It was almost humorous, the amount of pride Krista felt putting on her waitress uniform. It was a simple pair of khaki shorts and a dark green knit shirt, but it was a costume that put her in the world of the working class. She didn’t get an extra set; every penny counted. She laundered it every evening and even though it was polyester and needed no ironing, she touched it up with a hot steam iron. Her creases were sharp and her seams flat. She was up at four thirty a.m. to get to work by five thirty. And she had warm smiles for even the earliest of customers.
Of course, one of the first people in for breakfast every day was Jake McAllister. She would never complain about her hours after taking note of his. He was there at least twelve hours a day, sometimes more. “But this isn’t exactly my work schedule, Krista,” he said in good humor. “I live at the lodge, it’s that simple. I was brought in from a resort back East in the Catskills to help the owner get this place in shape. Seemed it needed a little freshening up. My specialty is sprucing up or shutting down a resort. It requires some moving.”
“Your family must hate it,” she observed.
“I’m divorced—my son’s in the Army, my daughter is in college. Since I don’t get to see that much of them, I might as well enjoy my work.”
Krista settled into a routine, relieved by how quickly she was adjusting to being out of prison. There were no nightmares or panic attacks. She wanted to boast about opening a bank account; she wanted to flash her shiny new credit card. She wanted to sing about how great it felt to write her mom a check, to empty the change out of her pockets every afternoon and watch it fill up the mason jar on her dresser—and be safe there. Untouched. In prison, not even your toothbrush was safe. Her small change and minimum wage salary was nothing compared to the money Charley must have, but to Krista it was a personal fortune. She might as well be a brain surgeon, she felt so important.
One week of work and the job came easy to her. Her training was brief and simple and she was on her own in no time. The staff, as Jake had promised, were friendly and accessible. They seemed not to know she was an ex-con. She said she’d just returned to Minnesota to spend the summer with cousins after living in California for twenty-three years; she liked it here and thought she might stay on since her mother wasn’t far away. When asked what she’d done in California, she answered, “Nothing as interesting as this,” as if to imply her life was dull beyond imagination. Then she deftly turned the subject back to them. People were universally predictable; when offered a chance to talk about themselves, they invariably took it.
Jo rode the bus to Brainerd and came to the lake house for one day and one night and it was the greatest treat Krista could remember having. Jo brought homemade cinnamon rolls and carried one little overnight bag that must have been thirty years old. The four of them talked over coffee, remembering past summers at the lake. When it was time for lunch Jo took up her place in the kitchen beside Charley. “Tell me what to do,” she said, and Krista had a clear memory of Aunt Lou telling Jo exactly what she wanted done in the kitchen and Jo following instructions. “I’ve been so lazy, living alone all these years. I’m bad about grabbing something fast and easy on the way home from work.”
“It’s all for me,” Meg said. “Charley’s never going to make me believe she was so fussy about her diet before. I visited her, remember.”
“I’ve always been fussy,” Charley insisted. “How do you think I keep this youthful figure?”
“By being the one member of this family with a metabolism that can whip through chili dogs and cheesecake!” Meg said. “Anyone but Charley would gain fifty pounds in a year.”
“Lord knows I can’t get by with that,” Jo said.
“I was always on the run a lot,” Charley said.
Krista was in heaven. She couldn’t believe how natural it was, the four of them, talking and laughing and then being quiet together, as though no time had passed. When Meg rested in the afternoon, Krista and Jo went for a walk and ended up on the fringes of the lodge. Jo didn’t want to go in, didn’t want to invade that space. “It’s where you work, Krista. Keep it to yourself for a while. I can tell you’re happy there.”
“I’m happy here,” she said. “Just to be able to walk around the lake, to earn a little money, to be with friends.”
“After all that’s passed, you’re not bitter,” Jo said.
“I am bitter,” Krista said. “There’s a dark place deep inside me where the bitterness lives. I just won’t let it come out of that cave I keep it in. I’m afraid it would keep me from smelling the lake, feeling Charley’s fancy linens, eating the food she makes to try to keep Meg alive.”
Jo touched her daughter’s cheek. “Don’t let it eat a hole in you,” she said.
“I won’t. I’m too stubborn for that.”
Jo laughed softly. “I never thought I’d be grateful for your stubbornness.”
