Up at Butternut Lake

by Mary McNear

  There was no receding hairline, she noted with regret, and no expanding waistline, either. No bloating or puffiness. Jack Keegan was still very much the man she’d remembered him to be. He still had more than his share of tousled brown hair, for instance, none of which looked like it would be going anywhere anytime soon. And his dark blue eyes were brighter and clearer than they had any right to be, too, especially when you considered how little the man slept, and how much time he spent in dark, smoky rooms. Add to those his healthy suntan and lean athletic build, and he was a disappointment to her all around. But she consoled herself with the thought that, unlike Jessica, she knew enough about Jack Keegan to take some of the shine off all that handsomeness.

  He looked at her now, looking at him, and shrugged apologetically. “Maybe this was a mistake,” he said. “I don’t know. But I think Daisy thought—no, I know she thought—it was the only way for the three of us to be together. I mean, let’s face it, if you’d known I was coming, you would have headed for the hills.”

  “You’re damn right I would have,” Caroline said, without hesitation.

  Jack’s mouth lifted at one corner. “Another swear word, Caroline. That’s two more than I ever heard from you the entire time we were married.”

  Caroline ignored that remark. She could feel herself slowly returning to her senses. As angry as she was at him for coming here, there were still things she needed to know from him. “Jack,” she said now, knowing Daisy could be there at any moment, “when did Daisy get in touch with you?”

  But he shook his head. “Daisy didn’t get in touch with me, Caroline. I got in touch with her.”

  “Really?” Her eyes widened with surprise, then narrowed with suspicion. “Why, Jack?”

  “Why? She’s my daughter, Caroline. Do I need to have a reason for wanting to see her again?”

  “You do when you’ve waited almost two decades to do it,” she said.

  He shrugged. “I disagree. After all, there’s no statute of limitations on being a parent.”

  “Maybe not. But don’t you think it’s a little late for you to start playing that role?”

  He lifted his shoulders in another shrug. “I think it’s up to Daisy to decide whether or not it’s too late.”

  She sighed, exasperated. They were talking in circles. She wanted—needed— more information from him.

  “How did you get in touch with her, Jack?” she asked, her jaw tightening.

  “I googled her,” he said, a little sheepishly. “Her name was mentioned in her student newspaper. The intramural volleyball team she played on won a league championship. I figured if she was going to the University of Minnesota, she was probably living in Minneapolis. So I looked up her phone number there and asked her if she wanted to meet me for coffee.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “A year ago.”

  “And that was the last time you saw her?”

  He shook his head. “No. I’ve seen her every month since then. The last time, just a few weeks ago.”

  “What?” she said, trying to take it all in. And then she shook her head. “I don’t believe it, Jack. I just don’t believe it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the Daisy I know would never keep something like that from me. Not for a whole year. Especially since we’ve never kept secrets from each other before.” But even as she said that, she realized it wasn’t true. She was keeping a secret from Daisy right now, a secret that she’d just locked in the desk drawer in her office. Who was to say Daisy wasn’t keeping a few secrets of her own, she mused, especially after being away at college for three years.

  She watched now as Jack took a drink of his water. He looked uncomfortable, something she’d rarely seen him look in the past, and it pleased her. A little.

  “I don’t think Daisy meant to keep a secret from you,” he said carefully. “I think she was afraid that if you knew she was seeing me, you’d be upset.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Caroline said stubbornly. “Daisy’s a grownup. She’s free to see whomever she pleases. She doesn’t need my approval.”

  “Maybe not. But she’d like your approval. And she wasn’t going to get it this time, was she?”

  No, Caroline almost said, because it was the truth. But she opted for silence instead.

  “Anyway, we’re here now,” Jack said lightly. “All that’s missing is our daughter, who’s running a little late. But when she gets here, Caroline, I think we should both make an effort to be civil, don’t you?”

  At that, she shot Jack an irritated look. Since when had he played the role of the adult in their relationship? But still, he had a point. “Okay, fine,” she said. “I can do that. Be civil, I mean. It’s just one lunch. And you probably need to be getting back to . . . where is it? Elk Point, South Dakota? That’s a long drive, isn’t it?”

