Lakeside Cottage

In that order of importance? She had to wonder at her priorities.

“So are you going to be all right,” Mable Claire asked, “just the two of you in that big old house?”

“We’ll be fine,” Kate said, though it felt strange to be the only one in the family headed for the lake house this summer. Every year, all the Livingstons made their annual pilgrimage to the old place on Lake Crescent, but recently everything had changed. Kate’s brother, Phil, his wife and four kids had relocated to the East Coast. Their mother, five years widowed, had remarried on Valentine’s Day and moved to Florida. That left Kate and Aaron in their house in West Seattle, on their own a continent away. Sometimes it felt as though an unseen force had taken her close-knit family and unraveled it.

This summer it would be just the two of them—Kate and her son—sharing the six-bedroom cottage.

Quit wallowing, she warned herself, and smiled at Mable Claire. “How have you been?” she asked.

“Good, all things considered.” Mable Claire had lost her husband two years before. “Some days—most days—I still feel married, like Wilbur never really left me. Other times, he seems as distant as the stars. I’m all right, though. My grandson Luke is spending the summer with me. Thanks for asking.”

On the form to activate trash pickup, Kate filled in the dates. The summer loomed before her, deliciously long, a golden string of empty days to fill however she wished. A whole summer, all to herself. She could take the entire time to figure out her life, her son, her future.

Mable Claire peered at her. “You’re looking a little peaked.”

“Just frazzled, I think.”

“Nothing a summer at the lake won’t cure.”

Kate summoned up a smile. “Exactly.” But suddenly, one summer didn’t seem like enough time.

“‘In want of a husband,’ my eye,” Kate muttered as she locked the Jeep at the Shop and Save, leaving the window cracked to give Bandit some fresh air. Aaron was already scurrying toward the entrance. Heck, thought Kate, watching a guy cross the parking lot, at this point I’d settle for a one-night stand.

He was a prime specimen in typical local garb—plaid shirt, Carhartts, work boots, a John Deere cap. Tall and broad-shouldered, he walked with a commanding, almost military stride. Longish hair and Strike King shades. But was that a mullet under the green-and-yellow cap? From a distance, she couldn’t tell. Ick, a mullet. It was only hair, she conceded. Nothing a quick snip of the scissors couldn’t fix.

“Mom? Mom.” A voice pierced her fantasy. Aaron rattled the cart he’d found in the parking lot.

“You’re acting like an impatient city dweller,” she said.

“I am an impatient city dweller,” he replied.

They passed beneath the sign of the giant laughing pink pig, which had stood sentinel over the grocery store for as long as Kate could remember. The marquee held a sign that advertised, Maple Sweet Bacon—$.99/lb.

What are you so happy about? Kate wondered, looking at the pig. She and Aaron went inside together to stock up on supplies, for the lake house had sat empty since last year. Something in Kate loved this process. It was like starting from scratch, with everything new. And this time, all the choices were hers to make. Without her mother or older brother around, Kate was the adult in charge. What a concept.

“Mom? Mom.” Aaron scowled at her. “You’re not even listening.”

“Oh. Sorry, buddy.” She selected some plums and put them in the cart. “I’m a bit preoccupied.”

“Tell me about it. So did you get fired or were you laid off?” he asked, hitching a ride on the grocery cart as she steered toward the next aisle. He regarded her implacably over the pile of cereal boxes and produce bags.

She looked right back at her nine-year-old son. His curiously adult-sounding question caught her off guard. “Maybe I quit,” she said. “Ever think of that?”

“Naw, you’d never quit.” He snagged a sack of Jolly Ranchers from a passing shelf and tossed them into the cart.

Kate put the candy back. Jolly Ranchers had yanked out more dental work than a bad dentist. “Why do you say I’d never quit?” she asked, taken aback. As he grew older, turning more and more into his own person, her son often said things that startled her.

“Because it’s true,” he said. “The only way you’d ever quit on your own is if something better came along, and I know for a fact that it hasn’t. It never does.”

Kate drummed her fingers on the handle of the shopping cart, the clear plastic scratched with age. She turned down the canned-goods aisle. “Oh, yeah?” she asked. “What makes you so darned sure?”

“Because you’re freaking out,” he informed her.

“I am not freaking out,” said Kate.

