Lilly hops down from her chair next to Stanna. “Mommy! Can I see?”
I show her my wrist.
“Wow. You’re the toughest mommy I know. Wait until I tell Maddy Sunday.”
“Thank you, Stanna.”
She nods. “Bye, Lilly.”
“Good-bye, Stanna. Good-bye, Dr. Phillips.”
Lilly skips as I walk. Her hand in mine, she asks, “Did it hurt, Mommy?”
“Not a bit.”
“Where did the string go?”
I want to laugh. “In the trash. Where it belongs.”
Aaron crosses my mind. I want to text him. Thank him for last night.
“One time, Keith Bradford got stitches in his forehead.”
“Ouch. Did you see him fall?”
“No, but he told us all about it. He was riding his bike down his driveway and hit his head on the pavement. He said blood went everywhere.”
“Yeah, heads bleed a lot.”
“Did yours bleed a lot?”
“I didn’t watch.”
Lilly grows really quiet. “You’re going to be okay, right, Mommy?”
I stop. Look down at her and get down on my knees in the middle of town, close to the bookstore. “Lilly White, your mother comes from tough stock. We don’t break easy. And I’m as strong as a bull in Spain.”
Lilly scrunches her nose. “What’s abullinspain?” She takes her hand and runs it the length of my hair.
I laugh. “A bull in Spain.”
I look at my daughter and will her to feel my strength. And also, I realize I probably shouldn’t have used that metaphor. “I’m tougher than Elsa at the end of Frozen.”
Lilly’s eyes grow big. “Whoa. That’s tough, Mommy.”
I should have used the Elsa metaphor first, I say to myself.
Pulling her in for a hug, I take in her scent and the way she feels against my chest. I hope she does the same. Just in case something goes awry, I want her to remember how brave she is and that she can get through anything—even if it has to be living this life without me.
“You will always be tougher than Elsa, Lilly. Always,” I whisper, “because you are Lilly White, daughter of Lydia White, granddaughter of Gwen and Lee Harper.”
We make it to the bookstore and unlock the door, and Lilly flips the sign from Closed to Open. She does her duties, and I do mine. Now that Nana is gone, we go back to our routine.
I count the money in the till and hear Lilly giggle from the corner of the bookstore, back by the children’s books.
“Lilly?” I call back and smile. “What’s so funny?”
Again, her giggles.
I put the money back in the till once I’m done and walk to the corner of the store. I lean on a bookshelf, and there she is, curled up with a book.
“What’s so funny?” I ask, crossing my arms.
Lilly pulls her head up. She looks to her left, to the book, and back up to me. “Shelby thinks this part is funny. And her laugh makes me laugh.”
Tilting my head to the right, I ask, “Who’s Shelby?”
“The girl sitting next to me. She’s my new friend.”
Lilly has never mentioned a make-believe friend, but I go along with it. “Well, tell Shelby she’s welcome anytime.” I turn and walk away as the bell rings.
I notice his hat before I notice him. Dark gray felt with a single feather stuck between the hat and a leather strap. Then, his milk-chocolate skin. Then, the smile.
“Well, good morning, Will.”
“Good morning, Ms. Lydia.” He pulls at his hat to bid me good morning.
“Glad you’re back. What are you looking for today?”
He pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket and opens it up. “Have you heard of”—he pulls his glasses from his chest pocket and puts them on—“Colleen Hoover?”
“Have I? Yes. Come on. I’ll show you where she’s kept. Well, not her, but her books.” I look back and smile as he folds the piece of paper and puts it back in his pocket.
“Wonderful.” His voice is even more eloquent than how I remember it from a few days ago.
Will smells like mint gum and aftershave—two things I can’t stand, but with Will, it works, and the smell almost brings on comfort.
“Colleen Hoover. Now, if you want a good romance or just a beautifully told story, Colleen is the queen.”
