First published in the United States of America by Balzer + Bray in 2019

Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

Published simultaneously in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins website address is:

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Sarah Dessen 2019

Jacket art © 2019 by Jenny Carrow

Typography by Jenna Stempel-Lobell

All rights reserved.

Sarah Dessen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008334390

Ebook Edition © April 2019 ISBN: 9780008334406

Version: 2019-04-19

For Leigh Feldman.

Even when words fail me, you never do.

Thank you.

Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

About the Author

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

There weren’t a lot of memories, especially good ones. But there was this.

“Tell me a story,” I’d say when it was bedtime but I wasn’t at all sleepy.

“Oh, honey,” my mom would reply. “I’m tired.”

She was always tired: that I did remember. Especially in the evenings, after that first or second glass of wine, which most often led to a bottle, once I was asleep. Usually my dad cleaned up before he went to bed, but when he wasn’t around, the evidence remained there in the light of day when I came down for breakfast.

“Not a fairy tale,” I’d say, because she always said no at first. “A lake story.”

At this, she’d smile. “A lake story? Well. That’s different.”

That was when I knew I could lean back into my pillows, grabbing my stuffed giraffe, George, and settle in.

“Once upon a time,” she’d begin, locking a leg around mine or draping an arm over my stomach, because snuggling was part of the telling, “there was a little girl who lived by a big lake that seemed like it went on forever. The trees around the edges had moss, and the water was cold and clear.”

This was when I would start to picture it. Seeing the details.

“The little girl loved to swim, and she loved her family, and she loved the creaky old house with the uneven floors and the little bedroom at the top of the stairs, which was all hers.”

At this point in the story, she’d look at me, as if checking to see if I’d fallen asleep. I never had, though.

“In the winters, the water was cold, and so was the house. It felt like the world had left the lake all alone, and the girl would get sad.”

Here I always pictured the little girl in a window, peering out. I had an image for everything, like she was turning pages in a book.

“When the weather got warm again, though, strangers and travelers came to visit from all over. And they brought boats with loud motors, and floats of many colors and shapes, and crowded the docks through the days and nights, their voices filling the air.” A pause, now, as she shifted, maybe closing her own eyes. “And on those nights, the summer nights, the little girl would sit in her yellow bedroom and look across the water and the big sky full of stars and know everything was going to be okay.”

I could see it all, the picture so vivid in my mind I felt like I could have touched it. And I’d be getting sleepy, but never so much I couldn’t say what came next. “How did she know?”

“Because in the summers, the world came back to the lake,” she’d reply. “And that was when it felt like home.”

ONE

The wedding was over. But the party had just begun.

“It’s just so romantic,” my best friend Bridget said, picking up the little glass jar of candy from her place setting and staring at it dreamily. “Like a fairy tale.”

“You think everything is like a fairy tale,” my other best friend Ryan told her, wincing as she reached down yet again to rub her sore feet. None of us were used to dressing up very much, especially in heels. “All those days of playing Princess when we were kids ruined you.”

“I seem to remember someone who had a Belle fixation,” Bridget said, putting the candy down with a clank. She tucked her short, choppy dark bob behind her ears. “Back before you decided that being cynical and depressed was much cooler.”

“I was the one who liked Belle,” I reminded her. We all had our roles: they were always bickering about our shared history, while I was the one who remembered all the details. It had been like this since we’d met on the playground in second grade. “Ryan was all about Jasmine.”

“She’s right,” Ryan said. “And I’ll remind you again that I’m not cynical or depressed, I’m realistic. We can’t all see the world as rainbows and unicorns.”

“I don’t even like rainbows and unicorns,” Bridget muttered. “They’re so overdone.”

“The truth is,” Ryan continued, “even with cute candy favors, the divorce rate in this country is over fifty percent.”

“Oh, my God. Ryan!” Bridget looked horrified. Ryan was right about one thing: she was the biggest optimist I knew. “That is a horrible thing to say at Emma’s dad’s wedding.”

“Seriously,” I added. “Way to jinx my future. Was my past not bleak enough for you?”

Ryan looked at me, worried. “Oh, crap. Sorry.”

“I’m kidding,” I told her.

“And I hate your humor,” she replied. “Have I mentioned that lately?”

She had not. But she didn’t need to. Everyone seemed to have a problem with what I found funny. “Despite the statistics,” I said, “I really do feel Dad and Tracy will make it.”

“She’ll always be Dr. Feldman to me,” she said, glancing over to the cake table, where the couple in question were now posing for the photographer, their hands arranged together over a knife. “I still can’t talk to her without feeling like I need to open wide.”

“Ha,” I said, although as the kid of a dentist, I’d heard all those jokes, multiple times. What’s your dad’s favorite day of the week? TOOTHDAY! What do you call your dad’s advice? His FLOSSOPHY! Add in the fact that my dad’s name was Dr. Payne, and hilarity was always ensuing.

“No, I’m serious,” Ryan said. “Even just now, when they came by to say hello, I was worried she’d notice I hadn’t been flossing.”

“I think she’s got bigger things on her mind today,” I said, watching as my new stepmother laughed, brushing some frosting off my dad’s face with one hand. She looked relaxed, which was a relief after over a year of watching her juggle the details of flowers and her dress and the reception along with her own bustling practice. Even at her most stressed, though, she’d maintained the cheerful demeanor that was her signature. If my mom had been dark and tragic, Tracy was sweetness and light. And, yes, maybe flossing. But she made my dad happy, which was all that really counted to me.

“Nana incoming,” Ryan said under her breath. Immediately, we all sat up straighter. Such was the power of my grandmother, who carried herself with such grace that you couldn’t help but try to do the same. Also, she’d tell you if you were slouching. Nicely, but she would tell you.

“Girls, you all look so beautiful,” she said as she came sweeping up in the simple rose-colored chiffon gown that she’d custom-ordered from New York. “I just can’t get over it. Like little princesses!”

At this, Bridget beamed. While Ryan and I had moved on, she’d never really gotten over her own years of wanting to be Cinderella. “Thank you, Mrs. Payne. The wedding is lovely.”

“Isn’t it?” Nana looked over to the cake table, where my dad was now feeding Tracy a bite from his fork. “It all came together perfectly. I couldn’t be more thrilled for them.”

“Me too,” I said, and at this she smiled, reaching down to touch my shoulder. When I looked up at her and our eyes met, she gave it a squeeze.

“Are you getting excited about your cruise?” Bridget asked Nana now as the waiters began to move through the room with champagne for the toasts. “I heard you’re going to see pyramids!”

“That’s what I’m told,” Nana replied, taking a flute from a passing tray and holding it up to the light. “And while I’m excited, I’d honestly rather be here overseeing the renovations. Travel is always good for the soul, though, isn’t it?”

Bridget nodded, even though I knew for a fact she’d only been on one real trip, to Disney World a few years back. “Renovations are boring, though,” she said. “We did our family room last summer. It was all sawdust and noise for months.”

“You underestimate how ready she is to turn my room into something fabulous, like a Zen garden or formal sitting room,” I said. “She’s been counting the days.”

“Not true,” Nana said, looking at me. “You have no idea how much I will miss you.”

Just like that, I felt a lump in my throat. I made a point of smiling at her, though, as a man in a suit passing by greeted her and she turned away to talk to him.

There were good changes and bad ones, and I knew that the ones ahead were firmly in the former category for both Nana and myself. After the wedding, my dad, Tracy, and I would live together in a new house they’d purchased in a neighborhood walking distance to my high school. Nana would finally get her apartment back, something she said she didn’t care about one bit, but in truth I knew she wouldn’t miss the clutter and noise that came along with her son and teenage granddaughter as roommates. After my parents split and my mom first went to treatment, we needed somewhere to land, and she’d offered without a second thought. Never mind that I’d probably racked up enough of a bill in broken china and scuffed floors to cover my college tuition: Nana said she wouldn’t have it any other way. Her home was a work of art filled with works of art, each detail from the carpets to the wall hangings curated and considered. Now it featured a banged-up bike in the entryway, as well as a huge widescreen TV (Nana didn’t watch television). After a renovation that would happen while she was floating down the Nile, she would get it back all to herself to do with as she chose. And I was glad.

I was happy for my dad as well. After the roller coaster of dealing with my mom, Tracy was the most welcome of changes. She didn’t take more than she gave, or give nothing at all. She could be trusted to go to a work dinner and not embarrass him by drinking too much or telling a joke that had profanity or sex as part of the punch line. And if she said she’d be somewhere at a certain time, she was always there. It was this last thing that I think he appreciated most about her. I knew I did. After loving someone you couldn’t depend on, you realize how important it is to trust someone will do what they say. It’s such a simple thing, not to promise what you can’t or won’t deliver. But my mom had done that all the time.

In our new home in Lakeview, in the Arbors neighborhood, I would have my own suite with a big airy bedroom, as well as a bathroom and a small balcony that looked out over the rest of our street. It would be a change from our apartment, where I could look out at night and see city lights, and the noise from the street was muted but still always there: garbage trucks rumbling in the morning; drunk students walking home from the bars after midnight; sirens and car horns. I knew I would miss it, the way I’d miss my breakfasts with Nana, us splitting the newspaper—she took the cultural section, while I preferred the obituaries—and being able to step out of my house right into the world going on around me. But change was good, as Nana also said, especially the kind you were prepared for. And I was.

Before all that, though, my dad and Tracy would leave for their honeymoon to Greece. There, they were chartering a boat, just the two of them, indulging their shared love of sailing to tour the islands. It was a perfect culmination of their courtship, which, despite their shared profession, had not begun in a tooth-based setting. Instead, they’d met at a general interest meeting of the Lakeview Sailing Club, which gathered every other Sunday at Topper Lake to race dingys and knockabouts. I knew this because before Tracy, I’d had the unfortunate luck of being my dad’s first mate.

I hated sailing. I know, I know. It was my name, for God’s sake—Emma Saylor—chosen because my dad’s passion for mainsheets and rudder boards had been what had brought my parents together at another lake all those years ago. My mom, however, had felt the same way about sailing as I did, which was why she’d insisted on spelling my name the way she had. And anyway, I was Emma for all intents and purposes. Emma, who hated sailing.

My dad tried. He’d signed me up for sailing camp one summer when I was ten. There, I was usually adrift, my centerboard usually having plunged into the lake below, as instructors tried to yell encouragement from a nearby motorboat. But sailing with other people was worse. More likely than not, they’d yell at you for not sitting in the right place or grabbing the wrong line under pressure. Even when my dad swore he was taking me out for a “nice, easy sail,” there would be at least one moment when he got super stressed and was racing around trying to make the boat do something it wasn’t wanting to do while, yes, yelling.

Tracy, however, didn’t mind this. In fact, from the day they were assigned to a knockabout together at the sailing club, she yelled right back, which I believed was one of the things that made my dad fall in love with her.

So they would go to Greece, and holler at each other over the gorgeous Aegean Sea, and I would stay with Bridget and her family. We’d spend the days babysitting her brothers, ages twelve, ten, and five, and going to her neighborhood pool, where we planned to work on our tans and the crushes we had on Sam and Steve Schroeder, the twins in our grade who lived at the end of her cul-de-sac.

But first, there was tonight and the wedding, here at the Lakeview Country Club, where the ballroom had been lined with twinkling lights and fluttering tulle and we, along with two hundred other guests, had just finished a sit-down dinner. Despite the lavishness of the celebration, the ceremony itself had been simple, with me as Tracy’s maid of honor and Nana standing up with my dad as his “Best Gran.” (One of the wedding planners, a dapper man named William, had come up with this moniker, and he was clearly very proud of it.) I’d been allowed to choose my own dress, which I was pretty sure was Tracy’s way of trying to make it not a big deal but instead did the opposite, as who wants to make the wrong decision when you are one of only four people in the wedding party? Never mind that I was an anxious girl, always had been, and choices of any kind were my kryptonite. I’d ended up in such a panic I bought two dresses, then decided at the last minute. But even now, as I sat in my baby-blue sheath with the spaghetti straps, I was thinking of the pink gown with the full skirt at home, and wondering if I should have gone with it instead. I sighed, then reorganized my place setting, putting the silverware that remained squarely on my folded napkin and adjusting the angle of my water glass.

“You okay?” Ryan asked me. We’d been friends for so long, she knew my coping mechanisms almost better than I did. Perpetually messy herself, she’d often told me she wished she, too, had the urge to keep the world neat and tidy. But everything is welcome until you can’t stop, and I’d been like this for longer than I cared to remember.

“Fine,” I said, dropping my hand instead of lining up the flowers, glass jar of candy, and candle as I’d been about to do. “It’s just a big night.”

“Of course it is!” Bridget said. There was that optimism again. “Which is why I think we need to celebrate.”

I raised my eyebrows at Ryan, who just shrugged, clearly not in on whatever Bridget was planning. Which, as it turned out, was turning to the table beside us, which had been full of young hygienists from my dad’s office until they all hit the dance floor, and switching out the bottle of sparkling cider from our ice bucket for the champagne in theirs.

“Bridget,” Ryan hissed. “You’re going to get us so busted!”

“By who? They’re already all tipsy, they won’t even notice.” She quickly filled our flutes before burying the bottle back in ice. Then she picked up her glass, gesturing for us to do the same. “To Dr. Payne and Dr. Feldman.”

“To Dad and Tracy,” I said.

“Bottoms up,” added Ryan.

We clinked glasses, Bridget with a bit too much enthusiasm, champagne sloshing onto the table in front of her. I watched them both suck down big gulps—Ryan wincing—as I looked at my glass.

“It’s good!” Bridget told me. “Even if you don’t drink.”

“My mom says it’s bad luck to toast and not imbibe,” Ryan added. “Just take a tiny sip.”

I just looked at them. They knew I wasn’t a drinker, just as they knew exactly why. Sighing, I picked up my flute and took a gulp. Immediately, my nose was tingling, prickles filling my brain. “Ugh,” I said, chasing it with water right away. “How can you really enjoy that?”

“It’s like drinking sparkles,” Bridget replied, holding the glass up to the light just as Nana had, the bubbles drifting upward.

