*
Decades ago, Wes’s father and uncle—brothers Lyle and Lazlo—jointly inherited two large plots of land on either side of the interstate. Older brother Lazlo had moved from Suley years before, gotten a job in construction in Atlanta, then met and married the daughter of the man who owned the construction company. He quickly went from a manual laborer to the man in charge, the first in a long line of ne’er-do-well, dirt-poor-but-land-rich Patterson men to do so. Lazlo convinced his younger brother Lyle to split the inheritance, giving Lazlo sole right to the acreage to the north of the interstate. Everyone thought he was being magnanimous, because Lyle and his new wife and young son Wes needed somewhere to live, and the land to the south of the interstate was beautiful and had an old hunting cabin on it. What Lazlo didn’t tell his brother was that the northern land was actually prime real estate, and he had plans to develop it. The southern land, on the other hand, was basically worthless without the land that curved around it like a question mark and locked most of it in—Eby’s and George’s Lost Lake property.
So Lazlo developed his land, built an outlet mall and a water park, and brought a lot of money into the county. He became Suley’s golden boy, while Lyle was holed away in a cabin that didn’t even have electricity. Wes’s younger brother, Billy, was born six years later, and their mother left them soon afterward. Wes didn’t know what happened to her. Years ago, someone said they’d seen her hitchhiking just outside of Houston. Hitchhiking west, away from here.
One of the last times Wes had seen his uncle was after the fire, when Lazlo came in for the funeral for Wes’s father and brother. When he stopped by the hospital to see Wes on his way back out of town, Wes remembered asking him when he would be going back to Atlanta with him, assuming, of course, that the only family he had left would take him in. He remembered Lazlo’s vague, stammering reply, and the impact had been staggering: Lazlo didn’t want him.
Lazlo left after the funeral, and even though he came into town almost every summer with his family, to stay for a week at the Water Park Hotel, Wes had only seen him a handful of times.
In fact, he’d seen more of Lazlo in the past few days than he had in the past ten years combined.
Sure enough, as Wes backed his van to the garage door on the basement level of his building that afternoon, he saw Lazlo’s Mercedes parked to the side. The car was running, the air conditioner undoubtedly on high.
Wes pushed the remote control to the bay door, and it rose up, exposing the cavernous concrete garage. Shelves and cubbyholes lined the walls, and the open space was divided neatly into sections labeled ELECTRIC, CARPENTRY, LAWN CARE, PLUMBING, ROOFING, MASONRY. He was meticulous about this place. “A little OCD never hurt anyone,” his foster mother used to say.
There was a small glassed-in office to the side, with its own outside entrance, but no one was inside. His dispatcher, Harriet, and handyman, Buddy, were gone for the day, Fridays being half days for them. All calls were supposed to be forward to Wes’s cell, which he only now realized had been in his pocket when he’d jumped into the lake to find Devin.
All he could think as he’d run to the water was, I can’t lose another one. His legs still felt weak over it, his head light.
He backed the van into the garage, then got out.
“I almost gave up waiting for you,” Lazlo said as he got out of his Mercedes. “Where were you?”
“I’ve been helping at the lake this week,” Wes said. He took his cell phone out of his pocket to see if it was still working. Nothing. It was toast. He went to the phone in the small office to check for messages. Luckily, he hadn’t missed any. He forwarded all calls upstairs.
“I looked for you in the restaurant first. Your cook said you were out with a girl. I thought you’d gotten lucky,” Lazlo said with a “heh-heh-heh” as he entered the garage.
“I was just going up there,” Wes said, walking back out of the office. Maybe it was the afternoon he’d just had, maybe it was the thought of losing Devin, or the miraculous discovery of the Alligator Box, but suddenly he felt the need to reach out to someone, someone who knew his brother. Someone who understood. “Do you want to join me? Have a beer?”
“That’s nice of you to ask, son. But I don’t think so. I’m just here to tell you that I’m going to Lost Lake to get Eby to sign the papers tomorrow. I thought you might want to come along, get it all squared away. Nice and neat.”
“Tomorrow?” Wes asked, surprised. “Does Eby know?”
“Of course she knows,” Lazlo said in a tone that suggested Wes might be daft. “She agreed to sell.”
Wes shook his head. “I mean, does she know you’re coming tomorrow?”
Lazlo shrugged. “I don’t think so. What does it matter?”
“There’s going to be a party for Eby at the lake tomorrow. Eby’s great-niece is helping to organize it. A lot of people from town are coming.”
Lazlo hitched his trousers up at his thighs and did a lean-sit against the carpenter’s table near the staircase to the restaurant. Warm, enticing scents were floating down, basil and oregano and tomato. It made Wes long for something, something he couldn’t place. A happy childhood, a home. But he’d never understood how he could miss something he’d never had.
“One last good-bye. That make sense,” Lazlo said. “But I didn’t know Eby had family. What’s the niece’s story?”
Wes shifted his weight. He shouldn’t have brought up Kate. “She’s widowed. She decided to take her daughter on vacation to meet Eby. Get reconnected.”
“Eby’s going to be coming into some money,” Lazlo suggested. “Maybe she wants a piece of the pie.”
“She doesn’t need money,” Wes said.
“All women without a husband need money.”
“How would you know?”
“I’ve seen it happen. Not to me and Deloris, of course. She’d skewer me in a divorce. She’s always looking for an excuse, so I’m always very careful about my indiscretions.”
“Kate is helping Eby because Eby needs help,” Wes said. “It’s the reason I’m doing this, too. The entire town would help her if she would just ask.”
“Hmm. That’s unsettling.” Lazlo got up and brushed at the back of his expensive trousers. “But this party is a good idea. A farewell party, just so there’s no misunderstanding. Eby will say good-bye to everyone. I’ll come. I’ll even buy the meat. There’s a cook there, right? She could grill it.”
Wes smiled. “Lisette doesn’t grill.”
“Why the hell not?”
Wes blinked in surprise at his uncle’s change in mood. There was a little of his father in his uncle, in that mercurial temper. “She’s French.”
“Oh.” For whatever reason, that seemed to make sense to him. “Well, my lawyer is here. Might as well bring him tomorrow and give him a meal before we sit down with Eby. I had your and Eby’s land surveyed. This should all go smoothly.”
“So that was you,” Wes said. “I saw the tags.”
Lazlo smiled as he walked out of the garage.
Wes followed him. “Why haven’t I seen Deloris or the girls yet? Don’t they want to see me?” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d set eyes on his aunt and cousins. He wasn’t sure he’d even recognize them. He had vague memories of his aunt Deloris, rich but not beautiful, and his cousins, Lacy and Dulce, who were as sour as little green apples. They’d laughed at the way Wes and Billy were dressed the first time they met. Wes remembered thinking how safe their lives must have been to be able to laugh that way, to be able to express an opinion without fear of retribution.
“Of course they want to see you. But they’re women. They like the hotel, the spa, the shopping.” Lazlo stopped at his car. “Would you like to see them?”