Will stares at the books. Pulls his piece of paper back out. “Do you have Maybe Someday and It Ends …” He stalls, maybe unable to read his own handwriting. “See, I make these notes, and I can’t read my own handwriting.” He chuckles a slow, easy chuckle.
“It Ends With Us,” I say, caught off guard. Sadness and grief intertwine somewhere in the middle of my body. Why that book? Why that particular book? “It’s … it’s a fantastic book.”
I picked it up in the waiting room of all places. His waiting room. Someone had left it behind or donated it. Sometimes, I think life works out exactly the way it’s supposed to be. Other times, I’m not so sure. But I saw that book in that waiting room on that day—the day after the night was hell. A nightmare. He’d begged me to come meet him for lunch, and there I was, waiting to pick up the pieces once again.
Brett Lancaster wasn’t kind. He wasn’t gentle. His lack of empathy was unnoticed. Maybe I was in love with the idea of him being a doctor, someone who saved lives, so I made excuses for him. I overlooked things, red flags, warning signs to accommodate my budding love that seemed to occupy my mind—the logical side of me anyway.
And the day we went to court and I testified was the day I thought he would surely kill me if he ever got his hands on me again.
I read It Ends With Us in the end, the end of my marriage, desperately trying to hang on to what Brett and I’d had in the beginning. I was barely clinging to the truth as if it were an old bad habit, making excuses for Brett, for us, for what we used to be.
“Lydia, you all right?” Will asks.
He seems to always catch these off moments. Off moments that I don’t allow anyone to see, and yet, with Will, it’s just so easy. Just so yesterday. As if we were old friends, picking up where we’d left off. As if he knew me.
“Yes,” I lie. “I’ll leave you to it. And your chair is available in the corner.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I call behind me as I make my way back to the front of the store.
While Lilly is still in the corner, playing with her “friend” Shelby, I do some inventory and place orders for customers. I’ve got three huge boxes of books that need to be added to the system and shelved.
My phone chimes from its shelf from under the counter. I try not to allow my insides to flutter at the sight of Aaron’s name popping up on my phone. The flutter is a good thing, but the way I was so vulnerable with him last night makes me wonder if it was worth the leftover feelings today.
What if Aaron brings up Brett’s name with another warden in simple conversation?
What if that warden asks for his last name?
What if the warden then says that he knows a guy by the name of Brett Lancaster who was wrongly accused of attempted murder and went to prison out in Massachusetts?
That’s his story. That’s what he continues to tell people. That I went crazy. That I put the marks, the scars, on my own body because he’d started up an affair with another woman.
Someone younger.
Someone prettier.
Someone not me. And then some twisted part of me started to think, Is he right? Did I make this up? Some morbid side of me started to believe what Brett had said. Distorting my thoughts.
But a moment of clarity, I remember, washed over me. If Brett were indeed having an affair with another woman, maybe it was my job to protect her, too.
Sixteen
Aaron
It’s in the early afternoon that I type a text to her and grin.
Lydia shared information with me, and I noticed it made her left eye twitch, made her hands shake, and we ju
st existed. The truth is, I can’t fix any of this even though I want to. Even if I want to kill the guy for doing what he did to Lydia. Killing Brett Lancaster won’t make the situation any better, and then I’d be out of a job.
Me: I was just thinking about you and wanted to let you know that.
I hit Send.
Lydia: Sure do know how to make a woman smile. ;)
Me: So, my mom has family dinner on Monday nights. It’s a new thing she’s started. Would you and Lilly like to come with me tonight?
Lydia: Monday night dinners are Lilly and me, but I’ll ask her and see what she says. Seems to like the owl saver and lemonade stand assistant.
Me: Take your time.
Lydia: Are you working right now?
Me: Yes. Never a dull moment in the warden service.
Lydia: Be careful.
Me: I will. :)
I put my phone back in its cradle on the dashboard, put the truck in drive, and make my way down to Megunticook Lake to meet my brother. We’re going to take the Maine Warden Service boat.
