The Lake (The Lake Trilogy, Book 1) (19 page)

“Good morning to you! You sure are happy!” Claire greets me as I walk through the door. She’s patting Luke’s back in an effort to comfort him as he pulls himself together. I can see he’s been crying. The slightly puffy eyes are a Weston trait.

I smile at Claire as I pass, making a beeline for Luke. I stand facing him, firm and purposeful, and say without hesitation, “Good morning, Uncle Luke.” He catches my gaze and smiles, pleasantly surprised and relieved at the same time. I throw my arms around his neck and give my
uncle
the first hug I’ve ever given him. He hugs me back and holds me tight. It’s warm and natural. We fit together like family. This is all I need to do. No explanations about the past and no conversation to smooth anything over. It’s a step, the first of many. I know I can trust Luke and Claire, and, really, that’s all I need.

Luke looks at me with what I can only describe as pure love in his eyes. The only other person who has ever looked at me in this exact same way is my father. Then Luke makes one request, “Layla, just promise me one thing, please? Promise me that you won’t keep anything from us. We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s going on.”

“Uncle Luke, I…” I sigh to gain my composure. “I promise.” How can I deny him? He and Claire are putting themselves at risk to protect my wish to be with Will. Will has already made the first step by keeping Luke in the loop, and who knows what other conversations have transpired in the pit of the basement. While I’m confident there will be nothing to share, I have decided that I truly trust Luke and Claire, so I will make and keep this promise to him.

There’s a knock at the back door and Will lets himself in. “Hey Westons!” he says cheerfully. His tone changes when he recognizes that there’s more going on this morning than breakfast. “Oh, am I interrupting something? I can wait outside, or come back later.” His backpedalling is so cute that I can’t help but giggle just a bit.

“No, no, no. You’re not interrupting anything.” Luke’s tone is serious, but brightens after he has a second to think. “Come in! There’s still a lot to do in the basement, so I hope your calendar is clear today.” Luke gives Will a hefty pat on the back.

“Yeah, I’m available pretty much all day. The only thing I have planned is to show Layla around. I promised her I’d help her try to decipher the lack of logic to the street names around here. Is that ok?”

“Claire?” I defer to her because she initially called dibs on giving me a tour.

“Yes, of course.” Claire is, once again, very accommodating and I feel embarrassed that I’ve rejected her kindness. It took weeks for me to allow her to take me shopping and have time to connect with me. I feel like I’ve slapped her in the face and I know I need to plan a night to be at home. Although I stayed holed up in the house my first weeks here, I spent most of that time with my head in a book or staring out at the lake.

“Thanks, Claire. I was thinking that maybe we could have a movie night, or something, this week. We could order in?” I say eager to inspire hope in Luke and Claire that I haven’t already gone off the deep end with Will.

Luke is the first to respond. “That sounds great! I’m looking forward to it.” He motions to Will and they head to the door to the basement. “Let’s get going, Will. That basement isn’t going to finish itself.”

Will moves toward the door but stops directly in front of me. “Hi. How are you?” he says, our conversation from last night clearly still on his mind, too.

“I’m great. Really great,” I smile and Will gives me a quick kiss on the cheek before he follows Luke through the door and down to the basement. I press my lips into a hard line in an effort to keep from grinning like
a Cheshire cat but fail epically.

Claire and I are alone in the kitchen now. She hasn’t said much since we greeted each other earlier. I don’t want to mention what I overheard her and Luke talking about. It wasn’t meant for my ears and I don’t want to intrude on their private moment, even though what I really want to do is thank them. Thank them for not giving up. Thank them for making it their mission to love and protect me. Luke would never have broken down like that had he known I was right there, listening to every word. He’s doing his best to protect me and that’s all that matters. It also seems that he’s doing his best to rectify whatever happened between him and
Dad. I don’t care about the issues that caused the lack of communication between them. That was their problem, not mine. I’m ready to move on with my life. Luke is a real, solid part of my life now and I don’t want to ruin that by digging into his relationship with two people who are dead. I just want to move on with my life. I have Will and I want to spend as much time with him as possible. I want to know him deeply, and I want him to know me. I’m ready to trust and want to be an open book to him like he’s been with me. I held back that first night on the dock because I just didn’t know how to tell him about the burden I will forever carry. I’ve never been allowed to talk about it before, so I’m not even sure I can form the words.

