Lighthouse on the Lake

by Elizabeth Bromke

  Chapter 15—Clara

  “I found something.”

  Clara tapped the speaker icon on her phone just as she pulled the door shut behind her and locked it. Part of her wanted to stay at the cottage for the night, but with the notebook now in her possession, her body was buzzing.

  “What are you talking about?” Kate asked. She sounded different. Distracted.

  Skipping down the path toward her car, Clara pulled the journal from her arm and again examined the exterior. “At the cottage,” she replied. “I found something.” For whatever reason, divulging what she thought she found felt too big to say.

  “Oh!” Kate answered with sudden recognition, as though she’d been swinging on a birch tree, blissfully detached from Earth for a while. “Right. The cottage. What? What is it?”

  “Um,” Clara began, fumbling her way into her car and plopping into the seat with exhaustion. “Can we meet? For a drink, maybe?”

  “Oh,” Kate said again. Clara began to wonder if she’d woken her up from a deep sleep. She was acting so oddly.

  After a beat, Clara raised her voice—only just. “Hel-lo? Kate? Are ya there?”

  “Sorry, right. Yes. I’m here. Sorry, Clara. I just have someone here taking a look at the Inn.”

  Clara smiled and shook her head. Kate’s budding project was destined to consume her. Maybe Clara ought to have called Amelia instead. She opened her mouth to say as much, but Kate went on.

  “Do you normally drink?” Kate asked.

  “No,” Clara replied. “But I have a feeling we might need one.”

  ***

  They met at The Bottle, an eccentric wine bar at the far edge of Birch Village. Clara wasn’t a big fan of The Bottle—too uppity—but Fiorillo’s was out of the question and neither she nor Kate was willing to go to one of the dives inland or The Lake Shack, a tacky tourist trap closer to the marina.

  The Bottle had been Nora’s go-to spot.

  The only way Clara could describe the interior decor was Nantucket Chic. Sailing and boating photographs (in disappointing shades of black and white) hung evenly along the walls. Dark wood furniture, in sparse measure, sat in orderly circles across a hardwood floor. A comically large helm held court at the wall nearest the lake and on either side of that, grand bay windows.

  The bar, shining cleanly from a long stretch at the far side of the room, separated them from two white-shirted barkeeps (is that what you called them if it was a wine bar?). The hostess, a girl probably younger than Clara, stared with boredom, even as Clara and Kate stepped inside. Still, she mustered a snobbish smile. “Welcome to The Bottle. Is it just the two of you this evening?” she asked as Clara and Kate stepped up to her glass stand.

  Kate, steely eyed, had no time for this woman’s pretense. “Yes, and we’ll take the seat by the window.” She pointed to the right of the helm and began walking before the hostess had a chance to grab two thick drink menus. If there was one thing Kate and Clara had in common, it was a distaste for being treated like tourists. Amelia and Megan hated it, too. Come to think of it, no local appreciated the treatment.

  Once they were seated and had ordered the lightest, sweetest wine on the menu, Clara pulled her bag from the back of the chair.

  “So, what is it?” Kate asked as she propped her elbows on the polished tabletop.

  Clara hesitated momentarily, clutching the journal in her hand before sliding it out of her leather bag and pressing it firmly onto the spot in front of her. She kept it there, anchored in place as she looked from it to Kate. Clara sighed. “I think it’s Mom’s—Nora’s, I mean—I think it’s her diary.”

  Kate’s eyes grew wide, and she immediately reached across. “Are you serious? Let me see.”

  Swallowing, Clara pulled it in toward herself. “Hang on,” she answered, feeling foolish and dramatic even though she was trying to be the exact opposite. “Maybe we need to wait until Amelia and Megan are here. We should open it together, right?”

  “Then why did you bring me here?” Kate spat back, now crossing her arms defensively.

  “I don’t want to be the one to hold it. I don’t know. It feels like... like bad luck or something.” Clara bit her lower lip and loosened her grip on the notebook.

  Kate cocked her head, her features softening. “Bad luck? Come on, Clara. Have you opened it yet? Do you even know for sure that’s what it is?”

  Clara shook her head.

