The Lake Season

by Hannah McKinnon

  Cooper looked out at the water. “It wasn’t like that. I was just starting over. Besides, it wasn’t long after when things really fell apart.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, the breakdown.”

  Iris turned sharply. “What breakdown?”

  Cooper met her gaze, his eyes narrowing. “You didn’t know?”

  Iris shook her head, a sense of sudden dread filling her stomach. Had Cooper had some kind of breakdown after his divorce? An instant rush of pity ran through her, followed by a wave of dread. She didn’t want to feel pity for Cooper. It was selfish of her, yes. But right now she needed him to be the rock he seemed to be.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you went through that.”

  Cooper shook his head. “Not me. Your sister. Leah.”

  Iris choked, a small laugh growing in her throat. “Wait. You’re telling me that Leah had a nervous breakdown?”

  Cooper studied her curiously. “I wouldn’t joke about something like that, Iris. It was pretty bad.”

  Iris shook her head. “Leah can be sort of emotional, you know? She’s been all over the map, so to speak, all her life. You just don’t know her that well.”

  Cooper turned to her, his brow furrowed. “Iris, this wasn’t any small thing. She was admitted to New Hampshire Hospital. Under an IEA. Didn’t you know?”

  New Hampshire Hospital was a psych facility. A small throb began at the edge of Iris’s brain. “IEA?”

  Cooper’s voice softened. “Yeah. When someone is admitted against their will for their own protection.”

  “Are you saying Leah was suicidal?”

  “I don’t know. But she was in bad shape. She stayed in the hospital for a couple of weeks. I didn’t see her again until ­August.”

  Despite the cool wind, Iris felt choked for air. “No one told me anything about this.” But deep down, Iris had known something was wrong, and the guilt hit her in the stomach. She’d watched Leah pop pills all summer. Hell, she’d even confronted Millie about it. But her mother had blamed it on wedding jitters—no big deal. After all, Leah was prone to anxiety and bouts of mood swings. And, selfishly, Iris had been too distracted with her own troubles to press it further.

  Cooper looked at her empathetically. “Well, your mother knows. And Naomi.” And with that the pieces began to fit. Naomi’s closeness with Leah. The comments she’d made that first morning Iris arrived at the farm: “She’s better now.” The shared looks of concern between Naomi and Millie at the breakfast table. They’d been through something together. Over Leah. Something Iris had not.

  Iris had been kept in the dark. She could’ve been there for her younger sister. She could’ve helped. A mix of anger and worry fueled her and she hopped up from the rock. “I have to go.”

  Cooper leaped up. “Iris, wait.”

  Quickly she climbed down the rocks, holding on to the edges of the large boulders as she scrambled down. “I need to get home.”

  “What for?”

  She’d reached the bottom, where the water lapped at the rocks, and the stone surfaces were slippery with moss.

  “Careful!” Cooper warned as she nearly slid into the lake. But she caught her balance, pulling her arm away just as he reached for it.

  “I’m fine,” she said angrily.

  The sky overhead was rich with purple and orange, dappling the lake like stained glass. She waded out and dove under, her ears ringing as she swam back toward the beach.

  Behind her Cooper was saying something she could not hear. Slicing with her arms, she paddled faster, moving away from him. Her only sister had suffered something life changing but the family had kept her out of it. Even Cooper Woods knew. It was a betrayal that cut as viscerally as her body did through the water. The thought consumed her until she caught a mouthful of water and began to choke.

  “Iris!” Cooper swam up behind her, reaching out with one hand.

  She splashed at him, warning him away. But when she couldn’t stop coughing, she panicked and began to flail.

  “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

  And before she could object, Cooper’s arm encircled her waist. She found herself on her back, looking up at the sky as he stroked with his free arm, pulling them both to shore. Overhead the sky burned redder than any Iris had ever seen before.

