Meet Me at the Lake

I stare at Will’s Summerhill town house from inside the Cadillac. Number 11 is a wide orange brick semidetached, three stories high, with smart black trim and floppy white hydrangeas lining the porch. It’s well past eight, late enough that I’m sure Annabel will be out.

After she’d left this morning, I told myself I wouldn’t come here. I’ve got my own shit to deal with; I can’t handle Will’s, too. I needed to resume the hiatus. I shoved the piece of paper with their address deep inside a trash bag, planning to drive back to the resort as soon as I’d finished cleaning. Fifteen minutes later, I dug it out.

When I got in the car, instead of heading for the highway, I checked into a hotel, showered, then sat at the desk to write a list of reasons why I should erase Will Baxter from my contacts and my life.

But as I stared at the blank page, I couldn’t stop thinking about Will at fourteen, angry and resentful and missing his mom. And Will at twenty-two, feeling guilty about living in Vancouver, worrying about his sister. Ten years ago, Will helped me see myself clearly, and I decided to take ownership of my future. When he walked out of my apartment that morning, I knew my life was about to change. I had no idea his would, too.

I was worried I was different.

That’s the reason Will gave me for not meeting me nine years ago. When I found the drawing in his cabin, I thought he’d been lying to me. But as I reflected on what Annabel told me, I began to wonder whether he wasn’t lying—if maybe he couldn’t tell me the full truth.

Twice, Will has crashed into my world like a meteorite, and both times, I’ve been left hollowed out. Cratered. But I’d never thought about how the collision might have thrown him off his axis.

I sat at the hotel desk, and I thought about Will at thirty-two, successful and guarded and patient, slowly finding his way back to art, dipping his toe into a relationship, claiming a slice of happiness for himself. I could hear his voice cutting through the dark the night I knocked on his cabin door in my pajamas.

What do you want, Fern?

I looked at that notepad for an hour, and instead of writing all the reasons I should let Will go, I made a completely different list.

And now here I am, outside Will Baxter’s house. Scared and in love and ready to fight for what I want. For what I think Will wants, too.

I just wish I didn’t feel like puking.

I grab the drawing from the passenger seat. My fingers shake as I press the bell, and I take a deep breath. But when Will opens the door, the speech I’ve prepared dies in my throat.

He looks nothing like himself. For one thing, stubble covers his face and neck. It’s been left unattended so long, it’s verging on scruffy beard territory. Dark circles hang beneath his eyes, and his hair is unkempt. He’s wearing a baggy pair of sweats and a stained T-shirt. As soon as he registers me standing in front of him, he snaps upright with the jolt of an electric shock.

I open my mouth, and what comes out is an astonished “You look terrible.”

“Fern.” He says my name like no one else, like it means so much more than a name. But then he blinks, seeming to remember himself. When he speaks again, his voice has cooled by several degrees. “What are you doing here?”

There’s so much I want to say, but I start with the hardest, simplest thing.

“I missed you.”

The pink creeping up from the neck of his shirt is the only sign he’s affected.

I straighten my shoulders, trying not to let his demeanor throw me. I’ve seen this before—the blank stare, the empty voice—the way he can detach, strip out all emotion, stay safe. Will is on lockdown. “And I’m here so you can ask for my forgiveness.”

He shakes his head, but before he can speak, I hand him the drawing.

“And explain yourself.”

I’ve examined it every day since I found it in his cabin, looking for a clue that might tell a different story other than the one I know is true.

He slides the page from my fingers and studies the sketch as though he hasn’t seen it before, running his hand over his cheek.

The drawing is of me, sitting at the end of the dock in a bathing suit and shorts. I’m gazing out over the water, looking bored or maybe sad, wearing the hat I’d packed for Will. Beside me is the bag that contained sunscreen and sandwiches and lemon sodas. There was a mix CD in there, too. It had a white label on its case with songs for will written in green marker.

When his eyes return to mine, they are wells of black remorse. “Fern,” he says again.

“You were there.” My voice cracks.

He nods. “Yeah. I was there.”

I swallow back the lump in my throat. “Now is when you invite me inside,” I tell him.