“Spoken like a true princess.” Ryan tipped her glass back, finishing it, then gave herself a refill. “And my mom also says nobody really likes champagne. Only how it makes you feel.”

“All I feel is that everything is changing,” I said. Saying it aloud, it suddenly felt more true than ever.

“But in good ways!” Bridget said. “Right? New stepmom, new house, and before that, new summer full of potential …”

“For you two,” Ryan grumbled. “I’ll be stuck in the mountains with no internet, with only my dad and some drama nerds for company.”

“You get to spend the entire summer at Windmill! That’s one of the best theater camps in the country—” Bridget replied.

“Where I’ll be the camp director’s kid, so everyone will automatically hate me,” Ryan finished for her. “Except my dad.”

“You guys.” Bridget lifted out the bottle again, topping off our glasses. “It’s going to be an amazing summer, for all of us. Just trust me, will you?”

Ryan shrugged, then took another sip. I looked at my own glass, then across the room at my dad, who was now leading Tracy back to their table. He looked flushed and happy, and watching him, I felt a rush of affection. He’d been through so much, with my mom and then the divorce, raising me basically as a single parent even before he really was one, all the while working nonstop. I was really happy for him, and excited. But the time that he’d be in Greece would be the longest we’d been apart in my memory, and I already knew I would miss him so much. Parents are always precious. But when you only have one, they become crucial.

I reached down, moving my dessert fork and coffee spoon a bit to the right. When Ryan looked over at me, I expected to be called out again, but instead, this time, she just gave me a smile. Then she turned her head away so I could arrange the vase, candy jar, and candle as well.

TWO

I’d heard a lot of words used to describe my mom both before and since her death five years ago. “Beautiful” was a big one, followed closely by “wild” or its kinder twin, “spirited.” There were a few mentions each of “tragic,” “sweet,” and “full of life.” But these were just words. My mom was bigger than any combination of letters.

She died in 2013, on the Monday of the first week after Thanksgiving. We’d actually spent it together: me, my mom, and my dad, even though they’d been split up at that point for almost five years. First love against the backdrop of a summer lake resort makes for a great movie plot or romance novel. As a working model for a relationship and parenthood, though, it left a bit to be desired. At least in their case.

I was so little when they split that I didn’t remember the fighting, or how my dad was never around as he finished dental school, leaving my mom to take care of me alone. Also lost to my memory was an increase in my mom’s drinking, which then blossomed into a painkiller addiction after she had wrist surgery and discovered Percocet. By the time my consciousness caught up with everything, my parents weren’t together anymore and she’d already been to rehab once. The world, as I remembered it, was my post-divorce life, which was my dad and me living with Nana Payne in her apartment building in downtown Lakeview and my mom, well, anywhere and everywhere else.

Like the studio apartment in the basement of a suburban house, so small that when you fully opened the front door, it hit the bed. Or the ranch home she shared with three other women in various stages of recovery, where the sofa stank of cigarettes despite a NO SMOKING sign above it. And then there was the residential motel on the outskirts of town she landed in after her final stay at rehab, where the rooms were gross but the pool was clean. We’d race underwater across its length again and again that last summer, her beating me every time. I didn’t know it was her final summer, of course. I thought we’d just go on like this forever.

That Thanksgiving, we ate around Nana’s big table with the good china and the crystal goblets. My dad carved the turkey (sides were brought in from the country club), and my mother arrived with Pop Soda, her nonalcoholic drink of choice, and two plastic-wrapped pecan pies from the grocery store. Later, I’d comb over that afternoon again and again. How she had that healthy, post-treatment look, her skin clear, nails polished, not bitten to the quick. She’d been wearing jeans and a white button-down shirt with a lace collar, new white Keds on her feet, which were as small as a child’s. And there was the way she kept touching me—smoothing my hair, kissing my temple, pulling me into her lap as I passed by—as if making up for the weeks we’d lost while she was away.

Finally, there was crackling chemistry between my parents, obvious even to a child. My dad, usually a measured, practical person, became lighter around my mother. That Thanksgiving, she’d teased him about his second and then third slice of pie, to which he’d responded by opening his full mouth and sticking out his tongue at her. It was stupid and silly and I loved it. She made him laugh in a way no one else could, bringing out a side of him that I coveted.

It was getting dark when I went down with her in the elevator to meet her ride. It bothered me for a long time that I never remembered this person’s name, who picked her up in a nondescript American compact, gray in color. Outside the lobby door, my mom turned to face me, putting her hands on my shoulders. Then she squatted down, her signature black liner and mascara perfectly in place, as always, as she gazed into my eyes, blue like hers. People always said we looked alike.

“Saylor girl,” she said, because she always called me Saylor, not Emma. “You know I love you, right?”

I nodded. “I love you too, Mama.”

At this she smiled, pulling her thin jacket a bit more tightly around her. It was always windier by our building, the breeze working its way through the high-rises, racing at you. “Once I get more settled, we’ll do a sleepover, okay? Movies and popcorn, just you and me.”

I nodded again, wishing it was still warm enough to swim. I loved that motel pool.

“Come here,” she said, pulling me into her arms, and I buried my face in her neck, breathing in her smell, body wash and hair spray and cold air, all mixed together. She hugged me back tightly, the way she always did, and I let myself relax into her. When she pulled away, she gave me a wink. My mom was a big winker. To this day, when anyone does it, I think of her. “Now go on, I’ll make sure you get inside safe.”

She stepped back and I took one last look at her, there on the sidewalk in those bright white sneakers. Nana had been in cocktail attire for dinner and insisted my dad wear a tie and me a dress, but my mom always followed her own rules.

“Bye,” I called out as I turned, pulling the heavy glass lobby door open and stepping inside.

“Bye, baby,” she replied. Then she slid her hands in her jacket pockets, taking a step back, and watched me walk to the elevator and hit the button. She was still there when I got in and raised a hand in a final wave just before the doors shut.

Later, I’d try to imagine what happened after that, from her walking to her friend’s car to going back to the motel, where the pool was empty and her little room smelled of meals long ago prepared and eaten by other people. I’d see her on her bed, maybe reading the Big Book that was part of her program, or writing in one of the drugstore spiral notebooks where she was forever scribbling down lists of things to do. Lastly, I’d see her sleeping, curled up under a scratchy blanket as the light outside the door pushed in through the edges of the blinds and trucks roared past on the nearby interstate. I wanted to keep her safe in dreaming, and in my mind, even now, I slip and think of her that way. Like she’s forever stayed there, in that beat between nighttime and morning, when it feels like you only dozed off a minute but it’s really been hours.

What really happened was that a couple of weeks later, as I was thinking of Christmas and presents and Santa, my mom skipped her nightly meeting and went to a bar with some friends. There, she drank a few beers, met a guy, and went back to his house, where they pooled their money to buy some heroin to keep the party going. She’d overdosed twice before, each one resulting in another rehab stint and a clean start. Not this time.

Some nights when I couldn’t sleep, I tried to picture this part of the story, too. I wanted to see her through to the end, especially in those early days, when it didn’t seem real or possible she was gone. But the settings were foreign and details unknown, so no matter how I envisioned those last weeks and hours, it was all imagination and conjecture. The last real thing I had was her standing on the sidewalk as I pushed the elevator button, her hand lifted. Goodbye.

THREE

Middle of the night phone calls are never good news. Never.

“Bridget?” I said, sitting up as I put my phone to my ear. “Is everything okay?”

“My grandpa,” she managed to get out, her voice breaking. “He had a stroke.”

“Oh, my God,” I said, reaching to turn on the bedside lamp before remembering that it, like most of my other stuff, had already been packed. It had been a week since the wedding: Nana’s flight was midmorning; my dad and Tracy were leaving that afternoon. The next day, the movers would come. All that was left was the bed itself, a couple of boxes, and the suitcase I’d packed to bring to Bridget’s the following afternoon. I looked at the clock: it was four a.m. “Is he okay?”

“We don’t know yet,” she said, and now she was crying, the words lost in heavy breaths and tears. “Mom’s taking all of us kids to Ohio to be with him and Grandma. I’m so sorry, Emma.”

“It’s fine,” I said automatically, although now that I was beginning to wake up, I realized this meant I had nowhere to stay once my dad and Tracy left for Greece. “What can we do for you guys?”

She took a shuddering inhale. “Nothing right now, I don’t think. Mom’s just in her total crisis mode, packing suitcases, and Dad’s on hold with the airline trying to find a flight. The boys are still asleep.”

“I can come over,” I offered. “Help get the boys up and ready so you guys can pack.”

“That’s so n-n-ice.” She took a breath. “But I think we’re okay. I just wanted to let you know, so you can make other plans. Again, I’m really sorry we’re bailing on you like this.”

“That’s the last thing you should be worrying about,” I told her. “Just take care of yourself. Okay?”

“Okay.” She took another shaky breath. “Thanks, Emma. Love you.”

“Love you back,” I replied. “Text me an update later?”

“I will.”

We hung up, and I put my phone back on the floor, where it glowed another moment before going black. Outside, the sky was still dark, the only sound the central air whirring, stirring up the curtains at my window. The last thing I wanted to do was go down the hall to my dad’s room, where he and Tracy would still be fast asleep, and throw this wrench into their honeymoon plans. So I didn’t. It could wait until the morning.

“Well,” my dad said, rubbing a hand over his face, “I guess we just reschedule?”

“No,” I said immediately. “That’s crazy. You guys have had this booked for over a year. You’re going.”

“And leaving you to stay here alone?” Tracy asked. “Emma. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but—”

“You’re seventeen, and this place is about to be full of sawdust and subcontractors,” my dad finished for her. “Not happening.”

Nana, sitting at the table with a cup of tea, had been quiet for much of this debate. But I could tell she was mulling this. “Surely there must be someone we’re not thinking of.”

I sighed—I hated that I was the problem—but not before catching my dad rubbing his eyes again under his glasses. It was his tell of tells, the one way I could always be sure he was nervous or stressed. I said, “She’s right. There has to be—”

“Who?” my dad interrupted me. “Bridget’s leaving, Ryan is at camp, your grandmother is about to be on a cruise ship somewhere—”

“Egypt,” I reminded him.

“Actually, Morocco,” Nana said, sipping her tea. “Egypt is Thursday.”

“Thank you,” he said. He rubbed his face again, then snapped his fingers, pointing at Tracy. “What about your sister?”

She shook her head. “Leaving the day after tomorrow to hike the Appalachian Trail. Remember?”

“Oh, right,” he said, his shoulders sinking. “We only talked about it with her at length three days ago.” As proof, he gestured at the stack of wedding gifts and cards, some opened, some not, that had been piled into some nearby boxes for the movers to take to the new place.

“It was a wedding,” I told him. He looked so down I felt like I had to say something. “You talked to a million people.”

This he waved off as Tracy, seated at the table, watched him, a cup of coffee balanced in her hands. In front of her, right where she’d left them the night before, were their passports, the boarding passes she’d printed out after checking in online to their flights—“just to be on the safe side,” she said—and their itinerary. Doodling at some point since, she’d drawn a row of hearts across the top, right over the word DEPARTURE.

“This is crazy,” I said, looking from it back to my dad. “It’s your honeymoon. I’m not going to be the reason the dream trip gets canceled.”

“No one is blaming you,” he said.

“Certainly not,” Nana seconded. “Things happen.”

“Maybe not now,” I said. “But just think of the long-term resentment. I mean, I have enough baggage, right?”

I thought this was funny, but my dad just shot me a tired look. He took my anxiety personally, as if he’d broken me or something. Which was nuts, because all he’d ever done was hold me together, even and especially when the rest of my world was falling apart.

“We reschedule,” he said firmly. “I’ll call the travel agent right now.”

“What about Mimi Calvander?” Nana suggested.

Silence. Then Tracy said, “Who?”

Behind me, I could hear the clock over the stove, which I always forgot made noise at all except during moments like this, when it was loud enough to feel deafening. “Mimi?” my dad said finally. “Waverly’s mom?”

It was always jarring when my mom’s name came up unexpectedly, even when it wasn’t early in the morning. Like she belonged both everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Nana looked at my dad. “Well, she is family. North Lake isn’t too far. And Emma’s stayed with her before.”

“I did?” I asked.

“A long time ago,” my dad said. He’d stopped pacing: he was processing this. “When you were four or so. It was during the only trip your mom and I ever took alone. Vegas.”

A beat. The clock was still ticking.

“Second honeymoon,” he added softly. “It was a disaster, of course.”

“Well, it’s just an idea,” Nana said, taking another measured sip.

“You have to go to Greece,” I told my dad. “It’s your honeymoon, for God’s sake.”

“And this is your grandmother,” he replied, “who you haven’t seen in years.”

“I do know her, though,” I said quickly. He looked at me, doubtful. “I mean, not well. But I remember her. Vaguely.”

“Okay, stop,” my dad said. He rubbed his face again. “Everyone stop. Just let me think.”

It was one of those moments when you can just see the future forking, like that road in the yellow wood, right before your eyes. I knew my dad. He’d give up Greece for me. After all he’d already sacrificed, a whole country was nothing at all. Which was why I spoke up, saying, “Mimi, at the lake. With the moss on the trees. There’s porch swings on the dock. And an arcade down the street you can walk to. And the water is cold and clear.”

He looked at me, sighing. “Emma. You were four.”

“Mom talked about it,” I told him. “All the time.”

This, he couldn’t dispute. Every now and then, he got to hear the bedtime stories, too. “You don’t understand,” he said. “Your mother’s family is …”

He trailed off, all of us waiting for a word that never came.

“And the high tourist season is just getting started,” he continued. “Which means Mimi is probably too busy to take on anything else.”

“I don’t know about that,” Nana said. “It’s been so long, I bet she’d love to see Emma.”

“Sometime,” my dad said. “Not today, this second.”

“But we don’t know that for sure,” I told him. “If she’s really anything like Mom, she’s not much of a planner.”

He looked at me again. “North Lake, Emma … it’s … different. They’re different. It’s not like here.”

“I wouldn’t be moving there,” I told him. “It’s three weeks.”

More silence. More ticking. “You really want me to do this?”

