Lost Lake (Lost Lake, #1)(71)

“One morning something happened, something terrible. There was a fire, and Billy’s little-boy life ended. His brother was devastated. He missed Billy. What his brother didn’t realize was that Billy rose from the ashes of the fire that day. Not like a phoenix. Like an alligator. Billy got what he wished for.

“He stayed around the house for a while. He waited to see if his brother would come back. But his alligator instincts began to get the better of him, and he wanted to find water. He took his Alligator Box and he went to Lost Lake. Years and years went by, and Billy could feel the human side of himself getting smaller and smaller, until only two things remained, the two strongest, best memories of his life as a little boy. The memory of how much he loved his brother, and the memory of how safe Lost Lake made him feel. He kept to himself, stayed out of the way, because that’s what alligators do. But he watched. His brother would visit the lake, and he watched him grow up to be good man. He was proud of him. He watched as the people at the lake got older and fewer people came back. Then a little girl arrived and, miraculously, she understood him. So he told her everything. He told her about the box. He said his brother felt alone in the world, and that this box would help him, because then he would know that somewhere out there Billy was safe and happy. He was sorry he took the letter from the mailbox. He just didn’t want to leave.”

Wes had lifted his face to the sky, listening to her with his eyes closed. He finally looked away and rubbed at his eyes under his sunglasses.

Sometimes, all you need is something to believe in.

“I’d almost forgotten how good you were at that,” he finally said, and laughed a watery laugh. “Those stories were the sound track of my summer with you.”

He turned and lifted himself up onto the short hood of his van, then he held out a hand to her. Smiling, she took it, and he lifted her up beside him.

They sat there for a long time in silence, their bare legs touching slightly, before Wes said softly, “Thank you for coming back.”

They watched as Devin, who had been running around the clearing, stopped to kneel in front of the lone-standing chimney and look up inside it. A startled bird flew out of the top of the chimney, a black blur against the blue sky, thready with clouds that looked like pieces of string. Higher and higher it flew, until it disappeared and the only thing left was the fullness of the day in front of them.

“Thank you for waiting,” she finally said.

*

Kate knocked on Eby’s bedroom door.

“Come in,” Eby called.

Kate opened the door. Rays of the setting sun were sending waxy copper splashes across the far wall. Eby was sitting at her vanity in her bedroom, pulling her long silver hair into a bun at the nape of her neck. The way the shadows hit her face, she looked like she was made of veined marble.

“Am I interrupting?” Kate said, looking around. The room looked like a time capsule from the 1960s. There were two twins beds with pink quilted bedspreads and ornate headboards, dark-wood furniture, and blown-glass lamps with brown shades and pineapple finials. The wallpaper was faded pink with row after row of tiny, shiny, silver Eiffel Towers. It gave more insight into Eby’s past than any photo could have.

“No.” Eby patted the seat next to her on the long padded bench. “Sit here with me.”

Kate slid in next to her and looked at all the postcards from Europe that Eby had tucked around the mirror.

“No Lazlo yet?” Kate asked.

“No Lazlo yet. But I called a lawyer friend of mine, just as your mother-in-law suggested. He said he’d drive into town after he gets off work today.”

“That’s good. Whatever happens, I want to be here, too. I want to help. And the money from the sale of my house is yours. To fight Lazlo, to go to Europe, whatever you decide.”

“That means the world to me. Thank you, Kate. But that money is your nest egg, and I’m not going to let you invest in this place, in me, until I know for sure what’s going to happen.”

“Are these from your honeymoon?” Kate asked, indicating the postcards.

Eby stared at them. “Yes.”

“Is this where you’ll go back?”

“It’s where I’ll visit. I’ll never go back, though. I mailed these to myself, from Paris and Amsterdam. I thought, when I was old, I would sit here like this and think that it was the best time in my life. I had no idea that the future held such possibilities. I think I’ll keep them here now to see how far I’ve come.”

Kate tucked her hands under her legs. “I had a similar experience today. You know that letter Wes was supposed to have sent me, the one he asked you for my address for? He found it and let me read it. He wanted to come to Atlanta, to be with me.”

“He told you he set the fire,” Eby said. Just like that. Like it was obvious.

“You knew?”

“We all knew,” Eby said. “The whole town thought we’d let him down. We weren’t going to let him be punished for something that we could have prevented if we’d just tried a little harder to get him out of that situation. Don’t be hard on him. He’s punished himself enough.”

Kate nodded.

“Wesley will like having you here again,” Eby said with a smile. “If you don’t mind my saying.”

Kate’s stomach trembled with that particular anxiety that always heralded something good. She put her hand there to stop it. She wasn’t sure she trusted it. “I don’t know exactly what he is to me anymore. My past? My present? My future?”