Winter at the White Oaks Lodge

Everheart Books Edition

Copyright © 2014 Abbie Williams

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This edition is published by arrangement with Abbie Williams

everheartbooks.com

First electronic edition

Created and distributed by Everheart Books, a division of Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.

Winter at the White Oaks Lodge

ISBN 978-1-771680-013-4

Published in Canada with international distribution.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Design: Michelle Halket

Cover Photography: Courtesy & Copyright iStockPhoto: XiXinXing

To those of you who believe there is more to this world than you can see.

Winter at the White Oaks Lodge

The funny thing is, my dad was
always the one people noticed. From the time I was little I was aware of how women cast sidelong glances at him and I never thought twice. Dad always had such an easy grin, wide and warm, that he used on everyone; I never understood the basic insincerity of it until much later. I always thought he was the handsomest man I'd ever seen, a typical Daddy's girl. Dad never got mad at me, never raised his voice; he could charm his way into or out of anything. My mom was always just
mom
, terrible as that sounds, my mother with her hair in a messy ponytail, wearing the gray terrycloth sweatpants that seemed like her uniform when I was a girl. Wiping the table, yelling at us for leaving our dirty clothes in the hallway, our boots in the middle of the entryway. Looking back now, I see that she was always the disciplinarian; Dad didn't make us do anything. Dad bought us expensive presents and left the tough stuff to my mom. All of which contributed to my stun upon discovering that my own mother was having an affair with an extremely sexy man twelve years her junior.

To be fair, it was only after my dad had proven himself unworthy and Mom, my sisters and I had moved back to their hometown of Landon, Minnesota. It was then that Mom started seeing Blythe Tilson. It was also right around the time I realized I was going to be a teenage mother that I discovered the truth of their relationship. And, again in the spirit of fairness, Blythe is far more than just an incredibly good-looking guy; he's kind and loving and treats my mom like a queen. I have honestly never seen her more happy or beautiful than she's been since last summer. I mean, I always realized she was pretty, but I had never considered that she could be beautiful, as though a light suddenly burst forth from somewhere in her soul, illuminating her face and her golden-green eyes. I see it now and even if it's a little strange to acknowledge, I know that Blythe is responsible for this.

Dad was always my favorite, I'm ashamed to admit that now. He made me feel special, like his precious girl. When I was young, I imagined that he loved me best of all, even over my sisters. I know that's not the truth, but as the oldest I pretended. And that's why, back in the autumn of 2002, when I spied him out for lunch with a woman other than my mom, great big ragged chunks fell from the sky to surround me, all of my security smashing like concrete bricks on the busy Chicago sidewalk. I had been walking with private school friends, Payton and Cara, and it had been Cara who had caught my elbow as we were walking past Gioco's that late-fall day, our last day of classes before Thanksgiving break. She tugged me backward and nudged my shoulder, indicating with a discreetly-pointed index finger.

“Isn't that your dad?” she asked quietly.

I stared, uncomprehending, at the impossible sight of my father standing just outside the entrance to the restaurant, clad in his charcoal-gray woolen jacket, the same one he'd donned that morning to leave for work, laughing about something with a tall, slim, dark-haired woman. A woman who was holding tightly to his right arm, her gloved hands possessive upon him. She was in profile, beautiful and much younger than my dad, and as I watched with a sense of growing horror, he curved his arm around her waist and snuggled her close for an instant.

“Come on,” Payton said decisively. “Let's go.”

I hadn't said a word to Mom. I hadn't even mentioned a thing to Tish, though normally I kept nothing from my middle sister. When Dad came home from work that night, I had studied him carefully, a part of me yet cloaked in disbelief, my heart insistent that there was a reasonable explanation, that he wasn't actually a dirty cheating son of a bitch. When he'd stuck his head in my room to say good-night, as he always did, I pretended to be asleep.

“Milla, phone off for the night,” Mom asked, coming up behind Dad. Half-teasingly she said, “Or I'm confiscating it.”

“She's sleeping already, Jo,” Dad said.

Mom said, “She's isn't, she's faking.”

Of course Mom could see that. I rolled to face them, studying my parents framed as they were in my doorway, backlit by the hall light. What if I hadn't seen Dad and that woman today, what if I could still be free of that knowledge? This was one of those moments we talked about all the time in English, an awakening, an epiphany, a loss of innocence. I hated that I knew all of those stupid phrases that made no impact in the abstract; I was nauseous as they punched me now, making all sorts of sense. I mumbled, “It's in the kitchen anyway.”

