Return to Willow Lake (8 page)

Part Three

M
UST
-D
O
L
IST
(
REVISED
,
AGAIN
)

sublet
apartment

return
library books

repay
student loans

realign
priorities

really
fall in love (no, seriously)

What we remember from childhood we remember forever—permanent
ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.

—C
YNTHIA
O
ZICK
, A
MERICAN
WRITER
,
B
.
1928

Chapter Five

Sonnet awakened as the train from the city lurched into
the station at Avalon. Just for a moment, she felt fuzzy and disoriented, her
sleepy mind flipping through all her many homecomings. As a new, homesick
college student, she’d arrived with a sense of relief, eager to be enfolded in
the comfort of her mother’s arms. During her various internships overseas, she’d
visited less often, but always with appreciation. Yet as time went on, the town
where she’d been born and raised seemed smaller and smaller to her, with less
and less to tie her to the pretty lakeside hamlet. While her world was
expanding, Avalon remained the same.

She felt strange about this homecoming, for a lot of reasons.
It made her seem like she was going backward into a world where she no longer
fit or belonged.

Grabbing her bags from the luggage rack, she stepped down to
the platform and looked around. Same little burg, with its picturesque square,
the old brick buildings huddled shoulder-to-shoulder, their striped and
scalloped awnings shadowing the shops and businesses she’d walked past every day
as she was growing up.

She noticed a bit of commotion on another car as a group of
people got off, lugging hard cases of equipment and rolls of cable on hand
trucks. There were a couple of guys and women, dressed mostly in black, looking
around as if they’d stepped off a spacecraft onto an alien planet. One of the
guys wore a black baseball cap with the logo MFP, and the equipment boxes were
marked Mickey Flick Productions.

Sonnet thought they might be a camera crew. Back when her
mother served as the town mayor, she’d set up a volunteer film commission to
attract business. A place like Avalon didn’t see much action, but every once in
a while a crew came through to create footage of the quaint town, or of fall
foliage or sometimes aerial views of the area. It was a place that seemed frozen
in time, achingly pretty, useful for establishing a historic or generic small
town setting. A few years back, there had been a public television documentary
on the annual Christmas pageant that had created quite a stir.

The PBS camera crew hadn’t looked like this bunch, however.
These people had that edgy East or West Coast look. They consulted smartphones
and lit up cigarettes before moving en masse to a large panel van parked in the
commuter lot.

Seeing a camera crew reminded her of Zach Alger. He was the
last person she wanted to think about, but she couldn’t help herself. God, those
kisses. Those hands. The things he’d whispered in her ear. Even now, she felt an
unbidden spasm of desire at the mere thought of him. It was ridiculous, feeling
turned on by a man she had no business thinking about.

Squaring her shoulders, she took out her new phone and sent a
text to Max Bellamy, her stepbrother, who had offered to pick her up.
In the parking lot
, he texted back.
Need help with bags?
She indicated that
she did not, and rolled her luggage toward Max’s slightly beat-up Subaru.

Max stood in his shirtsleeves, one hand in his jeans pocket,
his hip cocked at a jaunty angle. He attended college in Hamilton, where he
liked to say he majored in beer and girls. With his surfer-blond good looks, he
took after his dad, Greg Bellamy, though his air of easy charm was something
that belonged to Max alone. Sonnet liked him well enough, but she would never
understand him. He came from a great family—he was a
Bellamy
, for heaven’s sake—yet he seemed to be in no hurry to find
his life.

“Hey, you,” she said, giving him a hug. He’d topped six feet a
few years ago, and he moved with easy grace as he loaded her bags in the back.
“Thanks for picking me up.”

“Sure. Your mom’s going to go nuts when she sees you.”

“She’s already nuts. Seriously, Max.
Pregnant?
” It felt weird just saying it aloud. Her mother—her
over-forty mother—was pregnant. When Nina had first told her, Sonnet had been
speechless with disbelief. Then she’d accused Nina of telling a bad joke. “I’m
still in shock. How about you?”

Max rolled out of the parking lot and headed toward the Inn at
Willow Lake, which Nina and Greg owned and operated. “It’s cool with me. I mean,
yeah, it’s weird because we’re so much older than little Junior or Juniorette is
going to be, but…” He shrugged. “Red Bull?” He offered her a sip of his
drink.

“Uh, no, thanks.” She tried not to ingest things that had
ingredients she couldn’t pronounce. She looked out at the scenery—the covered
bridge over the Schulyer River, the hills draped in sunlit green. As they neared
the inn, she glimpsed the lake in the distance, shining like a jewel. “Hey, I
saw a camera crew get off the train. Know anything about that?”

“Some kind of top-secret production is going to be starting.
That’s the word, anyway,” Max said, flashing his thousand-watt grin. “Maybe
they’ll make me a star.”

“You wish.”

He turned into the gravel-paved lane leading to the Inn at
Willow Lake. As always, it was lush and gorgeous, perfectly planted and
maintained, a testament to Greg Bellamy’s skill as a landscape architect.
“There’s some producer named C. Bomb staying at the inn,” Max said. “He’s like
the head of the outfit or something.”

“C. Bomb?”

“That’s what he calls himself. Clyde Bombardier or something
like that. Spends all day glued to his laptop, gabbing on his Bluetooth.”

“So, not your typical guest.” The inn was known as a place for
romantic getaways. “And he’s not telling people what he’s up to?”

Max shrugged. “His business. I guess we’ll find out soon
enough.”

“And my mom? My pregnant mom?” Sonnet was still trying to get
her mind around the concept. When she’d told Orlando, he’d merely wondered why
Sonnet had to go haring off to Avalon simply because her mom was expecting.
Orlando didn’t get it. It wasn’t every day a grown woman discovered her mother
was going to have a baby.

