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Charlie made a choking sound. “That’s gross.”
“I mean for an older man. And don’t pretend you haven’t noticed.”
Izzy longed for an ejector seat. She wanted to shoot herself out of the house, preferably to another planet. “This conversation is getting weird.”
“Will she be going with you to England for your summer vacation?”
“What? No, of course not.” She hadn’t even thought of that, but she was thinking of it now and it made her dizzy. Flora at Lake Lodge? No way. Every year since Izzy was born they’d spent three weeks of the summer in the beautiful English Lake District with her mother’s best friend and her family. Aunt Clare was her godmother. Their lakeside vacation was one of the highlights of Izzy’s life. Exercise and excitement. Freedom and fresh air. Aiden.
I love you, Izzy. Always have.
Thinking about him calmed her a little. She hadn’t shared the detail of last summer with anyone. Would she have done so if her mother hadn’t died? She wasn’t sure. At the time it had seemed too special and precious to share as a morsel of gossip. Her friends talked about boys the way they talked about mascara, comparing and contrasting qualities. Izzy didn’t see Aiden that way. He wasn’t one of those boys who was waiting for the right moment to shove his hand up your dress. When her bike had broken down, he’d fixed it. She could have fixed it herself the way her dad had taught her, but she’d liked the fact that he was prepared to get oil on his skin and sweat on his clothes to help her. She’d been convinced what they had was special, but time had eroded that conviction along with many others. Special last summer didn’t mean special now, did it? Feelings changed. She wanted to turn the clock back to the time when her mother was alive, to the summer Aiden had told her he loved her and she’d believed him. To a time when life seemed simple and her thoughts were full of Aiden, and college, and possibilities.
If she’d known how much her life was about to change, she would have savored each second. The thought of not going to Lake Lodge and seeing Aiden again made her feel something close to desperation.
“But your aunt Clare was your mom’s closest friend—” Although Charlie’s voice tailed off, the implication of her words still hung in the air. Why would they spend the summer with their mother’s closest friend when their mother was no longer with them?
“Not just my mom’s. She’s a family friend. Dad adores her, too. We all do.” She didn’t mention Aiden. She had to stop thinking about Aiden. He hadn’t said those words since. The messages they’d exchanged had been factual. Made the football team. Went sailing with Dad. Love could die. People could die. “Molly would be gutted if we didn’t go. We’ve been trying to keep everything the same.”
Surely if there was a question of them not going, her father would have mentioned it?
An image of the lake floated into her mind. It was so peaceful there, the air fresh and clean. There was something about the awe-inspiring scenery that made problems shrink. Right now she badly needed hers to shrink. She was tired of being trapped in a place filled with memories of her mother. True, Lake Lodge was also somewhere she associated with her mother, but not in the same way as home. The house belonged to Aunt Clare and her family, and was filled with their family treasures and personal items. Izzy wouldn’t be confronted by a large photograph of her mother when she came down to breakfast. Even the memories would be different. She remembered her mother lying on a sunlounger, a book open next to her, one knee bent as she talked to Clare. Her mother, curled up in the library while rain thundered against the windows and turned the waters of the lake choppy. Her mother had been a different person on those vacations, at least in the first few days. After that she’d become restless, longing to return to the fast lane.
Once, she’d taken Izzy’s hand and pulled her toward the lawn that stretched all the way to the lakeside. “Listen,” she’d said. “What do you hear? Nothing, right?”
Izzy had dutifully listened. “I hear birds? And the water.” Faint splashes. The ripple of tiny waves as they hit the shoreline. They were the most relaxing sounds she’d ever heard. Izzy would have lived there if she could, but apparently her mother didn’t agree.
“Exactly. Birds and water. Don’t you miss the sounds of the city?”
Izzy didn’t, but she felt pressure to give the answer her mother expected. Life was always simpler when things were the way her mother expected, so she’d nodded, and hadn’t admitted that she loved the place with a passion. Not just the lake, but the Lodge. She loved the large windows and her turret bedroom with its views over the lake. She loved the fact that the house was lived in. The deep sofas were slightly worn, the furniture scuffed. Aunt Clare never expected you to take your shoes off or eat and drink only in the kitchen. It was a house that welcomed dogs and muddy boots, laughter and life in all its messy glory. Izzy was able to relax in a way she was never able to relax in her own home. In Brooklyn they basically lived in the kitchen and the bedrooms. The elegant living space was reserved for her parents and entertaining. In the Lakes there wasn’t a single room that was out-of-bounds.
And then there was the enormous garden, with its deep, dark corners and tangle of ancient trees. The star of the show was the giant horse chestnut with its sturdy branches perfect for climbing. Izzy loved the lake with its glassy surface and deep sense of mystery. Most of all she loved the boathouse. She’d often wondered what it would be like to live somewhere like that. Maybe she wasn’t a city person.
And it wasn’t only the place she loved, it was the people.
When they were little, Izzy and Aiden would sneak out of bed and sit at the top of the stairs, listening to the clink of glasses and the musical sound of adult laughter. It had sounded so grown-up to Izzy, who had longed to be old enough to join them. Aiden had said it would probably be boring, but she didn’t think so. Her mother and Clare had been at school together and were still best friends. Izzy envied their closeness. Every other sentence seemed to start with Do you remember that time…
Izzy wondered about that as she sat feeling isolated with her supposedly best friends. She tried to project herself forward ten years and imagine herself saying Do you remember that time…but her brain wouldn’t play the game. She didn’t want to remember this time.
She found it hard to talk to anyone, but she was sure she’d be able to talk to Aiden. He’d understand what she was going through. He always understood. They’d always been able to talk about anything and everything, maybe because they weren’t bogged down in the day-to-day detail of each other’s lives. There was something about rigging a boat on the la
ke and scrambling up craggy slopes that made talking natural and easy. She wished they lived closer. At the end of every summer they made the same promises to stay in touch but then life came in like the tide and washed away their good intentions. They were sucked into their own lives and the only news she had of him was what she saw popping up on social media, and everyone knew that was mostly fake. Aunt Clare had flown over for the funeral of course, and hugged Izzy so tightly she’d thought her bones would crack. She’d read a poem and talked about the importance of friendship. She’d looked terrible; pale and exhausted, her voice faltering as she’d spoken the words but Izzy knew she’d looked terrible, too. She’d been using every last ounce of energy to hold it together and hadn’t said much to Clare.
Now, she wished she had. She wished she’d ask if their summer would be the same as it always had been. She’d just assumed, and the promise of a summer at Lake Lodge had been like a blanket warming her on a cold night. She wanted to feel the grass under her bare feet as she ran down toward the water’s edge. She wanted to feel the breeze on her face early in the morning, and dip her limbs in the cool, clear water. Lake Lodge was the perfect summer retreat, a place she associated with happy times. Would it be weird without her mother there? Probably, but she loved it so much she thought it would probably be okay. Maybe she should email Aunt Clare, just to be sure.
Her friends were looking at her, waiting for cues.
Charlie gave an awkward shrug. “It must be weird, but I guess it’s great, really, that he’s happy.”
Because she’d been thinking about Aiden it took a minute for her to realize they were talking about her dad.
They were basically saying she was selfish. That her feelings were all about her, when they should be about him.
Izzy felt more alone than she ever had in her life before.
She wanted her dad to be happy, of course she did, but what if his happiness meant hell for the rest of them? She didn’t want him to be with Flora. She didn’t want him to be with any woman. So what did that make her?
A bad person. She was a bad daughter. A bad friend.
