CHAPTER 3
ABI
The Lake
Warm air flows lazily through the open window, tossing the hair away from one side of my face. I inhale deeply, dragging in the familiar scent of wisteria and fresh cut grass. That combination can probably be found in a thousand small towns across the country, but I’ve only lived in one of those towns, so it smells like home to me.
I catalog details as I drive down Harbor Avenue, committing them to memory and comparing them to what once was. Not a whole lot has changed on this street. The oaks lining the median are bigger and more mature. Now, their long branches stretch all the way across the road on either side, covering the asphalt with a lacey blanket of shade. The houses seem a little different, too. Smaller somehow. Of course, as a teenager, life itself was enormous to me. It was like this living, breathing thing full of infinite possibilities.
But that was then.
As if on cue, an intense stab of pain shoots down my right leg like a knife slicing its way through my flesh. I gasp, wincing so sharply that I unintentionally pull my foot off the gas pedal. I slow almost to a stop before I can regain enough movement in the limb to accelerate once more. My vision swims for a few seconds, but I continue to creep on down the street.
Yes, that was then. Back when things were good. Now, trees are bigger, houses are smaller, and life is not what I once thought, or even hoped, it might be.
I’m not what I once thought or hoped I might be.
Gradually, my breathing rights itself as I follow the gentle slope and turn of the road, all the way down to where the trees part. My stomach knots when the lake comes into view.
The lake.
My lake.
My home.
I stop at the fork in the road, which faces a wide spot in the lake. It spreads out before me like eternity. I breathe it in like I breathe in the scented air, taking a moment to soak up the serene surface of the water as though it might give me peace by simply staring at it.
My eyes tear with a sense of providence. Yes, this is where I’m supposed to be. This was the right choice, the only choice for me.
This is where I’ll find peace from the pain.
And maybe redemption for what I’ve done.
If I’m even redeemable.
An engine rumbles behind me, stirring me from my preoccupation with the water. I glance in the side mirror and see that a dark blue truck has stopped behind me. Time to move on. I hit my blinker to go right, and as I’m turning, I look up into the rearview and catch sight of the driver. The dying sun is reflected in the windshield, concealing most of his face, but for just a second the man looks familiar to me—jet black hair, handsome, angular face, pale, pale eyes—a ghost of the only part of my past I’m not running from.
As I drive away, I watch the truck fade. For a minute, it just sits there at the stop sign, almost like it’s waiting. Waiting for what, I have no clue. Eventually, however, it pulls up and turns left, quickly disappearing from my sight.
Probably not whom I thought it was anyway.
I look ahead now, fully focused on getting to the house at the end of the short drive. I see the sloped roof of the cute little cabin before I see the signage. I recognize it and I smile.
It’s just what I expected.
Just what I wanted.
I pause where asphalt meets gravel and look left. 903 Lake Mist is carved onto a wooden placard right above the mailbox. It dangles from a chain looped around a low-hanging tree branch. For the summer, this will be my address. My mailbox. My driveway. My home.
For the next four months, I get to wake up to the lake, have coffee with the lake, eat with the lake, become best friends with the lake. That’s my intention anyway. I have a plan, after all, and the lake is very much a part of it. It was one of the best pieces of my youth and I want it to be one of the best pieces of this season of my life, too. Lake Wilson and a lifetime of bittersweet memories are all I have left.
I pull into the grass-and-gravel driveway that juts off to one side of the cabin. The place is small and charming, with an exposed log exterior and two dormers above the wide front porch. The yard is shaded and slopes gently toward the lake. A dock extends out into the water like a long, wooden finger, and boasts a flat-bottom boat tied to the end. Oars hang lazily off either side, making it look like a person lying face-up in a placid, sparkling sea of nothingness.
I park beside a silver sedan of some sort. I don’t remember the realtor saying she would be here, but maybe I checked out during the last part of the conversation. After she told me I’d been approved, the funds had been received, and my keys were in the mail, I thought we were done.
Clearly we were not.
