When August Ends
As if she could read my mind, Heather asked, “So, what’s your next step?”
“Next step?”
“What will you do when August ends? Return to Pennsylvania, get back to work?”
“Yeah. I can’t leave my business for too long. Or my father.”
“Is your father ill?”
“No, but he’s the only family I have there. My mom and my brother who’s married with three children all live in Minnesota.”
She grinned. “Uncle Noah.”
“Yeah.” I smiled, thinking about my two nephews and niece. “My mother moved there to be closer to my brother and his kids.”
“Your parents are divorced, then.”
“Yeah. Ever since I was about your age.”
“Well, I’d say sorry, but sometimes divorce can be a good thing if the situation that preceded it was unbearable.”
“That’s very true. In my parents’ case, though, it was amicable.” I paused a moment. “What about your parents? You haven’t mentioned your father at all.”
“My father remarried when my sister and I were young. He has two daughters with his new wife, and I barely see him. They live in western Massachusetts. He returns to the lake once a year, stays at a hotel, and comes over for dinner. He mostly criticizes my mother and me, then leaves. I dread that visit because my mother is always a wreck the entire week before, during, and after. Well, even more of a wreck than she already is.”
Shit. That couldn’t have been easy for her—that her dad had another two daughters he spent all of his time with. Overall, he sounded like an ass.
“That must be hard for you…”
“Yes, but I can’t change it, so I try to accept it. Aside from his yearly visit, I go to visit them a couple of times a year. I was always more accepting of the situation than Opal, but she had other issues affecting her reactions to things. She saw my father leaving as pure abandonment. I’ve tried to see it differently—that sometimes people don’t get things right the first time around in life. He seems happy now. I know he regrets leaving us the way he did. He’s told me so. Even though knowing that doesn’t make it any easier, I forgive him.”
“I admire how you handle what you’ve been dealt,” I said.
“All I can do is my best. I try not to dwell on the sad stuff, and I try to find some happiness in every day, even if it’s only one thing.”
“What was your happiness today?”
She looked me straight in the eyes. “This…hanging out with you.”
I cut her another piece of bread to deflect how that made me feel, which was all sorts of fucked-up inside. If she asked me that question, my answer would be the same.
I watched her chew on the bread. It was oddly sensual, giving her food piece by piece and watching her eat it. Or maybe that was my depraved mind wishing I could give her something more. Maybe in a different time, a different world, that would have been possible. But in this reality, Heather was too good for me, too innocent and pure.
Though I’d tried to convince myself I wasn’t supposed to view her sexually, my body didn’t agree. It thought Heather was fantastically beautiful. With her long, silky blond hair and laid-back attitude, she was sort of like Barbie’s down-to-Earth cousin. She had an understated beauty and a personality to match—a great sense of humor. Her body, while athletic, had subtle curves in all the right places. As she stretched her long legs out on the porch, I had the urge to rub my hand along the blond fuzz on her thighs. She kicked her shoes off, displaying dainty feet.
My attraction to her would have to stay my dirty little secret, because I wouldn’t be laying a hand on her.
She licked her lips. “So…Eric thinks something’s going on between us.”
“Oh yeah?”
“And I sort of…let him believe it.”
“Good. Serves him right.”
“I was hoping you’d be okay with that.”
“Fuck yes, I am. If I’d known what he’d done to you when I met him that night at your house, I would have played it up, made him feel like the little shit he is.”
“I appreciate that you would do that for me.”
My feelings for Heather were complicated, but more than anything, I felt protective of her. I would do anything to make the prick who’d cheated on her jealous.
We stayed on the porch talking for a couple more hours.
After she left, I lay in my bed, staring out at the moon as my mind raced.
It felt like I had a mission, and I was running out of time. I needed to help her get out of this place. I could only do so much while I was in New Hampshire, but I needed a plan. I would fix as much around here as possible so she could put the property on the market. Maybe she could get her mother into some kind of retirement community where people could help look after her. Getting Alice into a different situation was gonna be the toughest part. But if that could happen somehow, then Heather could go to college and follow her dreams.
