“That’s why you asked about the letter that first day on the dock,” Kate said, stunned. “You thought I knew.”
“I hadn’t thought about it in years. Not until I saw you again.”
Impulsively, she drew him into her arms and held him tightly, fiercely, the way Eby would, wanting to save him from what had happened, even though it was too late. “Your secrets were always mine,” Kate whispered. “I never would have said anything. Not then, not now.”
Wes smiled at her with complete understanding when she stepped back. He knew the emotions she was going through. He’d been living with them for so long that it was like a second skin to him, like the scars on his back. “I know. That’s why I sent it in the first place. Or thought I sent it. I don’t know how it ended up in the Alligator Box.” He walked back to the front of the van, and she followed. “I put the letter in the mailbox by the road. I clearly remember doing that.”
Kate thought about it for a moment. “If the box was in the lake, why did Billy go back into the house?”
“I think it was in the house,” Wes said. “You saw it. The box had been burnt. But by the time I got out of the hospital, what was left of the house had been torn down.”
“So you think someone must have taken it from the rubble and put it in the lake.”
“Yes. But who?” Wes shrugged helplessly. “I’ll never know.”
Kate thought about Devin and the alligator, and suddenly something clicked into place. Maybe Kate had grown up and lost her ability to see it, but she hadn’t lost her ability to believe in it. “Devin told me something after she found the Alligator Box, and it got me thinking.” She turned to him. “Do you want to hear a story?”
Wes looked at her curiously, just like he’d done when he was a boy.
She smiled though her heart felt old and heavy. “One last story, for old time’s sake.”
“Okay. Sure.”
So she told him.
“Once upon a time there was a little boy named Billy. He loved alligators. He loved them so much that he wanted to be one. He thought about it every day. He dreamed about it every night. There was no doubt in his mind that it was going to happen. One thing Billy knew that most people don’t know is that the longer you have a wish, the closer you get to it becoming true. Most people never get what they want because they change what they want, change it to something more practical or reachable. Billy never looked to the future and saw himself as a grown-up. He saw himself with alligator skin and alligator teeth, swimming underwater and sunning himself on some soft grass somewhere. Billy felt sorry for other people who gave up their wishes so easily.
“One morning something happened, something terrible. There was a fire, and Billy’s little-boy life ended. His brother was devastated. He missed Billy. What his brother didn’t realize was that Billy rose from the ashes of the fire that day. Not like a phoenix. Like an alligator. Billy got what he wished for.
“He stayed around the house for a while. He waited to see if his brother would come back. But his alligator instincts began to get the better of him, and he wanted to find water. He took his Alligator Box and he went to Lost Lake. Years and years went by, and Billy could feel the human side of himself getting smaller and smaller, until only two things remained, the two strongest, best memories of his life as a little boy. The memory of how much he loved his brother, and the memory of how safe Lost Lake made him feel. He kept to himself, stayed out of the way, because that’s what alligators do. But he watched. His brother would visit the lake, and he watched him grow up to be good man. He was proud of him. He watched as the people at the lake got older and fewer people came back. Then a little girl arrived and, miraculously, she understood him. So he told her everything. He told her about the box. He said his brother felt alone in the world, and that this box would help him, because then he would know that somewhere out there Billy was safe and happy. He was sorry he took the letter from the mailbox. He just didn’t want to leave.”
Wes had lifted his face to the sky, listening to her with his eyes closed. He finally looked away and rubbed at his eyes under his sunglasses.
Sometimes, all you need is something to believe in.
“I’d almost forgotten how good you were at that,” he finally said, and laughed a watery laugh. “Those stories were the sound track of my summer with you.”
He turned and lifted himself up onto the short hood of his van, then he held out a hand to her. Smiling, she took it, and he lifted her up beside him.
They sat there for a long time in silence, their bare legs touching slightly, before Wes said softly, “Thank you for coming back.”
They watched as Devin, who had been running around the clearing, stopped to kneel in front of the lone-standing chimney and look up inside it. A startled bird flew out of the top of the chimney, a black blur against the blue sky, thready with clouds that looked like pieces of string. Higher and higher it flew, until it disappeared and the only thing left was the fullness of the day in front of them.
“Thank you for waiting,” she finally said.
* * *
Kate knocked on Eby’s bedroom door.
“Come in,” Eby called.
Kate opened the door. Rays of the setting sun were sending waxy copper splashes across the far wall. Eby was sitting at her vanity in her bedroom, pulling her long silver hair into a bun at the nape of her neck. The way the shadows hit her face, she looked like she was made of veined marble.
“Am I interrupting?” Kate said, looking around. The room looked like a time capsule from the 1960s. There were two twins beds with pink quilted bedspreads and ornate headboards, dark-wood furniture, and blown-glass lamps with brown shades and pineapple finials. The wallpaper was faded pink with row after row of tiny, shiny, silver Eiffel Towers. It gave more insight into Eby’s past than any photo could have.
“No.” Eby patted the seat next to her on the long padded bench. “Sit here with me.”
