Margot swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable. She didn’t want to compare and contrast father figures. She didn’t appreciate Duffy’s meddling. She didn’t appreciate being trapped on a boat with her estranged father. Surely this was some sort of scenario designed by Alfred Hitchcock. Maybe she could swim to shore.
She tried to focus on the passing scenery. She didn’t know much about lakes, despite growing up near one of the largest in the world. But she recognized signs of drought when she saw them. The shore was marked by at least two feet of baked earth. Mud-coated trash lay exposed in the shallows. It was like seeing a body of water without its toupee, sad and lesser and sort of desperate.
“Shouldn’t you have a tour booked this morning?” she asked Duffy over the noise of the engine.
Duffy flushed again, glancing at his mom. “Yeah, well, the doctor I had booked backed out at the last minute.”
“Duff, it wasn’t your fault.” Aunt Donna’s voice softened for the first time since Margot had arrived in Lake Sackett. “The doctor canceled his whole weekend when he saw the ‘cabin’ he booked. That idiot Maybelline Mathis has been renting out the pottin’ shed behind her house and calling it a guest cabin. She puts fake pictures on the rental web site. It was bound to catch up to her eventually.”
“It’s been happenin’ a lot,” Duffy grumped. “It’s the fourth cancellation I’ve had in the last couple of weeks. People are losing their patience with the town. The water’s too low and the rental cabins are gettin’ shabby. And the owners can’t afford to fix ’em up again because the renters cancel. I don’t know how much longer we’re gonna be able to keep this up.”
“Well, that’s a real cheerful sentiment for this early in the morning, son,” Donna retorted, her flinty tone restored. “Moanin’ over loomin’ financial disaster is just what I wanted as a side for my Breakfast Stick.”
Duffy jerked his shoulders as he slowed the boat and anchored it about twenty yards from the shore of a little alcove surrounded by fallen trees. Stan was largely unaffected by this exchange, his big basset-hound eyes focused on his daughter. “And your mama, was she finally happy in the big city?”
“What do you mean by that?” Margot asked, standing on steady legs and moving to the starboard side of the boat. Watching Duffy’s and Donna’s movements, she plopped her minnowed hook into the water.
“I mean, she was never happy here. I just want to know was she finally happy, movin’ to a big city, marryin’ a doctor. Being away from this place. Was she happy?”
Margot frowned. Her mother hadn’t been built for happiness. Surely, having been married to her, Stan knew that. Resentment rose up in her throat, hot and bitter. She noticed her father hadn’t mentioned his drinking this time. What was Stan looking for? Did he want her to take away his guilt? Was she supposed to convince him he’d done the right thing by doing nothing to get Margot back? What gave him the right to ask these things?
“Margot?” Stan said, following her to the side of the boat. Margot stared across the water, determined to ignore him.
In the distance, she saw the silhouette of a beautiful wooden sailboat, the old-fashioned kind you saw in aftershave commercials. It slipped smoothly across the water, and Margot was struck with a sort of envious longing. Stan was still standing next to her, asking her questions, but she managed to block him out, focusing on the distant ship.
What would it be like to move so quickly and quietly? She’d known plenty of people with yachts on Lake Michigan, but they’d been more mini cruise ships, used for parties and not much else. This boat looked like it was flying. She longed to stand on that deck and slide so easily into the wind. But then again, anyplace seemed preferable to where she was standing, being interrogated by her father.
The sailboat veered closer, and suddenly Margot pulled her fishing hat over her face and slumped down. Kyle Archer, windblown and handsome, was sitting at the rudder and wearing a life vest that should have made him as dumpy as she felt in her floppy hat and flotation device. But it didn’t. He was gorgeous. Damn it. And he was smiling, his face angled down as he talked to someone slumped against the hull. A long brown ponytail flapped in the breeze over the edge of the highly polished wood.
