The Secrets of Lake Road - Karen Katchur Page 0,86
was having nightmares. She was having them too, but a different kind. She was sorry she had gotten him in trouble with his mother. She didn’t know what to do to make it right.
By the time she had reached the docks, she decided to stick to her original plan to talk with Chris’s mom. She had nothing to lose. The summer had been ruined, or so it seemed, anyway. And now all she wanted was the truth.
“And the truth will set you free,” she said, wondering where she had heard the expression before. It may have come from Pop. He was always offering up quotes as little life lessons, a habit that drove her mother crazy. Caroline had never minded. Her mother saw them as judgmental, a personal attack on the decisions her mother had made, the ones that revolved around teenage pregnancy. And now Caroline was sure Johnny was at the center of whatever tortured her mother. But why?
Out of guilt, she avoided the pier where the fishermen’s boats were docked and their traps were set, trekking her way through the woods behind the lakefront cabins. She zigzagged around trees, ducked under branches, and counted, the seventh cabin being Hawkes’ cabin. Another one of Pop’s expressions crossed her mind: Be careful what you wish for. She ignored the warning and kept moving.
The shade of the trees did little to block the heat from the sun. She tried to ignore the warm flow between her legs, making her body temperature run hotter than normal. When she reached her destination, she pressed her back against one of the old oak trees. What if Chris was home? She couldn’t face him again, not twice in one day. How would she explain what she was doing here? Would he think she didn’t believe the things he had said about his mom? Would he think she was stalking him? God, he was so cute.
She hid behind the tree in the back of the cabin, when she heard the screen door open and voices coming from the front porch. Two women were talking. Their conversation was stilted at first and then turned into a hushed silence. Caroline imagined them hugging when one of them sobbed. The screen door banged shut, muffling their voices now that they were inside.
She slid down the trunk and sat at the base of the tree. She’d have to wait it out. She picked up a twig and poked some leaves on the ground. Then she made circles in the dirt. She spelled her name and then wiped it away. When she looked up from the ground, she noticed the old fire pit and the rock with the painted initials J+B.
She threw the twig at the rock. She hated Billy for reasons she didn’t fully understand and she couldn’t properly explain. It wasn’t nice hating someone who was dead, but she did hate him. She thought about the old Lake Reporter: Sixteen-year-old local boy William J. Hawke disappeared. Her father said he wasn’t friends with him, but the article in the paper said otherwise. She wondered if maybe her father didn’t like Billy either, since he was once her mother’s old boyfriend. It was possible. Maybe that was why she had such strong feelings about not liking him too.
“William J.,” she said to herself. A disturbing thought crossed her mind. Could the J stand for “John?” William John Hawke. And if it did, could Johnny be named after Billy? Was that the big secret? She did the math, figuring the date Billy died and the month Johnny was born. And then there were the similarities between Johnny and Chris, their smile, their swagger.
Her stomach took a slow roll.
The possibility that Johnny was Billy’s son and not her father’s left her breathless. She sprung to her feet, gasping for air. How could her mother lie to her and her father? Or did her father know Johnny wasn’t his? Then again, maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was working herself up for no reason. But she felt so much rage inside her.
She picked up a large branch and struck the rock with her mother’s and Billy’s initials over and over until the branch snapped. She searched the ground, grabbing rocks and throwing them at random into the woods. She picked up more stones. One of them sliced her palm with its sharp edge. The cut was small, but deep enough for blood to drip down the side of her arm.