Lakeside Cottage

“We’re never selling the lake house,” Phil had said. “Ever. End of discussion.” It didn’t matter to Phil that he had moved cross-country, all the way to New York, and that his visits would be few and far between. For him and Kate and their kids, the lakeside retreat held all that was special and magical about summer, and selling it would be sacrilege.

“I’ll get your mother,” Clint said. “It’s great to hear from you.”

While she waited, Kate pulled the Jeep around to the far edge of the parking lot so she could look out over the harbor. She had stood in this spot, regarding this view hundreds of times in her life. She never got tired of it. Port Angeles was a strange city, an eclectic jumble of cheap sportsman’s motels and diners, quaint bed-and-breakfast getaways, strip malls with peeling paint and buckled asphalt parking lots, waterfront restaurants and shops. A few times a day, the Coho ferry churned its crammed, exhausted hull across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Victoria, British Columbia, in all its gleaming splendor, and vehicles waited for hours for a coveted berth on board.

“So you’re headed off into the wilderness,” her mother said cheerfully into the phone.

“Just the two of us,” Kate said.

“I wish you’d decided to bring Aaron here for the summer,” Georgina said. “We’re an hour’s drive from Walt Disney World, for heaven’s sake.”

“Which is precisely why I didn’t want to bring him,” Kate said. “I’m just not a Disney sort of gal.”

“And Aaron?”

“He’d love it,” she confessed. “He would love to see you, too.” She watched her son rifling through the groceries in search of something to eat. He found the sack of golden Rainier cherries and dived in, seeing how far he could spit each pit out the window. Bandit, who was remarkably polite when his humans were eating, watched with restrained but intense concentration. “We want to be here this summer,” she reminded her mother. “It’s exactly where we need to be.”

“If you say so.” Georgina had never loved the lakeside cottage the way the rest of the Livingstons did, though in deference to her late husband and children, she’d always been a good sport about spending every summer there. Now that she’d finally remarried, however, she was more than happy to stay in Florida.

“I say so,” Kate told her mother. “I can finally spend quality time with my boy, and figure out what I want to be when I grow up.”

“You’ll both go stir-crazy,” Georgina warned.

Kate thought about her mother’s new home, a luxury condo on a golf course in Florida. Now that would make a person stir-crazy.

She let Aaron say hello to his grandmother, and then she called Phil, but got his voice mail and left a brief message. “There,” she said. “I’ve checked in with everybody who matters.”

“That’s not very many.”

“It’s not the number of people. It’s how much they matter,” she explained. It made Kate wistful, thinking about how much she would miss her brother and his family this summer. She didn’t let it show, though. She wanted Aaron to believe this would be the summer of a lifetime. Sometimes she thought she’d give anything for a shoulder to cry on, but she wouldn’t allow her son to play that role. She’d seen other single moms leaning on their kids for emotional support, and she didn’t think it was fair. That was not what kids were for.

Last year, she’d consulted a “life coach,” who’d counseled her to be her own partner in parenting and life, encouraging her to have long, searching conversations with herself. It hadn’t helped, but at least she found herself talking to someone she liked.

“Ready?” she said to Aaron, putting away the phone. She eased the Jeep out of the parking lot and merged onto Highway 101, heading west. The forests of Douglas fir and cedar thickened as they penetrated deeper into the Olympic Peninsula. Soaring to heights of two hundred feet or more, the moss-draped trees arched over the two-lane highway,creating a mystical cathedral effect that never failed to enchant her. The filtered afternoon sunlight glowed with layers of green and gold, dappling the road with shifting patterns.

There was a sense, as they traveled away from the port city, of entering another world entirely. This was a place apart, where the silences were as vast and deep as the primal forests surrounding the lake. Thanks to the vigilance of the parks department, the character of the land never changed. Aaron was experiencing everything just as she and Phil had as children, and their father and grandparents before them. She remembered sitting in the back seat of their father’s old station wagon with the window rolled down, feeling the cool rush of the wind in her face and inhaling the fecund scent of moss and cedar. Four years her senior, Phil had a special gift for annoying her until she wept, though she had long since forgiven him for all the childhood torments. Somehow, seemingly by magic, her brother had turned into her best friend over the years.

