The Secrets of Lake Road - Karen Katchur Page 0,21

lake water from the jug in the refrigerator. Her hands shook when she raised the cup to her lips.

“What’s going on?” Caroline asked, startling both women. It was as though they hadn’t seen her sitting there.

“Nothing for you to worry about,” Gram said, and shot Jo a look.

“Is it about Sara? Did they find her?” Caroline had spent the day with Megan, sitting on the public docks and watching underwater recovery, waiting. Initially, she had gone to the Pavilion but the sign tacked to the doors read CLOSED.

Gram sat next to her and patted her arm. “Not yet, but they’ll find her soon.”

Johnny waltzed into the kitchen, the screen door banging behind him. He smelled of cigarette smoke and something else, something funky Caroline associated with a boy smell, wet and doglike. Gram must’ve smelled it too, and she crinkled her nose at him.

“I’m going to change,” Gram said, and stood, leaving them in the kitchen.

“You need a shower,” her mother said to Johnny.

He smelled underneath his arm and shrugged but headed to the bathroom anyway. He pushed the back of Caroline’s head as he passed by, making her spill milk down the front of her T-shirt.

“Jerk,” she said, grabbing a napkin and catching the milk on her chin.

“Would you two knock it off?” her mother said.

“I didn’t do anything.” Caroline hated the whininess in her tone. “He started it.”

“Baby,” Johnny called.

“Am not!” she yelled back at him.

“Enough, Caroline.”

“Why don’t you ever yell at him? Why is it always my fault?”

Her mother sighed and covered her face. “It’s not always your fault, okay? And you’re right.” She dropped her hands and smiled. “Your brother can be a real jerk sometimes.” She brushed the hair from Caroline’s face.

Caroline’s chest opened as she looked up at her. Her mother was so beautiful when she smiled. She wanted to tell her, but she was too afraid she would take it the wrong way. Everything she said, good or bad, her mother misunderstood.

“What?” her mother asked, and furrowed her brow. “You’re looking at me funny.”

Caroline opened her mouth to talk, not knowing what words would come out. There was so much she wanted to say now that she had her mother’s attention. She was scared and feeling so alone. “I should’ve watched her,” she said about Sara. “She was on the pier, and I knew her mother wasn’t paying attention.” She looked down at her hands and waited for her mother’s reaction.

Without saying anything, her mother sat next to her and wrapped her arms around her. It was a rare embrace, and Caroline clung to her, elated to gain her mother’s affection even though the reason for it made her feel terrible. “I shouldn’t have left her alone.”

Her mother pulled back and took Caroline’s face in her hands. “She wasn’t your responsibility.”

She nodded. “I know,” she said, but still, it felt that way.

Gram walked into the kitchen, now wearing polyester pants and matching cotton shirt. She yanked open the refrigerator door, not realizing she had interrupted a rare mother-daughter moment. “Who wants dinner?” she asked.

“I have an errand,” her mother said, and stood. She touched Caroline’s shoulder, pausing to give it a squeeze before she fled for the door.

* * *

Caroline lay on her bed and listened. The cabin was quiet except for the murmur of the small TV coming from Gram’s bedroom. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but it was too early for bed. And it was too late to be out with friends. It was the time in-between when she was either too old for certain things or too young for others, a time when there was nothing for a girl her age to do. She wondered what was happening down at the lake, if people had gathered or if everyone had stayed home. Where was her mother?

She sat up and swung her legs to the floor. She looked out into the night. Leaves rustled. Willow’s branches swayed in the breeze. Her mother said it wasn’t her fault, what had happened to Sara. Maybe she was right. But she couldn’t just sit here feeling they way she did. She had to do something. At the very least, she wanted to know what was happening down at the lake. She was still wearing her T-shirt and shorts, so why not go and find out? Carefully, she lifted the screen out of the window and slipped through.

She had figured out how to crawl out the window undetected when she was ten