Feels like Home (Lake Fisher Book 2) Read online

  “No, Bess, it’s not funny at all. But that’s what I have. And I’m dealing with it.”

  She jumps off the counter. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me…” Her voice trails off.

  “I’m telling you that tomorrow I’m going to stop the treatments.”

  “But if you stop, you won’t get better,” she rushes to say, her words tumbling over one another in her haste to get them out.

  “I’m going to die, Bess,” I say gently. “And I don’t want to spend any more time so sick that I can’t get up off the floor. I want to enjoy the rest of the summer. With my kids. With you. With Eli and Jake and Katie. But mostly I just want this last summer to be a good one for my kids. Because when I’m gone, all they’ll have is memories. I want them to be good ones.”

  She stares at me for a moment, tears in her eyes threatening to spill, and then she walks past me and out the door.

  “Bess!” I follow her out and around the side of the house and then watch as she stomps up the steps and into the house. “Goddamn it,” I growl to myself.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam asks. She looks from me to the door and back. “What’s wrong with Bess?”

  I step in front of my daughter. “Sam, we need to have a talk.”

  “About what?” She sets her hammer down.

  I motion for her to follow me and we go to our cabin. I close the door behind us. She stares at me, and I hate myself in this moment, because this will be a day she’ll remember for the rest of her life, and what I say to her will affect everything she does from this moment forward.

  “You should probably sit down,” I tell her.

  She sinks down onto the sofa and stares at me with a mix of curiosity and apprehension. And I begin, even though I don’t know how.

  28

  Eli

  I watch as they walk away, unsure of whom I should be more worried about, Bess or Sam. Bess is spitting mad, but she will be okay. Sam, on the other hand, I’m not as sure about.

  Suddenly, our screen door flies open, and Bess stalks out with a box in her hands. She walks to the back of the car and pops the trunk, then shoves it in. She walks past me two more times with two more boxes, this time putting them in the back seat. Her face is red, her eyes are swollen, and she swipes a hand across her cheeks.

  “Bess?”

  “What?” she snaps. She doesn’t slow down.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like? I’m packing.”

  “Why are you packing?”

  “Because I’m ready to go home.” Her voice breaks, but she still doesn’t slow down.

  “Bess,” I say softly. Her back bristles and she stops so she can face me. She stares at me.

  Suddenly, it hits her. She points her finger at me. “You knew.”

  “Bess…” I don’t know what else to say. I need to explain but how? It wasn’t my place to tell.

  “You knew,” she says again, and this time it’s less an accusation and more a condemnation. “How could you?” Her voice is brittle.

  I throw up my hands. “He wanted to tell you himself. But he kept putting it off. Then today I told him that either he had to tell you or I would.” I stare at her. “So I’m guessing he did.”

  She visibly deflates. “Yes. He did.”

  “Are you okay?” I take a step toward her and reach out a hand, and I see her soften like she wants–no, she needs–for me to touch her.

  But the door of Aaron’s cabin flies open, and a pair of little twelve-year-old feet stomp out. Sam turns back to where her dad stands in the doorway. All the fight has left him, and he just stands there, ragged and exposed in the doorway.

  “I hate you!” Sam screams in his direction. “I hate you!” Her voice gets louder and louder. “I wish you had died in that car that day instead of Mommy!” Then she runs around the corner of the house, grabs one of the bikes, and takes off down the lane, moving as fast as her feet can pedal, tears streaming down her red face so that I’m surprised she can see.

  “Fuck,” Aaron breathes and we hear it even where we stand. He hangs his head, resting his forehead against the doorjamb. Then he starts out onto the porch.

  “I’ll get her,” Bess calls out suddenly, surprising us both. “Stay there, Aaron. I’ll get her.”

  “No, Bess,” he says. “It’s still my job.”

  “Well, you suck at it today,” she insists. She walks over and gets a bike for herself, mounts it, and starts off down the lane. Bess hasn’t been on a bike in years, so she wobbles for a moment and then straightens herself out.

