Lost Lake

by Sarah Addison Allen

  He smiled when he saw her, then he put down his hammer. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

  He stared at her, brows raised, until she realized he was waiting for her to speak. “Oh,” she finally said. “Eby wants to know if you’d like to join us for dinner.”

  “Sorry, I can’t. Not tonight. I didn’t know it had gotten so late.” He lifted his face to the sky. The setting sun in the distance resembled a bright orange ember, as if a candle had just been blown out. “What time is it?”

  Kate took her phone out of her pocket. She turned it on to see the time, and as soon as she did, she saw all the missed texts and voice mails from Cricket. There were dozens of them. She was going to have to call her back soon.

  “It’s almost eight,” she said, returning the phone to her pocket.

  “Thanks.”

  He started to turn, but she stopped him by suddenly thrusting out her hand and saying, “Hi, I’m Kate. You probably don’t remember me.”

  He stood. His hand was large and calloused, folding around hers like wrapping paper. “I know who you are,” he said, nicely but blandly. Milk and white rice. She knew that tone very well, that politeness ferociously guarding something else. Her mother-in-law was an expert at it. “I sent you a letter, years ago. Did you get it?”

  “Eby just told me that you’d asked for my address. It never came.” She paused. “Or, at least, I never received it. My mother might have hidden it from me.”

  He gave her a strange look. “Why would she do that?”

  “She and Eby had some sort of argument that summer. That’s why we left so suddenly. I just found a postcard Eby wrote me years ago that my mother kept from me. When I get back home, I’ll look for your letter. I wish I had known. I had a great time here with you.”

  “If you find it, just throw it away.”

  “Why?” Kate asked, surprised. “What did it say?”

  He shook his head. “It’s been a long time.”

  He had come into his own with a confidence and presence that he hadn’t had before. But he’d lost something, too. She wasn’t quite sure what it was. Maybe, like her, he’d changed too much, left too much behind.

  “Mom!” Devin called, running toward them. Her cowboy boots clunked on the dock boards as she approached. Kate didn’t have a quiet child. Devin could make noise in a room made of cotton. “Bulahdeen said to tell Wes that there’s cocktails if he’ll stay. Is that a bird?”

  “Cocktails are grown-up drinks. Cockatiels are birds.” Kate put her arm around Devin’s shoulders. “Wes, this is my daughter, Devin. Devin, this is Wes. I met him the summer I came here when I was twelve. We were good friends.”

  “Wes,” Devin asked breathlessly, her eyes wide, “have you ever seen any alligators here?”

  He smiled. “No. Sorry.”

  “Devin is newly interested in alligators,” Kate explained.

  “When my brother was about your age, he was obsessed with alligators,” Wes told Devin. “He even called himself Alligator Boy, and he wouldn’t answer to anything else. He was determined to turn into an alligator when he grew up. He had it all planned out. One day he would wake up with a tail. The next day his alligator teeth would come in. This would go on for days until he was finally a whole alligator and no one, especially our father, would recognize him.”

  Alligator Boy. Kate had almost forgotten about him. He had tagged along wherever they went but rarely said anything. It had been easy to forget he was even there. “Billy,” she said, suddenly remembering. “His name was Billy.”

  “Yes. And you were the one who made up the story about him turning into an alligator,” Wes said. “He loved that.”

  “Did he really turn into an alligator?” Devin asked, her voice quiet with awe.

  “No. He passed away a long time ago in a house fire. But he wanted it so much that, if he had lived, I bet he would have.”

  “I’m sorry, Wes,” Kate said, and put her hands in her pockets awkwardly. She felt her phone—and the scratch of something sharp against her knuckles. She took out the small curved bone she’d found on the stoop.

  “What is that?” Devin asked.

  “I found it this morning. I didn’t recognize it at first, but it looks like an animal tooth, like the kind Billy collected in a big box. Do you remember that?” she asked Wes. “He used to carry that box around wherever he went.”

  “He called it the Alligator Box,” Wes said, staring at the tooth in her hand. “It was lost in the fire.”

  “Is it an alligator tooth?” Devin asked Kate.

