Kristin Hannah

by On Mystic Lake (v5)

  “You’ll never forget her, Izzy. You remember her laugh? The way it used to spike up at the end, just before she started snorting? And the perfume she liked to wear? And the feel of her hand in yours? You remember how it used to feel to snuggle in her lap and hear her read you a bedtime story? All of that is your mom. My mom’s been gone a long, long time, and I still think of her every time I smell vanilla. I still talk to her at night, and I believe she hears me.” She brushed a lock of black hair from Izzy’s earnest little face. “She hears you, honey. She just can’t answer, is all. But that doesn’t matter. You snuggle under your blankets with Miss Jemmie and close your eyes and remember one thing about your mom—just one—and the next thing you know, she’ll be in bed beside you. You’ll feel yourself getting warmer, or you’ll see the moonlight get a little brighter, or the wind will moan a little louder, and you’ll know. In her own way, she’s answering you.” Annie took Izzy’s cheeks in her hands and smiled down at her. “She’s always with you.”

  She held Izzy close and talked and talked and talked, laughing every now and then, and occasionally wiping a tear from her eye. She talked of girlhood pranks and loves lost and found, and wedding days; she talked of babies being born and growing up, and of Natalie. She talked about Nick, and how strong and handsome he had been and how much he loved Kathy, and how sometimes grief sent a person into a deep, cold darkness from which there seemed to be no escape.

  She was still talking when night fell and plunged the room in darkness, when Izzy’s breath took on the even wheezing of a deep and peaceful sleep.

  Spring chased away the last vestiges of winter, threw its bright colors across the rain forest. Dainty crocuses, hyacinths, and daffodils bloomed in beds, along walkways, and in pockets of sunlight in the damp, needle-strewn forest floor. The birds returned, sat together on telephone wires, and dove for bits of string on the road. Jet-black crows hopped across the lawn, cawing loudly to one another, and used the driveway as a landing strip.

  Against her father’s pointed advice, Annie had packed a small suitcase and moved into Nick’s house. It had proved to be a blessing, for although the nights were still long and lonely, she found that she now had someone to help her through it. She was no longer alone. When she woke in the middle of the night, her heart pounding from familiar nightmares, she climbed into bed with Izzy and held her tightly.

  They spent all their time together, she and Izzy. They went to town, baked cookies, and made jewelry boxes from egg cartons. They concocted elaborate care packages for Natalie and mailed them every few days. They worked out of kindergarten and first-grade workbooks, to ensure that Izzy was still learning what she needed for school. And every evening, Nick called to say good night.

  Today, Annie had special plans. It was time to revive Kathy’s garden.

  She stood at the wobbly white picket fence that framed the garden, and Izzy was beside her. The earth was a rich brown, soggy to the touch from last night’s heavy rain. Here and there, puddles winked with a strange, silvery light.

  Annie set down her big cardboard box and began extracting her tools: spades, hand shovels, trowels, scissors.

  “I wish I’d paid more attention to the gardeners at home,” she said, spying a big lump of brown twigs that looked promising. “That must be something good—or it’s the biggest individual pile of weeds I’ve ever seen. And see how they’re growing in clumps—that surely must be a good sign. I think cutting it back will help; at least that’s what Hector at the Feed Store said. Come on, Izzy.” She led her across the necklace of stepping stones that formed a meandering trail through the large garden. They stopped at the patch of dead stuff.

  Annie knelt. She could feel the moisture seeping from the soil into her pants, squishing cold and clammy against her skin. Pulling on a pair of gloves, she attacked the dead plant and yanked a handful out by the roots. “Bulbs,” she said with a triumphant smile. “I knew it.”

  She turned to Izzy, gave her a self-satisfied look. “I knew it was a flower all along. Never questioned it, no sirree.”

  She separated and replanted the bulbs, then attacked the dead stalks of perennials with her clippers, hacking everything down to ground level. “You know what I love about gardening? Paying someone to do it for me.” She laughed at her own joke and kept working. She pulled up everything that looked like a weed and divided and replanted all the bulbs. At last, she turned to the roses, carefully pruning the thorny branches. As she worked, she hummed. She tried to think of a song that Izzy would know, but all she could come up with was the alphabet song, and so she sang it in her wobbly, off-key voice. “A-B-C-D-E-F-G . . . H-I-J-K . . . L-M-N-O-P.”