  I walk over and sit down on Aaron’s top step on his porch. He sits down next to me, resting his elbows on his knees, then drops his face into his hands. “There’s no way to make this any better,” he says.

  “Nope,” I agree and shake my head.

  “I did the best I could.”

  “Yep. You did.”

  He raises his head and looks at me. “Are you going to agree with everything I say?”

  “Right now, you need it.”

  He lets out a watery laugh and says, “Thank you.”

  “You’re very welcome.” I give him a manly pat on the back and sit quietly with him, both of us staring down the lane toward where Sam and Bess have gone.

  29

  Bess

  I’m pretty sure that Sam has no idea where she’s going. She’s pedaling so fast that I can’t keep up with her, but I can clearly see the tracks the bike tires are leaving in the soft sand of the dirt path.

  Aaron and I have explored every part of this end of the lake, and I know there’s only one place out here that she could end up. This road ends soon at an old rickety dock that was a relic of the old campground that used to be here. It closed down years ago when the wells went dry, and the Jacobsons moved it to its present location.

  They never did demolish the dock, though. They left it there and sometimes the kids use it for making out late at night. When we were younger, Mr. Jacobson had installed posts and a cable to block the road, a lot like the one that leads to the haunted house. But over the years, the posts had rotted out of the ground and he’d never replaced them. The area is now so overgrown that you get chewed to death by bugs just by coming here.

  I swat at the mosquitoes that attack the back of my neck as I follow Sam’s tire tracks around the curve. Then I see her bike leaning against one of the broken-down posts that used to hold the cable. “Ouch!” I mutter as a biting fly lands on my arm and takes a bite. I’m going to be one big itching sore by the time I catch up with her.

  I find her sitting on the end of the old dock, her feet dangling toward the water. The boards of the dock are dry and brittle, and many of them are cocked at odd angles. She’s going to end up with splinters. But what breaks my heart is how she’s huddled, sobbing softly to herself.

  I carefully pick my way down the dock, trying to step on the more stable-looking boards. I sit down next to her and stare out over the water. If the weeds weren’t so overgrown and the bugs so bad on this side of the lake, this area would be as beautiful as the Jacobsons’ lots are. I slap at a bug that lands on my arm again, and I brush the carcass away with my palm. Still I say nothing.

  She sits next to me, silently sobbing. I can feel her anguish, and I know that she’s feeling just as bad about what she said as she is about what she learned about her dad. She’s feeling guilty and sad and she doesn’t know how to recover from any of it.

  “Did I ever tell you the story about the day you were born?” I finally say to her.

  She sniffles and shakes her head, still huddled into herself like she’s making herself as small as she can.

  “Your mom never told you?” I try to make my tone as conversational as possible, despite the fact that I know that this conversation will stay with her for the rest of her life.

  “Nuh-uh,” she grunts with another sniffle as she shakes her head. “I don’t think so.” She lifts her hands and wipes her face.

  I smile as
I think of it. “It was a Wednesday night. Your dad called at two-oh-four in the morning. I remember the exact time because I was in bed, sleeping soundly, when the phone rang.”

  She finally turns her head to look at me. “He called and woke you up?”

  “He did.” A fish rolls in the lake right in front of us, rippling the water. “You were born at two-oh-two.” I laugh. “He waited two whole minutes before he picked up the phone.”

  “Why did he call you?” she asks. Her voice is hesitant, but I can tell she’s curious.

  “Because you had arrived and he was terrified.” I giggle lightly as I remember the tremble in his voice. “‘She’s here, Bess,’ he said to me. ‘She’s here and she’s absolutely perfect.’ I can still remember the quaver in his voice. He loved you from the moment he saw you for the first time.”

  “What does quaver mean? And…why was his voice doing that?”

