Kristin Hannah

by On Mystic Lake (v5)

  Annie almost smiled. “We went swimming, even though it was freezing cold.”

  “You were holding Natalie, with the waves splashing across your thighs. Your lips were practically blue and your skin was nothing but goose bumps, but you were laughing, and I remember how much I loved you. My heart hurt every time I looked at you.”

  She looked down at her hands, folded on her lap. “That was a long time ago.”

  “I found a sand dollar, remember? I handed it to you with our baby wobbling on the blanket between us, rocking her little butt back and forth. I think she was trying to learn to crawl.”

  Annie closed her eyes, and he wondered what she was thinking. Could she remember the rest of that day? How often he’d touched her . . . or when he’d leaned over and grazed the back of her neck with a kiss. Hey, Godiva, he’d whispered. They rent horses down the road. . . .

  And her laughing answer, Babies can’t ride.

  “When did we stop having fun together, Annie? When?” He was seducing her with their memories, and he could see that it was working; he could see it in the way she stared at her hands intently, in the sheen of moisture that filled her eyes.

  Slowly, he reached down and placed the two rings back on her finger. “Forgive me, Annie,” he said quietly.

  She looked up. A tear streaked down her cheek and dropped onto her nightgown, leaving a gray-wet blotch. “I want to.”

  “Let me sleep with you tonight. . . .”

  She sighed. It was a long time before she answered, time enough for him to feel hope sliding away. “Yes,” she said at last.

  He told himself that nothing mattered but the answer. He ignored the uncertainty in her voice and the tears in her eyes and the way she wouldn’t quite look at him. It would all be okay again after they slept together. Finally, the bits of their broken lives would fuse together again.

  He wanted to crush her against him, but he forced himself to move slowly. He got up, went into the closet, and changed into his pajamas. Then, very slowly, he went to the bed and peeled back the coverlet, slipping beneath the cool, white cotton sheets.

  It was soothing to hold her again, like easing into a favorite pair of slippers after a long day at the office. He kissed her lightly, and as always, she was quiet and undemanding in her response. Finally, he turned over—the regular beginning of their nightly ritual. After a long moment, she snuggled up behind him.

  Her body spooned against his, her belly pressed into his back. It was the way they’d always slept, only this time she didn’t curl her arms around him.

  They lay there, touching but not touching in the bed that had held their passion for so many years. She didn’t speak, other than to say good night, and he couldn’t think of anything else.

  It was a long time before he fell asleep.

  Natalie set a big metal bowl full of popcorn at the foot of Annie’s bed, then she climbed up and snuggled close to her mom. It was Friday afternoon: girls’ day. Annie and Natalie and Terri had spent every Friday together since Annie returned home. They laughed and talked and played cribbage and watched movies.

  “I left the front door open for Terri,” Natalie said, pulling the bowl of popcorn onto her lap.

  Annie grinned. “You know what your dad would say. He thinks criminals spend all day in the rosebushes, just waiting for us to leave the door open.”

  Natalie laughed. They talked about this and that and everything. Their conversation followed the river of their years, flowing from one topic to the next. They laughed about antics that were as old as Natalie and as new as yesterday. Through it all, Annie was amazed at Natalie’s maturity; the teenager who had gone off to London had come home a young woman. It seemed light years ago that Natalie had rebelled, that she’d shorn her hair and dyed it platinum and pierced her earlobes with three holes.

  “How come Dad never talks about the baby?”

  The question came out of the blue, smacking Annie hard. She tried not to compare Nick and Blake, but it was impossible at a moment like this. Nick would have been with Annie every step of the way, sharing in the miracle, watching her belly swell. She would have clung to his hand during the amniocentesis, letting his jokes distract her from the needle . . . and she would have laughed with him later, when they found out it was a girl, skipping through name books and spinning dreams. . . .

  She sighed. “Your dad is uncomfortable with pregnancy; he always has been. Lots of men are like that. He’ll be better after the baby is born.”

