The Lake Season (11 page)

Iris couldn't disagree. “Let me ask you something. How was Leah last year when she moved back here? Did you see much of her?”

“A little. She came by the café every once in a while. Why?”

“Did she seem happy?”

“Yeah, I guess. She always is, though, don't you think?”

“Something's different about her.”

Trish narrowed her eyes. “Spill.”

“Something's off,” Iris admitted. “She's getting married to this great guy, and she's finally settling down, but she's not . . . herself. When Stephen left for Seattle, she basically took to her bed.”

“Maybe she missed him.”

“For two days! And it's more than that. She's taking pills.”

“What kind of pills?”

Iris paused, wondering if she sounded like an alarmist. Maybe, as Millie had insisted, it really was no big deal. “I saw a bunch of prescription bottles up in her room. She says they're for sleeping.”

Trish shook her head. “Christ, it seems like everyone I know is taking something for something. But let's be honest. How sane were you before your wedding?”

Iris laughed. “You know I was a wreck. But this is different. One minute we're trying to lure Leah out of the house like an injured animal. And the next thing I know, she's bouncing on Cooper Woods's tailgate sporting a bikini.”

“Ah.”

“Don't ‘ah' me. It's just that she's all over the place.”

“Like Cooper's tailgate?”

Iris sipped her drink. “Yeah, yeah, laugh all you want. But she seems either really high or really low. Does that sound like depression?”

Trish leaned back in her seat and regarded Iris coolly. “Sounds like good ol' Standish sibling rivalry, if you ask me. Are you sure this isn't more about you?”

“Give me a break. It's just that she and my mom have this
thing
going with the farm. Sure, Millie has been nagging me to come back up here forever. But it's not like you can just drop your kids on their heads and take off. And besides, Leah is famous for all these ‘great big ideas.' How was I to know this one would turn out?”

Trish nodded sympathetically.

“And I'm happy for her, really. But now everything's changed at home with Paul, and I thought maybe I could come back here and feel, I don't know . . .
normal
. But it feels like I've been gone too long to be myself. I don't have a place here anymore.”

“You know that saying ‘You can't go home'? Well, it's bullshit. That's the one good thing about family. They
have
to take you.”

“Yeah, but now that I'm here, it's like I'm this big fat disappointment.”

Trish looked into the bottom of her empty martini glass. “Well, on that point, I'm afraid I'm siding with Millie.”

Iris's face fell. “You think I'm a disappointment?”

“No, not the disappointment part. But I think you stayed away long enough to
make
it hard to come back.”

“Like I did it on purpose? Why would I do that?”

Trish shrugged. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Iris hailed the waitress, who brought them another round. “I'm going to need another drink for this, aren't I?”

Trish reached across the table. “Look, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but you can't give them all the blame for your estrangement. Outside of a hot toddy three Christmases ago, I haven't seen you in years. It's like you fell off the map or something. What happened?”

Iris stared at her lap. It was a soft blow, one that she knew Trish hadn't intended to sting. But the delivery was deserved. Each summer Iris had promised to come back with the kids. But when they were little it'd been hard; there were playpens and baby equipment to tote, cribs to set up; Millie's dogs were too loud, the house too close to the water. They'd seemed like good reasons at the time. And Paul had never been one for the outdoors. Boats and lakes meant mosquitoes and mud. Why risk West Nile virus when you could sip iced drinks with umbrellas by a perfectly chlorinated hotel pool? Though Iris couldn't totally lay the blame on him. Hampstead was her home, where her friends and family resided. She should've been more insistent about returning. More independent. More something.

“I've pretty much sucked in the friend department, huh?”

Trish shook her head softly. “No. But you missed a lot of birthdays. I wished you'd been here for more of that stuff.”

It was Iris's turn to reach across the table. “Me too. I'm sorry about that.”

Still holding her friend's hand, Iris looked out at the lake, which was turning a rich shade of purple under the setting sun. Trish was right—she should've come home sooner.

Trish clinked her glass against Iris's, interrupting her thoughts. “So. Speaking of people who suck, tell me about Paul.”

Iris laughed, genuinely, for the first time in days, but a wave of hurt followed close on its heels. “You know those women you see on the news, the ones who go to the hospital with what they think is a bad stomachache, and then they pop out an eight-pound baby? And you think to yourself, ‘That's ridiculous. How could she not know she was pregnant?' Well, that's me.”

