“Jesus, son. What’re you doing sleeping in your car?”
Lance sighed. The prior night’s events flashed behind his eyes as they had a hundred times before he had finally fallen asleep. He realized he could taste something too—blood. He wondered if he’d bitten his cheek while he dreamed. He didn’t think he could tolerate any other explanation right then.
“I had a bad dream. It had something to do with the house, so I came out here to sleep.” Lance watched a skeptical look cross John’s face, which changed to concern.
“Walk with me, son,” John said, motioning toward the lake.
They strode across the lawn in the direction of the expanse of water below, neither in a hurry to get there. Lance felt the air beginning to cool the sweat formed during the nightmare, wicking it away. He wished the horror of what he had seen would fade as well.
“I want to say again how sorry I am. It was wrong of me to keep all of it from you,” John said, not looking at Lance.
Lance glanced at the older man. “It’s okay. It’s just how things worked out. That’s how life is. One thing that leads to the next, and pretty soon you have a whole line of dominoes waiting to get knocked over.”
John nodded in agreement, his eyes searching the lake against the glare of the water. Lance stared at the caretaker for few moments as they walked. John’s face had less lines than it had in days before. The caretaker wasn’t wearing his customary black hat and Lance realized his hair was combed. Something else was missing too, but he couldn’t put a finger on it.
“I’m sorry, John.”
John turned his head, a confused look on his face. “For what?”
“For everything that happened to you because of this place and my family.”
John’s lips pursed, and for a few seconds Lance thought that he might cry, but instead he merely smiled, something so sad it barely passed for such.
“You know what keeps me going sometimes?” John asked. “Hope. Not God per se, but maybe something like him. Hope that someday I’ll see them again and that I’ll be forgiven for all my mistakes and shortcomings in this life. Without that, I don’t have much to get up for in the morning.”
They reached the shoreline. The waves were gentle in the morning light, just a suggestion of what they had been in the storm the day before.
John turned and put a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “You don’t need to be sorry about anything. Everything that happened couldn’t have been any other way, and questioning it will only nurture a little madness inside of you. I suffer every day, there’s no getting around it, but somewhere inside I believe that things will be righted. Otherwise, what’s this all about?”
Lance smiled. The simplicity of John’s outlook tugged at him, pulled him toward something that he felt unfamiliar with. He had felt it when he knew that he would see Mary again and when she kissed him. There was a line drawn in the earth, and some lived on one side, while the rest lived on the other. The separation felt too great to step over right then, so he merely patted John’s hand with his own.
“So when will you be leaving?” John asked, looking back out at the lake.
Lance frowned, turning his head. “What makes you think I’m leaving?”
“Well, you’ve uncovered your family history, which isn’t a pleasant one. You’re almost done writing your book, I assume, and now you’re sleeping in your car.” John’s eyebrows rose and he shrugged.
Lance couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m not done yet. And I haven’t figured everything out.”
“By ‘everything,’ I’m guessing you’re not just referring to the plot of your story?”
Lance chewed at the inside of his cheek, looking over John’s shoulder at the large gazebo that sat several yards up the slope of the hill. “When was that built?” Lance said, pointing at the octagonal structure.