Chapter 2 #2
What I want? I barely understood how the relationship could work.
Honestly, I still wobbled between feeling insanely lucky and like I was being terrifically greedy by keeping them all to myself.
But I got off his lap, leaning over to kiss him before I got up totally.
He touched my un-slapped cheek with his thumb.
“What I want is for everybody to be happy. Do you think that’s even possible?” I whispered, staring into his eyes for the truth. “Can you be happy?”
He blinked. “I am happy with you. I am happy with us. It’s everything else that I’m still struggling with, if I’m entirely honest. If I could lock us all up in here and never leave, I would be great.
” But even as he said it, I knew he didn’t fool himself with the thought of holding time still.
He wanted more—wanted to grow, to become the man he was meant to be.
“So, yes, I can be happy. Alatheia. . .” But he trailed off, as if he left something unsaid.
I waited then eventually asked, “What?”
He smiled, amused that I noticed. “I don’t know. Never mind.”
I kissed him again, my lips unable to say things my heart felt. “We’re going to eat soon. I don’t know what. When Julian gets back, we’ll eat.”
“Sounds good.”
I called over my shoulder as I headed into the living room. “I need a few minutes to do something for your granny.”
If I didn’t tell them, they would read over my shoulder. I loved their curiosity, their infatuation with me. Craved it, actually. But my work had to be private, as per their grandmother’s orders.
“Yep,” Barrett answered. He tapped one ear, showing he only listened to music through one earbud. Jeremy lay out cold on the couch, face down, his arm dangling over the side. He snored, the sound muffled by the pillows where he planted his face. At least we knew he could still breathe.
I sighed. The early morning swims are getting to him.
At the desk, I opened my laptop to type while I read. I’d missed Dina’s journals over the past few months, and the way she saw the world at eighteen. It gave me hope, knowing she made it past all of it to the present. She remained a light in my sometimes very dark world.
DECEMBER 1ST 1966
Dear Future Reader,
Well, I’m here! Lac Vieux, Louisiana. Growing up where I did, I never heard of or imagined such a place.
Cool foggy weather permeates the chilly, fifty-degree air.
It lends itself to the eeriness of the region, and perhaps to their mythology.
I feel bad saying it, since Mrs. Lent and her friends and family have been so kind to me.
Reserved and untrusting…but kind.
I guess I should explain myself here rather than being vague.
A remote exiled place, it seems to exist almost outside of time itself.
People indeed lived the kind of lives the guys told me about—like their mother, with her five husbands.
It was a common yet secretive practice on the two lakes that made up the town.
On the surface, it looked lovely. One big lake with a smaller one less than half a mile away, perfect for summery fun and wintery ruminations.
We drove around the length of the town the day before, seeing all the waterfront houses.
Getting anywhere away from the water took half an hour at least. The rural nature of the area didn’t make it foreboding—maybe not all of Sabine Parish itself—was surrounded by the largest pine trees I’ve ever seen.
Apparently, there used to be more. A lot more, but it still seemed like a rather dense forest to me.
Their fathers made their money from logging, a dreadfully long and boring story and eventually the cause of their demise via shipping of the logs.
On the larger lake, where Mrs. Lent lived, everyone seemed wealthy.
Beyond living comfortably, their fathers had left an inheritance substantial enough for her children to open department stores in Manhattan—stores now left untended because I needed time with their family.
Which was pointed out to me quite plainly by Mrs. Lent, not that I blame her for being honest. I’m upending their plans, and I never even considered it or them when I made my demands. I’m a selfish, difficult girl.
Maybe my uncle could just see it better than most people. He knew, but it took others longer to notice.
The other lake—or the other side of the lake, as they called it, though it was really a whole different lake—was poor.
Tattered children ran barefoot along little more than a dirt road, their scrubby clothes streaked with dust, their faces and hands unwashed.
The adults moved differently too, slipping about with an almost predatory air, The whole atmosphere carried a very different rhythm.
The guys definitely prefer their side of the lake.
They rushed past the other lake in a hurry, not saying much and then quickly changing the subject.
Despite their hesitancy to share, I’ll ask them more about it soon.
