The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [80]
“Oh, I know all that. But this is different. This is a different kind of change. A letting-go kind of change. Not a running-around kind of change.”
Was it? Yes and no. I loved my life, but I also thought about how I’d felt earlier, talking to my mother about our old books and toys.
I was still standing face-to-face with Blake, so angry I couldn’t speak immediately; I imagined taking the old swim trophy from the table and hurling it across the room to smash against the wall, I was that furious.
“That’s enough.”
We both turned, startled. My mother was standing in the doorway, her cast held close to her chest, the phone in her good hand.
“I’m just expressing some concerns,” I said.
“Right. So altruistic. Like I’m not,” Blake countered.
“Stop it! You seem to forget, the two of you, that you’re fighting over something you don’t control. I’m not an imbecile, and I’m not behaving like a teenager, either, unlike the two of you. I’ll keep my own counsel, thank you. And I will not listen to this senseless bickering in my house. My house, you understand?”
She stepped out of the doorway, strode across the room, and sat down in the overstuffed chair where she used to read to us as children.
“Now,” she said. “I’m going to continue sorting these things. Blake, I’m sure Lucy would help you carry those boxes out.”
Blake refused my help, but I walked out with him anyway. I stood there in the mist, hands in the pockets of my jeans, as he put the boxes of toys and books in the passenger side of his truck and slammed the door. Blake didn’t get angry easily, but when he did, it was hard for him to let it go. Maybe he would have said the same about me. The times we’d seen each other over these years, either here or meeting up in exotic places, we’d been on our best behavior, not admitting any tension. Now we were being our teenage selves.
“I don’t want to fight,” I said.
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have mentioned the baby to Mom. I asked you not to do that. Avery answered the phone and you can imagine how she felt.”
“I’m sorry. It was after the solstice party and I’d had a couple of glasses of wine, and it just slipped out.” All this was true, but it was also true that I’d been angry in that moment, as I was in this one, about Blake’s collusion with Art about the land.
“Okay, then,” he said, finally. “All right. Truce, okay? That stuff I said about change? I didn’t mean it.”
“I figured,” I said, stepping back to let him climb into the cab.
“We’re good, then?”
“We’re okay.”
“Okay. Good.”
He waved as he backed out, and I waved back, watching him drive away, his red truck disappearing into the mist.
When I went back inside my mother stood up from where she was sitting on the floor amid piles of paper. She stretched and said she was tired of the dusty past. When I told her what I was doing and asked if she’d like to come along, she surprised me by agreeing. I went upstairs for my purse and my papers, and by the time I came back down she had changed into dark jeans and a crisp white blouse, the rhubarb scarf flowing around her neck, silver earrings dangling. We popped open our umbrellas and ran to the barn for the car. The rain made the Impala feel cozy, heat pouring out of its vents.
“Did you and Blake patch things up?” she asked in the middle of our conversation, halfway to Rochester.
“More or less. I still think it’s a mistake, the way he’s attaching himself to Art, to Dream Master. It didn’t end well the first time, and Blake can’t fix it now. Plus, I don’t care what Art says, I can’t imagine that he’d share things he could give to his children equally with anyone else.”
My mother sighed, looking out the window at the rainy landscape. “I don’t know. There are forks in the road that I’ve second-guessed for years. But I can’t do any of it over. We made the best decision we could at the time. And even if you’re right, Lucy, even if Blake is making a mistake, it’s his mistake to make. I have to stay out of it. And honey, so do you.”
I didn’t