Chapter 22 Hazel
HAZEL
The next morning, I’m up before the sun.
The guest bedroom’s window overlooks the bay, giving me a front-row seat to streaks of peach and gold trickling over the horizon, the colors lazily stretching across the sky.
I’m aware of every passing second, grounded firmly in this moment, in this room, in this bed.
The sun looks like it’s climbing up out of the water before it takes a rest, bobbing on the surface like a beach ball.
It’s a once-a-day occurrence, but catching the sunrise now, here, over the water…
it somehow feels like a stroke of luck. Within a few minutes, the rays poke through the curtain, stirring Logan awake.
He rolls onto his side, bumping into me. His eyes slowly blink open.
“Hi,” I say, brushing his hair off his forehead.
“Hey,” Logan says, his throat husky. It’s his sleepy voice. My heart squeezes at this. I want to know all his voices. “How long have you been awake?”
“Long enough to hear you mumble my name.”
“We were on a lobster boat,” he says, running his hand down his face. “But it was an actual giant lobster that was carrying us over the water, like a boat, and then you fell overboard. Well, more like overclaw because that’s the part we were on.”
“Did you come in after me?”
Logan shakes his head decisively. “Nope, you didn’t want me to. You swam alongside us.” He gives me a soft smile.
I want to curl up in those curved lines that form on his cheeks. I settle for kissing them instead. “Normally I don’t love listening to people’s dreams,” I admit. “Yours I like, though.” I roll onto my side to face him. “I was thinking… I want to get ahead of the news with my family.”
“You’re reading the tree leaves,” Logan says.
“Yeah. I don’t want to wait around living in fear. And I haven’t been to the lake house in a while. It would be nice to see it.”
And Dad’s not responding to any of my calls or messages. We only have a couple of weeks left. We need a plan.
Logan rubs his eyes. “I can understand that.”
“Would you mind dropping me off at the rental car place? I’ll be heading out a little early.”
He sits up. “Your dad’s in upstate New York, right? We’ll go together.”
“We were hardly here. I don’t want to take you away from your family.”
“We’ll have breakfast with everyone and then leave after that.”
“It’s really not a—”
“I’m coming with you,” Logan says, kissing my knuckles. “We weather storms together.”
“Well, isn’t this my lucky day?” Dad says when he swings the door open and finds us on the other side.
Great. He’s cheerful. A good mood should help.
“Surprise,” I say with a little wave of my hands. “Hope it’s okay we’re dropping by unannounced.”
Without any unexpected stops this time, the drive didn’t take as long as it did yesterday. Getting back to the city tonight should be another three hours.
“It’s your home, too,” Dad says.
Home. Something about this place doesn’t look like the home it once felt like.
The exterior paint is peeling. Shingles from the roof are missing.
The second step up to the front door has sunken in on itself.
Houses require a lot of maintenance. Especially lake houses.
There’s erosion, water damage, dock maintenance, repairs, various insurance, and higher property taxes.
I wonder if Dad ever looks at the spreadsheet that I created for him with the annual checklist of tasks to take care of. I make a mental note to resend—
“Rick Yen.” Dad’s voice cuts through my thoughts.
“Logan Wells,” Logan says, shaking Dad’s hand.
“Come on in,” Dad says, ushering us through the door. “Game’s on, and I’m making a burger. Let me throw some extra patties in the pan.”
When this house was my grandparents’, they didn’t own a TV. Grandpa’s favorite yellow chair faced out toward the lake, which he called “nature’s television.” That chair has now been replaced by a dark-gray reclining sofa.
“Where’d grandpa’s chair go?” I ask.
Dad sets his grill glove on the kitchen counter that we’re all gathered around. “Eh, it was practically falling apart.”
What I hear: I needed the money.
“It was well loved,” I say.
“I won that sofa,” Dad says with a proud grin. “There’s nothing like loafing around on something you got for free!”
“What about the La-Z-Boy you won?” I ask.
“That thing was getting old. It was time for something new,” he says.
“I once won a Cuisinart bread maker for winning a crossword puzzle contest,” Logan says, probably at the mention of the word “loaf.”
Dad’s eyes light up. “You brought a winner into the house,” he says, clapping Logan on the back. “Can you stay for this game? I’ve got money on the Giants making three touchdowns in the first half.”
“We actually don’t have much time,” I interject.
My eyes dart over to the living room wall where a rustic hutch used to hold all of Grandma and Mom’s antique finds.
Those are gone, too. “We need to get back to the city tonight. This isn’t a pop by for fun.
I need to talk to you.” To Logan, I say, “I got this.”