What I wanted was for him to go to Greece and sail that boat across the water there, with Tracy beside him. So I knew what to say.

“Yes,” I said as Nana caught my eye. “Call her.”

All my life I’d thought my mom grew up so far away. But after an hour and a half, we were there.

“Anything look familiar?” my dad asked.

“Every single bit!” I said, my voice bright. “Especially this part right here, the exit ramp.”

He shot me a look I knew had to be sharp, not that I could tell from behind his dark sunglasses. “Hey. Don’t be a smartass. I was just asking a question.”

Actually, what he wanted was reassurance that this would not turn out to be the worst idea in the history of ideas. But the truth was that it was all new to me, and I’d always been a bad liar.

“Wait a second,” I said now as we approached a single red light, blinking, and came to a stop. “There are two lakes?”

He peered at the sign across from us, then smiled. “No,” he said. “Only one.”

It didn’t make sense, though. If that was the case, why was there an arrow pointing to the right that said NORTH LAKE (5 MILES) and another to the left indicating the way to LAKE NORTH (8 MILES). “I don’t get it.”

“What we have here, actually,” he replied, “is one of the great idiosyncrasies of this area.”

“Second only to you using the word idiosyncrasies while sitting at an exit ramp?”

He ignored me. “See, when this place was first settled, it was pretty rural. Working-class people both lived here year-round and came to vacation in the summers. But then, in the eighties, a billionaire from New York discovered it. He decided to build an upscale resort and bought up one whole side of the lakefront to do just that.”

We were still sitting there at the light, but no one was behind us or coming from either direction. So he continued.

“They had a big grand opening for the first summer … and nobody came. As it turned out, the rich folks didn’t want to spend big money to stay at North Lake, because it was so solidly known as a blue-collar vacation spot.” He put on his blinker. “By the second summer, though, the developer figured this out, and incorporated his area as Lake North.”

“Which was the same place.”

“But it sounded like a different one,” he said. “So the rich folks came and bought houses and joined the country club. And from then on, there were two towns. And one lake, that sounded like two, between them.”

Still not a single car had passed or come up behind us at the light. Despite different economies, neither town seemed to have much going on, at least at the current moment. “Let me guess,” I said. “When you came here with Nana in high school, you went left here, to Lake North.”

“Smart girl,” he replied. Then he put on his blinker, and we turned to the right.

It was a short trip. Four stoplights, to be exact, and then another turn onto a two-lane road, past a big sign with blue faded letters that said WELCOME TO NORTH LAKE: YOUR FAVORITE VACATION. Just past it, the motels began.

I lost count after six different establishments, each very similar in appearance. They were all one-story concrete buildings with grass driveways and parking lots, cars in diagonal spots lining the room doors. Most had an office, identified by a hand-lettered sign or an occasional one in neon proclaiming it as such, and many featured flower and rock gardens with yard art out in front. They had names like NORTH LAKE MOTOR INN and LIPSCOMB COURT and THE JACARANDA. Mixed in here and there were trailer parks, but not the kind with big double-wides. Instead, these were the small type you attached to a car and towed, some silver and stainless, others white or painted bright colors. There was so much to see, and all of it new, that even though we were going slowly, I couldn’t process much but a glimpse at a time before the scenery turned to something else.

In fact, I was looking ahead at two mini-golf courses that faced each other from opposite sides of the street—could an economy so small sustain this, I wondered?—when my dad slowed, turning into a drive on our right. It was another hotel, this one a single story of yellow painted concrete and bright blue doors, with a big scripted sign that said only CALVANDER’S. NO VACANCIES.

We pulled in, parking outside the office. As we climbed out of the car, I got my first glimpse of the water, blue and wide. Jutting out into it were a series of long wooden docks. On the one closest to us there were two porch swings hanging by chains, and in the quiet that followed the engine cutting off, I could distantly hear them clanking.

That was the first time I felt it, that twinge of recognition as something from my long-lost past reached out from my subconscious. Splinters, I thought as I looked at the docks again. But as quickly as the memory came, it was gone.

“Matthew? Is that you?”

A woman in shorts and a faded tie-dye T-shirt had come out of the office, the door in the process of shutting slowly behind her. She had white hair cut short, spiking up a bit at the top, and she was small in stature, but formidable in the way she carried herself, like she owned the place. Which, as it turned out, she did.

“Mimi,” my dad said, breaking into a wide smile. “How are you?”

“Better than a woman my age has any right to be,” she told him. As they embraced, I saw she really was very small, with tiny feet, like my mom’s. “You haven’t changed one bit. How is that?”

“Look who’s talking,” my dad said, stepping back to look at her and taking her hands. “You Calvanders, I swear. You don’t age.”

“Tell that to my hips and my knees.” Then she gave me a wink. “And this can’t be Saylor. Can it?”

I suddenly felt shy, and concealed myself a bit more behind the car.

“Emma,” my dad said, correcting my name kindly but clearly, “just turned seventeen. She’ll be a senior this year.”

“Unbelievable,” Mimi said. She looked at me for a minute. “Well, girl, come give your grandma a hug. Lord knows I’ve missed a few.”

I went, still feeling self-conscious as I approached her. As soon as I was close enough, she pulled me into her arms, her grasp surprisingly strong. I returned the hug, a bit less enthusiastically, while towering over her despite the fact that I am hardly a tall person.

After a moment, she released me, then stepped back to study my face, giving me a chance to look at her as well. Up close, I could see the effect of years of the dark tan she’d clearly cultivated in the leathery skin of her neck and face, as well as a penchant for gold braid jewelry (necklace, bracelet, knot earrings) that almost glowed against it. Most noteworthy, though, were her eyes, which were bright blue. Like mine, and my mom’s.

“I’m so glad you came, Saylor,” she told me, now squeezing both my arms. “It’s about time.”

“Emma and I,” my dad said, trying again, “are both really grateful you agreed to let her come visit. We know it’s literally last-minute.”

“Nonsense,” Mimi said. She winked at me again. “You’re family. And you’re not just coming. You’re coming back.”

A car drove by then, the first one other than our own we’d seen in ages. Actually, it was a truck, bright green, and when the driver beeped the horn as they passed, Mimi waved, not taking her eyes off me.

“Dad says I was here before, but I don’t really remember,” I told her, because it seemed like I should start at an honest place, considering. “When I was five?”

“Four,” she replied.

“I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

“I’m good as my word, so I’d welcome that.” Then she turned back to the office door, pulling it open. “But just in case, come inside a second. I want to show you something.”

As I followed her, stepping over the threshold, the temperature dropped about twenty degrees, thanks to the window A/C unit blasting cold air from across the room. I felt like my teeth would start chattering within seconds and saw my dad wrap his arms around himself, but Mimi was unfazed as she walked to the wooden counter, which was covered with a sheet of glass.

“We’re almost out of room here, after so many summers,” she said, leaning over it. “I’m thinking I may have to expand onto a bulletin board or something soon. Not that anybody prints pictures anymore, though, with all this digital this and USB that. Anyway, let me see … I used to know right where it was …”

I stepped up beside her. Under the glass, I saw, were what had to be hundreds of pictures, from old black and whites to dingy Polaroids to, finally, color snapshots. Across them all, as the faces and clothing changed, the scenery and backgrounds remained the same. There was the water, of course, and those long docks, the swings beneath them. The rock garden under the Calvander’s sign. And those yellow cinder blocks, broken up by blue doors. So many faces over so many years, both big group shots clearly taken for posterity and candids of people alone or in pairs. I leaned in closer, looking for my mom, the one face I might be able to pick out. But when Mimi found the snapshot she was looking for, tapping it with a long fingernail, all the people in it were strangers. Small ones.

“Now,” she said, gesturing for me to come closer, “this was the Fourth of July, I believe. Let’s see … there’s Trinity, on the far left, she would have been, what, nine? And next to her is Bailey, she’d be four then also, and Roo and Jacky, who despite the age difference might as well have been twins …”

I wanted to be polite, but was so cold I was losing feeling in my extremities.

“… and then there’s you.” She looked at me, then back at the picture. “Oh, I remember that cute bathing suit! You always did love giraffes. See?”

Me? I bent over the counter. Five little kids—three girls of varying ages and sizes, and two little towheaded boys—sat lined up on a wooden bench, the lake behind them. All held sparklers, although only a couple seemed to still be lit when the shutter clicked. The girl on the far left had on a bikini, her rounded, soft belly protruding; the younger one beside her, long blond hair and a one-piece with a tie-dye print. Then, the two boys, both in bathing suits, shirtless and white-blond, one of them squinting, as if the camera were the brightest of lights. And finally, me, in a brown suit with a green giraffe and the pigtails and home-cut bangs I recognized from other shots of the same period. I was the only one who was smiling.

It was the weirdest feeling, so foreign and familiar all at once, seeing my own face in a place I didn’t recall. I knew the timeline, though. My parents’ marriage was crumbling due to my mom’s drinking and drug use, and by the coming winter, she would be in rehab and we’d move in with Nana. But sometime before all that, lost to my memory, was this trip. I’d clearly known these people well enough to be this comfortable and yet I’d still forgotten them.

“How long did I stay?” I asked Mimi.

“Two weeks, if I remember correctly,” she replied. “It was supposed to be one, but your mama got sick and plans changed.”

Sick, I thought, and only then did I remember my dad. I’d assumed he was listening to this. But he was standing facing the big glass window, looking out at the road, and appeared to be lost in thought.

“Where are all these people now?” I asked Mimi, who was rubbing the glass counter with the edge of her T-shirt, taking out some thumbprints on a low corner.

“Oh, they’re around,” she said. “You’ll see most of them, I’m sure, depending how long you’re here.”

“Three weeks at most,” my dad said now, having at some point tuned back to us. He sounded apologetic. “No change of plans this time, I promise.”

“You know I wouldn’t mind it,” Mimi said. “She can stay as long as she likes.”

There was a creak behind us: the door opening again. With it came a rush of warm, humid air, and an older man in khaki shorts and a golf shirt, a newspaper under his arm, walked in.

“There’s never been peace in that house in the morning, you’d think I’d—” He stopped talking when he saw me, then my dad, standing there. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t realize we had guests checking in.”

“They’re not,” Mimi said. “This is my granddaughter Saylor, Waverly’s girl. And Matthew, remember, I told you about him?”

The man smiled politely, sticking out a hand to my dad. “I’m sure you did. I’m Oxford.”

“My husband,” Mimi explained. When my dad looked at her, surprised, she said, “Joe died back in two thousand fifteen.”

“I’m sorry,” my dad said automatically. He looked shocked, and I realized again how strange it was he’d lost touch with her entirely. “God, Mimi. I had no idea.”

She waved her hand, batting his apology away. “Life gets busy when you’re raising kids. He had cancer and went quick, honey. And he went here, looking out at the lake, which is just what he wanted.”

We all stood there, taking a moment of silence for this person, whoever he was. Then Mimi looked at me. “Let’s get you over and settled, okay? Then we can send your dad on his way.”

I nodded, and she led us back outside. Oxford stayed behind, settling in an easy chair by the window with a sigh I could hear as he opened his paper.

“I can’t get over how much it looks the same,” my dad said as I went to the trunk to retrieve my suitcase and the small duffel I’d originally packed for Bridget’s. “But the dock’s new, or part of it, right?”

“Two years ago,” Mimi said, shading her eyes with one hand. “Hurricane Richard came through here and left nothing there but a pile of sticks. I cried when I saw it.”

“Really?” he asked. He looked at the dock again. “I figured this place was indestructible.”

“I wish,” she sighed. “A storm can change everything.”

“But you had insurance?”

“Thank goodness,” she said. “Joe always was one to prepare for the worst. So yes, we rebuilt. Luckily, the house and motel stood strong, although we lost a few trees and had flooding in some of the units. Nothing new carpet couldn’t fix, though.”

She started down the sidewalk that ran along the motel, and we fell in behind, first my dad, then me. There were seven units by my count, each with two plastic chairs parked outside, most of which were being used as drying racks for bathing suits or brightly colored towels. Every one had a window A/C unit going full strength as well.

A cleaning cart sat outside the last room, piled with folded towels, rolls of toilet paper, and little paper-wrapped soaps. I glanced inside: a dark-haired girl in shorts, quite pregnant, was wiping down a mirror. She glanced over as we passed before going back to what she was doing.

“We’re filled up this week, which is great for so early in the season,” Mimi was saying as we left the sidewalk and began across the grass to a nearby gray house with white trim. “The economy rules all, as Joe used to say, but most of our yearly bookings hung in even when everything went bust.”

“A lot of these motels and houses are rented by the same people for the same week, every single year,” my dad explained to me. “The reservations are handed down literally in wills, so they stay in the family. A lot of people have been coming here for generations.”

“And thank goodness for that,” Mimi added, starting up the front steps of the house, which had a wide porch, a couple of rocking chairs facing the water. “Joe used to say that it doesn’t matter what you do, everyone needs a vacation. In this business, we just happen to count on it.”

My dad followed her, taking the screen door she’d pulled open and holding it for me as she went inside. Once in the foyer, though, a cluttered living room to my right, I found myself stopping short. I was steps onto a shiny wooden floor that stretched down a long hallway before opening up to a wide room full of windows. Beyond them, there was only lake, the sun glittering off it.

“Emma?” my dad asked. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to explain to him, or if I even could, how I knew that this floor would tilt up slightly as I walked across it, or that the room at the end of the hall was the kitchen, even though I could see nothing of it from where I stood. Outside, this house had felt new and unknown. But standing here now, I would have bet my life I’d walked down this same stretch many times before.

“Now, I’ve put you in the little bedroom, if that’s okay,” Mimi said over her shoulder as I finally moved forward, down the hallway to come into, yes, the kitchen. A big wooden table sat against the wall of windows facing the lake and everything smelled like toast. Also, the sink was stacked full of dirty dishes. Of course I noticed. “It’s the only one free and I knew you’d want your privacy. The sheets are all clean and there’s towels on the bed if you want to freshen up.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Is it …”

I trailed off as my dad climbed a nearby flight of stairs, carrying my suitcase with him, then went left on the landing. Clearly, he needed no directions.