I can feel Claire’s stare. She wants to say something, and I’m afraid of where the conversation might go. I want to leave the room for fear Luke has assigned her the duty of giving me the “birds and the bees” talk but, to be honest, I’m hungry and want to eat. I reach for the bread to make toast when Claire finally breaks the silence.

“So…are you going to tell me about your date, or not?” She’s giddy! I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming! I imagine that this is what Caroline would be like if she knew about Will and me.
Does
she know about Will and me? “Well?”

“Oh, um, yeah.” I run through my mind everything I can tell her without spilling all the details. I want to keep most of them for myself. They’re far too special to just throw out there like ordinary experiences. Will isn’t ordinary, and neither are my feelings for him, so I’ll hold on to most of the details for safekeeping. They’d be too difficult to fully explain anyway.

“Will said you were going to the dock last night. Do you want to tell me what happened?” she says with a playful smile.

“Well…it was really…wonderful,” I sigh. “We got dinner and then came back here for a picnic. He brought a big blanket to sit on and a flashlight so we could see our way back to the house. It was really sweet.”

“And…” Claire prompts.

“And…we had a great time.” I am intentionally evasive. I don’t want to give too much away, and I’m not going to offer details that haven’t been solicited.

“Well, I’m guessing that this morning’s kiss wasn’t the first one?” Her tone has turned motherly, but not so much so that I think I’m in danger of a speech or lecture, or God forbid the sex talk. Not like Luke’s last night. No, she’s fishing for all the girly details that I imagine the mother of a teen would want.
So this is what it feels like.

“You would guess correctly.” I’m blushing now.

“That’s so sweet, Layla.” I can see that even knowing what she knows about Will’s father and the situation we are in, Claire is still a hopeless romantic.

“Are you going to go back to the office this week? You know, you don’t have to stay with me. I’m ok.”  I have to change the subject before Claire meshes her mom voice with her cross-examining expertise and flushes the details out of me.

“Yes, actually. I have to meet with some clients this week. I have a case coming up and there are some depositions I need to be present for. Luke will be in the office sporadically this week, too. Are you sure you’ll be ok? I can work half-days if you need me to.”

“I’m fine, really. I was thinking of calling Gwen and Caroline. Is it ok if they come over for…a movie day…or something?” I just think of this and haven’t formulated a plan quite yet, but am sure Claire will be delighted that I’m reaching out to my new friends.

“Definitely! That’ll make me feel better for you to not be here all by yourself. And then maybe you girls can go out; shopping, lunch, movie…these are the last weeks of summer, you know.”

“That sounds great but…shopping…uh…I’m a little low on funds,” I say. I’ve still got the money Gramps gave me tucked away, but want to save it for something special. I haven’t a clue what that something is yet, so I’ll probably just add it to my college fund. I knew my being totally and utterly broke would come up eventually. “I was going to ask about getting a job. Is there any place close to here that you think might be hiring?” I hadn’t paid attention to what was around when I was driving nearby with Will. I was too focused on him. I’m only slightly familiar with some of the shops on Main Street in town. I think about asking Marcus if
they’re hiring at the bookstore, but somehow I don’t think that would go over too well with Will. Maybe the coffee shop?

“You’re not getting a job, Layla.”
What?
“Luke and I knew you would ask and we’ve already decided.” She’s sweetly serious now, very motherly. “You carried a lot of responsibility while you were with your grandparents. This is your senior year and we want you to enjoy it fully. Consider us your bank. Whatever you need, we’re here to help you. If you ask for a million dollars or a brand new car, we’ll have to talk, but I’m confident we can cover most everything else.”