Five miles from the lake, they passed the final hill where cell-phone reception was possible, in the parking lot of Grammy’s Café, which served the best marionberry pie known to man.

At the side of the road, she spotted a green pickup truck pulled off to the side. She slowed down as she passed, and saw that the driver was bent over the front passenger side, changing a tire, perhaps.

It was the John Deere guy. The one who had bailed her out at the grocery store.

She applied the brake, then put the car in Reverse and pulled off to the shoulder. She had no idea how to change a tire and he probably didn’t want or need her help. But she stopped just the same, because like it or not, she owed him one.

“What’re you doing?” Aaron asked.

“Stay put,” she said. “Don’t let Bandit out.” She got out and walked toward the truck.

Here, surrounded by the extravagant lushness of the fern-carpeted forest, he looked even more interesting than he had in the grocery shop, a man in his element. Suddenly she felt vulnerable. This was a lonely stretch of road, and if he decided to come on to her, she’d be in trouble. Her brother often accused her of being too naive and trusting, yet she didn’t know how else to be. She did trust people, and they seldom let her down.

“Keep away,” he called to her without looking up from what he was doing. “I’ve got a wounded animal here.”

Definitely not a come-on.

She saw a half-grown raccoon lying on its side, struggling and making a terrible noise. Wearing a pair of logging gloves, the guy was trying to bag the hissing, scratching creature in a canvas sack, but the raccoon was having none of it.

Ignoring orders, Aaron jumped out. Bandit whined from the Jeep.

Kate grabbed Aaron’s shoulder and held him next to her. “What can we do to help?”

“That’s—Damn.” The guy jumped back, examining his gloved hand.

“Did it bite you?” she asked.

“Tried to.”

“Did you hit it?” Aaron asked. His chin trembled. He absolutely hated it when an animal was injured.

“Nope. Found it like this,” the man said. For the first time, he took his eyes off the raccoon and turned to look at them. The sunglasses masked his reaction, but she could tell he recognized her from the grocery store. Something—a subtle tensing in his big, lean body—reacted to her.

“Is it going to die?” Aaron asked.

“Hope not. There’s a wildlife rehab station back in Port Angeles. If I can get it there, I’m pretty sure it can be saved.”

“How can he fight like that?” Kate said. “He’s half-dead.”

“Not even close. And the survival instinct is strong when something feels threatened.”

“Hey,” Aaron said, diving into the back of the Jeep. “You can use the Igloo.”

Kate helped him empty the forty-five-gallon cooler, which had plenty of room for a half-grown raccoon. Together, they pulled the cooler out and dragged it over, easing it over the raccoon. It scrabbled around, but the stranger managed to get the lid under it. Slowly and gently, the three of them tilted the cooler until it was upright, then pressed the lid in place.

“Will he smother?” asked Aaron.

Kate opened the drain plug. “He should be all right for a while.”

The man loaded the cooler into his truck. The back was littered with tools, cans of marine varnish and a chain saw. Behind the driver’s seat was a gun rack, which held fishing poles and a coffee mug instead of guns. When he turned back, she got a good look at his face. Even with those glasses, he had the kind of rough masculinity that made her go weak in the knees—strong features, a chiseled mouth, a five-o’clock shadow. Oh, Kate, she thought, you’re pathetic.

“Thanks,” he said.

Aaron’s chest inflated in that unconscious way he had of puffing up around another male. Kate ruffled his hair. “We’re glad to help.”

“Do you live around here?” the stranger asked. “Can I bring the cooler to you when I’m done?”

Kate felt a prickle of hesitation. It was never a good idea to tell a stranger where you lived, especially if you lived in a secluded lakeside cottage where no one could hear you scream.

“I’m staying at the Schroeder place,” he said as if reading her thoughts. “It’s on Lake Crescent.”

The Schroeder place. She used to play with Sammy and Sally Schroeder when she was little. Mable Claire Newman had even mentioned this guy, only half teasing: Wait till you see him. And the guy was a rescuer of raccoons, Kate reflected. How bad could he be?

“We’re a quarter of a mile down the road from you,” she told him. “The driveway is marked with a sign that says The Livingstons. I’m Kate Livingston, and this is Aaron.”