Oh, but she was. She absolutely was. At night, she walked the floors and stared out the window, often staying up so late she could see the lights of Seattle’s ferry terminals go out after the last boat came into the dock. That was the time she felt most alone and most frightened. That was when Kate the eternal optimist gave way to Kate in the pit of despair. If she had any interest in drinking, this would be the time to reach for a bottle. L’heure bleue, the French called it, the deep-blue hour between dark and dawn. That was when her relentlessly cheerful façade fell away and she engaged in something she hated—wallowing. This was her time to reflect on where she’d been and where she was going. This was when her lonely struggle to raise Aaron felt almost too hard to carry on. By the time the sun came up each morning, she snapped herself out of it and faced the day, ready to soldier on.

“We should get stuff marked with the WIC sticker,” Aaron advised, pointing out a green-and-black tag under a display of canned tuna.

She put back the can of albacore as though it had bitten her. “Why on earth would you say that?”

“Chandler told me his mother gets tons of stuff with WIC. Women, Infants and Children,” he explained. “It’s a feld … fed … Some kind of program for poor people.”

“We are not poor people,” Kate snapped.

She didn’t realize how loudly she’d spoken until a man at the end of the aisle turned to look at her. It was the same one she’d stared at in the parking lot, only he was much closer now. Beneath a five-o’clock shadow, she could make out a strong, clean jawline. He had traded the shades for a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, one side repaired with duct tape. In the split second that she met his gaze, she observed that his eyes had the depth and color of aged whiskey. But duct tape? Was he a loser? A nerd?

She whipped around to hide her flaming cheeks and shoved the cart fast in the other direction.

“See?” Aaron said. “This is how I know you would never quit your job. You get too embarrassed about being poor.”

“We are not—” Kate forced herself to stop. She took in a deep, calming breath. “Listen, bud. We are fine. Better than fine. I wasn’t getting anywhere at the paper, and it was time to move on, anyway.”

“So are we poor or not?”

She wished he would lower his voice. “Not,” she assured him.

In reality, her salary at the paper was barely a living wage, and the majority of her income came from the Seattle rental properties left to her by her father. Still, the job had defined her. She was a writer, and now that she’d been let go, she felt as though the rug had been ripped out from under her. “This means we get to spend the whole summer together, just the two of us.” She studied Aaron’s expression, spoke up before he turned too forlorn. “You got a problem with that?”

“Yeah,” he said with a twinkle of mischief in his eye. “Maybe I do.”

“Smart aleck.” She tugged the bill of his Seattle Mariners baseball cap down over his eyes and pushed onward. Lord, she thought, before she knew it, her little red-haired, freckle-faced boy would be as tall as she was.

The storm of his mood struck as it always did, without warning and no specific trigger. “This is stupid,” he snapped, his eyes narrowing, the color draining from his face. “It’s going to be a stupid, boring summer and I don’t even know why I bothered to come.”

“Aaron, don’t start—”

“I’m not starting.” He ripped off his hat and hurled it to the floor in the middle of the aisle.

“Good,” she said, trying to keep her voice emotionless, “because I have shopping to do. The quicker we finish, the quicker we get to the lake.” “I hate the lake.”

Hoping they hadn’t attracted any more attention, she steered the cart around him and fumbled through the rest of the shopping without letting on how shaken she was. She refused to allow his inability to control his behavior control her. When would it end? She had consulted doctors and psychologists, had read hundreds of books on the topic, but not one could ever give her the solution to Aaron’s temper and his pain. So far, the most effective solution appeared to be time. The minutes seemed endless as she worked her way up and down the aisles, ignoring him the whole time. Sometimes she wished she could get into his head, find the source of his pain and make it better. But there was no Band-Aid or salve for the invisible wounds he carried. Well-meaning people claimed he needed a father. Well, duh, thought Kate.

“Mom,” said a quiet, contrite voice behind her. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll try harder not to get all mad and loud.”

“I hope so,” she said, her heart quietly breaking, as it always did when they struggled. “It’s hurtful and embarrassing when you lose your temper and yell like that.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” he said again.

She knew a dozen strategies, maybe more, for where to go with this teachable moment. But they’d just driven three hours from Seattle, and she was anxious to get to the cottage. “We need stuff for s’mores,” she said.