“
Her
business,” Max said reasonably
enough. “I’m sure the two of you will be up half the night discussing it.”

* * *

Nina was sound asleep. Sonnet tiptoed into the house,
which had once been a caretaker’s cottage on the estate that had become the Inn
at Willow Lake. She found her mother on a daybed in the living room, covered in
an afghan, softly snoring. Quietly setting down her things, she paused to study
Nina. Did she look different, or was that just Sonnet’s imagination? She just
looked like…Mom, with her pretty Italian features and thick black hair, which
she’d grown long enough for a ponytail, her dark eyelashes shadowing cheeks that
looked slightly gaunt. You’re pregnant, Sonnet thought. You’re supposed to be
glowing.

“Mom,” she said softly.

Nina’s eyes fluttered open. Her mouth unfurled into a smile.
“Hi, baby.” Her favorite pet name for Sonnet now took on new meaning. “Thanks
for coming.”

Sonnet hurried over to the daybed and they hugged. Her mother
smelled like Pond’s lotion, a warm scent that took Sonnet back to her girlhood.
She shut her eyes, and in a swift sequence she remembered all the hugs they’d
shared through the years. During her childhood, the two of them had been
inseparable, making their way through life together. There were tough years,
there were times Sonnet yearned for a father or for something that looked like a
two-parent family, but ultimately, the two-alone dynamic brought them closer.
They were more than just mother and daughter; they were best friends.

“It’s the middle of the day and you’re sleeping,” Sonnet
said.

“The prerogative of pregnant ladies.”

It felt completely surreal to Sonnet. “So you weren’t kidding
about being pregnant.”

Nina scooted up to a sitting position. “Not kidding. Not the
sort of thing any woman kids about.”

There was a bottle of prenatal vitamins and a prescription
bottle for something Sonnet didn’t recognize next to a glass of water on the end
table. Reality started sinking in. Sonnet’s mother was pregnant. “Are you
showing yet?”

Nina smoothed a hand down her midsection. “Not too much.”

Sonnet couldn’t help staring. “Not there, anyway. But wow, Mom.
You’ve had a visit from the boob fairy. Your girls are looking good.”

Nina waved her hand and glanced away. “I’m not really focused
on that.”

“Well then…congratulations. It’s really exciting, Mom. Just
unexpected. You caught me off guard. The last thing I thought I’d hear from you
is that you’re having a baby.”

Nina smiled. “You’ll get used to the idea. Greg and I are so
happy.”

“That’s great.” Sonnet was surprised to feel the tiniest twinge
of jealousy, followed by a cold wave of shame. Her mother and Greg were totally
in love, they were having a baby together, and she
was
happy about it. Yet there was a small, selfish part of her that
wished she’d had the childhood this baby was going to have—two doting parents, a
storybook-pretty life in this cottage near the lake. It was a stark contrast to
the drafty rentals she and Nina had lived in, with Nina working all the time,
trying to make ends meet.

“How are you feeling?” Sonnet asked, shifting gears into
good-daughter mode. “Besides tired, I mean.”

“I feel…I’ll be fine,” Nina said firmly. “Perfectly fine.”

“So is it a boy or girl?”

“We considered leaving that unanswered, but I just had to know.
I’ve already had the amnio, and what we know so far is that the baby is healthy
and growing on schedule. And it’s a boy.”

“A boy.” Sonnet felt a genuine smile unfurling on her lips.
“I’m going to have a baby brother. That just seems so incredible.”

“Okay, I’m getting a little insulted by how incredible you
think it is. For a teen mom, I didn’t do half bad, right? As an older mom, I’ll
manage,” Nina said. “So, welcome home, my prodigal child,” she added. “How long
can you stay?”

“Today, plus the weekend. I wish it could be longer, but
there’s work.”

“And the fellowship. Oh my gosh, baby, I’m so thrilled that you
got the fellowship. You’re amazing, do you know that?”

Sonnet hugged her mother again. “I’m feeling like a pretty big
deal these days.”

“You should feel like a big deal every day. I’m ridiculously
proud of you. This is a huge opportunity, isn’t it?”

“The biggest. I have a meeting next week to find out my
assignment. Two years overseas…somewhere. I can’t wait to find out.”

A shadow flashed across Nina’s face. Maybe Sonnet imagined it.
Then she guessed her mother’s thoughts. “Oh, God. I won’t be here when the baby
comes. Mom—”

“Stop right there. You don’t need to be here for the birth. The
baby won’t know the difference.”

“But you will. Mom, I could ask—”

“No,” Nina interrupted again. “This is the opportunity of a
lifetime. You’ve been working toward this since the day you left home. No way
are you going to pass it up.”

Sonnet felt her eyes misting up. “You’re the best, you know
that?”

“I’ve always told you so.” Nina stood up and folded the
afghan.

Sonnet studied her mother. “I thought pregnancy was supposed to
make you fat. You look tiny, Mom. Are you eating okay?”

Nina fussed with the blanket, arranging it on the back of the
chaise. “I’ve been having morning sickness. Come on. Let’s go find Greg. He
promised to make his famous barbecued chicken tonight. You want to see if Zach
can come over?”

Sonnet bit her lip. It was completely normal to invite Zach to
dinner. Absolutely, completely normal. Through the years, he’d been like a
family member. “Maybe another time,” she said.

“Am I hearing you right? You haven’t been home since Daisy’s
wedding, and you’re not seeing Zach?”

“Uh, not tonight, okay?”

“Sure, suit yourself.” Nina winced a little as she started
toward the door.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Sonnet asked.

“I’m fine.” Nina squeezed her hand.

Yet as Sonnet followed her out of the room, she was struck by
the strangest notion that something was afoot. She’d been away far too long.