Kate slid in next to her and looked at all the postcards from Europe that Eby had tucked around the mirror.
“No Lazlo yet?” Kate asked.
“No Lazlo yet. But I called a lawyer friend of mine, just as your mother-in-law suggested. He said he’d drive into town after he gets off work today.”
“That’s good. Whatever happens, I want to be here, too. I want to help. And the money from the sale of my house is yours. To fight Lazlo, to go to Europe, whatever you decide.”
“That means the world to me. Thank you, Kate. But that money is your nest egg, and I’m not going to let you invest in this place, in me, until I know for sure what’s going to happen.”
“Are these from your honeymoon?” Kate asked, indicating the postcards.
Eby stared at them. “Yes.”
“Is this where you’ll go back?”
“It’s where I’ll visit. I’ll never go back, though. I mailed these to myself, from Paris and Amsterdam. I thought, when I was old, I would sit here like this and think that it was the best time in my life. I had no idea that the future held such possibilities. I think I’ll keep them here now to see how far I’ve come.”
Kate tucked her hands under her legs. “I had a similar experience today. You know that letter Wes was supposed to have sent me, the one he asked you for my address for? He found it and let me read it. He wanted to come to Atlanta, to be with me.”
“He told you he set the fire,” Eby said. Just like that. Like it was obvious.
“You knew?”
“We all knew,” Eby said. “The whole town thought we’d let him down. We weren’t going to let him be punished for something that we could have prevented if we’d just tried a little harder to get him out of that situation. Don’t be hard on him. He’s punished himself enough.”
Kate nodded.
“Wesley will like having you here again,” Eby said with a smile. “If you don’t mind my saying.”
Kate’s stomach trembled with that particular anxiety that always heralded something good. She
put her hand there to stop it. She wasn’t sure she trusted it. “I don’t know exactly what he is to me anymore. My past? My present? My future?”
Eby squeezed her arm comfortingly. “I think Wes will be anything you want him to be.”
Kate smiled at her aunt in the mirror. Kate liked having Eby near, liked her quiet and her calmness. Whatever happens, she seemed to say, it’s going to be all right. We’ll all be all right. We’re in this together.
It had been a long, long time since Kate had felt that way.
They watched as the sun moved the light across the room, two generations of Morris women tired of curses.
And ready for a happily ever after.
* * *
Lisette was closing down the kitchen for the evening, doing her nightly ritual of counting plates and utensils, making dough for chive biscuits in the morning, then finally taking off her apron. She had wandered outside last night and had stayed up too long. She had missed breakfast, throwing off her routine. As hard as she had tried today, she still could not get it back. There was a sense of change in the air and she hated it. She had just placed the apron on the counter when Jack entered without knocking. He was wearing his traveling clothes, his polo and his blazer and his driving moccasins.
He charged in like a bull, but then he stopped, as if not knowing what came next.
“I’ve made a decision,” he said.
She nodded. He was leaving. He had seemed so happy yesterday, when it had seemed like everything was going back to normal, when it had seemed like they were not losing Lost Lake. It had hurt more than she thought it would. He would carry on with his life, and she would continue to be such a small part of it. It had been enough for so long. She did not know why she had changed her mind.
He looked around, trying to decide what to do. He took a step toward the chair and Lisette automatically put up her hand to stop him. Luc was watching with considerable interest.
“Is that chair important to you?” Jack asked.
Lisette sighed. Luc sits there. The boy who committed suicide because I rejected him.
Jack read that and said, “I was beginning to suspect as much.” Jack turned to the chair. It was obvious he could not see Luc, but still he said, completely seriously, “It’s nice to meet you, Luc.”
Luc laughed at that. Lisette censored him with just a look.
“So Luc is haunting you,” Jack said, and Lisette had to wonder at how such a sensible man could so easily believe such a thing.
Lisette hesitated before she wrote, I do not know. What I do know is that every day, I wake up and see him and I think to myself, I will not hurt another human being the way I hurt him.
“You’ve never hurt me,” Jack said.
Lisette shook her head sharply. Of course not. She did not let herself. And their time together was always so brief.
“I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to Richmond to close up my house for good, but I’ll be back. I’ve always wanted to see fall at Lost Lake. And I bet Christmas here is beautiful. And if Eby loses Lost Lake, well, I think Suley would be a nice place to retire.”
Her breath caught in her chest. He was staying? He was close enough that she could smell the soap he had used that morning, something rich and southern, piney and sharp. She loved that smell. She loved his coarse gray-and-white hair and the lines on his face. Luc was behind him now, and Lisette’s eyes darted to the younger man. It was just now occurring to Lisette that the longer she knew Jack, the more Luc looked like him. Just recently, she had noticed a mole near his ear that she had not seen before. It was the same mole Jack had.
“I just wanted you to know that I’m not leaving you. I’m fighting for you, Lisette. Against him, if necessary.” He nodded to the chair. “I’ve never met a person that I could be so quiet with and yet communicate so much. You have no idea what that means to someone like me. Just knowing you were in the world kept me going. And coming here every summer probably saved my life. Do you understand?” he whispered. “You saved me.”
