The Lake (The Lake Trilogy, Book 1) (2 page)

The service is being held at the cemetery, so we don’t have to follow in some depressing funeral parade across town to bury Gramps. The crowd of about thirty walks the path from the building while they put the coffin in the hearse and drive it to the gravesite. By the time we get there, they’ve already got everything set up for the graveside portion of the service. It’s June, almost the hottest time of the year in Central Florida. I can smell the freshly turned dirt from where they dug Gramps’ grave. It’s raw and musty and my gag reflex reacts in just the smallest of heaves. There’s a green tent with chairs set up under it but it’s still hot even in the shade. The sun is blazing and I think I saw that the high is supposed to be 98 degrees. It rained yesterday, so that makes today both hot and humid. This is good only because I can pretend that my tears are really beads of sweat rolling down my face.  I don’t like to cry at all, let alone in front of anyone. 

The funeral director says a few words, and then the priest from the church that Gram and Gramps attended on Christmas and Easter gives a short message. Several people lay flowers on his coffin, with me leading. Then it’s over.

“He was such a good man,” one woman says to me as she passes by and pats my shoulder. I’m glad that was all she said.

“Yes, he was,” is all I can squeak out.

I stay to the very end. Some suggest I go home and relax, but that’s a ridiculous idea since all that waits for me there is the stress of packing up a house where two people spent their entire lives together. I spent the last five years there, but did not
live
.

I insist on staying to watch them lower Gramps’ coffin into the ground. I’m watching this beautifully ornate box with my grandfather’s body inside inch its way into the earth and all I want to do is jump on top of it and go with him. Through everything, he never made me feel guilty. I suppose he knew that Gram was dishing out enough. He was the only ray of light I had in five years
and now he’s gone.

In this moment I feel so alone. Life is crumbling around me. I’m headed into a multitude of unknowns, so torn between what my heart is screaming at me to do –
Go, Layla! This is your chance to start over!
– and clinging to the only ill-fitting life I’ve known for the last five years. I’ve spent so long being strong and now there’s no one left to take care of – no one but myself.

This has to be it though.
I’m tired of living in this place of eternal misery. I woke up every day knowing it was just another day in a prison sentence of undetermined years.

I see Luke and Claire in my periphery and I know that this is th
e opportunity I’ve wanted for so long. My penance has been paid and I am now free. I may not know much about Luke and Claire, but what I do know is that they are my only shot at getting my life back.

“Layla? Are…you ready to go? I don’t want to rush you, but we’ve still got a lot to tackle in the next few days,” Luke says in a hushed, reverent tone. I feel the warmth of his hand as he starts to rest it on my back, but then he seems to change his mind because he steps to the side and puts his hands in his pockets.

I wipe the tears that were welling up in my eyes, and then wipe my forehead too so it looks like I was just sweating. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

I declined the idea of having some kind of reception after the funeral. I hated the idea of everyone mingling around, eating casseroles and pie, and talking about Gramps in a steady stream of past
tense phrases and stories. Gramps’ death didn’t need to take up everyone’s day either.

When we arrive back at the house I don’t even bother to change my clothes. I dive in immediately to a stack of papers on the kitchen counter. There’s so much to file through that everything is starting to blur together. Most of it is old junk mail that just never got thrown away and miscellaneous papers that were shoved into random drawers around the house. When I reach the bottom of the stack I find a manila folder with Gracehaven Boarding School for Girls written on it. I open up the folder wondering when Gram and Gramps entertained
the idea of sending me to boarding school.
Whoa this place is expensive!
I can only assume they would have used my college fund to pay for it. It’s not much, but probably enough to pay for a few years. I scan the application and see that it’s dated for three days ago and signed by Luke and Claire. My heart stops.

“Ready for a break? Luke’s going to run out a
nd pick up some food,” Claire says as she and Luke enter the kitchen. The visual of this application is rolling around in my head like a pinball and I haven’t had to time to process it at all.

“Are you…sending me to boarding school?” I ask abruptly.

“Oh…Layla…” Claire says in quiet shock. Obviously this is not how they planned on telling me. “We were going to talk with you about that tomorrow.” Claire is nervous, her voice faltering.

“You don’t want me to live with you
,” I stutter out. It’s not a question but an observation. I feel so stupid. I actually believed that they were riding in like knights on white horses to free me from the prison I’d been living in, but the reality is that they want to send me to another prison.

“No, Layla
. That’s not it at all,” Luke protests. He takes a step forward and it’s the most emotion I’ve seen from him since they arrived.

“What is it? I’m too old? You’re too busy? You don’t want a kid around?” How could my gut be so wrong?

“It’s not like that. We…” Luke stammers.

“I’m not going to be any trouble. I promise. I just…I need to get out of here. I need…I need a real home.” I pause as I watch Luke and Claire look at each other, not knowing what to do now that I’ve interrupted their plan. “But…if that’s not what you want, I understand. I don’t want to be anywhere I’m not welcome anymore.”

“It’s complicated, Layla. Claire and I…” Luke begins but Claire cuts him off.

“We didn’t th
ink you’d want to live with us,” Claire explains awkwardly.

“Well…don’t I get a say?” I plead.

“Of course you do,” Claire says softly. There’s a surprised smile on her face.

“I’d…like to come with you…if that’s ok.” I squeak out the first declaration of my
own desire in five years and beam with pride on the inside.

Claire steps forward and takes me by the shoulders. “You are
more
than welcome to live with us. We want you, Layla.” Claire’s tone is soothing and evokes a feeling of belonging in me that I haven’t felt in a long time. Her words echo in my ears and I think I’m going to cry.

“Ok. Thank you,” I say after a moment. I watch Luke and Claire smile at me and then
at each other.