“Right up there,” Mimi said to me. “You’ll find it.”

I thanked her, then went up the stairs myself, the middle one creaking audibly beneath me. At the top, the carpet was beige and well worn, and I could see there were three bedrooms to the left, a bathroom to the right. Only the door on the end was open, so I headed that way.

“You know your way around this place,” I said to my dad when I found him in a small bedroom with a single bed, a closet, and one window facing the lake.

“Spent some time here,” he replied, his voice low. I’d been so focused on my own memories, I hadn’t given much thought to what he’d been feeling. But it was definitely kicking up something. He’d put my suitcase in the closet, my duffel on the bed next to two stacked towels and a washcloth. They were white with a little pink rosebud pattern, and seeing them, I felt it again, that familiarity. “This was your mom’s room, way back when.”

“Really?” I walked around the end of the bed to look out the window. The roof below it slanted down at an angle, ending in what looked like a porch overhang. “She used to tell me stories about this.”

“This room?”

“And this view.” It was gorgeous, the pane of glass capturing the lake in a perfect frame. Straight out ahead I could see a floating platform, a motorboat tethered to it. To the right, there were the motels we’d passed, as well as more docks in front of small beaches where moss hung from the trees. And far to the left, what looked like a whole other town of large houses, hotels, and other newer construction. “And the boats. She talked about those, too.”

“Yes, I’m actually glad you brought that up while we were, um, alone.” He sat down on the bed. “I’d like a word with you about that.”

“About what?” I asked.

He nodded at the window, where another boat had now appeared, zooming past. “Boating. One of the great pastimes of North Lake. Which I enjoyed about as much as you do sailing.”

“Isn’t it the same thing?”

“No,” he said. “Sailing is about wind. With motorboats, it’s speed, which means it can be very dangerous, even if the driver of the boat hasn’t been drinking. And here, they often are.”

“You know I won’t drink, Dad,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied, “but I still want to say this. I don’t want you to ever go out on the water with someone who has been drinking or plans to.”

“Is this like a drug talk, but aquatic?”

“Emma.” That tone was like a yellow light, just before red: a warning. “Just promise me, please. It’s important.”

I looked out the window again. The boat had circled around and was now going back the other way. “I’ll be careful. I swear.”

“Okay.” He sat back, resting his palms on the nubby bedspread. “And you know, now that I think about it, this would be a great place to work on your driving. I’m sure Mimi has a car you could borrow.”

“Dad,” I said in my warning voice, “I’d rather talk about boats.”

“I know, I know.” He sighed. “And I’m trying to be understanding. But this is your driver’s license! When I was your age, I was counting the days until I could get on the road—”

“Because it represented freedom, and independence, all things already available to me via public transportation and ride apps,” I finished for him. “I don’t need to drive. It’s just not necessary.”

“But don’t you want to?” he asked.

“Frankly, no,” I said. “I like walking.”

“When we move, you won’t be able to walk everywhere, like you do now.”

“So I’ll take the bus or use GetThere.”

He sighed again. I felt like I understood my dad pretty well, a by-product of it just being us two for so long. But I didn’t get why, ever since I’d turned fifteen, it was so freaking important to him that I get my license. He’d relentlessly pushed me to take driver’s ed and get my permit, then made a big deal of me getting my provisional license, followed by my full one six months later. I stuck it in my wallet, intending to forget about it, but then he was always wanting us to go out driving together, when he’d spent the entire time I was behind the wheel gripping what Bridget’s dad called the “oh shit” handle over his window and pounding an imaginary brake. The whole thing just amplified my anxiety, even before I’d backed into a neighbor’s SUV in our underground parking deck, which had scared me so badly I’d burst into tears.

“Dad,” I said now. “Maybe I’m just not meant to be a driver. Not everyone is. Think of the accident rate.”

“Driving changed my life, though,” he said. “Do you know I bought my first car, a used red Audi—”

“A4 with a sunroof and leather seats,” I filled in for him. This story was as familiar as one of my mom’s.

“—right before I came to Lake North to work my first summer?” He sighed once more, this time happily. “Stocked shelves at AllDrug nights and weekends my entire senior year to save up for it, and drove it off the lot and straight here to my job at the Club. Or, you know, there.” He nodded at the left side of the window, and the lake. “I just don’t want you to miss that feeling. That you can go anywhere. It opens up the world.”

I rolled my eyes. “Dad, I’m about to spend three weeks in a place that for all intents and purposes I’ve never been to before. Gotta say, the world seems pretty wide right now.”

“Yes,” he said, “but with your license you’d be free to see even more of it. Like Lake North, for example.”

“Where I’d probably back Mimi’s car into another, more expensive SUV. Is that what you really want?”

This was a good point. I’d hit a Range Rover in that fender bender: it hadn’t been cheap. “Okay, fine. But once I’m back, we discuss. Deal?”

“Deal.”

That resolved, he got to his feet, coming over to join me where I was standing by the window. “So, look,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Be honest: You okay with this arrangement? It’s not too late to change your mind.”

“I’m fine,” I said, although now that his time left here was dwindling, I was feeling a slow simmer of anxiety I could only hope wouldn’t reach full boil. Did I want to change my mind?

The panic, now hitting medium high, said yes. But I had learned, over time and with various therapists we’d consulted, that it did not get to speak for me. I could do this. And I would, for my dad and Tracy first and foremost, but also, in some small way, for my mom. I worried so much about forgetting her as the years passed. Maybe spending a month in the place she came from would help me remember.

We walked downstairs, back into the kitchen, which was now empty. Peering down the hallway, I could see Mimi outside, talking to the pregnant girl out by the cleaning cart over at the motel. As they conferred, a car zoomed past on the road, beeped, and she waved her hand.

“Still the same table,” my dad marveled as we passed the big wooden one against the windows. I, of course, could only see all those dirty dishes, still untouched. “But that toaster’s new.”

“Toaster?”

He gestured at the corner of one counter, by the sink. Sure enough, sitting there was a huge shiny silver toaster, the kind with multiple bread slots and various dials for settings. “In a place like this, you notice change,” he said to me, starting down the hallway. Appliances, too, I thought, before following behind him.

“Leaving already, Matthew?” Mimi asked when we got back outside. “You just got here!”

“He has a plane to catch,” I told her. “The honeymoon awaits.”

She stepped forward, giving him a hug. “Have a wonderful time. And don’t worry a thing about this girl, she’ll be fine.”

She said this so confidently, as if she knew me, as well as the future. The weird part was how much I wanted to believe she was right.

“Thanks, Mimi,” he replied. “For everything.”

She smiled at him, then gave me a wink before turning and pulling open the office door. I felt a blast of cold air before it closed behind her.

“Still feel weird about this,” he said when it was just us again. “It’s not the way I planned to be leaving you.”

“I’ll be fine,” I told him. “Go. Sail. Honey that moon. I’ll see you in three weeks.”

He laughed. “Honey that moon?”

“Just go, would you?”

Finally, he got in the car and started the engine, backing out slowly as I stood there. I made a point to wave at him, smiling, as he pulled onto the main road. Then I turned around to face the house and the lake, taking a deep breath.

As I started walking, the pregnant girl was still outside the last unit, now sitting in one of the plastic chairs, looking at her phone. She didn’t say anything, but I could feel her watching me, so I picked up my pace crossing the grass, as if I had a solid plan. No matter where you are, home or the strangest of places, everyone wants to look like they know where they’re going.

FOUR

“Well, shit.”

I opened my eyes at the sound of voices, the first I’d heard since crawling into my bed after my dad left and falling asleep. It had still been morning then: now the clock on the bureau, analog with tiny numbers, said 3:30. Whoops.

“Why is there no bread in this house?” a woman was saying in the kitchen, the question accompanied by the banging of cabinets. “I just brought a loaf over here two days ago.”

“I’m not hungry,” a voice that sounded like a child said. “I told you that.”

“You’ll eat something if I make it.” Footsteps, then a door—the screen one downstairs, I was pretty sure—slamming. “Mama! What happened to all my bread?”

“Your what?” That was Mimi.

“My bread! I’m trying to make Gordon a sandwich.”

“Honey, I don’t know. If there’s bread, it’s in the regular place.”

“But that’s not my bread, that I bought with my money, for my family to eat,” her daughter replied.

“I’m not hungry!” came again from downstairs.

“I’ll remind you that we are all your family,” Mimi hollered, “and if you want to get picky about it, then you can stop drinking all my Pop Soda and not replacing it.”

Silence. But the heavy kind. Meanwhile, I thought of my mom, who was the only person I’d ever known who had heard of Pop Soda, much less drank it. It was like a generic Diet Coke, heavy on the syrup. It had been years since I’d had one, but I could still remember how it made my teeth hurt.

“Mama, all I am asking is where is the bread,” the woman said, sounding tired. “If you have some other issue with me, let’s get into it, by all means, the day hasn’t yet been long enough.”

Mimi responded, although at this point they were apparently close enough not to be yelling, so I couldn’t hear it. But I was up now, so I grabbed my toothbrush and navigated the way to the tiny bathroom at the end of the hall. Once rid of nap breath, I finger combed my hair, took a deep breath, and went downstairs.

At first the kitchen looked completely empty. Only when I’d started to the cabinets for some water—again noting all those dirty dishes, how could you just leave them like that?—did I notice a little girl standing just inside the opening to the hallway. Until she reached up, adjusting the glasses on her face, she’d been so still I’d assumed she was part of the wall.

“Oh,” I said, startled. “Hi.”

She studied me, her face serious. While her appearance—dark hair in a ponytail, denim shorts and thick plastic clogs, a purple T-shirt that said #AWESOME—was young, the expression on her face reflected the world-weariness usually seen in a much older woman. “Hello,” she replied.

I glanced down the hallway, to the screen door. “Are you looking for Mimi?”

“No,” she said. “Are you?”

“No,” I replied. “I was actually trying to find a glass for some water.”

Another beat as she studied me. Then she turned, crossing into the kitchen and standing on tiptoe to open an upper cabinet. She pulled out a plastic tumbler with a gas station logo on it, holding it out in my direction. “If you want ice, it’s in the bucket in the freezer.”

“I’m good,” I said, taking the glass. “Thank you, um …”

“Gordon,” she said.

“Gordon,” I repeated. “I’m Emma.”

She nodded, as if this was acceptable. Then she watched as I went to the sink, filled my glass, and took a sip. “My real first name is Anna,” she said after a moment. “But nobody with two names ever uses the first one.”

“I do,” I said.

This seemed to intrigue her. “Really?”

I nodded. “I’m Emma Saylor, technically.”

“And you get to be just Emma?”

“Well, yeah.”

She looked wistful for a second. “Lucky.”

The door banged again, and I heard footsteps approaching. A moment later, a woman in jeans and a polyester uniform top that said CONROY MARKET entered the kitchen. She had long blond hair pulled back in a headband and wore tall wedge sandals of the sort Nana would call ankle breakers.

“Well, it looks like you’re having a quesadilla, Gordon, despite the fact I just bought—”

She stopped talking when she saw me, her blue eyes, lashes thick with mascara, widening. I put my glass down on the counter, thinking I’d overstepped by helping myself.

“Oh, my God,” she said softly, putting a hand to her chest. “You look just like … Waverly?”

Her voice broke on the word, and I saw now she was pale, like she literally had seen a ghost. “No,” I said quickly. “I’m Emma. Her daughter.”

“Emma?” she repeated.

“Saylor,” Gordon offered. “That’s her other name.”

The woman moved her hand to her mouth, still staring at me. “I’m sorry,” she managed finally. “I just … I just didn’t expect you here.”

“It was kind of last-minute,” I told her. “My dad was leaving the country and I didn’t have any other place—”

Before I could finish, she had crossed the short distance between us and was pulling me into probably the tightest hug I had ever experienced. It felt like she was squeezing the breath right out of me.

“Oh, my God,” she said again. Over her shoulder, Gordon observed our embrace, chewing a thumbnail. “You’re her spitting image—I saw you there and it was like she was back for a second.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Now, finally, she pulled away, and I saw tears in her eyes. They were so blue, like Mimi’s. Like my mom’s. And mine. “Do you even remember me?”

I paused, not wanting to hurt her feelings. “I—”

“Celeste,” she told me, putting her hand back on her chest. “I’m your aunt. Do you remember? And Gordon there, she’s your cousin.”

“Oh,” I said, glancing at Gordon again, then back to her. “Right. Hi.”

Celeste blinked, a tear running down her face. “Oh, God, you must think I’m a total psycho, look at me.”

“You’re fine,” I said as she reached over to a roll of paper towels and ripped one off, dabbing at her eyes. “I’m sorry you weren’t warned.”

“Well, that’s Mama for you,” she said. She blew her nose with a honk. “We’ve only talked on the phone three times today already. Are you hungry? I was just about to make Gordon something.”

“Oh,” I told her, “you don’t have to do that. I can just—”

“Sit,” Celeste said, gesturing to the table. She handed me my water. “Now, let me find those tortillas …”

I went to a chair, doing as I was told as she opened the fridge and began taking things out. A moment later, Gordon joined me, bringing a thick paperback book along with her.

“What are you reading?” I asked.

“Oh, Lord,” Celeste groaned. “Don’t get her started about those damn gorillas.”

“They are chimpanzees,” Gordon said. From the annoyance in her voice, it was clear this was a common exchange.

“Can I see?” I asked, nodding at the book. She pushed it toward me and I flipped it over. The Allies, Gathering Two: Justice Begins, it said in thick raised print on the cover. The illustration was of, yes, a chimpanzee, but with very human features, staring into a red-and-yellow-streaked setting sun. “Oh, the Allies series. I remember these. There are, like, a million of them.”

“Twenty in the first gathering, fourteen so far in the second,” Gordon replied. “And that’s not counting all the extra editions and compilations, plus the manga and graphic novels.”

“It’s like she’s speaking another language,” Celeste added from the stove, where she was now heating up a frying pan. “I gave up trying to follow years ago.”

Gordon, unfazed, flipped the book back over and opened it to a bent-down page, then started to read. After a moment, she reached up, twirling a piece of hair around one finger.