  The waiter returned with their drinks, and Kate immediately rose her glass in a toast. Clara frowned with suspicion.

  “To Mom,” the older of the two began. Clara lifted her glass with a degree of uneasiness. Kate continued, “Who left us with more than a house on the harbor, a cottage on a creek, and rental properties. All those turn to dust in the end. Just like you and me, Clara. Nora Hannigan left far more than that for her four daughters.” Kate overemphasized the last word, and Clara felt her cheeks grow hot and her shoulders relax at her sister’s unending drive to make her feel loved.

  “To Mom,” Clara agreed, pushing her glass toward Kate’s.

  They each took a long sip, then Clara offered the notebook across the table. “Here. You’re the oldest. You take this and set up a meeting. We’re going to need all hands on deck.”

  ***

  Managing to set aside the matter of the notebook and enjoying a glass of wine was easier than Clara predicted. Kate was consumed by working on the house on the harbor, or as she continued to refer it, the Inn. Clara giggled each time.

  After her oldest sister (she’d never stop calling Kate her sister) finished walking her through what she’d accomplished, she admitted that she was indeed distracted when Clara had called her to get together.

  “Matt,” Kate confessed, pretending to hide behind her wine glass.

  Clara didn’t find it funny. “Matt Fiorillo?” There were no other Matts in their lives, of course, but the confirmation felt important. Kate nodded. “Was it about...?” Clara began, aiming an index finger at herself.

  “No, no. Of course not,” Kate replied, then turned sheepish. “Well, I mean—” she sighed and shook her head. “Clara, anything Matt and I have to talk about inevitably has to do with you, actually. And yes, to be frank we did talk about you.” The tone shifted, and Clara could have sworn the lights grew dimmer in the already dark bar.

  “Oh?” she studied her wine glass, focusing all her energy on a little line of bubbles at the top of the liquid and how it reminded her of a translucent caterpillar. She wanted to crawl into a hole, not discuss her origins.

  Kate’s fingers appeared in her vision. She was reaching out to hold Clara’s hand, but Clara kept staring at the bubbles.

  “Clara, it’s okay. It was a good conversation. I called him initially to help with working on the Inn. But we had a good talk, too. A little about Mom. A little about you. It helped clear some things up for me.”

  At that, Clara lifted her eyes. “Like what?”

  Kate smiled. “Did you know that Matt came to see if we were selling the house on the harbor?”

  “Yes.”

  “He didn’t want to buy it—well, I mean... he did if we were selling it. He was worried you weren’t going to get as much as us. I guess years ago he came to the house to talk to Mom. He wanted to meet you. She wouldn’t let him, and it turned him off of her. I suppose he sort of held a grudge about it. He worried about you, Clara.”

  “He could have come talked to me when I moved out,” Clara reasoned, feeling like a mopey teenager with a Disney Dad who started a new family elsewhere. It was partially true. Matt had a daughter. A different daughter.

  Kate nodded. “If you had moved out. But you never did. And he didn’t know anything about you.”

  “True,” Clara admitted. After all, Matt Fiorillo, though born and bred in Birch Harbor just like the Hannigan girls, had laid down his roots offshore on Heirloom Island, a miniature chunk of land just south of Heirloom Cove where the House on the Harbor sat. From what Clara knew now, he flipped hou
ses all over the county but kept to himself. He sent his eighth-grade daughter, Viviana, to the private Catholic school on the island, further sequestering them from the mainstream.

  Then again, Clara herself wasn’t so mainstream. To school and home and that was that. She didn’t go out. She didn’t fraternize with other teachers. College was hard enough. There, she barely survived the raucous roommate she had in the dorm for two years before choosing to finish her degree online as much as possible. It wasn’t out of fear that Clara shrunk from society. It was out of habit. Having been raised as a runtish only child to a woman who’d lost her husband years back and got trapped in a midlife crisis from age fifty on, Clara was odd at best. Her physical beauty kept her from being an outright weirdo, it seemed, but she got along best with books and a fresh set of crochet needles, unlike her social-media-obsessed peers.

