Chapter 43
43
Sunday, August 17
15 Days Left at the Lake
I sleep a long, dreamless sleep, and when I open my eyes, I’m lying in the same spot on Charlie’s chest. I have fuzzy memories of him trying to rouse me throughout the night, checking to make sure I was okay, and me telling him off.
“I’ve learned a lot about you in the past nine hours,” I hear him say now. His voice has been sanded down from sleep. I feel his fingers playing with strands of my hair. I’m only half awake, and I make a grunting sort of noise by way of reply.
“You told me you hated me no less than four times,” he says.
“I regret nothing,” I mumble.
“You’re impossible to move. I tried to roll you off me once I lost feeling in my arm, but you kept rolling back.”
“You’re the one who put me here.”
“And.” I can hear him smiling. “You drool.”
I sit up straight, and stare at the damp spot on Charlie’s gray shirt where my mouth had been. He laughs. I meet his eyes for the first time this morning. He’s wearing a lazy smile, and his cheek is lined with pillow creases.
“Good morning, Alice.”
There are a few glorious seconds where I stare at Charlie, when all that matters is how handsome and cozy he looks. But then what he said in the car yesterday comes reeling back.
We wouldn’t be good together.
It’s like being dropped into glacial waters.
“It’s not a big deal,” Charlie says, mistaking my expression for embarrassment. He tugs me toward him. “Come back. Is it always this chilly in here in the morning?”
I shake my head. “We should get up,” I say, climbing out of bed. “I’ll make breakfast for everyone.”
Charlie sits as I rush to pull on a sweatshirt and a pair of thick socks.
“No one’s awake yet. What’s wrong?”
I pause to look at him. “Nothing. I’m sorry I drooled on your shirt.”
“I don’t give a shit about the shirt. What’s going on right now?”
I close my eyes briefly. I don’t want to admit what’s wrong, not to Charlie, not even to myself. We agreed on an easy, breezy summer fling. On friendship. I went into it with eyes wide open. He made no promises. But his comment hurt. Even in the light of a new day, it hurts. Because I think in some other world, if we decided to be together, we might be better than good. We might be great.
“I need some alone time,” I say. I’m not going to dump everything that’s running through my mind on him before I’ve had a chance to figure it out for myself.
Charlie’s gone still the way he does when he’s trying to contain himself, when he’s not sure how to act on whatever is happening in his body and mind. “You’re angry with me,” he says. “About the accident.”
I’m angry with me , I think.
“That’s not it. You just said it yourself: It was an accident.”
“But you’re angry. I can tell.”
“I’m tired,” I tell him. “I need some quiet.”
He studies me, frowning. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Just leave me to myself for a bit.”
I turn my back as Charlie gets dressed.
Then I watch him leave.
Heather arrives that morning in a cloud of perfume and dust from her speeding car.
She squeezes her daughter so hard that Bennett tells her she’s hurting her. I get a similar rib-crushing hug, followed by an interrogation about how I’m feeling. Physically, I’m fine. The stitches are barely noticeable. My headache is much better. Otherwise, I’m garbage.
“How’s Charlie?” Heather asks when we’re alone. “He sounded like he was in shock when I spoke to him yesterday.”
“I think it scared him more than it did the rest of us.”
“Because he’s in love with you.”
“He’s really not,” I say.
“Oh please. He looks at you like you’re a scoop of ice cream on the hottest day of summer.”
“Just drop it, Heather. I don’t want to talk about Charlie.”
For once, Heather drops it.
She and Bennett leave after lunch. On a different day, I’d wish my sister could stay another night, but I’m grateful for the peace.
“Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?” Nan says as we watch Heather’s car pull away.
I shake my head, and Nan puts her arm around me.
“When you’re ready, then.”
“I think I might go back to bed.” I want a break from my mind.
Nan looks at the dark clouds that lurk in the distance. “Good day for a nap,” she says. “I might do the same.”
It’s suppertime when I wake. I have three missed texts.
Charlie: Can I cook dinner for you and Nan tonight?
Charlie: I’m making my mom’s pierogi.
Charlie: Don’t make me eat all of them on my own. I have to maintain my figure.
As much as I want to spend the night with him, Nan, and a giant plate of dumplings, I need space more.
Me: Just woke up from a long nap, and I’m still zonked. Rain check?
Charlie: Are you okay? How’s your head?
Me: I’m fine. I promise. I just need to chill tonight.
Charlie: Do you want company? I’m very chill.
Me: I think I need a night off.
Over the next minute, several three-dot text bubbles appear and disappear, until finally: I’m sorry, Alice.
I put my phone away and leave my room to find Nan. She’s in the kitchen, heating up a can of Heinz tomato soup and making grilled cheese. It’s what she used to make when I was sick. I put my arms around her waist and kiss her cheek. It’s exactly what I need.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She tilts her head to the ceiling. “Do I know our girl, or do I know our girl?”