“Nice to meet you. I’d shake hands, but I’ve been handling wildlife.”

For some reason, that struck Kate as funny and she giggled. Ridiculously, like a schoolgirl. She stopped herself with an effort. “So, are you one of the Schroeders?” she asked.

“A friend, actually,” he said. “JD Harris.” “JD?” Aaron echoed. “Mr. Harris to you,” Kate told him. “Everyone calls me JD, Aaron included,” the man insisted.

Aaron stood even straighter and squared his shoulders. Kate kept staring at JD Harris. There was something … it was crazy, but she was sure that behind the dark glasses, he was checking her out, and maybe even liking what he saw. And instead of being offended, she felt a flush of mutual interest.

“I’d better get this thing transported,” he said, turning away. “I’ll bring your cooler over later.”

So, thought Kate as she put the Jeep in gear and pulled out onto the road, maybe I read him wrong. Still his image lingered in her mind as she headed west. He intrigued her, even with two days’ growth of beard. Even the sunglasses gave him an unexpected sexiness, reminiscent of that guiltiest of pleasures, Johnny Depp.

Snap out of it, Kate, she told herself. He probably had a wife and kids with him. That would be good, actually. That would be great. Kids for Aaron to play with.

Her son was turned around in the seat, watching the green truck heading back toward town. “You really think that raccoon will live?”

“It was acting pretty lively,” she said.

Around the east end of the lake, the road narrowed. Like Brigadoon, the lake community was locked in the past. Decades ago, President Roosevelt had declared Lake Crescent and its surroundings a national treasure, and designated it a national park. Only those few already in residence were permitted to retain their property. No more tracts could ever be sold or developed, and improvements were restricted. The hand-built cabins and cottages and the occasional dock tucked along the shore seemed frozen in time, and an air of exclusivity served to underscore the specialness of the summer place.

The families of the lake were a diverse group who generally kept to themselves. Mable Claire Newman’s property management company looked after the vacation homes, including the Livingston place.

Kate pulled off the narrow road and turned between two enormous Sitka spruce trees. Aaron jumped out to unhook the chain across the driveway. Bandit leaped after him, ecstatic to finally be here.

Even this small act was the stuff of family ritual. The opening of the driveway chain had the ponderous significance of a ribbon-cutting ceremony. It was always done by the eldest child in the first car to arrive. He would already have the dull, worn key in one hand and a can of WD–40 in the other, because the padlock inevitably rusted over the damp, dark winter. Aaron freed the lock and let the thick iron chain drop across the gravel driveway. He stood aside, holding out his arm in an old-fashioned flourish.

Kate gave a thumbs-up sign and eased ahead. Summer was officially open for business.

With the dog at his heels, Aaron ran ahead down the driveway. It was littered with pinecones and the occasional bough blown down by the winter storms. Kate felt a familiar childlike sense of anticipation as the property came into view. A grove of ferns, some the size of Volkswagens, filled the forest floor bordering the driveway. Speared through by sunlight, it had the look of a magical bower. In fact, Kate’s grandma Charla used to tell her that fairies lived here, and Kate believed her.

She still did, a little, she thought, watching her son and the dog do a little dance of glee.

The driveway widened and lightened as the trees thinned. Ahead, like a jewel upon a pillow of emerald silk, sat the lake house.

She loved the way the lake property revealed itself to her, bit by bit. Its charms were cumulative, from the gardening shed with moss growing on the rooftop to the boathouse that not only housed a boat, but a homemade still left over from Prohibition days. As always, the lake water had a certain mesmerizing clarity, and indeed the drinking water had always been drawn from it.

The lawn had been mowed prior to their arrival. The house looked as though it was just waking up, the window shades at half mast. Over the eyebrow window were the numbers 1921, to commemorate the year the place was built. Godfrey James Livingston, an immigrant who had made a fortune cutting timber, had commissioned the lake house. The family, with somewhat willful naïveté, always referred to the place as a cottage because old Great-Grandfather Godfrey liked to be reminded of the Lake District of his boyhood in England.