  “Anyway, whenever you’re ready, maybe we can get together. You, me, and Matt?” Kate asked at last.

  After nodding in uncomfortable agreement, Clara opted to change the conversation. “I met a guy today,” she admitted. It came out all wrong, though. What she wanted to say was that she met her favorite student’s father. But that’s not how it sounded, and now she was outed.

  Kate nearly choked on her wine. “What? What do you mean you met a guy? I have never in my life known you to be interested in men. I seriously thought you might go the Nun route after high school.” A goofy smile spread across Kate’s face as she rambled, and Clara desperately wanted to match it with her own, but she was too humiliated by her own misspeak.

  Backpedaling, Clara waved her hands. “I mean... I met one of my students’ parents. He works at the marina. He could help with the dock reno at the Inn.” Clara shrugged and took a sip, looking out the window with as much nonchalance as she could put on.

  “One question. Is he hot?”

  “Ew!” Clara shrieked in response. “Don’t ever use that word again!”

  Kate rocked back in her seat and cackled gleefully. “I may be your biological mother, but I’m not your mom. Come on, Clara. I never even said I needed help with the dock. So, spill.”

  At that, Clara finally broke. Grinning broadly, she swirled her wine, swallowed the last of it then shook her head playfully. “He’s the father of a teenager, for starters.”

  “Is he single?”

  “Are you asking for yourself?” Clara shot Kate a coy look.

  “I’m asking for you,” Kate replied. “After all, I have my own prospect now.”

  Chapter 16—Megan

  Megan decided to pack an overnight bag for the day trip to Birch Harbor. Just in case.

  As she finished zipping it, her phone rang from the kitchen. Brian was at work, and Sarah was at school. Megan jogged from the living room to snatch up the receiver from the counter—she loved having a landline still... it felt safe.

  “Hello?”

  “I called you last night. I texted you. We are starting to panic up here.” It was Kate.

  Megan let out a sigh. She hadn’t checked her phone since before bed the evening prior.

  ***

  Their night had been busy. First a blow-out argument with Sarah over the trip (despite Megan’s reminders that the teenager wanted to go to Birch Harbor). Then Brian acting weird and begging Megan to “talk” about things.

  She gave in, but it resulted in nil. Instead, they agreed to watch JEOPARDY! together, which was weird. Megan had fallen asleep on the sofa only to be woken up by a gentle nudge. After startling in bewilderment at the touch (those last few months had been particularly cold), she thanked him and trudged up to her room, the master bedroom.

  Not thinking twice about the fact that Brian was following her in there, she flopped into bed and let her eyes roll shut. Then, she felt a second nudge. This one different.

  Desperate for sleep, she had murmured a hm or a what only to hear his voice again—Brian’s. At that, her eyes shot open and panic flashed behind them. The last time he’d stepped foot in the master bedroom was to accuse her of taking his favorite tie about three weeks back. Otherwise, he kept to the guest room and out of her life.

  “Is it Sarah?” Megan had whispered.

  Brian squatted down beside her, his hands hanging on the mattress dangerously near her elbows. She wanted to sit up, but instead just stared at him there, eye-to-eye. Bed level. Megan had jutted out her chin as far as possible to ward off any doubling.

  “No, no,” he whispered back. “She’s fine.”

  “Then what is it?” Megan frowned now.

  Brian’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He looked a bit like a child at that moment, but Megan didn’t dare give in to whatever would come next. “I started to change my sheets this morning but forgot to pull them from the dryer.”

  She clicked her tongue, suppressing a dumb giggle. “So what? Get a different set.”

  “I can’t find them,” he replied, this time giving her a doghouse face—silly and pleading.

  Megan sat up, now suddenly wide awake. “Are you... are you asking to sleep in here?”

  Brian leaned back, his hands still gripping the mattress. Megan could not help but to take in her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s white t-shirt. It pulled taut against his body. It wasn’t the body he had when he was twenty. But it was the body of the father of her daughter. The man who provided for them. The one who wanted to visit her mother’s gravesite.

  “Megan, I can’t sleep on that bed anymore,” he replied. Megan thought she saw a flicker in his eyes. Sincerity in some form. Brian pressed a hand to his back and winced. “It kills my back. You know that.”

