by Erin Saldin
Now I see. I watch as Abby slowly moves forward and shakes Vera’s hand as if they’re being introduced in a conference room. “Mother,” she says, addressing her for the first time. “It’s Abigail.”
“Thank you,” says Vera, and drops her hand to her lap, where she begins picking at lint on her skirt. “That’s all right, dear.”
Abby catches my eye. See? Addled, her expression says, and I want to tell her that Vera’s not always like this. She has good days and bad days. Like all of us.
“Abigail,” Abby repeats, more loudly. “Your daughter.”
Vera looks up. Peers into Abby’s face. “Kathryn!” Her smile is pure delight.
Abby reacts as though she’s been slapped. She wheels around and steps away from Vera’s chair, moving quickly to the window. I can’t see her face, but her voice, when she speaks again, is a taut line: “No. Not Kathryn. Abigail.”
Vera’s smile becomes uncertain. “Kathryn,” she says, “will be back soon. Won’t she?” Then she looks at me, and I take down the photo from the wall without speaking and hold it out to her, pointing to Abby. But it’s clear that the photo doesn’t register. In Vera’s mind, this is probably just another of those things that she doesn’t understand but assumes she should. So she rolls with it. “How nice to see you,” she says finally to Abby’s back, and pushes the bowl of nuts forward. “Would you like a snack?”
There’s a sigh of resignation as Abby walks back over to Vera. She grabs some almonds and chews. “Terrible,” she says, her mouth full. But at least it’s something.
“Well,” I say, standing, “I guess I should go.” What I don’t say is, Who are you why are you here and what do you want with Vera after all this time don’t hurt her don’t you dare hurt her. The last thing in the world I want to do is leave Vera with Abby, but I can’t get in the way of a family reunion—if that’s what this could even be called. “You two probably want to catch up.”
“Stay,” Abby practically barks. Then she adds, “Please.” Her jaw is clenched, eyes blinking a little too quickly, and I realize I’ve seen this face before on the family members of other residents, those daughters and sons who visit only once a month, maybe less. She’s frightened by this place. People who aren’t comfortable in hospitals are usually pretty uncomfortable at the Royal Pines. It’s lovely enough for what it is, but what it is generally smells like urine and antiseptic spray and sounds like forty souls’ worth of memories echoing against the white walls in a constant, tumbling murmur.
I want to tell Abby that the trick is to listen for only one voice in the murmur, to learn its cadence, to add her voice to Vera’s own until Abby’s words fill in the gaps and what her mother’s saying becomes clear and bright and whole.
I want to tell her all of this. But as I listen to Abby create and fill silences, I know it would be useless. Abby doesn’t want to hear what Vera has to say. I don’t know why she’s here now, or what she wants, but it’s clear that, when it comes to her mother, Abby would rather not hear anything at all.
• • •
We walk out at four, just as one of the nurses comes in to wheel Vera down to dinner. I’m lagging behind so I can text Georgie (You won’t believe who showed up at the nursing home today), but Abby slows and waits for me.
“Ridiculous time to eat,” she says as we walk through the sliding doors into the rain. “They must go to bed at six.”
I slide my phone into my pocket, pull my shoulders in, and huddle against myself. Of course she doesn’t know that Vera is asleep by seven at the latest. She doesn’t know anything. But I say, “Yeah.” The rain, which started while we were inside, is thick and insistent.
“She has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow,” says Abby. “A follow-up on the stroke.”
“Mini-stroke,” I say.
“Tomato, toe-mah-toe,” says Abby. “It’s still a serious medical event.”
“Is that why you’re here?” I ask.
Abby peers at me through the rain, and I can’t tell if she’s glaring. “Partly, yes,” she says, and then doesn’t say anything else.
I can barely see my bike through the sheets of water. “Well,” I say, “I have to go.” I can feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. Probably Georgie. She knows no one’s visited Vera since I started working here. When I describe Abby later, I don’t think Georgie’ll be surprised at all.