“Good. No more talk about boarding school or living anywhere but with us. Ok?” Claire says brightly. I nod in reply and smile as best I can.

We spend the next two days cleaning and packing up the house. Luke handles the items in the attic. I’ve never been up there, and won’t have a clue what I’m looking at, so I let him decide what should be kept.  I figure it’s probably stuff he’ll recognize from his childhood and will know better. Luke and Claire take just a few things from the house and let me decide what to do with the rest. I determine that donating it to the church is the best thing. I’m keeping only a few things. Old photos, the blanket Gramps used to snuggle up in with me when I was little and both Gram and Gramps’ wedding rings. It doesn’t seem right for them to go to just anyone.

And ju
st like me, the rest of it is being set free from this place.

When everything is finally either packed or donated and the house is completely empty I stand in the living room where Gramps’ favorite chair used to be. I breathe a few deep breaths and inhale the last lingering scent of Gramps’ aftershave and the muskiness of the furniture that Gram picked out when they got married. I close my eyes and listen to the walls cre
ak, as if they’re releasing me, saying goodbye. I nod in silent thanks in return for the shelter they provided, and I thank my lucky stars that I won’t have to live in this house for another second. I adjusted to life here and paid my penance for what I did. The time has come for me to live my life again. I take one last look around and then leave through the front door, never looking back.

I walk slowly to the rental car. This is my moment to be free, to find myself again. As I watch Luke and Claire my heart begins to beat faster, pounding so hard inside my chest that I’m sure they can hear it. They have no idea how they are changing my life. More than anything right now I want to make this work. I’m ready. I had been old with Gram and Gramps for five years. No more. Gramps’ death has pardoned me, and Luke and Claire are carrying me into a new life where everything I have dreamed of is finally coming true. Step one of this process is getting as far away from this place as possible.

I get in the car and find myself lost in thought. I think about Luke and Claire and wonder what life will be like with them, remind myself of what my mom always told me. “Your gut will never lie to you, Layla,” she’d say.

“Layla, you need to buckle up, dear,” Claire says.

“I’m sorry. What?” We’re on the plane when I wake from my haze and come back to reality.

“We’re about to take off. You’ve got your head in the clouds a little early
,” Claire says sweetly. I echo her smile and buckle my seatbelt before the flight attendant comes by to reprimand me.

We arrive in Charlotte and Claire and I wait outside baggage claim while Luke gets the car. The weather is warm, but not like Florida. Still, we ride with the windows up and the air on full blast. Both Luke and Claire ask me if I enjoyed the flight. It was my first time flying and they seem genuinely interested.

“It was good,” is all I say.

The drive from the airport is pleasant and beautiful. The highway is lined with trees and peppered with shopping plazas, gas stations, and restaurants.
I’ve never seen so much green. Then, like a gift in my tragic hour, there is water on either side of the highway in the form of a behemoth size lake. The sign reads “Lake Norman” and I wonder how close to the water my new custodians live, reminding myself just how much I miss the ocean.

My
days spent at the beach as a child were the most wonderful of my life. Most of the best days we had as a family were spent playing in the sand and the ocean from morning until sunset. My parents taught me to appreciate the kind of peace, comfort, and joy that only the ocean can bring.

The drive off the highway to Luke and Claire’s house is beautifully different
from anything I’d ever seen in Florida. The town I grew up in is pretty much one big city. There are neighborhoods, but no real suburbs separate from a big center-city. As we get farther from the interstate Claire tells me they live in an area of town that is very nostalgic. “It’s a cute little town with mom-and-pop shops and restaurants. Oh, and there’s a library,” she says excitedly.

I hope the library is a good one. If there’s one trait of my mother’s that I never let go of it was my love of books. When I was little we used to take the stories we had read over and over and play the
“What if…?” game.
What if…Old Mother Hubbard found a million dollars in the cupboard?
I feel a smile creep onto my face at the thought of her.

Their neighborhood streets are lined with tall, leafy trees, and I think I just saw someone actually pick up after their dog. As we drive up to their house I suddenly feel like Annie arriving at Daddy Warbucks’ mansion.
Gramps seriously downplayed Luke and Claire’s success. It’s the biggest house I’ve ever seen. W
hy do they have such a big house if it’s just the two of them?

It’s much nicer than the houses I
lived in. The house is white, two stories, with a front porch that extends the length of the house, and dark shutters. Blue, possibly black. It looks like it belongs on the cover of a Martha Stewart magazine, except I think Martha reserves the cover for herself.  The steps to the porch are wide enough that we can all walk up together…
with
our luggage. The big, red door has a window on the top half covered by a small curtain on the inside with little blue flowers. They’re slightly open and I unsuccessfully try to get a peek inside before Luke unlocks the door and lets us all in.

The house is beautiful and decorated exquisitely. The fragrance filling the room is just the right scent of flowers. Clean, not overwhelming. The like-something-out-of-a-magazine theme continues with elegant furniture and accent pieces strategically placed throughout the room. I want to ask Claire if she decorated
the house herself or if she had a professional do it, but I think that might sound rude, so I don’t.

“Well, here we are. Would you like to see your room? Then I can give you a tour of the house, if you’d like,” Claire asks as I nervously stumble to set my luggage down. She turns just as she’s asking and I think she’s trying to catch me before I drop my bags and possibly disturb the room. Too late. The wheels of my suitcase catch and flip the corner of the rug, and my backpack knocks a few pillows off the couch. Luke catches a falling vase and I freeze.
No, no, no Layla! This is not part of the plan. In fact, it’s the opposite of the plan! You’re trying to make this work, not make them regret taking you in from the first second you walk through the door!