Consider them my bank?
That’s the craziest thing anyone has ever said to me. I don’t know what to say. I try to think of a solid argument to give her. I think about Will and how his father won’t let him get a job, but immediately recognize the differences in his reasoning compared to Claire’s. I know they just want me to have a different life here. It’s hard to swallow sometimes. I never imagined that it would be so hard to be taken care of again. Claire isn’t going to back down so I comply. “Thank you, Claire. You really don’t have to do that, but, thanks. I won’t take advantage of you, I promise.”

“We know,” she smiles and hugs me without hesitation.
I thought it might have just been Luke, but I’m just as happy in Claire’s embrace as his.

Luke and Claire have taken over a place in my heart that was starving. It had once been alive, but over the last five years it fell into a slow and painful place on the brink of death. In such a short period of time Luke and Claire have gone from strangers…to parents. I shudder internally at that thought. It brings back my nightmarish experience from last night. My mind is racing and I do my best to release myself from Claire naturally, not forced like my body is screaming to do. I’m comfortable in her arms, but I’ve got to move fast if I’m going to fight off the onslaught of tormenting thoughts infiltrating my brain. I excuse myself, grab a Pop Tart in lieu of making toast, and make my way to the lake.

I sit in my usual spot on the dock and become lost in my thoughts. I still feel awful about where my mind went last night and begin to wonder if I got over Gramps’ death too easily.
Should it take me longer? Should I still be mourning?
I try to remember how long I mourned when mom and dad died only because I think that might give me a point of reference. It seems that it would be different mourning the loss of one’s parents compared to grandparents, but I was a caretaker for Gramps, more like a parent than a grandchild, and that confuses me even more.

I replay all
the painful scenes of my parents’ death in my head: the accident, the hospital, therapeutic evaluations, the judge, the funeral, and finally moving in with my grandparents. The more I think about each event, only one thing stands out to me. One thing that I’ve never thought of before: my stone, cold silence. I had been in shock and almost completely shut down immediately after the accident, but with each passing moment now, it occurs to me that much of silence was not my choice.

I remember the first night Gram and Gramps came to stay with me after the accident. I had been so happy that they were there with me. It didn’t matter that I barely knew them…I wasn’t alone. Gram sat on my bed with me while I told her everything that happened the night of the accident. Then, she held me while I cried myself to sleep. She never said anything. She stroked my hair and was gentle and comforting.

I spent days in bed, and when I was out of bed I walked around like a zombie. I didn’t eat and found pleasure in nothing. It was almost a month before I was ready to talk about Mom and Dad again. To do that, I went to the one person alive who I thought I could trust most. Gram sat with me on my bed like she had every night since she arrived.

“I miss them so much, Gram,” I said through my tears; the first time my 12-year-old self put actual words to my pain.

I tried to continue, but Gram cut me off, “Hush, dear. We’re not going to talk about it. You made a mistake. You didn’t mean to kill them. It’s over now.”

When I tried to talk, she quickly hushed me again and that was it. That was the last time I ever spoke a word to my grandparents about my parents death.

It’s a hard thing to remember. Those five years seemed like an eternity. Grandparents are supposed to take you for an afternoon or weekend, spoil you, and then send you home sugared up with noisy toys. While you’re with them you tolerate the game shows, puzzles, 4:30 p.m. dinners, and 8:00 p.m. bed times, but I had five years of it. No friends or parties, no sleepovers; nothing that resembled the life of a teenager. I took it like the sour medicine that it was, as my punishment for taking their son away from them.

I shake my head to clear it. I have to get off this dock. It’s a strange contradiction that in order to clear my head, I need to leave the place that helps me do just that. I go back inside and find Luke and Will taking a break.