The car disappeared around a corner at the end of the block, and Nora turned back to the house. “What do you say we splash some bourbon into that lemonade and sit for a bit?”
“I say that sounds like a great idea.”
Once they were settled on the deck, she heaved a sigh. “Oh my God, I’m exhausted. I had no idea getting the clinic ready was going to be such a production.” She suddenly perked up. “But you know what?”
“What?”
“I was telling Karl Andersen about the chair we painted, saying how well it turned out and how I wished I had another one, because one chair is sort of sad. Well, he shows up early this morning with another one! Like, not exactly the same kind, but same vintage, you know? Metal, with those swooshy armrest things. I left it at the clinic because I had my sister and grandma arriving, but I’m totally going to paint it to match that one”—she pointed—“now that I know how.”
“You remember when you asked me why everyone was being so nice to you?” he asked, thinking back to his aborted trip to the bar a week ago. “You asked me what the catch was. The catch is that a large proportion of this town will be all up in your business the moment you give them an inch.”
“Yeah, I heard. I also heard that one of these meddlers is your dad.”
“My dad is like one of those old guys who retired and didn’t know what to do with himself, so he started hanging out with this crew of old folks at the hardware store a couple years ago. A year after that, bam, he had a new wife.” She shot a worried glance at him, and he rushed to clarify. “Which is a good thing. She’s good for him and to him. I like her a lot. My point was just that yeah, they got to him and now he’s one of them.”
“You make it sound like zombies.”
He barked a laugh. He wasn’t used to laughing, but Nora sometimes had the most spot-on rejoinders. “It’s exactly like zombies.”
“Well, I’ve been warned about them already, but this chair thing made me think that maybe a meddling pack of old people could be exploited for good. I mean, can I just tell Karl or Pearl that I’m, say, missing my mom’s chili, and voilà, I’ll suddenly have chili?”
He smiled. “Probably, but you should remember that they’ll be playing a long game. They might give you chairs and chili, but it will be in service of a larger scheme to trap you here. You’re only planning to stay two years, right?”
While they drank, she told him she was taking advantage of a program that would help her get rid of her student debt and that since the cost of living was so much lower here, she was hoping to save a bunch of money to help with the down payment she and her sister would need. She smirked. “Well, it’s partly that. There’s also the part where I fled my entire life after it imploded.”
“The new chapter,” he said, thinking back to her using that phrase when they were talking about the Tigers.
“Exactly. Anyway, my point is that I’ve been very open with everyone, including Pearl and Karl, about the fact that I have a two-year lease on the clinic. I’m gonna get my head on straight, pay down my debt, and then I’m leaving.”
“That’s what you say now.”
“What are they going to do? Tie me up?”
“No, but they’ll try to make you put roots down however they can, including, probably, by trying to matchmake you with someone.” He didn’t outright tell her that “someone” was Jason Sims. She’d figure it out soon enough.
“A hard no to that.” She made a jokey retching noise. “I’m definitely not in relationship mode right now.” Her eyes narrowed. “Wait. Was the deck part of this? Is the fence part of this?” She pointed at him. “Are you a secret agent of the town busybodies?”
“Nope. I stay out of it. We have an unspoken truce. They leave me alone. I think they think I’m beyond help with my tragic history and all.”
“Oh, right. Of course. Sorry.”
He shrugged. “Don’t be. I’m basically the only person in town they don’t try to mess with.” He huffed a bitter laugh. “I guess that’s the one perk of having a dead kid.”
He waited for a hint that the waves were coming. For the feeling that he needed to get out of here, to go home and sit by the lake and be with his boy and try to hold off the waves—or at least anchor himself to endure them. He had become familiar enough with this feeling to know that certain sets of circumstances triggered it. One of them was heavier-than-usual doses of socializing. And Nora’s family, for him, had been a heavier-than-usual dose of socializing.
The feeling—that warning bell of a feeling—didn’t come.
Another one did, though. That feeling of communion he sometimes had at home, only occasionally, only when he was very, very lucky. It was a sense that Jude was here somehow, even though Jake knew, objectively, that was ridiculous.
But the point was, Nora’s presence didn’t preclude that feeling. Being here in her backyard, instead of by the lake, didn’t preclude it. There wasn’t a precedent for that.
Nora laid her palm on the back of his hand. “I don’t think there are any perks to having a dead kid.”
“No. No, there aren’t.” He paused and took in her small fingers, tipped with short, slightly squared nails. Everyone was always telling him that he needed to learn how to cope with his loss. They had all kinds of bullshit phrases that sounded nice but didn’t actually mean anything. Move through your grief. Let go. What those people, suffocating him with their grasping and scheming, didn’t understand was that he didn’t need to move on. He needed to hold on, even if holding on came with a cost. Came with the waves. “Some people try to see silver linings,” he said. “They talk about God’s plan or God opening a window or some shit.”
She moved her hand to pick up her lemonade. He kind of wanted her not to do that. He kind of wanted her to keep resting that small, capable hand on top of his.
She took a sip of her lemonade. “Well, fuck those people.”
He smiled. Exactly.
When Jake got home late that night, Eve and Sawyer were swimming in the lake near his house. Jake lived in a little cottage on the beach in a small, hidden cove. His grandparents had built the place back when the town was a lot smaller than it was today. They, and later his parents, had treated it as a sort of getaway, visiting mostly on the weekends. Probably because getting to Paradise Cove was a bit of a production. The only way in was on foot, and you had to walk out and around a rocky outcropping that separated the cove from the lake proper.
He had followed in their footsteps initially, keeping a place in town and coming to the cottage with Kerrie and Jude to watch the odd sunset. Kerrie had always been more of a people person, and the isolation got to her. The same way he needed quiet to feel okay, Kerrie had thrived off the energy of other people. But once she’d gone back to work, he and Jude and Daisy had come here almost every day, splashing in the shallows and retreating inside for stories and lunch when the sun got too strong.
Then, when Jude and Kerrie were both gone, he’d moved out here for good.
“Hey.” Sawyer was wading in to shore.
“Don’t mind me,” Jake said, heading for the cottage. He, like his parents before him, didn’t mind townspeople using the beach. Sawyer had taught Eve how to swim here last year, and he suspected the two of them had mushy feelings about the place—which he had no desire to know about. He was all for them taking a moonlight swim, but he didn’t need to witness it.