Abby doesn’t offer me a ride. Instead, she says, “Remind me of your schedule.”
“Wednesday and Friday,” I tell her. “During the school year, I come in the afternoons. But now—” I shrug. “Anytime during the day, really.”
“And that’s what I’m paying you for,” she says.
“What?”
“I mean, that’s all I’m paying you for. Today’s Monday. Not your scheduled day.”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
“I just want to be clear. I’m paying for two days.” Abby wipes at the rain dripping down her forehead with the sleeve of her caftan. She looks annoyed at the rain, annoyed to be having this conversation. Well, fine, I want to say. Let’s not, then. “I’m only paying for the hours we agreed on. Nothing more. Today was an exception, of course. I asked you to stay. I’ll pay you for that hour.”
I don’t answer her for a minute. I look away toward the far end of the parking lot, where the nurses have to park. Then I say, “Where’s Kathryn?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I didn’t hear a question.” I blink at her. “I only heard an accusation.” I don’t want to have to tell her that yes, I do visit Vera at other times—almost daily, actually. I don’t want to have to tell her that I don’t charge her for it—that I’d do it all for free if I had to.
She takes a deep breath. Lets it out slowly. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Travel, you know? We just got in a few days ago and the place is a mess, and—” She waves her caftan so that it catches more rain. “Not your problem.”
I shrug and turn toward my bike. “No,” I say, “it’s not.” What place? I want to ask. Where are you staying?
She starts to say something else, but decides not to. In a minute, I hear the slap of feet as she moves toward her car. Then the engine starting, the wet squeal of wheels on pavement, and I’m alone again.
I’m almost home, soaked through to the bone, when I remember what she said about travel. We got in a few days ago. She’s been here for days—and this afternoon was the first time she visited her mother.
Kathryn, I think, where are you?
WHERE THE LAKE IS ALL YOURS
That man behind you in line at Toney’s, buying twelve frozen chicken breasts and a case of beer. The Weekender mom who’s trying on end-of-season tank tops at a shop downtown and saying something embarrassing to no one, like, “One last hurrah.” The ten-year-old at the public beach, staring at the Jet Skis and biting his lip, ignoring first his dad, then his mom as they yell his name. The girl at the ice-cream shop, standing behind the counter on one foot and looking for all the world like she has not one goddamn left to give.
They each have a lake.
Their lakes look the same on a map, but they’re composed of different roads. Over the span of a single summer, new roads take on the heft of memory, the burden of hope. Fishing spots, swimming coves, empty and serene meadows: Each have the potential to redefine the whole summer for any one person. And when that happens, nothing looks the same again.
And the thing is, it keeps shifting for each of us. We may watch together as a flock of geese lift and fly, sounding their good-bye across the water, but none of us see the same thing at that moment. Someone hears the geese and thinks about what her mother has told her about how her grandfather could mimic their call so perfectly, and her heart, in that moment, snaps taut. Someone watches them and wishes for the courage to put his arm around the girl he’s standing next to so that this moment, this lake, might be theirs together. Across the lake, a Weekender stands on his dock and thinks about the market, and whether i
t will rise like the geese or fall like his son yesterday, when he dropped him in the water and yelled, “Swim, dammit!”
And the geese themselves fly onward, water dripping from their webbed feet. Transients, all of us.
GEORGIE
Be interested, but not too interested.
That’s the plan.
Once I got the QP from Dodge, I texted Henry and set up a meeting. And now, as I make my way around the corner from Grainey’s and duck through the alley, I remind myself of my Weekender rule: Don’t take anything too seriously.
He’s waiting next to the Dumpster behind Grainey’s. When I hand him the brown paper bag with the mason jar of tightly packed weed inside, he slips it in the messenger bag that he’s got slung across his chest.
Henry laughs quietly and shakes his head. “Well, that was fast,” he says. “Resort towns. Everything’s both easier and harder here.”
“You got that right,” I say, and hold out my hand for the money.
Crisp Franklins. Straight from the bank.
