The Rest of the Story

THREE

Middle of the night phone calls are never good news. Never.

“Bridget?” I said, sitting up as I put my phone to my ear. “Is everything okay?”

“My grandpa,” she managed to get out, her voice breaking. “He had a stroke.”

“Oh, my God,” I said, reaching to turn on the bedside lamp before remembering that it, like most of my other stuff, had already been packed. It had been a week since the wedding: Nana’s flight was midmorning; my dad and Tracy were leaving that afternoon. The next day, the movers would come. All that was left was the bed itself, a couple of boxes, and the suitcase I’d packed to bring to Bridget’s the following afternoon. I looked at the clock: it was four a.m. “Is he okay?”

“We don’t know yet,” she said, and now she was crying, the words lost in heavy breaths and tears. “Mom’s taking all of us kids to Ohio to be with him and Grandma. I’m so sorry, Emma.”

“It’s fine,” I said automatically, although now that I was beginning to wake up, I realized this meant I had nowhere to stay once my dad and Tracy left for Greece. “What can we do for you guys?”

She took a shuddering inhale. “Nothing right now, I don’t think. Mom’s just in her total crisis mode, packing suitcases, and Dad’s on hold with the airline trying to find a flight. The boys are still asleep.”

“I can come over,” I offered. “Help get the boys up and ready so you guys can pack.”

“That’s so n-n-ice.” She took a breath. “But I think we’re okay. I just wanted to let you know, so you can make other plans. Again, I’m really sorry we’re bailing on you like this.”

“That’s the last thing you should be worrying about,” I told her. “Just take care of yourself. Okay?”

“Okay.” She took another shaky breath. “Thanks, Emma. Love you.”

“Love you back,” I replied. “Text me an update later?”

“I will.”

We hung up, and I put my phone back on the floor, where it glowed another moment before going black. Outside, the sky was still dark, the only sound the central air whirring, stirring up the curtains at my window. The last thing I wanted to do was go down the hall to my dad’s room, where he and Tracy would still be fast asleep, and throw this wrench into their honeymoon plans. So I didn’t. It could wait until the morning.

“Well,” my dad said, rubbing a hand over his face, “I guess we just reschedule?”

“No,” I said immediately. “That’s crazy. You guys have had this booked for over a year. You’re going.”

“And leaving you to stay here alone?” Tracy asked. “Emma. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but—”

“You’re seventeen, and this place is about to be full of sawdust and subcontractors,” my dad finished for her. “Not happening.”

Nana, sitting at the table with a cup of tea, had been quiet for much of this debate. But I could tell she was mulling this. “Surely there must be someone we’re not thinking of.”

I sighed—I hated that I was the problem—but not before catching my dad rubbing his eyes again under his glasses. It was his tell of tells, the one way I could always be sure he was nervous or stressed. I said, “She’s right. There has to be—”

“Who?” my dad interrupted me. “Bridget’s leaving, Ryan is at camp, your grandmother is about to be on a cruise ship somewhere—”

“Egypt,” I reminded him.

“Actually, Morocco,” Nana said, sipping her tea. “Egypt is Thursday.”

“Thank you,” he said. He rubbed his face again, then snapped his fingers, pointing at Tracy. “What about your sister?”

She shook her head. “Leaving the day after tomorrow to hike the Appalachian Trail. Remember?”

“Oh, right,” he said, his shoulders sinking. “We only talked about it with her at length three days ago.” As proof, he gestured at the stack of wedding gifts and cards, some opened, some not, that had been piled into some nearby boxes for the movers to take to the new place.

“It was a wedding,” I told him. He looked so down I felt like I had to say something. “You talked to a million people.”

This he waved off as Tracy, seated at the table, watched him, a cup of coffee balanced in her hands. In front of her, right where she’d left them the night before, were their passports, the boarding passes she’d printed out after checking in online to their flights—“just to be on the safe side,” she said—and their itinerary. Doodling at some point since, she’d drawn a row of hearts across the top, right over the word DEPARTURE.

“This is crazy,” I said, looking from it back to my dad. “It’s your honeymoon. I’m not going to be the reason the dream trip gets canceled.”

“No one is blaming you,” he said.

“Certainly not,” Nana seconded. “Things happen.”

“Maybe not now,” I said. “But just think of the long-term resentment. I mean, I have enough baggage, right?”