Still, they wanted me to see how their neighbors lived, pointed out a lot of things were just traditions.
On the porch swing with Nathanial the night before, we rocked and looked at the stars together.
He admitted he thought when they moved away, they would leave the Life—that’s how they referred to it, to leaving behind their tradition.
They would each have a wife of their own, live more standardly normal lives.
Then they met me, and they knew they wanted me together, the way they were raised.
When we leave, I’ll want to meet the other families in NY. How do they manage it? Here, people leave them alone. They pass their houses on, or buy them from each other, keeping the outside world out.
Nearby, they’re clearing land for a dam that will become a reservoir, but otherwise modernity hasn’t made it onto Sabine Parish.
“You wanted to leave it,” I told him. “You wanted out.”
“I still do,” he whispered back. “I love my mother. I have good memories, but I always knew I wasn’t made for here, for this town.”
Could we have all of it?
I need to leave. Mrs. Lent wants to teach me how to cook the catfish Robert caught out of the lake. (?!?!) They do something with cornmeal, or so I understand.
More soon. How could there not be?
D
I always felt out of it after I read Dina’s journals.
I remembered her words from June—there’s always the other side of the lake.
I wondered what she meant, especially now that she gave me a peek at the other side.
I knew that better than most how fickle happiness, money, and joy could really be, easily popped like a soap bubble in a heartbeat.
I spent my first eleven years in trailers—I probably looked a lot like the barefoot, dirty faced children on the other side of the lake at one point.
But why didn’t Dina and her Lents like it on the other side?
Dina wasn’t a snob. Well, no more of a snob than any other rich person, I guess would be more accurate. I knew she loved her family, seemed to love me, was kind and cared about people, and that had to count for something.
Phoenix—who was lost and blurred at the moment—might have been kidnapped by someone from Rosalind’s family, who lived on the other side of the lake.
The second oldest of eight, Rosalind’s kids didn’t even know the older sister existed until they were told recently she was murdered when their mother was a kid.
We need answers. Due to the private nature of that town, though, I wasn’t sure how to go about getting them.
Or even if it was my place to try. In a few months, I could be off at boarding school, far away from all of it. The kinder option. What did that even mean?
I put away the journal, deciding that was sufficient for my first day back to work. Julian tore through the door, making my timing perfect, his hair still wet.
“Are you okay?” He didn’t give me a chance to answer, just kissed me.
I closed my eyes and let him, his kisses made me feel a little drunk on the taste of him.
From the couch, Jeremy snored while Barrett listened to music.
Phoenix hung out alone in his room—everything so perfectly normal. Dinner would be soon.
Meanwhile, Julian’s lips slid across mine, his tongue tangling with me until my breathless gasps had his lips trailing down my throat. It still baffled me—to be touched by one of them while the others were still so close, but he stroked a hand up my side, making me groan in need.
Julian kissed me like he might lose me, claiming my very soul with his mouth.
With a sigh, he dragged his mouth away, leaving me trembling. “I’m sorry. I don’t check my phone when I’m in the pool.”
“It’s okay.” I kissed his chin. “I’m okay, other than I’m starving.”
“Me too.” He released me with a sad sigh then shook Jeremy’s arm. “She’s starving. Let’s go eat.”
Jer lifted his blond head, blinking in surprise. “Okay.” He got up, blinking his equally pale lashes blearily. “How long was I out?”
“An hour,” Barrett said as he rose. “I have class at eight, so it’s good if we go now. We all have to be up tomorrow.” He shot a glance toward Phoenix’s room. “Is he awake?”
“Last time I saw him.” I headed to check as Phoenix strolled out of his room.
“Did we pick a place?” He rocked back on his feet, stroking his hands up and down my arms.
Picking dinner might be the hardest decision of our lives lately. Everyone always wanted the other person to pick, until inevitably someone didn’t want to eat what another person finally did pick.
“How about the Italian place where Julian took me for our first date?” I didn’t usually suggest anything, since I was still learning the neighborhood, but I wanted pizza—theirs was great.
They actually liked my idea. I snorted, remembering how Phoenix said they just did what I wanted. Could they be happy because I suggested it?