He looks like he’s about to disagree, but he nods again and holds the door open.

—

Will’s home is spectacular. The main floor is open concept, and from the entrance I can see past the living room and kitchen to the enormous windows at the rear. The floors are warm honey-colored wood, the furniture looks comfy, and the white walls are covered in art, though I can tell none of it is by Will.

He sets the drawing on the stone counter and takes two bottles of fizzy water from the fridge. He leads me to the poppy-colored couch at the back of the house. It’s obviously the rec area—there are framed family photos on the wall and a giant flat-screen. It would be cozy except the ceiling above opens to cathedral height. There are skylights.

I sit at one end of the sofa, and Will brushes past me to take a seat at the other.

“Annabel came to see me,” I tell him, and he makes a low groan in the back of his throat. “She said Sofia’s going to be fine.”

“Yeah,” he says, twisting his pinkie ring.

“She also said you were, and I quote, ‘a big, mopey disaster,’ which I can see was an accurate description.”

Will gives me a sideways glance. “I wasn’t expecting company.” His voice sounds like sandpaper on metal.

I take a quaking breath. I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous in my life. “Do you want to tell me why you look like roadkill?”

“It’s been a rough week.”

“I know it has.”

“I haven’t slept much.”

“Clearly.” I pause. “You’ve been worried about your niece?”

“It’s been that, yeah.”

“And?”

Will leans back on the sofa, his head tilted toward me, but he doesn’t speak.

“It sounded like there might be an and. Is there?” The tremor in my voice betrays me.

“I think you already know there is,” he says, and it chisels away at the wall of fear I’m scaling in order to be here.

“I think I do, too,” I tell him. “But I want to be sure.”

Will looks up at the skylights. He opens his mouth, and then closes it again, jaw clenching.

“Because you left without saying a word, and then didn’t return any of my messages, and then said we needed to stop living in a fantasy?”

He shakes his head slightly, and then his gaze locks on mine. “No,” he says, and my heart splits into a million ragged pieces. I force myself to stay seated instead of running out the door. I wait, hands pressed between my thighs, until he speaks again.

“I shouldn’t have done those things, and I’m sorry, Fern. I am,” he says slowly. “I was stressed and not thinking straight. But that’s not why I can’t sleep or eat or get that image of you sitting alone on the dock nine years ago out of my head.”

“Then why?” I whisper.

“Fern, you must know . . .” His chest rises and falls with a long exhalation.

I stare at him, eyes wide.

His voice is quiet. “I’ve never wanted anything for myself the way I want you. I’m completely in love with you.”

A loud breath rushes from my throat, my relief instant.

“But I don’t know if I can do this,” he says as I shift closer. “I don’t—”

I put my fingers over his mouth. “You can do anything.”

Will’s gaze softens.

“I’m going to give you some advice that someone once gave me. He was a pretentious art school grad, but he knew what he was talking about,” I say, and a faint smile blossoms beneath my fingers. “I know how much your family means to you, and I would never question that. But it’s your life, Will.”

He’s silent.

“So I guess what I need to know is whether you want me in it.”

Will takes my hand from his mouth and wraps his arms around me. We stay that way, breathing and holding each other, for a full minute.

“Is that a yes?” I ask, my face against his chest. I feel a quiet laugh rumble in his chest. “Because there’s a lot of stuff we need to talk about, but none of it really matters otherwise.”

He leans back, his fingers in my hair, his gaze darting between my eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says. I start to pull back, but he doesn’t let me go. “Wait. I told you before that I’m bad at prioritizing relationships along with everything else. I thought I could figure it out this time.” He runs his thumbs across my cheeks. “I almost told you the truth about being there nine years ago, but the more time we spent together this summer, the harder it got. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“What is the truth?” I can barely get the words past my lips.

“I thought about seeing you every day for a year. I got halfway down the hill to the lake, and then, finally, I did. You looked so beautiful. I wanted to sit down on that dock with you.”

“Why didn’t you?” I whisper.

