Bitterroot Lake

Sarah stood on the deck overlooking the lake and arched her back. Closed her eyes, worked the knot in her spine. There must be a yoga studio in town. Though a friend had dragged her to a class last week, her muscles contradicted the memory, telling her it had been years since she’d unrolled a mat.

Twenty-one days since Jeremy died. When would she stop counting?

Truth was, she feared that day. Counting kept her connected to him and to who she used to be. As long as it hurt, she was alive.

She exhaled and swept her arms overhead to salute the sun, opening her eyes as her hands met. Then hands down. She had to bend her knees to touch the deck, carefully extending one leg behind her, then the other. She managed two rounds before sinking to a seated position, the muscles in her legs pulling and twitching, even the soles of her feet sore.

Her mother had urged her to come home and rest. The woman could not have known the visit would be anything but restful. Where was she, anyway?

This afternoon. When Peggy came out this afternoon with the real estate agent, she’d ask her mother. Ask what was so freaking important in town, in her studio, that she’d all but abandoned Sarah to the place.

Even stranger, now that Holly was here.

Christ. Humans. What could you do? Those had better be Peggy’s best paintings ever.

Sarah snared one tennis shoe, then the other. Slipped a foot in and tightened the laces. Did anything feel so good as the morning sun on the skin? She tied the other shoe and wrapped her arms around her knees.

If you took a picture, compared one calendar photo to another, then the north shore of Bitterroot Lake might barely be a blip on the register of beautiful places. But Caro was right when she said a place drew you to it and wanted you to make it home. Holly and Nic had gone into Deer Park on a fact-finding mission, hoping to learn more about both Sarah Beth’s and Anja’s deaths. Tragedy had sent Ellen Lacey running, but Caro, of the bigger heart, had not been daunted by Anja’s story, whatever it was, or by her dreams.

Caro had understood that tragedy didn’t scar a house, but shaped it. Made it yours.

Maybe it was time she understood that too.

25

Inside, she scooped up clean rags and grabbed a pair of buckets. Said a quick prayer to the household gods as she walked out the mudroom door that this was the day the phone company techs deigned them worthy of service.

Why were the carriage doors open? Had Janine gone for a drive? Nic and Holly had taken Nic’s car. She set the buckets on the gravel path and walked into the carriage house. Janine’s white van stood next to her SUV, cool as the proverbial cucumber.

From deep inside the building, she heard scraping sounds, the clink of metal on metal.

“Janine?”

“Over here,” came the reply and Sarah peered through the semidarkness. Picked her way to the workbench near the stairs, where Janine stood, hands on her hips. She’d pulled her long curls back in a bright red scrunchie.

“You said this was the most likely place for phone wire, so I figured I’d rummage around. No luck.”

“Half dark, all this dust, who knows what’s out here.”

“I was actually hoping to find a ladder, so we can reach the second-story windows.”

“Outside. At least, that’s where they’ve always been.” Sarah led the way. Wood and metal ladders of different lengths hung along the exterior wall. A squirrel had left a stash of pine cone bits and pieces in the rail of a paint-spattered aluminum extension ladder, and after they lifted it off its wooden prongs, they flipped it over to dump the debris. Carried it back to the lodge and hoisted it upright.

“You should have told me,” Janine said, as they stared at the dull, dry logs and the mud-spattered windows, the sills caked with dirt and moss. “About the dream.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Janine did not reply. After a long moment, she stuffed a couple of rags in her pocket and picked up a bucket. Tested the bottom rung and climbed up.

In truth, Sarah was surprised Janine had stayed. But despite everything, despite the distance they’d let grow between them, when Janine was in trouble, s

he’d sought refuge here.

Sarah picked up the other bucket and started on the kitchen windows, careful of the peonies and spirea. Her grandmother had sworn that the best way to clean a window was with damp newspaper, but every time Sarah tried that, she’d ended up with a lump of wet mush, stained hands, and ink on the window sills. Happily, she’d found a wicker hamper in the laundry room full of rags. Had no one in the family had ever thrown away an old towel, T-shirt, or diaper?

No. No one in this family had ever thrown away anything.

That brought her back to the letters and Caro’s journal. What had prompted Caro and her friends to start the Ladies’ Aid Society loans? Caro had wanted word to spread to women in need, while avoiding talk that might stymie their efforts. She poked her thumbnail at a glob of sap glued to the glass.