Blueshank. According to the sign, the population is 1,081. “There’s a little grocery store up ahead. We’ll stop there and load up for the weekend. Grab whatever you want.”
We pull into a small parking lot and climb out. My legs ache, and walking feels amazing. He gets the door for me, and the poker-faced checker up front glances up from her magazine when she hears the chime of the door.
“Hey.” Ace gives her a friendly wave, which she returns before tending to her magazine once again.
I grab a card and scan the small shop for a restroom, exhaling with relief when I spot a sign in the back. I excuse myself, do my thing, and return in record time, marveling at the amount of stuff he’s already picked up.
I spy bread and assorted condiments, fresh fruit and vegetables, and even a box of cereal, but no meat.
“What are we missing?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “I was just wondering why there’s no meat.”
Ace smirks. “We’re fishing, Aidy. We’ll eat what we catch.”
“Of course.” Just like we used to do with Dad in the Ozarks. Just like we haven’t done since. “Then we’ll need some oil and fish fry.”
I’m not sure what to expect when we turn down a gravel road fifteen minutes later. Up ahead, the horizon looks misty, and there’s an overabundance of pine trees everywhere. The closer we get to a clearing, the more I see the falls Ace told me about on the drive up here.
He slows to a stop, turning down a two-track dirt driveway that leads to a log-cabin lake house with a deep front porch, green roof, and a dock leading to a small lake out back.
Coming to a worn-in, makeshift parking spot beside a gray metal shed, he shifts into park and cuts the engine. “We’re here.”
I climb down from the truck and head toward the back to grab the groceries, and Ace grabs our bags. A canopy of green-leafed trees gives us shade and a symphony of bird songs fill the sky above.
“This place reminds me so much of our lake house back home,” I say, “in the Ozarks. At least the one we had growing up.”
I follow Ace to the front door, waiting as he lets us in, and the second I step past the threshold, I’m greeted with a burst of musty deliciousness. It’s the kind of scent the average person might find offensive, but to someone who grew up spending summers fishing and camping, it’s pure heaven.
“We even had a blanket just like this.” I drop the groceries on a farmhouse table and run to the leather sofa that sits adjacent to a wood-burning fireplace, running my hand along a blanket composed of several black, orange, and yellow knit squares that, together, remind me of my childhood.
“My mother made that,” he says. “A couple decades ago, actually.”
“This is crazy,” I say. “This place. It reminds me so much of growing up. We’d spend months at the lake each summer. Camping. Fishing. Hiking. I’d forgotten how much I missed this . . . feeling.”
“You ever get to go back?” Ace begins unloading groceries, and I head over to help.
“Nah.” I pull a loaf of bread from one of the bags and glance down. “We had to sell the lake house when I was seventeen.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
Shrugging, I say, “No need to be sorry. That’s just what happens when your dad leaves his family for another woman. Mom couldn’t afford both homes, so we had to let the one on Prairie Rose Drive go.”
I feel the weight of his stare. “You talk about it so . . . casually.”
“What? Am I supposed to be damaged? Bitter? My father was an asshole. He was a decent enough father. I mean, he got the job done all right. But he was a shitty husband. Mom was better off without him.” I put the bread away and grab a container of butter from the bottom of the bag. “It was hard on us after he left, but we persevered. We got through it together. And I’d be doing a disservice to myself and everything I’ve been through if I automatically assumed every man is a cheating scumbag like my father.”
Ace takes the butter from me and tosses it in the fridge. “We’re done here. Let me show you to your room.”
20
Ace
“Is that what you’re wearing?” I rap my fingers across the leather arms of a chair that’s been in my family for generations. “I