I thought this was funny, but my dad just shot me a tired look. He took my anxiety personally, as if he’d broken me or something. Which was nuts, because all he’d ever done was hold me together, even and especially when the rest of my world was falling apart.

“We reschedule,” he said firmly. “I’ll call the travel agent right now.”

“What about Mimi Calvander?” Nana suggested.

Silence. Then Tracy said, “Who?”

Behind me, I could hear the clock over the stove, which I always forgot made noise at all except during moments like this, when it was loud enough to feel deafening. “Mimi?” my dad said finally. “Waverly’s mom?”

It was always jarring when my mom’s name came up unexpectedly, even when it wasn’t early in the morning. Like she belonged both everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Nana looked at my dad. “Well, she is family. North Lake isn’t too far. And Emma’s stayed with her before.”

“I did?” I asked.

“A long time ago,” my dad said. He’d stopped pacing: he was processing this. “When you were four or so. It was during the only trip your mom and I ever took alone. Vegas.”

A beat. The clock was still ticking.

“Second honeymoon,” he added softly. “It was a disaster, of course.”

“Well, it’s just an idea,” Nana said, taking another measured sip.

“You have to go to Greece,” I told my dad. “It’s your honeymoon, for God’s sake.”

“And this is your grandmother,” he replied, “who you haven’t seen in years.”

“I do know her, though,” I said quickly. He looked at me, doubtful. “I mean, not well. But I remember her. Vaguely.”

“Okay, stop,” my dad said. He rubbed his face again. “Everyone stop. Just let me think.”

It was one of those moments when you can just see the future forking, like that road in the yellow wood, right before your eyes. I knew my dad. He’d give up Greece for me. After all he’d already sacrificed, a whole country was nothing at all. Which was why I spoke up, saying, “Mimi, at the lake. With the moss on the trees. There’s porch swings on the dock. And an arcade down the street you can walk to. And the water is cold and clear.”

He looked at me, sighing. “Emma. You were four.”

“Mom talked about it,” I told him. “All the time.”

This, he couldn’t dispute. Every now and then, he got to hear the bedtime stories, too. “You don’t understand,” he said. “Your mother’s family is …”

He trailed off, all of us waiting for a word that never came.

“And the high tourist season is just getting started,” he continued. “Which means Mimi is probably too busy to take on anything else.”

“I don’t know about that,” Nana said. “It’s been so long, I bet she’d love to see Emma.”

“Sometime,” my dad said. “Not today, this second.”

“But we don’t know that for sure,” I told him. “If she’s really anything like Mom, she’s not much of a planner.”

He looked at me again. “North Lake, Emma … it’s … different. They’re different. It’s not like here.”

“I wouldn’t be moving there,” I told him. “It’s three weeks.”

More silence. More ticking. “You really want me to do this?”

What I wanted was for him to go to Greece and sail that boat across the water there, with Tracy beside him. So I knew what to say.

“Yes,” I said as Nana caught my eye. “Call her.”

All my life I’d thought my mom grew up so far away. But after an hour and a half, we were there.

“Anything look familiar?” my dad asked.

“Every single bit!” I said, my voice bright. “Especially this part right here, the exit ramp.”

He shot me a look I knew had to be sharp, not that I could tell from behind his dark sunglasses. “Hey. Don’t be a smartass. I was just asking a question.”

Actually, what he wanted was reassurance that this would not turn out to be the worst idea in the history of ideas. But the truth was that it was all new to me, and I’d always been a bad liar.

“Wait a second,” I said now as we approached a single red light, blinking, and came to a stop. “There are two lakes?”

He peered at the sign across from us, then smiled. “No,” he said. “Only one.”

It didn’t make sense, though. If that was the case, why was there an arrow pointing to the right that said NORTH LAKE (5 MILES) and another to the left indicating the way to LAKE NORTH (8 MILES). “I don’t get it.”

“What we have here, actually,” he replied, “is one of the great idiosyncrasies of this area.”

“Second only to you using the word idiosyncrasies while sitting at an exit ramp?”

He ignored me. “See, when this place was first settled, it was pretty rural. Working-class people both lived here year-round and came to vacation in the summers. But then, in the eighties, a billionaire from New York discovered it. He decided to build an upscale resort and bought up one whole side of the lakefront to do just that.”

We were still sitting there at the light, but no one was behind us or coming from either direction. So he continued.

“They had a big grand opening for the first summer … and nobody came. As it turned out, the rich folks didn’t want to spend big money to stay at North Lake, because it was so solidly known as a blue-collar vacation spot.” He put on his blinker. “By the second summer, though, the developer figured this out, and incorporated his area as Lake North.”