“Looks like someone just drained his savings account,” I say.
“Who said anything about ‘drained’?” He winks. “I might still have a few dollars. Let me buy you a coffee.” He tilts his head behind him at Grainey’s. “Since we’re here already.” Then he laughs again, touches my shoulder.
Shit. Not too interested? Nice try. He’s wearing a Ramones T-shirt, threadbare enough for me to know that it isn’t just one of those novelty shirts that companies in China make just to capitalize on the latest infatuation with punk. There’s a hole up by his armpit. It’s the real thing.
What? A T-shirt isn’t enough? How about this: When I handed him the brown bag, our fingers touched, and fuck if it wasn’t a scene from the cheesy movies that I’m pretty sure Davis watches on the DL on Friday nights. Stars and confetti and all that.
It’s funny that I thought I was immune to that sort of stuff.
Erik’s forehead against mine. Everything suspended. Everything electric. “You’ve never—”
I wanted to be immune.
Henry and I get iced coffees and sit across from each other at a table by the window. He leans toward me.
“Thanks for this,” he says, patting the messenger bag next to him. Then he adds, “I don’t usually order in bulk.”
“Big Costco shopper,” I say.
“Funny,” he says. “Again.” He leans back, stretches his arms over his head. The hole near his armpit winks. “You might be the most”—he pauses—“interesting person in this town.” A smile. “So. What’s there to do around here, anyway?”
I set my coffee down. “What, you’re not a regular?” I already knew that, of course. But I’m thinking maybe he’s been here before and I haven’t noticed. Weekenders often take breaks from Gold Fork for a few years—run out of money, wait for a new cabin to be built. That sort of thing. “What are you doing in the Fork?”
He pats his bag again in answer. “What do you think?” Then he laughs. “I’m helping my mom and stepdad out with some stuff. Nothing too exciting. Beats getting a job, right?” He shifts in his seat. “I mean, aside from what you do. The perks must be pretty good.”
I shrug. “Not as great as you’d think.” And as soon as I say it, I swear I see Dodge out the window, shuffling down the street toward the water like some sort of tourist. Has he seen me? He knows I’m delivering the QP today. Is he checking on me? But then I blink, and he’s gone.
God. So paranoid.
“But really,” Henry’s saying, “what else do you do?” He glances around the coffee shop. “Besides this.”
“We walk around,” I say. “We go to parties that we don’t throw. We drink coffee.” I don’t tell him about the Den.
He laughs and leans in. “We?”
“My friends and I.”
“Ah.” He leans back again. “Sounds good to me.” There’s something I can’t put my finger on—laughter just under the surface of everything he says—that makes me want to keep him talking. Makes me want to lean closer. Makes me wish there wasn’t a table between us. “What about music?”
“What about it?” I wave my hand around. “It’s shit, unless you like people basically whispering vows to one another while they strum their guitars.”
Henry laughs. “Hell no.”
“Do you play?” I ask, even though I already know the answer by the way he asked.
He nods. “Bass. We haven’t exactly taken off yet or anything, but I think we’ve got a sort of Sonic Youth–meets–The 1975 thing going on. I don’t know,” he adds, and looks down. It’s the first time I’ve seen him look anything but certain, and I want to leap over the table to him.
There’s nothing sexier than the tiniest flash of insecurity on someone who has absolutely nothing to feel insecure about.
“What about you?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say, “I play.” But I don’t want to tell him about the band quite yet. Music—it’s my best thing. I don’t want it to seem small when I talk about it.
I’m saved by the scream of a fire engine. I put my hands over my ears, and we both watch as it tears down Main and heads in the direction of the lake’s west side.
“Maybe our pyro is at it again,” I say. My heart thrums in my chest, and I try to quiet it, focusing on my breath. Probably nothing, I tell myself.
“What’s up with that, anyway?” Henry asks. “They know that cabin was torched. How hard can it be to catch someone around here?”
“Have you seen our police station?” I laugh. “It’s basically a cubicle.”