Her first thought was girlfriend, and she was surprised by the spike of jealousy that flared in her belly. She didn’t get jealous. A man proved himself unworthy or unavailable, she moved on. But the idea of Kyle sailing around with that happy expression on his face because of another woman, it made—
The brunette head popped over the hull and Margot saw that it was his daughter Hazel, she of the challenged follicles. Somehow, that was worse. This was a man with a family. His attention would always be divided. He would never have time for spontaneous moments together because he would have to deal with babysitters and pickup schedules. His daughters would always come first, as they should. She didn’t think she would want him as much as she did if he put them second.
A little puttering motor in the distance drew Margot’s attention away from the sailboat and its baffling owner. She was struck by the image of an African American man in his fifties aiming for their boat at what seemed to be ramming speed. He wore a Braves cap that looked like he’d had it since boyhood, but his boat looked showroom new. As he drew closer, Margot recognized him as the man Donna had been yelling at on the dock days before. He turned the boat just as he killed the engine, meaning he splashed their pontoon as he skidded to a drifting halt.
“Donna McCready!” he yelled. “I know you’re not poachin’ my territory.”
“I don’t see your name on it, Fred Dodge!” she yelled back.
Margot was grateful for the interruption of her less loud but more awkward conversation. She would much rather watch her aunt Donna yell at someone who was not her.
Stan and Duffy seemed more exasperated than worried by the exchange, sitting back on the cushions of the pontoon and crossing their arms. So Margot sat back, too—in a spot as far away from Stan as possible—to enjoy the show as Fred yelped, “Woman, you know I’ve been fishin’ that spot since we were in high school!”
Margot watched the verbal fencing between her aunt and Mr. Dodge with a little smile on her lips. She couldn’t help but notice the way Donna’s face flushed as she parried and shouted. Mr. Dodge’s wide brown eyes blazed as he wagged his finger at her aunt. They were into each other. In a big way.
“She’s right,” Duffy said dryly. “I signed the territory agreement as a witness. Your exclusive spot is over on Deer Tick Bay.”
Fred pursed his lips. “Oh . . . right. Well, that doesn’t change the fact that you’re in my spot here, Donna!”
“Fine,” Donna bit out. She stomped over and started the motor, then moved the boat ten yards down the shore. “Happy now?”
“Overjoyed!” Fred shouted back. He started his engine and guided his boat away. But he glanced over his shoulder to see if Donna was watching.
Margot grinned. Fred had it bad for Donna—scary, loud Donna. They would be the most prickly, adorable couple, if they ever stopped yelling at each other.
Triumphant in clinging to her favorite fishing spot, Donna dropped her hook in the water and stretched across her seat, long legs propped on the bow. Stan had turned his back on everybody and commenced fishing. Duffy occupied himself with eating his Breakfast Stick. Margot watched her bobber, well, bobbing, for almost an hour, with no change. And she realized that she’d missed very little, not going on fishing trips as a child. It was hot and too sunny and too quiet and everything smelled like dirt and pennies and frustration. And she’d forgotten her cell phone on her nightstand when Duffy abducted her, so this was basically her nightmare.
Margot huffed out a breath and pulled her hat over her face, hoping it would muffle her frustrated groan.
“What are you doin’, girl?” She pulled her hat back to see Stan staring at her, his brow furrowed.
She cleared her throat. “Um, nothing, just trying to keep the sun out of my eyes,”
“Well, that’s no way to do it.” Stan set his root beer aside and reached up to shape the brim over her face. He tapped her nose with his index finger. “And you should put some zinc on that nose before ya get burnt. You couldn’t stand having a sunburn when you were little. Used to carry a jar of Noxzema around the house, telling everybody you were dyin’.”
Margot glanced up into her father’s face. He was gazing down at her, a little smile playing on his lips as he relived this memory. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the sailboat pass. She tipped her head down to avoid eye contact. And Stan’s hands froze, millimeters from her cheeks.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, and shuffled away to the other side of the boat.
And that tension that had been building up inside Margot snapped. “Look, I don’t know what you want from me. You had a chance to get to know me and you left me hanging. How am I supposed to trust you enough to try now? These memories that you have of me that you keep bringing up? I don’t remember anything like that. And you asking me all of these questions, it’s not going to make me remember. And I can’t change it. It is what it is. I can’t tiptoe around your feelings because I have no idea what happened between you and my mother. And it’s not my job to make you feel better about it, either way.”