“Which was the same place.”

“But it sounded like a different one,” he said. “So the rich folks came and bought houses and joined the country club. And from then on, there were two towns. And one lake, that sounded like two, between them.”

Still not a single car had passed or come up behind us at the light. Despite different economies, neither town seemed to have much going on, at least at the current moment. “Let me guess,” I said. “When you came here with Nana in high school, you went left here, to Lake North.”

“Smart girl,” he replied. Then he put on his blinker, and we turned to the right.

It was a short trip. Four stoplights, to be exact, and then another turn onto a two-lane road, past a big sign with blue faded letters that said WELCOME TO NORTH LAKE: YOUR FAVORITE VACATION. Just past it, the motels began.

I lost count after six different establishments, each very similar in appearance. They were all one-story concrete buildings with grass driveways and parking lots, cars in diagonal spots lining the room doors. Most had an office, identified by a hand-lettered sign or an occasional one in neon proclaiming it as such, and many featured flower and rock gardens with yard art out in front. They had names like NORTH LAKE MOTOR INN and LIPSCOMB COURT and THE JACARANDA. Mixed in here and there were trailer parks, but not the kind with big double-wides. Instead, these were the small type you attached to a car and towed, some silver and stainless, others white or painted bright colors. There was so much to see, and all of it new, that even though we were going slowly, I couldn’t process much but a glimpse at a time before the scenery turned to something else.

In fact, I was looking ahead at two mini-golf courses that faced each other from opposite sides of the street—could an economy so small sustain this, I wondered?—when my dad slowed, turning into a drive on our right. It was another hotel, this one a single story of yellow painted concrete and bright blue doors, with a big scripted sign that said only CALVANDER’S. NO VACANCIES.

We pulled in, parking outside the office. As we climbed out of the car, I got my first glimpse of the water, blue and wide. Jutting out into it were a series of long wooden docks. On the one closest to us there were two porch swings hanging by chains, and in the quiet that followed the engine cutting off, I could distantly hear them clanking.

That was the first time I felt it, that twinge of recognition as something from my long-lost past reached out from my subconscious. Splinters, I thought as I looked at the docks again. But as quickly as the memory came, it was gone.

“Matthew? Is that you?”

A woman in shorts and a faded tie-dye T-shirt had come out of the office, the door in the process of shutting slowly behind her. She had white hair cut short, spiking up a bit at the top, and she was small in stature, but formidable in the way she carried herself, like she owned the place. Which, as it turned out, she did.

“Mimi,” my dad said, breaking into a wide smile. “How are you?”

“Better than a woman my age has any right to be,” she told him. As they embraced, I saw she really was very small, with tiny feet, like my mom’s. “You haven’t changed one bit. How is that?”

“Look who’s talking,” my dad said, stepping back to look at her and taking her hands. “You Calvanders, I swear. You don’t age.”

“Tell that to my hips and my knees.” Then she gave me a wink. “And this can’t be Saylor. Can it?”

I suddenly felt shy, and concealed myself a bit more behind the car.

“Emma,” my dad said, correcting my name kindly but clearly, “just turned seventeen. She’ll be a senior this year.”

“Unbelievable,” Mimi said. She looked at me for a minute. “Well, girl, come give your grandma a hug. Lord knows I’ve missed a few.”

I went, still feeling self-conscious as I approached her. As soon as I was close enough, she pulled me into her arms, her grasp surprisingly strong. I returned the hug, a bit less enthusiastically, while towering over her despite the fact that I am hardly a tall person.

After a moment, she released me, then stepped back to study my face, giving me a chance to look at her as well. Up close, I could see the effect of years of the dark tan she’d clearly cultivated in the leathery skin of her neck and face, as well as a penchant for gold braid jewelry (necklace, bracelet, knot earrings) that almost glowed against it. Most noteworthy, though, were her eyes, which were bright blue. Like mine, and my mom’s.

“I’m so glad you came, Saylor,” she told me, now squeezing both my arms. “It’s about time.”

“Emma and I,” my dad said, trying again, “are both really grateful you agreed to let her come visit. We know it’s literally last-minute.”

“Nonsense,” Mimi said. She winked at me again. “You’re family. And you’re not just coming. You’re coming back.”

A car drove by then, the first one other than our own we’d seen in ages. Actually, it was a truck, bright green, and when the driver beeped the horn as they passed, Mimi waved, not taking her eyes off me.

