The Rest of the Story(68)

I watched her face as she considered this. Then, out of nowhere, she said, “Do you miss your mom?”

I didn’t know why this question hit me like a gut punch. Maybe because it was unexpected, or since she was young, closer to the age I’d been when my mom died than I was now. “Yes, very much,” I said. “Do you miss yours?”

She nodded, silent. “Do you think I’ll have to leave here, too?”

So that was what this was really about. Not me, but her fear that someone might take her away unexpectedly as well. “Is that what you want?”

“No,” she said, reaching down to run a finger over the face of the chimp on the book’s cover. “I like it here.”

“I know that feeling,” I said. She shifted a bit, my arm still over her shoulder. When I went to move it, though, she surprised me by leaning in closer, resting her head against my chest. “But you know what Mimi says. Even if you do have to go someday, the lake keeps you.”

To this she said nothing. I could feel her warm face against my shirt, accompanied by that little-kid feral smell of sunscreen and dirt. After a moment she said, “What’s that book?”

I’d forgotten about the album, which I’d set on the step beside me. Picking it up, I said, “It’s photos from the first time I came here. Want to see?”

She nodded, sitting up again, and pulled the book into my lap, opening it up. “That’s Mimi,” she said, pointing to one of the first shots.

“Yep,” I said. We looked at it quietly for a moment. “You said the pictures might help me remember. So I borrowed this from Roo.”

Hearing this, she looked pleased. “Are there a lot of them?” she asked as I turned the page.

“Not really,” I said. “But there are enough.”

Now we were on the page with the shot of me with Trinity and Bailey with our Popsicles, as well as Jack in the boat and Roo on the car. “That’s you,” she said, putting a finger right in the center of my swimsuit. “Right?”

“Yep, that’s the first one,” I said. “Now we just need to find the others.”

As she leaned in a little closer, squinting, I heard footsteps behind us in the hallway. When I looked through the screen, Mimi was standing there, watching us. I’d have to talk to her now about leaving, and how grateful I was for the time I’d spent here. There were other things I wanted to say, too. But for now, I turned back to Gordon, who was flipping a page with one finger, her eyes scanning the photos there. Everything changes tomorrow, I thought, but then again, that was always the case.

I wanted to tell Gordon this, share with her the things I was learning, these rules for us outliers. Instead, I got settled, the album square in my lap, and searched with her for my own face among the others that now, I finally recognized. But it was she who spoke first.

“Look,” she said softly. “There’s another one.”





Sixteen


The day I was leaving, I woke up before the sun and everyone else. Or so I thought.

“Well, look who it is,” Mimi said as I came into the kitchen. She was at the table, a mug in front of her. The paper was there as well, but still rolled up, waiting for Oxford, I assumed. “Isn’t this a nice surprise.”

“Didn’t sleep well,” I told her. “Are you always up this early?”

“Oh, honey, I’ve never been much of a sleeper.” She picked up her drink, taking a sip. “Plus I love having the house and lake all to myself. I’m selfish that way.”

“You’re anything but selfish,” I told her, crossing to the cupboard to take out a glass. At the sink, I filled it with water, then went to join her.

“I don’t know about that.” She smiled at me. “I’m wishing you could stay here awhile longer when I know your daddy is more than ready to have you back.”

“I wish I could stay, too,” I said with a sigh. “I feel like I’m just starting to figure things out.”

“Things?”

I sat back in my chair, pulling a leg up underneath me. “I never really understood what this place meant to me. I mean, I knew my mom loved it, because she talked about it. A lot.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” she said. “What did she say?”

“It was mostly stories.” I looked out the big window in front of me at the water, which was still and quiet, the sky streaked with pink above it. “About a girl who lived at a lake and hated the winter. But in the summer, she was happy.”

“Sounds like Waverly,” she said. Her face looked sad, and again I wondered if I shouldn’t have gone into detail. “She had a complicated relationship with this place. And a lot of things.”

“My dad never wants to talk about her problems,” I said, surprising myself. “It’s like he feels like he has to present this sanitized version of her life for my sake. I mean, I never even knew about the accident with Chris Price until Bailey told me.”

“Don’t be too hard on your dad,” she said. “Everyone grieves differently.”

“Part of grieving is remembering,” I pointed out. “He just wants to forget.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” she replied. She looked down at her mug. “If it was, you wouldn’t know anything about her, and it sounds like you do.”