Krista showed Jo her new sleek, small and efficient computer and told her she’d been writing, journaling, trying to put all the pieces together. “I want to know what became of us all,” she admitted.
“Well, when you do, be sure to let me know, will you?” Jo said with a laugh.
Of course Krista didn’t do any writing while her mother was visiting, but there was a moment that stuck with her, that she planned to look at more closely later, when her mind was clear. It was bedtime. Krista had a double bed in her room and Charley was in the master bedroom Jo and Lou had shared for so many years while the kids were little. Charley said Krista and Jo should take it—share that big king-size bed. It was completely refurnished, of course; the mattress was new. But Jo said, “No. I think I’ll just take the couch.”
“Oh, Ma, it brings back memories, doesn’t it?” Krista said.
“It’s okay,” Jo said, not exactly answering. “You take your bed as usual. I’m used to sleeping alone.”
“I know,” Krista said. “The boathouse! Charley had it cleaned, prettied up and furnished with two double beds. We can hear the water lapping underneath.”
Jo shuddered slightly; it was unmistakable. But she smiled and said, “Oh, sweetheart, I’d just pee all night. I have an idea! Let’s bundle up our pillows and blankets and sleep on the porch!”
Krista hesitated, wondering what had just happened. Then she said, “Sure. I have to get up really early.”
“That’s perfect,” Jo said. “I’ve got the early bus home and I’m going straight to work. But I hope to be back next week!”
She put the incident from her mind because she couldn’t help grieving the fact that it would be at least a week until she saw her mother again. For the first time since she started working at the lodge, she had a hard time getting excited about going to work. She tried to slap on that happy smile for the carefree summer people but it was harder than usual. Just the idea that her mother wouldn’t be at the cabin when she got home put her in a quiet mood. She thought maybe if she wrote about it in the afternoon it might put things into perspective. She didn’t want to waste the happiness of that time they had together by dreading their parting. She began to concentrate on remembering all the details.
She was on her way around the lake when she saw Jake walking toward her, three ducks following him. The sight made her laugh.
“There’s that smile,” he said. He pulled a couple of pellets out of his pocket and tossed them to the ducks. “Was it my imagination or were you a little down in the dumps today?”
She bristled slightly, though she wasn’t sure why she should. It had been obvious, after all. “Keeping a close eye on me in case I snap, turn dangerous or something?”
“I keep a close eye on everyone, Krista,” he said. He handed her a fistful of pellets for the ducks. “I have an employee whose husband is disabled and he’s been known to have some hard nights. I have a man who got hurt on the job a few weeks ago and I think he’s back at work a little too soon. He might’ve been worried that taking time off made him look lazy. And I have a valet who actually is lazy—but he’s young and it’s time he learned you have to work for a living. One of the women who works here has not one but two special-needs kids at home. I can tell a lot about how they’re doing from her moods.”
“Well, don’t I feel stupid,” she said.
He laughed. “I didn’t mean to make you feel stupid—I meant to make you feel less suspicious.”
“My mother visited for a day and a night. She had to leave this morning—she has a full-time job back in Saint Paul. I haven’t seen very much of my mother over the years. I was a little bummed. I hated to say goodbye again.”
“I can imagine. Will you have another visit soon?”
“In a week,” she said with a shrug. “It’s not so long, I guess. It just feels... It’s been so many years of not being near the people who are important to me.”
“I can imagine. You’re doing a very good job for us, Krista. If you find you need a day or two extra to visit family, I’m sure it can be arranged. Don’t suffer in silence.”
Suspicion reared its ugly head again. “Are you this accommodating with everyone?”
“No,” he laughed. “Some I’m very tough on, some I grow impatient with, some would get on the nerves of a saint and some I don’t trust very much. But when I have a hard worker who seems sincere and has earned a break I can make an extra effort. I don’t know the gory details but I’m sure what you’ve been through was no picnic.”
“Huh,” she said. “I’ll tell you what you want to know...”
“I didn’t ask,” he said. He handed her some more duck pellets. She accepted them, tossed them to the ducks. “You’re entitled to some privacy, for God’s sake.”
“I just meant it’s all public record, if your curiosity gets the best of you. By the way, I am grateful you haven’t shared that with anyone...that I know of.”
“I haven’t.”
“If you know so much about everyone, what’s up with Elizabeth?” When he didn’t reply right away, she said, “That was unfair. You won’t talk about another employee...”
