CHAPTER 14
THE DOCK
NORA
The drive to the lake house is muscle memory.
I could do it with my eyes closed—every turn, every landmark, every carefully maintained curve of road that leads to the lake house.
Driving past the boutique hotels with their pristine landscaping and discreet valet stands.
Past the artisan coffee shop that replaced the old diner but somehow kept the same red leather booths.
Past the general store that's now a curated marketplace selling organic produce and imported olive oil, but still has Mr. Radley behind the counter like he has been for forty years, still wearing the same Red Sox cap, still knowing everyone's name.
Eden has money now. Old money mixed with new money mixed with people who bought vacation homes and decided to stay.
The storefronts are immaculate, the sidewalks swept, the flower boxes bursting with seasonal blooms that someone is paid to maintain.
But underneath the polish, there are still traces of the town I grew up in—Corrigan's, the bakery where Mrs. Corrigan still makes the Cinnabons she's been making since before I was born.
The marina where families who've lived here for generations still keep their boats. And Gracies’ store that Alfie built with his own hands.
It's strange, this version of Eden. Prettier, wealthier, more careful.
There's something about places like this—places where you grew up, where your history lives in every street corner and storefront—that never quite let you go. They hold your memories like photographs, perfectly preserved, waiting for you to return and remember who you used to be.
LA never felt like that. It always felt too big, too transient, too full of people passing through. Nothing there holds memory the way Eden does. Nothing there knows my name without me having to introduce myself first.
Maybe that's why I stayed away so long.
Because coming back means feeling everything I've spent years trying to outrun. It means walking through a place that remembers every version of me—the girl who lost her father, the teenager who fell in love, the young woman who left and never looked back.
Places don't forget the way people do.
They just wait, patient and unchanging, for you to come home and face what you left behind.
Here's the addition with the water balloon memory at the beginning:
I pull into the driveway and the car barely stops before the memory hits.
Vivid. Unrelenting. So real I can almost hear it.
I must have been twelve, maybe thirteen. The four of us—me, Ollie, Jake, Nate—running wild across the front lawn in our bathing suits, armed with water balloons we'd spent an hour filling from the garden hose.
Jake's laugh, loud and unrestrained, echoing off the trees as he nailed Ollie square in the chest with a perfect throw.
The way the sun felt on our shoulders. The way the cold water shocked our skin. The way everything felt possible and permanent and like summer would last forever.
I blink and the memory dissolves.
The lawn is empty now. Perfectly manicured. No kids running through sprinklers or shrieking with laughter or leaving wet footprints across the porch.
I kill the engine and sit there for a moment, hands still on the wheel, throat tight before finally grabbing my bag from the passenger seat, then heading up the porch steps.
My feet know exactly which boards creak.
The spare key is still under the ceramic horse statue by the door—the same hiding spot we've used since I was a kid.
Some things, at least, don't change.
The door swings open with a familiar groan.
Inside, the lake house smells like pine and lemon polish and something deeper—time, maybe, or just the accumulated weight of summers past.
The open floor plan spreads out before me: living room flowing into the kitchen, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake, late afternoon light streaming across the hardwood floors.
There's a fresh coat of paint on the walls—soft grey instead of the cream I remember—but everything else feels untouched.
The same stone fireplace with its mantle covered in framed photos. The same dining table where we played cards until two in the morning, arguing about rules none of us actually knew.
I move closer to the photos, drawn like I always am.
There we are. Frozen in frames.
Nate, Jake, Ollie, and me. Various summers, various ages, always together.
One where I'm maybe eight and the boys older, covered in mud from the quarry, grinning like idiots. Another from the summer I turned thirteen—Jake's arm slung around Lydia, Ollie making bunny ears behind Nate's head while I tried not to laugh.
My chest tightens.
The photos are still here. After everything—after Jake, after Nate going off to rehab, after all those years—Lydia kept them up. Like we're still that version of ourselves. Like those kids still exist somewhere, frozen in time, before everything got so messed up.
I tear myself away and head upstairs, bag slung over my shoulder.
The stairs creak in the same places they always have. Down the hall, second door on the left.
My room.
I push open the door. It's exactly as I left it.
