“How in heaven’s name did you manage that?”

“I think we can give credit to Hope, in a backward kind of way. I swallowed my pride and went to Louise. I told her our girls need us and we can’t fail them a second time. Megan is sick, Hope is in the hospital, Krista is trying to get on her feet—we need to stop being angry and start supporting each other. We talked about everything. We talked all through the night. I think there’s more talking to do, but unless I missed all the signals, Lou is ready to make amends, too.”

Beverly’s voice was very quiet. “I haven’t seen her in twenty-seven years. I’m sure she still hates me.”

“I don’t think she ever hated you, Beverly. For a while she was angry with the world, and who wouldn’t be. But it’s been a lifetime. Surely we can all move on in a lifetime. You haven’t seen very many of our family.”

“Will Hope be okay?” she asked.

“I think so. But it’s up to her. Krista has a good chance—she’s a new person and she’s amazing. Meg... I don’t know what to expect. I’ve seen her a few times and she says she feels well but the disease and the treatment have taken their toll.”

“And you, Mom? Are you okay?”

“I’m better than I’ve been in a long time, Beverly. I felt like I was in a holding pattern all this time and now I’m finally doing something. I’m making some plans, taking care of my girls, back in touch with my sister, spending time with my nieces, texting my granddaughters. I must start texting with Alex and Becca. Will you give them my number and ask them to try me? Tell them their grandma is rocking it—that’s what Bobbi and Trude say. They taught me. I’m messing up all the acronyms, of course—they love that and LOL like mad.”

Beverly laughed.

“I’ll talk to Louise, Beverly. I’ll make sure she’s made peace with that night Bunny drowned. If she hasn’t, I won’t lie to you. All right?”

“All right. Does Krista have a phone?”

“Not yet. Charley shares hers but I’m thinking of gifting her one.”

“Will you ask her to call me? It’s been so long.”

“Of course. And if you decide you’d like to show her the farm, she’s really figuring out the bus.”

“Mom? Will you please tell Aunt Lou I’m sorry?” she said.

Beverly hadn’t said anything like that in many years and it broke Jo’s heart. She didn’t want her reliving the pain of it. “If you’d like me to, sure. But, Beverly, she knows it was an accident. Kids just doing what kids do—no malice and no wickedness, just a very sad accident. You have children—you know how hard we try to keep them from taking chances and we know they do, anyway. That night, that freak storm, it was just the wrong place at the wrong time...”

“That night it was Bunny who wanted to go, not me. But it was me other nights. It was my idea first, a year before. It was as much fun to sneak around, spy on our big sisters, creep out of the house and take out the boat after dark as anything we did at the lake. We used to spy on you and Aunt Lou. Listen to what you said.”

“You did?” Jo said.

“Sure. We were never very sure what you were talking about, though. Usually complaints about Daddy and Uncle Carl.”

That night, she thought. That night she hid in the boathouse to listen in on Ivan and Corky the boat was there so the girls hadn’t gone out.

All this time that Beverly had felt the accident was her fault, Jo and Lou had felt the same way—that they’d been preoccupied with Ivan and Corky, that they hadn’t been paying enough attention, letting the kids run wild. Not only were Bunny and Beverly sneaking out in the boat, Charley got pregnant!

“You’d been doing that for a year?” Jo asked.

“Yes. The big girls got to go to the parties with the other kids across the lake but we always had to stay in, play with Barbies. It was as much fun to get the best of the big girls as anything. You’re right, it’s what kids do. Krista did it. Krista and Meg, I remember. When Charley and Hope wouldn’t take them to the beach parties, they snuck out and spied on them.”

“But if they took the boat to the parties...”

“You could walk there, remember? It wasn’t close but you could walk there. Or you could untie the boat next door—that old guy’s boat. Charley even swam home once, all the way across the lake, at night, no lifeguard...”

“Dear God,” Jo said. “So much going on we didn’t know about.”

“You had six teenage girls,” Beverly said. “We’re foster parents and our kids are not always the best kids. I’ve learned to be vigilant, but a lot of that comes from the knowledge of what me and my sisters and cousins managed to get away with.”

“Well, it served a purpose, then,” Jo said, suddenly tired.