  Kate shook her head. “Probably not.”

  “I bet it is!”

  “Would you like it?” Kate said, offering it to her daughter.

  Devin looked excited and was about to take it, but Kate saw the moment it clicked that this nice man had a brother who collected things like this. A brother who was now gone. She stepped back and said, “No, I think Wes should have it.”

  Devin was one great kid. Matt had rarely seen it, but Kate always had. She wasn’t going to fall asleep again and miss another year. She was going to be here for every moment. For the first time since waking up, she knew that clearly, without fear. She smiled at Devin while extending her hand to Wes.

  “That means a lot to me,” he said sincerely. “Thank you.”

  Suddenly, something knocked hard against the dock below. Tiny ripples fanned out on all sides of the water around them, like petals. They all looked down, as if waiting for something to appear, but the ripples gradually died away, leaving the water once again calm and inscrutable.

  “It’s been doing that all afternoon,” Wes said with a laugh, when he saw that Kate was standing perfectly still, her arms out slightly, as if the entire dock was going to collapse under her feet. “There must be a floating tree trunk stuck under there, knocking against the support columns.”

  “Can we dive down there and see?” Devin asked.

  “No. Go tell the others that Wes can’t stay,” Kate said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Devin ran back to the lawn, calling, “Bye, Wes!”

  He waved, and they both watched her go.

  “Is your husband here with you?” Wes asked as he turned to place his tools back in his toolbox. He clicked it shut and picked it up with one hand, still holding the tooth in the other.

  “No. He passed away last year.” Kate turned and walked back up the dock, still not entirely convinced it wasn’t going to collapse.

  Wes fell into step beside her. “Now it’s my turn to be sorry.”

  They walked in a familiar silence. There was a muscle memory there, forged by repetition fifteen years ago. It felt nice to be this comfortable around a person again. Kate used to make friends so easily as a child, like everyone was made of magnets, instantly drawn to one another. As she got older, it seemed like those magnets turned and forced everyone away from a specific area around her.

  They stopped on the lawn. Wes put the tooth in his pocket and shifted his toolbox from one hand to the other. “How long are you staying?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I just wanted Devin to see this place. I have such good memories here. I wanted her to have them, too.”

  “Maybe I’ll see you again, before you leave.”

  “I’ll say good-bye this time, I promise.”

  Wes nodded. She wondered if he was thinking about that almost-kiss, or if he even remembered. Was she just projecting old feelings onto him, like a movie on a wall? The boy who had given her that last best summer was now this handsome unfamiliar man. And yet, she knew him. She knew him in that way you can only know a person you remember as a child, like if you cracked away the adult shell, you’d find that child happily sitting inside, smiling at you.

  Without another word, he waved to everyone on the lawn, then walked to his van.

  “Kate, will you get the butter from the kitchen?” Eby called. “I forgot to bring it out.”

  Kate turned and went into the house. She tapped o
n the kitchen door, then entered and saw that the kitchen was closed down for the night. She glanced at the old chair beside the refrigerator as she opened the door and took out the tub of butter. When she closed the door, she paused because the chair was now leaning back against the wall on two legs.

  Hadn’t it been on all four just seconds ago?

  Puzzled, she left by the back entrance so she could take the cardboard box from the Fresh Mart, which Lisette had left by the door, to the garbage bins. After recycling the box she turned the corner, but then stopped short.

  Wes was at the back of his van, out of view from the people on the lawn. The back doors of the van were open, and he had put his tools inside, alongside a pile of the old dock boards he was obviously going to haul away. He had taken off the yellow long-sleeved T-shirt he’d been wearing, which was wet with sweat, and was in the process of putting on a black long-sleeved T with the Handyman Pizza logo on it. An angry river of scars covered his back and arms, the skin shiny and rippled from what looked like an old severe burn.

  She quickly stepped back behind the house before he could see her.

  She leaned against the wall for a moment. Behind her fond memory of him that summer fifteen years ago, she was now also starting to remember bruises, and how Eby gave him and his brother boxes of food to take home with them, but how reluctant they were to go in the evenings. She pushed herself away from the wall and walked back around the other side of the house.

