It was the weirdest feeling, so foreign and familiar all at once, seeing my own face in a place I didn’t recall. I knew the timeline, though. My parents’ marriage was crumbling due to my mom’s drinking and drug use, and by the coming winter, she would be in rehab and we’d move in with Nana. But sometime before all that, lost to my memory, was this trip. I’d clearly known these people well enough to be this comfortable and yet I’d still forgotten them.
“How long did I stay?” I asked Mimi.
“Two weeks, if I remember correctly,” she replied. “It was supposed to be one, but your mama got sick and plans changed.”
Sick, I thought, and only then did I remember my dad. I’d assumed he was listening to this. But he was standing facing the big glass window, looking out at the road, and appeared to be lost in thought.
“Where are all these people now?” I asked Mimi, who was rubbing the glass counter with the edge of her T-shirt, taking out some thumbprints on a low corner.
“Oh, they’re around,” she said. “You’ll see most of them, I’m sure, depending how long you’re here.”
“Three weeks at most,” my dad said now, having at some point tuned back to us. He sounded apologetic. “No change of plans this time, I promise.”
“You know I wouldn’t mind it,” Mimi said. “She can stay as long as she likes.”
There was a creak behind us: the door opening again. With it came a rush of warm, humid air, and an older man in khaki shorts and a golf shirt, a newspaper under his arm, walked in.
“There’s never been peace in that house in the morning, you’d think I’d—” He stopped talking when he saw me, then my dad, standing there. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t realize we had guests checking in.”
“They’re not,” Mimi said. “This is my granddaughter Saylor, Waverly’s girl. And Matthew, remember, I told you about him?”
The man smiled politely, sticking out a hand to my dad. “I’m sure you did. I’m Oxford.”
“My husband,” Mimi explained. When my dad looked at her, surprised, she said, “Joe died back in two thousand fifteen.”
“I’m sorry,” my dad said automatically. He looked shocked, and I realized again how strange it was he’d lost touch with her entirely. “God, Mimi. I had no idea.”
She waved her hand, batting his apology away. “Life gets busy when you’re raising kids. He had cancer and went quick, honey. And he went here, looking out at the lake, which is just what he wanted.”
We all stood there, taking a moment of silence for this person, whoever he was. Then Mimi looked at me. “Let’s get you over and settled, okay? Then we can send your dad on his way.”
I nodded, and she led us back outside. Oxford stayed behind, settling in an easy chair by the window with a sigh I could hear as he opened his paper.
“I can’t get over how much it looks the same,” my dad said as I went to the trunk to retrieve my suitcase and the small duffel I’d originally packed for Bridget’s. “But the dock’s new, or part of it, right?”
“Two years ago,” Mimi said, shading her eyes with one hand. “Hurricane Richard came through here and left nothing there but a pile of sticks. I cried when I saw it.”
“Really?” he asked. He looked at the dock again. “I figured this place was indestructible.”
“I wish,” she sighed. “A storm can change everything.”
“But you had insurance?”
“Thank goodness,” she said. “Joe always was one to prepare for the worst. So yes, we rebuilt. Luckily, the house and motel stood strong, although we lost a few trees and had flooding in some of the units. Nothing new carpet couldn’t fix, though.”
She started down the sidewalk that ran along the motel, and we fell in behind, first my dad, then me. There were seven units by my count, each with two plastic chairs parked outside, most of which were being used as drying racks for bathing suits or brightly colored towels. Every one had a window A/C unit going full strength as well.
A cleaning cart sat outside the last room, piled with folded towels, rolls of toilet paper, and little paper-wrapped soaps. I glanced inside: a dark-haired girl in shorts, quite pregnant, was wiping down a mirror. She glanced over as we passed before going back to what she was doing.
“We’re filled up this week, which is great for so early in the season,” Mimi was saying as we left the sidewalk and began across the grass to a nearby gray house with white trim. “The economy rules all, as Joe used to say, but most of our yearly bookings hung in even when everything went bust.”
“A lot of these motels and houses are rented by the same people for the same week, every single year,” my dad explained to me. “The reservations are handed down literally in wills, so they stay in the family. A lot of people have been coming here for generations.”
“And thank goodness for that,” Mimi added, starting up the front steps of the house, which had a wide porch, a couple of rocking chairs facing the water. “Joe used to say that it doesn’t matter what you do, everyone needs a vacation. In this business, we just happen to count on it.”
My dad followed her, taking the screen door she’d pulled open and holding it for me as she went inside. Once in the foyer, though, a cluttered living room to my right, I found myself stopping short. I was steps onto a shiny wooden floor that stretched down a long hallway before opening up to a wide room full of windows. Beyond them, there was only lake, the sun glittering off it.
“Emma?” my dad asked. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to explain to him, or if I even could, how I knew that this floor would tilt up slightly as I walked across it, or that the room at the end of the hall was the kitchen, even though I could see nothing of it from where I stood. Outside, this house had felt new and unknown. But standing here now, I would have bet my life I’d walked down this same stretch many times before.
“Now, I’ve put you in the little bedroom, if that’s okay,” Mimi said over her shoulder as I finally moved forward, down the hallway to come into, yes, the kitchen. A big wooden table sat against the wall of windows facing the lake and everything smelled like toast. Also, the sink was stacked full of dirty dishes. Of course I noticed. “It’s the only one free and I knew you’d want your privacy. The sheets are all clean and there’s towels on the bed if you want to freshen up.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Is it . . .”
I trailed off as my dad climbed a nearby flight of stairs, carrying my suitcase with him, then went left on the landing. Clearly, he needed no directions.
“Right up there,” Mimi said to me. “You’ll find it.”
I thanked her, then went up the stairs myself, the middle one creaking audibly beneath me. At the top, the carpet was beige and well worn, and I could see there were three bedrooms to the left, a bathroom to the right. Only the door on the end was open, so I headed that way.
“You know your way around this place,” I said to my dad when I found him in a small bedroom with a single bed, a closet, and one window facing the lake.
“Spent some time here,” he replied, his voice low. I’d been so focused on my own memories, I hadn’t given much thought to what he’d been feeling. But it was definitely kicking up something. He’d put my suitcase in the closet, my duffel on the bed next to two stacked towels and a washcloth. They were white with a little pink rosebud pattern, and seeing them, I felt it again, that familiarity. “This was your mom’s room, way back when.”