  “Actually, I’m not going back there,” he said, watching her a little warily. “I’m staying here, Caroline. In Butternut. Wayland left me his cabin when he died a few years back. I’m going to be living in it and fixing it up, at least for the foreseeable future.” With a hint of a smile, he added, “They’re going to have to change that sign, from Butternut, population 1,200, to Butternut, population 1,201.”

  Caroline stared at him, rendered speechless for the third time that day, and it was at that moment that Daisy appeared, apologetic, embarrassed, and breathless, her strawberry-blond hair disheveled, her shoelace untied on one Converse sneaker.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, sliding into a third chair at the table. “The truck broke down, Mom. It was the fan belt. I got it replaced. But my cell-phone battery was dead and . . .” But she stopped, then, and looked, slowly, from Caroline to Jack and back to Caroline again. “So what did I miss?” she asked, in a way that suggested she didn’t really want to know.

  Click here to buy Butternut Summer.

  Don’t miss the latest Butternut Lake novel by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Mary McNear

  THE SPACE BETWEEN SISTERS

  Coming June 2016

  Read on for a sneak peek . . .

  Chapter 1

  When they turned onto Butternut Lake Drive that night, Poppy rolled down her window. She watched as the car’s headlights glided over birch, pine, and spruce trees, and, after a bend in the road, she saw a deer standing, motionless and alert, in a clearing. Soon after that, a little cloud of white moths fluttered across the windshield. She could smell, too, something she could never quite define—some mixture of the air, the trees, and the lake. Butternut Lake. This place is beautiful, even in the dark, she thought. She hadn’t been up here for almost thirteen years, but she still felt as though she knew it by heart.

  “What did you say your sister’s name is?” Everett asked, fiddling with the radio.

  “Win. Her name is Win,” she said. She twisted around in the front passenger seat and reached into the backseat where her cat, Sasquatch, was riding in his pet carrier. She unlatched the door of the carrier and slipped a hand inside. “Poor thing,” she said, softly, stroking his fur. “You’ve been cooped up for too long.”

  “Win?” Everett repeated, glancing over at her. “That’s an unusual name.”

  “Short for Winona,” Poppy explained, feeling the gentle vibration of Sasquatch’s purr for a moment before easing her hand out of the carrier and latching the door shut again.

  “Isn’t there supposed to be a lake somewhere?” Everett asked, taking the car into a steep turn. “Or is ‘Butternut Lake Drive’ a misnomer?”

  “No, there is a lake, through those trees,” Poppy said, pointing to their left. “But you can’t see it. There’s no moon tonight.”

  “No kidding,” Everett said. “The only thing that’s missing is the fog.”

  “The fog?”

  Everett nodded, steering into another turn. “If there were fog, it’d be exactly like a scene out of a horror movie. You know the one. A college coed and her boyfriend are driving down a d
esolate country road at night, and the fog is closing in around them, and then, suddenly, somebody appears on the road, right in front of their car, and—”

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Poppy said. “We are not in that movie. I’m not a college coed—and that phrase, by the way, is totally outdated—” And you’re not my boyfriend, she almost said. “Besides, this is not a desolate country road,” she continued. “Trust me. Butternut Lake is a very well populated summer community. There are tons of cabins in these woods.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. Four and a half hours ago, I didn’t even know Butternut Lake existed.”

  “Well, now you know,” Poppy said flippantly. And then she felt guilty. She hadn’t been very good company on this drive. Everett, after all, was doing her a favor. “I haven’t been much of a tour guide, have I?” she asked him now.

  “It’s fine.” He shrugged.