  • • •

  Cooper made a small fire on the beach with some scrap wood from the back of his truck and pine branches from the cedars along the shore. Iris huddled under a blanket he’d found in the cab, staring at the embers. She was too drained to object.

  “Thirsty?” he asked, holding out a canteen of water in one hand and a beer in the other. Iris pointed to the beer, then pressed the bottle to her lips, letting the grainy liquid suffuse the bad taste in her mouth.

  “Can I get you something else?”

  Iris shook her head. She felt sick.

  Cooper settled beside her and twisted the top off his own beer. When her bottle was empty she set it on the rocks beside her and turned to him.

  “Let me get this straight. Leah had a nervous breakdown last summer. And you’ve known about it all this time?”

  Cooper met her gaze warily. “Only because I happened to be there when it all went down. Iris, I thought you knew.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Tell me everything.”

  Cooper let his breath out. Clearly this was uneasy territory for him. “We’d spent a few weekends hanging out last summer, going out on the lake and that sort of thing. But then Leah sort of disappeared. Didn’t leave the farm much anymore, didn’t return calls.”

  “That’s not that unusual for her,” she said flatly. “Her moods change with the wind.”

  “This was different,” Cooper said. “Until, suddenly, she popped up again one weekend, as if nothing happened. A bunch of us went out on the boat that night, and she had too much to drink. She just started getting really silly, dancing around, like she was that night in the bar. And out of the blue she began sobbing, and lay down on the floor of the boat.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t know. Naomi was there, too. We tried to calm her down. Then before I knew what was happening she jumped off the boat and tried to swim back to shore.”

  “Jesus.”

  Cooper winced. “It was so dark that night. We couldn’t see her, but we could hear the splashing.”

  “Then what?”

  “I went in after her. When I caught up, I tried to convince her to swim back to the boat, but she fought me. She kept screaming to just let her go. The second I loosened my grip, she went under. It was like she didn’t want help.”

  Iris wrapped the blanket more tightly around her. “What are you saying? She was trying to drown herself?”

  Cooper shook his head wearily. “I don’t know, Iris. It was scary as hell; I’ve never seen someone so distraught. I pulled her out and we all got her back in the boat as fast as we could.”

  “Was she conscious?”

  “Yeah, but she was out of it. Naomi and I rushed her home, to your folks’ place, and woke them up. Your mom took one look at her and called the ambulance.”

  “My God.” Iris raked her hand through her damp hair. The awful images swirled through her head; her parents, Leah. And, of all people, Cooper Woods.

  Cooper recounted the rest of the details gently. How he followed the ambulance to the hospital with Bill, and how erect her father had sat in the front of the truck, saying nothing. How Millie had paced the waiting room of the ER, refusing to speak until the doctors gave them word.

  He paused. “I waited a little while with your folks, but it was pretty clear I was in the way. I was just leaving when one of the doctors came out to talk to your parents. I overheard him say that they’d restrained her.”

  Iris closed her eyes, trying to imagine her mother’s
face. She already knew intuitively what it had shown. The pain of a mother for her child.

  “And yet they told me none of this. Not even to this day, a year later.” Iris stared into the small flames, trying to make sense of it. Leah’s mood swings and medications. The secrecy of it all. And the unavoidable feeling of being an outsider in her own family. “Instead we’re cheerfully planning a wedding, the event of the season, as if nothing ever happened.”

  Cooper picked up a rock and tossed it into the fire. “After that night, Leah disappeared for a while. I tried calling, but nobody ever answered. Finally, I just drove to the farm stand. Your mom acted like everything was perfectly normal. Thanked me for my concern. Said Leah was fine, just getting over a bad flu. I got the message pretty quick.”

  “A bad flu? Was she delusional?” Iris rested her head in her hands. Typical Millie. Family matters were private. She recalled her mother’s tight smile as she handed over the bag of vegetables to Cooper that first day she came home. As if he hadn’t been the one to deliver her soaked, distraught daughter safely home that night.

