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Things were starting to look a little brighter already. I didn’t dare touch the fireplace until after someone could have a chance to inspect it, but I did fix the iron gate across the front of it. As I stepped back to admire another small task being checked off, I heard a stack of things scatter behind my foot.
I kneeled down to collect what turned out to be a few photo albums with pictures stuck loosely inside. I started flipping through them and recognized most of them were photos of my mom as a little girl. I squinted to get a closer look at the background and realized the pictures were all taken right there…at the same lake, in Silver Point.
She looked so happy here as a little girl with her goofy grin and long braids, jumping off docks and having picnics around the water’s edge. I noticed in the background the adults were always sitting somewhere nearby, drinking, laughing, reading…relaxing.
She mentioned something about buying this place because she spent time around here during the summers when she was growing up. But I didn’t understand the significance of what she was saying. I didn’t realize how important it was to her or that she likely remembered things here being timeless in a way. Adults didn’t work or rush. They sat back and had a good time. She no doubt bonded with her family at this place, and she thought if I came here with her…we could become closer too.
I gathered the photos and placed them into a big empty cardboard box. As I walked from room to room, I realized a lot of her things were still lingering here. Sundresses in the closet, similar to things I had seen the women wearing on the town square, but nothing like anything I ever saw my mom wear at home in the city. The jewelry was the same. I was used to a suburban version of my mom, always in khakis and sweaters with understated pearl stud earrings. Here, a hidden side of her was brought to light…but only because I took the time to go looking for it. Not that I had much of a choice.
I skimmed my fingertips along a row of hanging necklaces and earrings with rainbows of beads and big polished pieces of turquoise and coral. One necklace, in particular, caught my eye with its bright red beads leading down to an encrusted chunk of bright yellow calcite. I realized I had never seen my mom wear yellow, but with a quick glance to the closet, I could see a dress hanging there that matched perfectly.
I seized up with burgeoning tears and quickly decided the master bedroom would have to be packed up another day. The garage seemed like a safer place to clean and pack. My mom didn’t even have a car. What kind of painful discoveries could possibly be waiting for me there?
I found my answer when I walked in to find rows of shelves lined with unfinished pottery. A radio perched on the edge and a wheel with hunks of dried clay scattered around it in the middle of the room. I flipped on the music and walked over to hit the switch for the door. It rattled open slowly, sending a burst of sunshine and air across the cobwebs clinging in the corners.
The room came to life for a moment, and I could see it all so clearly somehow, even though I had never seen my mom touch a piece of clay in her life. I imagined her dancing around, getting her hands dirty, making things, listening to happy songs, and enjoying the air and sunshine.
I should have been around for that. The thought brought stinging tears to my eyes that I couldn’t fight off this time. It was clear now, more than ever before, that the only thing I had done since college was work. It's why my mom was gone now with so many things left unsaid, things left unfinished, and it’s why my boyfriend had cheated on me instead of marrying me.
The memories of her, combined with the ones I should have had, but didn’t, were starting to crush me. I couldn’t do this anymore. Coming here was a bad idea. Realizing how badly I had messed up didn’t do a damn thing to fix it, and neither did being in this house, torturing myself with it all, with the dust of my regrets coating my lungs.
While trying to pull myself together, yet again, I realized I was starving. I closed the garage back up and went inside to grab my phone and order a pizza. By the time I was finished placing the order, I knew without a doubt that I couldn’t do this.I couldn’t stay here. I had made mistakes, wasted time…but it was too late, and there was nothing I could do about it now. I made my bed, and now I had to go back home to lay in it.
I don’t know what I was thinking, coming out here to spend a month alone in some place I’ve never been to before, in my mom’s dusty old lake house.With my mind made up, I turned on some loud music and started to repack my things. I stomped through the house, stuffing my face with pizza as I went. Food wasn’t going to be enough to get me through my final night there. I needed something stronger.
The pizza slice in my hand was soon traded in for a glass of wine, which quickly turned into two glasses,then three. Soon I had lost count, but I did go back for another refill only to find the bottle was empty. I shouldn’t have opened a second one, but I was in the middle of a crisis or something. At the very least, the worst time of my life so far.
I was doing my best to drown my sorrows, but all I did was knock myself out. Halfway through the second bottle, I felt my body flopping over on the couch. I curled up and snuggled against the pillow. It felt too good to get up or make myself move, so I just gave into it and let myself fade away.
* * *
A horrible bangingnoise startled me awake early the next morning. I could tell just how early it was by the sounds of the birds chirping outside, even though the sun had only just started its climb to the top of the sky.
The knocking made my ears ring as an unbearable headache was rapidly setting in. I winced and groaned, slowly peeling myself off the couch where I had fallen asleep with all of my clothes on. I didn’t even want to know what I looked like.
The half-empty bottle of wine was sitting on the coffee table. I leaned against the back of the couch and looked around, noticing the empty bottle and glass on the counter. It must have been after bottle one that I gave up on using the glass.
The banging on the door picked up again, reminding me why I was awake in the first place, instead of peacefully sleeping off my hangover.
I sat up further, coming face to face with my reflection in a mirror hanging near the front door. My pony tail was only half in place, with clumps of hair matted up around it in every direction. My mascara had dried and crusted in big dark circles under my eyes from where I had been crying. It was not a pretty sight.
More knocking came, followed by a man’s voice calling out from the other side. I stumbled to my feet, thinking to myself that if he kept knocking like that, the whole door would probably fall right off the hinges. It was far from sturdy or secure.
I had shuffled halfway to the door to answer, asking myself with every step, who would be coming around here so early anyway?
The door, the house. I cringed. Of course. Before drinking myself into oblivion, I had scheduled the appointment for an estimate on the repairs for the house. That’s who was beating the door down. At least if they succeeded at knocking it over, I could trust that they knew how to fix it.
On my way to the door, I swiped my phone from the counter where I left it and gave it a quick passive glance that ended up stopping my heart cold.
Why is Evan’s name all over my notifications?
I blinked to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, but there they still were…plain as day. A slew of texts from Evan,my ex.
I couldn’t bring myself to read them, but I did unlock the screen just long enough to scroll to the ‘sent’ folder. There were a string of messages, both incoming and outgoing, it seemed, and I didn’t have the mental strength to keep investigating to find out which one of us started the whole thing.
“Ms. Hart! Are you in there!?” the guy at the front door yelled impatiently.
I didn’t want to face anyone, not even perfect strangers, at that moment of shock and disarray. But answering the door meant the incessant knocking would stop. Finally, I finished my walk to the door and flung it open.