“She’s gone,” Celeste told me, tossing a tortilla into the frying pan. “Gets lost when she reads. Thank God for it. I give her a hard time, but I was never good in school. She is.”

“What grade is she in?”

“Starting fifth in the fall. She’s in accelerated reading and math,” she replied, sounding proud. “Clearly not my child, but I will take some of the credit.”

“Oh,” I said. “I thought she was—”

Celeste looked over her shoulder at me. “What? Oh, no. Her mama’s your cousin Amber, from my daddy’s side. She lives in Florida right now.”

Amber, I thought. The name was familiar, but only faintly so. “Was my mom close with her?”

“Thick as thieves,” she replied, pushing the tortilla with a spatula. “But we all were, back then. Growing up here, family was everything. It had to be. We only ever had each other.”

It occurred to me that at some point I would need to draw up a family tree to really understand my place in all this. But as long as I had Celeste here, it was worth getting started.

“So you have … how many kids?” I asked her.

“Three,” she said, flipping the finished quesadilla onto a nearby plate and starting another one. “There’s Trinity, who you may have seen earlier, she’s pregnant right now …”

I thought of the girl with the cleaning cart, eyeballing me as I passed. We were first cousins? So much for family being all you had. She’d acted like she hated me. “She works at the motel, right?”

“Yes,” Celeste allowed with a sigh, “but only in the broadest definition of the word. Mostly she’s on her phone complaining about how her feet hurt while Mama does both their jobs because she’s a damn softie.”

“Right,” I said.

“Then there’s my son, Jack, he’s three years older than you,” she continued, shaking the frying pan over the burner, “and finally Bailey, who is your age.”

“She’s seventeen?”

“Both your birthdays are in April. Your mama and I were pregnant at the same time, our due dates just weeks apart. We spent a lot of time on the phone complaining to each other, now that I think about it. I probably shouldn’t be so hard on Trinity.”

She finished up the second quesadilla, then brought both plates over to the table.

“Thank you,” I said as she put one in front of me.

“You’re very welcome,” she replied. “Silverware and napkins are—”

Before she finished saying this, I was reaching like it was a reflex to the rattan basket across from me, pulling it closer to retrieve a fork, knife, and napkin. Huh.

“Well, never mind,” she said with another smile. “Gordon. Put the book away and eat.”

“I can eat and read,” Gordon replied, picking up her quesadilla and taking a bite, her eyes still on the page.

Celeste rolled her eyes and went to the fridge, retrieving a can of Pop Soda. Then she sat down, opening the can before kicking off her shoes, first one, then the other. “What a day. It’s only early season and I’m already exhausted.”

“You work at a market?” I asked.

She looked surprised I knew this, then glanced down at her uniform top. “I forgot I had this thing on! Usually take it off the second I get in the car. Yes, Conroy Market. Only grocery store in North Lake. I’m an assistant manager.”

I took a big bite of the quesadilla: I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I’d begun eating. “This is really good,” I told Celeste.

“You want another one?” She started to get to her feet. “It’ll only take a second.”

“Oh, no,” I said quickly. “I’m fine. Thank you, though.”

While I ate, I could tell she was trying not to stare at me, my presence still so surprising. Finally she got to her feet, taking my now-empty plate and Gordon’s. “I can do those,” I said as she started to run water into the sink, crammed with all those dishes.

“Oh, no,” she said. “You’re a guest.”

“I want to,” I said, wanting to add that it had been driving me crazy all day. “You cooked, I clean. That’s the rule in our house. Please?”

Celeste looked at me for a second. “Okay,” she said finally. “But know this: you start washing dishes in this house, you’ll never stop.”

In response, I stood up and walked over to the sink, pulling the faucet aside and turning it all the way hot before beginning to sort everything into categories. I knew I probably looked like the weirdo cousin, but as I added soap to the water, finding a scrub brush in the nearby dish rack, I felt more in control than I had since that call in the dark from Bridget twelve hours earlier. I was in a strange place, feeling strange even to myself, but this task was one I knew well, and I took comfort in it. So much so that when I finished, I turned to see both Celeste and Gordon had gone, leaving the Allies book and the lake as my only company.

I always did a lot of good thinking while washing dishes, and Mimi’s sink had been slam full. By the time I was done, I’d decided to look at my time here at North Lake as a kind of organizing. So back up in my room, once I unpacked my suitcase and put my clothes away, I pulled out the one notebook I’d brought with me. MIMI + JOE, I wrote at the top of a blank page, with CELESTE and WAVERLY each under a vertical line beneath. From those, I drew more lines, adding in my dad beside my mom’s name, and mine underneath it. Then I did the same with Trinity, Jack, and Bailey under Celeste’s, realizing as I did so I had no idea who her husband was. I’d be here three weeks, though. I had a feeling I could fill in the gaps.

Just then there was a whirring sound from outside, distant, and I turned to see a motorboat puttering from the shore to the floating platform I’d seen earlier. Then I saw another from the corner of my eye, followed by one more, all of them converging to the same spot from varying directions. The first pulled up alongside, and a dark-haired girl in a yellow bikini top and shorts jumped out, her phone to one ear. As the others docked as well, more people joined her. Within moments, between the boats and those who had arrived on them, you couldn’t see the raft at all.

Downstairs, the screen door slammed—this sound was becoming familiar—and I heard someone come into the kitchen, then start up the stairs.

“… told you, I was at work and couldn’t answer,” a guy, maybe my age by the sound of it, was saying. “Taylor. Don’t start. Seriously.”

The bathroom door closed, and I heard water running, along with more of this conversation, now muffled. As the screen door slammed again, I thought how much this place would have driven Nana crazy: she treated her house like it was fragile, with doors and drawers eased shut, gently. You slammed, you scrammed. That was a direct quote from my dad.

“Jacky?” Mimi yelled from the kitchen. “You here?”

“One sec,” the guy yelled back from the bathroom.

“Jacky? Hello?”

“ONE SEC,” he replied, louder. This time, she didn’t say anything, but a moment later I heard the fridge opening. I looked back at my family tree, full of gaps, and went downstairs.

“There you are,” Mimi said when she saw me. Still in her tie-dye, she’d ditched her sandals and put on fuzzy slippers in their place. A can of Pop Soda was in her hand. “I wondered where you got off to.”

“I fell asleep after Dad left,” I told her. “And then saw Celeste and Gordon.”

“Oh, good,” she said, turning back to the fridge. “You want a soda?”

“No, thanks,” I said. As the kid of a dentist, they’d been so forbidden in my early life that when I finally could have them, I’d lost interest.

“Oxford’s holding down the office until dinner, so I was just getting ready to watch my shows,” she said, grabbing a bag of potato chips from the top of the fridge. “Want to join me?”

Upstairs, Jacky—Jack?—was talking again. “Sure.”

She started down the hallway, to the living room we’d passed on the way in. The walls were lined with long couches—one leather, one dark blue corduroy—and there was a huge TV set, surrounded by shelves of family pictures. Off the back side of the room was the screened-in porch I’d seen earlier from outside, separated by a door with a glass pane that had been covered with a tacked-up towel. The result was a dimness that would have made the room feel cold even if the A/C hadn’t been going full blast, which of course, it was.

“Does it feel hot in here to you?” Mimi asked as I thought this. I was about to say no, and try not to do it vehemently, but then she was over at the A/C unit, adjusting it from 67 to 65. “That’s better. I hate a warm house. Have a seat.”

She was already doing just that, lowering herself onto the leather couch and putting her soda into the built-in cup holder on its arm. Even though the couch was huge, I didn’t want to crowd her, so I moved to the blue one.

“Now, let’s see,” Mimi said, pulling up a list of recorded programs. “What are we in the mood for?”

As I looked at the screen, scanning the titles, it was clear there was only one answer to this question: home improvement. Everything listed—Fix and Flip, Contractor: You!, From Demo to Dream House—shared this same subject. I said, “I take it you like renovation shows.”

“They’re my therapy,” she replied, scrolling through the titles before picking an episode of something called 3 Flip Sisters. “Have a hard day with everything breaking down all around you, then come and watch somebody else fix something up nice. I can’t get enough.”

She sighed contentedly, taking a sip of her soda as the show began. “One family,” intoned the announcer as the screen showed a trio of blond women, all with long hair, wearing matching plaid shirts, “three opinions, one firm deadline. This is 3 Flip Sisters.”

Just then my phone beeped in my pocket, the first noise it had made since my dad texted from the airport an hour earlier to say he and Tracy were boarding their plane. This time, it was Ryan. She’d been incommunicado since arriving at Windmill a couple of days after the wedding.

Testing testing. Anyone out there?

I smiled, quickly typing a response. Your phone works? I thought you were in the middle of nowhere.

I am, she replied after a moment. But if I climb this hill and stand on one foot, I have a signal. For now anyway. What are you and Bridget doing?

I filled her in, as succinctly as I could, while the TV showed a montage of the sisters and Bill and Shelley looking at various properties. By the time I hit send, they’d settled on a ranch house with hideous green linoleum floor in the kitchen that Angie, the sister Realtor, said was priced to sell.

“They’ll end up putting an arch in there someplace, mark my words,” Mimi said as the TV cut to a commercial. “Paula loves an arch.”

My phone beeped. Holy crap. Is Bridget’s grandpa okay?

Haven’t heard from her since she left, I wrote back. So not sure.

Are you okay? What’s it like there? I’ve never even heard you mention having another grandmother.

Even though Mimi was on the other couch, a fair distance away, I tilted the screen to be sure she couldn’t see it. The desire not to hurt her was that strong, even as I knew that I, too, could have claimed injured feelings, considering. Where had she been all this time? It was one thing if my mom had kept her at arm’s length—notoriously private, she got even more so when she was using—but five years had passed since her death. Had my dad run interference, thinking Mimi and all the rest of the Calvanders would be too much for me to handle?

Plus, my mom had never talked much about her family. It was Nana—my grandfather died young in his forties—who was consistently there for holidays and birthdays. Other than the funeral, which was a blur, the only trip I’d ever taken to my mother’s home was so long ago I didn’t even remember it. Yes, I had the Lake Stories, but they were never about people as much as a place.

“Arch!” Mimi said, pointing at the TV. “What did I tell you?”

Sure enough, on the screen, Paula was gesturing at a small, cramped living room as a computer graphic showed what it would look like with that shape as an entryway. “You told me,” I said.

She cackled, and I looked back down at my screen at Ryan’s question. What was it like here?

Unclear, I told her. Stay tuned.

I heard thumping, then footsteps crossing the kitchen. A moment later, a tall, thin guy with red hair, a baseball hat, shorts, and a faded NORTH LAKE T-shirt passed by in the hallway, his phone to his ear.

“Jacky,” Mimi called out, and he stopped, turning to peer in at her. “Didn’t you hear me calling you before?”

“I was taking a shower,” he said, sliding his phone into a back pocket.

“Well, say hello to your cousin Saylor.” She nodded at me. “She’s staying awhile.”

It was a testament to the dimness of the room, and the dark blue couch I was on, that Jacky hadn’t even seen me until she said this. He looked surprised as he lifted a hand. “Hey.”

“Hi,” I said. “It’s Emma, actually.”

“Oh, sorry,” Mimi told me, her eyes on the TV, where I saw someone was now carrying a sledgehammer. “I keep forgetting you changed it.”

But I didn’t, I wanted to say. I’d always introduced myself as Emma, even as a kid: my mom was the only one who called me Saylor. Could you literally be a different person to different people? I was pretty sure I was going to find out.

“I’m going out to the raft,” Jacky told Mimi. “Back for dinner.”

“We’re having burgers,” she replied. “I made the patties already.”

“All right,” he said, then started toward the door again, drawing his phone from his pocket.

“Jacky.”

He stopped, exhaling visibly. “Yes?”

Mimi shifted in her seat. “Why don’t you take her with you?”

“What?” he said.

“Saylor,” she replied, nodding at me. “I mean, Emma. She’s just got here, doesn’t know anyone. You can introduce her around.”

“Oh,” I said quickly, mortified, “he doesn’t have to—”

“They’re all out at the raft this time of day,” she explained, cutting me off. “Figuring out what kind of trouble to get into later.”

“It’s okay,” I said. I had no sense of the rules here, but I did know enough to not want to be someone’s burden. “I’m fine.”

The TV went back to 3 Flip Sisters. “Demo,” Mimi said, nodding at the screen. “You can tell, because everyone’s in goggles.”

“Right,” I said.

Jacky hesitated a moment more in the non-arch hallway opening, then started out the door. “Be back to grill,” he called over his shoulder.

“Okay,” Mimi said, taking a sip of her drink.

The door slammed, and I turned my attention back to the Flip Sisters. A moment later, though, he was back.

“Hey,” he said to me. “You really want to watch that?”

I looked back at Mimi. It wasn’t clear she’d heard him, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, even if this had all been her idea.

But Jacky didn’t seem worried. Instead, he just pushed the door back open, holding it for me. “Emma,” he said. “Come on.”

FIVE

The girl in the yellow bikini I’d seen from the window spotted me as we approached the raft. By the time I looked her way, she was already scowling.

I’d been preoccupied, smarting from various ways I had almost died of shame since leaving Mimi’s house. The first involved the awkward silence as I followed Jacky across the grass and down the nearby dock to a white motorboat with red seats that was tied up to a row of cleats.

“Thanks for bringing me along, Jacky,” I said finally.

He glanced up, then began loosening rope knots. “It’s Jack, actually. Only Mimi calls me Jacky.”

“Oh. Sorry,” I said. “I understand. She’s actually the only person who has called me—”

But this was lost as he turned his back again, jumping onto the boat and behind the wheel. The seats were aged and cracked, the floor covered with a few beat-up-looking life jackets. He turned a key and the engine rumbled, coming to life.

I was still standing on the dock, not sure what I was supposed to do, when he looked up at me and said, “You getting in?”

Right, I thought, my face reddening. I took a step onto the boat, but because the ropes were loose, it drifted out into the water, taking my leg with it. This led to a frantic effort not to fall in myself accompanied by, I hated to admit, a shriek. I ended up back on the dock, but just barely.