  “Get real, Mom. Dad’s good at doing his own thing. I mean, you guys are supposedly getting over your ‘bad patch,’ but he’s never here. He still works seventy hours a week, he still plays basketball on Tuesday nights, and he still goes out for drinks with the boys every Friday night. When are you guys working out your problems? During Letterman?”

  Annie gave her a sad smile. “When you get older, you’ll understand. There’s a certain . . . comfort in the familiar.”

  Natalie stared at her. “I have almost no memories of Dad—did you know that? All I remember about him are a few hurried good-bye kisses and the sound of a slamming door. When I hear a car engine start or a garage door close, I think of my dad.” She turned to Annie. “What about after this summer . . . when I’m gone?”

  Annie shivered, though the room was warm. She looked away from Natalie, unable to bear the sad certainty in her daughter’s eyes. “When you’re gone, I’ll be worried about potty training and what to do with the Baccarat on the living room table. I’ll consider plastic surgery to pull my breasts back up from my navel. You know, the usual stuff.”

  “And you’ll be lonely.”

  Annie wanted to deny it. She wanted to be grown up and a good parent and say just the right thing that would alleviate Natalie’s worry. But for once, no parental lies came to her. “Maybe a little. Life can be like that, Nana. We don’t always get what we want.”

  Natalie glanced down at her own hands. “When I was little, you told me that life did give you what you wanted, if you were willing to fight for it and believe in it. You told me that every cloud had a silver lining.”

  “Those were a mother’s words to a little girl. These are a mother’s words to a nearly grown woman.”

  Natalie looked at her, long and hard. Then she turned away.

  Annie felt suddenly distant from her daughter. She was reminded of four years ago, when Natalie had turned into someone else. It had seemed that overnight, their tastes had diverged: whatever Annie liked, Natalie hated. Christmas that year had been a tense, horrible affair, with Natalie dully opening each carefully wrapped package and then muttering a caustic gee thanks. “Nana? What is it?”

  Slowly, Natalie turned to face Annie. “You don’t have to be this way, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Natalie shook her head and looked away. “Never mind.”

  Understanding dawned slowly, and with it, pain. It all fell into place: Natalie’s desire to study biochemisty at Stanford, her sudden trip to London, her unwillingness to date the same boy for more than a few months. Behind it all was a sad message: I don’t want to be like you, Mom. I don’t want to be dependent on a man for everything.

  “I see,” Annie said.

  Natalie turned to her at last, and this time there were tears in her eyes. “What do you see?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking you don’t want to grow up to be like your old mom, and . . . as much as that hurts, it makes me proud. I want you to count on yourself in life. I guess, in the end, it’s all we have.”

  Natalie sighed. “You never would have said that before he broke your heart.”

  “I think I’ve grown up a little bit lately. Life isn’t all sunny days and blue skies.”

  “But you always taught me to look for the silver lining to every cloud. Are you doing that, Mom? Are you looking to be happy?”

  “Of course I am,” she answered quickly, bu
t they both knew it was a lie. Annie couldn’t meet her daughter’s penetrating gaze. “I’m glad you don’t want to be like me, Nana.”

  Sadness suffused Natalie’s face. “I don’t want to have a marriage like yours, and I don’t understand why you stay with him—I never have. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be like you. There are only two people in the world who don’t respect you . . . as far as I know, anyway.”

  She looked at Natalie, shaking her head slightly, as if she could stop her daughter’s words.

  “Just two,” Natalie said. A single tear streaked down her cheek and she impatiently brushed it away. “Dad . . . and you.”

  You. Annie felt a sudden urge to disappear, to simply melt into the expensive bed linens and vanish. She knew that Natalie was waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t know what was the right answer. She felt as if she were the child, and Natalie the mother, and as the child, she’d let her parent down.

  She opened her mouth to say something—she had no idea what—when suddenly Terri charged into the bedroom like a multicolored bull, her body draped in layers of red and gold lamé.

