Moonlight on Butternut Lake

by Mary McNear

  So the plan she’d settled on by the time the elevator doors opened was this: board a city bus, get off at the last stop, then board another one. And another one after that. Until she’d run out of buses. Or money. The point was to get as far away from Brandon as possible. After that, she’d figure things out. She wasn’t worried about being able to support herself. She was young and healthy and willing to work hard. There was no reason why she couldn’t start over again somewhere else, somewhere where there was no Brandon.

  When she’d hurried though her apartment building’s small lobby and pushed through the front door, though, the blast of icy evening air that hit her was almost enough to weaken her resolve. In her hurry, she’d forgotten her hat and gloves and scarf. But there was nothing she could do about it now. So she turned right and hurried down the block, glancing nervously over her shoulder at their building receding behind her. No sign of Brandon yet. She walked faster, as fast as she could without attracting attention, her suitcase careening down the sidewalk after her, her eye throbbing with pain. When she got to a bus stop six blocks from their apartment, she stopped. She never took this bus, so Brandon wouldn’t think to look for her here. She sat down on the bench and tried to blend in with the dozen or so other people waiting for the bus. She was freezing. She pulled her coat collar up and pushed her hands deep into her pockets, then clenched her teeth so that they wouldn’t chatter and prayed silently that the bus would come soon. She stood up and walked to the curb, craning her neck to see if she could see it in the distance. She couldn’t. She sat back down on the bench and continued her vigil, praying silently for the bus to come. Please come. Please come. Please, please.

  Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, Mila saw the other people waiting with her at the bus stop stir with movement. The bus was coming, its oversized headlights shining in the bluish twilight. She sat up straighter, pulled her suitcase closer, and watched as it approached. Oh thank God, she thought. Relief broke over her. Inundated her. Buoyed her. She was practically floating on it as she tightened her grip on the suitcase’s handle and started to stand up. And that was when she felt a hand on her shoulder. A strong, possessive hand that gripped her too tightly to be friendly and that pushed her, forcibly, back down onto the bench. She cried out in surprise, but nobody noticed over the squeal of the bus’s brakes.

  “Mila,” Brandon said softly into her ear, leaning over the back of the bench. “Did you really think you were going to be able to leave me? Just like that?”

  And Mila, watching people board the bus, felt an unbearable sadness. “No,” she said, quietly, after a moment. “I didn’t really think so.”

  He came around and sat down beside her on the bench. Together they watched the bus pull away. Outwardly, Brandon was almost eerily calm and in control. Inwardly, she knew, he was full of a cold, black rage that was Brandon at his most volatile. And most dangerous.

  “I came home, Mila,” he said quietly, “and you were gone. And your suitcase was gone. And you’d thrown your keys in the wastebasket. Why would you do that, Mila? Why would you throw your keys away?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Well, I’ll answer that for you, Mila,” he said. “You threw them away because you didn’t think you’d need them again, did you? You weren’t planning on coming back. But you should have known I wouldn’t let you leave.” His voice was even as he continued, “Not now. Not ever. And, Mila? If you ever try to do this again, I’ll do the same thing I’ve done today. I’ll come and find you. Wherever you are. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth and back again, if necessary. But I will never, ever, ever, let you go. Do you understand me, Mila?”

  She nodded miserably. She understood him.

  “One more thing,” he said, leaning closer. “I don’t know what’s happening between you and our neighbor, but if I ever find you with him or with any other man, I will kill him. So help me God, Mila, I will kill him.” He let that sink in for a moment. “Now, let’s go,” he said, picking up her suitcase.

  She followed him home. She was amazed, actually, that she was able to. Her limbs felt so leaden, and so heavy, that she could barely make them work. She wondered distantly if it was the cold that was making them feel that way, but she decided it wasn’t. It was hopelessness.

  Several months later, on a warm and balmy May morning, Mila was standing on her tiptoes, putting a winter blanket away on the top shelf of the closet, when something caught her eye. It was the cardboard box she kept Heather’s letters in, and though it had been over a year since she’d opened it for any other reason than to put a new letter in it, she lifted it off the shelf now, and flipped its lid open. Then, still in her nightgown—it seemed pointless, lately, to get dressed in the morning, just as it seemed pointless to get out of bed—she knelt down on the floor and started to go through the box. One of the first things she saw was a photograph of her and Heather, taken by the school secretary when Mila was in fifth grade. She’d seen it many times before, but now, as she took it out and studied it, she felt as if she was seeing it for the first time. How different she’d looked then. Most of the difference, of course, was due to age. But not all of it was. No, there was something else, too. In the picture, she looked so . . . so full of life, she decided. So full of hope. She didn’t look that way anymore. Not that she spent a lot of time looking in the mirror. She didn’t. In fact, on the few occasions recently she’d caught a glimpse of herself in it, she’d been frightened by what she’d seen. Her reflection looked dull, flat, and lifeless.

  She touched her fingertip to her image in the photograph, as if trying to recapture something from it. But she knew she couldn’t. She’d had a dream then. She’d wanted to be a nurse. And though she’d finished her prerequisites for nursing school, she knew there was no point in even applying. She couldn’t go. Not now. Not when it was all she could do to just hang on from one day to the next. So that dream was gone. Another casualty of her marriage to Brandon.