“Well, what am I supposed to think?” he demanded. “Your mama ran off without a word. I don’t hear from you for years—tens of years! And then you show up out of the blue after all this time and I’m supposed to, what? Say ‘Thank you for deciding to show up’? I didn’t expect to see you again. And you don’t get why I would be too intimidated to just go to lunch with you the other day?”
“Oh, I have a lot of things to say to you on the subject of showing up, if you’d like to start a dialogue,” she said, smiling with so much acid, it could dissolve the bottom of the boat.
“See, that’s why I can’t even have a conversation with you. You talk like a damn robot.”
“Don’t curse at me!” she shot back.
He crossed his arms over his chest, eyes narrowed. “Yep, there’s your mama in you.”
Margot yelled, “You do not talk about my mother!”
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t say! I’m your father!”
“You haven’t done anything to deserve the title of father! You might as well have been a sperm donor for all I knew from you!”
For a moment, Margot didn’t know whether Stan was going to slap her or burst into tears. Having been raised by two passive-aggressive cold fish, she couldn’t remember seeing such strong emotions fighting it out on a person’s face. No one in the family had ever mentioned Stan having a nasty temper, even when he drank. But had she pushed him so far that he would lash out like that? Was it sick that she wanted to know? Maybe she was just some giant psychological cliché, pushing at her parent’s boundaries to see what she could get away with. Therapy would probably be a good idea, once she was living outside of the Lake Sackett gossip zone.
Stan glanced down at his clenched hands and seemed horrified, backing away from her and putting several feet of space between them. A tiny flicker of guilt fluttered to life inside her, and she told herself it was natural to feel bad about making anyone hurt that much. It had nothing to do with who Stan was or any feelings she had about him. Not wanting to hurt another human being only proved Margot wasn’t a complete sociopath.
“Well, this is fun.” Donna spat, making a sour face at Duffy. “ ‘Take ’em fishing,’ you said. ‘Put ’em on a boat where they can’t get away from each other,’ you said. ‘They’ll have to bond eventually,’ you said.”
Duffy threw his hands up in the air in a helpless gesture. Stan crossed the boat, sitting as far away from Margot as possible. The baleful silence between them lasted for hours, until Donna and Duffy caught their fill. Stan was clearly off his game, catching only a handful. Margot, predictably, caught nothing.
Seriously, why did people put themselves through this and call it a hobby? Why were there so many movies, books, magazines, TV shows dedicated to sitting still and staring at water? She resorted to making lists in her head to keep herself sane—groceries she needed to shop for, contacts she still needed to make in her job search, excuses to give to Duffy so she never had to go fishing again. She almost wept with relief when her cousin yanked the anchor from the mucky bottom and motored the pontoon boat back toward the family marina. Stan kept his back to her up until the moment the boat bumped against the dock, and frankly, that was the only bright spot to her morning.
“Well, that was fun,” Donna said dryly as Stan moved with more speed than anyone could have expected from him and leaped onto the dock. He stormed toward the parking lot without a word, gear in hand. “Damn fool.”
“Aunt Donna, thank you for taking me fishing,” Margot said politely as Duffy helped her step off the boat. She whirled on her cousin and pointed a finger in Duffy’s face. “You. Dead to me.”
Duffy poked his bottom lip out in a pout so pathetic, she added, “For at least two days.”
The pout turned into a smile, so she felt compelled to smack the back of his fluffy head and snatch the truck key from the carabiner that secured it to his fishing vest. “And you’re riding home with your mother.”
“I deserve that,” Duffy conceded.
MARGOT BOBBLED THE plastic storage containers as she knocked on the door of the “main house.” The biggest and oldest of the cabins on the compound, Tootie and E.J.J.’s place had a sort of White House feel to it, with its pristine white flower boxes and the little leaping concrete fish that flanked the front door. Margot felt like she should be curtsying instead of smacking the trout-shaped door knocker against the aging wood.
