The Secrets of Lake Road - Karen Katchur Page 0,15

never went out, although they had a backup generator if they did. Chris, her son, had been able to get a text through—the service was always sketchy at the lake—letting her know the cabin’s power had gone out but was quickly restored and that a little girl had drowned.

She threw the car in park and got out, leaving the headlights glaring on the massive limb. She was late getting home. At the last minute Mrs. Hopper in Room 303 had needed help to get to the … well … hopper. She recently had her second knee replaced, both joints giving out under her considerable weight. The charge nurse, one of the RNs on the floor, had asked Dee Dee to help Mrs. Hopper, who had asked for her specifically.

“Come on,” she said, taking the big woman under the arm and helping her stand. “Try to put your weight on the walker,” she instructed. “I got you. You won’t fall.”

Slowly, the woman rose, grasping the walker in front of her. “Oh, I won’t fall,” she said. “But if I did, you’re the only one I trust to catch me. Those other nurses are too skinny. They should take a lesson from you and lift some weights, put some muscle on their bones. How much can you lift anyway? My grandson used to be a body builder. Did I ever tell you that?”

“No, I don’t think I heard about him before,” she said, having heard about everyone else in Mrs. Hopper’s family. She might as well hear about the grandson, too. “Try to lift your feet.” It was better for her to bend the new knee to get used to it, rather than shuffle along.

Mrs. Hopper went on and on about her grandson’s muscles and only stopped when Dee Dee stepped out of the bathroom to give her privacy. She checked the clock. Her shift had ended twenty minutes ago—not that it mattered. There wasn’t anyone at home waiting for her, which was just as well. She helped Mrs. Hopper back to bed and explained she didn’t lift weights. She credited or cursed, depending on how you looked at it, genetics.

“Chris,” she called after stepping through the cabin door, letting it slam behind her. No answer. “Chris,” she called again. It was close to midnight, but she really didn’t expect he’d be home. Living at the lake year round, Chris had waited all winter to see his summertime friends. And at sixteen years old, what boy his age wouldn’t still be out with them, out with Johnny and whatever girls had latched onto them for the night?

She dropped her purse onto the kitchen counter and slipped off her white sneakers. She was an LPN, a licensed practical nurse. It didn’t pay much, not as much as a RN, but a little more than an orderly. She liked her job and the patients, like Mrs. Hopper, helping her to and from the bathroom, and helping the weak with her strong arms. Besides, patients, especially the really sick ones, could be trusted to tell you the truth. They had nothing to lose. It was everybody else Dee Dee had a problem with.

“Chris.” She poked her head into his room, double-checking. His bed was empty.

She changed clothes, shoved her feet into work boots, and went back outside to the shed in search of a handsaw. It was too late at night for the chainsaw, which was too bad because it would’ve made the work that much easier. The door to the shed stuck, and she had to yank hard to get it open. She heard a small animal scurry to the corner when she stepped inside. She pulled the string to the bare light bulb and looked around. She found the handsaw hanging on a nail above the workbench. Underneath the saw was an old, deflated inner tube, the one Chris used to ride on behind their boat, the same inner tube her father had used to pull her and her brother, Billy.

She lifted the tube, and the unmistaken smell of rotting rubber wafted through the air, the scent unpleasant to most but not to her. It was the scent of happier times. She remembered not only the times when Chris was a young boy riding the tube, but also, more sharply, the times with her brother. When Billy was young, well before puberty, he’d sit between her legs and grip the handles. “Hold on!” she would yell as they sailed across the water. It