The Lake House (15 page)

Heather caught a glimpse of Monet’s
Water Lilies
out of the corner of her eye, and turned from the Renoir she’d been contemplating. Monet had always been her favorite artist, and she wanted to stand before his work and allow the pastel colors to swim in her spirit. As she approached Monet’s masterpiece,
people rushed around her. They stood before the painting, looked around for security guards, and then snapped a quick photo of the piece before moving on to the next. Heather shook her head as she watched the tourists. They were always rushing, and not just with art. She remembered sitting at the Grand Canyon and watching people walk up to the edge, take dozens of photos, and then say, “Let’s get some ice cream.” The amount of time they spent actually looking at the Grand Canyon averaged about twenty minutes.

Heather weaved her way through the halls of the old train station turned museum, taking in the works of Degas, Monet, van Gogh, and Manet. Three times she walked the hall filled with Vincent van Gogh’s swirls of color, stopping at
Starry Night
with each pass.

A man’s voice came over the intercom and said in French and then English that the museum was closing. She walked through the central hallway, taking a last look at the statues before exiting the building.

Outside, the afternoon rain had stopped and the sun was streaming through the clouds reflecting golden light on the brick Renaissance buildings. Sometimes Paris overwhelmed Heather: the ornate buildings with sculptured facades that looked like frosting on a wedding cake; the confident Parisian women who wore clothing as if it were art; the restaurants where people savored their food until late into the night. Everything about this city spoke to opulence and class. But, during the course of four visits, Heather had found her way into a softer side of Paris. She shopped in the Latin Quarter instead of the Champs-Élysées. She turned down tiny alleys and found small restaurants visited by locals with owners who didn’t mind that she dined alone.

Heather walked along the streets toward the Pont du Neuf, her favorite bridge from which to watch the sunset. Groups of friends began to congregate on the bridge with picnics of wine, bread, and cheese. Heather could hear laughter and conversation all around her.

The sky turned a dark blue and the lights of the palaces along the river reflected like candlelight. With each visit to Paris she’d stood here at night, wishing to share it with someone. It was the most romantic spot—the place she longed to have a lover wrap her in his arms and kiss her like the man kissed the woman in the Renoir painting. It wasn’t a place of passion; it was a place where you felt how much you loved and were loved.

She looked down at the three half-eaten desserts that she’d bought at a corner patisserie on her way to the bridge—more than enough to share with friends. It was that time of night that Heather dreaded when she traveled; she needed to find a restaurant. Her readers wanted her dining suggestions, and though she loved French food—cheese platters covered in fig sauce, butternut squash sautéed with sticks of butter, lemon-roasted chicken—the knowledge that she’d be dining alone dampened her spirits. All around her, people would be with friends, lovers, and family—and she’d have her notebook.

She walked along the Seine until she reached the Louvre. Through the palace courtyard, past I. M. Pei’s pyramids of glass, cello music floated across the air, and she stopped to listen. The deep notes brought tears to her eyes. She didn’t want to go to a restaurant, but she also couldn’t bear to return to another barren hotel room. She’d been traveling a month: London, Scotland, Ireland, and now France. Each night she went back to her hotel and didn’t have anyone to call to let them know that she was okay.

There’d been brief conversations with other guests at a hotel during breakfast, or another tourist as she rode the train, but other than that she’d been alone. She sent her articles to her editor and conversed through e-mail. Her lawyer sent her papers to sign for the house sale in Nagog and the bank sent her mortgage documents. This was the extent of her social interactions.

She placed coins in the musician’s velvet-lined case and walked into the central courtyard of the Louvre. She thought about the house on Nagog Lake with its window seats and lilac bushes. Her mind wandered to the man she’d met there, Tommy Woodward, standing in the living room wearing jeans, a tool belt, and a black shirt that accentuated a strong chest. His eyes were the color of Maui’s ocean, and the dampness in the air had curled the tips of his wavy hair. His rugged cheekbones made him look like James Dean. Heather had found herself daydreaming about him more than she cared to admit. What would it be like to stand with him on the Pont du Neuf while they watched the sunset over Paris?

