The Cloisters(48)

“Rachel was with them? And survived?”

Margaret nodded. “It was a massive search. They found Rachel, unconscious on the shore not far from the boat the next morning. But the search for her parents took days. They closed the lake and dredged with nets. Finally, they found them floating in an inlet not far from the camp. The wind that night—” She paused. “The storm had been so fierce that waves swamped the boat. There was only one life jacket on board. Rachel was found wearing it. There was speculation they had removed the other two to fit all three of them in the cockpit. And Rachel, it seems, remembered very little. She remembered the boat flipping, but that was all. The sheriff thought she might have been struck by the mast, or that they may have been closer to shore when she was tossed overboard. No one really knows. It was the first drowning in Long Lake in almost five years.”

I thought of how dark the water looked, and the remote location of the camp—at the far end of the lake, miles from town and other homes. Of course, it had to be an accident: she had lost both of them at the same time. But I remembered the look on Rachel’s face the day we stole the boat, the masterful way she cast off the lines and helmed us into the Hudson, the wind whipping the ends of her hair against her sunburned cheek, creased from smiling, and I wondered if I could continue to enjoy the same sport that had taken the lives of my parents.

“Is this the first time she’s been back since the accident?”

“No. She’s visited a few times. At first, just to handle the reports with the local police. But then, she didn’t come for a very long time. Last fall, she came with an older gentleman who she was working with.”

“Patrick,” I said.

“Yes. Patrick. He’s a lovely man. A little old for Rachel. But, of course, with the loss of her parents and everything, who could judge a decision like that?”

The choice of Patrick did seem to make more sense. He offered her the security she had suddenly lost.

Margaret leaned across the counter and lowered her voice. “And it’s all in a trust, you know? Rachel can’t have any of this until she’s thirty. It came as surprise, that. Her parents and her, you know, they weren’t really that close. She argued with them that night, and I think the memory of that always weighed heavily on her. Her thirtieth birthday is only a few years away, but we’re all wondering what she’ll do with the camp. If she’ll keep it or if she’ll sell. The same with her parents’ apartment. She can’t sell it until she turns thirty, so it just sits empty, a few floors above her in the city. I would have moved, poor thing,” Margaret said confidentially. “It’s a lot of money, you know. Her mother was what we used to call an heiress and her father, well, he did very well for himself, too. Right now, she’s on an allowance. It’s managed by the family attorney. He’s the one who pays us and pays all the property expenses currently. We’re all just in a holding pattern, waiting for Rachel to decide what she wants to do, sometime in the future.”

Margaret pushed the sandwich in my direction. It was taller than I had expected, full of bright crunchy lettuce and layered with roast chicken and heirloom tomatoes.

“Thank you,” I said.

Back out on the lawn, Rachel was watching the water; clouds were amassing at the end of the lake.

“That looks good,” she said.

When I put the plate down, she promptly took half and bit into it—a streak of mustard smeared her cheek.

“Another summer storm,” I said, sitting down across from her. We chewed in silence until there was a crack of thunder. The hazy, high clouds had coalesced into a nighttime darkness that was spreading toward us.

“I miss this about upstate,” she said.

“Isn’t it hard?” The words were out before I could stop them.

“Margaret told you, didn’t she?” Rachel sighed. “I try not to share the details. I don’t like to. Every time I do it’s like I’m reliving it. Sometimes I can still feel the cold, the bone-deep chill that came for me that night.”

I reached out to put a hand on her arm, to offer her some comfort. I knew there was nothing to say. Words weren’t made to fit these holes. But I knew what it was like to lose a parent. And after yesterday, to feel that cold.

“That’s the only thing I remember, you know? The cold. People always ask me for details, but our memory protects us from the worst traumas. Were you and your father close?” she asked.

I, too, only remembered a few things from the day my father died. “He was the most like me,” I said. “Or maybe I was like him. Sometimes I think my mom was frustrated by it. She didn’t always understand us.”

“My parents didn’t always understand me, either,” Rachel added. “I always hoped we might get there, though. Even though I don’t think I was what they were hoping for. Not really. They wanted a child who was lighter, more fun. Less serious.”

“I think my mother wanted a child who was less ambitious,” I said, because it was true. I had always felt that she saw my ambition as an indictment of her. Maybe it was.

“Those expectations can be heavy,” said Rachel. “Mine always thought I would grow out of the tarot, the world of academia. They even tried to incentivize me—that’s what they called it—to quit. To go work in fundraising, get married young, do what they couldn’t: have more children.”