Chapter 11: The Lake House

I drove to my father's lake house on Sunday, and I told Mitchell why.

"The original trust papers are in Dad's desk," I said. "If I'm going to sign something, I want to read what Dad wrote."

He kissed me, and I saw relief on his face.

"Of course. Take your time."

Daniel's Honda pulled into the gravel drive an hour after mine.

The house was a low cedar cabin with a dock, closed up since fall.

The desk was in my father's study, and the folder was in the second drawer, where it had been for three years.

We read it together at the kitchen table, in our coats, with the heat off.

It took Daniel four minutes to find the paragraph.

"If the beneficiary dies before forty," he read, "the trust passes in full to her surviving spouse."

I put my finger on the line.

"Dad added that before the wedding," I said. "He liked Mitchell. He thought it was a kindness."

"Three point eight million."

"For a wife in a car crash."

Neither of us spoke.

Out the window the lake was gray and flat, with a skin of ice at the edges.

I got up and went to Kit's room at the end of the hall.

Her old quilt was still on the narrow bed.

A pair of her sneakers sat on the floor with the laces tucked in.

I sat down on the quilt and pressed my fist against my mouth.

I had not cried alone since the funeral, and I could not do it now.

Daniel stood in the doorway.

He crossed the room and sat beside me, and he did not touch me.

"Tell me when to go," he said.

"Stay."

"Mara."

"Stay." My voice cracked. "I'm so tired of being careful."

I turned and found his collar.

My fingers hooked the cord beneath it, and the ring slid out into my palm.

It was warm from his skin.

"Whose ring is this?"

"A marriage I'm not really in anymore," he said. "I can't tell you the rest. That's a delay, not a lie."