Bitterroot Lake

“No!” Sarah said. “Janine, no! Why would you think—I thought you went—”

“I wasn’t sure how far I’d have to go to get a signal, so I decided to drive and came back for my keys. Why is it that Lucas Erickson can come back to the town where he tried to rape me and drove so recklessly he killed his own roommate and he gets a free pass, like he did all those years ago? And I—I didn’t do anything, not then and not now. But you wonder, don’t you? You know me, and you wonder. Because of my mother.”

The accusation stung the air. After a long moment, Peggy broke the silence.

“You are not your mother,” she said, the firmness of her tone surprising Sarah.

“So you both keep reminding me,” Janine replied. “Why don’t I believe you?”

Sarah had completely forgotten about the cat until she heard a sharp yowl followed by a short yip. All three women looked to the little furball, sitting on the floor, swatting at something none of them could see.

I know the feeling, kitty-cat. I know the feeling.

6

This time, Janine let the screen door slam behind her.

“Wonder if she’ll come back,” Peggy said.

“Hope so. She’s got my phone.” Sarah dumped her cold tea down the drain. The pipes gurgled, unaccustomed to use. “You don’t mean to wash every dish in every cabinet right now, do you?”

“At the risk of making generations of McCaskill women roll over in their graves, no. We’ll wash up what you’ll need for now, then get to the nitty-gritty when we have more time.”

“It’s a plan. I’ll start making an inventory then.”

Windows, counters, the oven and stove. They washed one cabinet’s worth of dishes, a mix of Great Northern Railway designs. She smiled at a plate in the mountains and wildflowers pattern that had always been her favorite. Then they cleared another cabinet for a makeshift pantry. Gave the linoleum floor a good sweep. Sarah poked the broom into a corner cobweb, the threads stiff and sticky, and sent the spiders a silent apology.

“At this rate,” she said mid-afternoon, “even a lick and a promise will take days.”

“Your grandmother always said you should start cleaning at the top of the house and work your way down. Your great-grandmother, too.” Peggy rinsed her washrag and wrung it out. “But Caro had live-in servants, and Mary Mac hired household help.”

Three full stories and a cellar, linked by a narrow back staircase tucked behind the kitchen and a grand staircase that opened into the entry, the walls log, the ceilings tongue-and-groove. Plus the cabins and the carriage house, with its upstairs apartment. When her father and uncle, Leo’s dad, were kids in the 1950s and ’60s, the entire clan had summered here, even relatives who lived in town. Each family had its own cabin, the grandparents and strays sleeping in the lodge. By the time Sarah, Holly, and Connor came along, the extended family had dispersed. It had mainly been the three of them, along with Leo and his brother, who spent summers here, swimming in the lake and jumping off the long dock built in the steamboat era. Exploring in the woods. And on rainy days, playing board games or hide-and-seek, though she’d often taken refuge in the carriage house to read or play with the old dollhouse.

“I’ll tackle a bathroom, if you want to finish up here,” Sarah said.

“What about bedrooms? There’s only two couches, and you’ll need a place for Nicole. Besides, those couches aren’t very comfortable.” Peggy wriggled, as though the mere thought of a night on them made her back hurt.

“We’ll manage,” she said, and kissed the top of her mother’s head. “But not without a bathroom.”

She decided on the second-floor bath, since it had a tub and shower. She’d used it this morning, grateful that the claw-foot tub had never been replaced. In her design work, she’d witnessed too many of the hideous things people did to classic homes in the name of modernization. Hard water had trickled down from the faucet, forming a line of rust and a blue-green ring around the drain, but that was the only visible damage.

She knelt to scrub the porcelain, and through the thin fabric of her leggings felt the black-and-white hex floor tiles making tiny indentations in the tender skin below her knee caps. An hour later, tub and toilet too old and worn to sparkle but clean enough, the walls and wainscoting wiped down, the lights, the wavy mirror, and the classic white cabinets washed, she extended one leg, then the other, unkinking her joints. Plucked at her T-shirt where it stuck to her skin and ran her fingers through her hair, damp at the roots. Picked up her bucket of cleaning supplies and damp rags, but instead of heading back down, as she’d intended, she set the bucket on the floor outside her grandmother’s sewing room and went upstairs.

The third-floor rooms were shaped by the gables and the steep pitch of the roof line. At the far end were the servants’ rooms, a small bath between them. In her childhood, these had been the boys’ bunk rooms, but they were empty now. Where had the furniture gone?

In the middle, overlooking the lake, was a large space her grandmother had called the ballroom and her grandfather the billiard room. The heavy oak billiard table with its woven leather pockets stood at one end. But what had happened to the poker tables and the marvelous velvet couches that once sat along the walls, waiting for dancers to rest their feet?

She paused, half-hearing a waltz play from the old cabinet Victrola that had stood in the corner. She’d coerced the other kids into holding pretend parties in the grand space, dancing with Leo, as the two eldest, and pairing Holly with his younger brother, who hadn’t protested too much. Connor had hopped around the older kids until he got too tired, or bored.

Her mother hadn’t mentioned clearing this space. Must have been a while ago, though, judging from the dust on the light fixtures and a cobweb in the door frame.

On her way back to the stairs, she peeked into the storeroom at the far end. Empty, the extra furniture, trunks, and odds and ends gone.

Curious.

Back on the second floor, she steeled herself at the door of the girls’ room, where she and Holly had slept.

It was virtually untouched. Three iron bed frames, each a different design, separated by pine nightstands. A quilt lay folded over the end of each twin mattress, an old crate or a flat-top trunk at the foot. Hers had been the Flying Geese, Holly’s a classic Starflower.