Chapter 7
We close out dinner and drift from the restaurant patio onto the weathered gray dock that hugs the shore. My mind buzzes with wine and the image of Vivek standing smugly at the bar with his wife, a picture of self-contentment.
Is he trying to intimidate me? Spying on me? Is The Firm involved in this? Did Tim Colby put him up to it? Hoping I’ll slip up so he can fire me and be rid of me? The Firm has been known for doing some pretty shady things, but this seems like a stretch, even for them.
I force the thought from my mind and focus on the surrounding tranquility. I’m on vacation, after all. There will be plenty of time to stew over Vivek as I fall asleep tonight. If I fall asleep tonight.
The sun slips behind the horizon line, the water painted gold by the fading light.
Families shuffle onto pontoons and cabin cruisers, arms full of takeout bags and wriggling children.
Geese fly overhead, heading home for the evening.
Mom is a few paces ahead of me, her linen blouse fluttering in the breeze.
I tell myself not to worry. We’re in Anytown, USA. What could happen?
“There he is,” says my mom as she waves at a boat in the distance.
I look up and spot Olivia’s father, Eric, at the wheel of a stunning navy-blue, wood-trimmed Chris-Craft that gleams in the setting sun, just as I remember him, if not better.
He wears a summer tan, tortoiseshell Wayfarer sunglasses, and a white cashmere sweater that drapes perfectly on his lean, muscled physique.
He looks like he’s been attending the Paul Rudd school of aging gracefully.
His chestnut hair—with dashes of gray—flows in the wind like he’s a model in a luxury ad campaign, and I can see the bright white of his smile from here.
I’m ready to buy whatever he’s selling.
He waves at us as he pulls in, his gold Rolex reflecting the sun. He puts on a brave face, but I notice a tightness about him. A tension. I wonder if he’s as reticent about this whole idea as I am.
“Hello, Hoffmans,” he says, voice like a news anchor, his o lingering an extra moment in the typical Minnesota dialect.
He swings the boat into position in a single practiced move, then kills the engine, hops onto the dock, and ties a rope around the mooring post. That’s what I remember most about Eric.
Everything he does appears effortless. He cruises through life as if it’s a test for which he’s been given all the answers.
If I tried to execute that maneuver, I’d crash the boat and then trip and fall on my face as I exited.
Then again, I bet Eric can’t do a present-value analysis and summarize it in a breathtaking PowerPoint presentation. We all have our gifts.
My mom gives him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
I catch the scent of his cologne. It’s the same one he wore when I was a kid: an intoxicating blend of pine and leather, like a cabin in a forest. One whiff and I’m that awkward little girl all over again.
He turns to me and smiles his boyish smile, perfect dimples on each cheek, a small scar between his chin and lower lip.
He removes his sunglasses, his forest-green eyes meet mine, and we both enjoy the view for a beat.
He gives me a hug, his buff chest and flat stomach pressing against me.
Eric’s been keeping it tight. He pulls back and playfully shoves my shoulder.
“Charlotte! I can’t believe it’s you. Last time I saw you, you were a little string bean.”
My mom and I chuckle. I give a mock curtsy. She grabs my bony arm and waves it back and forth. “Yeah, and now she’s a big string bean.”
I slap her on the butt. “Thanks, Mom.”
He laughs—a velvety chuckle that hasn’t changed since I was twelve. Like a smile you can hear. He helps her onto the boat, then offers me his hand. His other lands on my back, gentle and warm. “Don’t listen to her. You look great.”
“You’re too kind.”
Mom and I plop onto the pristine white seats at the back of the Chris-Craft. Eric opens a cooler and pulls out two frosty lowball glasses and a metal shaker. He shoots me a mischievous grin and hands each of us a glass.
“What is this?” my mom says.
“It’s bootleg mix. I thought I’d introduce Charlotte to Minnesota’s official summer drink.”
He gives the mix a quick shake and pours a cloudy drink dashed with mint leaves into each of our glasses.
I take a sip. It’s sweet but not too sweet, with a whisper of mint and something else I can’t put my finger on. “Wow. This is phenomenal. What’s in it?”
