sat down with a thud on the wooden bench, narrowly missing a bird dropping. Charles sat down in front of me, tucking each oar into the appropriate slot.
“Now, don’t you worry,” he said, securing the oars into position. “I was a lifeguard at the club every summer during college.”
He rowed out a few hundred feet. I watched in awe as the boat carved its way through the lake, slicing through the water like a knife through soft butter. A heron, startled by our presence, squawked in disapproval. It dragged its feet along the water, disrupting a colony of pale green lily pads before becoming airborne.
“It’s beautiful out here,” I said. “How lucky you were to grow up with this in your backyard.”
“I’m not any happier for it,” he said.
I shook my head. “What do you mean?”
“People think that wealth buys happiness,” he replied, pointing back up toward the lawn. “Spend a night in that house, and you’ll see otherwise.”
I gave him a confused look.
“Mother is always in a mood,” he explained. “Father locks himself in his study, and when he’s not there he’s at the hotel. And Josie is, well, Josie. She’s always been troubled. When she was five, she nearly burned the house down.”
My heart began to beat faster. Could she have been the child my own mother took care of? I sat up straighter. “What do you mean, she almost burned the house down?”
“I was in school then,” he said, shaking his head as though the memory came with disturbing baggage. “Josie was cared for by a governess. One day when Mother was in town Josie managed to light the curtains on fire with a candlestick. She almost burned the house to ashes. Mother dismissed the woman on the spot, of course. But it wasn’t her fault. Josie’s always been devious like that.”
“Oh,” I said, reeling. So my own mother took care of Josephine! I shook my head, remembering the way Mother had complained about the little girl in Windermere. I’d grown to resent the girl who occupied my mother’s time and attention, and when she’d lost her job with the family, I was glad, even though it meant we might not eat.
“What is it, Vera?” Charles asked, sensing my distant stare.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I said, trying to purge the memories. Does Josephine know who I am?
“Anyway,” he continued, “you can see why I wanted to spend as much time out here as possible. As a boy, I was always out on the lake, or following Joseph around. Father was much too busy with his business endeavors.”
Charles pulled up the oars and we glided for a few moments. I held out my hand, letting it skim the water. A white lily tickled my palm and, on a whim, I lifted it a few inches from its watery home.
“Look,” I said, indicating the stunning blossom.
“Careful,” he said, gently tugging my hand back. “They’re fragile, these lilies.”
I smiled at him curiously. “You’re the only man I’ve ever met who cares for flowers.”
Charles shrugged. “I suppose it was Joseph’s influence.” He turned his eyes back to the lake. “Lilies are special. They haven’t always been around these parts, you know. I found the first one right over there when I was a boy. Just one. Joseph showed me. Each year there were more. And now…” He waved his hand toward a point in the distance, where scores of white flowers the size of my hand bobbed on the water. “Well, just look at them.”
“They’re breathtaking,” I said, grinning at the sight before us.
“They’re picky about where they’ll grow,” he said. “Too much or too little sun and pft, they perish. They’re shy, lilies. Shy and prideful.”
I smiled.
“Delicate, too,” he said. “They won’t hold up if you pick them. Josie used to come out here with her friends and gather them by the armful, just for the heck of it. An hour later they’d shrivel on the dock.” He paused, clearly disturbed by the memory. “I hated to see them die that way. For nothing.”
I glanced back at the lake. The ripples on the water jostled the lilies up and down, like schoolchildren playing in the surf.
“They’re happy out there,” he said. “When you take them out of their home, they suffocate.”
The wind had picked up, and it was whipping my hair into a matted mess. I replaced a fallen clip just as a raindrop hit my cheek. “Oh, no,” I said, feeling another on my arm.