  She frowned suddenly and looked down at Izzy, keeping her gaze averted from the tiny black glove. “My goodness, I’ve forgotten the alphabet. Not that it matters, of course. It’s just a song and I’m sure I’ll remember it in no time. “L-M-N-O-P. Well, there I go again, getting stuck on P.”

  Izzy reached slowly for a trowel. It took her a while to pick it up with only two fingers, and after the first fumbling attempts, Annie couldn’t watch.

  She kept singing. “H-I-J-K . . . L-M-N-O-P . . . darn it. There’s that block again. Oh, well. I think we’re about done for a while. I’m starving. What do you say we—”

  “Q.”

  The spade fell from Annie’s hand and hit the ground with a thunk. She looked at Izzy, who was still kneeling in the dirt, awkwardly pulling up weeds with her two “visible” fingers as if nothing had happened. The moment bloomed, full of beauty and possibilities.

  Izzy had spoken.

  Annie released her breath in a slow sigh. Stay calm, Annie. She decided to act as if speaking were as normal as not speaking. “Why, I do believe you’re right. L-M-N-OP. . .Q-R-S . . .”

  “T-U-V. ”

  “W-X-Y . . . and Z.” Annie felt as if she would burst with pride and love. She forced herself to keep digging weeds for a few more minutes. She wanted to shriek with happiness and pull Izzy into her arms, but she didn’t dare. She didn’t want to scare Izzy back into silence.

  “There,” she said at last. “That’s enough for now. My arms feel like they’re going to fall off. Jean-Claude—that was my personal trainer in California—he would be so proud of me right now. He always said I didn’t sweat. I said if I wanted to sweat, I wouldn’t wear color-coordinated clothes that cost a fortune.” She wiped a dirty hand across her slick forehead. “I have lemonade in the fridge, and some leftover chicken from last night. What do you say we have a picnic dinner out here? I could make us milkshakes . . .”

  When Izzy looked up at her, there were tears in her eyes.

  At last, Annie pulled the little girl into her arms.

  Chapter 14

  Cigarette smoke swirled in a thick blue haze beneath a ceiling of stained acoustical tiles.

  Nick stood in the open doorway of a long, narrow room in the windowless basement of the Lutheran church. Two wood-grain Formica tables hugged the back wall, their surfaces covered with coffeemakers and Styrofoam cups and boxes stacked with packaged sugar and instant creamer. There was a crowd of people at the Coke machine, and an even larger crowd at the coffeepot. The smell of burnt coffee mingled with the bitter stench of the cigarettes.

  People sat in folding metal chairs, some comfortably stretched out, some perched nervously on the edge of their seats. Nearly all of them were smoking cigarettes.

  He didn’t know if he could go through with this, if he could stroll into this smoky room and throw his vulnerability on one of those cheap-ass tables and let strangers dissect it. . . .

  “It’s harder than hell the first time. All the tension of first sex, with none of the fun.”

  Nick turned and saw Joe standing behind him.

  The older man’s shoe-leather-brown face was creased into a relieved smile. “I hoped you’d show up. It was sort of a shock to my system after all those years of hoping you’d never show up.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Joe,” Nic
k said.

  Joe laid a hand on Nick’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “I’m proud of you, Nicholas. Not disappointed. Life’s thrown a lot of curves your way—enough to crush a weaker man. I couldn’t be prouder of you if you were my own son. If Louise were here, she’d say, ‘Give that boy a hug, Joseph,’ and I think I will.”

  It was the first time Joe had ever hugged him, and Nick didn’t quite know how to respond. For as long as he could remember, he’d thought there was something wrong with him, something essential missing at his core, and he’d spent a lifetime waiting to be unmasked. He’d shielded himself from the people he loved—Kathy, Izzy, Louise, and Joe—afraid that if they saw the real Nick, they’d turn away. But Joe had seen the truth, seen all of Nick’s weaknesses and failures, and still he was here, claiming Nick as his son.

  When Joe drew back, his black eyes were moist. “It’s going to get tougher before it gets better. You’ve just jumped into the deep end, and you’ll think you’re drowning. But I’m here to keep your head above water.”