“You can make it a couple of different ways. The world-famous Eric Parker bootleg recipe is vodka, gin, a dash of simple syrup, frozen limeade and lemonade, soda water, and chopped mint.”
My mom takes a drink and claps. “Well done, Eric. I haven’t imbibed a bootleg for years.”
He bows. “Well, you know what they say. Never take a boat ride empty-handed.” He slaps a mosquito on his muscled forearm. I catch a small smear of blood from the crushed bug. “Okay, we’d better hightail it out of here before the mosquitoes feast.”
“Sail away, captain,” says my mom as she leans back in her seat and closes her eyes. The wine from dinner has clearly kicked in.
“Charlotte, can you do me a favor and untie the rope and give us a push?”
I follow the captain’s order, and a second later we drive into the sunset. The motor purrs, and I turn to watch the boat cut a gentle path across the dark water.
While my mom “rests her eyes,” I sidle up into the seat next to the captain’s chair.
The wind whips stray hairs across my cheeks as the boat surges forward.
I soak in the moment—lake spray kissing my skin, the crisp air filling my lungs, sharp and clean.
The shoreline blurs past in a kaleidoscope of emerald trees, deep-blue waves, and a sunburnt streak of orange sky.
For a breathless instant, everything else falls away.
I watch Eric’s hands on the boat’s controls—calm, confident, like he’s done this a thousand times. The wind ruffles his hair just enough to stir something old in me. I can’t believe I’m looking at him again.
When I was a kid, I used to imagine he was my dad. He had a warm, magnetic presence that made everything steadier. But it didn’t stay innocent for long. Pretty soon, I was scribbling Charlotte Parker in loopy cursive and bubble letters all over the margins of my journal.
We will be together someday, I wrote.
I just know it.
It’s destiny.
God. The delusion only a twelve-year-old could craft with absolute certainty.
Whenever Olivia invited me over, I’d drift through their house in a fog, stealing glances at him like I was under some kind of twisted spell. And when she caught me staring, she’d wrinkle her nose and shake her head. Seriously? My dad? Ew.
“Thanks again for doing this, Charlotte,” says Eric over the rumble of the motor. “I’ve found myself thinking a lot lately about when you and Olivia were kids. The fun times we had. It’ll be really nice to catch up.” I notice his eyes welling. I never realized Eric was such a softie.
I nod, wondering if Olivia feels the same way.
He clears his throat and smiles. “And selfishly, I don’t mind having a little extra help with the twins once Laelynn heads to the Boundary Waters.”
I sip my bootleg. “It’s my pleasure. Thanks for hosting me. Full disclosure: I’ve never babysat in my life, so I don’t know how helpful I’ll be, but I’ll do my best.”
“You mean they haven’t made childcare part of the management consulting curriculum yet?” He winks.
“Not yet. Though if you need to calculate the return on investment of your kids, I’m your woman.”
“Oh, God. That’s a big negative number I never want to see.” We both laugh. “I’m sure you’ll do fine. I’ve got a few tricks I could teach you if you’d like.”
The wind kicks up, and I pull my hair back into a ponytail. “Really? No time like the present. Give me a crash course.”
“Rule number one: Anything they don’t want to do, blame the government.”
I choke mid-sip and start coughing. “I’m sorry, what?”
The dimples on his cheeks peek out. “You heard it here first. Whenever I need them to do something they don’t want to do and they ask me why, I say it’s the government.”
“For example?”
“For example. Kids, it’s eight p.m.—time to go to bed. Why? The government says all children must go to bed at eight. My hands are tied. It’s the law.”
“And that works?”
“Of course. You don’t want Dad to go to jail, do you?” A honey chuckle.
“Of course not.”
He eases the boat in a wide arc around a sailboat heading to shore. A cool mist of lake water spritzes us.
“Okay, what else you got?” I say, taking another sip of bootleg, my cheeks flushing from the vodka and gin.
“I can go all night. Let’s see. Never, and I mean never, cut short physical activity. I don’t care if they’ve been swimming for six hours and all you want is to take a nap—don’t do it. Because if you do, you’ll be paying for it all night. The key is you’ve got to tire them out.”
“Fatigue them. Got it. Like prisoners released for supervised time in the yard.”
“Exactly.”
