Chapter 14 - The Lake House Empty
We drove back to the lake house on Saturday morning and the house looked wrong without the party on it.
The string lights were still strung between the porch posts but they were off in the daylight, just bare bulbs against a pale sky. Someone had left the white folding chairs stacked at first, but a few were still out on the lawn where they'd been knocked over that night. I saw them as soon as Daniel parked the car and I didn't want to get out.
Daniel came around and opened my door. He was in a t-shirt and jeans this time, not that dark charcoal shirt from the party. I was still in my blue button-down but a different one, one that wasn't stained with lake water.
"You want to walk down there with me?" he asked. He didn't point to the water. He just stood with his hand on the door frame and waited.
I nodded. My sneakers were clean now too, white with the red trim, and they made a soft sound on the grass that was dry. In daylight the lawn didn't look golden or soft the way it had at sunset. It was just flat and green and ordinary, and the lake was flat and gray-blue with a little wind on it.
We stopped at the edge where the grass met the water. The same spot where he'd pulled me out. There was a faint line where the water had lapped up and left a darker mark on the dirt.
"I kept thinking you weren't going to reach me," I said. I hadn't planned to say it. My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to.
Daniel crouched down so we were at the same height. He didn't touch me right away. He let his hands rest on his knees.
"I know," he said. "I was scared too."
"Are you still scared now?" I asked.
He looked at the water for a second, then back at me. "Not right now. Right now I know you're okay. But I don't like standing here either."
That made it somehow better, that he didn't like it either. I felt my shoulders drop a little. We just stood there for a minute listening to the water move. It wasn't loud, just a light lapping, and a couple ducks crossed further out near the tree line.
Behind us I heard Mom's voice. "Ethan?"
Claire wasn't in the magenta dress anymore. She had on a faded blue sweater and jeans and old sneakers, her blonde hair pulled back without any spray in it. She looked tired and younger like that, not like someone at a party. She walked toward us slowly, like she was trying not to rush me.
"Can I come down there?" she asked me, not Daniel.
I said yeah.
She stopped on the other side of me, so I was between her and Daniel. She didn't reach for me at first either. She looked down at the water edge and then at my face.
"I need to say I'm sorry to you," she said. Her voice shook a little and she took a breath. "That night I wasn't watching you the way I should have been. I was worried about the party looking right and about other things that didn't matter, and I told you to go play near the water when I should have kept you close. That was my fault."
I stared at her sweater. It had a small pulled thread near the cuff. I could hear Daniel breathing next to me but he didn't jump in to talk for her.
"Did you know I was scared?" I asked her.
"I do now," she said. "And I should have known then. I should have been there before Daniel had to run."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I just nodded. She finally put her hand very lightly on my shoulder, and I didn't pull away. Her hand was cold.
"Okay?" she asked.
"Okay," I said.
Daniel stood up and said, "Let's fix the chairs."
It felt like a good thing to do with our hands. The three of us walked back up toward the tables. The white folding chairs that were still knocked over had grass stuck to their legs. Daniel lifted one and I grabbed the other side to help him, even though he didn't need help. We set them upright around the tables where the floral centerpieces were gone and only the bare white tablecloths were left flapping a little in the wind.
Mom took the last chair that was on its side near where the champagne glasses had been scattered and set it straight. She ran her hand over the back of it once.
We didn't set up for guests. There were only three plates, three glasses of water, and a pan of chicken and potatoes Mom had brought from the apartment. We sat at one of the same decorated tables but without any of the other people, without music or string lights on, just the lake behind us and the house quiet.
May you like
We ate and the wind moved the tablecloth. Daniel reached over and fixed my plate when it started to slide. Mom asked me about school on Monday and I told her about the reading corner. It was ordinary and that made the lawn feel less strange, like it was just a yard again and not the place where everything had gone wrong.
After we ate, Daniel didn't clear the plates right away. He just sat there with us, his arm resting on the back of my chair. The lake kept making that same soft sound. I knew we still had to talk about the other stuff, the papers and the report they said was still open, but for that afternoon no one mentioned it. We just stayed at the table while the daylight stayed steady and plain on the grass around us.