Jack observed all of this with a flat expression. Then he pulled the boat up to the dock so I could climb in. Once inside, I started to the back bench by the motor, but hit a slippery spot halfway there that resulted in me tumbling down onto the life jackets, arms flailing.

“Whoa,” he said, in that same monotone. “Careful.”

As we picked up speed and my embarrassment subsided—slightly—I was able to begin to appreciate the view of the lake. It was one thing to look at it from land, like a picture in a frame, another to be within it, wide and blue all around you. It’s pretty here, I thought, and turned in my seat, looking back at Mimi’s house to find the window to my mom’s bedroom, which was growing smaller behind us.

The raft, in contrast, was larger than it had looked from shore. By the time we got there, about seven boats were tied up, either to the raft or each other, with people on them in groups, laughing and talking. As we got closer, a tall, skinny guy with white-blond hair, shirtless and in swim trunks, walked out to the back of a blue motorboat with white trim to meet us. When Jack slowed the motor and walked to the bow, throwing him a line, I saw the girl staring at me.

Short, and stout, with strong-looking arms and legs, she had a deep tan, all the better to set off her yellow bikini top, which she wore with cutoff shorts. Her hair was black and long, flowing down her back, a pair of sunglasses holding it back from her face. When our eyes met, she slowly crossed her arms over her chest, squaring her shoulders.

“This is Emma,” Jack said, cutting the engine. “Help her out.”

The boy with the white-blond hair—it stuck up in the back, a cowlick I somehow knew he was probably always messing with—extended a hand. Cautious after how I’d boarded, and feeling awkward grabbing ahold of someone I knew not at all, I nonetheless got to my feet and gripped his fingers, stepping onto the blue boat, then the raft.

“I’m Roo,” the blond boy said. He had a small gap between his two front teeth, which took the smile he gave me to another level. Gesturing to the group behind him, he added, “This is … everyone.”

No one said hello, or even acknowledged this introduction, too caught up in their own conversations. Except, of course, Yellow Bikini, who was now glaring at Jack as he finished tying up.

“Jack Blackwood,” she said in a voice that was just sharp and loud enough to make everyone else pause their interactions before stopping talking entirely, “I know we’re fighting, but did you seriously bring another girl out here right in front of me?”

“Uh-oh. Here we go,” a tall, slim black girl with short braids in an East U Volleyball T-shirt said under her breath.

“I’d stay out of it if I were you, April,” another guy with a fauxhawk and tattoos covering his arms said to her.

“Yeah, because that will end well,” April replied.

The next thing I knew, Yellow Bikini had crossed the short distance between us to stand right in front of me. Meeting my eyes, her own narrowed, she said, “Look, this is a basic lake rule. You don’t just show up with someone else’s boyfriend, okay?”

“Taylor,” April said. “Remember your calming meditations? Breathe in, then—”

“I’m breathing,” Taylor told her. “I just want answers.”

“I didn’t—” I said, trying to sound as assertive as she did. Unfortunately, my voice was shaking. Meanwhile, I could hear footsteps approaching, the new arrivals now also an audience to this.

“I didn’t,” she repeated in a high voice. She whirled around, looking at Jack. “Seriously? Who the hell is this girl?”

“His cousin,” another voice said, sounding as confident as I wished I had. “Mine, too. So will you get out of her face, please?”

All of a sudden, a girl was standing beside me. Even before I saw she was my height, with the same color blond hair and slightly upturned nose I’d always been self-conscious about, I didn’t doubt for a second that we were related. This was Bailey. I remembered. Again in a way I couldn’t even begin to understand, especially at that moment, but I did.

“Your cousin?” Taylor looked at me again. “You’re forgetting that I know all your cousins.”

“Not this one. Hasn’t been here since we were little kids.” Now, Bailey addressed me. “Hi, by the way.”

“Hi,” I said. This time, my voice didn’t crack.

She turned back to Taylor. “Are we done? If so, let’s make a plan.”

Taylor looked at me again. “Jack,” she said to my face. “We need to talk.”

“Oh, boy,” the guy with the fauxhawk said. “Duck and cover, y’all.”

As someone across the raft snorted, Taylor turned on her heel and walked across the raft to climb onto Jack’s boat. Jack followed, slowly, looking tired. As soon as he was on board, she started talking, although her words were lost as someone else arrived, their engine chugging.

I was no expert, but even at first glance I could tell something about this boat was different. It was longer, for starters, with a third row of seats—not worn, but shiny and clean—and a larger motor. The guy behind the wheel, tall with dark hair, was in shorts and a white polo shirt with some kind of insignia that I felt like I’d seen before. He had on mirrored sunglasses, reflecting our faces back at us.

“What’s up?” he called out. “Got a plan yet?”

“Oh, great,” April said with a roll of her eyes. “Look who’s here.”

“Stop it,” Bailey told her. “I told you, he’s nice.”

April did not look convinced, even as Bailey crossed the raft, jumping across two docked boats—gracefully, how?—to go talk to him. To me, April said, “She knows to watch out for those yacht club boys. Not that you can tell.”

“Yacht club?” I asked.

April nodded across the lake, at the distant big houses. “Over at Lake North. Everything’s bigger and better there, not that it stops them from coming to our side.”

I realized, suddenly, why I’d recognized the boy’s shirt. It was identical to the one my dad wore in the few pictures I’d seen from the summer he’d spent here teaching sailing when he met my mom. I looked at Bailey again, now scratching one foot with the other as she spoke to the boy, who was grinning up at her.

“That’s her boyfriend?” I asked.

“No,” the guy with the fauxhawk replied.

“Not yet,” April corrected, smiling. “Summer just started.”

“She’ll come to her senses,” he told her, rubbing his arm, where a tribal-patterned tattoo covered one bicep.

“And fall for you, Vincent?” she asked him. “Keep dreaming.”

“My point is,” he said, his face flushing, “I just don’t see them together.”

“Why not? He’s totally her type.”

“Which is what? Yacht club?” I asked.

“Rich boy with a dazzling smile,” she said. “And a nice boat. What’s your name again?”

“Emma,” I said. “You’re April?”

“And this is Vincent,” she said, pointing to the guy. “You here for the summer?”

“Just three weeks,” I said.

“How you kin to this lot?” When I just looked at her, not sure what this meant, she said, more slowly, “Are you a Calvander or a Blackwood?”

“Neither. I’m a Payne.” Obviously this was confusing, so I added, “My mom was a Calvander, though. Waverly.”

At the name, her eyes widened. “You’re Waverly’s daughter? Really?”

I nodded, suddenly aware of another set of eyes on me: Roo. He’d been over near another boat, coiling some ropes, but now he turned, looking at me as if for the first time. “Saylor?” he said.

“Her name’s Emma,” April told him. “Keep up, would you?”

“It is Emma Saylor, technically,” I said. “But mostly Emma now.”

I felt like I was apologizing. Maybe because of the way Roo was still looking at me, startled, as if maybe he remembered more of that summer from the group picture than I did. It must have been confusing, for someone to reappear all those years later with a different face and name. Like the past wasn’t what you’d thought. I knew that feeling.

“Okay,” Vincent said, shoving his phone into his pocket. “Godfrey’s at eight, then Lucy Tate’s place afterward, but only if we bring our own beer and don’t criticize her music.”

“Since when do we have conditions?” April said. “I’d rather hang out on the dock and do what I want.”

“It’s high season,” Roo told her. “Docks are out until August.”

“Oh, right. Stupid tourists,” she grumbled.

“What’s the plan?” Bailey called out from the other side of the raft.

“Don’t tell her,” April said. “She’ll just invite all the golf shirts.”

“Godfrey’s, then Lucy Tate’s,” Vincent yelled back anyway.

This seemed to be a signal that things were finalized, as everyone began saying their goodbyes and splitting off to their respective boats. Within minutes, the hum of engines filled the air and I was one of the only ones left, along with April and Vincent, with Roo alongside us behind his own wheel, motor idling.

“Let’s get,” Vincent told April. He looked at me. “You need a ride back to Mimi’s?”

I looked over at Jack, who was still sitting on one of those red benches, Taylor standing in front of him. She’d been talking this entire time, and didn’t seem to have any plans to stop soon. Meanwhile, Bailey had jumped in with the guy in the golf shirt and was already puttering away toward shore.

“I don’t know,” I said, looking at Jack. I still felt like a burden, this time to people I wasn’t even related to. “Maybe I should wait for—”

“I wouldn’t,” April said flatly. “No telling how long they’ll be talking. They are always talking.”

“Right,” I said. “Well …”

“I’ll take you, Saylor,” Roo said. When I looked at him, he added quickly, “I mean, Emma. It’s on my way.”

“Great,” Vincent said as April hopped into a nearby small skiff, settling in the stern with the outboard motor there. He untied it, then joined her, his weight wobbling it from side to side. “See you at Godfrey’s.”

Then they, too, were gone, calling out goodbyes to Jack and Taylor as they passed. She was still talking; only he lifted a hand, waving back.

I looked at Roo, who pulled on a faded blue T-shirt before putting his boat into gear. Before, with Jack, I’d waited for permission to get in, which was the wrong thing to do. Then again, I didn’t want to just go for it and risk a repeat of my earlier experience boarding. How could a single step from one floating object to another be so difficult?

I was beginning to sink into an indecisive spiral when he backed the boat up right next to where I was standing, then used one hand to pull it up to the raft’s edge, making it an easy step in to take a seat beside him. Easy was good. Easy, I could take. So I did.

Once we got home, dinner was served.

“All I am saying,” Celeste said as she picked up her burger, “is that I want you to be careful.”

“Mom,” Bailey replied. “You don’t have to give me this same lecture every summer.”

“Apparently, I do. Because you’re already hanging out with yacht club boys.”

“They’re not all alike, you know.”

“They’re alike enough,” Celeste told her. Mimi, at the head of the table, shot her a look over the bowl of potato salad between them. “What? You know what I’m worried about. I mean, we all know what happened when Waver—”

There was the sound of a thump under the table, and Celeste winced. The sudden silence that followed was awkward, not only for the kick Mimi had just given her, but the fact that we all knew it was to protect my feelings.

This was actually the second time my mom had come up since I’d left the raft. The first had been when I was riding back with Roo. Unlike when I’d gone out with Jack, we were side by side. So I was able to get quick glimpses of him, taking in the way his white-blond hair stuck up a bit in the back, the tattoo on one calf that was a series of numbers, and the way that he waved at every boat we passed, flashing a big grin. For all my own glances, he wasn’t looking at me at all, instead squinting ahead, the back of his T-shirt rippling in the strong wind coming off the water. When he finally spoke, it took me by surprise.

“I’m sorry about your mom.”

Even though it had been five years and some days, I worried I’d moved on too much. And then there were times like this, when just a mention of her gave me a pinch in my heart. “Thanks,” I said. “I miss her.”

Now he did look at me: I could see it out of the corner of my eye, even as I watched Mimi’s dock—marked with a sign that said FOR USE BY CALVANDER’S GUESTS ONLY—approach. “She and my dad were friends in high school. Chris Price.”

I nodded, as if I’d heard this name, even though I hadn’t. “He still lives here?”

He looked at me for a second. “No, not anymore. I live with my mom.” He pointed to a line of houses down the shore from Mimi’s, each painted a different bright color—yellow, blue, pink, red, and green—and trimmed with white. “Ours is the green one.”

“Who has the pink?”

“Renters, usually,” he said. “Season just started, though.”

“How many people live here year-round?” I asked.

He was slowing the engine now. “More than you’d think. A lot, like Celeste, have houses they rent out for summer.”

“I thought she lived with Mimi,” I said.

“Only from June to August,” he replied. “The rest of the time they have a place up by Blackwood Station, right on the water.”

“Blackwood Station,” I said. “I feel like I’ve heard of that.”

“You probably have. It’s the only boatyard in town. Plus, the arcade is right there, and the public beach.”

I looked in that direction, getting my bearings, then back up at Mimi’s house, now right in front of us. As I did, I saw Celeste, standing in the grass, one hand shading her eyes as she looked out at us. I couldn’t make out her expression.

“And Celeste is a Blackwood, right?” I asked.

“She was. Her ex-husband, Silas, runs the boatyard and gas station. Been in his family for generations.”

Now I had something else to add to my family tree. “But you’re not a Blackwood or Calvander,” I said, clarifying.

“Nope.” He cut the engine, letting us drift up to the dock. “Silas, Celeste, my dad, my mom, and yours all went to high school together. There’s only one, the same one we all go to now.”

I tried to picture my own parents at my school, Jackson High, walking the same halls I did with Ryan and Bridget. I couldn’t. Nana Payne and my dad lived in Massachusetts when he was in high school, and my mom was, well, here.

“It’s a lot, all this new information,” I said. “I’m honestly having some trouble keeping up.”

“Well, then you need to start asking people their five sentences.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Their what?”

“It’s a lake thing,” he explained. “The basic idea is that since you meet a ton of people at the beginning of every summer, everyone has to condense their bio down to the main ideas. Thus, five sentences.”

“Right,” I said slowly. “What’s yours?”

He cleared his throat. “Born and bred here at North Lake. High school senior this fall. Work multiple jobs. Want to go to journalism school. Allergic to shellfish.”

“Wow,” I said. “Didn’t see that shellfish part coming.”

“An element of surprise and oddity is crucial with this,” he told me. “Hit me with yours.”

“I need five in all?”

“Start with one.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking it over. “Well, I’m from Lakeview. Also about to be a high school senior.”

“Coming out strong,” he said as we hit a wave, water splashing over the bow. “I like it. Go on.”

“My mom grew up here at the lake,” I continued, “but this is my first real visit. I came once as a kid, but I don’t really remember.”

“Nice,” he said. “Facts and intrigue. Now you need something random and memorable.”

I thought for a second. “People don’t get my humor.”

“Meaning?”

“I think I’m funny, but other people often don’t laugh.”

“I know that feeling,” he said.

“You do?” I hadn’t met anyone who could relate before.

“Yep,” he said. “Okay, now for the strong finish. Your shellfish allergy, so to speak. What’s it going to be?”

I had to admit, I was feeling the pressure. Especially as the seconds ticked by and nothing came. What could I say? I was nervous to the point of obsessive? I liked organizing things?

