The Secrets of Lake Road

“Your mother should’ve told both you and Johnny a long time ago.”


“Yes, she should have.” She pulled the quilt down, uncovering her head, but she couldn’t look at Gram. Instead she looked over Gram’s shoulder at a spot on the wall. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

“It wasn’t my place.”

“But I thought you didn’t like Mom. How could you let her lie to me?”

“You think I don’t like your mother?”

“Well, yeah. You two are always fighting. You’re never nice to each other.”

“Oh, Caroline. I love your mother. I may not like the choices she’s made, but I love her.”

“You could’ve fooled me.”

Gram sighed. “A mother-daughter relationship is a complicated thing. We each have our own way of doing things, our own ideas of how things should be, and sometimes we don’t agree on what that thing is. We clash. We may fight. But we love each other anyway. It’s just how it is between your mother and me.” She touched Caroline’s cheek. “It doesn’t mean it has to be that way with you and your mom. You can make it be the way you want.”

“Tell that to her.” She wiped her eyes, refusing to let the tears fall.

“I think you should tell her. Talk to her.”

Caroline picked at a thread that had started to come loose from one of the stitches on the quilt. She was too angry to talk to her mother. She didn’t even want to look at her.

“I don’t hate Johnny,” she said instead. “I didn’t mean what I said.”

“I know you don’t. I’m sure he knows it, too.” Gram paused as though she was considering whether to say anything more. Then she asked, “How did you find out?”

“It’s not rocket science. I did the math.” She stared at the ceiling. “Plus, I found out Billy’s full name. William J. And then I saw a couple pictures of Billy. And then there’s Chris. In ways, Johnny looks like them, their family. I didn’t know for sure. I was only guessing, but it seems I guessed right.”

Gram pressed her lips together and nodded.

“Does Dad know?” she asked, already knowing the answer, but finding she needed confirmation so she wouldn’t question herself later about who knew what and who had lied.

“Yes,” Gram said. “He knows.”

Caroline rolled over and put her back to Gram. She wished she could start over and return to the first day of summer, when her family had made sense in their screwed-up way. She wanted to go back to that day on the beach when Sara had drowned so that she could pull her off the pier rather than what she did, which was to leave her alone. Sara’s death was the catalyst that pushed her into asking questions about drownings, about Billy and her mother. Now that she knew the truth, she didn’t know what to do with it, with all the anger she felt inside.

Gram put her hand on Caroline’s hip. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Sure, I’ll be okay,” she said, but she didn’t sound convincing even to her own ears.

*

After Gram left her room, Caroline sneaked into the bathroom. Her mother and Johnny were arguing in the kitchen. They started shouting. Caroline didn’t think she had ever heard her mother raise her voice at Johnny. A rush of adrenalin shot through her as the screen door banged shut. She saw Johnny storm past the window. She ran out to catch him.

“Johnny, wait,” she said, hustling down the steps and onto the dirt road. He kept walking, turning down the hill toward the lake. “I don’t hate you,” she called after him. “I’m sorry.”

“Fuck off, Caroline,” he yelled, and disappeared around the corner.

Caroline turned and saw her mother standing at the edge of the yard. Their eyes locked for a brief moment before her mother turned her back and walked away.

Caroline glanced at Willow and scurried underneath the swooping limbs. She climbed into the crook of the thick branches, pulled her knees to her chest, balancing her chin on top. The cut on her palm throbbed.

She had really screwed things up. She hadn’t meant to hurt Johnny. She wasn’t sure what her intentions were anymore. She was only certain of one thing. She wasn’t going to win her mother’s love, not after what she had done.

Maybe Gram was right, and it was up to Caroline to determine what her relationship with her mother would be. She admitted, beneath the pain and anger, she felt a kind of power, believing it was her choice to make.

The only problem was she no longer knew what she wanted from her.





CHAPTER FORTY