I get out, taking a moment to stretch my legs, paying close attention to the ant-like tingling of my right foot. Gingerly, I wiggle my toes inside my shoe. The action hurts, but it’s not excruciating. At this level, I know I’ll be able to go forward without a limp and without fear that my leg will spontaneously give out and dump me on the ground. If it weren’t for that aspect of it—being able to walk reliably and with a normal gait—I’d actually prefer the overwhelming pain most of the time. Somehow it feels like what I deserve. Like penance.
That’s why, when it does come, I embrace the pain. It serves as a near-constant reminder of what I’ve done. What I’ve lost. And someone like me should never be able to forget. I shouldn’t be allowed to forget, and for the odd moment here and there when I find myself thinking of other things, the pain isn’t far behind to get me back on track, to whisper in my ear that I’ve earned nothing less than the fiery agony of hell on earth.
Punishment.
I make my way to the wraparound porch at the front of the house, knocking quickly on the door, permitting myself only the barest glimpse at the magnificent view of the lake behind me. Yes, I’ll have coffee here every morning.
I’m staring at the door, admiring the elaborate landscape carved into the surface of what appears to be reclaimed wood, when it’s wrenched open. I startle, burping up a little squeal followed by a laugh as I clamp a hand to my chest to still my racing heart. “Oh, you scared me,” I tell the woman in the opening. Her face is fuzzy behind the screen, but it’s clear she’s female. And I can tell by the subtle color of her hair and the dark shape of her silhouette that she’s a graying older woman with lots of matronly padding.
“Abigail Simmons, as I live and breathe,” comes a vaguely familiar voice. It tickles my memory like feathers from the past, reaching through the years to brush the very back corner of my mind. “When Donna told me who was renting this place, I thought surely it had to be you. You’re the only Abigail Simmons I know.”
I step back as she pushes on the screen to open it. Rather than letting me in, however, she steps out and pulls me into a surprisingly strong hug. She smells of lemon furniture polish and rose powders, and the only person I remember from my youth who wore rose powders was Christy Sturgill’s mother, Anna.
Christy was one of my closest friends in high school, but like everyone else from Molly’s Knob, I haven’t heard from her in nearly two decades. My mother insisted that when we cut ties with this town, we cut ties completely. We never even came back to visit my father’s grave.
“Mrs. Sturgill?” I ask when she releases me enough that my lungs can expand.
She leans back enough to smile down into my face. She’s an inch or two taller than my five-five frame. That hasn’t changed, but a lot of other things have.
Like the rest of us, this woman has aged, and judging by the deep grooves in her cheeks and the mostly-gray shock of hair sticking out all over her head, I’d say she hasn’t had an easy life. She looks to be closer to late sixties than the late fifties I know her to be. Her brown eyes still sparkle as happily and as feistily as ever, though, and something about them brings me a strange sense of comfort. They remind me of better days, of days when I didn’t have so much regret. Now, it seems regret is all I have.
“Donna said you wouldn’t remember me, but I told her she was full of doo. I cleaned up and cooked breakfast after too many of my Christy’s sleepovers for you not to remember me. I think I saw more of you than your own mother did.”
I return her smile. “I think I once stayed at your house for eight days straight. Momma had to bribe me with a pair of new jeans to get me to come home.”
Mrs. Sturgill pats my cheek. “I was happy to have you. You were like one of my own. And I remember those jeans.” She gives me a look that speaks volumes. “Looked like someone painted ‘em on you. You girls.” She shakes her head, but her tone is soft and dreamy with nostalgia.
“The rule of thumb was that if you didn’t have to lay on the bed to zip them up, they weren’t tight enough.”
“Those were plenty tight!” She chuckles, an action that sets her ample belly jiggling in a Santa Clause way, which makes me grin all the bigger. “If I remember correctly, you had to have Christy’s help to get ‘em zipped.” I nod, remembering many times when I’d lie on my best friend’s bed and suck in my stomach while she wrenched the zipper up and buttoned those jeans before I exhaled. “Damn idiots. It’s a wonder you crazy kids didn’t end up sterile after wearing those. Didn’t seem to hurt Christy, though. She had her tubes tied after her fourth pup. How about you? How many you got, honey?”