Relief softened his face and he was himself again, eager-to-please Aaron, the one the teachers at his school saw so rarely. His storms were intense but quickly over, with no lingering bitterness.

“I’ll go,” he said, and headed off on the hunt.

Some practices at the lake house were steeped in tradition and ancient, mystical lore. Certain things always had to be done in certain ways. S’mores were just one of them. They always had to be made with honey grahams, not cinnamon, and the gooey marshmallow had to be rolled in miniature M&Ms. Nothing else would do. Whenever there was a s’mores night, they also had to play charades on the beach. She made a mental list of the other required activities, wondering if she’d remember to honor them all. Supper had to be announced each evening with the ringing of an old brass ship’s bell suspended from a beam on the porch. Come July, they had to buy fireworks from the Makah tribe’s weather-beaten roadside stand, and set them off to celebrate the Fourth. To mark the summer solstice, they would haul out and de-cobweb the croquet set and play until the sun set at ten o’clock at night, competing as though life itself depended on the outcome. When it rained, the Scrabble board had to come out for games of vicious competition. This summer, Aaron was old enough to learn Hearts and Whist, though with just the two of them, she wasn’t sure how they’d manage some of the games.

All the lakeside-cottage traditions had been invented before Kate was born, and were passed down through generations with the solemnity of ancient ritual. She noticed that Aaron and his cousins—her brother Phil’s brood—embraced the traditions and adhered to them fiercely, just as she and Phil had done before them.

Aaron came back with the crackers, miniature M&Ms and marshmallows.

“Thanks,” she said, adding them to the cart. “I think that’s about it.” As she trolled through the last aisle, she noticed the guy in the John Deere cap again, studying a display of fishing lures. This time Aaron spotted him, too. For a moment, the boy’s face was stripped of everything except a pained combination of curiosity and yearning as he sidled closer. The guy hooked his thumb into the rear pocket of his pants, and Aaron did the same. The older he got, the more Aaron identified with men, even strangers in the grocery store, it seemed.

Then she caught herself furtively studying the object of Aaron’s attention, too. The stranger had the oddest combination of raw masculine appeal and backwoods roughness. She wondered how much he’d overheard earlier.

Snap out of it, she thought, moving the cart to the checkout line. She didn’t give a hoot about what this Carhartt-wearing, mullet-sporting local yokel thought of her. He looked like the kind of guy who didn’t have a birth certificate.

“Aaron,” she said, “time to go.” She turned away to avoid eye contact with the stranger, and pretended to browse the magazine racks. This was pretty much the extent of her involvement with the news media. It was shameful, really, as she considered herself a journalist. She didn’t watch TV, didn’t read the papers, didn’t act like the thing she said she was. This was yet another personal failing. Thanks to her late unlamented job, her work had consisted of nothing more challenging than observing Seattle’s fashion scene.

People magazine touted a retrospective: “Reality TV Stars—Where Are They Now?”

“A burning issue in my life, for sure,” Kate murmured.

“Let’s get this one about the two-headed baby.” Aaron indicated one of the tabloids. Kate shook her head, although her eye was caught by a small inset photo of a guy with chiseled cheeks and piercing eyes, a military-style haircut and dashing mustache. American Hero Captured by Terrorist Cult, proclaimed the headline.

“Let’s get a TV Guide,” Aaron suggested. “We don’t have a TV.”

“So I can see what I’m missing. Wait, look, Mom.” He snatched a newspaper from the rack. “Your paper.” He handed it over.

Kate’s hands felt suddenly and unaccountably cold, nerveless. She hated the pounding in her throat, hated the tremor of her fingers as she took it from him. It was just a stupid paper, she told herself. It was the Seattle News, a dumb little weekly crammed with items about local bands and poetry slams, film reviews and fluffy culture articles. In addition to production and layout, her specialty for the past five years had been fashion. She had generated miles of ink about Seattleites’ tendency to wear socks with Birkenstocks, or the relative merits of body piercing versus tattooing as a fashion statement.

Apparently not quite enough miles, according to Sylvia, her editor. Instead of a five-year pin for distinguished service, Kate had received a pink slip.

