Page 5 of Barefoot Lake

He laughs, and I expect he’s guessed Mom warned me about his antics. “I got it from my Mama. My first word was ‘Thanks’ and the second one didn’t come for another three months, so I was a real grateful baby.”

I immediately like Grateful Bob.

Bets comes back at that moment to hand me a roll of mail held together with a thick rubber band and tells me she’s added my name to the PO Box. Thanking her, I slip the bundle into my bag.

“I like your ducks, Grateful Bob,” I say as I turn to leave.

“They’re loons! Greatest birds on this planet,” he exclaims before saying at a normal volume, “If you need anything, just you ask. If you don’t need anything, come by anyway. I’m old and bored, and you’re the biggest change to this town since your mother moved here.”

I head back to my car and finish my journey to the grocery store. The trip takes far too long, and I swear I buy half the store while I’m there. You don’t realize how many staples live in your pantry until it’s time to stock an empty one.

I’m proud of myself for thinking to grab a bundle of firewood from the front of the store. One of Mom’s notes warned me that the heat isn’t great and that I should keep a stock of firewood for the stove in the living room and the fireplace in the master bedroom upstairs. I noticed the rack outside the house was empty before I left, and I expect Mom donated any she had left over from last winter before leaving. I don’t know how much I’ll need, but the one bundle feels like a good start.

Like Bets had, the cashier quickly identifies me as Rain’s daughter after a glance at the name on my credit card. They introduce themselves as Jordan and also offer their condolences before singing Mom’s praises and poking fun at the insane size of my food haul, asking if I was sure that I hadn’t forgotten anything.

They have a point; a shy teenager has to help me push my second cart out to the CRV, and I could be imagining it, but it sounds like the car whines a little louder during the uphill parts of my drive back home. It’s possible that I bought way more food than a single person could eat in a month, but I came to the grocery store hungry, and I no longer need to buy only food that Reid, the pickiest eater ever, will eat. Plus, ninety percent of it is non-perishable. It’s fine. This is fine.

The gravel crunches noisily as I turn back toward home, but there’s still no visible movement from Neighbor’s house. After I park in front of my garage, I decide it’s probably best to try to introduce myself before it’s suddenly been too long, and it gets weird. I decide to go over and say hi after unloading the car.

It’s hard not to notice the juxtaposition of their lawn compared to mine as I step along the clearly visible stone pathway to the wooden steps that don’t double as a booby trap before the door. The home has that empty, quiet feel, and I know nobody will answer even before I knock, but I try anyway.

Since I’m nosy — let’s not lie about it — I peek in the front window beside the door. The sheer curtains obscure some of my view, but the layout seems to be the same as at my house, and Neighbor seems like a neat person. Not wanting to get caught with my hand in the cookie jar if Neighbor suddenly pops up, I head back to my side of our little lot.

As I’m walking, I feel my phone buzz in my pocket. I fish it out and see Reid’s name on the screen. I consider letting it ring until voicemail picks up, but I want him to know I saw the call. With a deep breath, I press ignore and continue into my new sanctuary.

CHAPTER 4

Alice

Imanage to stay extremely busy for the next couple of weeks, mostly going through Mom’s old things and getting settled. Sifting through her boxes is bittersweet. One will be filled with random notepads she collected and never used, but the next will have sweaters that smell like her, and I’ll suddenly feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.

It’s difficult to let anything of Mom’s go, but I do my best to respect her wishes and only pick the most important keepsakes to hang onto. It turns out Denise from the sticky note volunteers at a domestic violence shelter, and Mom wanted her things to go where they could do the most good. I’m not surprised by the gesture and feel unworthy of somebody who would continue to try to do good after she’s gone.

As I unpack my own things and put them away around the house, I wonder if it’s even worth the effort. My time in Wilcox Grove is temporary. I’ll have to go back to my life in Boston in a few months.

Then, I remind myself that Boston is a problem for later. For now, Wilcox Grove will be my sanctuary.

I’ve also spent a lot of my time on the back patio looking out over Barefoot Lake and enjoying the solitude. The townspeople have been kind, but I haven’t made an effort to get to know anybody too well, and I haven’t seen even a shadow from Neighbor’s house.

After my first few days at Barefoot Lake, Reid stopped calling. I feel stupid now, looking back on our relation-shit and wondering how I’d given so much of my life to him.

We met through friends in college, and right off the bat, I pegged Reid as a dreamer. He had huge aspirations and stars in his eyes. It was romantic and thrilling. He was motivated and smart enough to back those dreams up. He graduated at the top of his class in five years with degrees in finance and accounting and an MBA. He was impressive, and I was completely under his spell.

I won’t lie. He was and still is unfairly easy on the eyes. He’s tall and lean and possesses maybe three percent body fat. As an adult, he looks like a finance guy from a corporate TV show with wavy dirty blond hair that swoops just right, and an ass that makes a suit grateful it has the honor of being on his body.

As time passed though, it felt like I saw Reid less and less, even after I’d finished my PhD program. He was always reaching for something higher. He went to work early and stayed late. When he wasn’t in the office, he was at happy hour with the head honchos or client dinners, or brunches, or vineyard tours, or football games, or baseball games, and I was never invited, even to events I know his coworkers’ spouses attended. When I tried to talk to him about it, he’d get incredibly defensive. Somehow, he would twist the situation and pick apart my concerns until I was apologizing to him. I always left the inevitable argument feeling like a burden, the ungrateful nag he told me I was.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but Reid made sure I thought he was the best I’d ever get. I was lucky he put up with me. Every day, I made more changes in my life and hid more of the loud parts of myself to try to earn the love Reid told me I didn’t deserve. Reid and I were never partners. If there was a give-and-take, it was because I gave and he took.

I’m enjoying a cup of coffee and one of my thought sessions on the back patio when I hear tires on the gravel out front. Has Neighbor finally shown up? Still nosy, I walk around the corner of my house and up the pathway between our houses to take a look. I’m surprised to see a red pickup pull beside my house and come to a stop, but my face splits into a smile when I see Grateful Bob behind the wheel.

I hurry up to his car as he opens the door and steps out. “Grateful Bob! What brings you here?”

“Just wanted to welcome you properly,” he says, holding out a tiny paper shopping bag. I take it and find a Barefoot Lake fridge magnet inside. It showcases one of his beloved loons on the water.

“It’s perfect! Thank you. I was just having some coffee out back. Would you like a cup?”

Grateful Bob accepts, and we end up enjoying each other’s company for a couple of hours. He’s lived in Wilcox Grove his entire life, and he’s seen a lot of the townspeople grow up around him. He won’t tell me how old he is, but he’ll admit he’s over sixty. He used to work in construction but is long retired. He has kids and grandkids, grown and scattered, but they visit from time to time. He and his wife divorced decades ago, and she moved away, but there’s no ill will.