  She came to a breathless stop beside the bed. Planting her fists on her meaty hips, she surveyed the bowl of popcorn. “So, where’s my popcorn? I mean, that’s enough for two skinny chicks like you, but we real women like our popcorn to come in bowls that could double as lifeboats. And I certainly want it coated in butter.”

  Natalie grinned. “Hey, Terri.”

  Terri smiled back, her heavily mascaraed lashes almost obscuring her twinkling eyes. “Hiya, princess.”

  “I’ll go make another batch of popcorn.”

  “You do that, sweetie,” Terri said, uncoiling the gold turban from her head.

  When Natalie scurried from the room, Terri sat down on the end of the bed and leaned back against the footboard, sighing. “Christ, what a day. Sorry I’m late.”

  Annie smiled wanly at the theatrics. “What happened?”

  “My character is running from the law—again—only this time they put her on a plane.” Terri shook her head. “Bad news.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “In the soaps, there’s only one thing worse than getting on a plane, and that’s getting in a car. The next thing you hear is sirens . . . and funeral music. If they actually name the flight tomorrow, I’m dead meat.”

  “You’ll bounce back.”

  “Oh, perfect, make fat jokes.” Terri scooted up the bed and twisted around to sit beside Annie. “So, kiddo, how’s the ever-growing Goodyear blimp?”

  Annie glanced down at her stomach. “We’re doing okay.”

  “Well, I’ve been coming every Friday for weeks now, and we talk on the phone constantly. I think I’ve been patient as hell.”

  “About what?”

  Terri looked at her, hard. “About what? Come on.”

  Annie sighed. “Nick.”

  “What else? I’ve been waiting patiently—and we both know that patience is not one of my virtues—for you to bring his name up, but obviously, you’re not going to. I’m sick of respecting your privacy. Now, spill the beans. Have you called him?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Why not?”

  Annie turned to her best friend. “Come on, Terr.”

  “Ah . . . that honor thing. I’ve read about it. We don’t see much of it in Southern California. And none on the soaps. But you are in love with him?”

  “I don’t think I want to talk about this.”

  “There’s no point lying to an old slut like me. Hell, Annie, I’ve been in love more times than Liz Taylor and I’ve slept with enough men to protect this country in time of war. Now, do you love him?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, crossing her arms. It hurt to say the word aloud, and instantly she regretted it. “But I’ll get over it. I have to. Blake is doing his best to put our family back together. Things are . . . rough right now, but they’ll get better.”

  Terri gave her a sad smile. “I hope it works that way for you, Annie. But for most of us, when love is gone, it’s gone, and all the pretending and wishing in the world can’t bring it back.”

  “Can’t bring what back?” It was Natalie, standing in the doorway with another bowl of popcorn and a bottle of spring water.

  “Nothing, honey,” Annie said softly.

  Natalie produced a videotape from behind her back. “I rented us a movie.” She popped it in the VCR, then climbed up onto the bed beside Terri.

  Terri grabbed a handful of popcorn. “What’s the movie?”

  “Same Time, Next Year.”

  “That Alan Alda movie?” Terri gave Annie a sharp, knowing look. “I always thought that was a hell of an idea. An affair once a year, I mean. Ellen Burstyn’s husband is probably a real shithead—a workaholic with the moral integrity of an alley cat. He probably fucked around on Ellen and then came crawling back like the worm he is. And because Ellen’s a grade-A sweetie pie, she took him back and tried to pretend that everything was okay. Still, she meets her secret lover for one weekend a year on the wild Oregon coast. Yep, sounds like heaven to me.”

  “Shhh,” Natalie said. “It’s starting.”

  Annie looked away from Terri. She tried not to feel anything at all, but when the music came on and the credits began to roll, she sank deeper and deeper into the pillows, as if distance could soften the sharp edges of her memories.

  Chapter 26

  Nick made it through the summer one day at a time. The last thing he did every night was stand by the lake, where Annie’s memory was strongest. Sometimes, the missing of her was so acute, he felt it as a pain in his chest. Those were the nights when he heard the call of the booze, the soothing purr of his own weakness.

