On Mystic Lake

It had sounded like a silly dream to Annie then, all those years ago, a bit of glass spun in a young man’s hand. Something to say on a starlit night before he found the courage to lean down and kiss the girl at his side.

Now, of course, she saw the magic in it, and it cut a tiny wound in her heart. Had she even had a dream at that tender age? If so, she couldn’t remember it.

She pulled into the gravel driveway and parked next to the woodpile. The house sat primly in the clearing before her. Sunlight, as pale and watery as old chicken broth, painted the tips of the lush green grass and illuminated the daffodil-yellow paint on the clapboard siding. It still looked forlorn and forgotten, this grande dame of a Victorian house. In places the paint was peeling. Some of the shingles had fallen from the gabled roof, and the rhododendrons were crying out to be cut back.

“I’ll bet that used to be a fort,” Annie said, spying the broken boards of a treehouse through the branches of a dormant alder. “Your mom and I used to have a girls-only for—”

Izzy’s seat belt unhooked with a harsh click. The metal fastener cracked against the glass. She opened the door and ran toward the lake, skidding to a stop at a picket-fenced area beneath a huge, moss-furred old maple tree.

Annie followed Izzy across the squishy lawn and stood beside the child. Within the aged white fence lay a beautiful square of ground that wasn’t nearly as wild and overgrown as everything else on the property. “This was your mom’s garden,” she said softly.

Izzy remained motionless, her head down.

“Gardens are very special places, aren’t they? They aren’t like people . . . their roots grow strong and deep into the soil, and if you’re patient and you care and you keep working, they come back. ”

Izzy turned slowly, tilted her head, and looked up at Annie.

“We can save this garden, Izzy. Would you like that?”

Very slowly, Izzy reached forward. Her thumb and forefinger closed around the dead stem of a shasta daisy. She pulled so hard it came out by the roots.

Then she handed it to Annie.

That dried-up, hollowed-out old shoot with the squiggly, hairy root was the most beautiful thing Annie had ever seen.

Chapter 9

Izzy clutched Miss Jemmie under her arm; it was the best she could do without all her fingers. She lagged behind the pretty, short-haired lady.

She was glad to be home, but it wouldn’t last long. The pretty lady would take one look at Daddy’s mess in the house and that would be that. Grown-up girls didn’t like dirty places.

“Come on, Izzy,” the lady called out from the porch.

Izzy stared up at the front door. She wished her daddy would suddenly shove through that door and race down the creaky old porch steps like he used to, that he’d sweep Izzy into his big, strong arms and spin her around until she giggled, kissing that one tickly spot on her neck.

It wouldn’t happen, though. Izzy knew that because she’d been having the same dream for months and months and it never came true.

She remembered the first time her daddy had brought them out here. That was when his hair was black as a crow’s wing and he never came home smelling like the bad place.

That first time had been magic. He had smiled and laughed and held her in his arms. Can’t you just see it, Kath? We’ll plant an orchard over there . . . and fill that porch with rocking chairs for summer nights . . . and we can have picnics on the grass. . . . He’d kissed Izzy’s cheek then. Would you like that, Sunshine? A picnic with chicken and milkshakes and Jell-O salad?

She’d said, Oh, yes, Daddy, but they’d never had a picnic, not on the lawn or anywhere else. . . .

The front door creaked open, and Izzy remembered that the lady was waiting for her. She trudged reluctantly up the porch steps. The lady—Annie; she had to remember that the lady’s name was Annie—clicked on the lamp beside the sofa. Light landed in streaks on Daddy’s mess. Bottles, pizza boxes, dirty clothes were lying everywhere.

“As Bette Davis would say, ‘What a dump. ’Your father certainly doesn’t win the Felix Unger award. ”

Izzy winced. That was it. Back to Lurlene’s for chipped beef on toast. . . .

But Annie didn’t turn and walk away. Instead, she picked her way through the junk and flung open the curtains in a cloud of dust. Sunlight poured through the two big picture windows. “That’s better,” she said, glancing around. “I don’t suppose you know where the brooms and dustpans are? A bulldozer? How about a blowtorch?”

Izzy’s heart started beating rapidly, and something felt funny in her chest.

Annie winked at her. “I’ll be right back. ” She hurried out of the living room and disappeared into the kitchen.

Izzy stood very still, barely breathing, listening to the rapid fluttering of her heart.

Annie came back into the living room carrying a black garbage bag, a broom, and a bucket of soapy water.