A handful of unfamiliar cars were parked in the semicircular drive, all with local plates. She could hear people—well, women—inside laughing and talking. It sounded like there were dozens of them. It was oddly soothing, the sounds of a party, like slipping into old comfortable slippers. She stopped and smiled. Her hands itched for a clipboard and her earpiece. Her brain switched into full party mode, timing food platters and composing a pleasant toast in her head. She could almost feel the tray of empty champagne flutes in her hand.
She had to get a real job soon.
No one had answered her knock. Surely, even in the South, even when you were related to your nearest neighbors, it was rude to just walk into someone’s house without permission. Maybe it would be better for her to drop Tootie’s Tupperware by her front door and run back to her own cabin. She hadn’t spoken directly to Tootie since the argument in her car. She didn’t want to cause a scene if her great-aunt had guests. What if this was a private family thing? She didn’t want to interrupt that. Sure, it didn’t make sense that they would have a party without inviting her when they’d insistently included her in every remotely interesting moment since she’d arrived. But because her family had been so welcoming—aside from Stan—she didn’t want to intrude on the few things they’d kept for themselves.
Dropping the containers gently on the porch swing, Margot tiptoed toward the steps.
“Margot, honey, where’re you heading?”
Margot froze and turned to find E.J.J. standing in the doorway, frowning at her.
So much for a graceful exit.
“Hi,” she said. “I was just dropping off Tootie’s containers . . . I knocked, but no one answered.”
“Aw, honey, you don’t have to knock. You’re family, you just come on in.”
“I’m really not comfortable with that,” Margot said, shaking her head.
“Welp, you might as well come in. Tootie’s card night just started up. You’re gonna want to get some food before it gets in full swing.”
“Oh, I don’t want to interrupt.”
“Sweetheart, I understand that you’re trying to use your best company manners. But it doesn’t feel polite. It feels like you’re keepin’ us at a distance. I’m not sayin’ let us run roughshod all over you. I’ve only known you for a short while and I
know that’s not your nature. You need to relax, just a little bit.”
“I’m relaxed.”
“Right now, you’re wearing your shoulders as earrings,” E.J.J. noted. Margot glanced at her shoulders, which were indeed tensed up around her ears. She frowned and forced them down into a slightly less intense posture. “There you go.”
“Has anyone ever told you that this level of insight is annoying, even in an adorable old man?”
E.J.J. grinned, his impossibly white false teeth winking in the dying afternoon light. “Your granpda would have gotten such a kick out of you. Now go on in there. I’m headin’ to Bob and Leslie’s cabin, where it’s safe.”
“That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence about going inside,” Margot told him, though she let him shove her inside the door. “You are surprisingly strong for an old guy.”
The voices got even louder as she got closer to the kitchen. Margot had expected the house to be decorated in kitschy Americana and reproduction antiques. But it was subtly done in creamy whites and slate blue. A comfortable rocker stood by a river-stone fireplace. A blue-and-white quilt was thrown over an overstuffed navy couch. The hardwood floors were painstakingly restored and polished. It wasn’t magazine perfect, but it was cozy and clean. Margot’s eyes caught on her mother’s face, staring out at her from a framed family portrait on the mantel. She stepped closer. The photo was taken in the mid-eighties, judging by the hair. The family was mostly recognizable as the one she’d just met. Donna was smiling sweetly, tucked into the side of a big, burly man with Duffy’s eyes. Tootie was sitting next to E.J.J., who had his arm wrapped around her, pulling her close to him. And Linda stood out like a sore blond thumb, her body angled away from Stan and Margot. Linda stared straight into the camera, her dark eyes flat and bored. Her face was unlined but unsmiling. Margot had always thought her mother had grown into her unhappiness as she got older, but it seemed to be a lifelong trait. How could someone smiling as easily as Stan seemed to be want to make a life with someone so dour? How could the other McCreadys see this photo and not notice how dissatisfied she was?