On Mystic Lake

She tiptoed past him, her heart thudding in her chest as she eased the front door open and closed it silently behind her. She stood on the porch, looking out. A pink mist floated across the lake. Mommy?



She walked through the grass, to the edge of the lake. She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured her mommy. When she opened her eyes, her mommy was there, standing in the middle of the water, too far away for Izzy’s hands to reach.



Mommy didn’t seem to move, but all at once, she was beside Izzy, so close that Izzy could smell her perfume.



It’s okay now, Izzy. Her mom’s voice mingled with the breeze. Somewhere, a bird squawked and flew up from the brush, flapping its wings as it rose into the sky.



It started to rain for real, a slow pattering shower that kissed Izzy’s hair and fell on her lips. She saw that the rain was tinted, a million rainbow-hued flecks landing on the surface of the lake. But on the other side of the water, it wasn’t raining.



It’s okay now, Mommy said again. I have to go.



Izzy panicked. It felt as if she were losing her mommy all over again. Don’t go, Mommy. I’m disappearin’as fast as I can.



But her mommy was already gone. The multicolored rain stopped falling and the mist went away.



Izzy waited and waited, but nothing happened. Finally, she went back into the house. Crossing the living room, she wandered into the kitchen and started making herself breakfast. She got out the Frosted Flakes and the milk all by herself.



In the other room, she heard her daddy wake up. She’d seen it a bunch of times, and it was always worse when he fell asleep in the living room. First he’d sit up on the sofa, then he’d grab his head and make a little moaning sound. When he stood up, he always hit his shin on the coffee table and yelled a bad word. Today was no different.



“Shit!”



Izzy hurried to put the pink tablecloth on the table—the one her mommy always used for breakfast. She wanted her daddy to notice how smart she was, how grown up. Maybe then he’d finally look at her, touch her . . . maybe he’d even say, Heya, Sunshine, how did you sleep? That’s what he used to say in the mornings, and if he talked to her, maybe she could find her own voice, answer, I’m fine, Daddy-O, and make him laugh again. She missed hearing him laugh.



That’s all she really wanted. She had given up on lots of the other things that used to matter. She didn’t care if he told her he loved her. She didn’t care if he kissed her good night on the forehead, or took her on picnics, or twirled her around in his big, strong arms until she squealed. She just wanted him to look at her the way he used to, as if she were the most important person in the world.



Now, he hardly ever looked at her. Sometimes, he looked away so fast, she’d get scared and think she had finally disappeared. But it was never true; she was always there, most of her anyway, except her hand and a few fingers. He just didn’t like to look at her anymore.



He stumbled into the kitchen and came to an unsteady stop. “Izzy. What are you doing up?”



She blinked at him in surprise. You c’n do it, she thought. Just answer him. I’m makin’you breakfast, Daddy. But the words tangled in her throat and disappeared.



“Frosted Flakes,” he said with a thin smile. “Annie will love that.” He went to the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of orange juice.



He headed toward her. For one heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to pat her shoulder and tell her she’d set the table real pretty. Or that she looked pretty— just like she used to look, with her hair all braided. She even leaned slightly toward him.



But he moved on past, and she had to squeeze back tears.



He looked at the table again. Not at her. “I don’t have time for breakfast, Izzy-bear.” He touched his forehead and closed his eyes.



She knew he had a headache again—the same one he’d had ever since Mommy went to heaven. It scared her, thinking about that. It always scared her to see how sick her daddy looked in the mornings. She wanted to tell him that she would try harder to be a good girl, that she’d stop disappearing and start talking, and eat her vegetables and everything.



Her daddy smiled—only it wasn’t his real smile. It was the tired, shaky smile that belonged to the silver-haired daddy—the one who never looked at her. “Did you have a good time with Annie yesterday?”



Izzy tried and tried but she couldn’t answer. She saw how her daddy looked at her, like he was gonna cry, and it made her ashamed of herself.



Finally, he sighed. “I’m gonna go take a shower. Annie should be here any minute.”



He waited a second—as if she were going to answer— but she didn’t. She couldn’t. Instead, she just stood there, holding two bowls, and watched him walk away.



Later, long after he’d left for work, Izzy sat down on the sofa, her knees pressed together and Miss Jemmie asleep in her lap. Annie came bright and early and started cleaning the house again. All the time Annie was working, she talked to Izzy. She talked so much that sometimes Izzy couldn’t listen to it all.



Izzy liked the way her house looked now, after Annie had finished cleaning it up.



It made her feel safe.



She closed her eyes, listening to the soothing sound of the broom. It made her think of her mommy, and all the times she’d sat by herself, looking at a book while her mommy cleaned the house.



Before she knew it, a sound had slipped from her mouth. It was a faint schk-schk noise, the same sound that the broom was making on the floor.