  Eby was still by the grill, putting the hot dogs on a plate.

  Kate stopped beside her and said, “Wes mentioned something about a fire and how his little brother died. What happened?”

  Eby’s brows rose. “I’m surprised he told you. He never talks about his brother.” They watched as Wes’s van pulled out and disappeared down the driveway. He honked twice in good-bye.

  Kate waited for Eby to say more.

  “It was the summer your family came here to visit, a few months after you left,” she said. “Wes’s father owned the property next to Lost Lake, and he and Wes and Billy lived there, on basically nothing. Their home life wasn’t good. George and I tried to help out as much as we could. That father of theirs was a hateful man. The fire burned their cabin completely. Wes was the only one to get out alive. He’s been through a lot, but he turned into a remarkable young man. I’m very proud of him.”

  “I can see that.” Kate smiled, looking to where he’d just driven away.

  But she understood now—the change in him. The change in them both.

  Neither one of them was the same after that summer.

  * * *

  After Devin had gone to sleep that evening, Kate took her phone and walked outside. She couldn’t put this off any longer. She had to call her mother-in-law. Kate hadn’t answered any of her calls or texts since they’d arrived yesterday.

  She walked down the steps of the stoop. The lights were out in Bulahdeen’s cabin. Jack’s cabin was also dark. But Selma was apparently still awake. As Kate walked past, she heard music coming from inside, something jazzy and seductive. Billie Holiday maybe. She picked up her pace, disturbing the low-lying fog in puffs and swirls. She hadn’t bothered to put on shoes. Lost Lake had a different feel to it this deep into the night. There was more mystery, and it was easier to believe in things you couldn’t see. She and Wes had spent a lot of time out here in the dark.

  She walked down to the dock where, just hours earlier, she’d come face-to-face again with the person responsible for her best memories here. She smiled as she looked out over the lake. The fog was moving and curling over the water, creating shapes. It made her think of the story of the ghost ladies she had made up. Ursula, Magdalene, and Betty—those had been their names. Remembering that made her look behind her, as if expecting Wes to be there.

  Muscle memory again. She shook her head, then turned on her phone. There had been two more texts since she’d last checked a few hours ago. Another from Cricket and one from Kent Harwood. Kent and his husband, Sterling, bought Pheris Wheels from Kate after Matt died. They had been two of Matt’s best customers. Kent’s text read:

  We saw the commercial today! It was nice to see Matt. And you and Devin look great. Come by and see us sometime!

  She had no idea what that meant. She’d call Kent later. Right now, she needed to get this over with.

  In two rings, Cricket picked up and said, “It’s about time, Kate! I cannot tell you the trouble you’ve caused me. Are you on your way back, or do I have to come get you?”

  She’d been anticipating worry. Cricket’s anger caught her off guard. “Trouble?” Kate asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “I had a film crew waiting for you when you were supposed to move in! Didn’t you read my note?”

  “No, I didn’t read your note,” Kate said, frowning. “Why would a film crew be there?”

  “Because we’re filming new Pheris Realty commercials. The first one aired today.”

  Kate went silent. She lowered herself to sit on one of the squared-off pylons.

  “That was part of what I wanted to talk to you about. I told you I had big plans to discuss with you later, and you leave? Who does that?”

  Who does that? Kate thought. Someone who doesn’t want to be a part of Cricket’s big plans, that’s who does that.

  “I’ve finally decided to throw my hat into the ring. I’m running for Congress. My team decided a few months ago that a series of new real estate commercials would be the perfect way to reintroduce me to the public, only this time with you and Devin “Moving On” with me. I received a lot of condolences after Matt died from people who were fans of the old commercials. They wanted to know what happened to him. What his life turned out like. This will show them. It will be a nice tribute to him. It will make a lot of people remember him—and me.” Silence. “Kate?”

