He Scored My Life A 4 And Hers A 10 novel · Chapter 28 of 32

Chapter 28: The Lake

"Yes," I said.

Mabel screamed so loud the B shift covered their ears.

The widow patted my knee.

We drove up on the last Friday in June in the old blue pickup.

Jesse drove. I had the map. Mabel had the booster seat, a bag of rocks for "comparison," and my dog across her lap.

The dog had never been on a vacation in his life.

He stuck his gray nose out the window for four hours straight.

Ronnie and her wife followed us in the minivan.

"We're not following you," Ronnie had said. "We rented a cabin. On the same lake. Two docks down. It's a coincidence."

"You booked it the day he asked me."

"It's a coincidence with a deposit."

The cabin was brown logs with green trim, at the end of a sand road.

Pine trees, a screen porch, and a dock that went out into water so clear you could see the bottom.

Mabel was on the dock before the truck stopped.

"Dad! There's fish! I can see their faces!"

By Saturday morning she'd caught four sunfish and named every one before she threw it back.

"That's Captain. That's Captain Two."

"You can't name them all Captain."

"They all look like a Captain."

I caught nothing.

Jesse sat beside me on the end of the dock and watched me not catch anything for an hour.

"You're holding it like a chest tube," he said.

"I've never held a chest tube like this."

"You're holding it like you're mad at it."

"Hm," I said.

He laughed so hard he almost dropped his coffee in the lake.

Ten minutes later I caught a bass the size of my forearm.

I held it up for him, dripping.

"Score it," I said.

"Not allowed," he said. "House rule. Nobody here scores anything."

"Then just tell me it's big."

"It's huge. It's the biggest fish anybody ever caught. Put it back before it bites you."

I put it back.

After lunch Mabel walked the shoreline with her head down and her bucket.

At two she came running up the sand with both hands cupped.

"Casey. Casey. Look. Don't breathe on it."

In her palm was a stone the size of a grape.

Red and white, in thin stripes. Wet and glowing in the sun.

"That's an agate," Jesse said quietly behind me. "Bug. That's a real one."

"I know it's a real one." Her voice shook. "It's the best rock of my whole life."

She wouldn't put it in the bucket.

She carried it in her fist for the rest of the day.

By four her nose was red as a stop sign.

I sat her on the porch steps and put aloe on it while she complained.

"It's cold."

"That's the point."

"You're very bossy for a vacation."

"I'm a nurse on vacation. It's worse."

At dusk Jesse built a fire in the stone ring by the water.

Ronnie and her wife walked over with a bag of marshmallows the size of a pillow.

Mabel burned every marshmallow on purpose and ate them black.

Ronnie told a story about a man who came into the ER with a frozen hot dog in a place I won't repeat.

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