Page 31 of Barefoot Lake

“‘You really were her friend.” I say it softly, mostly to myself, before I realize it could come across as an insult and quickly backpedal. “I’m not saying it’s unbelievable that you could be her friend. I can very easily picture you helping her and her mothering you. I’m just surprised because we told each other everything, and she didn’t tell me about you.”

“I think she didn’t want to burden you as things got harder for her.” He looks into his mug as he speaks. “She talked about you a lot and how she didn’t want to pull you away from your life. I think she also mentioned the ‘troll,’ though not by name or title. She thought he’d be upset if she distracted you from him.”

“He almost certainly would have,” I admit. When I saw how much Mom had deteriorated by the time I finally convinced her to move in with me, I knew that she’d been hiding how bad it was, but it hurts nonetheless to realize that she felt like she couldn’t be honest with me.

“She was so proud of you.” He laughs when I give him a disbelieving look. I think he’s just trying to make me feel better.

“I mean it. She wouldn’t shut up about her Dumbo. She told me it was just the two of you, but what was it like growing up with such an… energetic mom?”

I chuckle at his choice of adjective. Rain certainly was energetic, seemingly able to run on zero sleep.

“Honestly, she was my best friend. She told me when I was young that I came about as a result of a fling and that my dad wasn’t an evil person, but he also wasn’t around.” I tell him the story I’ve told anytime somebody asks about my father. The lie slides off my tongue easily, even if it leaves a sour taste in its wake. “After that, I rarely thought much about him because Mom filled both positions in my life and did everything she could to make sure I never felt like my family was lacking.” I smile to myself, shoving my dishonesty to the far corners of my mind and focusing on my mom’s rambunctious enthusiasm when I was growing up. It’s nice to reminisce about her and share the incredible person she was for me.

Jake gives me a nod to continue.

“She worked a lot, but she’d still sit with me after she got home while I did my homework. She was still a parent, but she let me make and learn from my own mistakes. She was straight with me about adult subjects — our financial situation, dating, whatever. It was easy to talk to her, even when I was confessing something I’d fucked up. She was firm, but fair. Even my bratty teenager phase didn’t last long because it made so little sense with how she treated me.”

I stop for a sip of “coffee” because I realize I’ve been prattling on for a bit now. Jake hasn’t made me feel like I’m boring him, though. His eye contact has been intense, attentive.

“You can always talk to me about her if you want to. I don’t mind. Actually, it’s nice. I only knew her for a few years, but she was a good friend. Sure, she was well-liked around here, but it’s different to talk about her to somebody who knew her so well,” Jake says kindly. Either he’s really intuitive, or his encouragement is just an uncanny coincidence.

“I feel like you know more about her life up here than I do, though,” I’m ashamed to say it. “I should have visited, Reid be damned. Whenever we spoke, she focused on me, my life, struggles, job, and triumphs. She would say Wilcox Grove was ‘just what she’d hoped it would be.’”

I should have paid more attention, asked more about her life here, done something more.

Jake doesn’t seem to judge.

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything?”

Jake takes a drink of his coffee, and stares into the cup for a moment before speaking.

“She shook things up when she came into town. We really don’t have a frequently changing population in Wilcox Grove. People can still be fairly judgmental sometimes, so an unmarried woman of a certain age inserting herself into everything turned heads. She would just start talking to people in stores or around town, introducing herself and inviting people to whatever she could think of. She started a bunch of different meetups like book clubs or craft corners. And she would have people over for barbecues, sunrise yoga out back, or anything else she could think of. I swear she added a few years to a lot of lives up here.”

I can picture Mom doing every one of the things he’s describing. When she first bought the lake house, she was barely showing symptoms of her sickness and was determined to do things that brought her joy. It makes me happy to hear that she was happy in Wilcox Grove and that she was surrounded by people who appreciated her light.

“We met when she started yelling at me one day — again, I see the family resemblance.” Jake pauses, and I purposefully look anywhere but at him, pretending I have no clue what he’s talking about. He lets out a low, amused sound. I have to ask.

“What did you do to make her yell at you?”

“Why do you assume it was something I did?”

“Well, it was your fault when we met, so…”

Jake rolls his eyes at me.

“She berated me for being unneighborly,” Jake admits, and I snort into my coffee, amused that Mom got the same warm treatment I had.

Jake sighs but otherwise ignores my reaction and continues.

“Before I could decide if I even wanted to apologize to my new lunatic neighbor, she told me I’d be having dinner with her, and then I’d be helping her hang that swing on your back porch. That was that. She’d share her opinions and her cooking, and I’d fix things for her. She didn’t give me a choice in our friendship, but it felt…” Jake presses his fingers into the back of his neck and clears his throat. “It felt nice to have a parent figure to talk to. She made it easy to feel comfortable around her.”

Jake makes it easy to feel comfortable around him, too. I’m feeling a little dreamy and contemplating the consequences of just blurting that out when Jake surprises me.

“I’m sorry, by the way.”

“Huh?” I’m so eloquent.