She reminded herself not to get too carried away; there was a good possibility that he had a girlfriend. There hadn’t been a wedding ring, but she’d glimpsed a room with bunk beds in the Woodward house. Maybe he had nephews that visited. At least she hoped that was the explanation.

Tomorrow was the home inspection on the Nagog house. Heather prayed that no serious problems would be found. Everything was set for her to buy the house by the end of next week. At the last minute, the agent had once again suggested a home inspection, and Heather had finally agreed. She didn’t know how to explain that no matter what, she needed this house. She didn’t have anywhere else to go when she returned to Boston, but more
than that, she needed to be part of a community, not just a tourist in life.

T
ommy pulled his truck in front of his grandfather’s home. Dark gray clouds covered the moon and stars and the wind moved between the Nagog houses, rattling windows.

He saw movement between Maryland’s yard and the Dragones’. He walked around the back of Grandpa’s garage and saw Bill, Carl, and Daniel making their way across the yard between Carl’s garage and Maryland’s sun porch. Blue lights from their headlamps illuminated Maryland’s once elaborate rose garden. Daniel squeaked open the screen door on the back porch at 8 Nagog Drive, and the three men entered.

What were they up to? He snuck closer to the sun porch and listened.

Carl looked at the other men. “Synchronize your watches to eight fifteen. We’ll plan to meet back here in twenty minutes. Keep low and quiet. Remember the signal. I’ll hoot like an owl if anyone comes round.”

Bill leaned a shovel against the railing and pulled a crowbar from his black bag. “Remember, his hoot sounds like a crow squawking. I’m going to give the porch a remodel, so watch your step when you come back.”

Carl turned to go into the kitchen. “Make enough damage to make the home inspector tell the girl not to buy it, but not enough to ruin Maryland’s house.”

Tommy covered his mouth with the back of his hand to stifle his laughter. Earlier that morning, Aaron had called Tommy
asking him to check on the house before the home inspection the following day. He was worried that the men had done something to sabotage the place. Tommy had called Grandpa to say he was coming for a visit and had told him the reason. Grandpa must have leaked the information that the inspection was tomorrow.

Tom watched as Bill knelt down on his good knee and with his large body slammed the crowbar underneath the step plank and lifted out the nails. Tom knew he should stop the men, but he’d let them have their fun. They couldn’t do too much damage, and he’d fix it after they left.

Tom’s mother had died when he was five. A few months later, his father had left him at Grandpa’s house for the summer while he worked in Switzerland. Tom spent his days with the other grandkids. They played cops and robbers, climbed trees, and practiced diving off the dock’s springboard.

At night, Tom watched marshmallows turn brown and bubble over the bonfire while Bill told them stories about lake monsters. Dark shadows crossed Bill’s mammoth face as he spoke, the firelight accentuating the deep creases between his bushy eyebrows. At fifty years old, Bill still acted like a big kid. “The monsters form in the mud and grow to the size of trees,” he said, stretching out his large arms and lumbering around the ring of boys. “They have leech mouths covering their bodies, all starving for children’s blood. They rise from the lake at night and climb through bedroom windows. Before you can scream, their mouths latch onto your skin and they suck out every last drop of blood.” Bill screamed and grabbed Tom, whose marshmallow fell into the fire and exploded into flames.

The other children jumped and ran for their parents. Bill
laughed, noogied Tom’s head, and then tickled his lanky body. “You’re not scared of a little tale. Are ya?”

Tom shook his head no, but that night he’d climbed into Grandpa’s bed.

In September, when the other children returned to their homes, Grandpa enrolled Tom in Littleton Elementary. At Thanksgiving, frost covered the grass like powdered sugar, and his father still hadn’t returned. When the tree buds burst green, Tom realized his father wasn’t going to return. Tom demanded that Grandpa take him to the airport. He sat on the porch, his suitcase packed, determined to go to Europe and find his father. While he was waiting, Bill walked toward him, a saw in his hand. “I need a strong man to build tables. You up for the assignment?”