“Good. 'Night, honey,” Dad said.

Mom lingered a moment. She heard something in my voice but let it go, for which I was truly grateful. After they'd left, I curled around my pillow and sobbed silently, assaulted by emotion. The worst thought of all kept circling back, like a vulture in my brain. At last I rolled to my back and covered my face with both forearms, contemplating it fully; it wasn't the notion that my parents might split up, that my dad was probably having sex with a stranger, or that he would dare do such a thing to his family. It was more selfish than that and it hurt me like a sharp blade.

If you can't trust your dad, who can you trust?

But I couldn't answer that and so I at last drifted off to a restless sleep.

February 2004, Landon, MN

“Any day now, sweetie, a
ny day.”

Grandma's words were accompanied by her hand on my back, patting me between the shoulder blades as I leaned on my palms against the edge of the kitchen sink and attempted to draw a deep breath. It wasn't that I was trying to be melodramatic; I truly could not get enough air into my lungs, courtesy of the enormous pregnancy that belled out my stomach. When I lay flat on my back, which I couldn't do for more than a minute these days or I felt crushed, my belly resembled the dome of a cathedral.

“I keep reminding myself that,” I said, relaxing my shoulders as she rested her hand upon me, comfortingly. On the counter beside me, coffee was percolating with a cheerful burbling noise. I groused, “It's not fair. Aunt Jilly looks adorable, and she's almost as pregnant as me. But she never complains.”

Grandma said, “That's not true. Everyone complains at this stage of a pregnancy. It comes with the territory. Just be glad it isn't summer and there's no air conditioning in your house.”

I regarded her over my shoulder, my grandma Joan, who had lived in this same house since her own childhood. The walls here had surely witnessed their share of pregnant women. As kids we had always come to Landon for summer break; I had never imagined that I would someday live here as a pregnant and single teenager. As if. Who thinks that it will ever happen to her?

“That's right, Mom and Aunt Jilly were both born in August. At least you didn't have to worry about slipping on the ice.” I'd been in mortal fear of that since the first frost at the end of October, gingerly traversing the slippery sidewalks of Landon as my belly stuck out further than my breasts. It seemed to me that the high school was the last place in town that was plowed or de-iced. I thanked God that, at the very least, I was done with school for now; Landon High had been a study in small-town bias against the (and I quote) ‘slut who got Noah Utley in trouble.'

Irony. I was the least slutty girl I knew, to be fair. Of course evidence would suggest otherwise, as here I stood an eighteen-year-old who was well into her eighth month of pregnancy. I had truly believed, last June and July under the magic of the summer moon, that Noah Utley, two years my senior, loved me. Classic idiocy, cliché, too stupid for words to contemplate. Thinking back on it now, I compared myself to a puppy seeking affection: when he had complimented me, I wriggled with the pleasure of it, believing everything, all his seemingly-sweet and heartfelt words, without question. He may as well have scratched behind my ears. And, as anyone besides me could have predicted, here I was, without him and carrying our baby. I had not seen a glimpse of him, nor heard a word, since last fall.

“That's true, it's a trade off either way,” Grandma said, on the subject of inclement weather and pregnancy.

“Morning,” said Aunt Ellen, Grandma's older sister, tying her bathrobe as she joined us, reaching immediately for the coffee. “Camille, what's the story? She coming today, or what?”

She kissed my cheek before pouring herself a cup.

“Who knows?” I asked cynically. But then I was assaulted with terror, as I had been often of late, at the thought of having an actual infant in my arms, a tiny living person who would be solely dependent upon me. Grandma sensed or saw the thought as its impact struck my face, as she resumed patting my back.

“It's all right, Milla, we'll be here to help. You won't be alone,” she assured me, and I felt a slice of warmth across my heart, replacing some of the fear. I knew Grandma meant those words, and I was well aware I should count every last blessing I had. Probably it was better, worlds better, to have two women with decades of experience in child-rearing at my side, rather than Noah Utley, who had been an expert at getting me out of my jean shorts but who was utterly worthless otherwise. Bitterly, I pushed any thoughts of the errant father of my baby aside.