“That one I would,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out what to say. Someday I’ll figure her out. She’s smart and very efficient. Why isn’t she nice to people? Who’s she mad at?” He shook his head.
“Assuming you’ve talked to her, she needs counseling,” Krista said.
“Of course I’ve talked to her, but I can’t mandate counseling. Let me walk you a little way. Here,” he said, handing her some more duck pellets. She laughed and tossed them behind her. Three ducks waddled toward them. “Chaperones,” he said.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Just taking a break. I get a little sluggish about this time of day, especially after lunch. You walk to work every day?”
“I do. It’s great. My cousin would be happy to drive me but I’d rather walk. I’m staying with two cousins at the old family lake house we stayed at as kids. They’re sisters. One of them is sick. She’s been fighting cancer. She just came through a powerful round of chemo and no one knows what’s next—recovery or...you know...the end. Even she doesn’t know. It’s been a rough battle and she says she’s done with treatment, no matter what. She’s the one who insisted we open up the house and spend the summer here. That’s the main reason I’m here. To spend time with her. We were always close.”
“Jesus, Krista!” he said sympathetically. “You come off a tour like you had only to face a possible loss like that?”
“It would be okay not to mention that, too,” she said. “I just told you because you gave me duck pellets.”
“Of course not,” he said. “I hope you get lucky on this one, Krista. I hope your cousin stays well.”
“Thanks—me, too. She’s pretty amazing. Her attitude. I think she’s made peace with the thing, you know?”
“I saw that in my father. Same disease, same fight, same attitude, eventually. When he came to the end of his patience, he let us know he’d had enough and that was that.”
“And your father...?”
“Unfortunately, he passed,” Jake said. “But he seemed serene. He enjoyed his last months and we were all with him.”
“Are there a lot of you?” she asked.
“A sister and a brother. I’m the youngest.” He laughed then. “How many are there in your family?”
She gave him a brief rundown of the sisters and cousins. “And obviously I’ve been out of touch. Not everyone will be overjoyed to see me if they come this way.”
“They haven’t been in contact?”
“A couple have,” she said. “The two cousins I’m staying with now and my mother, of course. But really, some are pretty embarrassed...”
“Don’t we all have those dark shadows in our past?”
“I don’t know too many people who have shadows like mine,” she said. “But tell me more about you. It’s probably so much nicer.”
He told her about being a farm kid, filling her with envy. He talked about hayrides, harvest parties when they buried corn and potatoes in hot coals for a cookout, regularly rescuing stranded motorists in winter by taking the tractor to the road to pull them out of the snow. To him it was austere and rugged—a tough way to grow up. To her it sounded like freedom. They walked and talked for about fifteen minutes and then he said it was time he got back. And she told him she was almost home.
* * *
Over the years Krista had nurtured many a fantasy, but living at the lake house of her childhood had never been one of them. Perhaps because she could not even have imagined a life of such lovely tranquility. Of course, this lake house, renovated by Charley, was ten times the place of her childhood. On the days Krista worked, she was back home by two thirty. Quite often Jake would accompany her about halfway.
“Aren’t you afraid people will talk about you always walking with one of the waitresses?” she asked him.
“Nope,” he said. “Not worried at all. If you’d rather be alone...”
“It’s okay,” she said. Truthfully, she looked forward to it every day, so grateful he didn’t ask her personal questions.
After work Krista could stretch out on a lounge on the porch with Charley and Meg, or fish off the dock, float on a raft or nap in the hammock. She was frequently admonished by Charley for walking around outside in her beloved Jockey underwear. On days she didn’t have to work, she took the bus to Oakdale and treated her mother to a long lunch. Then she’d slip her mother a twenty-dollar bill. Sometimes she wondered if she had died and gone to heaven.
Meg’s husband, John, came every weekend, and on the Fourth of July Jo also came for the holiday weekend and they had the most wonderful time, barbecuing, having a picnic outside in the sweltering heat. There were fireworks over the lake, set off by the lodge, and the lake was busy with boaters and swimmers. She even had a brief fantasy of inviting Jake to join them but she knew she wouldn’t have the nerve. And even though she worked every weekend it was such a treat to come home to a full house, including her mother.