Logan nods and squeezes my hand before slipping out the back door that leads down to the dock. From here, I can tell there are two missing boards on it. Next to it, though, is a shiny red boat.
“Another win?” I ask, dragging my eyes back to Dad.
“You want tomatoes?” Dad asks, ignoring my question.
“I’ll do it,” I say, grabbing a cutting board to slice tomatoes and onions. “So, Dad—”
“Let me guess,” he interjects. “You’re here to talk about the plan.”
“Yes. Yeah. That’s part of it,” I say, thinking through what I have rehearsed. A last-minute thought interjects. Maybe while I’m here, I can convince Dad to transfer the house into my name, so this doesn’t happen again. “We still have a little time. We do need to act fast, though.”
“We?” Dad says, raising his eyebrows. He adds two more patties to a platter.
“The house is under your name, so yes, we. I did the math. We owe—”
“What am I missing here?” Dad asks. “You’re still saying ‘we.’ ”
I resist the urge to audibly sigh. “If you let me finish, I’ll tell you.”
“Hazel, I don’t have the money right now for the payments.”
“But you put money on the game…” I say, pointing toward the TV with my knife.
“Well, yeah,” Dad says with a shrug. “If I win, then I’ll have money, but that isn’t the point.
Even then, I still won’t have enough to cover it all.
” He looks at me expectantly. “You do, though. I’m a little confused on why you’re dragging this out.
” Dad peers over my head at the TV. “We’re up one touchdown, and I need to see how the rest plays out. ”
“Dragging out…” And then it clicks. We’ve really been on different wavelengths this entire time. For our entire lives, really. “Oh. You know.”
Dad’s practically shaking with excitement. “My daughter wins the lottery and waits weeks to tell her old man. Don’t you know what a big deal this is for us?”
I slice down on the tomato a little too hard.
“I always knew one day our luck would turn,” he continues. “You were always on me about those tickets and yet look at you now.” He chuckles. “The irony! That was a hefty chunk of change, too.”
“What have you seen?” I ask.
“There were all those photos, Hazel. The disguises were very funny.”
“So you already knew who Logan was when we got here.”
“Well, he looks a little different now,” Dad jokes. “Thought it was all part of your big reveal.” He frowns. “What’s wrong? Has the money not come in yet? It should’ve—”
“It’s not that,” I say. “I just… I haven’t decided what to do with it yet.”
Dad cranes his neck toward me, his forehead crunching in confusion. He laughs through a smile. “Well, I wouldn’t mind an early Christmas gift,” he says, as if I were welcoming suggestions. “Raising you kids wasn’t cheap. Man, I had no idea until Jerry sent me that link—”
“Wait, Jerry told you? Jerry knows?”
“I guess he saw it on social media?”
I blink. “You’re talking to him?”
“Uh, yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”
“What do you talk about?” I ask.
“What’s with the interrogation? I’m not allowed to talk to my own son?” Dad asks, grabbing American cheese slices from the fridge. “Hey, can you stay until next week? Jerry’s coming by, and it’d be nice for us to celebrate together.”
This freezes me in place.
“Jerry’s coming?” I say, vaguely. I have no idea what he’s told Dad. He hasn’t updated me in days. He did say he’d tell him about his situation when the time was right. That could’ve been… anytime he felt the time was right.
Maybe he and Danielle will roll up in their van, and his broken legs will be a surprise to garner sympathy. He shouldn’t be putting weight on his legs yet, but maybe they found a way to make him comfortable in their drive across the country.
“Next week,” Dad says again, slower this time. “I have a good feeling for when he gets here. My luck always turns when Jerry comes to visit. I’ve got my eye on a couple of games.”
“And you’re going to take care of him?” I ask. “How long will he be here?”
Dad grabs ketchup from the fridge. “Just for a few days before he’s off to New Hampshire. Or was it Vermont? Wherever you can see the leaves change colors. Young people have so much energy. I envy everyone in their twenties.”
“He’s thirty-two,” I say.
Dad squirts a spiral onto the bottom of each bun. “Is he? I thought you were thirty-two.”
“I’m younger.”
“You’ve always seemed older.”
No kidding.
“Ah, shit. You just had a birthday, didn’t you?” he asks. “I’m working on getting you something nice. I just need some more time.”
“I don’t care about that. Don’t get me anything.”
Dad balks. “Of course I’m gonna get you something.”
“Seriously, don’t. The best present you can get me is to talk through a plan. I worked out a couple of ideas—”
“What ideas? You’re loaded now. Pay off the missing amounts. You can afford to pay the increased payments now, too!”
“You think I should pay off the entire amount?”
“You do want the house, don’t you?”