Yet the term “cottage” was an irony when applied to this place. Its timber and river-stone facade spanned the spectacular shoreline, curving slightly as if to embrace the singular view of the long lake with the mountains rising straight up from its depths. The house was designed in the Arts and Crafts style, with thick timbers and multipaned dormer windows on the upper story and a broad porch that took full advantage of the setting.

Godfrey’s son—named Walden, with inadvertent prescience—was Kate’s own grandfather. He was a gentle soul who in one generation had allowed the family fortune to dwindle, mainly because he had the distinction of being a devout conservationist in an era when such a thing was all but unheard of. His passion for preserving the virgin forests of the Northwest had been spoken of in whispers, like an aberrant behavior. “He loves trees” had the same hushed scandal as “he loves boys.” Back in the 1930s when Grandfather was growing up, he had fought to protect the forests. Later, during World War II, he’d served as a medic, winning a bronze star at Bastogne. Having gained a hero’s credibility, he later appeared before Congress to urge limits on clear-cutting federal lands. In the 1950s, his enemies denounced him as a Communist.

A decade later, Grandfather came into his own. The flower children of the 1960s embraced him. He and his wife, Charla, an extremely minor Hollywood actress who had once played a bit part in a Marlon Brando movie, protested the destruction of the environment alongside hippies and anarchists. To the acute embarrassment of their grown children, they attended Woodstock and smoked pot. Walden became a folk hero, and he wrote a book about his experiences.

When Kate was a small girl, he was widowed and moved in with her family. She had loved the old man without reservation, spending hours at his side, chattering on in the way of a child, certain her listener hung on her every word.

With a patience that could only be described as saintly, he would listen to her describe the entire plot of Charlotte’s Web or every exhibit in the school science fair. Later, when she was a teenager, it was Grandfather Walden who heard all her Monday-morning quarterbacking about the weekend football games, parties, dates. Her grandfather was the keeper of all her secrets and dreams. It was to him that she first explained her ambition to become a famous international news correspondent. He was the first one she told when she was accepted in the honors program at the University of Washington. And it was to him that she had confessed the event that had changed the course of her future. “I’m pregnant, and Nathan wants me to get rid of the baby.”

“To hell with Nathan.” The old man, wheelchair-bound by then, still managed a lively gesture with his hand. “What do you want?”

Her hands had crept down over her still-flat belly. “I want this baby.”

A gleam of emotion lit his eyes behind the bifocals. “I love you, Katie. I’ll help you in any way I can.”

He’d given her the most critical element of all—his wholehearted, nonjudgmental approval. It meant the world to her. Her parents were supportive, of course. It was the role they felt compelled to play. But every once in a while, Kate sensed their frustration. We raised you for something more than single motherhood.

Only Grandfather knew the truth, that there was no career or calling more thrilling, demanding or rewarding than raising a child.

She loved her grandfather for his great heart and open mind, for his passion and honesty. She loved him for accepting her exactly as she was, flaws and all. Over the years, he gave her plenty of advice. The bit that stuck in her mind consisted of two simple words: Don’t settle.

She wished she’d done a better job following that advice, but she hadn’t, in her career, anyway. She had settled for a popular but uninfluential newspaper that required little from her, only a clever turn of phrase, a canny eye for fashion and the ability to produce eighteen hundred publishable words on a regular basis.

This was it, then, she decided, parking near the back door. This summer was her chance to find something she could be passionate about. She would do it for her own sake, in honor of her grandfather.

Grabbing the nearest grocery sack, she got out of the Jeep and unlocked the back door. At least, she thought she unlocked it. As she turned the key, she didn’t feel the bolt slide.

That’s odd, she thought, opening the door and stepping inside. The cleaners must have forgotten to lock up after themselves. They’d left the radio on, too, and an old Drifters tune was floating from the speakers. She would have to mention it to Mable Claire Newman. Crime wasn’t a problem around here, but that was no excuse for carelessness.

Other than leaving the door unlocked, the cleaners had done an excellent job. The pine-plank floors gleamed, and all the wooden paneling and fixtures glowed with a deep, oiled sheen. The shutters had been opened to dazzling sunlight striking the water.

