She knows I’m leaving for a couple of weeks, and I know a gently disguised order when I hear one. I plop myself down on a seat at the same kitchen table where I did countless hours of homework. Mom’s already got a place setting for me. I take a sip of orange juice that she’s poured into my favorite glass from when I was little—a blue tumbler I thought looked like a sapphire. I wouldn’t drink my juice unless it was poured into the sapphire glass—such a bratty kid.
I wonder if the twins I’ll be watching will be equally annoying. I get the sense that Mom picked that glass on purpose. She doesn’t like that I’ll be away with people she doesn’t know. It makes her uncomfortable. Mom likes order. She wants everything to be as predictable as a tide chart. The hearty breakfast and my childhood dishes are her way of saying that she’s still holding on to me, even as I’m slipping away.
I get it. I’m her only child. She wants to protect me from the monsters she knows exist in the real world. I can’t bring myself to tell her that sometimes I hear her cry in her sleep. I try to put her mind at ease.
“Everything is going to be fine, Mom. There’snothingto be nervous about.”
Nobody, but nobody, could worry about nothing better than my loving and devoted mother, Lauren Greene.
The corners of her mouth crinkle with concern as she plates my eggs. “I know, honey. I didn’t even say anything.”
She has a defensive lilt to her voice, an upward trill that all but confirms my suspicion. “You didn’t have to.” I smile up at her, hoping to convey how much I appreciate her love and caring, though I wouldn’t mind punctuating it with an eye-roll emoji if I could.
“I’m nineteen years old,” I remind her. “I can take care of myself.”
She does the eye roll instead. “Two weeks in Burlington all on your own is a lot. Are you sure the newspaper has housing arranged for you? I really would like a phone number of someone I can call in case of an emergency.”
“Iamthat someone,” I insist. “And everything’s arranged, Mom, just relax. Who knows, maybe I’ll even meet a cute guy, so I won’t be all alone.”
And I’m sure I will. I just don’t tell my mom that the cute guy is only five years old.
“Like that’s supposed to ease my mind.”
Mom kisses the top of my head, and I take in her familiar fragrance. If I could bottle up that apricot scent, I’d put it on whenever I’m in need of a warm embrace. But for these next two weeks, I’ll be on my own.
I glance at my phone discreetly, nervous I’ll be late for the car ride to the lake. Mom can’t provide a lifeline during this venture because I’ve told her I’m attending a prestigious two-week journalism internship at a Vermont newspaper my mother knows and reads.
“We gotta go. I don’t want to miss the bus,” I say.
But there is no bus. I’m being picked up by a man I’ve never met, to be driven to a lake I’ve never been to, in a car I’ve never seen.
I hate that I have to lie to my mother as well as to my new boss.
I’m usually an honest person. Lying is not something I do easily. But some secrets are too dangerous to share.
Chapter 3
Julia
Julia loved the ritual of waking up the house at the start of vacation. She went from room to room, pulling back curtains, clearing dust, putting sheets on the beds, and opening windows, inviting the rejuvenating lake air to fill her home. Even the presence of David’s glass house couldn’t spoil the joy of this tradition.
Everything appeared to be in relatively good shape after the long winter, which was a relief. The roof shingles were intact. There were no signs of leaks. All the plumbing still worked, and Julia didn’t pick up any mildew smells.
If only her business could withstand the test of time as well as the lake house her grandfather had built in the 1950s. While the first few years of owning a VR Gym franchise exceeded expectations, enrollment had been on a steady decline. Once the novelty wore off, membership started to tank, especially in the warmer weather months when people preferred to exercise outdoors.
To make matters worse, the computers powering the virtual reality cycling, running, and rowing machines broke down at a rate far above projections. And the headsets caused dizziness for many members. In the early days, VR gyms had tons of press coverage, and they still had it now, but for all the wrong reasons. She supposed the glass house was good for one thing: plummeting revenues from her failing franchise no longer seemed like a top concern.
When all her chores were done, Julia took a moment to call her folks from the screened-in porch her father had added long before she was born. All was well, though of course Dad complained about the food at their Florida retirement community, and her mom complained about her dad. Some things never changed. Still, they were happy to hear from her, and delighted she was enjoying the house, just wistful that they weren’t able to share in the family vacation. She missed her parents coming to the lake. The place felt a little empty without them.
“Maybe next year,” Julia said to them, though no doubt she’d make the same pledge the following summer. Her mother’s lack of mobility after the double hip replacement would turn any vacation into hell week, and her father didn’t have the stamina (or patience) to deal with airports and long car rides. Besides, his heart might give out if he saw what David had done to his family’s homestead.
Not only had the lake houses been passed down through the generations, the friendships had as well. Julia’s grandfather bought his plot from David’s grandfather, and the two became thick as thieves. Next on the scene was Cormac Gallagher, Erika’s father, who was just a young man when he purchased his parcel in the 1960s. He traveled from New York to Vermont on weekends while his house was being built and became friendly with his neighbors, who were fifteen years his senior.
Cormac waited until later in life to father a child, which worked out in Julia’s favor because she and Erika grew up like sisters, separated by only a couple of years. Sadly, Cormac always said motherhood didn’t suit his wife, who ran off with another man when Erika was still very young, leaving him on his own to raise his daughter.
But the kids always had each other. Even now, a whiff of sunscreen steered Julia back to those youthful summer afternoons when the strong sun baked the ground dry and the lake beckoned them to play in the cool water.
The question on Julia’s mind now was how the David from way back then had become the glasshouse-building jackass of today. If Erika was like a sister to Julia, David was her protective brother.