  She thought sometimes about being a home health aide. She’d gotten her certification before she’d met Brandon. But again, what was the point? Brandon didn’t want her to do it—didn’t want her to do anything, she’d come to realize, but sit in the apartment and wait for him to come home. And so she waited, and she hoped it would make her unbearable marriage a little easier to bear.

  Now she put the photograph of her and Heather back in the box and started to put the box away, too, but she changed her mind and dumped all the letters out onto the floor instead. Then she organized them chronologically, and, starting with the first one Heather had ever written to her, she reread each one of them. She read them slowly and carefully, almost as if she was trying to commit them to memory. Heather had believed in her, she realized, as she refolded an early letter and slid it back into its envelope. She’d seen something in a shy, insecure nine-year-old that no one else had ever seen before or since.

  It took Mila the better part of the day to reread the letters—a day spent sitting on the floor of a cramped closet—but by the time she was done, she felt strangely energized. She hurried to shower and dress, and she took care to blow-dry her hair and powder over the remnants of a bruise on her cheek. She could do this, she told herself, as she carried the box of Heather’s letters over to the front door, where it was still sitting when Brandon came home from work that night.

  “You look nice,” he said approvingly, giving her the once-over.

  “Thank you,” she said, making an effort to smile.

  “And you’re in a good mood. That’s a nice change. You know how tired I get of you acting depressed all the time.” He noticed the box beside the front door. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Heather’s letters to me,” she said casually.

  “What are you doing with them?”

  “Recycling them.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “They were taking up too much space in the closet.”

  “But I thought they were so special to you.” There w
as a slightly sarcastic emphasis on the word special that Mila tried to ignore.

  “No, not really. Not anymore. I mean, you know how it is. People just . . . drift apart. They lose touch. I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing, do you?”

  “Oh, no, definitely not,” he said, and she saw that he was practically elated by this development. As hard as he’d tried, he’d never yet been able to come between her and Heather, and the letters they still wrote to each other were a constant source of irritation to him.

  “Could you take these to the recycling room now?” she asked Brandon, indicating the box. She needed to be alone for a minute. All this lying was taking its toll on her.

  “Yeah, okay,” he said, and he left with the box. And Mila stood there and tried to not think about all the letters she would never see again. It didn’t matter, she told herself. They were in her head, and in her heart. What mattered was that Brandon didn’t come looking for her at Heather’s house. Because she was leaving him again, only this time she was going to do it right.

  The next day, Mila wrote Heather a letter. It was short—only five sentences—but it took her the whole day, and several drafts, to write. In it, she told Heather that she was starting a new job—she was a little vague about the details—and that she wouldn’t have time to write to her again for a while. She was careful to sound positive and upbeat. She didn’t want Heather to worry about her, though she suspected sometimes that she already did worry about her, and that while Mila was careful to hide the truth about her marriage, Heather had guessed it anyway.

  Finally, though, Mila got the letter right, and in the soft, hazy afternoon light—Brandon would be working late that night—she walked down to the corner and dropped the letter in the mailbox. She felt a mixture of relief and sadness as she walked home, but outside her apartment building she saw a young woman helping an elderly man who was using a walker, and it reminded her of something. She hurried back up to her apartment and took her wallet out of her handbag, then searched through it until she found what she was looking for. It was a business card for Caring Home Care, an agency that placed health aides with patients who needed in-home care. Mary Meyer, the woman who’d taught Mila’s certification class, had given it to her. She’d been impressed with the quality of Mila’s work, and she’d told her that if she ever wanted a placement, she should call her friend Gloria Thompson, who owned the agency.

  Mila slipped the business card out of her wallet and checked her watch. The chance of anyone being at Caring Home Care at five thirty on a Friday evening was almost nonexistent. But something made her pick up the phone and dial the number anyway.

  CHAPTER 13

  Three weeks after her first swimming lesson, Mila sat down beside Allie on the dock and tentatively dipped her toes into the water. “Brrr,” she said, withdrawing them.

  “I know,” Allie said sympathetically. “The lake always gets colder after it rains. But it’ll warm up again,” she said, lowering her own feet into the water.

  After a week of humid, overcast weather, there had been a torrential downpour the night before, and today the sky was a crystalline blue, and the air was so clear that everything seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. The rain had left a hint of coolness behind it, though, and the thought of getting into the now chilly lake wasn’t very appealing to Mila.

  “We’ll just sit here for a few minutes,” Allie said, as if reading her mind. “Just until we get warm enough to actually want to get into the water.” With a contented sigh, Allie leaned back on the dock, resting on her elbows, and turned her face up to the sun. Allie, Mila noted, was in an especially good mood today, and she was tempted, for a moment, to ask her why. But she and Allie had never discussed anything personal before, and Mila was worried that that question might border on the personal, so instead she tested the icy water with her toes again.

  “So, day after tomorrow,” Allie said, her eyes still closed against the sun. “It’s a big day, isn’t it?”

  “A very big day,” Mila agreed, since it was the day that Reid would be trading in his full leg cast for a removable plastic brace, and his wheelchair for a pair of crutches.