She restricted herself from thinking too often or for too long about her years in prison, about the people she knew there. It had the shock and ache of an amputation, but she longed so fiercely to have never been there at all she practiced this conscious denial. I can suffer about that later, she would tell herself. For right now I want to enjoy this respite, live in the moment, be with my cousins and best friends.
Of course, she knew Hope would be coming with her daughters, though no one seemed to know exactly when. Their very presence would force the issue of her twenty-three-year imprisonment. She tried to mentally prepare herself for her sister. It was a matter of scraping away a thick, sticky layer of anger and resentment. Maybe, she told herself, if Hope can manage not to hate me for what I’ve done to get myself locked up, maybe I can manage to not hate her for abandoning me. But forgiving Hope for ignoring their mother would be harder.
Krista had been at the lake over a month. Meg seemed to be doing pretty well. Early July was hot and humid and life seemed generally peaceful. Pleasurable. Then the moment she’d dreaded arrived. Krista walked home from the lodge, the smell of grilled cheese and Caesar salad dressing clinging to her clothes. Lost in her thoughts she was surprised to find a silver Mercedes parked in the drive behind the house. She stopped and studied the vehicle. Pennsylvania plates. She approached it cautiously and put a hand on the hood—it was hot. She hadn’t been here long. She could hear the high-strung and excitable voice of her older sister emanating from the house, but she couldn’t make out what she was saying. Whatever, she was saying it fast. The nervous edge to Hope’s voice carried and it had not changed in all these years. Please be nice, Krista begged herself. Remember the summer is not really for her, or for you, but for Megan. It’s Megan’s summer.
It was that last thought that propelled her up the porch steps—the thought that this could be Meg’s last summer. She so wished they could become old women together.
Krista was actually smiling as she walked in the house. She stopped immediately, of course. All she had to do was look at them, the three of them.
Hope sat on the sofa alone while Charley and Meg sat in two adjacent wicker chairs; they each had tall sweaty glasses of tea on the large square table that separated them. And directly opposite Hope, across from the glass-and-wicker table, sitting on a single chair, were her daughters, Bobbi and Trude. Alias, Brattie and Turdie. They were almost identical blondes, though Krista knew that two years separated them in age. Both had long, thick, straight hair, multilayered makeup, especially so around their eyes—they wore mauve shadows, liner, heavy mascara. Their wet-look lipstick, identical to their mother’s in color and style, was lined with a darker lip pencil around the edges.
Krista sauntered into the room, but stopped dead in her tracks, shocked in spite of herself. She just hadn’t been prepared for it all. First of all, Hope was a good fifty pounds overweight, but Krista had never seen a woman more plucked, pruned, primped and polished. Her fingernails and toenails were shiny with perfect enamel, her brows penciled with a sensual slant, her clothing obviously tailored and expensive. Her hair was permed and frosted and fluffed into a fancy short style that accented her bright and shiny gold earrings. Though she wore shorts and sandals, the shorts were cuffed above the knee and she also wore a blazer and plenty of jewelry, including a large diamond ring and thick sparkling tennis bracelet.
Krista turned to the girls. Now what were their ages again? Thirteen and fifteen? Fourteen and sixteen? Whatever, too young for this, yet they, too, were manicured and pedicured, their nails matching their glossy outlined lips. Krista had been away a long time, but she hadn’t been deprived of TV during this time. These two were more overdone than twenty-one-year-old beauty contestants. And their pouty mouths showed their frank displeasure at being there. No one can snub like a beautiful teenage girl! With their crystalline blue eyes they resembled the alien children from the Village of the Damned. The younger one, who sat on the arm of the chair, was thinner than the older. Much thinner. In fact, her collarbones, elbows and knees seemed to jut out. They, too, were dressed to kill in their overlong shorts, jackets and accenting silk scarves.
“Well, Bobbi and Trude, I presume?” Krista asked politely.
Hope turned her head toward Krista. The girls simply gave her an abbreviated and suspicious nod.
“You guys missed the turn to the yacht club,” Krista said. She plucked an apple out of the bowl that sat on the counter. She took a big, noisy bite. No one responded to her remark. “Hey,” she said, her mouth full of apple. “I’m completely unarmed!” A small huff of laughter escaped Meg but Charley appeared to be bracing herself for more. Krista met her eyes ever so briefly and took note that Charley might be waiting too eagerly. Krista bent at the waist for a closer look at their feet, both pairs crossed at the ankles. “Are the bottoms of your shoes clean?”