“Dad says I was here before, but I don’t really remember,” I told her, because it seemed like I should start at an honest place, considering. “When I was five?”

“Four,” she replied.

“I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

“I’m good as my word, so I’d welcome that.” Then she turned back to the office door, pulling it open. “But just in case, come inside a second. I want to show you something.”

As I followed her, stepping over the threshold, the temperature dropped about twenty degrees, thanks to the window A/C unit blasting cold air from across the room. I felt like my teeth would start chattering within seconds and saw my dad wrap his arms around himself, but Mimi was unfazed as she walked to the wooden counter, which was covered with a sheet of glass.

“We’re almost out of room here, after so many summers,” she said, leaning over it. “I’m thinking I may have to expand onto a bulletin board or something soon. Not that anybody prints pictures anymore, though, with all this digital this and USB that. Anyway, let me see … I used to know right where it was …”

I stepped up beside her. Under the glass, I saw, were what had to be hundreds of pictures, from old black and whites to dingy Polaroids to, finally, color snapshots. Across them all, as the faces and clothing changed, the scenery and backgrounds remained the same. There was the water, of course, and those long docks, the swings beneath them. The rock garden under the Calvander’s sign. And those yellow cinder blocks, broken up by blue doors. So many faces over so many years, both big group shots clearly taken for posterity and candids of people alone or in pairs. I leaned in closer, looking for my mom, the one face I might be able to pick out. But when Mimi found the snapshot she was looking for, tapping it with a long fingernail, all the people in it were strangers. Small ones.

“Now,” she said, gesturing for me to come closer, “this was the Fourth of July, I believe. Let’s see … there’s Trinity, on the far left, she would have been, what, nine? And next to her is Bailey, she’d be four then also, and Roo and Jacky, who despite the age difference might as well have been twins …”

I wanted to be polite, but was so cold I was losing feeling in my extremities.

“… and then there’s you.” She looked at me, then back at the picture. “Oh, I remember that cute bathing suit! You always did love giraffes. See?”

Me? I bent over the counter. Five little kids—three girls of varying ages and sizes, and two little towheaded boys—sat lined up on a wooden bench, the lake behind them. All held sparklers, although only a couple seemed to still be lit when the shutter clicked. The girl on the far left had on a bikini, her rounded, soft belly protruding; the younger one beside her, long blond hair and a one-piece with a tie-dye print. Then, the two boys, both in bathing suits, shirtless and white-blond, one of them squinting, as if the camera were the brightest of lights. And finally, me, in a brown suit with a green giraffe and the pigtails and home-cut bangs I recognized from other shots of the same period. I was the only one who was smiling.

It was the weirdest feeling, so foreign and familiar all at once, seeing my own face in a place I didn’t recall. I knew the timeline, though. My parents’ marriage was crumbling due to my mom’s drinking and drug use, and by the coming winter, she would be in rehab and we’d move in with Nana. But sometime before all that, lost to my memory, was this trip. I’d clearly known these people well enough to be this comfortable and yet I’d still forgotten them.

“How long did I stay?” I asked Mimi.

“Two weeks, if I remember correctly,” she replied. “It was supposed to be one, but your mama got sick and plans changed.”

Sick, I thought, and only then did I remember my dad. I’d assumed he was listening to this. But he was standing facing the big glass window, looking out at the road, and appeared to be lost in thought.

“Where are all these people now?” I asked Mimi, who was rubbing the glass counter with the edge of her T-shirt, taking out some thumbprints on a low corner.

“Oh, they’re around,” she said. “You’ll see most of them, I’m sure, depending how long you’re here.”

“Three weeks at most,” my dad said now, having at some point tuned back to us. He sounded apologetic. “No change of plans this time, I promise.”

“You know I wouldn’t mind it,” Mimi said. “She can stay as long as she likes.”

There was a creak behind us: the door opening again. With it came a rush of warm, humid air, and an older man in khaki shorts and a golf shirt, a newspaper under his arm, walked in.

“There’s never been peace in that house in the morning, you’d think I’d—” He stopped talking when he saw me, then my dad, standing there. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t realize we had guests checking in.”

“They’re not,” Mimi said. “This is my granddaughter Saylor, Waverly’s girl. And Matthew, remember, I told you about him?”

The man smiled politely, sticking out a hand to my dad. “I’m sure you did. I’m Oxford.”