Page 99 of The Last Thing You Said

When I get back up to the lodge, Dad and John are playing pool. John takes a shot and sinks the eight ball, game over.

“Why don’t you two knock off?” he says. “No sense in hanging around when it’s this slow.”

“I guess,” I say.

Dad puts his cue in the rack and turns to me. “What do you say we hit up the weeds?”

I’m about to say no when I catch his eye. There’s something different about him today.

His eyes are clear. Bright.

“You thinking walleye?” I ask. It’s August, hot and humid, some say a slow month for fishing. Not my dad. You just gotta know where to look.

“Yeah, why not?” he says.

Why not?

Dad and I spend the next three hours out on the edge of the weeds. We don’t snag any walleye, but we get a couple of nice bass and a few northerns.

Neither one of us says much, but just before Dad pulls up anchor, I ask, “How many days has it been?”

He doesn’t look at me when he answers. “Four. Friday night was the last. Went to a meeting up at the church last night.”

Four. He hasn’t had a drink in four days. He went to an AA meeting.

“What changed?” I’m almost afraid to know.

He doesn’t answer right away. And then, “Me, I guess. I took a long look at myself, and I didn’t much like what I saw. I had to stop blaming myself for what happened to Trixie, for not knowing that she was sick. And I realized that I’m the only one who gets to decide.”

“Decide what?”

“How I’m going to get through this. And it can go either way, so why not make the best of it?”

I expect him to segue into a lecture about how if I’m not careful, I’ll end up a drunk like him, in denial, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “You have to stop blaming yourself, Ben. And living without your sister? It might not get easier, but it will get different.”

I nod. I think I know what he means. Different. It could go either way. And I’m the only one who can choose how I’m going to get through it.

At home, I open up my laptop for the first time all summer. It takes me almost an hour to find exactly what I need. I pull Lucy and Trixie’s notebook from my desk drawer and open it to the first blank page I find. And then I write the quote I found. I want to say more. I want to explain everything, but I don’t. I write a few more words, sign my name.

I hope it’s enough.

I put the notebook and one of my unpolished agates—rough, but still beautiful—in a brown paper bag and write Lucy’s name on it with a marker. I walk back to the resort. The late afternoon heat presses down on me. I feel the sting of Lulu’s rejection, but it doesn’t slow my steps. A lull has settled over the resort and there’s no one to see as I climb the rickety ladder of the tree house and put the paper bag in the corner.

My peace offering.

54 · Lucy

“Lucy! Lucy!”

I hear Emily’s call from the tree house across the yard and I speed up, my heart pounding. It’s not panic, but I am up the ladder in seconds, not bothering to worry about the loose boards or the height.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, out of breath.

She’s grinning, pointing at a plain brown bag.

“It’s for you!” she says. “A mysterious package!” She doesn’t pronounce mysterious correctly, slipping the last syllables together, and I smile.

“You scared me,” I tell her, and I pull her to me in a hug before I move to the bag.