“There’s something about it,” I tell her. “Something familiar. I just wanted a closer look. I didn’t plan on taking it. It means so much to Grace.”
“But why does it mean so much toyou?”
I flop onto the bed, landing hard enough to jostle my ankle. “I wish I knew,” I say with a sigh. “It’s like I’ve seen it before or something, but for the life of me, I can’t remember when or where, and it’s driving me absolutely crazy.”
“Why don’t we try hypnosis?” Taylor suggests, as if she does it all the time.
“You know how to do hypnosis?” Call me skeptical.
“No, but, like, I’m sure we can figure it out,” she says. “It’s got to be on TikTok. You can learn anything there.”
Before I can saydumb idea,we’re watching short videos on how to perform hypnosis, and afterward, even she agrees it would be a waste of time.
I ask Taylor to grab my iPad off my desk. I’m glad it’s fully charged, because I want to search for boxes like the one in question.Taylor does the same, but on her phone. If we can figure out what era it’s from or where it was made, perhaps that will jog a memory. It certainly can’t be any less effective than hypnosis.
Soon I’m scrolling through pictures of boxes: big ones, little ones, some that look like the one I have, but most don’t. I refine my keywords with no success, trying the names of different woods and textures. There’s no make or model, no identifiers on the box whatsoever, so that makes it even harder. I’m about to give up when Taylor thrusts her phone in my face. There’s a wood box in the picture, but not an exact match.
“Look at this room,” she says with a laugh. “Totally eighties.”
It was true. The colors were vibrant—eclectic blues, hot pinks, and neon greens. The clothing styles on display in the many posters covering the walls, along with a cassette player parked next to the wooden box that had caught her eye, marked the era well.
On closer inspection, the box is nothing like the one I took from Grace. But still… there’s something here, something important I can learn from this image. I just know it. Since it’s not the box, perhaps it’s the time period that matters—the eighties, like Taylor said. Then it hits me, and now I think I know why I was so drawn to the box at Grace’s house in the first place.
My breath catches in my throat. Can it be true?
I use my iPad to log in to our family iCloud, where we uploaded all our old photos. I know it’s here. I’ve looked at the picture I’m searching for a thousand times. It hangs on the wall in our living room, haunting my mother, and our home in equal measure. My heart pumps like I’m doing intense cardio.
Eventually, I find it. I zoom in. It’s hard to believe my eyes: a box that looksexactlylike the one in my lap is also right there in my family’s old lake house back in the 1980s, the same era as the picture that jogged my memory. It’s resting on an end table, with my mom standing beside it. Her hair is something to behold—huge bangs that appear to defy gravity and curls that never quit. She’s posing in a denim miniskirt and a concert T-shirt with the wordsDuranDuranabove what must be a rock band.One arm is decorated with bangles, and the other is lovingly draped around her sister, my aunt Susie—or Susie Welch, the second woman to go missing at Lake Timmeny—a kind and beautiful soul whom I would never have the chance to know.
THE LAKE,SUMMER
The surface of the lake glistens, rejoicing in the warmth of the summer sun, while the depths remain cold, dark, foreboding. Beware all who wade too far, who underestimate its power. All life must feed. And the water lives, it breathes, ittakes…
Chapter 25
Julia
Julia went straight for the closet where Erika said she kept the liquor. The bottles were easily accessible and neatly arranged on a large shelving unit off to the side. No big shock: the Maker’s Mark wasn’t there.
She sank to the floor, despondency washing over her. Hewasdesperate enough to steal from their friends.
The idea of Christian restarting his sobriety, getting his first twenty-four-hour medallion (again), and going back to AA meetings—two, maybe three a day—was too much to bear. For Julia, it meant a return to endless worry, fretting anytime she got close enough to smell his breath, and living in constant fear of another relapse. It felt like a crushing weight pressing down on her, even though this was all Christian’s doing.
But shouldering the burden always fell to the woman, didn’t it? If she were the drunk, she’d have to pick up her own damn pieces. Christian—Mr. I-Lost-Your-Lake-House—wouldn’t be her knight in shining armor, that was for sure.
Julia thought about taking a final selfie next to the makeshift liquor cabinet and trying her hand at a pithy caption that would summarize her state of mind.
My husband fell off the wagon, yet I’m the one who got run over.
Or maybe…
When life gives you lemons and your alcoholic husband steals whiskeyto make a whiskey sour, call a divorce attorney.#nojoke #referralswanted
Thoughts of Taylor sprang to Julia’s mind, returning her to the here and now. Shecouldn’tfall apart. She had to be a stable parent and a strong role model for her daughter. God knew Christian wasn’t capable of filling that role.
Julia got to her feet, straightened her clothes, and dabbed tears out of the corners of her eyes. She would figure this mess out andnotlose her family’s lake house in the process.
As she was heading for the door, Julia tripped over a shoebox, but caught her balance thanks to a rolled-up carpet propped against the wall. It was the brown rug that she and Erika had talked about only days ago, the one they both disliked.