“Weren’t we once the perfect family?” Beverly asked.

Jo couldn’t speak? Perfect? They were never perfect! Horribly flawed and dysfunctional was the truth of it!

“At least that’s how I remember it,” Beverly said. “We had the best time. We were so close. Until Bunny died.”

Jo talked to her daughter awhile longer. When they hung up Jo called Louise. “I’d like to have you come to my apartment tonight. I’d like to make you dinner. I’ll buy us a very good bottle of wine. There are so many things we’ve forgotten to talk about. Good things.”

Chapter Fifteen

The end of July at Lake Waseka was hot and steamy and there seemed to be more than the usual number of mosquitoes. It was just the three of them again—Charley, Meg and Krista. John came on the weekends and stayed as long as possible, sometimes leaving at three a.m. Monday morning so he could get to the hospital for early rounds and often taking Friday off to maximize his time with Meg. He gave Jo a ride to the lake once; she took the bus back to the city but came on her own another time, spending a night. When John or Jo visited, there was an air of quiet celebration, a big dinner, a lot of chatter and laughter.

Jo tried sharing memories with them, particularly the ones the girls were too young to remember, like the night Beverly was born right there in the lake house and how Lou took charge and helped her through the birth. She talked about Lou teaching the girls the latest dances and confessed there were a few times when Lou and Jo went skinny-dipping under a full moon after the girls went to sleep—until that one chilly summer night when Oliver, their next door neighbor, took a lawn chair down to his dock and plopped down there to enjoy a cigar while they nearly froze to death waiting for him to leave. It was a very big cigar and they shivered for hours afterward.

“You’ve been talking about my mother a lot lately,” Charley said. “I’m starting to think you miss her.”

“I suppose I did,” she said. “We’ve had dinner a couple of times. We’re trying to patch things up.”

“Is Mother trying?” Charley asked.

“If you want the truth, Louise has been the lonely one. I had my work at the flower shop, the neighbors in my condo complex, the customers in the shop and all the other people who work in that little business district. I have a nice relationship with Beverly, and while she doesn’t come to stay with me, I’ve spent time with her family at her farm. We’ve spent several holidays together. I’ve been busy all the time. Lou never worked and had only those women she saw for cards sometimes. I don’t know how she lived like that.”

“That’s what stubbornness gets you,” Charley said.

“If she decides to be less stubborn you just might try letting her off the hook. Or you could find you are just like her.”

Krista shuddered at the thought.

What was she going to do when the summer was over? Where would she go? Maybe there was a small place for rent in the area and she could just keep her job at the lodge. Her job and her boss had become so important to her.

Krista had no normal role models or experiences in romance, in developing relationships. She didn’t know how; it was that simple. She was mixed up with all the wrong kinds of people before she went to prison and more scary people when she was inside. Her only experience with dating was what little television she’d seen in prison or discussions with her therapist about how to have healthy adult relationships.

She couldn’t believe how quickly her life had changed. She had only been back in the real world for a short time and she had a family to support her and she was being walked home by a sweet, handsome man almost every day. He had even kissed her. At first he had given her a peck on the cheek, then a brief kiss, then, most recently, they’d stood with their arms wrapped around each other and shared a deep and consuming kiss that rattled her bones. It took her breath away and terrified her. She’d felt suddenly weak and giddy; she was simmering inside with a heat that begged to be doused in satisfaction. She cautiously opened her eyes and found him smiling.

“That was nice,” he said.

“Is there steam pouring out of my ears?”

“You look perfectly normal,” he said with a laugh. “But I want to kiss you again.”

She let her eyes drift closed. “Okay,” she said, leaving her lips slightly parted.

He obliged. After that it became routine for them to walk together and then stop at the place where the swing hung from its sturdy branch, where they’d share several hot and exciting kisses. Jake had a way of holding her so tightly and yet she felt cradled rather than confined. She wished for him to hold her all the time. “What if someone sees us?” she whispered against his lips.

“I’d have to admit I have a big crush on the new waitress.”

“I think you should know something—I’m scared. I’ve never been with a man who was nice to me. I don’t know what I’m doing. This will probably end very badly.”

“Why?” he said. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know. How would I even know?”