Lost Lake (Lost Lake, #1)(28)

“Is it an alligator tooth?” Devin asked Kate.

Kate shook her head. “Probably not.”

“I bet it is!”

“Would you like it?” Kate said, offering it to her daughter.

Devin looked excited and was about to take it, but Kate saw the moment it clicked that this nice man had a brother who collected things like this. A brother who was now gone. She stepped back and said, “No, I think Wes should have it.”

Devin was one great kid. Matt had rarely seen it, but Kate always had. She wasn’t going to fall asleep again and miss another year. She was going to be here for every moment. For the first time since waking up, she knew that clearly, without fear. She smiled at Devin while extending her hand to Wes.

“That means a lot to me,” he said sincerely. “Thank you.”

Suddenly, something knocked hard against the dock below. Tiny ripples fanned out on all sides of the water around them, like petals. They all looked down, as if waiting for something to appear, but the ripples gradually died away, leaving the water once again calm and inscrutable.

“It’s been doing that all afternoon,” Wes said with a laugh, when he saw that Kate was standing perfectly still, her arms out slightly, as if the entire dock was going to collapse under her feet. “There must be a floating tree trunk stuck under there, knocking against the support columns.”

“Can we dive down there and see?” Devin asked.

“No. Go tell the others that Wes can’t stay,” Kate said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Devin ran back to the lawn, calling, “Bye, Wes!”

He waved, and they both watched her go.

“Is your husband here with you?” Wes asked as he turned to place his tools back in his toolbox. He clicked it shut and picked it up with one hand, still holding the tooth in the other.

“No. He passed away last year.” Kate turned and walked back up the dock, still not entirely convinced it wasn’t going to collapse.

Wes fell into step beside her. “Now it’s my turn to be sorry.”

They walked in a familiar silence. There was a muscle memory there, forged by repetition fifteen years ago. It felt nice to be this comfortable around a person again. Kate used to make friends so easily as a child, like everyone was made of magnets, instantly drawn to one another. As she got older, it seemed like those magnets turned and forced everyone away from a specific area around her.

They stopped on the lawn. Wes put the tooth in his pocket and shifted his toolbox from one hand to the other. “How long are you staying?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just wanted Devin to see this place. I have such good memories here. I wanted her to have them, too.”

“Maybe I’ll see you again, before you leave.”

“I’ll say good-bye this time, I promise.”

Wes nodded. She wondered if he was thinking about that almost-kiss, or if he even remembered. Was she just projecting old feelings onto him, like a movie on a wall? The boy who had given her that last best summer was now this handsome unfamiliar man. And yet, she knew him. She knew him in that way you can only know a person you remember as a child, like if you cracked away the adult shell, you’d find that child happily sitting inside, smiling at you.

Without another word, he waved to everyone on the lawn, then walked to his van.

“Kate, will you get the butter from the kitchen?” Eby called. “I forgot to bring it out.”

Kate turned and went into the house. She tapped on the kitchen door, then entered and saw that the kitchen was closed down for the night. She glanced at the old chair beside the refrigerator as she opened the door and took out the tub of butter. When she closed the door, she paused because the chair was now leaning back against the wall on two legs.

Hadn’t it been on all four just seconds ago?

Puzzled, she left by the back entrance so she could take the cardboard box from the Fresh Mart, which Lisette had left by the door, to the garbage bins. After recycling the box she turned the corner, but then stopped short.

Wes was at the back of his van, out of view from the people on the lawn. The back doors of the van were open, and he had put his tools inside, alongside a pile of the old dock boards he was obviously going to haul away. He had taken off the yellow long-sleeved T-shirt he’d been wearing, which was wet with sweat, and was in the process of putting on a black long-sleeved T with the Handyman Pizza logo on it. An angry river of scars covered his back and arms, the skin shiny and rippled from what looked like an old severe burn.

She quickly stepped back behind the house before he could see her.

She leaned against the wall for a moment. Behind her fond memory of him that summer fifteen years ago, she was now also starting to remember bruises, and how Eby gave him and his brother boxes of food to take home with them, but how reluctant they were to go in the evenings. She pushed herself away from the wall and walked back around the other side of the house.

Eby was still by the grill, putting the hot dogs on a plate.

Kate stopped beside her and said, “Wes mentioned something about a fire and how his little brother died. What happened?”

Eby’s brows rose. “I’m surprised he told you. He never talks about his brother.” They watched as Wes’s van pulled out and disappeared down the driveway. He honked twice in good-bye.