  “The town of Butternut, Minnesota, which we drove through ten minutes ago,” she began, in her best imitation of a tour guide’s voice, “has a population of twelve hundred. It has numerous local businesses, including Pearl’s, a world-class coffee shop, Johnson’s Hardware, where my grandfather indulged his inner carpenter, and the Butternut Variety Store, where my sister and I once accumulated the largest collection of glass animals east of the Mississippi. Butternut Lake, approximately twelve miles in length, is one of the deepest, cleanest lakes in Minnesota and is a popular vacation destination for people from the Twin Cities, who come here to fish, canoe, kayak, water ski, and, sometimes, just to wiggle their toes in the water. Any questions?” she asked brightly.

  “Yeah,” Everett asked, gesturing at a seemingly deserted stretch of road. “Where are all those tourists now?”

  “They’re here. Look, there’s a driveway,” Poppy said. “And there’s a cabin at the end of it, too. You can see its lights through the trees.”

  “All right,” Everett said. “But if my car breaks down, I’m not knocking on that door. I’ve seen that movie, too. We spend the night there, and when we wake up in the morning, we discover that our kidneys have been harvested.”

  “Ugh,” Poppy said, wincing. “I had no idea you were so dark, Everett.”

  “No?” he said, with a trace of a smile. “It’s amazing how much you can learn about someone on a two-hundred-and-forty-mile drive.”

  “That’s true,” Poppy mused. “So, what have you learned about me?” she asked. She wasn’t being flirtatious. She was just curious.

  “I’ve learned . . .” He looked over at her, speculatively. “I’ve learned that you think corn nuts are revolting.”

  “That’s because they are revolting.”

  “Corn nuts,” Everett said, concentrating on another turn, “are the ultimate road trip food.”

  “Not even close,” Poppy said. “Because that would obviously be Red Vines.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think so,” Everett said. “I mean, they have, like, zero nutritional value, unless you count whatever’s in the red dye, and—”

  “Oh, my God, look,” Poppy said, excitedly, of the driveway they were passing. Beside it a large sign with a wintery pinecone painted on it spelled out white pines.

  “What’s that?” Everett asked.

  “It’s a resort, and it means that we are now exactly three miles away from my grandparents’ cabin. I mean, my sister’s cabin,” she amended, feeling that familiar jab of resentment she felt whenever she was reminded of the fact that this beloved piece of family real estate had been passed down to Win, and only Win, three years ago. This resentment was part of the reason that Poppy had avoided coming to Butternut Lake since Win had moved here year-round a couple of years ago. But if there was any comfort to be found in Win being the one to own the cabin, it was in knowing that she would never sell it; it meant as much to her as it did to Poppy.

  Poppy and Win had spent all of their childhood summers here until Poppy was sixteen and Win was fifteen (they were thirteen months apart), and Poppy, who was just shy of thirty, could still remember every detail of the cabin. It stood on a small bluff, just above Butternut Lake, and its dark brown clapboard exterior was brightened by cheerful window boxes that overflowed with geraniums. And the homey touches continued inside: colorful rag rugs, knotted pine furniture, red-checked slipcovers on sofas and chairs. The living room, everyone’s favorite room, was as comfortable as an old shoe, with its fieldstone fireplace, and its old record player and collection of albums (some of which dated back to the 1950s). In one corner, there was a slightly wobbly card table for playing gin rummy, and on the shelf next to the table, a collection of hand-painted duck decoys. Mounted on the wall above the mantelpiece was the prized three-foot walleyed pike that had not gotten away from their grandfather. The living room windows looked out on a flagstone patio, their grandmother’s begonia garden, and a slope of mossy lawn leading down to the lake. And the kitchen . . . Poppy remembered it as though it existed in a perpetual summer morning: the lemon yellow cupboards, the row of shiny copper pans hanging on the wall, and the turquoise gas stove, a monument to 1950s chic.

  “Do you think you should give your sister a call now?” Everett asked, interrupting her reverie.

  “Why?”

  “To tell her that we’re almost there.”

  “Oh,” Poppy said, momentarily at a loss. And then she tossed her long blond hair. “No. I’m not going to tell her,” she said. “I thought we’d surprise her.”

  Everett stole a quick look at her. “But . . . she knows we’re coming, right?”

  “Not exactly,” Poppy said, feeling a first twinge of nervousness.