The paper rattled as she turned to page B1 above the fold. There, where her column had been since its debut, was a stranger’s face, grinning smugly out over the shout line. “Style Grrl,” the byline called her, the self-important trendi-ness of it setting Kate’s teeth on edge. Style Grrl, who called herself Wendy Norwich, was really Elsie Crump, who had only recently moved up from the mail room. Today’s topic was an urgent rundown of local spray-on tanning salons.

At the very bottom of the page, in tiny italic print, was the reminder, “Kate’s Fashion Statement is on hiatus.”

That was it. Her entire professional life summed up in six little words.

“What’s on hiya-tus mean?” Aaron asked.

“Kind of like on vacation,” she said, hating the thick lump she felt in her throat. She stuffed the paper back in the rack. Only I’m never coming back.

“Can I have this gum?” Aaron asked, clearly unaware of her inner turmoil. “It’s sugar free.” He showed her a flat package containing more baseball cards than bubble gum.

“Sure, bud,” she said, bending to unload her groceries onto the conveyor belt.

An older couple got in line behind her. It took no more than a glance for Kate to surmise that they’d been together forever. They had the sort of ease that came from years of familiarity and caring, that special bond that let them communicate with a look or gesture.

A terrible yearning rose up in Kate. She was twenty-nine years old and she felt as though one of the most essential joys of life was passing her by. She had never heard a man declare he loved her and mean what he said. She had no idea what it felt like to have a true partner, a best friend, someone to stay by her side no matter what. Yes, she had a son she adored and a supportive extended family. She was grateful for those things and almost ashamed to catch herself craving more, wishing things could be different.

Still, sometimes when she saw a happy couple together, embracing and lost in each other, she felt a deep pang of emptiness. Being in love looked so simple. Yet it had never happened to her.

Long ago, she’d believed with all her heart that she and Nathan had been in love. Too late, she found out that what she thought she had with him had no solid foundation, and when tested by the reality of her pregnancy, their relationship had broken apart, the pieces drifting away like sections of an ice floe.

As she unloaded the cart, Kate felt the John Deere guy watching her. She was sure of it, could sense those shifty eyes behind the glasses. He was two lanes over and his back was turned, but she knew darned well he’d been staring just a second ago. He was probably checking to see if she used food stamps.

None of your business, she thought. And you do too have a mullet. She glared at the broad, plaid shirt–covered shoulders.

She finished checking out, marveling at the amount of the bill. Ah, well. Starting over took a little capital up front. She swiped her debit card through the machine and got an error message. Great, she thought, and swiped it again. “Please wait for cashier,” the machine flashed.

“I don’t think my card’s working,” Kate said, handing it to her.

The cashier took it and put in the numbers manually. “I’m sorry, ma’am. The card’s been declined.”

Declined. Kate’s stomach dropped, but she fumbled for a smile. “I’ll write you a check,” she said, taking out her checkbook.

“We can only accept local checks,” the cashier said apologetically.

Kate glanced at the couple behind her. “I’ll pay in cash, then,” she muttered. “You do accept cash, right?”

“Have you got enough?” Aaron asked. His piping voice carried, and she knew the lumberjack guy could hear.

She pursed her lips and counted out four twenties, a ten and two ones, and thirty-three cents change. It was all the cash she had on hand. She looked at the amount on the cashier’s display. “Check your pockets, Aaron,” she said. “I’m two dollars and nine cents short.”

I hate this, she thought while Aaron dug in his Levi’s. I hate this.

She kept a bland smile in place, though her teeth were clenched, and she avoided eye contact with the cashier or with the couple behind her.

“I got a quarter and a penny,” Aaron said, “and that’s it.” He handed it over.

“I’ll have to put something back.” Kate wished she could just slink away. “I’m sorry,” she said to the older couple. She reached for the bag of Cheetos, their favorite guilty pleasure.

“Not the Cheetos. Anything but the Cheetos,” Aaron whispered through clenched teeth.

“Don’t do that,” said a deep, quiet voice behind her. “It’s covered.”

Even before Kate turned to look at him, she knew it was the guy. The mullet man, rescuing her.

She took a deep breath and turned. Go away, she wanted to tell him. I don’t need you. Instead, she said, “That’s not necessary—”

“Not a problem.” He handed two dollars to the cashier and headed out the door with his sack of groceries. “Hey, thanks,” said Aaron.