  But he was making it. For the first time in years, he was actually living life on his own terms. Annie had been right in so many of the things she said to him. He’d gone back to work, and the job had given him a purpose. He was the best policeman he’d ever been. He gave everything to the people under his protection, but when his shift was over, he left the worries behind. He had learned, finally, to accept that there would be failures, and that it was okay. All he could do was try.

  Like with Gina. She was still fighting the pull of old patterns and comforting, self-destructive routines. The other kids were often blatantly cruel to her. The “good” kids didn’t want to hang around with a loser, and the “bad” kids spent all their time trying to lure her back into their circle of drugs and truancy, but, like Nick, Gina was holding her own. She’d moved back into her old bedroom and was reforging the bonds of the family she’d so carelessly torn apart. Last month she’d registered for school.

  And there was always Izzy, waiting for Nick at the end of the day with a smile and a picture she’d drawn or a song she had learned. They’d become inseparable. Best buddies. He never took a moment or a word for granted.

  During the week, he worked from nine to five; the second his shift was over, he picked up Izzy from the Raintree Day Care, and they were off. They spent all their free time together.

  Today, he’d gotten off work three hours ago and their nightly ritual had begun. First, dinner on the porch (lasagna and green salads from Vittorio’s), then they quickly washed the dishes together.

  Now, Nick sat cross-legged on the cold plank floor, staring down at the multicolored Candy Land game board. There were three little pieces at the starting box, a red, a green, and a blue.

  But there are only two of us, Izzy, he’d said when Izzy put the third man down.

  That’s Annie, Daddy.

  Nick watched with a growing sadness as Izzy stoically rolled for Annie and moved her tiny blue piece from square to square.

  “Come here, Izzy,” he said at last, pushing the game away. She crawled across the floor and settled into his lap, hooking her spindly legs around him. He stared down at her. The words congealed in his throat; how could you tell a little girl to stop believing?

  “She’s comin’ back, D
addy,” Izzy said in the high-pitched, certain voice of an innocent.

  He stroked her hair. “It’s okay to miss her, Sunshine, but you can’t keep thinking that she’s going to come back. She has another life . . . she always did. We were lucky to have her for as long as we did.”

  Izzy leaned back into his laced fingers. “You’re wrong, Daddy. She’s comin’back. So, don’t be so sad.”

  Sad. Such a little word, no more than a breath; it didn’t begin to describe the ocean of loss he felt at Annie’s absence.

  “I love you, Izzy-bear,” he whispered.

  She planted a kiss on his cheek. “I love you, too, Daddy.”

  He stared down at her, lying in his arms in her pink flannel jammies with the bunny feet, with her black hair still damp and squiggly around her face, and her big brown eyes blinking up at him with expectation.

  He knew then, as he’d known so many times before, that no matter what, he’d always love Annie for what she’d given him.

  The air was crisp the next morning, chilly with the promise of fall. The flowers were fading now at the end of summer, and autumn colors—orange and green and scarlet—had replaced the bright hues of August. A cloudy sky cast shadows across the cemetery, where acres of grass rolled gently toward a curtain of evergreen trees. It was well cared for, this final resting place for most of Mystic’s citizens.

  Nick walked slowly toward the easternmost corner of the cemetery. Izzy was beside him, holding his hand. With each step, he felt his insides tighten, and by the time he reached his destination, his throat was dry and he needed a drink desperately.

  He gazed down at the headstone. Kathleen Marie Delacroix. Beloved Wife and Mother.

  He sighed. Four words to sum up her life. They were the wrong four words; he’d known it at the time, but then he’d been so twisted with grief that he’d let the small, round-faced funeral director handle everything. And in truth, Nick didn’t know what other words he would have chosen, even now. How could you possibly express the sum of a person’s life in a few words cut into smooth gray stone?

  He glanced down at Izzy. “I should have brought you here a long time ago.”