  “Do you think he’s ready?” Allie asked. “For the change, I mean?”

  “I think so,” Mila said, knowing that having his cast off was going to mean more freedom for Reid, but also more work for him, too. He was starting physical therapy next week, and Mila had already seen the schedule for it. It was going to be grueling, but at least his pain from the accident had greatly diminished and he rarely needed his pain medication anymore.

  “Well, at least the sponge baths will be over now,” Allie said, with a glimmer of amusement. “I don’t think either of the brothers will miss those. In fact, Reid told Walker that as soon as he gets back from his doctor’s appointment he wants to take a twelve-hour shower.” She added, “It’s going to have to wait, though, because first Walker’s going to bring him over to our cabin for a little celebration.”

  “Oh, that’ll be nice,” Mila said.

  “I hope so. You’ll be there, too, of course.”

  “Me?” Mila said, surprised. “But isn’t it, you know, a family thing?”

  “Not just family,” Allie said, opening her eyes and turning to Mila. “We’ll be having some friends over, too.”

  “But I’m not . . .” She stopped, not knowing how to say this without seeming rude.

  “You’re not a friend?” Allie chided her. “Of course you are.” And then she grinned. “And you’re not just a friend either. You’re also my best swim student.”

  “Your only swim student,” Mila said, laughing.

  “Well, that may be, but I’d still like you to come to the party. Walker and I were just saying how much Reid’s attitude has improved over the last month, and we both think you deserve the credit for that, Mila.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Mila said, studying with sudden interest a new constellation of freckles that had recently appeared on one of her shoulders. “I think Reid’s just . . . more comfortable now,” she said vaguely. “You know, in less pain.”

  “Maybe,” Allie said, but she didn’t sound convinced. Privately, Mila thought Allie was right about one thing though: Reid’s attitude had improved, and if she had to point to the day it had begun to improve, she would point to the day of their picnic four weeks ago. Since then Reid’s rudeness and sarcasm had given way to something different, to respectfulness, or to gentleness, almost, as if he thought Mila was someone who needed to be treated with . . . well, with care. And, as Reid’s attitude had changed, so, too, had his and Mila’s routine. If Reid had an appointment, Mila was as likely now as Walker to drive him to it, and, more often than not, Reid came to the kitchen at mealtimes instead of staying in his room. And then there were those nights when Reid had a nightmare so terrifying that Mila felt she had no choice but to wake him up from it, and then to stay, until morning, in the armchair in his room. But there was nothing unprofessional about their relationship, she told herself. Nothing inappropriate. They hadn’t had any more personal conversations since the one they’d had on their picnic, and they hadn’t had any more physical contact, either, since Reid had kissed her wrist on the deck the night of the full moon. So why, Mila wondered now, couldn’t she bring herself to look at Allie as they talked about Reid?

  “Well, it doesn’t really matter why he’s doing better,” Allie said, swinging her feet vigorously enough off the dock to kick up little sprays of water. “What matters is that he is doing better.”

  “Absolutely,” Mila agreed.

  “And you seem to be settling it, too, Mila,” Allie said, studying her with her astute hazel eyes.

  Settling in? Is that what I’m doing? Mila wondered. As far as she knew, she’d never “settled in” anywhere before—not in the series of apartments she’d grown up in as a child, and not in the apartment she’d lived in with Brandon—but now, with Allie watching her, it occurred to her she might actually be doing just that at this cab
in.

  “I’m very comfortable here, thanks to you and Walker and Lonnie,” Mila said to Allie, and that was true, but it was more than that too. Living at the cabin this summer, Mila felt it was almost as if something inside of her had started to unclench, like a tense muscle that was relaxing. And it wasn’t only that she felt less on edge, though she did, of course—she’d stopped jumping every time she heard a car pull up outside during the day, or every time she heard one of the cabin’s floorboards creak at night—it was also that she’d started to take pleasure in little things, too. Getting a tricky math problem right on a practice test, or listening to Lonnie’s chatter over breakfast, or watching the nighttime shadows quivering on Reid’s ceiling as she fell asleep in the armchair.

  “Good, I’m glad you’re comfortable here,” Allie said, bringing Mila back to the conversation. “That tells me you’ll be comfortable at our party, too. Because except for a few families, it’ll just be us, me and Walker and Wyatt and Brooke and Reid. The same people you see here every day.”

  “I’d like to come to the party,” Mila said, smiling. “But can I at least help you with it?”

  “Nope,” Allie said. “My friend Jax’s daughter, Joy, is going to watch Brooke for me while I get everything ready, but there isn’t actually going to be that much to get ready. I just need to marinate the chicken and the ribs. Caroline’s bringing coleslaw and potato salad and biscuits from Pearl’s.”

  “Lucky you,” Mila said, remembering the mouthwatering Butternut Burger she’d had on her and Reid’s picnic.

  “Lucky us,” Allie corrected her. “Now, for the logistics. Walker and Reid will have the van for the doctor’s appointment, and they’re coming straight from there to our cabin, so I’ll come and pick you up here. Day after tomorrow. Probably around five o’clock, okay?”