  “Thanks, Joe.” He didn’t say for everything, but he could see that Joe understood.

  “Come on,” Joe said. “Let’s sit down.”

  They headed into the room. Over the next few minutes, more people wandered in, some talking among themselves, others noticeably silent.

  Nick shifted in his seat. His feet tapped nervously on the floor. The repetitive sound only increased his anxiety.

  “It’s okay, Nick,” Joe said quietly. “Why don’t you get yourself some coffee.”

  “Right.” He surged to his feet and cut across the room. Fishing a few quarters from his pocket, he got a Classic Coke and snapped the tab, drinking greedily.

  Feeling a little better, he went back to his seat and the meeting got under way.

  A man introduced himself: “Hi, I’m Jim. I’m an alcoholic.” The crowd of people answered back like good Catholics on Sunday, “Hi, Jim.”

  Jim stood in the front of the room and started talking. First there was the “God grant me” prayer, then stuff about meetings and twelve steps and more on serenity.

  A young woman stood up suddenly. She was tall and rail-thin, with bleached yellow-white hair and skin the color of candlewax. Obviously shaking, she stepped past the row of chairs and stood in front of everyone.

  She looked as if she hadn’t eaten in a year, and Nick had been a cop long enough to recognize the signs of long-term drug use. No doubt needle marks ran like train tracks up the insides of her pale arms. She took an endless drag off her cigarette and exhaled heavily. “I’m Rhonda,” she said, nervously eyeing the crowd, “and I’m an alcoholic and an addict.”

  “Hi, Rhonda,” said the crowd on cue.

  She sucked in another lungful. “Today’s my seventh sober day.”

  There was a round of applause; a bunch of people yelled “Way to go, Rhonda!”

  Rhonda gave a wan smile and stubbed her cigarette out on the ashtray in front of her. “I’ve tried this before—lots of times. But this time’ll be differ’nt. The judge said if I can stay clean for one year, I can see my son again.” She paused and wiped her eyes, leaving a black tail of mascara down one white cheek. “I used to be a normal girl, going to junior college, working part-time as a waitress in a ritzy restaurant. Then I met this guy, Chet, and before I knew it, I was guzzling tequila and backing it with mountains of coke.”

  She sighed, stared dully at the open door. “I got pregnant, and kept drinking. My Sammy was born small and addicted, but he lived. I shoulda been there for him, but all I thought about was getting high and drunk. My son wasn’t enough to make me quit drinking and snorting.” Her lower lip started to shake, and she bit down on it. “Nooo, I had to drive drunk. I had to hurt someone.” She sniffled hard and regained a measure of control. “So, here I am, and this time I mean it. I’m gonna do anything to see my son again. This time I’m gonna get clean and stay clean.”

  When Rhonda was finished, someone else started talking, then another and another. They all used different words, but the stories were the same, tales of loss and pain and anger. Hard-luck stories and bad-luck stories from people who’d been through hell on earth.

  Nick was one of them, he knew it by the close of the meeting, and there was a strange comfort in admitting that, in knowing he wasn’t the only one in the world trying to wrestle with a bottle of booze.

  Izzy couldn’t sleep. She went to her window and stared outside. Everything was dark and scary-looking. The only light was tiny white flecks on the black lake. Annie said those were stars fallen from the sky.

  She turned away from the window. All week long, ever since Annie had told her that her daddy wasn’t coming home, she’d been scared. Yesterday, she’d stood at the window for a long time, waiting. So long that Annie had come up to her.

  I don’t know when he’ll be coming home, Izzy. That’s what Annie had said to her. You remember I told you that your daddy was sick? The doctors say he needs a little time—

  But Izzy knew the truth about doctors. Her mommy had seen lots and lots of them, and none of them ever made her mommy feel better.

  They wouldn’t help her daddy, either.

  Izzy hadn’t been able to stop crying. I miss him was all she said to Annie, but there was a lot more she didn’t say. She didn’t say that she’d been missing him for a long, long time, and she didn’t say that the man with the silver hair wasn’t really her daddy—because her daddy never got sick and he laughed all the time. She didn’t say that she thought her real daddy had died when her mommy died, and that he wouldn’t ever be coming back.

  Izzy crept down the stairs and sneaked outside. It was raining gently, and a mist floated on the top of the grass, so thick that she couldn’t see her feet.