“Wonder what it was this time,” he says, and pulls out his phone.
“You’re not going to find anything on there,” I tell him. “Even our breaking news doesn’t hit the web until a good twelve hours have passed.” Probably nothing.
“The Stone Age,” he says, and I laugh, but I’m nervous. I’m thinking about Davis’s place, out in the direction the fire engine was going. The Nelson cabin was on the west side too. Before that, the chapel. I shiver, hugging my arms around myself. Paranoid. “Hey,” I say, “you said you were helping your parents out. What are you helping them with?”
Anything to change the subject.
Henry rolls his shoulders back and shifts in his seat. “Don’t you know?” he says, smiling and making air quotes with his fingers. “The ‘family business.’ ”
“Stepdad’s business?”
“Not really,” he said. “I don’t even know why I call him that, though—he and my mom got together when I was six. He’s just my dad, I guess.”
“What about your—” I’m not sure how to ask.
“Bio dad? Never met him. One-night stand, I think, when my mom was in grad school.” He laughs. “Not that I like to think about that. Kyle’s all there is.”
“So what’s the business?” I ask. “What are you doing for them?”
“I was kidding,” he says. “I’m basically doing jack shit this summer. I’m coasting on my parents’ good graces. Just like everyone else around here.”
“Not everyone,” I say. “Some of us can’t afford to coast.”
He leans in. We’re close enough that he has to lower his voice when he says, “Coasting is overrated.”
I’m looking so intently at Henry, drinking in every word, that it takes me a second to feel it. But then I do. A burn on my right cheek, like acid. Like a slap. Someone’s staring at me from outside the window. I turn, very slowly.
Dodge is so close to the glass that I can see a tiny fog of breath against the pane. His eyes—little, mean—narrow at me, and he holds up a phone, wiggles it in the air.
“Who’s that loser?”
“Town drunk,” I say, but I’m already reaching in my bag for my phone. New text message.
Do your fucking job.
“Shit,” I say aloud.
“What?” Henry glances again at Dodge. Dodge widens his eyes, opens his mouth, barks out a laugh that we can hear from inside. A pretty go
od impression of a crazy drunk, even though he doesn’t know what I just said.
“I have to take this call,” I say, holding the phone close to my chest. “I’ll be right back.”
I walk out of the coffee shop, phone to my ear, and round the corner toward the alley.
He meets me back there a minute later.
“Amateur hour,” he says when he shuffles over. He’s not smiling.
“Let me do my job, Dodge.” I glare at him.
“Is that what this is? Seems to me you’re fucking around.” His hands are in his pockets, fumbling with something.
“I just sold a QP. Excuse me for getting some coffee.” I try to sound tough, but I can’t see what he’s holding, and a crazy part of me thinks it might be a gun.
“Getting coffee. Sure.” He brings his hand up and tosses something at me. It hits my face before clattering to the ground, and I flinch. Dodge laughs. “Weak.”
It’s a key, attached to a miniature red lifeguard tube.
“What’s this for?” I ask.
“Driving the boat,” he says. “We’re expanding. New way of getting people what they want.” He smiles, though calling it a smile is generous. I can see gaps in the back where teeth should be. “So many docks, so little time.”
“No thanks,” I say. “I’ll stick to meeting my customers on dry ground.”
Dodge steps forward, grabbing me by my arm and digging his fingers into the bone. “Like hell you will. I’m expanding, which means you’re expanding. And besides, I don’t know how to drive a boat.”
“I don’t—” I start to say, but he digs his fingers in deeper, and I whimper instead.
He lets go and grabs the key, stuffing it back in his pocket. He starts to walk away, and then turns. “Next time we meet, you’d fucking better know how.”
When I walk back into the coffee shop, Henry looks up. “Everything okay?” he asks.
I will myself not to touch the sore part of my arm. “Yeah,” I say. “Work stuff.”
“Ah.” He looks like he wants to ask more, but instead he stands and holds out his hand. “Come on, then. Let’s make this town work for our approval.”