I pull up next to Ethan’s truck. Roll down the window, and the air-conditioning immediately escapes.
“You and Bryce going to Mom’s for dinner tonight?”
He nods. “You guys?”
Ethan says you guys as if Lydia and I were a couple.
“I’ll be there. Not sure about the White girls yet.”
I put the truck in park, get out, pull open the back seat door, and grab my backpack.
The Maine Warden Service boat is already in the water from two days ago. As we walk down to the boat dock, Ethan’s still grinning.
“What?”
He shakes his head. “You. You’re different.”
“Shut up.” I stop. “Wait. Different how?”
“Happier. In love, I guess.”
“Shut up.” I shove him. Staring him down, knowing he knows me better than I know myself sometimes, I think about his words.
Falling in love with Lydia. If falling in love makes your insides feel hollow, like Jell-O, makes your heart beat uncontrollably fast or significantly slow, makes you question everything about what you’ve been doing up until this exact point in your life, makes you feel as though you are also exactly where you are supposed to be, makes you wonder how insurmountably important you feel with the other person—then I’ll take all of it. Maybe, sometimes, love sneaks up on us. Hides behind layers of clothing and big feelings like heartbreaks. Maybe, sometimes, love intervenes when we need it most. If these cases are all true, then, yeah, I suppose I am falling in love with Lydia White, but I’m not ready to share it with anyone yet—including my twin brother.
We load ourselves into the boat and throw on our life vests. Ethan drives. I take my spot right outside the small cabin, and we scan the vast lake. Water-skiers, tubers, jet-skiers, boaters take to all different spots on the lake.
It’s hard to imagine the frozen tundra this lake turns into at negative eight degrees in the dead of winter.
But, today, it’s warm. On days like these, being a game warden has its perks. The endless blue sky, the sound of the water’s resistance against the boats, and the smell of summer, a mix of freshly cut grass and the moss of spring gathering on the water’s edge, dancing on top of the water as if waving hello.
At the same time, we both notice a group of fishermen near the water’s edge, just about one hundred yards away.
Ethan does a slight turn, nothing too obvious to show that we’re headed in a new direction.
We see none of the fishermen have life vests on as we approach.
“Afternoon,” I say, moving to the other side of the boat, closer to the men.
The men mutter, “Afternoon,” keeping their lines in the water.
Ethan and I quickly scan the boat for alcohol and fish.
“Can I see your fishing licenses, please?”
There are four men total; two of them grab for their wallets while two go for their backpacks. Ethan and I keep a close eye on them.
I lean over our bow to collect the licenses. “Thank you.” I call in each of them to be sure each license is valid.
The fishermen and Ethan make small talk, joke, laugh a bit.
It takes me several minutes, and I return from the tiny cabin, handing their licenses back.
“I guess you know why we’re here.”
“Life vests?” one says.
“You got it,” I say.
Ethan chimes in, “We aren’t going to write you all a ticket now; we’ll give you a warning this time instead. Do you have life vests on board?”
One man is already digging them out from underneath a seat, handing them to the others. “Got them. Sorry about that, Wardens. We’ll make sure to wear them at all times.”
“All right, you gentlemen have a good day. And good luck with the fish. Heard they’re slinging them up by Henry’s bend.”
“Thank you, Officers,” another one says.
We wave, and Ethan starts the boat and eases on the gas, pushing us in a forward motion.
Everything on the lake seems to be moving in the right way of the law today.
Flags of fallen skiers are up.
Speed limits are met.
Jet-skiers abide by the space rule.
Alcohol seems to be nonexistent.
But it’s too perfect. Things just seem too perfect on a beautiful summer day. As if we’re missing something.
We hear someone yelling. Faint screams.
“Do you hear that?” Ethan asks over the boat engine.
I grab my binoculars and scan the lake. “Yeah.” In the binoculars, I see a woman who’s frantic, covering her mouth, staring at the water. “Eleven o’clock,” I say and point with my finger.