I’m not sure if she’s talking to Grandpa or Joyce, but I guess it doesn’t matter.
Nan tells me about her afternoon with John over dinner. She apologized to him for being absent. He apologized for kissing her all those years ago. They both agreed it meant little more than friends trying to cope with grief. I can see that she’s shed an incredible weight. She’s moving better. Smiling more. Telling jokes at John’s expense.
“You seem more like yourself,” I say, sopping a crust in the last of the soup. It tastes like I’m seven years old. What I wouldn’t give for a glass of apple juice right now.
“I feel more like myself.” Nan sets down her spoon. “I know I’ve been short with you at times, and I’m sorry. Usually, I still feel like I’m forty, at least in my mind. But the hip replacement threw me for a loop—I really felt my age. I love this cottage, but it’s also been a reminder of how much past is behind me, and how little future is left.”
My throat tightens. I can’t imagine a world without Nan. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I hope it wasn’t a mistake to come here.”
“Not at all! I’m grateful to you, Alice. Reminiscing with John put things into perspective. I’m lucky to have so much past, so many memories. It’s a gift to age.” She looks at me over her glasses. “Even though sometimes it really sucks.”
I laugh.
“It’s also been a treat having so much time with you,” Nan says. “You’ve flourished this summer.”
My eyebrows rise. “I’ve done nothing all summer.”
Nan gives her head a sharp shake. “You’ve been tremendously happy.”
I blink, but tears spring to my eyes as though they’ve been waiting there all along.
“And now you’re not,” Nan says.
I stare at my empty bowl. “I don’t know what I am.”
I hear Nan’s chair move, and then feel her hand on my shoulder. “Let’s have a talk.”
Let’s have a talk.
I’ve heard Nan say those words dozens of times. When I learned Mom was pregnant with the twins. When my friend told the boy I liked that I had carrot-colored pubes. When I stopped talking to Oz. When my parents announced they were splitting up. When Trevor dumped me.
Nan eases herself onto the sofa and pats her lap. I lie down, my head on her lap, and I cry. They’re heaving, ugly sobs that grow even heavier when I feel Nan’s hand running through my hair. My dad used to do the same thing when I’d had a nightmare or a bad day. I wonder how many generations of Everlys have been comforted in the same way.
“I think I have feelings for him,” I say when the tears have stopped. I want to deny it so badly, my stomach aches. “And I don’t want to. I’m trying to fight them. I just want to stay friends.” The thought of not having Charlie in my life—in pushing him away like I did with Oz all those years ago—it’s unbearable.
“Well, you can try all you like, Alice, but I expect it will be next to impossible. You feel things deeply. You always have.”
I wipe my cheek. “I hate that about me.”
Her laugh is kind. “It’s one of your best qualities. In the long run, it will be more difficult to keep pushing your feelings aside than it will be to stare at yourself in the mirror and accept who you are and what you want.”
“But what if what I want gets me hurt?”
“There are no guarantees in this life. But I’ll be proud to have a granddaughter who is brave enough to follow her heart.”
“I think you’re a lot stronger than me.”
She scoffs. “Just older. I don’t have many regrets.” After a moment, she says, “But I do wish I hadn’t run away from John. I wish I’d stuck around long enough to talk to him about what had happened, even though it would have been difficult. All those years we lost.”
“I’m scared.”
“Yes, I imagine you are.” Nan pats me on the shoulder. “Falling in love is terrifying.”
I spend three days avoiding Charlie. I tell him I have some last-minute edits to do for a client. It’s not a lie, but it takes me under an hour. I send one-word answers to his text messages, decline his invitations for Jet Ski rides and movie nights. He asks if he can take me to the hospital to have the stitches removed, but I don’t reply until after they’re out. I stay in the boathouse when he comes over one afternoon for tea.
“You’re torturing that poor man,” Nan says when Charlie drops her off after euchre. “He’s not daft. He knows you’re giving him the runaround. I don’t think he’s shaved all week, poor thing. He’s looking rather mangy.”
“I’m trying to sort out how I feel,” I tell Nan, and she replies with amused silence.
“Okay, I’m avoiding him.” I throw up my hands. “I like him!”
Nan laughs so hard that she has to dot away tears with her embroidered hankie.
“You’re priceless,” she says once she’s collected herself. “But you’ll have to face the truth—and Charlie—sooner rather than later.”
I barely sleep that night. I stare at the light from Charlie’s house. I imagine how I’ll possibly keep a seal on everything that’s brewing inside me. I’m a human kettle on high heat, and I don’t want to see him until I’ve cooled to a simmer.
But I don’t have that luxury.
The next morning, Charlie fills the doorway to the cottage, arms folded across his chest, looking thoroughly unimpressed. Nan was right—he hasn’t shaved. Charlie has the beginnings of a beard, but it’s not mangy.
He glances at Nan over my shoulder, and she passes him a tote bag. Before I can ask what’s inside, he lasers his eyes on me.
“You’re coming with me.”