Trish coughed. “You're pregnant?”

“No! I mean I never saw this coming. I know I've been living in this dead relationship for years. And yet when Paul mentioned separation, it was like I'd been hit by a Mack Truck.”

“How do you feel now?” Trish asked.

“Out of control. Like someone is making this massive life-wrecking decision for me, and all I can do is sit on the sidelines and watch.”

Trish made a small noise of empathy. “I can't imagine. I just don't get how men can do this.”

“But it's not all him.”

Trish raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “Are you kidding?”

“Don't get me wrong, if I were to see him standing in the rearview mirror, I'd still throw the car in reverse. But on some level Paul is right. We are horrible together, and we have been for a long time. I guess I figured we'd survived this long, why pull the plug now?”

Trish shifted in her seat. “Look, there's no easy way to ask this. Do you think he's having an affair?”

The word caused Iris's throat to tighten.

“I'm not an idiot.”

“And?”

“I've asked. I've looked. But there's nothing there I can find.” When he'd asked her for the separation, she'd lost no time going through Paul's stuff—emptying his pockets, checking his email, even going so far as to peruse the credit card statements. As sure as she felt it in her gut that there had to be someone else, she came up empty-handed.

She cleared her throat. “You've no idea what it does to you, having to skulk around like that. You go from feeling suspicious to guilty. And wondering all the while if you're the one who's crazy.”

“Well, you're not crazy. It happens.”

“Well, I can't seem to find any proof. But I still have this horrible feeling.”

Trish nodded sympathetically. “I'm sorry, kiddo.”

“There's one thing I do know. Once we had kids, he started looking at me differently.”

Trish was a firm believer in embracing the full female experience, saggy post-nursing breasts and all. “You mean, like you'd turned into someone's mother, instead of a sexual partner?” She scoffed. And she held no tolerance for men who traded up—or more accurately, down—in the age department when all their partner had done was age gracefully in the natural order of things.

“No, really. I could see it when I stood next to him brushing my teeth in the morning. Or whenever I walked in the door. It's like he'd look up expecting someone else, but it was just me.”

“
Just you?
Don't even go there. Not after you supported him through law school and raised those kids.” Trish's voice rose, and the couple beside them glanced over.

“Paul always pushed me to go back to work at the agency in Boston. Maybe I should've. Maybe it would've taken the strain off him. Or made me, I don't know, more interesting. That's one thing our therapist suggested.”

“Therapists are idiots,” Trish said.

“That's what everyone who's happily married says.”

“No, really. I mean, look at you. You are a sharp, accomplished woman.”

Iris scowled.

“Stop it, you are. Sure, as women we go underground with our kids and work sometimes. And yes, we get caught up in stuff like planning birthdays and packing school lunches. But that's what good mothers do. And instead of giving you a high five, the guy decides he's feeling ignored, you're looking dull, and so he cries crisis. When what Paul really needs is a good kick in the ass and a mirror. ‘Look at you, buddy! Look at that potbelly. That receding hairline. When was the last time you gave the dog a bath, or painted the planetary system for a fourth-grade science fair?' ”

Iris sat back in her chair.

“I'm just saying you made the right choice to be home with the kids. It's one of the best jobs a woman could have, if not the hardest. If Paul finds that uninteresting then he's a horse's ass.”

“You sound so June Cleaver. What would Gloria Steinem say?”

Trish sniffed. “I'm not saying anything Gloria doesn't know herself. We can do it all, just not all at once. Or you end up accomplishing nothing. And look like shit.” She fluffed her hair for emphasis.

Outside, the night was a fluid mix of shadows, leaving no separation between water and sky. Iris glanced around the pub, at the couples finishing late dinners, and the regulars settling in at the bar.

“I just feel so unbalanced,” Iris whispered.

Trish grabbed her hand. “Balance is bullshit.”

Iris couldn't help it, the tears were starting. “So what's it about then?”

“I don't know. Maybe time.”

“Time?” Iris raised her eyebrows. “Like we have
so much
of that.”

“Humor me, okay? Picture a clock. The hands are never on more than two numbers at the same time, right?”

Iris nodded.