The man didn’t turn, but touched the bill of his cap as he went outside.

Thoroughly flustered, Kate helped sack the groceries and load them into the cart. She hurried outside, hoping to catch the guy before he left. She spotted him in a green pickup truck, leaving the parking lot.

“That was real nice of him, huh?” said Aaron.

“Yep.”

“You forgot to tell him thank-you.” “I didn’t forget. I was … startled, and then he took off before I could say anything.”

“You weren’t startled,” he said. “You were embarrassed.”

She opened her mouth to object. Then she let her shoulders slump. “Totally humiliated.” For Aaron’s sake, she summoned a smile. “I shouldn’t have said that. I should remind you that the kindness of strangers is a rare and wonderful thing.”

“A rare and wonderful and humiliating thing,” he said. “Help me load these groceries, smart aleck. Let’s see if we can get to the lake before the Popsicles melt.”

Three

Kate’s Jeep Cherokee had seen better days, but it was the perfect vehicle for the lake, rugged enough to take on the unpaved roads and byways that wound through the mountains and rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula. Bandit greeted them as though they’d been gone a year, sneezing and slapping the seat with his tail.

“Now to the lake,” Kate said brightly. “We’ve got the house all to ourselves, how about that?”

Aaron buckled his seat belt in desultory fashion, barely reacting to Bandit’s sloppy kisses, and she realized she’d said the wrong thing.

“It’s going to be a great summer,” she assured him.

“Right,” he replied without enthusiasm.

She could hear the apprehension in his voice. Though she wouldn’t say so aloud, she felt as apprehensive as Aaron.

He regarded her with disconcerting insight. “They fired you because of me, didn’t they?”

“No, I got fired because Sylvia is an inflexible stick of a woman who never appreciated real talent anyway. Deadlinesand the bottom line, that’s all she cares about.” Kate made herself stop. No point venting to Aaron; he already knew she was angry. The fact that Kate had been let go by Sylvia Latham, the managing editor, stung particularly. Like Kate, Sylvia was a single mother. Unlike Kate, she was a perfect single mother with two perfect kids, and because of this, she assumed everyone else could and should juggle career and family with the same finesse she did.

Kate ducked her head, hiding her expression. Aaron was clued in to much more than people expected of him. He knew as well as any other boy that one of the most basic realities of modern life was that a single mom missed work to take care of her kid. Why didn’t Sylvia get it? Because she had a perfect nanny to look after her perfect children. Until this past year, Aaron’s grandmother and sometimes his aunt watched him when he missed school. Now that they’d moved away, Kate tried to juggle everything on her own. And she’d failed. Miserably and unequivocally.

“I have to call the bank, figure out what’s the matter with my debit card,” she said, taking out her cell phone. “We don’t get reception at the lake.”

“Boooring,” Aaron proclaimed and slumped down in his seat.

“I’m with you, bud.” She dialed the number on the back of her card. After listening to all the options—”because our menu has recently changed,” cooed the voice recording—she had to press an absurd combination of numbers only to learn that the bank, on East Coast time, was already closed. She leaned her head against the headrest and took a deep, cleansing breath. “It’s nothing,” she assured Aaron. “I’ll sort it out later.”

“I need to call Georgie next,” she said apologetically.

All five grandkids—Phil and Barbara’s four, plus Aaron—called her mother Georgie and sometimes even Georgie Girl.

“Don’t talk long,” Aaron said. “Please.”

Kate punched in the unfamiliar new number and waited for it to connect. A male voice answered.

“This is Clinton Dow.” Georgie’s new husband always answered with courteous formality.

“And this is Katherine Elise Livingston,” she said, teasing a little.

“Kate.” His voice smoothed out with a smile she could hear. “How are you?”

“Excellent. We’re in Port Angeles, just about to head to the lake.”

“Sounds like a big adventure,” he said as jovially as could be. You’d never know that only last spring, he was urging her mother to sell the summer place. It was a white elephant, he’d declared, a big empty tax liability that had outlived its use to the family. With that one pronouncement, he had nearly lost the affections of his two newly acquired stepchildren. The lakeside cottage had been in the Livingston family since the 1920s, far longer than a once-widowed, once-divorced retired CPA.