“It wasn’t you, please understand that. Sofia was four or five months old, and it was a dark time for me. I was a wreck.” He leans back, running his hands over his face. “And I guess I was embarrassed. After everything I put down on that list, there I was—working a nine-to-five in an office—doing exactly what I said I wouldn’t a year earlier. Back then, I hated my job. I knew you’d see it right away. You’d be able to tell that I’d changed, that I wasn’t happy. You would have called me on it.”

“Maybe,” I say. “Or maybe I would have been impressed by what you’d taken on. You could have at least said hello.”

“That’s the thing. I couldn’t just say hello. You were sitting there in that green bathing suit, and I remembered exactly how it had been between us. We would have talked. I would have told you I’d given up my art, and you would have been surprised. I wouldn’t be able to pretend that everything was okay. I didn’t want to see myself through your eyes. I thought if I said hello, I wouldn’t want to say goodbye. Maybe I wouldn’t want to go back to my sister and my niece. Or my job. Maybe I’d be selfish. I couldn’t risk it.”

“I wish you would have. I wish you would have let me in back then.” I put my palms on his cheeks. “You are one of the least selfish people I’ve met, but it’s not selfish to want something for yourself. It’s human.”

Will lets out a long breath. “Being with you, being at the lake, away from all this—it’s like I remembered who I used to be, what I used to want. I don’t know that I still want those things. I don’t really know who I am, Fern.” He pauses, and I don’t move, I don’t blink, I don’t fill my lungs, until he speaks again. “But I know I want you in my life.”

I skim my fingers over his jaw, tracing them to his scar. I meet his eyes, and he looks so tired. More than that. He’s exhausted. I remember what Annabel said this morning about dumping my feelings on Will at a bad time.

“I’ve got a hotel room,” I tell him. “Why don’t we call it a night, and I can come back tomorrow? You really do look terrible.”

Will’s face crumples a little. “I don’t want you to go.”

I don’t want to say the rest of what I have to say when he can barely keep his eyes open. I chew the inside of my cheek. “How about we just veg for a bit?” I can pretend like this is any other night.

Will agrees, and we settle in on the sofa, a Frasier rerun playing on the flat-screen. Eventually, I coax him to lie down with his head in my lap, and when he falls asleep, I switch off the TV and sit in the last gasp of evening light, studying the photos that hang above the couch. There are three. Annabel holding a toddler Sofia in a garden, their noses pressed together. Sofia on what looks like her first day of school, backpack and goofy grin firmly in place. And the one that makes my heart swell: a young Will with shaggy dark hair, staring down at a little pink baby in his arms.

When Annabel unlocks the front door, Will is still sleeping.

“Jesus fuck,” she cries, surprised to find us on the sofa in the dark.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t want to move him.”

She creeps over. “Finally, he sleeps.”

I brush Will’s hair from his forehead.

“I’m glad you found me,” I tell her.

She smiles. “I hope I am, too.”

When my left butt cheek falls asleep, I nudge Will. He looks at me, startled, and begins to speak. I shoosh him. “Let’s get you to bed.”

We climb two flights of stairs to his room, and Will collapses onto the mattress.

“Stay,” he says, reaching for my hand.

“Okay,” I tell him, pulling the sheet up. “I’m not going anywhere.”

—

I wake before Will does. The house is silent. Either Annabel isn’t up yet, or she’s already out.

Will’s room takes up the entire top floor of the house, with sloped ceilings, an enormous sparkling bathroom, and a sliding glass door that leads to a deck. There’s no artwork up here. It’s serene. Everything is white and the palest shade of blue—it feels like being in the clouds.

I change out of the T-shirt I took from Will’s drawer last night and get dressed quietly so I don’t disturb him, then make my way down far too many stairs to the kitchen so I can figure out his spiffy coffee maker and get him something to eat. I find a carton of raspberries in his double-door fridge, but then I see the milk and eggs. I hunt out flour, baking powder, and butter. I know Mom’s recipe by heart.

Will is sitting up in bed when I return, sheets kicked off around his ankles. He’s still wearing the dirty shirt, but the purple blots under his eyes have faded. I want to pull him into the shower and wash his wonderful Will smell back.

“You’re here,” he says, his voice scratchy.

“I’m here.” I put the coffee on his nightstand and pass him the plate of pancakes. “I promised I’d cook for you one day. I covered them in an ungodly amount of maple syrup.”

