The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [79]
“It must be hard to keep up with this place,” I said when she came back from having dumped the half-full bucket onto the lawn.
“It is.” She sat down again. “But I truly haven’t decided what to do, Lucy. Art has his ideas, but they aren’t necessarily my ideas.”
I didn’t answer; I didn’t want to argue again. Despite what she said, it felt like an understanding had already been reached, even if my mother hadn’t quite come to terms with it yet.
By the time Blake stopped by the rain had eased, but he was soaked from doing some caulking on the boat. We took a break and ate some scrambled eggs along with more leftovers from the party: tabbouleh and French bread, now a little stale, spinach hummus on crackers. Then we went back to sorting out the boxes. The phone rang; my mother reached into her pocket and smiled when she saw the caller ID.
“Back in just a second,” she said, then went into her room and closed the door.
Blake and I didn’t speak for a while, listening to our mother’s murmuring voice. Tension, either from the party or from my mistake in telling the news about the baby, was in the room, invisible but real, limning everything.
Finally, Blake asked what I was doing with my day. I told him I was going to visit Oliver Parrott and invited him to come.
“Today?” He waved his hand, dismissive. “This may surprise you, Sis, but some of us actually have to work.”
I decided to let it pass, not to mention the work he seemed to be doing with Art and the developers. Because Blake was doing his best, probably, doing what he thought would make a good life for himself and for Avery and the baby in the midst of a rotten economy.
“Well, sometime, then—you should go see this place. Take Avery; it would be a nice drive. The stained glass is really striking, even if there turns out to be no connection to Rose. And I’m totally curious to know what Oliver Parrott thinks he’s discovered.”
“He seems a little off to me, this guy—dedicating his whole life to the study of another person, some dead ancestor.”
“Well—it’s not the person he’s dedicated to. It’s his legacy.”
“Same thing. It’s weird.”
“Well, it’s really no different than you and Art, is it?” I asked, keeping my voice pleasant even as I lashed back. “Doing everything you can to keep Dream Master alive.”
Blake didn’t answer. His jaw was set and he was staring out the window at the lake. It took a few minutes for him to speak.
“I’m just trying to make my way, Lucy—got a problem with that?”
I let the silence gather, too, trying to figure out why Blake was so upset, and why Oliver’s choices were explicable to me while Blake’s were not.
“No,” I said, finally. “I don’t have a problem with that. But it was strange—really disconcerting—to find out what kinds of deals were being cooked up with this house and all the land, all these plans you and Art and Joey are making, all those conversations happening, and I had no idea. Not that it’s any of my business.”
He gave a short, angry laugh. “It’s not. That’s the thing, Lucy, it’s not your business, at all. You seem to think we’re trying to pull a fast one, but we’re not. The deal would be good for Mom, if she decides to take it. You haven’t exactly been around to help, you know, these last years when she’s been rattling around in this old house, trying to hold it together.”
“True.” I bit my tongue then. I didn’t say what I so deeply wanted to say: I haven’t been going around in circles, either, tethered to the past. But then Blake, encouraged perhaps by my agreement, stepped things up.
“You know, Lucy, you’d do yourself a real favor if you were more willing to embrace change, not resist it.”
“Are you talking to me about change?” I asked. I put down the papers I was holding and stood up, barely able to contain myself. “Do you have any idea how many places I’ve lived in these past years, Blake? Two states, four countries, seven different jobs. New