They both tucked their feet back with speed. The older girl took the hand of the younger, giving comfort.
“You have us at a disadvantage, Krista,” Hope said. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
Krista took another noisy bite and chewed. “You didn’t?” she asked with her mouth full. “Then I bet you just about shit when you found out.”
“Kris—”
“Don’t talk to me in that superior tone of yours or I might lose my temper and deck you. Believe it or not, no one else ever treats me like that.” She turned toward the girls again and leveled them with her hard expression.
Boy, do I have a mean streak, Krista thought.
“Bobbi and Trude,” Hope said. “This is your aunt Krista, my younger sister. We haven’t been in touch for many, many years...which would explain why I haven’t exactly mentioned her.”
“Oh, I don’t think that would explain it, Hope,” Krista said. “Have you told your daughters that I exist at all?”
“Krista, please. Don’t be confrontational.”
“I’ve been away,” she said, directing her gaze at the princesses. “Charm school. Forty years and two life terms... Really, we can’t blame your mother for being uncomfortable. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was supposed to die in prison. But it was all a misunderstanding and the California Supreme Court apologized for the inconvenience and gave me parole.” She grinned. “And here I am.”
“You’re just trying to scare them,” Hope said. “Girls, your aunt Krista isn’t really a dangerous—”
“Where’s Frank?” Krista asked.
“Dad...” one of the girls began.
“Frank couldn’t get away from work, Krista. He has a lot of responsibility. He’s depended upon by too many people to take a vacation right now.”
“That’s too bad. I was looking forward to meeting him.”
As Krista spoke the younger, thinner girl leaned down to whisper to her sister, her hair forming a canopy over both of their faces. Then she rose and the older girl spoke. “Mom, may we please be excused. You and your sister can catch up on old times and we’ll put some of our stuff away. Please?”
“Sure,” Charley said, before Hope could interfere. “You can have the whole loft to yourselves. Change into bathing suits if you like—there’s still plenty of sun today.”
Neither of them said thank you or excuse me, but fled quietly toward the back stairs, picking up a couple of bags each as they went.
“Well, dang, they damn near talked me to death!” Krista pronounced, biting into her apple again.
“You haven’t changed at all, have you?” Hope asked with hostility. “You once enjoyed shocking the grown-ups and now it’s the children you want to shock with your crude behavior.”
“Kiss my ass, Hope.”
“Charley,” Hope entreated. “How do you imagine we can make this situation work? I certainly can’t subject my children to—”
“Charley isn’t in charge, Hope,” Krista said. “You and I have one or two things to sort out. Maybe when we do that and you get off your high fucking horse, we’ll make this work by being equals, a thought that must make you wanna puke. Hmm?”
“Charley? Meg?” Hope pleaded.
Megan shrugged her thin shoulders. “I don’t think this has anything to do with us. Does it, Charley?”
“I don’t have any issues,” Charley said. “Except that I’m not interested in spending the next couple of weeks listening to you two snipe at each other.”
“Oh, God, I should have known you’d side with her,” Hope said, resting her forehead in her hand. Weariness seemed to wash over her. “I would never have come if I’d known this was what was waiting for me! I can’t put the girls through this!”
“Through what?” Meg asked. “Your reunion with your sister, who they didn’t know existed?”
Hope lifted her head. “She’s outrageous. Indiscreet and confrontational and inappropriate...and she’s been in prison, for God’s sake. Yet she’s somehow implying that I’ve made some grave familial error!”
Krista scrunched up her face. “Familial error?”
“I came back here with the best of intentions—hoping upon hope that a reunion of our family could put everything right at last and allow Grandma Berkey to die in peace. I wanted her to see the girls once more. I wanted to satisfy our obligations, pay my respects, perhaps thank her for making me feel loved and cherished when I was a young woman without family. I’m ready to put a final stamp on our family business and tidy up any legal complications. But I did not come back here to haggle with Krista over whether or not we’re equal!”
Megan, Charley and Krista all looked at each other in total confusion.
“Legal complications? Hope,” Charley said patiently. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The will!” Hope nearly shouted. Her eyes were glassy, her cheeks rosy and her impatience a palpable thing. “I came back to settle my inheritance. And that’s all!”