Roo did not rush me. He just waited.

Finally, I had it. “I read the obituaries every day.”

His eyes widened. “Seriously?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“Okay, that is good,” he said, then held his hand up for a high five. I slapped it. “You, in five sentences. Nicely done.”

Me, in five sentences. All facts, some informative, some colorful. Not really all that different from the obits themselves, now that I thought of it. Only shorter, while you’re living, and still have time to add more.

Roo slowed the engine, then stopped it entirely, and we drifted up to the dock. As he hopped off the boat, pulling the line with him, I heard the thump of footsteps coming down the dock. Looking up, I saw Trinity approaching, now in a flowing black maxi dress, her hair wet. She looked grumpy, but considering this had been a constant each time I’d crossed her path so far, maybe it was just her face.

“Hey,” Roo called. “What’s up?”

“Mimi says you should stay for dinner,” she replied. “Since you brought her in, and everything.”

Her was me. Apparently. While I was not sure what five sentences Trinity would pick, I was pretty sure one would cover the fact that she really didn’t like me.

“You know Trinity, right?” Roo said to me.

“We haven’t been reintroduced formally,” I told him. To her I said, “Hi. I’m Emma.”

“Hi,” she said, her voice flat. She turned her attention back to Roo. “Where’s Bailey? She’s not answering her phone.”

“Rode off with some yacht club guy,” he replied. “Maybe up at the Station?”

“Of course she is.” Trinity rubbed a hand over her belly. “Like I have the energy to go all the way up there.”

“I can go find her,” I offered. “I need to learn my way around anyway.”

“I’ll walk you,” Roo said. “If I’m coming for dinner, I should go home and change.”

“Will you just drive me?” Trinity whined. “I need to go to the store and I can’t reach the clutch anymore.”

“Sure,” he said agreeably. “Emma, you want to ride along?”

“She should go help with dinner,” Trinity said. Now I was She. “Mimi said to tell her to.”

Roo looked at me. “Oh. Right. Well, rain check.”

“Sounds good,” I said, making a point to act like it was no big deal. Still, as Trinity and Roo started down the dock without me, I felt another sting, this one a sort of shame. Despite all my mom had told me about the lake, none of it explained why so far at least half the females I’d met had disliked or outright hated me on sight.

Now, back at the table, I looked out the window to the sandy beach below the house, where Roo, Trinity, and Jack were sitting in lawn chairs, eating their own dinners. We’d all fixed our plates together, assembly-line style, but it was only after I’d sat down that I realized the table was too small for everyone, and this contingent was eating outside. Which left me with Celeste, Mimi, and Bailey, as Gordon was again lost in her Allies book.

“So,” Mimi said to me. “You getting situated? Meet everyone out at the raft?”

I nodded, finishing my bite of potato salad before saying, “A few people, yeah.”

“Taylor got up in her face,” Bailey said, adjusting the tomato on her burger.

“What?” Mimi said. “Why?”

“Because she was with Jack, and Taylor’s got major jealousy issues.” She rolled her eyes. “Even when they’re together, they’re fighting.”

“It’s not easy to disconnect from someone totally in a place as small as this,” Celeste pointed out.

“Says the woman who married and divorced the same man twice,” Bailey said.

I blinked: this was news to me. Another thing to add to my family tree.

Mimi chuckled. “She’s got you there, Celeste.”

Celeste, hardly bothered, reached for the bowl of potato chips. “I’ve got to tell you, Saylor, when I saw you coming in with Roo, man, it brought back some memories. Wild to see you two together, after how close you were as kids.”

“Wait, what?” I said. Now I felt even worse about our first meeting at the dock, when he’d looked so surprised. “We were?”

“You don’t remember?” I shook my head. “Well, I guess maybe you wouldn’t. You were babies. But yeah, that time you stayed here, you two were like frick and frack. Always together.”

“Remember the best friend hug?” Mimi said, smiling.

“The what?” Bailey asked.

“Whenever Roo and Saylor had been together and then had to split up, they did their best friend hug. Just clung to each other. Lord, it was the cutest.”

Bailey, bemused, glanced at me, and I was pretty sure I blushed. Evidently, embarrassment had no statute of limitations.

“It got me thinking about Waverly and Chris, which of course got me in the gut,” Celeste said to Mimi. “Those two really were inseparable.”

“He did mention that, actually,” I said. “How my mom and his dad were friends.”

“Those Prices. All such sweet boys,” Mimi said, looking out the window. Roo was saying something to Jack, who was grinning, as Trinity, still sour-faced, looked on. “I just hate all Roo’s been through, with his daddy and everything.”

“He said his dad doesn’t live here anymore,” I said. “Where is he?”

There are all kinds of silences. Natural ones, when conversation just ebbs after a flow. Awkward, just after someone’s said something they shouldn’t. The worst, though, are shocked silences, when no one can speak at all. This was one of those.

“He died, honey,” Mimi said finally. “Before you two were born. Boating accident.”

I didn’t know what to say. All I could do, in fact, was look at Roo again while running through my mind again the moment earlier when I’d asked if his dad was still local. There had been a silence then, too, but only the briefest one, like a song missing a beat. He hadn’t wanted to make me feel bad for being so ignorant. The way I felt right now.

“Oh, my God.” I put my hand to my mouth, horrified. “I had no idea. I’m such an idiot.”

“It’s okay,” Mimi said. When I just sat there, blinking, she added, “Saylor. You didn’t know.”

Down below the house, Jack was now on his feet, his plate empty except for a crumpled napkin. Roo got up as well, then extended a hand to Trinity, pulling her to a standing position. For him, she smiled.

“So. Saylor,” Mimi said. “You going out with the kids tonight?”

I looked at Bailey, who was back on her phone. She didn’t say anything, and the last thing I wanted was to yet again be forced on anyone. “I’m pretty tired, actually.”

“Well, in case you change your mind,” Celeste said, “Bailey, give Emma your number.”

Bailey sighed. “You guys. Seriously. This is getting ridiculous.”

I felt my face blush again. Here I’d thought this cousin was the nice one, but clearly even she was sick of dealing with me. I said quickly, “She doesn’t have—”

“I mean,” Bailey continued, over me, “is it Emma or is it Saylor? Because so far I’m hearing both, interchangeably. It’s super confusing.”

Everyone looked at me. So it wasn’t me that was annoying. Just my names. I said, “At home, I’ve always been Emma. Except if my mom was talking to me.”

“Which is why I keep calling you Saylor,” Mimi said softly. “Sorry. But she loved that name.”

I bit my lip, hearing this. It had been a long day indeed, if this was the thing that would make me cry.

“How about this,” Bailey said to me. “You think about it and let me know. Whatever you say, it sticks. Officially. Deal?”

I nodded. In time, maybe I’d figure this out.

“And give me your phone,” she added. “I’ll put in my number.”

I swallowed, trying to pull it together, as I took my phone out of my pocket, unlocking the screen and sliding it over. BAILEY, I watched her type, then the digits.

“There,” she said, returning it to me. Across the table, Mimi was watching us, but I couldn’t read her expression. Half-sad, half-happy, all hard to explain. Like she was seeing something I wouldn’t have, even from the same vantage point. “We’re leaving here at eight. Let me know if you change your mind.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

After dinner, I went to my room, where I opened my notebook again to the family tree I’d started. SILAS, I wrote, next to Celeste, then drew a line through it. Twice. (There had to be a story there.) I added Amber under Joe, with a question mark, and Anna Gordon below her. So many gaps still to fill, but I was getting there.

Downstairs, I could hear Bailey and Trinity as they got ready in the kitchen and then the screen porch that functioned as their bedroom. There were other noises, too. Mimi’s TV, most certainly showing another fixer-upper show. Jack on his own phone on the other side of the wall, speaking quietly, maybe to Taylor. But as darkness fell and I found myself nodding off earlier than I had in ages, it was those who were not there that filled my mind. Roo first, and the secret, not so much a secret, that he’d kept from me. My mom, in this same room. And the frick to her frack, Chris, gone as well. The past was always present, in its way, and you can’t help but remember. Even if you can’t remember at all.

SIX

I woke to the smell of toast.

It was actually the second time I’d been up. The first had been at four a.m., when my dad, obviously so worried about how I was faring that he forgot about the seven-hour time difference, called me from Greece.

“Dad?” I answered, after fumbling for the phone in the dark for a moment. “Is everything okay?”

“What’s not okay?” he replied.

“What?” I said.

“Did you say you’re not okay?”

“No,” I said. “I asked if you were okay, since you’re calling me so early.”

A pause. Then, “Oh, no. What time is it there? I’m all turned around.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I assured him, even as I noticed the little clock on the dresser said 4:15 a.m. Which made this the second morning in a row I’d been awakened by a phone call at this hour, something I could only hope wasn’t a trend. “How was the flight?”

“Good,” he said. “Long. But we’re here now, in a taxi on our way to the hotel.”

“Hi, Emma!” Tracy called out.

“Tell her hi,” I said to my dad.

He relayed the message. “The important thing is, how are you? Is it all right there?”

I looked at the clock again, weighing how to answer this. Of course I didn’t want him to worry. I was fine, just a bit discombobulated. Also I had a lot of questions, most of which he probably couldn’t answer. “It’s good,” I said. “I had dinner with Celeste and her kids.”

“Great.” Hearing the relief in his voice as he said this one word made it clear how worried he’d been, and I was glad I’d chosen carefully. “How is Celeste?”

“She’s good,” I told him. “Raising a cousin’s kid, this ten-year-old named Gordon. Her mom is in Florida. I think her name is Amber?”

“Amber? No. She’s, like, ten years old herself.” A pause. “Or, she was the last time I saw her. Which I guess was about twenty years ago, now that I think of it. Keeping up with your mom’s family always made my head hurt. Glad to know some things don’t change.”

“Guess not,” I said. “Look, I’m fine. Go enjoy your trip.”

“Honey that moon,” he said, chuckling. “Call me when it’s a decent hour there, okay? We’re supposed to have service on the boat.”

“Okay,” I told him. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Emma. Bye.”

I put my phone back on the bedside table, rolling over to face the window. I could just see the surface of the water, the moon overhead. I looked at it, thinking of my dad and Tracy, speeding across a city I’d never seen and couldn’t even picture, until I fell asleep.

And now it was eight a.m., and there was toast, or at least the smell of it. Also, possibly coffee. Hopeful, I got up, pulling on some shorts and a clean T-shirt, then brushed my teeth and went downstairs.

“Morning,” a voice said as soon as my foot hit the bottom step. Startled, I jumped: Oxford, Mimi’s husband, was sitting at the table, a newspaper open in front of him. Otherwise the kitchen was empty, although when I glanced at the toaster, I saw the indicator light shone bright red, signaling it was on.

“Good morning,” I replied. I walked over to the counter, where, sure enough, I found a coffeemaker with half a pot left. Score. “Okay if I take some of this?”

“Help yourself.” He turned a page of the paper. “Milk and cream are in the fridge, sugar’s over here.”

I found a mug, filled it, then came over to the table, finding a spoon and adding some sugar before taking a seat. As I did, the toaster binged cheerfully, six slices popping up. Oxford didn’t seem to notice.

“You want some of the paper?” he asked me.

“Sure.”

“What section?”

I took a sip from my mug. Perfect. “Do you have the obituaries?”

He didn’t bat an eye, rifling through to pull out the local news. “One of my favorites. Always good to start the day making sure I’m not in there.”

“I’ll let you know,” I said, smiling at him.

“Do that.”

We sat there, reading in companionable silence, which was a strange thing to do with someone you’d only barely met. But reading the paper I did know, since Nana and I did it together every morning. After all the newness of the day before, it was nice to have something familiar. Of course, the moment I felt relaxed, Trinity showed up.

At first she was just shuffling footsteps, coming down the hallway. Then she appeared, looking half-asleep in sweatpants and an oversized tank top, her pregnant belly stretching it out. She did not look at or address either Oxford or myself, instead just walking to the toaster, where she retrieved the six pieces of toast, piling them on a paper towel, before going to the fridge for a tub of butter.

“If you take that, bring it back,” Oxford said, still reading. She did not reply, instead just going back the way she’d come, leaving us alone again.

The obituary section in the Bly County News—North Lake was too small for its own paper, clearly—was much smaller than the one in the Lakeview Observer. Which I supposed made sense: fewer people, fewer deaths to report. Today there were only two, starting with Marjorie McGuire, 82, who had gone to meet her Lord and Savior the previous week. In her picture, she had a beauty shop hairdo and was smiling.

The fact that I was interested in the obits made my dad uneasy. He worried it reflected my anxiety, fear of death, not dealing with my mom’s passing, or the triple bonus, all three. But it wasn’t about that. When Nana and I had first started our breakfast-and-paper tradition, I’d cared about comics and not much else. The obits were always there, though, on the opposite page, and at some point I’d started reading them as well. Then my mom died. She’d had no obit, for reasons I could never understand, so I got even more interested in how people chose to be, or were, remembered.

Most obituaries, I’d found, shared the same basics. The opening paragraphs rarely gave specifics, other than the person had passed “after a long illness” or “unexpectedly.” Occasionally someone died “at home,” which sounded like it might be a way of saying it was on purpose without using those exact words. The religious ones often contained scripture, if not a mention of where the deceased planned to go and who they hoped to see there. Next up was usually a summary of the life itself, with education, marriages, and children and a listing of career high points. The final paragraphs usually touched on a hobby dear to the person who had passed—travel was big, and volunteering for good causes—before providing funeral info and suggesting where to donate in lieu of flowers.

I always made a point to read each word of every obit. This would be the last way this person was remembered: Was I really too busy to take an extra three seconds to read about their commitment to the March of Dimes? Also, I felt reassured when all the day’s listings were people like Mrs. Maguire, who had lived a good, full life. An obit for a younger person, like my dad’s age, always made me sad. A teen or a child was heartbreaking. It just didn’t fit, like a rule had been broken, and I’d find myself trying to piece together the part of the story that wasn’t told.