He smiles, crinkles fanning out around his eyes. There he is, I think.

“So good,” he says after his first bite.

“Eat up. You’re going to need your energy.”

His eyebrows rise.

“Not for that,” I say, rummaging in my purse for the folded piece of hotel stationery. I sit beside Will, leaning back on the white linen headboard while he eats. Once he’s finished, I hand him the paper.

“What’s this?” he says, opening it. I stay quiet as he reads, amusement tickling the corners of his lips when he gets to the end.

“It’s what I want,” I say, then pause, reconsidering. “Actually, it’s more than that. It’s what I need.”

Will’s grin straightens out, and he reads it again. There aren’t many words on the page, but he takes his time.

“Is this all?”

“That’s it.”

“Do you want to give me any further context?”

“It’s how you win me back—a five-part plan.”

I lean over his shoulder, and we look at the list together.

Apologize profusely.

Be honest—no more secrets.

Let me help.

Wear an apron. Always. I mean it.

Draw me a picture.

“The first one is pretty obvious,” I say.

Will leans against the headboard, and reaches for my hand, twining our pinkies. He watches me, his expression serious. “I don’t think there’s an apology big enough for how sorry I am, Fern. I’ve spent years regretting leaving you alone on that dock, and I hate how I treated you last week—the things I said on the phone. I’m sorry for rushing away like that and making you worry. I can’t believe you’re here after everything. I am sorry, but I’m also so grateful you showed up at my door yesterday.”

I exhale. “That was a good apology. The next one is even more important.”

“ ‘Be honest—no more secrets,’ ” Will reads.

I nod. “Such as the fact that you offered to help my mom with the resort.”

Will winces. “Annabel told you?”

“She did. I like her, by the way.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” He takes a second to think. “I could tell you didn’t trust me when I first arrived, and I wanted you to say yes to working together so badly. I was worried if you knew it was my idea, you’d be even more suspicious. I had coffee with your mother, and when she explained how challenging business had been, I found myself volunteering to help. I think she thought I was being polite, but we emailed a couple of times, and I offered again. And no, I wouldn’t have done that if she wasn’t your mom, or if it wasn’t your resort. And yeah, in my dream scenario, you would have shown up while I was there this summer, very eager to have a lot of sex in canoes.”

I laugh. “You can’t have sex in a canoe.” Jamie and I didn’t even attempt that back in the day.

“The imagination of my twentysomething self begs to differ,” Will says with a smirk, and I laugh again.

“Anything else you want to come clean on?”

Will runs his hand through his hair. “I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you that I take medication for anxiety.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “That’s not really what I meant, but I’m glad you told me.”

He swallows. “I think you should know it can be bad. The first time I spiraled was after my mom left. My mind was so frenzied, but I didn’t understand what was going on at the time. And then when Sofia was born . . .” He shakes his head. “It was awful—really dark stuff would go through my head. Terrible thoughts. Images, too. I didn’t know what was happening, and I couldn’t get rid of them—” He cuts himself off. I think of the two words tattooed beneath his collarbone—only thoughts—and squeeze his pinkie.

“You can tell me when you’re ready. I won’t judge, but you don’t have to rush.”

He nods. “I was afraid of being alone with the baby, and Annabel figured out something was off. I got help. Started medication. I even went to group therapy.”

I shift so that I’m sitting cross-legged, facing him. “I’m sorry you went through that.”

“It could happen again, if I have kids,” he says. I can tell it’s a warning. “And I still worry. I’m a worrier.”

“Okay.” I pause. “None of it is anywhere close to a deal breaker for me, if that’s what you’re thinking. But I need you to tell me what’s going on in your life. When something is making you anxious or upsetting you, I want to know. If we do this . . .”

A door closes somewhere in the house, and a girl’s voice drifts up from a lower level. We listen to Annabel and Sofia moving around for a moment.

“When you left like that,” I tell him, “it was like all the fears I had about us had been confirmed.”

“What fears?”

“I thought you had been, I don’t know, playing make-believe with me? I don’t want to be with someone who keeps parts of their life separate from me. I don’t want to be an escape. I want to be the reality.”