  “It means shaky, unsteady. Nervous. And his voice quavered because he was in awe of you.” I nudge her leg with my fingertips. “He had waited for nine months, counting the days until you got here. He had painted the nursery, put together furniture, and he’d even gotten you a big stuffed giraffe for your room.”

  “Bumper,” she says, and I can hear the smile in her tone.

  I smile too. “Right. Bumper. That thing was huge.”

  “I still have him.” She’s not crying now. She’s listening.

  “Anyway, like I said,” I continue, “your dad called and he said, ‘She’s here, Bess. She’s here and she’s absolutely perfect.’ And I could hear it in his voice—” My own voice breaks because I can still remember how he sounded.

  “Hear what?” She turns to face me a little, her tear-streaked face inquisitive.

  “He was scared to death.” I laugh out loud and slap my leg. “All that time he’d been getting ready, making the nursery, preparing for you. But nobody had told him how it would feel when you got here. He said he felt like his heart was going to jump right out of his chest. ‘What have I done, Bess?’ he said to me. ‘What did I ever do to be worthy of this?’ And I could hear it in his voice. He was literally shaking.” I nudge her with my shoulder. “Your mom told me later that he was a complete mess, what with all the crying and everything.”

  Sam puts out her hands and leans back on her extended arms. She’s taking all this in, and I’m glad she didn’t just shut me out.

  “Your dad was so excited. You weighed eight pounds and two ounces when you were born. He assured me that you had all your fingers and all your toes. And that you didn’t have any, ah…extra appendages.” I lean down like I’m going to tell her a secret and drop my voice to a whisper. “Do I need to explain what extra appendage means? He was so sure you were going to be a boy! He already had a name picked out for you: Samuel.”

  She bites her lips together like she’s trying not to laugh, but she says nothing.

  “‘It’s a girl, Bess,’ he said to me. ‘It’s a little girl!’ And he said it with so much wonder and reverence in his voice that I knew whether you were a boy or a girl didn’t matter because he would be the best father ever.”

  From the corner of my eye I see Sam swipe quickly at her eyes. I act like I didn’t see it.

  “And I remember while he was telling me all this, you started to cry. Oh my stars! You were so loud that I could hear you plumb through the phone. They cleaned you up while he talked to me, and then he put me on speaker so I could talk to your mom. She was so tired, exhausted after giving birth to you, but she was so happy. So happy. And so was your dad.”

  “He thought I would be a boy? They named me Sam anyway.”

  “Yep. Your dad said he’d been calling you Sam in his head for so long that he couldn’t think of you as anything else. He used to sing to your mom’s tummy, and he talked to you all the time. So they named you Samantha instead of Samuel.”

  “My mom called me Sammy.”

  “Yeah, but she was the only one who did. To your dad, you’ve always been Sam.” I suck in a breath and let it out in one big sigh. “Anyway,” I say loudly, “your dad loved you even before you were born, and he loves you now. He’s never stopped loving you and he never will.”

  “He’s going to die. Just like my mom.”

  There’s no emotion in her voice. And that breaks my heart.

  “Yes. He will.”

  “Did you know already?” She gives me a look that is so much like Lynda that it hurts.

  “I found out about ten minutes before you did.” Which still pisses me off, but it is what it is. “Your sister doesn’t know yet.”

  Sam stares at the lake again. “She’s only six.”

  “Right. But it was important to your dad that he tell you first. He wanted you to know.” I have no idea what he was thinking, but it sounds right. “He wanted to explain it in a way that you could understand.”

  “I don’t want him to die.” There’s a tiny quaver in her voice now.

  I force out a chuckle that I don’t feel. “I don’t think he wants to either. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if he could change it, he would.”

  She bats at a gnat that keeps trying to fly up her nose. I recognize it as an excuse to show annoyance, to mask the frustrated huff and snuffle. “I was pretty mean to him just now.”

  “He’ll get over it. He’s probably already over it.” In fact, he’s probably waiting at home for her, anxiously trying to figure out what the hell he’s going to say to her.