My grin fades and I find myself suddenly, desperately wishing for a change of subject. I didn’t come here to rehash my past. I came here to leave it behind. “None.”
Her expression turns sympathetic and she pats my arm. “Oh, no! When I saw you still carried your maiden name, I wondered. Was there ever a man? Or…”
“There was, but not any more. It just…things didn’t work out.” I’m purposely vague with that bare-bones answer. I have no intention of standing on the porch of a house I’m renting in my old hometown, spilling all the sordid, disappointing details of my life to a woman I used to know, in the first five minutes I’m here. Ideally, I’d love to keep everyone out of my business, but in a town like this, full of people I used to know, I don’t doubt there will be some who won’t settle for vague and bare bones. I just haven’t figured out what I’m going to tell them yet. Had I known I’d need to arrive armed with answers, ready to go, I’d have spent more of my driving time formulating creative yet believable half-truths.
“Men!” she exclaims in commiseration. “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t shoot ‘em.”
She winks and I smile, and the subject is dropped, thankfully.
“So, are you here to greet me and give me the tour?”
“Weren’t expecting such a hot old welcoming committee, were you?” She elbows me in the ribs and turns back to fling open the door. She sweeps her arm forward dramatically and says, “Welcome home, honey.”
Welcome home, indeed.
“Got it all cleaned up and smellin’ good for you. That’s what I do now. I clean all the lakefront rentals for Donna and her company. It’s not bad work, and I meet people from all over.”
“I bet.”
Lake Wilson was always a popular tourist destination. There are lots of community activities in the summer and, of course, there’s the lake with its miles and miles of tree-lined shores.
“Never expected to be cleaning for one of my long lost babies, though. I’m anxious to catch up, but I know you must be tired. You can tell me all about your life when you feel up to it. For now, you can just tell me how your momma’s doing.”
“She’s doing well. As well as can be expected anyway.”
Her expression is steeped in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“You must not know about the accident.”
“Your momma had an accident? What?”
I nod slowly, solemnly. “She was driving home after a night shift and had stopped at an intersection. Dawn was just breaking and the tractor-trailer didn’t have his lights on. The cab part was dark gray, close to the same color as the road. She didn’t see him coming, so she pulled out. He didn’t have time to slow down. He T-boned her right in the driver’s side. Part of his grill went through the window and got stuck in her head. The brain damage was…”
I pause. It’s always hard for me to recount this part. It happened a long time ago, but it still hurts to remember those first days. It’s like my mother died in that accident. Only she didn’t. Her body remained and, to this day, lingers on. The woman I knew isn’t in there, though. A child is.
A child who doesn’t even know me.
“The damage was extensive. She has no memory of me, of Dad, of her life before the wreck. She has the mind of a ten year old. She’s like a young girl stuck in a woman’s body, and that’s where she’ll stay. Forever.”
Mrs. Sturgill gasps. “Oh, Abigail, I’m so sorry to hear that. Your mother was…well, she was a strong woman when she had to be. I know she’d have hated to see herself in such a way, not able to remember her own daughter, or her beloved husband.”
I nod again, this time in agreement. I was fourteen when my father dropped dead from an aneurysm. I was sad, of course, but I was a kid. Kids grieve differently than adults. I didn’t know how much it hurt Momma until many years later. But I was old enough and aware enough to know that everyone in town knew losing him nearly destroyed her. And what his death didn’t obliterate, the accident did.
Now, my mother is living in a constant state of respite from the harsh realities of her life. She has no idea what she’s suffered, or that she’s technically still suffering. I’ve often wondered if that’s really suffering at all. Don’t you have to know you’re suffering, don’t you have to feel the pain of it for it to be considered suffering?
I shake off the thought. It’s one of those philosophical, mind-bending questions like if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a noise. At this point in my life, after all that’s happened, my brain is bent and broken and twisted enough without adding unanswerable questions to the mix.
