Page 4 of Again, In Autumn

Through the phone, Francesca says, “Heddy put in a new kitchen sink a few summers ago.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I can’t believe you haven’t seen it. It’s beautiful. A big farmhouse sink. It’s begging to be covered in cake batter.”

“Time just got away from me, okay?” I zip my cosmetic bag closed. “I didn’t realize it’s been so long since I’ve been back.”

“You absolute liar,” Francesca scoffs. “Dave thinks I must have traumatized you fourteen years ago, but I know you’re just holding onto some secret.”

That last summer did traumatize me, but not because of anything that she did. It was something else – someone else – entirely, and Francesca doesn’t know the smallest detail about it.

It would be easy to claim that I didn’t want to go back without Amber, my golden retriever who passed last year. Or, I could say that it never felt the same to visit the house as adults, burdened with responsibility we never had as children.

I’ll never tell her that I’m haunted by the summer love of a charming young musician. Him and me. Us. A love that began in June and didn’t make it past the second week in August, broken by the spell of my eighteenth birthday and the burnt smell of impending adulthood.

Francesca can’t know.

She’ll judge me for the secret I withheld, and I can’t stomach her face if she learned the truth. It would be so patronizing, and she wouldn’t believe me anyway.

Who would believe that Adam Kent, the hot, successful musician that he is today, would have once been in love with me?

Me.

A six-year-old spilled milk on my shoes today. I unknowingly stabbed myself with a pen. I almost lost control of my entire kindergarten class to a bout of TikTok dancing. It was like a silent disco, but they were all moving in synchronization, watching their leader. Maeve commands attention, and that child knows how to move.

Francesca says, “Just promise me you’re going to be there sometime on Saturday. The kids are so excited about it.”

“Okay,” I answer distantly, running my hand along a red scarf. “I told you I’d be there. I promise.”

“Thank God. I really thought you were going to pull out at the last minute.”

“That’s what she said,” I mutter.

Francesca ignores me – what’s new – and says, “You’d better get some sleep. I can tell you from experience that kindergarteners are excited about vacation.”

“I’ve got crafts and a movie planned.” I continue, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Fran.”

I throw my phone on the bed and take a gulp of wine.

I’m going back to the lake house. I’m officially doing it. Hauntings be damned, I’m going to take back my power and forget about being eighteen years old, full of promise and collagen, with nothing to distract me from the oven timer but the boy next door.

That year began with Francesca, yet again, snapping her fingers and demanding I cancel my plans and uproot my life for her.

“You’re not coming to the lake this summer?” she had demanded on trade night. “You have to!”

I’d just graduated high school. I had my dream job working at my favorite local Italian bakery, friends who I might never see again, and a ten-day Caribbean cruise planned.

I told her, “No. I’m not going this year. I’ll come up when I can, but this is my last summer at home. I want to have fun with my friends.”

“You’ll be all alone,” she said pointedly.

“I’m always alone,” I challenged.

Our father worked in Boston and came home once a month, if that, a blip in time during which we saw each other in passing.

He would ask about my grades, grill me about my future plans – to make sure they were acceptable to him – and toss money my way like I was a cartoon beggar mouse collecting cheese scraps.

Once I turned sixteen, he fired the live-in nannies and I lived on my own sense of responsibility, allowance, and grief. Francesca had already gone to college by then. She’d never had to live in the house alone. I’d been doing it for years at that point.

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