“I didn’t like that party either,” Macy said, placing a hand on Liz’s back and giving her a familiar little rub between the shoulder blades. “Those kids were out of line.”
They had danced on tabletops and played an elaborate game of long jump over the fire. Nobody got hurt, but they just as easily could have. Liz hadn’t felt like a gracious hostess enjoying her own gathering, she’d felt like a babysitter who was woefully out of her depth as her charges became increasingly uncontrollable. When one of the girls did some sort of half-drunk striptease down to the string bikini she was wearing under a T-shirt and a pair of way-too-short cutoffs, Liz had had more than enough. But her proclamation that the party was over was met with indifference. They either didn’t hear her or didn’t care. So Liz went in search of Jack Sr. and the authority of his booming voice to back her up.
“We’re too old for this,” Liz said, waving away the awful memory with a flick of her slender wrist. She stepped away from Macy’s touch and sighed. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Don’t be like that. It was a great party.”
“Don’t try to cheer me up.”
“Come on, everyone had fun. You’re just feeling let down now that it’s over. It happens every time. You know that.”
It was true, but it didn’t make anything better. Liz’s emotions were out of control, a train of roller-coaster cars that had jumped the tracks and were careening wildly. Up, down, inside, out. Arch, contrite, exuberant, desolate.
“Thank you,” Liz said. “For everything. I think I will take care of this in the morning. Take Kent home. Get some sleep.”
“We’ll be over first thing,” Macy told her. “Garbage bags in hand. Oh! And coffee. I’ll swing over to Sandpoint and pick up a toffee latte for you.”
“Perfect.”
“Hang in there, kiddo.” Macy caught Liz’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Of course.”
When Macy and Kent said their goodbyes, the remaining guests took the hint and began to comment on how late it was. Liz put on her consummate hostess face, complete with a charitable half smile, and accepted the hugs and warm wishes her friends and acquaintances had to offer. She deflected a dozen saccharine compliments that left her feeling coated in a thin layer of scum, and then she said, firmly: goodbye.
The yard was empty when she remembered the reason she had thrown the party in the first place. It came as a jolt, a reminder like a splash of ice water against her warm skin. Quinn. What had happened to Quinn? And Bennet? Liz had seen them talking. The shock on Quinn’s face, the hug. Then they had disappeared.
Alone. There was really only one place for privacy on the expansive yard and it was the same place that made Liz’s heart twist painfully when she thought of that out-of-control party so many years ago. When she had gone looking for Jack Sr., she had found him in the small garden beyond the rose arbor. It was a secluded corner of the yard, hemmed in by a willow tree and a smattering of forsythia bushes that glowed golden in the spring. Beyond the narrow arbor, Liz had painstakingly laid flagstone in a nautilus pattern, the dark gray stones swirling in closer and smaller until the final slab was just the size of her fist. She had positioned a pair of benches in the private heart of it all, white wrought iron that felt light and airy, whimsical.
Jack Sr. had been there, sharing a single bench with a girl who was not much older than their Nora. Twenty-one? Good God, Liz hoped so. Otherwise they were contributing alcohol to a minor. Otherwise her husband was leaning over a child, a look of wanton lust in his eyes. Was he going to kiss her? Had he already done so?
Maybe Liz imagined it all. The girl popped up at the sound of footsteps on the stone and teetered, giggling. “You have a great place here, Mrs. Stamford.” Stamford? It could have been worse.
It could have been so much worse.
Liz hurried to the garden, heart thumping high and wild in her chest. What was she hoping for? She knew what she wanted when she set her plan in motion. When she spooned chicken salad with apples and walnuts onto tiny wheat crackers and stood on her A-frame ladder to hang Christmas lights in all the trees. But now. What had she done?
Voices. There were words slipping through the night air, catching on the thorns of the roses that covered the arbor. And yes, in the soft moonlight Liz could see Quinn and Bennet together, on the same white bench but at opposite ends, knees close to touching but not quite.
“Mom.” Quinn stood up, but not quickly, not guiltily.
Bennet stood up, too. “Great party, Mrs. Sanford,” he said, clearing his throat. “Thanks for inviting me.”
“You’re welcome,” Liz managed. “You’re welcome anytime.” What else was there to say? She had tied up so many hopes and dreams in Bennet Van Eps. But now she was just confused. Tired and disillusioned and confused. But something had ignited in her heart, and it was growing, building even as she stood across from her daughter and the man she once loved. This wasn’t about them.
“Has Quinn told you the news?” Liz asked, addressing Bennet.
Quinn looked shocked, almost panicked. “Mom, no—”
“I have a granddaughter.” The words were final. Absolute. It felt so good to say them out loud. Liz felt herself standing taller, drawing resolve around her like a cloak. “And I think we may need your help.”
THEY SAY HOME is where the heart is, but I’ve known for a long time that it’s far more complicated than that. My heart doesn’t have a home, but if it did, I suppose it would be 1726 Goldfinch Lane, Key Lake, Minnesota. My auntie Lorelei’s house, to be exact. White clapboard siding, diamond-patterned linoleum floors, old windows with wavy glass and a rime of frost around the edges all winter long. We lived in the same farmhouse where she and my mom grew up all those years ago, but I never stopped to consider how that must have made her feel.
Trapped. I know that now.
I don’t talk about my mom often, but I find myself thinking about her a lot these days. She was the younger of the two Barnes girls, but that didn’t mean much in Key Lake. Their parents—my grandma and grandpa—weren’t churchgoing people and kept mostly to themselves, which is to say, they didn’t have a boat. They were godless and boatless, cardinal sins both. People couldn’t understand why my grandpa didn’t, at the very least, own a little aluminum-sided skiff for the odd expedition. He wasn’t even interested in bullheads, and that’s saying something, because on warm spring days after a long, cold winter they would all but leap into your boat, stinking of mud and wet rot. I think he hated their flat, ugly faces and their stinging whips of whiskers.
I know I sure did. And believe me, I went on my fair share of fishing dates that began with hauling bullheads out of the lake (easy pickings—I once caught one without a worm on my hook) and ended with my shoulder blades cold and aching on the damp boards of many a rusty boat. But don’t feel sorry for me. I was a willing participant. More often than not, the instigator.