  Everett was quiet. Then he asked, “Does your sister like surprises?”

  “Not really,” Poppy said, and there it was again, that nervousness. She tamped it down, firmly, and said, “But what are sisters for if they can’t just . . . drop in on each other?”

  “‘Drop in’?” Everett said, after another pause. “It looks like you’ve got a lot of your stuff with you, though, Poppy. Isn’t it more like, ‘move in’?”

  Poppy ignored this question. Harder to ignore were her suitcases, wedged in the trunk of Everett’s car, or her boxes, stacked on the backseat beside Sasquatch’s pet carrier. And it wasn’t just a lot of her stuff, as Everett had pointed out. It was all of her stuff. Though, truth be told, that wasn’t saying much. It had taken her less than an hour to pack everything up. Traveling light was a recurring theme with Poppy, and a necessary one, too, since her peripatetic lifestyle was the norm.

  “Sisters don’t have to call ahead. They’re there for each other,” Poppy said now, though she was annoyed by the defensiveness she heard in her own voice.

  “But do you think your sister—Win—will be home right now? It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday night.”

  “Oh, she’ll be home. If I know her, she’s probably . . . alphabetizing her spice rack,” Poppy said, “or color coding her sock drawer.” As soon as she said this, though, she felt disloyal. “Actually, she’s a sweetheart,” she said, turning to Everett. “And I don’t blame her, at all, for being a little . . . neurotic or controlling, or whatever she is. I told you about what happened to her, didn’t I?” And Poppy pictured Win as she’d been the last time she’d seen her, her dark blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and her girl next door approachableness only slightly tempered by the wistful expression on her face.

  “Yeah, you told me what happened to her,” Everett said. It was quiet in the car again as he negotiated another sharp turn, and as Poppy watched the car’s lights skim over an entrance to an old logging road. She smiled. She and Win had driven down that road as teenagers, looking for bears at dusk.

  “All right,” she said, after a few more minutes, “we’re getting close. After this next curve, it’s the first driveway on the left.” And, suddenly hungry, she added, “Here’s hoping Win’s got some leftovers from dinner.”

  “Yeah, and here’s hoping she’s in a good mood,” Everett added wryly.

  Chapt
er 2

  Win, it turned out, was in a good mood, or at least in what passed for a good mood in her life these days. After dinner—a sesame shrimp and noodles dish whose recipe she’d found in a cooking magazine’s “gourmet dinners for one” column—she’d emptied out her kitchen’s utensil drawers and begun rearranging their contents. Not that they needed rearranging; they’d been rearranged less than two weeks before. But Win found this particular organizing project so satisfying that tonight, after she’d washed the dishes and wiped down the countertops and swept the kitchen floor, she’d thought, Oh, what the hell, and dumped all four utensil drawers out onto the kitchen table and gotten started on them. Now, an hour later, with just one utensil—a cherry pitter—left, she was still so absorbed in this project that she didn’t even hear a car pull up outside.

  Where to put the cherry pitter, she wondered, picking it up and studying it critically. For the most part, she had a simple classification system. The more a utensil was used, the higher a drawer it went in to. So a whisk, or a vegetable peeler, or a garlic press, for instance, went into the top drawer, while a fish scaler, or a canning funnel, or an olive stuffer went into the bottom drawer. Utensils that fell somewhere in between went into one of the two middle drawers. But the cherry pitter was a special case. Before tonight, it had been in the third drawer, with, among other things, a citrus zester, a nutmeg grinder, and a gravy separator, but now, with cherry season upon them, Win wondered if it should be promoted, at least temporarily, to the second drawer, where it would take its place alongside utensils like a cheese grater, a marinade brush, and a ladle.

  Yes, it should go in the second drawer, Win decided, but she hesitated for a moment and, in that moment, she heard car doors slamming outside. Startled, she glanced at the kitchen clock. It was a little after ten. The only person she knew who’d stop by at this hour was her friend Mary Jane, and even Mary Jane wouldn’t do this without calling her first. She knew how much Win hated surprises.