  Cooper shook his head. “A few weeks later I was down at the boat launch, and Leah came to see me. She looked pretty thin and worn-out. She thanked me for helping her that night. Said she was sorry to drag me into it, that things had been hard for her, and she’d had to make some rough choices.”

  “Choices?”

  Cooper shrugged. “I still don’t know what she meant by that. Maybe that she’d tried to work things out by herself. Maybe she was too embarrassed to tell you.”

  “Embarrassed?”

  “Well, let’s be honest, Iris. Look at you.”

  Iris turned to him, the fire crackling loudly in the stillness. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re the one who made something of herself. You’re married. With the family and the house and the picket fence. Christ, Iris. That’s everything to most people.”

  Iris laughed bitterly. Cooper didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “It’s true. You had it all. And Leah was kind of floundering around in your wake.”

  Whether it was the way Cooper was defending Leah or the way in which he portrayed Iris’s life that angered her, Iris wasn’t sure. But something inside her snapped.

  “Leah could’ve had any of that if she wanted it. She chose herself.”

  The fire hissed and spit between them, and Cooper held her eyes in the orange glow before turning away. She’d done it again. She’d alienated the only person she’d wanted to keep close.

  After a moment, she went to him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This is about my family. You’re just an innocent bystander. Who acted pretty heroically, given the circumstances.”

  He turned to face her, his expression uncertain.

  “There’s a lot of personal stuff getting unearthed. At a time when my plate is already full, you know?” She looked up at him hopefully.

  He nodded. “I understand. Let me bring you home.”

  Iris stood nearby as Cooper kicked at the remnants of the fire, smothering the last of it with sand. This night was supposed to be theirs; a chance to confide in Cooper about the divorce, the jagged news she’d held close and was finally ready to release. And instead, once more, the night had become Leah’s. Her breathy voice wafting across the lake surface, finding them on the beach. Intrusive, suffocating. But, always, alluring.

  On the drive home Iris rested her head against the truck window, her temple knocking against the pane with every jostle of the lake road. It was a relief to be feeling something.

  Twenty

  Monday morning Iris found herself practically sprinting down Main Street to keep up with her mother and sister. Adele was waiting already for them on the sidewalk of Patty’s Boutique as they hurried toward her.

  “We’re here!” Millie announced, as if the woman couldn’t see for herself the three harried figures huffing toward her.

  Iris had kept silent in the backseat of the car on the drive into town that morning, still smarting from Cooper’s revelations.

  Now, surrounded by racks of gauzy white dresses, amid all the trappings of happy endings, Iris sat sandwiched between Adele and Millie as Leah stepped out of the dressing room for her last fitting.

  “Oh!” Adele gasped in approval as Leah stood before them. “It’s lovely, darling. Stephen will be dumbstruck.”

  And despite the fact that Iris had seen Leah in the dress before, it still gave her pause. Looking rosy and healthy, she showed no sign of the thin or tormented soul from the last summer.

  • • •

  When they were done, the older women went to the front display cases to try to find a new handbag to match Adele’s wedding suit, leaving Iris alone with Leah in the dressing room.

  “Help me out of this thing?” Leah asked.

  Iris rose from the couch slowly. She did not feel like helping her sister with anything.

  She fumbled with the buttons, which were impossibly small. “Careful,” Leah warned. “They’re hand-stitched.”

  “Of course they are,” Iris muttered. She was almost done when she felt Leah’s skin pinch between her fingernails.

  “Ow!” Leah spun around.

  “Sorry,” Iris snapped. She worked more slowly, ignoring ­Leah’s impatient sighs, and avoiding her gaze in the mirror in front of them.

  “What’s with you today?”

  “Nothing,” Iris said. This was not the time to bring things up, though, honestly, she couldn’t imagine when that time might be.

  “If anyone should be edgy, I’d think it’d be me.”