Queen sized bed with the white iron frame. The dresser with the drawer that sticks. The window seat overlooking the lake where I used to write in journals and pretend I was profound. Even the books on the shelf are the same—battered paperbacks I read and reread every summer.
I drop my bag on the bed and that's when I see him.
Bones.
He's sitting in the center of the pillow, perfectly placed, like he's been waiting for me to come back for him. The stuffed toy I've had since I was five. The one I left here that last summer because I thought I was too old for stuffed animals.
My throat closes.
I pick him up, press my face into his worn fur, and memories crash over me in waves.
I sink onto the bed, Bones clutched to my chest, and stare at the ceiling.
The same ceiling I stared at through a thousand summer nights.
The same water stains in the corner that look vaguely like a dragon if you squint.
I doze off because the next thing I know, voices are drifting up through the floorboards.
Doors opening and closing. Footsteps. The murmur of conversation. The clatter of dishes being set down.
The house is filling up. I sit up slowly, disoriented, Bones still in my lap.
How long was I out? Ten minutes? An hour?
The light coming through the window has shifted, grown longer, more golden.
Downstairs, someone laughs. The sound is quickly hushed, then resumes quieter. I should go down. Show my face. Be present.
But for just a moment longer, I sit here in this room that remembers me, holding a toy that's seen every version of who I've been, and let myself feel the weight of coming home to a place that refuses to let you pretend you're someone else.
When I eventually muster up the energy to go downstairs, the house is crowded with people still in their funeral attire. The dining table is covered with food no one's really eating—casseroles and pies and the kind of dishes people make when they don't know what else to do.
People stand in clusters, sharing stories in hushed tones, laughing quietly at memories that hurt and heal in equal measure.
I step outside for air, my shoes crunching softly against the gravel as I make my way down to the dock.
The lake stretches out in front of me, calm and endless, catching the late afternoon light.
For the first time since I landed, I can breathe.
Until my phone rings and Wes’ name lights up the screen.
I stare at his name for a long moment before answering.
His voice is clipped, irritated in that controlled way he has.
"Seriously, when are you coming back?"
"I don't know yet."
"You don't know?" A pause. "We have the studio meeting on Tuesday. You need to be there."
"I'm at a funeral, Wes."
"I understand that. But life doesn't stop because—" He catches himself, adjusts his tone. "I'm just saying we need to stay on schedule. Filming starts in three weeks."
My stomach twists. My free hand curls into a fist at my side.
"I'm staying longer than a couple of days, okay?"
"How much longer?"
"My sister-in-law's baby shower is coming up. I want to be here for it."
Silence stretches on the line. Then he exhales sharply, and I can picture exactly how his face looks—that tight, controlled disappointment.
"Nora, this isn't—" He stops. Recalibrates. "We have commitments. You have commitments. This production doesn't wait because you need to play happy family in some small town."
Play happy family.
My jaw clenches. Heat floods my face.
"These are the people who raised me, Wes. The people who were there when my dad died. When everything fell apart. They're not some obligation I'm tolerating—they're my family."
"I didn't mean it like that."
"Yes, you did."
Another pause. Longer this time. When he speaks again, his voice is softer, more calculated.
"Fine. I'll try to push the meeting and tell them you had a family emergency," he says. "But don't drag this out. We have work to do."
We. Like what's happening is an inconvenience to our schedule.
"I'll let you know when I'm coming back."
"Nora—"
I hang up.
My hand is shaking. My pulse pounds in my ears.
The quiet feels earned.
I stand there for a moment, letting the anger and exhaustion wash over me, staring at the lake like it might have answers.
Footsteps sound behind me.
"Hi."
One word. That's all it takes to get my heart racing like it's already betraying me.
"How long have you been standing there?" I say without turning around.
"Long enough to know you needed a minute."
I let out a breath. "Everyone seems to know what I need these days."
I turn then, and there he is.
Closer than he was at the funeral. Near enough that I have to tilt my head slightly to look at him.
Near enough to see the faint scar above his eyebrow from the time he fell off Jake's bike. Near enough to notice the way his jaw tightens—sharper now, more defined, like he's holding himself back from saying something.