Page 41 of Whatever Will Be

I won’t change my mind.

“I’m always up early. And driving never bothers me.”

Gretchen smiles. A real genuine smile, not the playful sort I see when we’re going back and forth, teasing each other on a mission to find out who can get the better of who.

The sight of that smile seals my opinion that this girl is fucking beautiful and has the potential to own me.

“Thank you,” she says softly. “That would mean a lot to me.”

“Glad to be of some use.”

She winks. “I’ll buy you lunch in gratitude.”

“And I’ll be on my best behavior. I’ll even keep my filthy suggestions to myself.”

A door opens and a child’s voice calls, “Aunt Gretch, come watch with us!”

“I’ll be right there,” she shouts back.

I open the front door. “You shouldn’t keep them waiting, Aunt Gretch.”

“Fine, but it’s too bad.”

“What is?”

She starts to walk away and delivers a searing look over her shoulder. “I’m very fond of your filthy suggestions, Trent.”

She turns the corner without waiting for my response.

Gretchen.

I’m smiling like a goddamn freak on the short walk back to my house.

Gretchen. Gretchen. Gretchen.

7

Gretchen

Violence wasn’t part of my early childhood, not at all. When people find out your father is in prison for murder there’s an assumption that you must have been raised in a maelstrom of blood and fear.

This is likely true for some, but not for me.

I thought of my dad as a sloppy teddy bear of a man who drank too much and complained loudly. But I had no fear of him. He never laid a hand on us kids and to my knowledge he never physically hurt our mother either. He was on a first name business with nearly every member of the local police force and there was nothing unusual about him receiving a ride home in a squad car when he was too drunk to drive himself. While Alex Aaronson was widely regarded as something of a local joke, he’d never been in any real trouble.

Not until that August night.

It was the day of the annual boat race on the lake. Long before I was born, my grandfather won the race for five consecutive years. However, by the time I was growing up most of the competing sailboats were owned by the summer people and rarely did a Lake Stuart local take home the first place trophy. Every summer my father would make a brash prediction that next year he would compete and next year he would win. The fact that he’d never owned a sailboat and possessed inadequate sailing skills was beside the point.

Danny and Jules were off somewhere with friends and my mother hated everything about the lake. My father and I stood on the boardwalk and watched the race together.

“Next year, Gretch. This lake is our birthright, goddammit! Next year we’ll bring the trophy home.”

And I remember nodding to make him happy even though I thought he was talking nonsense far too noisily and I hated the way people stared in our direction with irritation.

Much later, I’d fallen asleep on the sofa while watching a Star Wars marathon and I was startled awake by the sound of the back door crashing open. There was no reason to be afraid. Danny and Trent would often go hurtling through the back door at odd hours, stinking of alcohol and weed and bonfire smoke as they raided the kitchen.

I wouldn’t have even gone to check if I hadn’t heard the unsettling sound of a grown man weeping.

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