Silence enveloped them, a silence heavy with confusion. Megan, Charley and Krista made eye contact, asking the nonverbal question over and over: Will? What will? But however Hope had concocted this in her mind—that this was a last call for the purpose of seeing a will—might remain forever unanswered. She’d been doing this for years, as a teenager and young woman, living a delusional life in which she was a fairy princess and not related to common folk.
Remembering that, Charley laughed. Meg joined in. Before long Krista was holding her sides in hysterics.
* * *
“As soon as they’re asleep tonight, I’m outta here,” Trude told her sister in a hushed voice. She sat on one of the two double beds in the loft and whispered to her older sister. “You can take me or I’ll go alone. Either way, I’m gone. They’re all nuts, Mom at the head of the pack.”
“We could give it a day or two,” Bobbi suggested. “We could see how it shakes out. Check out the place. Get a tan.”
“I can’t,” Trude insisted. “Dad said if she was acting crazy, we didn’t have to stay. She’s been crazy all the way here—making us promise to keep it a secret that she and Dad are divorced, making us promise to act like we have a perfect life or she doesn’t know what she’ll do, throwing away our jeans, making us have manicures and facials and... Shit! And this place is crazy as she is! She’s got a sister who’s like right outta jail! Jesus! I’m like... I’m all... She won’t take us to the airport so let’s take the car and go to the airport, park it, fly home, and Dad can handle her. She’s fuckin’ loony tunes, okay?”
“You let it get you too upset,” Bobbi said. Bobbi was also upset, but being the older sister and sixteen, she was able to maintain an appearance of calm. She could be the leader for her sister, take care of her in as much as Trude would allow it. Their therapist said they should work on accepting their mother as she was—and if she was crazy, accept her crazy. Without taking on her burdens.
Trude had been taking on her mother’s burdens and recriminations for a long time. That was one of the many reasons she couldn’t eat. She’d hoped if she could be more perfect, her mother would be less crazy. Although she could see the intellectual absurdity of such reasoning, even at her young age, emotionally she was still locked in that behavior pattern. Plus, she felt guilty about refusing to live with her. And Hope was no help. She played on that guilt and anxiety and just got crazier as the years went by.
“I let it get me too upset?” Trude argued. “Look, one of them is just out of prison, one of them looks like she just escaped a concentration camp and then there’s our mother, Hopeless. That Charley might be the only sane one in the group and I’m not real sure about her yet.” Tears came to Trude’s large blue eyes. “I feel like a fucking Barbie doll that she dressed up all the way from Philly to here. I feel stupid and nervous and like I might barf. Please, Bob. Take me home. Please.”
Bobbi put her arms around her little sister, so frail in her embrace. She was anorexic, another reality Hope wouldn’t address. “Leave everything packed for now,” she said. “Let’s go for a little walk outside, check out the lake, have some dinner, then we’ll do what we have to do. When have I ever let you down, huh?”
* * *
Bobbi and Trude sat at the end of the dock, sandals lined up perfectly straight behind them, and dangled their feet in the water. It was five thirty but the sun was a long time from going down. The clinking of dinner plates being placed around the table could be heard from the house; the smells of cooking wafted pleasantly on the breeze.
“It might not be so bad,” Bobbi said.
The creak and groan of the dock boards behind them told of a visitor and they turned to see Krista. “Hey,” she said, moving barefoot down the dock. She wore only some shorts and a Jockey T-shirt through which the pink of her nipples were visible. Both girls’ eyes grew wide at the sight. “Ah, I wanted to talk to you guys for a second, if it’s okay.”
They looked at each other, then back at her. Bobbi nodded.
Krista plunked down on the dock behind them, cross-legged. “Ah...I don’t know anything about talking to kids, okay? So don’t be surprised if I say all the wrong things. Your mom and me—well, we never did get along all that well. You two—it looks like you two are actually pretty close. Me and your mom, we just never were. Your mom and Charley were best friends when they were little, but about the time Charley was...well, sometime in high school, they started wanting different things. And going different ways.
“What I’m trying to say is—your mom had it all wrong about coming to the lake this summer. Megan wanted to open up the lake house one more time. She’s been fighting cancer for years, that’s why she’s so bald and skinny. From the chemotherapy. We haven’t been here together in twenty-seven years. The year Charley and Megan’s little sister Bunny drowned, that was the last time any of us were here. Our mothers pretty much demanded that no one come to the lake again, which was not a real honest and up-front way to deal with the grief, but...we come from a family that isn’t real honest. I wish that weren’t true...