Her eyes popped open. It shocked her to hear her own voice after all this time. Even if it wasn’t words, it was Izzy. She thought that part of her—the talking part—had dried up and disappeared, just like her hand and arm. She hadn’t meant to stop talking, but one day after her doctor’s appointment, she had opened her mouth to speak and nothing had come out. Nothing.



It had terrified her, especially when she realized that she couldn’t change it. After that, everyone treated her like a baby and pretended she couldn’t hear, either. It had made her cry, the way they all looked at her, but even her crying had been silent.



Annie was different. Annie didn’t look at Izzy like she was a broken doll that belonged in the trash.



Annie looked at her the way her mommy and daddy used to.



Izzy smiled, and the sound kept coming, softly, barely louder than the sound of her own breathing. Schk-schk-schk.



Chapter 10



The county courthouse had been built a hundred years ago, when Mystic had been a booming log town, when the inlets were swollen with miles of trees waiting to be piled onto locomotives and employment was always high. It was an imposing building of hand-cut gray stone, fronted by dozens of double-hung windows and placed squarely in the middle of a flat green lawn. Precisely trimmed rhododendrons and azaleas outlined the brick walkways. A Washington state flag fluttered in the spring breeze.



Nick stood on the courthouse steps, leaning back against one of the stone pillars that flanked the huge oak doors. He flipped through a slim notebook, reminding himself of the facts of an arrest that had taken place more than a month ago. Testifying was part of his job, but it wasn’t something he liked to do—especially not in family court, where everything usually came down to broken families and lost souls.



Today it was Gina Piccolo. He’d known Gina since she was a little girl. He remembered her only a few years back, when she’d had the lead in the junior high production of Oklahoma! She was a bright, sunny girl with jet-black hair and shining eyes. But in the past year, she’d gone more than a little wild. At fourteen, she’d fallen in with the wrong crowd, and she wasn’t a bright-eyed girl anymore. She was a sullen, nasty, baggy-clothed young woman with a logger’s mouth and a penchant for trouble. Her parents were out of their minds with worry—and it didn’t help that she’d recently started dating a seventeen-year-old boy. Nothing her parents said seemed to make a difference.



And so Nick was here, preparing to make a statement to the judge about Gina. He checked his watch. Court reconvened in ten minutes. He flipped through his notes again, but he found it difficult to concentrate.



It was a problem that had plagued him for the past four days—really ever since Annie Bourne had shown up in his life again.



Already Izzy was improving. She wasn’t talking, of course, and she still believed she was disappearing, but Nick could see the changes. She was interacting, listening, smiling . . . and the reasons were obvious.



Annie was just so damned easy to be around. That was the problem—for Nick, anyway. Memories of their lovemaking were everywhere, and Annie fascinated him—the way she squinted when she smiled, the way she kept tucking nonexistent hair behind her ear, the way she shrugged helplessly when she screwed something up.



Most of the time, he couldn’t look at her; he was afraid that the wanting would show in his eyes.



With a sigh, he flipped his notebook closed and headed inside the courthouse toward courtroom six.



Gina was waiting by the door, wearing baggy black jeans and an oversized black sweatshirt that hung almost to her knees. Her once-black hair was streaked with pink and purple highlights, and a silver ring pierced her nose.



She saw him, and her eyes narrowed. “Fuck you, Delacroix,” she said. “You’re here to tell them to put me away.”



Where did they get all that anger? He sighed. “I’m here to tell Judge McKinley what happened on February twenty-sixth.”



“Like you would know anything about that—or me. I was framed. That wasn’t my coke.”



“Someone put it in your pocket?”



“That’s right.”



“If that’s the way you want to play it, Gina, fine. But honesty would be a smarter course.”



She tapped her thigh nervously. “Yeah, like you would know about honesty. You cops make me sick.”



“You’re young, Gina—”



“Screw you.”



“And like all young people, you think you’re a pioneer, the first person ever to find the great undiscovered country. But I know you. I’ve been where you’re going, and believe me, it isn’t pretty.”



“You don’t know shit about the real world. You’re a cop . . . in Mystic.” She pulled out a cigarette and lit up. Her gaze cut to the no-smoking sign behind her and she grinned, daring Nick to do something.



He saw the challenge in her eyes as she exhaled a stream of smoke. He cocked his head toward the open doors. “Follow me.”



Without looking back, he crossed the hall and went outside. He was mildly surprised to find that Gina had followed him. He sat down on the top step.



She sat cross-legged a few feet away. “Yeah? What?”



“When I was your age, I lived on the streets.”



She snorted. “Uh-huh. And I’m one of the Spice Girls.”



“My mom was an alcoholic who used to prostitute herself for booze. It was a lovely life . . . normal for an addict with no formal education and no particular job skills. She dropped out of school at sixteen when she got pregnant with me. My old man dumped her pretty fast—and she didn’t have anywhere to go after that.”