When I’d first started reading the obits, they never mentioned overdoses or drugs as causes of death. In recent years, though, as more opioid crisis stories hit the front page, they made this section as well. Occasionally it was spelled out, with the deceased having “struggled with an addiction,” or similar. More often, though, you had to read between the lines, finding the references to battling demons, pride in a previous period of sobriety, or a family request to donate to Narcotics Anonymous.

Would it have made a difference, having a clipping from a paper with my mom’s name and dates, a recap of the things and people she loved, and those who were missing her? It would have been at least more closure than that night outside the building as the elevator doors closed. Maybe that was what I was looking for, all those mornings with Nana and now.

“Morning,” I heard a voice say. I looked up to see Bailey come into the kitchen in shorts and a red T-shirt that said BLACKWOOD on it, her hair pulled back in a ponytail.

“Morning,” Oxford said. “You working today?”

“At nine,” she replied. She went over to the counter, where she opened a loaf of bread, taking out six slices and dropping them into the toaster before turning it on. “Why?”

“Mimi’s knee is acting up,” he replied, folding down the top part of the sports section.

“Oh, no.” Bailey came over, sliding into the chair beside mine. “How bad is it?”

“Doc says he wants her off her feet for at least a week, but we all know that’s not happening. You want any of the paper?”

“Horoscopes, please.”

He handed her a section as I went back to my own reading about Wallace Camp, 78, who had passed surrounded by loved ones after a long illness. His photo was from his military days.

There was a thunk from upstairs, then the sound of a door opening. Jack yelled, “Can someone put in some toast for me?”

“On it,” Bailey called back.

“Thanks.” The door shut again.

“I can try to trade shifts with someone for tomorrow,” Bailey said, running her finger down the horoscopes before landing on Aries, which was my sign as well. “But it’s late notice for today.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll work it out somehow.”

The timer sounded—BING!—and she jumped up, taking a plate from the cupboard and bringing it over to the toaster. As she plucked the pieces out, one by one, the screen door slammed and Mimi came in. Gordon was behind her, in shorts over a bathing suit, a backpack over her shoulders.

“Oxford,” Mimi said, dropping a cordless phone receiver on the table beside him. “Answer this if it rings. I’ve got to take Gordon to camp.”

“Where’s Celeste?”

“Early shift. She left at six.” Mimi looked at me. “Emma, honey, did you eat breakfast?”

“Not yet. I’m fine, though.”

“Let me make you some before the bread’s all gone,” she replied, crossing the kitchen to load the toaster up with slices again. “If the Sergeant’s spending his money on this fancy thing, we should use it.”

The toaster being idle couldn’t have been an issue. By my count we were at eighteen slices now and counting. I asked, “The Sergeant?”

“Trinity’s fiancé,” Oxford explained, not looking up from his own section of the paper. “Deployed right now.”

“Where’s the butter?” Bailey, now peering into the fridge, asked.

“Your sister took it,” Oxford told her.

Bailey sighed. “Trinity! Bring back the butter!”

“I’m getting dressed,” her sister replied. “You can come get it.”

“Honey, I’ve got to take Gordon to camp!” Mimi yelled in the direction of the hallway, starting the toaster again. “So you’ll be starting on your own today.”

“Are you serious?” Trinity replied. “I’m huge. I can’t even bend down to get under the beds.”

Mimi exhaled, looking at the ceiling. “We’ll talk about it when I get back. Gordon, come on.”

“Trinity!” Bailey yelled as they left, the door again slamming behind them. “I need the butter.”

“I told you, I’m getting dressed. Damn!”

“You two stop yelling, before you chase me out of my own kitchen again,” Oxford warned.

“Fine,” Bailey said, ripping a paper towel off the roll and folding two slices up inside it. “I’ll eat it dry on the way to work. If I choke to death on the way, you’ll know who to blame.”

With that, she was gone, the door banging again behind her. A beat later, the toaster popped up: BING! Oxford reached over, extracting the slices and dropping them on the plate Mimi had left for this purpose. Then he put it on the table between us, taking one before looking at me.

“You want butter?”

I smiled. “Nope.”

“Wise move,” he said, and went back to his paper.

The two obits read, I pulled over the horoscopes to read Aries for myself. Apparently, Bailey and I were both going to savor something delicious in the day ahead. My thoughts drifted back to Trinity, who was coming back down the hallway, dressed now in shorts and a tie-dye, carrying the butter. She went straight to the toaster, loading it up again with what I could not help but notice was the last of the bread. Suddenly Celeste’s frustration the day before made sense.

“Here,” she announced, dropping the butter in front of me, as if I’d been the one demanding it. I didn’t say anything, instead just picking up my dry toast and taking a pointed bite. I was pretty sure she didn’t notice. “Is Bailey going to come clean today?”

“She’s got to work,” Oxford replied.

Trinity’s expression, already sour, grew more so. “Great. So it’ll just be me turning over four rooms before check-in.”

Oxford did not reply to this. I said, “I can help you, if you want.”

“You?” She narrowed her eyes, as if I was so small she couldn’t see me otherwise. “You’re on vacation.”

This stung, for some reason. “Not really.”

“Well, tell it to Mimi. That’s what she said.”

Oxford glanced at her, then me. I thought he was about to say something, but was glad when he didn’t.

BING! went the toaster, six slices popping up. Trinity retrieved them before bringing them to the table on a paper towel. She reached across me for a knife, which she then used to briskly butter each slice, the scraping sound hard to ignore.

“I’m late,” Jack, also in a BLACKWOOD T-shirt, said as he came down the stairs. “Is there any—”

Wordlessly, Trinity picked up two pieces of buttered toast, holding them over her head. As Jack passed, he grabbed them. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“We’re short a cleaner,” Oxford said as he started for the door. “Mimi’s knee. Ask Roo if he wants some hours.”

“Will do,” Jack said, heading for the door. “Thanks for the toast.”

“Thank the Sergeant,” she replied. “He’s the one who bought that huge thing.”

I looked at the toaster, remembering how my dad had remarked that it was new. Apparently, there was a military aspect to it as well. In this house, even the appliances were complicated.

“Trinity?” I heard Mimi yell from outside. “Best get started on those rooms.”

In response, Trinity sighed loudly enough I literally felt a breeze from her direction. Then she pushed back her chair, grabbing a piece of toast. Oxford said, “Mimi’s got no business cleaning. Her knee can’t take it.”

“I’m pregnant,” she replied unnecessarily. But she got to her feet, yelling outside to Mimi, “Coming!”

As she left, I looked at the table. Only three pieces of toast remained. On the counter, the bread bag, defeated, was crumpled into a ball. The clock on the stove said 8:58 a.m.

I stood up, carrying my plate over to the sink, which was again full of dishes. They don’t want your help, I told myself, even as the urge hit, then grew, to start washing them. But I rinsed only my cup, putting it on the (empty) dish rack as Oxford grabbed a final slice of toast and the phone, taking both with him as he left. After so much noise and commotion, the house felt so still suddenly, with only me in it and the whole day ahead. What do you do when no one wants you to do anything? I wasn’t sure. But I did put the butter away.

It’s so boring, oh my God. I mean, I’m happy Grandpa’s ok. But I am so sick of hospital cafeteria food and trying to keep my brothers quiet.

It was late morning now, and I’d finally heard from Bridget. Her grandfather was recovering in the hospital, the boys were driving her nuts, and there was nothing to do in Ohio. These were the headlines.

I understand, I wrote back. So glad he’s getting better, though.

Me too. What are you doing?

What was I doing? At the moment, sitting on the front steps of Mimi’s house, wondering how to keep myself busy while everyone else was at work. So far, that had entailed reorganizing my already neat clothes, reading part of an Allies book Gordon had left in the living room—the sixth book from the second series, according to the back cover, but I’d had no trouble dropping right into the mythology—and, now, watching the hotel guests converge on the beach for the day.

Guests emerged with beach bags, wheeled coolers, and more children as they made their way down the plank walkway to the water. They set up camp on the covered part of the dock or the sand, spreading towels and dragging chairs into position as kids were wrangled, protesting the application of sunscreen.

The office of Calvander’s, in the opposite direction, was the other center of activity. All morning long, people had been coming and going: Mimi, of course, even though she was supposed to be off her feet. Oxford, wiping down the glass door with Windex and weeding the sparse garden. I even glimpsed both Taylor and April popping in before they walked off down the street, out of sight. Between the constant activity of both the beach and the office, I felt even more frozen where I sat on the steps.

Getting used to this place, I finally wrote back to Bridget.

What’s the boy situation?

Immediately, I had a flash of Roo the day before, shirtless, holding out a hand to me at the raft. That gap in his teeth. Which was ridiculous, I knew.

All related to me. Or might as well be.

Seriously?

Just then, I saw Mimi coming down the motel sidewalk, pushing a cleaning cart. She now wore a Velcro brace on one knee and had the office phone between her ear and shoulder as she stopped by a door marked 7 and pulled a ring of keys from her pocket. She let herself in, and a moment later the front blinds were rising, revealing a streaky window.

I thought of how I’d offered help to Trinity earlier and the way she’d so easily grouped me with the guests now out on the beach. She’d said it was Mimi who made this clear, and possibly she had. But maybe sometimes you had to ask twice. I walked over.

“No kidding,” I heard her saying as I approached the door to room seven. “In a perfect world, my body wouldn’t be breaking down. But this is the world we’re in.”

The room was dim, and it took my eyes a second to adjust. Once they did, I saw the walls were made of cinder block painted white, the carpet a dated flat orange. There were two double beds, both stripped, a rattan bedside table between them. The TV was one of those ancient kinds, huge and mounted up high on the wall, a bunch of cords snaking out of the back. Against the far wall was a small fridge and stovetop, a microwave and a sink, three skinny cabinets above. The only other furniture was two faded canvas chairs, and between them a low table with a flyswatter and an ashtray on it. Who even smoked inside anymore?

“… okay, well, keep me posted,” Mimi said as she stepped out of what had to be the bathroom. Her arms were full of towels, which she dumped onto a pile of sheets already under the TV. “I’d better run. We’ve got two check-ins today plus housekeeping. Okay. Bye.”

She sighed as she hung up, still not seeing me. I didn’t want to startle her, so I knocked on the door lightly. When she didn’t hear me, I did it again.

“Oh, hey,” she said, breaking into a smile. “You need something?”

“No,” I replied. “I just … I heard you could use some help.”

“I always need help,” she said, starting toward the door. Her brace creaked with each step. “It’s an ongoing condition in a resort town. But nothing you can do, I’m afraid.”

I stepped aside as she came out to the cart, grabbing a stack of paper bath mats and a handful of individually wrapped soaps. “I can clean. I’m actually pretty good at it.”

She looked at me. “Oh, honey. You don’t want to do that. Motel work is gross.”

As if to emphasize this point, Trinity emerged from room six, carrying a plunger. “Got out the clog, not that it was pretty. There’s a damn sign saying not to flush anything other than toilet paper. Can’t people read?”

“Shhh,” Mimi told her.

“Nobody’s listening to us.” She leaned the plunger against the cart. “You have linens yet?”

“Nope,” Mimi replied. “Grab some, would you? Get them for six too, we’ll do all the beds at once.”

Trinity nodded, then turned, walking to a nearby door that said STAFF ONLY and pushing it open. As she did, the smell of chlorine bleach filled the air, along with the banging of what sounded like a dryer.

Mimi turned back to me. “Why don’t you walk down to the Station, see what’s going on there? There’s usually a group at the arcade or the snack bar.”

She turned me down so easily; it was frustrating. “I can help you,” I said, emphasizing the words this time. “Really.”

“Honey, I don’t want you to,” she replied. I felt unexpectedly hurt, hearing this. Which must have shown on my face, because she added, quickly, “Saylor, you haven’t been here in over ten years. I want you to enjoy it. That’s what your mom would have wanted, too.”

Trinity walked past me, carrying a stack of folded linens, and went into room seven, dropping them onto the bed closest to the door. On the cart the phone started to ring and Mimi picked it up, just as a white van that said ARTHUR AND SONS WINDOWS pulled up to the office.

“Hello? Oh, hey, Tom. Yes, it’s unit ten. Okay. Meet you there in five minutes.” She glanced at the van, then sighed again. “Lord, and there’s Artie coming for an estimate. Everything’s happening at once today.”

The man in question was climbing out of the van now, carrying a clipboard. He lifted a hand in our direction, and Mimi, looking stressed, waved back. As she started making her way to meet him, I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it. Three times might have been the charm, but it could also mean not taking a hint.

“Why do you really want to help?”

I turned around to face Trinity. “Why?”

“Come on,” she said. “You’re the spoiled rich cousin and everyone’s been told to make sure you have fun here.”

I’d been tiptoeing around her so much the flare of temper I felt, hearing this, was welcome. “Not by me,” I said, an edge to my voice.

“Who cares? Why not just kick back and enjoy yourself? I would.”

“Well, that’s you,” I told her. She raised her eyebrows. “Look, you don’t have to like me or the fact I’m here. But don’t pretend you know me. Mimi let me come stay here with zero notice. The very least I can do is help her out when she needs it.”

“Yeah, but have you ever actually held a job?”

I’m only seventeen, I wanted to say. Just as I thought this, though, I realized she’d probably been working for years. Things were different here. Out loud I said, “I can help you, if you’ll let me. It’s up to you.”

She looked at me for a second, and I leveled my gaze back at her. Finally she said, “Go by the office and tell Mimi you need the keys to room ten. Then go let Tom in. Don’t give her a choice.”

“Okay,” I said, surprised at how victorious I felt. “Then what?”

“You need something else?”

“What I need is to not feel I’m just sitting around doing nothing while she’s working on her bad knee,” I told her. “That’s something I’m pretty sure my mom wouldn’t have wanted.”

She glanced out the door, toward the office. “Okay. Come back here after. I’ll show you how to do the beds.”

I nodded, then started down the sidewalk. Of course she hadn’t denied not liking me, not that I really expected her to. But I’d take her offer. Since arriving, I’d felt like not family and not a guest, the sole inhabitant of this weird place in between. It felt good to have a job and task at hand. Like the chaos that was this trip could actually get a bit more organized, and I might just find my place in it.

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