“So, back to your mom. She seems to have some idea about a will, an inheritance, something like that. We don’t know anything about that. We’re all here because Megan wanted to spend the summer here. She just doesn’t have much fight left in her. She might get better or she might not. We’re here for her. And maybe a little bit for each other. To give each other a little moral support, something our family also hasn’t been known for. It’s hard, you know? Being estranged like this all these years, feeling like we have no family, feeling alone...
“But it’s nice to have one more chance, to get people together, to see what kind of family survived all the sadness. Me and your mom, shoot, we don’t understand each other. Never have. I always overreacted to everything, usually by doing something that got me into trouble, like getting drunk or getting in a fight. Your mom? Her way of dealing with crisis was to pretend it wasn’t there and invent some completely fictional scenario around herself. I remember once when our little sister, Beverly, was taken to the hospital and your mom—”
“There’s another sister?” Trude interrupted in a voice that was near panic. It was also the most she had said to anyone besides Bobbi in an entire afternoon. Three whole words.
Krista didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she contemplated these girls. She was inclined to dislike them. They were frilly, they were Hope’s and they were anything but friendly.
“You know what?” Krista said. “It’s good you’re here. Meg brought a million pictures, plus the albums of our families when we were growing up. I doubt your mom was able to give you a detailed biography of the family—she was always on another planet.” Trude’s gaze dropped to her lap as if in embarrassment. “Hey, that’s not the worst place to be! Look where I was!” When Trude’s gaze came up it was hostile. This wasn’t going to be easy, Krista realized. These girls might be as fucked-up as Hope.
Krista got to her feet. “We’ve got a million pictures. You want to know more about your mother’s family, there are plenty of people around to answer your questions truthfully. Also, your grandmother would love to see you.”
“We heard she’s in a nursing home now,” Bobbi said.
“No, she lives in Saint Paul. Your great-grandma Berkey is in a nursing home. She’s eighty-eight but still pretty feisty, considering.”
The girls looked at each other, confused.
“I’m talking about my mother,” Krista said. “Your mother’s mother, Josephine. Josephine Berkey Hempstead? That grandma?”
Bobbi was slow to reply but finally her voice came. Softly. “We...we don’t know too much about her. We only know about Grandma Berkey. The rich one.”
A punch in the gut could not have hurt Krista as much. But why should she be surprised? Hope pretended she had no sisters, since one was homicidal and the other had been suicidal. And Hope had long pretended she had no mother since Jo didn’t meet her expectations.
Well, it was going to be hard not to kill Hope, after all.
During dinner, Krista lost all hope that the summer would be restoring for Meg. It was horrid. Hope prattled on about every expensive trip she’d ever taken with her husband, her country club, her charities, their house on the Cape, her big house in Philly. By itself that kind of grandiose talk could drive a person insane but in addition to that the skinny girl didn’t eat and the heavier one hardly ever made eye contact with anyone. Charley and Meg made a few attempts to draw the girls out a little but it was futile—Hope cut them off and did their talking for them. By the time dinner was over Bobbi and Trude had not uttered a word and simply fled to their loft.
Krista took most of her belongings to Charley’s room, giving her room to Hope. There was no possible way she could share space with her sister.
When the lake house was finally darkened for sleep that night, the sounds came out. There was something about the heating/cooling system that connected all the rooms and brought out every sound. Charley and Krista both remembered that from their childhood. They slept together in the big king-size bed; they looked at each other several times, but never spoke. Hope, alone in Krista’s bedroom on the main floor, was still chattering and humming and laughing to herself. It was so eerie; it was like background music for a movie about a psychiatric hospital. Then came the heartbreaking over-noise of soft crying coming from the loft.
After about an hour of this noise, Megan came into the master bedroom carrying her pillow and dragging her quilt, like a small child fleeing to her parents’ bed. Without a word Charley moved over and held the blanket back for her to climb in. And there were the three of them, cuddled against the lunacy of the night. Just before they began to drift off to sleep, Krista made the only whispery comment. “And we’re the sanest ones we’ve got? Jesus Christ.”