Susan Wiggs - Starlight On Willow Lake

“Ever think maybe I’m just lucky?” That was what everyone said when they met Regina. He was a lucky stiff. They had been introduced by Mason’s father. When Mason had taken charge of the New York office of Bellamy Strategic Capital, his father had brought Regina on board, presenting her like a rare delicacy acquired at great expense. Mason couldn’t argue with his father’s taste. She was every guy’s dream—beautiful, sharp, successful, exuding a WASP-y, private-school self-confidence. Best of all, she didn’t have that nesting thing going on, that persistent need to set up housekeeping, spend hours decorating the place with fragile things and have three babies. In some respects, she was the female version of Mason—with one notable exception. He wished she liked sex as much as he did. Sometimes trying to convince her to have sex felt like talking her into attending an insurance seminar.

“You still haven’t told me about your trip,” Alice said, regarding him with narrowed eyes.

He read the challenge in her gaze. “Oh, you mean the trip to scatter Dad’s ashes? The one where we had to make a pilgrimage to the same avalanche zone that killed him? The one that was cut short when we got a phone call about you falling down the stairs? Is that the trip you mean?”

“Yes. That is the trip I mean.” She glowered at him.

“It was great, Mom. Fantastic.”

“You know what I’m asking.”

“Yeah, we did it exactly as instructed. They’re scattered to the four winds, just like he wanted.” He left out the part about breaking the beer stein.

She gazed out the window at the pretty spring day. “He’s really gone, then.”

Mason didn’t reply. How could someone be gone when the memories were burned into your mind? There were moments when he felt as if his father—his funny, charming, flawed, maddening father—was right in the next room, mixing drinks.

“Ivy said it was rather beautiful.”

“Then why did you ask me?”

“Because I’m interested in your take on it. For God’s sake, Mason, can’t we ever just have a normal conversation?”

“We have them all the time, Mom.” It was true. He placed a video call to her several times a week. But deep down, he knew what she meant. There was always that distance between them, a sense of matters neither would ever bring up directly.

No, not always, he conceded, remembering. When he was a little kid, his mom and dad had been his whole world. He and his mother had been great together, the dynamic duo. She’d been more playmate than parent, taking him along on adventures all over the world. One summer, they might be building houses for displaced people in Cambodia, followed by snorkeling off the coast of Bali. Another year, it would be camping in Siberia at an arts program for homeless children. She’d had a unique flair for combining humanitarian work with family fun, and she’d ingrained in her son the same urge to do good in the world.

It wasn’t until later—his seventeenth summer—that the gulf had appeared. That was the year his discovery of a family secret had caused him to keep his distance from both of his parents. He couldn’t talk about it with one parent without betraying the other. Forced into an untenable position, he had simply turned away from them both, forging his own path through life. They thought his sudden change in attitude was the result of teenage rebellion, and maybe it was in part, but he had also felt the need to wall himself off, in order to avoid those intimate ties.

Sometimes he thought that was the reason he was addicted to the rush of risk-taking—in sports, in finance, in anything but emotional entanglements. It was a way to escape the pressure of family expectations. Truth be told, he was more comfortable cave-diving or making risky business deals than he was getting emotionally involved.

He regarded his mother thoughtfully. A little more than a year ago, she had completed a triathlon. Her photo had appeared in the New York Times as she crossed the finish line, first in her age group, her muscular legs gracefully outstretched, sweat-streaked blond hair flying out behind her, an expression of triumph on her face. The ski trip to New Zealand had been a reward to herself for a job well-done.

Now her life had veered along a horrific and unanticipated path. She was confined to this house, where she struggled through every day, and eating her breakfast had become more challenging than any grueling race.

She had responded to the trauma and its aftermath by vacillating between grimness and outright rage. Did she know he ached for her every moment? Did she know he wished there was some magical way to take away the emotional pain he saw in her face and heard in her voice?

Maybe this was their moment. Maybe it was a chance for them to make a new start. “Listen, Mom—”

“Where the hell is Regina with that Bloody Mary?” his mother snapped. “I need a better intercom system. The one you chose never seems to work.”

“I’ll have someone check it out.”

“See that you do.”

And just like that, the moment for reaching out to her was past.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Bellamy.” The housekeeper hurried in, wringing her hands. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s a young woman at the door.”

“She’s not at the door.” The young—very young—woman barged into the sitting room. She looked like a character from a comic book, in shorts with torn-off leg holes, dark stockings laddered with runs, lace-up army boots, a striped shirt that resembled a cast-off from the janitor’s closet. Her hair was a crazy shade of purple. She wore thick, horn-rimmed glasses that gave her an owlish look. “I need a phone, quick,” she stated.

“Ms. McCallum?” She didn’t jibe with the crumpled résumé.

“Yeah, so listen, I need you to call 911. Like, now .”

“What the hell?”

“It’s a fucking emergency, okay? There’s been a wreck. My mom needs help.”

* * *

Faith kept her crumpled-up jacket pressed against the spurting artery. She glanced across the ditch at the van, parked half on and half off the road. “Hurry, Cara,” she said through gritted teeth. “Hurry.” Faith didn’t know how much longer she could last like this.

“How you doing, honey?” she called to Ruby. She couldn’t see the little girl, but had ordered her to stay in the van, several yards away. There was so much blood. Oceans of it. Not to mention an apparent impalement in the lower thigh. Even Faith, with her medical training, was freaking out.

“I’m scared, Mom. What if nobody comes?”

“Cara went to get help,” Faith said, injecting into her voice a confidence she didn’t actually feel.

“She’s a fast runner, right?”

“A really fast runner. Remember her winning time at that track meet last fall?”

“Yep. She set a school record in the four hundred.”

Ruby would know. Despite her complaints, she idolized her sister. Faith wished Cara could have driven for help, but Cara couldn’t drive. The van had a stick shift and was a clunker even for an experienced driver.

The mobile phone—the only one they had—didn’t work. The battery was dead or they had run out of minutes on their pay-as-you-go plan; it was always something with that piece of garbage. Fortunately, the Bellamy place, where they’d been headed for Faith’s job interview, was just around a bend in the road.

Only moments ago, they’d been full of hope, spying the house in the distance. There was a long, winding private road leading to a stone-and-timber mansion, which crowned a green knoll overlooking the lake. By cutting across a broad, empty meadow from the road, Cara had probably managed to get there in a matter of minutes.