Kate inhaled the scent of lemon oil and Windex and went to the front window. Everyone who came here rediscovered the old place in his or her own way. Kate always started with the inside of the house, checking to see that the cupboards and drawers were in order, that the clocks were set, the range and oven working, the bed linens aired, the hot water heater turned on. Only after that would she venture outside to touch each plank of the dock, to admire the lawn, and to feel the water, shivering with delight at its glacial temperature.

Aaron headed straight outside, the dog at his heels. He ran along the boundaries of the property, from the blackberry bramble on one end to the growth of cattails on the other. Bandit raced behind him in hot pursuit.

When they pounded out to the end of the dock, Kate bit her tongue to keep from calling out a warning. It would only annoy Aaron. Besides, she didn’t need to caution him to stay out of the water. He would do that on his own, because the fact was, Aaron refused to learn to swim.

She didn’t know why. He’d never had an accident either boating or swimming. He didn’t mind a boat ride or even wading in the shallows. But he would not go in over his head no matter what.

Kate felt badly for him. As he got older, he suffered the stigma of his phobia. Whenever one of the boys at school celebrated a birthday at the community pool, Aaron always begged off with a stomachache. When invited to try out for the swim team, he managed to lose the forms sent home from school. Last summer, he spent hours sitting on the end of the dock while his cousins—even Isaac and Muriel, who were younger than him—flung themselves off the dock and played endless games of water tag and keep-away with the faded yellow water polo ball. Aaron had watched with wistfulness, but the yearning to join them was never enough to motivate him to give swimming a try. She could tell he wanted to in the worst way. He just couldn’t make himself do it. He had to be content standing on the dock or paddling around in the kayak.

Don’t settle, she wanted to tell him. If she did nothing else this summer, she would help Aaron learn to swim. She suspected, with a mother’s gut-deep instinct, that learning to overcome fear would open him up to a world of possibility. She wanted him to know he shouldn’t make do with less than his dreams.

There. The thought had pushed its way to the surface. Aaron had “problems.” According to his teachers, the school counselor and his pediatrician, he showed signs of inadequate anger management and impulse control. A battery of tests from a diagnostician had not revealed any sort of attention or learning disorders. This had not surprised Kate. She knew what Aaron wanted—a man. A father figure. It was no secret. He told her so all the time, never knowing that each time he mentioned the subject, it was a soft blow to her heart. “You have your uncle Phil,” she always told him. Now that Phil had moved away, Aaron’s behavior in school had worsened. She’d missed one too many deadlines, attending one too many parent-teacher conferences, and Sylvia had shown her the door.

Her throat felt full and tight with unshed tears. Really, she thought, she ought to feel grateful that her son was healthy, that he loved his family and most of the time was a great kid. But those other times … she didn’t always know how to deal with him.

Maybe that was why parents were supposed to come in pairs. When one reached her limit, the other could pick up and carry on.

Or so she thought. She didn’t know for certain because she’d never had a partner in parenting Aaron. She’d had a partner in making him, of course, but Nathan had disappeared faster than the Little Red Hen’s friends in the old bedtime story.

Kate went outside and grabbed another sack of groceries. “How about a hand here?” she called to Aaron.

He turned to her and applauded.

“Very funny,” she said. “I’m letting your Popsicles melt.”

He sped across the lawn, his face flushed. Already he smelled like new leaves and fresh air. “All right already,” he said.

Kate set the sack on the scrubbed pine counter. In the sink was a tumbler half-full of water. She dumped it into the drain. The cleaners had probably left it. She put things into the freezer, then opened the fridge and found a covered disposable container with a plastic fork.

“What the.?” Kate murmured. She removed the container and put it straight in the trash. Lord knew how long it had been there.

“What’s that?” Aaron asked.

“Nothing. The cleaners left a few things behind. I’ll have to speak to Mrs. Newman about it.” She finished putting away the perishables and let Aaron go outside again to toss a stick for Bandit.

Then she grabbed two suitcases, heading upstairs. Since it was just her and Aaron this summer, she decided to take the master bedroom. It faced the lake with a central dormer window projecting outward like the prow of a ship. She’d never occupied this room before. She’d never been the senior adult at the lake. This room was for couples. Her grandparents. Then her parents, then Phil and Barbara. Well, she’d have it all to herself, all summer long, she thought with a touch of defiance.