Ethan hits the gas.
It’s a patio boat.
A woman is crying for help.
Another man is in the water, searching for something.
“My husband!” she screams at us as we approach. “He fell in the lake.”
I’m already slipping off my boots.
Ethan is calling in our dive team.
I join one man in the water. I’ve seen brokenness in others’ eyes, right before you deliver the blow they’re waiting for, yet their mind is not quite ready for it. Stuck somewhere between hope, terror, and the unbelievably cruel world.
“He’s my brother. He … he had too much to drink and just fell in. Whe-when he didn’t resurface, I jumped in.” The man wipes his face with his hand.
“How long has he been under?” My head searches from side to side, as I try to see through the water.
“I-I don’t know. Five minutes maybe?”
Fuck. In this water, it will be hard to find him. Ethan is on the patio boat, calming the woman. She’s sitting down, rocking back and forth.
And I go under.
The dive team recovers the man. Seventeen minutes after he went under. He’s the color of blue that indicates nothing is right about this situation and that life doesn’t exist in this shade. The woman, in her early twenties, is now being consoled by a group of friends. The boat has been moved to shore. Ethan and I both smelled alcohol on the woman’s breath and the man in the water—Cody’s brother, Caleb.
We’ve deduced—unofficially, of course—that the group was drinking. Cody had too much. Caught his foot on a corner and fell in.
“Everything was in slow motion,” the woman said.
They didn’t notice it at first. But the five minutes that Caleb mentioned were the five minutes they’d been searching, not the point when Cody had fallen in.
Caleb hangs his head as another male friend consoles him.
The coroner shows up.
There’s a small existence of time, a pocket ever so brief, when terror turns to grief right before our very eyes. Resilience is what the human body does to protect itself when it doesn’t allow the sadness to settle in, so it stays put somewhere between the seen and the felt experiences.
Katherine Bernstein shows
up; it isn’t a good sign, but nobody knows this, except for the wardens at the scene. I watch as she goes to the wife of the man. I didn’t catch her name or don’t remember it.
What seemed like a beautiful day has now been mere hours that mark tragedy and will be forever remembered with each passing day for these folks.
Katherine gives me a nod and gently places her hand on the brother’s back first.
The paramedics load Cody in the back of the ambulance. The blue of his face is covered by a sheet. We won’t call it here. We fight for every last second to make sure we do our due diligence—not to prove we can provide some sort of miracle, but out of respect for the dead, the family. They’ll call it at the hospital.
The sun doesn’t seem so bright anymore. The day doesn’t seem so light.
When it’s all said and done, Katherine will accompany another warden to the wife’s house. The house that she shared with Cody just a day before.
That warden will most likely be me.
I see Katherine talking to the wife. Her name is Lisa … or Larissa. Maybe Lucinda.
She touches the wife’s shoulder. She tells her in the most delicate way possible to go to the hospital. To wait. That she’ll follow along. She asks her if she has someone to drive her. The woman nods. Katherine touches her back as a friend takes her from there.
Katherine walks to Ethan and me. “Will you wardens accompany them to the hospital?”
When called to duty, we never say no. We can’t—not because it’s our job, but because we owe it to the family.
Ethan has had to do this far more times than I have. Not with the warden service, but through his military experience. I wonder how this affects him.
The Granite Harbor Hospital is at the end of town, and the drive is quick. I ride with Ethan in silence, trying to think of how all of this could have been prevented.
Mom calls my phone. Ethan hates his cell phone and only carries one for Bryce in case she needs to reach him. I hit Ignore because she’s most likely calling to check on us. She probably heard about the accident. Wants to make sure her boys are all right.
We meet Katherine outside and follow her lead.
We find Cody’s wife and his brother, half-clothed with their lake attire, something they probably don’t notice at all because of shock.
Lilies on Main Page 11