Tom wanted to stand his ground about going to the airport, but the saw’s sharp teeth looked cool. “Yes, sir.”

Bill swung him onto his shoulders and they twirled in circles, making airplane noises all the way to the Jacobses’ garage.

For hours, sawdust flew while they cut and sanded wood. Butterscotch candies melted and stuck to Tom’s teeth. Molly fed him homemade whoopie pies served with whole milk from the McAffee farm. Under the garage lights, Tom brushed stain onto the wood. Hours past his bedtime, he presented the table to Molly.

“It’s a masterpiece,” she said.

“You keep that saw. I think I see carpentry in your future,” Bill said.

Tom ran home, the prized tool in his hands. The suitcase had already been unpacked. Grandpa had drawn a bath, and Tom sat in the bubbles recapping his day.

The silly table remained in Molly and Bill’s sunroom. A rock propped up the leg that Tom had cut too short. To this day, the smell of sawdust always brought with it the memory of butterscotch and chocolate.

Bill began to unscrew Maryland’s screen door until it hung from the top hinge at a strange angle. Tom began to worry about how much damage the other two men might be doing.

He walked around to the front deck, careful not to turn on the automatic floodlights on Grandpa’s or Maryland’s house that shined on the driveway. Many nights of his youth he’d snuck in late, so he knew the exact path to take. He stood on the deck. The curtains had been left open just enough that Tommy could peek in the window without the men being able to see him. A reddish hue filled the room, and Tommy realized they’d lit flares, probably to create phony smoke damage.

Daniel, carrying a black duffel, walked into the living room and went upstairs. After his wife passed from cancer, Maryland had become Daniel’s companion. Her husband had died of a heart attack just a few years before. The friendship hadn’t been romantic. Neither believed marriage ended with a spouse’s death. Their children had wed, and that made them family.

Whenever Tommy came to visit, the two were together. Maryland cooked Daniel dinner. In the summer, they ate on the deck and talked while they waited for the orange sun to dip behind the trees. On Friday nights, she joined him for Shabbat. When his eyes were tired, she’d read the newspaper aloud at her kitchen table while he enjoyed her cookies and coffee.

Then Maryland had a stroke. When Tommy took her flowers at the rehab center, Daniel would be there attending her physical
therapy sessions. When she cried as she tried to walk, he cheered her on, “You aren’t a quitter. You can do this.”

When she came home, she could get around her house and even climb the stairs to her bedroom, but she couldn’t walk distances. On spring and summer nights, he pushed her wheelchair around the loop. She’d lost vision in her left eye, so he described the colorful blooms bursting from the ground.

The day Aaron took Maryland to Florida, the community had tried to stand in the way. Daniel yelled at Aaron as Maryland sobbed in Sarah’s arms. As Aaron packed the car with suitcases, Daniel tried to grab them and said, “She’ll move in with me,” but in the end, Maryland agreed to go, in order to be closer to her daughter. Everyone knew it wasn’t what she wanted. No wonder Daniel didn’t want someone new moving into this home.

Carl’s light illuminated the dust-covered pictures on Maryland’s shelves in the living room. He ran his fingers over a beige, wooden frame.

He picked up the picture and Tommy saw him speaking. He pressed his ear to the window to hear, “Hey James, you would’ve enjoyed this little prank. Of course, if you were alive, this wouldn’t be happening, but that’s life. I hope you’re looking down from Heaven and watching over your sister. I’m sure she’s pretty lonely in Florida.” He placed the frame back. “Sorry about the damage to your house. We’ll fix it once we run the girl off.”

He pulled a white stuffed owl from his duffel bag, its wings stretched in flight. Tommy had heard the story of the owl many times. Young Bill, Joseph, Carl, and James had found the dead owl in the old McAffee barn on the hill. They tried to hide it in the tree house while they gutted and stuffed it, but the girls tattled. Each night they transferred the decaying bird to a different
house. Neighbors noticed the stench, but before anyone could find the source, the boys changed its location. The odor became the summer’s mystery.