  It still amazed Kate that when Cricket did talk of Matt, she did it so plainly. Her grief wasn’t fresh. Cricket had mourned Matt a long time ago, when she’d lost him to Kate. It was the reason why, a few months after his death, Cricket had been so matter-of-fact about getting rid of all of Matt’s clothes. Kate had let her; at one point she’d even tried to help, stopping sometimes to tell Cricket a story behind a shirt or a pair of shoes. Cricket hadn’t liked that and had told Kate that she could handle this on her own. Kate had seen it then, just briefly, Cricket’s jealously that Kate knew more about her son’s life than she did. Kate had saved only one item of Matt’s clothing from Cricket’s purge, that T-shirt with the moth on it, hidden in a sewing bag somewhere among her things back in Atlanta.

  “That’s what this past year has been about? Getting you ready to run for Congress?” Kate finally said. She couldn’t fully wrap her mind around it. She’d always known Cricket was unreadable, but she never imagined that this was what she’d been hiding.

  “Of course not. It’s been about getting you and Devin through this difficult time,” Cricket said, sounding just like she did in her commercials.

  “But you’ve known about this for months? Why didn’t you say anything? I’ve gone along with everything you wanted me to do for the past year, Cricket. Why did you still feel the need to blindside me with this?”

  Cricket made a sound of disbelief. “Selling your house for, frankly, more than it was worth, putting your daughter in private school, letting you move in with me, giving you a job—these are things you just went along with?”

  “I didn’t want any of it,” Kate said loudly, and the ghost ladies on the lake seemed to turn to her. “And I don’t want to be a part of this either, Cricket. Matt wouldn’t think of new commercials as a nice tribute to him. He would hate them. He would never want Devin to be in them. Did you give any thought to that?”

  “Do you really want to go there, Kate?” She said it so easily, like she’d been practicing taking this sword out of its sheath in one long smooth movement. “You and I both know that what’s best for your daughter has not always been your primary concern.”

&n
bsp; And there it was, the thing Kate had feared most. Cricket brought up the incident with the scissors. Kate had been waiting for this for a while. And now that it was out in the open, now that it had been acknowledged, it felt so far away, like something she’d done a lifetime ago. Why had she been so afraid of this? Why had she been so afraid to acknowledge her grief? Just because Cricket had bottled it inside, waiting to air it on TV, didn’t mean Kate had to.

  “I can’t believe I was starting to feel guilty about not calling you, because I thought you might be genuinely worried about us.”

  “Well, Kate, of course I was,” Cricket said, trying to make her voice go soft.

  “My great-aunt is selling Lost Lake, and she needs my help sorting everything out this summer. I’ll let you know when Devin and I will be returning. I’ll call you in a few weeks.”

  Kate hung up the phone. Cricket immediately called her back. She ignored the call and connected to the Internet and searched for this new Pheris Realty commercial. She found it easily.

  It was thirty seconds of Cricket talking about her real estate company, with flashbacks to the old commercials featuring Matt. Kate had forgotten just how lost he’d looked back then. It made her want to save him all over again. At the end of the commercial, Cricket was standing outside Kate’s mother’s house, beside her real estate sign with the SOLD placard on top of it. “After my son died in a tragic accident last year, my daughter-in-law and granddaughter needed me to sell their home and help them on their new journey in life, which I did.” She held up a framed photo of Kate and Devin, one she’d obviously taken from Kate’s album. Kate was smiling, holding Devin, with the sun behind them. Matt had taken that photo a year and a half ago, at a bike race their shop had sponsored. “Pheris Reality—” Cricket said as the commercial closed, “we still know about moving on.” Then there were the words To be continued.

  Kate put her hand over her eyes and let out a sob. For a few moments, her chest heaved and tears ran out from under her fingers. Why she’d fallen in love with Matt, how much she had tried to help him, how much she had wanted to make him happy—it all came rushing back to her. The reason she’d worked so hard and committed so much to a life she didn’t even want was because of that boy on TV. She’d wanted him to finally have that place where he belonged. And she found herself crying as much for herself as for him, because she knew—knew with all her heart—that as much as she had loved Matt and had wanted the world for him, he had never truly felt the same way about her. She had spent seven years married to a man who hadn’t cared for her nearly as much as she’d cared for him. And she’d begun to resent it.