dropped her arms.
Okay.
So it wasn’t time to worry yet.
Eby walked to the main house. The dining room had been cleared from lunch, so she went to the kitchen. Lisette was bringing out a variety of cake pans and intricate-looking pastry tools. Her father might have been a famous chef, but everything Lisette knew about pastries was self-taught, and she was exceedingly proud of that.
“I fell asleep doing inventory and missed lunch,” Eby said, going to the refrigerator and grabbing a handful of grapes. “Where is everyone?”
Lisette wrote, Jack will join me soon. He will help me with this cake.
“Jack? Here in your kitchen?” That made Eby’s brows rise. “What does Luc think of this?” Eby gestured to the empty chair in the corner.
As always, Lisette became uncomfortable when Eby spoke of Luc.
Eby knew all too well that there was a fine line when it came to grief. If you ignore it, it goes away, but then it always comes back when you least expect it. If you let it stay, if you make a place for it in your life, it gets too comfortable and it never leaves. It was best to treat grief like a guest. You acknowledge it, you cater to it, then you send it on its way.
Lisette had let Luc stay for far too long.
I am not speaking to Luc.
“He agrees with me, doesn’t he? About you and Jack.”
You and Luc are both trying to make me happy without you. How does that work, exactly? How can I be happy without you?
Eby read that and shook her head. “There aren’t a finite number of things that can make you happy. There’s more than just me and Luc. I’d wager Luc would agree with me.”
Lisette rolled her eyes and wrote, Why should I listen to either of you? Luc is a child, and you are an old woman.
That made Eby laugh. “I’m old? You’re no spring chicken, missy.”
Lisette threw her hands in the air, a very European expression of exasperation, something she hadn’t lost in fifty years spent in the American South. No matter how hard she tried, and she did try, Lisette would always look not-from-here. You didn’t need to hear a voice or an accent to figure that out.
“Where is everyone else?” Eby said, taking a slice of blackberry bread from the tray before Lisette put it away.
Lisette sighed and wrote, Planning your party.
Eby turned before Lisette could see her reach up and touch her chest, touch that fluttering under her skin. The guests were throwing her a farewell party. Jack had come for Lisette. Wes was selling his property. She had put all of this in motion. She knew it was for the best. She couldn’t save this place.
She walked to the front desk and sat down, leaning back to check once more for rain, but finding only sunshine. The lake was telling her not to worry, that everything was going to be all right, but she still had an uneasy feeling.
Why else would she still be looking for signs that she should stay?
*
When they reached downtown Suley, Kate left Lisette’s grocery list with the young woman at the business counter at the Fresh Mart again. She said it might take about thirty minutes, so Kate and Devin strolled down the sidewalk around the circle, looking in windows of antique marts, galleries, tea shops, and bookstores. The last few buildings were townie businesses—a law office, a print shop, a real estate office with a dance studio upstairs—and Kate almost turned to go back. But Devin wanted to walk all the way around.
That’s when they saw Handyman Pizza, the last building on the far side of the circle.
Kate stopped on the sidewalk in front of the window. Just like on Wes’s van, HANDYMAN PIZZA was stenciled on the glass, along with the caricature of a smiling burly man in a tool belt. At this angle, the sun was shining against their backs, turning the glass into a mirror.
“It smells really good in there,” Devin said. She leaned forward and cupped one hand on the glass, trying to look inside.
“We just had lunch.”
“I hate to tell you this, Mom, but I don’t like butternut squash. I mean, I’m eight years old,” she said, in the same tone she would have used if someone had asked her to drive a car.
Kate laughed and opened the door.
They entered, and whatever Kate had expected, it wasn’t this. The floor was black and white tiles, but the rest of the place was an explosion of neon colors. The walls were plastered with movie posters and record album covers from the 1980s. On the far back wall was a bank of old-school video games. PAC-MAN, Donkey Kong, Frogger.
She and Devin took a seat at the counter. It was a busy place, obviously a local hangout. When a waitress in blue jeans and a Handyman Pizza T-shirt approached them, Kate quickly scanned the chalkboard wall with the menu written on it. She ordered a slice of cheese pizza for Devin and two iced teas.
“Haven’t seen you here before,” the waitress said as she poured the iced tea into two plastic cups. “Are you visiting the water park?”
“No, Lost Lake.”