  “What about the sofa?”

  He balked.

  Oh well, Megan thought to herself. It was a king-sized bed. She could have suggested that he just sign the paperwork, they sell the house, and he buys his own new house with a new bed.

  But she didn’t.

  Instead, the woman who’d been bracing for a divorce threw back the covers and said, “Get in here.”

  ***

  “Sorry,” Megan replied breathlessly, glancing around the kitchen for her coffee mug. “Busy night. What’s up?” Color flooded her cheeks, and she was thankful Kate couldn’t see her.

  “Clara found something that we all need to take a look at.”

  Having found her mug next to her computer, in the den, Megan took it back to the kitchen and wedged the phone between her ear and shoulder. “What is it?”

  “We think it’s Mom’s diary or journal.”

  “What do you mean you think?”

  Kate’s voice dropped an octave. “I know it is, but Clara is being weird about peeking inside without you and Amelia present.”

  Megan rolled her eyes. “Why is Clara being weird?” It seemed the more concerning detail of the news.

  “Once bitten, twice shy?”

  It made sense. In fact, Megan was surprised Clara was holding up as well as she was. Perhaps that had to do with a fulfilling career and a beautiful home to move into. As Megan had learned quickly, security equated to happiness. Now if only she could secure a little of that...

  “Okay, so did you read it?” Megan asked.

  “No, I just flipped to the front page to see it matched the four pages we got from the estate. I told Clara I’d wait until we all got together.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “Aren’t you coming to town tomorrow?”

  Megan sighed. “Yes, but we sort of have plans.” Her mind flicked to Brian and Sarah and the ensuing road trip. It would be painful and awkward, and she began to regret forcing Sarah to skip her last day of school for the occasion. Maybe it was unfair. Blinking, she added, “Maybe we can change things up. Are you all willing to wait one day?”

  “Yes, of course. I have a ton to do,” Kate answered. Megan detected relief in her voice, and it occurred to her that of the four of them not a single one was anxious to dive back into the annals of Nora Hannigan.

  “Okay, how about this. I’ll talk to Brian tonight. His conf
erence doesn’t start until Friday. I can drive down in the morning, and he can bring Sarah after school tomorrow. She and I will still be at the house—Er... the Inn—and Brian can take off after he pays his respects.”

  “Will he agree to that?”

  “If he doesn’t, then I’ll have to figure something else out.”

  “Just come without him,” Kate suggested.

  Megan bit her lower lip. “It’ll be fine. I think he’ll agree.”

  Kate’s voice lightened. “Okay, it’s settled. We’ll get together tomorrow morning and hash out the journal. Breakfast here?”

  “Make it brunch.” And with that, Megan clicked off and dashed upstairs to get her cell phone. She needed to text her husband.

  Their plans had changed.

  Chapter 17—Amelia

  After agreeing with Kate that they’d put together a sister brunch to examine the journal—all of which Amelia felt was incredibly melodramatic—she could turn her attention to Michael and their research project. But only after fulfilling her promise to Kate to help around the house that morning.

  Amelia scraped the remnants of her egg whites into the garbage disposal. “Okay, what’s the plan?” she asked, wiping her hands on the coarse dish towel that hung from the cabinet door beneath the sink.

  Kate joined her there, dumping half a cup of coffee into the sink and rinsing both the mug and Amelia’s plate with a quick spray of water. “Okay, so I have the basics set up to open as an Air B&B. I worked on that last night. To open as a full-service bed-and-breakfast—I mean the real deal—well, that’ll take a while. I figure in the interim, why not make some money and get our names out there?” Kate flashed a white smile at Amelia, who felt happy for her sister.

  Smiling back, Amelia prodded her on. “That’s a great idea. What’s the plan?”

  “Come take a look.” Kate waved Amelia to the parlor where the evening before they had hauled up an antique dresser with the help of Michael and Matt. Early that morning, Amelia heard Kate rummaging around downstairs, and it was evident that this was her project: a reception desk, just off the front hall on the threshold between the foyer and the parlor. It was a snug fit, but it looked just right.