  “I should probably go tell him I’m sorry.”

  “Probably.”

  She looks up at me. “Do you think he’ll be mad?”

  “No, sweetie. I don’t think he’ll be mad at all.” If he is, I’ll kill him. “Are you ready to go home now?”

  She nods.

  “Good, because there’s a snake over there.” I point to the bushes right next to us. She jumps up and walks as quickly as she safely can back down the dock toward the shore. I follow.

  At the last minute, she turns to me. “What’s going to happen to us?” she asks. My heart breaks all over again for this child who suddenly has to grow up through no fault of her own. “Where will we live?”

  And I know in that moment exactly where they’ll live. It’s clear as crystal. I know who will love and care for them because no one can do it as well, as completely, and as truly as I can.

  I slip an arm gently around her shoulders. Her fragile shoulders that are expected to bear a burden that would crush an adult. “We’ll have to talk to your dad about that. But no matter what, no matter what, you will be loved and taken care of, all of you. I promise.”

  She nods. Then she gets on her bike and rides back toward the cabin. I follow, wondering how my heart still has room to beat inside my chest. It feels so much larger somehow.

  We find Aaron and Eli sitting quietly on Aaron’s front porch. Sam rides right up to the porch, hops off the bike, and lets it fall unheeded on its side in the grass. I watch as Sam runs up the steps and straight into her father’s arms. He holds her tightly against him and over her head he mouths the words “Thank you” at me. I give him a single nod, and they turn and go inside together, closing the door behind them.

  Eli picks up the bike she dropped and turns to push it back home. I get off my bike and Eli and I walk silently together to put the bikes up. He doesn’t say a word. We walk all the way into the cabin, and he says nothing.

  “Eli…” I say, and my voice sounds like a croak. And he still says nothing, but he turns and opens his arms to me, and I fall into them. He holds me close as I finally cry. I’ve held it in for so long. It needs to come out. So I give in and let the flood happen. And through it all, he only makes tiny little shushing sounds. He holds me tight and he doesn’t let me go. Not once for the whole time does he let me go. And as soon as I can talk coherently through my sobbing, I tell him.

  “I’m tired of hating you, Eli.”

  “I’m kind of tired of being hated,” he replies with a little chuckle.

 
; And when we go to bed, he pulls me into his arms, and I hold him tight. “Is this okay?” I ask him.

  “It’s okay, Bess,” he says quietly. And he kisses my forehead, turns out the light, and he lets me hold him. That’s something I haven’t done in a really long time.

  I fall asleep pressed against him, and I sleep harder and deeper than I’ve slept in ages.

  30

  Eli

  I wake up the next morning to the sound of running water. Bess is in the shower, and the door is cracked enough that I can hear the water hitting the shower curtain. Years ago, Bess would sing when she showered. I remember how I used to tease her about it, but she never stopped. Then one day, either she stopped singing or I stopped noticing she was singing, because I haven’t heard it in a long time.

  But over the spray of the water, I hear the faint hum of her voice. Bess is singing in the shower.

  The water turns off, and I sit up in the bed. Bess pokes her head into the room. She has a towel wrapped turban-style around her hair, and another is wrapped around and tucked between her breasts. “You’re up,” she says, her face bright and shiny with no makeup. Her cheeks are rosy from the warmth of the shower, and her skin is dewy from the water. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “It’s okay.” I swing my feet over the side of the bed and look at my watch. “Are you going with Aaron today?”

  She shakes her head. “He texted me and said he wanted to take Sam with him instead. He wants her to have an opportunity to ask any questions she wants to ask of the doctor.” She shrugs. “I still wanted to go, but he said it would be best if it was just the two of them.”

  “She needs this time with her dad,” I remind her. No matter how involved Bess wants to be, Aaron is Sam’s father, and she needs to be as involved in this process as she can be. It’ll help to ease some of the pain later on, if she feels like she’s a participant rather than an observer.