Will leans toward me until his nose brushes mine. “Fern,” he says. “You’re not an escape. You’re everything.”

“Really?” I whisper, pulling back slightly. “Because you wouldn’t tell me about the phone calls until I forced it out of you. You wouldn’t let me in.”

He nods. “I know. But as much as someone thinks they’re okay with my sister and my niece, and the fact that I do pickup and drop-off and cook dinner almost every night—it’s become an issue more than once. I just never cared until now. I didn’t want to pull you into all our family drama. I wanted to be selfish. I wanted you to myself.”

“I can understand that,” I tell him. “But you can’t lock me away from the two most important people in your life. No more secret phone calls.” I point to the third item on the list—let me help—as Annabel’s muffled yell floats up to us. “I want to be part of the drama. I want to be part of all of it.”

Will smiles. “There’s a lot of drama.” And then he falls serious. “Annabel has been threatening to move out for a while, but I didn’t think she meant it. She told me after I got to the resort that she was working with a real estate agent, so sometimes that’s what our calls were about. Some of them were her hassling me to tell you how I felt. Some of them were questions about using the stove. But we’ve been arguing.”

“Because you want them to stay?”

“Yeah. I know that in some ways it could be good for me if they rented a place of their own. I know Annabel thinks so. She feels bad that they’ve been here so long, but I’m used to having them around. I like having them around.” He gives me an apologetic look. “I know it’s not what most women want to hear, that I want to live with my sister and my niece.”

“I’m not most women.” I jostle his leg. “And you’re not most men.”

He makes a skeptical little growl. “I come with a lot more mess.”

I hate hearing Will talk about himself this way. I feel protective of the Will I met ten years ago, but I also want to stand up for the man I know now. I crawl onto his lap and take his face in my hands. “Let me tell you something about me: I am extremely picky about people. Most of them, I don’t particularly like. I have very high standards for the ones I let into my life these days. And you, Will Baxter, are my favorite of all of them.”

He looks surprised. “I am?”

“You are. I love you best of all.”

Will’s eyes widen and then his lips are on mine, urgent and hungry, like this is the last time we’ll do this. I put my arms around his neck and slow it down, melting into the kiss. He tastes like coffee and maple syrup and coming home after a long day. I’m not going anywhere, I tell him with my tongue and my mouth.

“You love me,” Will says in a hush, running his thumb over my bottom lip.

“I do,” I tell him. “Especially the messy parts. You’re too perfect otherwise, Will. It’s annoying, really.”

He smiles, then kisses my jaw. “Fern.” He kisses my cheek, and whispers into my ear, “I love you, too.” He presses his lips to my nose. “So much.”

“Good,” I tell him. “Because that will make items four and five easier.”

“You like the apron?”

I put my forehead against his. “I adore the apron.”

He laughs.

“And I want you to keep drawing.”

Will hums.

“Or painting or Mod-Podging teacups with photos of Chihuahuas—don’t give up art again. That list we wrote ten years ago was wrong—it can be a hobby.” I give him a kiss. “Just start with one picture.”

He lets out a long sigh. “Okay,” he says. “Since it’s on the list, I’ll do it for you.”

“And you. You can have something that’s for you.”

Will pulls me against him, and I rest my head on his chest, listening to the sound of his heart and feeling the vibration of his voice on my cheek when he says I love you again.

But then footsteps sound on the stairs.

A girl’s voice calls from outside the room, “Uncle Will, can I have one of these pancakes? Annabel said I had to ask.”

“Try again, Sof,” Will replies.

“Fine. Mama said I had to ask.”

“Better,” Will says. “And go for it. I’ll be down in a few minutes. There’s someone I want you to meet.” I pull back and he raises his eyebrows.

“Okay,” Sofia says. Her footsteps fly back down the stairs as she calls, “Annabel, I told you it’d be fine.”

“She’s what you might call precocious,” Will says.

“Oh yeah?”

“And she’s a total chaos demon, I’m warning you now.”

“Perfect,” I say. “I like chaos.”

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Are you sure you want all of this?”

“I’m sure,” I tell him. “I want everything.”