Chapter 10: The Lake House

Gus's house stood alone on a bluff east of the city, a long grey stone building with the lake at its feet.

His driver let us out at the front steps.

It was the same old man in the grey cap, and he didn't meet my eye.

"He drove me to night school for two years," Torin said, close to my ear. "He never speaks."

"He spoke to me outside the Carbarn."

Torin was quiet for three steps.

"Then Gus was watching that door," he said.

The housekeeper who opened the door was thin and grey and silent, and she took our coats without a word.

Inside, the house smelled of beeswax and woodsmoke.

Every wall held photographs in silver frames.

I walked along them while Torin spoke low with someone in the study.

My father at twenty, in a college sweatshirt, with his arm around a younger Gus.

My father's wedding day.

The two of them on a dock holding fish.

There was a small framed shot of me at six, on Gus's shoulders at the foundry picnic.

I stopped in front of the one beside it.

My mother stood on a beach in a yellow sundress with her hand lifted against the sun.

She was laughing at whoever held the camera.

She had a scar on her chin I'd forgotten until that moment, a little white crescent.

"She fell off a swing at eight," said Gus, behind me. "She told me that on the day we met."

I didn't turn around.

"You had a lot of days with her."

"Not enough."

His hand came to rest, light as a leaf, on my shoulder.

"Come and eat, sweetheart. Torin tells me you've a head for the contracts."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Dominated by My Dad's Boss from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.