“And you've only got two hands.”

“Go on.”

“But they're always moving, Iris. Think about it. Every number gets touched, every day, by those two hands.”

Iris glanced out at the dark water, picturing her hands moving. Through Lily's blond hair as she braided it for school. Across Sadie's back as she headed out the door. Always reaching, touching, holding on.

“Forget balance,” Trish said.

Iris's eyes welled, blurring her reflection in the window's glass. Time was the one thing she'd never shorted her kids on. She forced a small laugh and looked back at her friend. “So unbalanced is a good thing, huh?”

“Honey, love is the most unbalanced thing there is.”

Twelve

W
hen Iris pulled into the farm drive that night, she noticed the lights on in the big barn. Had her father forgotten to turn them off? She parked down at the house and stood listening. Then her heart leaped when she heard the sound of a saw.

Inside the barn, Cooper Woods was bent over a board laid across two sawhorses. He didn't see her leaning against the open doorway, and she reveled in the stolen moment, watching him work.

“Psst . . .”

Cooper jerked his head up, the board in his hand wobbling. “Geez, you startled me. What are you doing out here this late?”

“Sorry. I was going to ask you the same thing.” Feeling braver, she stepped into the light. “Burning the midnight oil?”

Cooper smiled. “Something like that. Hope I didn't wake you.”

“No, I'm just getting home actually.”

He eyed her more carefully, and she blushed in the dim light, suddenly aware of how made-up and out of place she must look in the barn.

“You look nice.” Another compliment Iris stored away, with a smile.

“So, do you always work this late?”

“Nah, I'm just not a great sleeper. Plus I like working when it's dark out. There's something peaceful about it.”

Iris nodded, an image of Trish kneading bread dough in the back of her café in the early morning floating through her head. “I'm not much of a sleeper these days, either.”

Cooper looked at her. “No?' ” It was a one-word question, but it veiled a hundred more. Suddenly, Iris wanted to answer them all.

She wrapped her arms around herself, though the night was warm, and sat down on her old tack box. Fireflies were flickering in the distance.

“I used to come out here to be alone, when I was a teenager,” she said, watching the lights bob in the spaces between the fir trees. “When I needed to think. There's something about a barn at night.”

Cooper looked around appreciatively, his eyes moving over the empty stalls, the hayloft, and finally, her, and she knew he understood. “You must miss your family,” he said softly. He'd returned to the sawhorse, and Iris admired his competent hands. They were comforting.

“Yes.” She paused before admitting, “It's complicated.”

He glanced back at her curiously.

And without hesitating, Iris told him. In the dim light of the barn, surrounded by the deep-throated chirrup of tree frogs, she told Cooper everything about her recent separation. That she missed not just her family but the dream of what she'd held for them. And now . . . well, now all of that had changed. And no matter how desperately she tried to imagine them getting through this, she couldn't help but hang on to what was supposed to be: that basket of happy endings that every woman tries to fill for her children. No matter how exhausting it became to haul around.

For the first time Iris held out her basket, with all its broken pieces, and allowed someone to look inside. To touch and examine, to turn over in his callused hands all the jagged hurts. The fears of what would come. And the feeling that she'd somehow failed.

Not once did Cooper interrupt. Nor did he offer up any platitudes, telling her it was going to be okay. Instead he leaned thoughtfully against the sawhorse and let her finish.

“I'm sorry,” she said finally, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

Cooper stood and pulled a bandanna from his back pocket.

She accepted it gratefully.

“You're not alone,” he said finally. “It happens to the best of us.”

Us.
And yet it was a team she wasn't sure she wanted to be on.

“But you're home now,” he added.

Iris laughed uncertainly. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Believe me, I never planned on moving back to Hampstead. I loved being out in Colorado. Thought I had it all figured out.”

“What happened?”

Cooper shrugged. “Things changed. I finally realized I had to change with them. When my dad got sick, it made sense to come home. I just didn't plan on staying.”

“So, you're glad to be back?”

“Yeah, it's been good for me. Funny how things work out.”

Iris looked around the barn. Cooper had everything he needed here. The lake, his work. His history. “I wish it were that simple.”

Cooper cocked his head. “A girl like you with so much going for her? Look at all you've already accomplished, Iris. Give yourself a chance.”