  “Mommy?” she whispered, hugging herself. She closed her eyes and concentrated really, really hard. When she opened her eyes, she saw her mommy, standing alongside the lake. The vision was shimmery and out of focus. Mommy stood with her shoulders rounded and her head cocked at an odd angle, as if she were listening for footsteps, or the sound of a bird’s call in the middle of the night. The rain turned all sorts of colors, red and yellow and pink and blue.

  You should be sleeping, little girl.

  “Daddy’s sick again.”

  Her mom made a quiet sound, or maybe it was a breeze, kicking up along the water. He’ll be okay. I promise.

  “I miss you, Mommy.” Izzy reached for her. There was a whisper of something not quite solid against her fingertips, a brushing of heat. She closed her hand around . . . nothing.

  The touching days are gone for me, pumpkin.

  “Mommy, I love you, Mommy.”

  I’m sorry, Izzy-bear. God, I’m so sorry . . .

  Izzy reached out, but it was too late. Her mom was gone.

  An unusual wave of heat rolled across Jefferson County. Flowers unfurled and reached skyward for the precious sunlight. Baby birds squawked from nests in green-budded trees. It still rained each night, but by dawn, the world was a sparkling, gilded jewel.

  Annie made sure that Izzy was busy all the time. They colored Easter eggs, baked cookies, and drew pictures for Nick—presents for the day he would return. They shopped on Main Street and bought Natalie hokey presents from the rain forest: pens with ferries in them, slug cookbooks, postcards of Lake Mystic. They doubled their reading efforts, until Annie was certain that Izzy was ready to go back to school. But when she mentioned this hope to Izzy, it scared her. I don’t wanna go back. They’ll make fun of me. Annie had let the issue rest there, knowing that it wasn’t her decision anyway. She hoped that when Nick came home, they could convince Izzy to return to school.

  But for now, their routines were comforting. Izzy was talking regularly; it no longer seemed hard for her to remember the words. They were gaining strength from each other.

  Annie had finally learned to sleep alone. She knew it didn’t sound like much, but to her, it was momentous. Sometimes, when she left Izzy and crawled into her empty
bed, she didn’t even think about the man who used to sleep with her; sometimes she went for whole days without thinking about him. Oh, the ache was still there, and the loneliness, but day by day, she was learning that she could survive without him. She still didn’t want to, but she knew now that she could.

  Every Monday, like clockwork, she called London and heard about Natalie’s week. In her daughter’s voice, she heard a burgeoning maturity that filled Annie with pride. Natalie wasn’t a child anymore, and when she learned of the divorce, she would be able to handle it.

  And Annie finally understood that she could handle it, too. Last night, when Terri had called (after ten minutes of grilling Annie about who this Nick character was and why Annie was staying at his house), she had finally settled down and listened to Annie, and when the conversation was over, Terri had said quietly, Of course you can handle it, Annie. You’re the only one who thought you couldn’t.

  Easter Sunday arrived wrapped in clouds and drenched in rain, but Annie refused to let the uncooperative weather ruin her plans. She dressed Izzy warmly and drove her to Hank’s, where the three of them had a huge brunch and a world-class egg hunt. Then they went to church services in town. Afterward, Annie and Izzy drove back to the house, and Annie gave her a small, wrapped gift. “Happy Easter, Izzy.”

  Izzy tried to open the package with her two good fingers, and the failing effort pinched at Annie’s heart. “Here, I’ll do it, sweetheart. It’s hard when your fingers are gone.”

  Annie unwrapped the shiny paper, then placed the box on the coffee table.

  Biting back a grin, Izzy flipped open the box top. Inside, on a bed of white tissue paper, was a bronze medallion the size of a quarter, resting on a coil of thin silver chain. At Izzy’s frown, Annie took the compass from the box and placed it in Izzy’s hand.

  “When I was a girl, I thought I was lost all the time. Then my dad gave me this compass, and he told me that if I wore it, I’d always know where I belonged.” Annie sighed softly. She hadn’t kept wearing the compass. Instead, she’d gone all the way to California and lost her sense of direction again. If only there were some internal mechanism that pointed unerringly to the true north of our selves. It was so damned easy in life to get lost. “So,” she said at last, “do you want to learn how it works?”