“Lara?”
“Oh, yeah.” I laugh, waving my hand through the air and nodding. “Skin cancer is no joke.”
But the fixation on sunscreen doesn’t come from being a nurse, it comes from years of applying the stuff to three little bodies, of missing a spot once and watching as Daffy had to pay the price for my mistake; from reading countless studies about skin cancer and heat stroke, and being extra careful with my babies during the summer.
“I bet,” he says, taking up the oars again.
When he said we would be going out on the boat, my stomach flipped. I’d driven myself out to the lake to meet him, heart pounding with adrenaline.
Now that I’m an adult, with a place in the community and a car attached to my name, it’s a lot harder to stay low-key. I parkedfar from Jake’s truck — the same one he had as a teenager — and prayed that nobody would drive past and assume we were here together.
Luckily, it’s a bit chillier today, and there aren’t that many other people out on the lake.
For a while after I gave birth, there were Wildfern residents who speculated over who the father might be. Among the names I heard, Jake’s never came up. We were so far out of each other’s social circles that nobody had ever considered the fact that the valedictorian and hockey team captain might have known each other like that.
Hilariously, many people still insist the kids actually belong to Zachery, despite the fact that they look nothing like him.
My parents have never asked.
“Do you come out here a lot?” Jake asks when the silence has lasted for long enough that I managed to forget he was here. That’s something that never happens to me with other people — feeling so comfortable that it’s almost like I’m by myself.
“Oh.” I shake my head. “No—not really. I hate rowing for myself.”
“Huh, you haven’t found anyone else to row for you?”
“Well, Zachery is horribly terrified of water, and if my parents come out here, they’re going to end up either making out or arguing about protecting public spaces.”
Jake laughs, shaking his head, and I remember that he’s never really met my parents. I kept them far enough apart that he only knows about them through these little tidbits.
“While I’m here, I’ll bring you out as much as you want.”
“I’d love that. But I don’t have a lot of free time these days.”
The moment the words are out of my mouth, I realize it’s another misstep, another thing that might lead Jake to the truth. I feel like a double agent, continuously forgetting my secret identity. Non-mom.
“Because of school and work?” he asks, tilting his head, and the gesture is so familiar from high school that I have the urge to kiss him.
I push the feeling away and nod, adding, “And clinicals. Time that I work for free in exchange for knowledge.”
“That sounds like being a college athlete.” He laughs.
“Hey, I happen to remember you having a couple of sponsorships,” I say, and I realize as soon as the words are out of my mouth that it’s an admission that I’ve been paying attention to him all these years.
He stares at me for a second, like he’s realizing it, too, then he says, “Yeah, I did. That’s a new thing, though. Didn’t used to be like that.”
“I’m glad they changed it.”
“Me, too.”
Silence falls between us again, and we drift along the water quietly, both seemingly lost in thought. There’s a voice in the back of my head (which sounds a lot like my mother) demanding I tell him about the kids. For the first time in my life, I understand the metaphor of having an angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other.
One argues that he’s not going to care, that it won’t change anything except getting the truth on the table. The other argues that if I’ve lied for this long, there’s no point in telling him now.
Except it’s much, much harder to keep the lie up to his face.
“I read your dad’s book,” Jake says, and it makes me laugh.
“His book about the evolution of surgery?”