Lisette reached out, her hand almost reaching his hair before she stopped. Had she really? Had she saved him? Had she managed to do for him what she had not been able to do for Luc?
He smiled and took her outstretched hand. “I don’t have to say it, do I? Eby called me and told me to come here and say it, as if you didn’t already know. But you know, don’t you?”
Lisette nodded as she watched him go, then she turned desperately to Luc with tears in her eyes. She knew Jack loved her. She had always known. It was written on his face that very first summer. And she loved him. But it felt bottled inside her chest, and she could not let it out. She did not deserve Luc’s love when she was sixteen. Did she really think she deserved Jack’s love now?
Luc smiled at her, then made a little shooing motion with his hand, telling her to go.
But she ran to him instead, going to her knees and burying her face in his lap. She could not see what she was gaining for all that she was losing.
She felt Luc’s hand on her hair, and she looked up at him.
She did not need to write down what she wanted to tell him. He knew what she was thinking. I do not want to lose you.
He pointed in the direction that Jack had left.
If I go to him, will you be here when I get back?
He shook his head.
I will not go unless you promise to always be with me.
Luc reached out and touched her cheek. He mouthed the word toujours.
Always.
Then she watched him slowly fade away.
She opened her mouth and howled, though no sound came out. She cried and beat the chair, then beat herself, then curled into a fetal position on the floor. She hated loss. She had fought for so long to keep exactly what she had exactly the way it was, like liquid measured perfectly into a cup, because she did not ever want to feel this way again.
She did not remember much about the next few hours. She remembered coming to, opening her eyes, and the first thing she saw was a tiny spider, crawling along the floor next to the cabinets.
The last time she had felt this empty, she had gone to the Bridge of the Untrue and jumped. She sat up. But she did not recognize that girl any longer. The past fifty years had changed her. Eby had made her a different person—her goodness, her vitality, her fearlessness. She had watched Eby go through that most horrible time in her life, when George died, and she had seen her recover. She had seen her face losing Lost Lake, and she did not cease to function. She continued on.
Because of Eby, she knew something now that she did not know then.
Lisette took a deep breath and stood up.
When your cup is empty, you do not mourn what is gone.
Because if you do, you will miss the opportunity to fill it again.
15
Selma walked into the lobby of the Water Park Hotel. She rolled her eyes as she looked around. A hotel this nice nearby, and yet she’d chosen to spend every summer for the past thirty years at Lost Lake. The hotel was located next to the water park—an amusement park whose biggest attraction seemed to be waterslides and some great pool that made waves children could surf on. The park was for the children, but the hotel was for the adults. Smart move, she thought. Lazlo was not an idiot. At least there was that.
The chandeliers sprinkled multicolored lights onto the marble floors. The entire far wall was a water feature, a thin sheet of water flowing down two stories of rocks, looking as if you could walk right through it into another world. There were signs pointing to the spa, several gift shops, two restaurants—one family-friendly, one more elegant—and a bar.
This might not be so bad, Selma kept telling herself. She could probably get a new car and a condo out of this. Some jewelry she could pawn later. But this wasn’t how she’d planned to use her last charm. The last one was supposed to be used to finally get everything she wanted.
She walked up to the reception desk. The clerk was a young man, but his eyes did what all male eye
s did when she wore this particular dress: They dropped to her outrageously exposed cleavage and lingered helplessly.
“Would you please ring Mr. Lazlo Patterson and tell him his four-o’clock appointment is here,” Selma said, giving him a slow smile.
“Certainly, ma’am,” the boy said, tearing his eyes away from her. She was old enough to be his grandmother. She wondered if he realized that. Probably not. No one sees your age if you’re bold enough. He murmured a few words into the phone, then paused and said to Selma, “Ma’am, he says he doesn’t have a four-o’clock appointment.”
“How silly of him to forget,” Selma said. “Tell him it’s Selma, from Lost Lake.”
The boy relayed her message, then hung up the phone. “He said he’ll be right down.”
Selma turned and walked across the lobby to the bar, giving the boy a show. She took a seat and ordered a Scotch, neat.
She sighed and shook her head in disbelief that she was actually doing this. She’d seduced a lot of men in her life, but never one that she actively disliked.
She reached into her small red purse. She found the charm inside by its warmth. Her fingers closed around it gently, and she felt it tremble like a caught butterfly. For a moment she felt sadness. She didn’t want to let it go. This was the last of who she was, of what she’d spent a lifetime being.
“You could have gotten me into a lot of trouble. I was with my wife,” Lazlo said, appearing by her side. He was as distasteful as she remembered—hair dyed that ridiculous black, a bad face-lift that raised his brows to an unnatural angle. His eyes went right to her cleavage. He didn’t even look away to order his drink “That was a nice touch, saying we have an appointment.”
“You sound surprised,” Selma said seductively. “I’m very good at what I do.”
“Of that I have no doubt. But we have to be discreet. My wife…”
Selma leaned in and whispered, “You don’t need her. You have me.”
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