“I know, Gram,” I said, turning to look at her. Grandma has the same eyes as Mom, a beautiful blending of gold and green, fringed with long lashes. I had chosen to live with Grandma and Aunt Ellen rather than with Mom and my sisters, who had moved into a rental house just across town. I missed them hugely, Tish especially, despite the fact that I saw them all the time, at Shore Leave. And my mom had recently, just at Christmas, become Joelle Tilson.

Mom's new husband Blythe is ridiculously good-looking. It's not as strange as one might think, now that I've had time to get used to the whole situation, though I will never be able to think of him as my stepdad. And Blythe is so majorly, sickly in love with Mom that it's almost vomit-inducing. When I first met Blythe last May, my jaw almost fell to the floor. He's big and strong, he's sexy as hell, and his eyes follow my mom like a compass follows north. To be fair, he is very polite in our presence, but I'm observant, and the expression in his eyes when he looks at Mom tells me everything I don't really want to know. He can barely keep his hands from her when we're around, so I can't even begin to imagine how it is in private. Ugh. That's another reason I would much rather live here, in my own space.

It's just the same with my Aunt Jilly and her new husband, Justin Miller. Those two make out all over the place, but then again, Aunt Jilly isn't my mother. It doesn't bother Clinty, my cousin, one bit; honestly, I don't think he even notices, and like Mom, Aunt Jilly has been so happy since last summer, even while recuperating after her terrible car accident last September. Lots has changed around Shore Leave since then too: Aunt Jilly and Clinty moved across town to live with Justin in his house and the idea is that I'll inherit Aunt Jilly's old apartment above the garage. Eventually. I don't want to rush things, and the thought of being alone with an infant, even close to assistance (as in, down a flight of stairs and across the lawn), is a scary one. Besides, I wouldn't want to climb up those stairs leading to the apartment at the moment anyway, let alone try to ascend them lugging an infant car seat.

Aunt Jilly's and Uncle Justin's baby is due just a month after my own, and according to her we're both having girls. Everyone in our family knows to take Aunt Jilly's notions for truth. So at night in the darkness of my little bedroom, I curl around my belly on the twin bed made up with the same flowered sheets that my mom used in high school, and contemplate holding a little bundle wrapped in pink, my daughter. Nameless, faceless, though in my mind she looks like me, nothing like Noah. It's so hard, it just plain sucks, to imagine him as part of her. What if she looks like him? What if I can't stand it? These are the kinds of thoughts that plague me as I lay there watching the moon rise in the long, skinny dormer windows in my room. On clear nights, of which there are relatively few in a northern Minnesota winter, those windows are at a perfect angle to observe it.

“Besides, she'd be two weeks early today,” I reminded them.

“Jo and Jilly both came early,” Grandma said. “And you're so close to forty weeks now, there's nothing to worry about.” She leaned to kiss my cheek before reminding, “El, don't forget we have the whole crew tonight for Valentine's. And Liz and Wordo are joining them.”

“So we'll have the triplets too,” Ellen replied. “We'll be a full house.”

Shore Leave was operational during the winter months, though on a limited schedule. We were closed Sunday through Wednesday, opening during the rest of the week for lunch and dinner. Our business in the winter months was typically limited to locals and the occasional hunters or snowmobilers who braved the biting cold and driving wind and blizzard-like snow pellets. Tonight we were closed, even though it was Saturday and Valentine's Day to boot, since most people went somewhere a bit fancier for the big romantic night out. I almost rolled my eyes at the thought of having all the kids here, not in the mood. But then again, I missed my sisters and Clinty. Maybe we could roll out the Monopoly board. And then, as they were so prone to of late, my eyes welled with tears.

“I don't know why I'm crying,” I moaned, tipping forward. Inside my belly, my baby performed what felt like a series of donkey kicks. I was fat, my ankles were swollen, along with just about every part of me, and I had two huge pimples on my forehead. I looked like something straight out of a birth-control manual:
Thinking about having sex? Well take a gander at what pregnancy really looks like and see if you feel the same!

“Honey,” Grandma said gently, and she tipped her cheek to my shoulder, rubbing my back in small, comforting circles.