He pushes forward on the throttle, zooming us through the bay.
“I’m only half serious. The girls can be a little difficult, but they’re good kids.”
The phrase sticks with me. A little difficult. But I say nothing.
For the next five minutes, we coast beneath a sky streaked with orange and periwinkle.
We pass lakeside mansions with immaculately manicured lawns, striped boat slips, and the stray weeping willow tilting over the water.
Eric schools me on his unorthodox babysitting best practices, and I soak in the boat ride.
After five years under fluorescent lights and in nonstop meetings, standing under open sky feels like a reset.
I peek behind me. My mom is so at ease she may never wake up. Maybe we both needed the break.
But then he taps me on the shoulder and the energy changes. He points in the distance. “There it is. Big Island. Isn’t it beautiful?”
I shift my gaze and see Big Island rising like a specter from the water.
But it’s not beautiful—it’s haunting. Mist creeps along the surface of the water and then drifts toward the sky, casting the island in an eerie veil.
An impenetrable wall of trees guards the shoreline, their trunks twisted and bent.
In the twilight, the sliver of land appears isolated, imposing.
Black birds circle the canopy, their caws a warning cry.
The air grows noticeably cooler. The lake, narrower and stiller. Darkness cloaks the landscape.
I glance at Eric, but his face reveals none of my trepidation. It’s quite the opposite. His head is high, his chin is up, his eyes twinkle. “Look at that mist! Isn’t it charming? This season, it drifts in nightly. The water’s warm from the summer, then the cool fall air drifts over it, and boom.”
I wrap my arms around myself to ward off the chill. “How did you all decide on Big Island?” I ask in the least judgmental tone I can muster.
Eric flashes a self-satisfied grin as he pulls back on the throttle.
“It was my idea.” He points to a waterway cleaving the center of the island.
“You see that channel? My great-grandfather used to own the land on one half of the channel. I loved visiting as a kid. Back then, the island was even less developed than it is now. It was a paradise. There were animals of all different sorts. Sheep, goats, deer. You could literally walk side by side with the deer. I used to pretend that I’d been stranded on a deserted island. Like in Lord of the Flies.”
“That didn’t turn out great for the kids in Lord of the Flies.”
Eric chuckles, crescents in his kind cheeks. “Yeah, I think I missed that part of the book’s messaging.”
“So, is that where we’re staying? Your great-grandfather’s place?”
A deep line forms between Eric’s eyebrows. He stares into the fog as though searching for a memory. “No, my great-grandfather ran into hard times and sold the place to another family. Didn’t go over well.” His Adam’s apple bobs.
“What’s going on over there?” I gesture toward a scattering of boats anchored in the bay opposite the island.
“That’s Cruiser’s Cove. Used to go there every weekend as a teenager and tie up boats in one massive flotilla. Big parties. You should see it on July Fourth. You can walk from boat to boat for half a mile.”
I smile, but a different memory of July Fourth flits through my mind. When I was eleven, a drunken boater ran over my classmate’s brother while he was swimming.
The propeller split his skull in two.
I shake the thought and return my attention to Eric.
“It’s so isolated out here.”
Eric grins, his gaze drifting over the water. “That’s the appeal. Only accessible by boat. Escaping all the modern distractions. Just being a family.” He gestures to the thick tree line. “And half the island’s a nature preserve. Adds to the isolation.”
His words, meant to evoke freedom, instead encircle me in doubt. The promise of isolation feels more like entrapment now. The outside world can’t reach you here, but neither can help. We approach the island, and the caws of the crows crescendo.
“But what if a storm hits? Don’t you want to be able to drive somewhere?”
“No way.” Again, the long o. “That’s the best part.
Here, you hibernate and shut out the world.
You stop thinking about being somewhere else and just focus on being present where you are.
It’s great to catch up with family and old friends.
Don’t tell the kids, but one of my favorite parts is there’s no Wi-Fi and barely any cell service. ”
We press forward into the mist, and the chill engulfs me.
“Where is the family, by the way?”
“They’re hanging back at the house. It’s the twins’ bedtime, and you know Laelynn. She’s fanatical about staying on schedule.”
I bite my lip and nod. Yes, I know Laelynn. She’s fanatical about everything.