I finally respond. “I’m glad she doesn’t know. I’m glad she could forget.”
And I am. Whoever said ignorance is bliss was brilliantly insightful. Most of the time, knowing only complicates things. And, in some cases, knowing brings misery.
I know for a fact that remembering sure as hell does.
“Well,” she says, clasping her hands together in front of her as she dons the smile I remember from childhood, “let me give you the ten-cent tour so I can get out of your hair and let you settle in.”
I’m all for that. I’m weary. Not that I’m not always weary these days, because I am. But today I’m road weary, too. I can feel it sucking at my bones like a starving leech, siphoning away all my energy.
“That would be great, thank you.”
Mrs. Sturgill begins by taking a step back and spreading her arms wide. She points to my left and announces the living room, then to my right and announces the dining room, both of which are small and quaint and decorated with chunky, rustic furnishings that perfectly complement a country lake cabin. I follow her as she moves through the dining room and into the kitchen. Its dark red rooster theme is carried from the curtains at the window to the placemats on the table, and from the salt-and-pepper shakers on the old white stove to the rug that rests in front of it. There are roosters everywhere.
Behind the kitchen is a set of stairs that splits, one half going up, the other half going down. “You have a loft with an extra bedroom and little bath upstairs, full basement down. That’s where your water heater and breaker box are. Laundry, all that good stuff,” she explains. Clearly, Mrs. Sturgill has cleaned this place many, many times. She seems to know as much about it as any realtor, maybe even as much as the owner.
Next, she leads me back through the dining and living areas to the other side of the house, past a rock fireplace and a tiny powder room for guests. The master suite dominates the remainder of the house. It’s bigger than I expected, especially considering the likely age of the cabin, which I’d guess to be thirty or forty years.
“Here’s your master bedroom. Bathroom’s through there,” she explains, pointing to the back of the room. “But this is why you’re here, ain’t it, Abi?” She’s standing at the foot of the bed, staring out the large picture window that faces the lake. The sun is in the process of setting now, spilling its bright oranges and pinks into the water like buckets of thin, shimmering paint.
“It is,” I admit softly. More than anything else, I’m here for the lake.
The cabin is situated at the end of a cove that empties out into a wide channel. The view from this spot is of open water straight ahead and a couple of houses nestled in the trees on either side. At this particular time, there isn’t another human being in sight. Just water and nature and the vivid colors of another dying day.
“You need help with your things?”
“No, I don’t have much, but thank you.”
“I’ll be by to give the place a good cleaning every other Tuesday, but if you need anything at all in the meantime, you just give a holler.”
“I appreciate that, but I don’t want to bother you.”
“You’re family, honey. You’re never a bother.”
“Thank you, but I think I have everything I need.”
“But you’ll let me know if you think of anything, right?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
I smile. She’s as certain of my desire not to bother her as she is of her own desire to help me, which is why she’s making me promise. It’s such a southern thing to do. “Yes. I promise.”
“Good girl. Don’t you be a stranger while you’re in town, you hear? I live where I always have.” She’s talking over her shoulder as she makes her way back to the door. I trail along after her.
“I won’t.”
“Will I see you in church Sunday?”
Her voice is sugary sweet, as always, but there’s a maternal edge to it that I haven’t heard in a long time. I fight back another smile. “I’ll do my best to make it.”
“You do that.” She winks, pats my arm again, and then bustles out the front door, letting the screen door bang shut behind her. I follow her out just so I can let it bang shut, too. That sound reminds me of my childhood, of running in and out of the houses of my friends all around the neighborhood, screen doors slamming and Moms calling out not to run so fast, or to be back before dark. That sound and those memories are as comforting to me as the scent of the air here, even though all of that was before.
Before.
I wait for Mrs. Sturgill to pull out of the driveway before I carry my things into the house. My only plans for the rest of the day are unpacking and picking out which of the eight Adirondack chairs scattered from the front porch to the dock is my favorite. And to avoid thinking. That’s always on the agenda.
Thinking is always the worst thing I can do.