“It's only natural, sweetie,” Aunt Ellen reminded me. In the background on the radio, Dolly Parton was singing about love. I had never been a huge fan of country music, certainly not classic country, but living with Grandma and Aunt Ellen since last summer had worked a spell over me; these days I found myself singing along with Loretta Lynn and Merle Haggard.

“I know,” I sobbed. How could I explain that if I let myself, I would probably cry from dawn until dusk every day, and then the whole night through? There was no reasoning. I could attempt to explain that thoughts assaulted me left and right, thoughts of what my old friends from my former life were doing back home in Chicago, how right now on that old timeline I would be writing college entrance letters and polishing my resumé and would have no more pressing decisions than which campus I might visit over spring break. On the current timeline, in which my life had sharply deviated from its intended path, I was learning about how it's difficult to go more than an hour or so without having to pee, that mothers absolutely find it necessary to inform a pregnant girl about how painful their own labors were, and how to monkey an infant car seat into place.

I was forty pounds heavier than I'd been last summer, other than my sisters I was friendless, and my future was gray and uncertain. College was out of the question, at least for the next five years, surely more. Last spring I had been contemplating if I would rather teach English or history at the high school level. The latter probably, as I had always been intrigued with the little details that make up a series of events, the primary history found in letters and journals and old photographs. The Civil War was my favorite era, and I envisioned myself as that cool, laid-back type of teacher, my curly hair tied up into a bun and semi-sexy horn-rimmed glasses perched on my nose, creating meaningful and interesting lessons for an avid group of students who hung on my every word. This had all seemed within reach then and was now as far as a star from the earth, and every bit as intangible.

You're a smart young woman, Camille
, were the words of nearly every teacher I'd ever had.
You'll go places
.

Yes
, I thought now.
As in to the grocery store for another box of diapers
.

“Why don't I make you some of that hot chocolate you like?” Aunt Ellen asked, as though I was a five-year-old, but it comforted me deeply and I let her baby me a little.

“And,” Grandma pursed her lips and tapped them with an index finger before finishing, “there's that old trunk I found in the attic. Camille, you wanted to look through it, remember?”

I brightened just a bit at this reminder, swiping at my tears. Grandma had come across a little leather trunk in the attic, full of Davis family mementos. She mentioned it last night but I had been too tired to trudge up there and take a look.

“I carried it downstairs, so you don't have to manage those attic steps in your condition,” Grandma said, “It's in my room. Why don't you go have a look and we'll finish up breakfast down here.”

I nodded, hugging both of them before collecting the afghan from the back of the couch, wrapping it over my shoulders and then climbing carefully up to the second floor. Grandma's room was dim in the early morning light, so I clicked on the bedside lamp. This space was comforting in the same way that smelling the scent of my mom's robe would be, familiar way down deep in my soul. Grandma's bed was made with her favorite old quilt, a tattered patchwork that her own grandmother, Myrtle Jean, had pieced together decades ago. Grandma's mother, Louisa, who we had all known as Gran, had passed away last summer, and I missed her deeply. I still hadn't gotten used to being at the café without seeing Gran sitting at her usual table, drinking coffee or an occasional cocktail, motoring around with her cane and giving all of us the best advice we could imagine. A word from eighth-grade vocab came flashing back to me.
Unflappable. The ability to maintain composure in all circumstances
. That had been Gran all right.

I saw the trunk near the foot of the bed, centered on the braided rag rug that adorned the otherwise bare wood floor. I felt a beat of anticipation; it looked old, and I lowered myself with care, settling so that my lower back didn't ache too terribly. My baby was currently elbowing me. As I watched, I could see the tiny point under my belly, moving along as though she was trying to break free. I would never get over how incredible it was to feel a living person inside of me. With a smile lifting one corner of my mouth, I pushed gently upon the little elbow, easing it into a more comfortable position. As in, not poking me.

“Look here,” I spoke to her, as I liked to do, but only if no one else was around. “It says ‘Davis' on this trunk. That's our family's name.”

With wonder, I ran my fingertips over the word, which had been carved into the leather buckling strap as though with a knifepoint. The hinges creaked and once the lid was open the scent of leather was released like a genie from a lamp. With a growing sense of wonder I studied the contents, contemplating what to touch first. Pictures, I decided. There were several small frames, one lying upside-down and cracked with age. I was drawn to that one in particular for whatever reason, and when I lifted it and parted the sides of the old hinged frame, a shiver spiraled up my back.