Page 32 of The House Across the Lake

“Is it working for you?”

Katherine thinks it over. “Maybe. I still prefer honesty. And in this case, the truth is that Tom needs me too much to agree to a divorce. He’d kill me before letting me leave.”

She gives me a wiggle-fingered wave and skips down the steps. I stay atthe porch railing, watching her cross the dock, hop into the boat, and start the short crossing to the other side of the lake.

When she’s about halfway there, something on the ground below catches my eye. A spot of brightness in a swath of tall grass near the stone wall running along the shoreline.

Glass.

Reflecting the sun as brightly as Katherine’s house.

I descend the steps and pick it up, discovering it’s a shard of the wineglass she’d broken last night. When I hold it to the light, I can see drops of wine dried on its surface, along with a light film that resembles dried salt.

I scan the ground for similar chunks of glass. Seeing none, I go back inside and drop the shard into the kitchen trash. By the time it’s clinked to the bottom of the bin, a thought occurs to me.

Not about the broken wineglass.

About Katherine.

She texted me this morning, but I have no idea how she got my number.

The rest of the day passes on its regularly scheduled course.

Vodka. Neat.

Another vodka. Also neat.

Cry in the shower.

Grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.

Bourbon.

Bourbon.

Bourbon.

My mother calls at her regularly scheduled time, using my cell and not the landline still stuffed into a drawer in the den. I let it go to voicemail and delete her message without listening to it.

Then I have another bourbon.

Dinner is steak with a side salad so I can pretend my body isn’t a complete nutritional wasteland.

And wine.

Coffee to sober up a tad.

Ice cream, just because.

It’s now a few minutes after midnight and I’m sipping cheap whiskey poured from an unopened bottle I found stuffed in the back of the liquor cabinet. It’s probably been there for decades. But it does the trick,smoothing the peaks and valleys of intoxication I’ve experienced over the course of the day. Now I’m enveloped in a dreamy calmness that makes all of it worthwhile.

I’m on the porch, snug in a heavy sweater, the blanket from the boat once again wrapped over my shoulders. It’s not as foggy as last night. Lake Greene and its environs sit encased in a silvery crispness that provides a clear view across the water. I take in each house there.

The Fitzgeralds’. Dark and empty.

The Royces’. Not empty, but dark all the same.

Eli’s. A single light aglow on the third floor.

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