CHAPTER SEVEN
* * *
HEATHER
About a year ago, I’d decided I really needed to talk to a professional. Remote therapy seemed like a good option since there weren’t a ton of qualified therapists near me who took my insurance. I’d found a woman based out of New York who did.
In the beginning, we’d talked a lot about how Opal’s suicide and my mother’s depression were impacting me, but as of late, we were focused on my general well-being.
Dr. Vaughan popped up on the screen. “Hi, Heather. Can you hear and see me okay?”
“Yes. Crystal clear.”
“Good. How have you been?”
“Pretty good, actually.”
“Okay. Great.” She looked down at her notes. “Let’s see…the last time we spoke, you told me about a man who’d moved onto your property. It was nice to hear you excited about something. How are things going with that situation?”
When we’d spoken a month ago, Noah had just moved in. I’d described my attraction to him and admitted I was holding out hope that something might happen between us over the course of the summer. Things had changed.
“Well, unfortunately, my excitement was a bit premature. Noah has turned out to be a great friend and a huge help around the property, but he made it clear he’s not interested in me romantically or sexually.”
She took some notes, then asked, “How did he explain that to you exactly?”
“I…sort of took a chance and made an advance toward him one night, let him know I was attracted to him.”
“That was very brave.”
“Yeah, well, he was quick to explain that he doesn’t see it happening. He thinks, among other things, that he’s too old for me, even though I don’t think thirty-four is too old at all.”
“How do you feel about his rejection?”
“I’ve learned to accept it. Like I said, we’ve become friends. I’m still attracted to him and wish things were different, but it is what it is. I can’t force him to want me that way.”
“You seem to be taking it as well as could be expected.”
“I don’t have a choice. I still really like being around him. He’s listened to me vent about a lot of stuff and is very encouraging. He wants me to find a way to go to college, and he’s been fixing things around the property to help us get it into a condition where we can put it on the market.”
“What are your mother’s thoughts on that—potentially moving?”
“She doesn’t want to sell, but she agrees we probably have to. Since the house is paid off, we could buy something smaller and use the money for the future. The fact that the property comes with the boathouse for rental income is a huge selling point. I’m hoping we can get a good deal for it.”
“How does your mother feel about Noah helping out?”
“Well, she was very suspect of his intentions at first, but she’s calmed down about that—especially after she got a look at the freshly painted boathouse.” I chuckled. “He’s started fixing things on the main property now—installed a new hot water heater, replaced a couple of windows, things like that. He’s really a jack of all trades, used to work in construction. Mom still stays in her room most of the day, but she’s come out once or twice to say hello to him, and she even apologized for being rude to him early on.”
“It sounds like Noah’s being there has turned out to be a really great thing.”
“Yeah. Almost like he was sent from above.”
My feelings for Noah had only grown over the past couple of weeks. I felt so safe with him around. We’d hung out a lot, talked a lot. The front porch of the boathouse had become our place. I’d watch him smoke his one cigar—never two—and we’d sit and talk about anything and everything, sometimes until the wee hours of the morning. Things had stayed platonic, and I was more convinced than ever about that not changing. But it still hurt a little. I wanted him more each day and couldn’t imagine how I was going to feel after he left. I knew for sure he was someone I would never forget.
After I got off the phone with Dr. Vaughan, I opened my journal as I often did after clearing my head in therapy. While I typically wrote down my thoughts and feelings, today my head was in a totally different space. Maybe it was all that talk about Noah not wanting me, but all I could seem to focus on was how much I wanted him and ridding myself of some of this pent-up frustration. If I couldn’t actually have him, I would let it all out on the pages of my journal. No holds barred, I wrote out my greatest sexual fantasy, including all the things I wished he would do to me.