A girl? Whom Cooper viewed as accomplished? Iris smiled softly, accepting the gesture.

“You'll figure out what you need. I can tell.”

Iris stood, suddenly sure of what she needed at that very moment.

“You going?” Cooper asked.

She handed him back his bandanna. “It's funny, but I think I can sleep now.”

“Well, sweet dreams, then.” Cooper stepped aside, and Iris imagined him allowing a wide berth for her and all of her troubles. But his expression was gentle.

In the doorway, she paused. “Thanks,” she said. And then she placed her hands on the wooden door and pulled, rolling it across its rusty runner. The wheels squeaked in protest. Cooper watched, holding her gaze as she slid the creaky door between them.

•    •    •

Back at the house, Iris slipped from her clothes and lay naked on the bed. Her eyes rested on the barn windows outside, which still glowed up on the rise. When they finally went out, she rose and pulled on her nightgown. Downstairs the kitchen floorboards creaked in all her favorite spots: by the large farm table; in front of the granite island, where her mother was so often stationed. And loudest at the refrigerator, where Iris stood now, surveying its contents. As she debated between basil biscuits and a leftover drumstick (though what she really wanted was to grab a stick of butter and eat it right out of the wrapper), she imagined what she must look like from behind. A rumpled figure illuminated by the lone yellow bulb of the fridge, alone in a dark kitchen. Not even her own kitchen, but her mother's. And before she knew it she was weeping. She imagined the kids tucked into their beds, some two hundred miles away. If she left now, she could be home before breakfast. How surprised they'd be to awaken and see her at the stove, flipping pancakes! Reminding Lily to feed her hamster, Jack to park his smelly sneakers in the garage, Sadie to remove her conspicuously applied makeup. They'd sit down together and get ready for a brand-new day.

But no. She could see it now. Lily would be confused by her sudden return. Jack would be concerned. Sadie would take one look at her straggly hair and the circles beneath her eyes: “What are you
doing
?”

And Paul. His exasperation, his head-shaking sympathy. No, she wanted none of that.

Instead, she sat at the old farmhouse table with one of her mother's drumsticks and ate, wiping tears between bites, until the bone was clean and her face dry. Hungrily, Iris licked the grease from her fingers. She poured herself a glass of milk and drank it; then another. She wandered the rooms, sipping milk and drying her eyes with the hem of her nightgown. Stopping in the den to run her fingers over a bronze figure of a dragon her father had brought back from China one year. Touching the globe by his desk, as she used to when she was a little girl—spinning the orb like a game-show contestant, she'd hold her breath to see where her finger pointed when it finally came to rest: the purported place she'd spend the rest of her life. But it was never anyplace exotic. Her sister, Leah, always got those. Hawaii, Tibet. Once Egypt. Iris always ended up in forlorn or mundane locations: Spoke, Alabama. Fargo, North Dakota. And the place that Leah laughed the hardest over: Siberia.

At the living room piano, she paused. It was where she'd endured long summer lessons with Mrs. Hamilton, the local music teacher. And in the end she'd only ever mastered “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” She wondered if she could still play it. Briefly, her fingers fumbled on the keys, and she realized she had forgotten the notes. Another rush of tears pricked her eyes.

Finally, she stopped in the hallway. Rows of framed pictures lined the walls, each stately and carefully polished, as if their inhabitants were expecting her. The crackled black-and-white images of her great-grandparents, formally posed. There were her parents on their wedding day, her father's easy smile unchanged from youth. Baby pictures of her and Leah, their bald heads capped in lace hats, feet adorned in little white leather booties. Followed by graduation photos, and later, the shots of her wedding. And finally the framed faces of her own children. As she moved down the hall in her bare feet, the images peered back at her, beckoning her forward through the years and depositing her once more at the end of the hall, in the present.

Iris drained the milk glass. She was not alone. Even in the creaking old house of her childhood, with her aging parents overhead, while her own family slumbered two hundred miles away. Cooper Woods was right.

The subtle pull of sleep washed over her with a suddenness that made her limbs heavy. Uncertainly, she made her way back to bed and pulled the sheets up over her head. The curtains stirred as the lake's scent filled the room, rising up over the rocking chair, wafting over her pillows.

For the first time in many weeks, she slept soundly.