  Iris looked at her sister for the first time all day. Before she could change her mind, she said it. “I could have helped you, you know.”

  Leah stepped out of her gown carefully, and placed it on the hanger. “With what?” she asked distractedly.

  “With everything. Anything.”

  “Is this about Vermont again?”

  Iris waited as Leah tugged on her seersucker shorts and snatched her flip-flops off the floor.

  “I’m talking about last summer.”

  Leah froze, staring at the pink flip-flop in her hand.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Leah?”

  Leah rose from the chair, her voice paper-thin. “What do you mean?”

  And suddenly Iris saw it, behind the glossy hair and freckled complexion. The sadness that shimmered, faintly, in her sister’s gray-green eyes.

  Iris lowered her voice. “I know about last summer. About your . . .” She struggled to find the word. “About your breakdown.”

  Before Leah could answer, Iris grabbed her hands. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

  “Iris,” Leah whispered. “Please. Don’t.” Tears spilled from her eyes, as if some small dam had broken inside her. “Not now. There’re things you don’t understand.”

  “Make me understand. I want to help you.”

  Leah’s eyes darted around the dressing room. “I wanted to tell you.” She paused. “When the time was right.”

  “Then tell me.”

  Leah shook her head. “Iris. I can’t.”

  It stung, but she wasn’t going to walk away this time. “Because you don’t trust me?”

  “It’s not that. It’s complicated.”

  Iris forced a smile. “Leah, if anyone knows anything about complicated . . .” She searched her sister’s gaze hopefully. “Look, we’re both at a crossroads here. Right? This is what sisters are for.”

  When Leah didn’t object, Iris felt herself gaining ground. “How about one day this week the two of us escape the family and grab lunch? We can talk. Really talk, like we should’ve a long time ago.”

  Leah shook her head. “Look, I appreciate it. But I can’t.”

  Iris could see her sister’s
walls going back up. Leah wasn’t going to let her in.

  “Fine.” Iris swept the curtains aside and stepped from the dressing room, tears pressing at her own eyes. But there was no place to escape.

  From a display case at the front of the store, Millie motioned to her. It took every ounce of strength Iris had to compose herself and join them.

  “Iris, what do you think about these purses?”

  Millie held up two small clutches against Adele’s green silk jacket. Both women were studying them intently, and Iris realized it was the first time she’d seen them aligned on anything. “Do you like the gold or the black better?”

  “Remember,” Adele chimed in. “The wedding colors are green and ivory.”

  “Celadon,” Millie corrected.

  Iris put a hand to her temple and stepped into the small space between the two matriarchs, trying to feign interest. As if all that mattered at that moment was selecting an overpriced jeweled handbag, when in the background, the past and present swirled dangerously together behind a flimsy dressing room curtain.

  “The gold,” she said softly. “Definitely the gold.”

  • • •

  “It’s a slippery slope,” Trish said, stabbing a piece of butter lettuce with her fork. She didn’t seem at all surprised. Which left Iris feeling somewhat offended.

  “You mean you saw this coming?”

  “Well, didn’t you?”

  She’d ditched the other women after the fitting and called Trish, insisting that she meet her at the Village Diner for lunch. “Gotta run—it’s a book thing,” she’d lied to Millie. Iris needed a moment for herself, even if it meant stealing it.

  Now, at the diner counter, they were discussing the kiss with Cooper. Something so seemingly superficial given the circumstances. There were plenty more truly important things to discuss with her best friend. But before Trish arrived, Iris had decided against telling her about Leah’s breakdown. The news was still too raw to touch. And it wasn’t her news to share.

  What was hers to share was plentiful enough. Sitting at the diner counter over a salad, she welcomed Trish’s interrogation. If Trish wanted to know about her kiss with Cooper, this time Iris was happy to spill. Hell, she’d reenact it with her lunch plate if Trish asked her to, though it was becoming less enjoyable with every question Trish fired at her.