Return ToThe Lakehouse, Hannah Wells [best fiction books of all time .TXT] 📗

I’ve never driven to the lake by myself.  I googled the directions.  It is two hours thirty- four minutes from home, a little closer from school.  When I was little, I never paid attention to the time or the distance.  My younger sister Sierra and I sat in the back seat reading or doing crosswords and the ride didn’t seem any longer than going to the mall, except sometimes we had to stop and pee.  Now I’m driving to the lake house for the first time in more than five years feeling a mixture of excitement and sadness.

Other than the drive from school to home and back on weekends, this is the first trip I’ve taken in my new powder blue Kia Soul.  Last Spring, Dad decided that Sierra and I both needed new cars.  Sierra picked out a pink one first.  I wanted pink too but settled for powder blue.  Dad gave us our choice of cars, within limits, but insisted that we choose the same make and model for the convenience of service and repairs. 

The first part of my drive on I-70 is familiar.  It’s the road I take from home to my college in Columbia.  When I turn south on Hwy 65 the rural landscape looks unchanged and I think I recognize some of the farms.  Just north of Sedalia, I take the exit that will lead me to Hwy 50, the road everyone traveled on before the interstate highways were built.  There is some new construction, but overall, I get the feeling that the towns and cities on this road belong to the past.  When I turn south again on State Hwy 5, I expect to see Osage Beach just over the next rise, but it’s still a drive and a connection to an even more rural road.

Last spring, when Dad and Mom left for their regular month-long tri-annual trip home to Taiwan, everything seemed normal.  At the end of the month, Dad called to say there had been some complications, but they would be on their way home soon.  After two frantic weeks of no contact, Dad sent a text saying that the government had refused to let them return to the United States due to some “irregularities” in the business operated by our mother’s family.  Apparently, our uncle was under investigation for some unspecified illegal activities and had left the country rather than face the charges. Since our mother is part of the family, the government considers her an “owner” and is holding her responsible for the significant fines that were levied against the business.  In a phone call the next day, Dad told me that until the fine is paid, they will be held indefinitely.  He said we didn’t have sufficient savings to pay the fine and our only option was to try and sell the lake house.  I heard him sigh on the phone. 
“After what happened, we don’t go down there anyway.”

Sierra and I are ABCs.  The initials mean American Born Chinese; a term that other Chinese treat with both cynicism and envy.  Since we never lived in China, how can we truly know Chinese culture?  On the other hand, as American citizens, we are a great catch for a Chinese man who wants to relocate to the US permanently.

Mom and Dad grew up in Taiwan and came to the US independently to study as undergraduates where they met and married.  Thanks to lots of hard work and scholarships, they were able to continue with their studies, Dad with a Ph.D. in Asian Studies and Mom with an MD and a specialization in Pediatrics.

While some Chinese wear an American face in public and live a Chinese life at home, Dad and Mom embraced everything American. Our names, Susan and Sierra reflect that desire.  Oh sure, we have Chinese first names too that our grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins use to address us.  Although they taught us to speak Mandarin, we spoke English in public and private.  Our houses were a succession of ever-finer suburban homes that any American family would be proud to own.  The crown in our parent’s American dream was the lake house.

Our lake house was built by the Tucker family not long after the lake was created by damming the Osage River during the great depression of 1929. When the last of the Tucker grandchildren moved to the west coast, Dad bought the lake house for us.  Lakehouse sounds extravagant.  It’s more of a cottage.  There are two small bedrooms, a family/dining room with a high ceiling, a small kitchen, and a closet-sized bathroom.  A porch along the front looks out on the lake.  We always had a small powerboat tied to the dock on our property.  Perhaps my favorite spot was the floating dock moored out away from the shore that we shared with the other cottages in our cove.  When we were kids, my lake friends Hannah and Kayla and of course my sister Sierra spent countless days on the floating dock; our own private world.

I often wondered about my lake friends in the five years we had been away.  Like me and Sierra, Hannah was probably still in college.  Kayla, two years older was probably working for her dad’s marketing firm or in an MBA program.  I wondered what they looked like now.  At eleven, Hannah was shy and skinny like me. We were very close, perhaps because we were only one year apart.  At thirteen, Kayla already had boobs and hips, a penchant for showing off and for pushing us to do scary and sometimes risky things.

At the entrance to our cove off the county highway, I pause and look at the windy gravel road.  Was it always this steep and uneven?  Maybe I should park up here and walk down to the cove?  I decide to risk it and begin my descent wishing quickly there was a place to turn around and escape.  Halfway down, my cell starts ringing.  I see it is Sierra, so I stop the car and take her call.  She’s on her way from her college where she is a pre-med student.  She’s still more than an hour away.  I tell her to take her time that our meeting with the realtor is in the morning.  I remind her to be careful coming down the gravel road.

When our lake house comes into view, I feel a rush of excitement; the same feeling I had each season when our family arrived for our summer vacation.  My elation was soon dampened by the chilly reminder that I am here to sell our house.  I glance out at the floating dock and am overwhelmed by a powerful longing.  I realize how much I have missed my lake friends, especially Hannah.  I look over at their cottages where unfamiliar cars are parked.  I wonder vaguely who owns their cottages now.

When I reached the lake house, I thought seriously about returning to the car and waiting until Sierra arrived.  I didn’t want to go into the house alone; memories playing over me like a home movie, Mom and Dad smiling and laughing, work cares put aside, the troubles in Taiwan a world away.  It was different now.  I walked around the outside of the house noting that the lawn, what there was of it, was neatly trimmed and any fallen trees in the woods had been neatly cut up and were piled patiently by the fire pit awaiting a bonfire to ward off the chill of a late summer night.  I pulled open the screen and unlocked the front door expecting to be met by ghosts.  The screen door slammed behind me, and I was eleven again; glad to be out of the car after the long ride, hurrying to our room to throw off my clothes and change into my new bathing suit.  Sierra is close behind me, telling me for the tenth time that Mom said that if I was going to swim out to the floating dock, I had to wait for her and would I please blow up her floaty thing.

Mom is already unpacking the food, pleased that the refrigerator smells fresh, the kitchen area is clean, and the entire cottage has been dusted and prepared for our arrival. Dad is checking the notes from Milton about maintenance things. 

Milton and his girlfriend Abbie take care of all the cottages in the cove during the winter months and while the owners are away.  Milton is my grandfather’s age.  Abbie is probably twenty years younger.  My Dad says that both Milton and Abbie “have a history”.  Abbie told me they both grew up on the lake.  Their families moved here in the 1930s to help build the dam that created the lake.  “Kids that grow up here, mostly in poor families, don’t appreciate the lake.  They want to escape as soon as they can.”  She said that Milton worked in construction all over the country.  He tried to put down roots more than once but life or love or both dried out, so he picked up and moved on.  I waited for her to tell me her story.  She looked out over the lake and shook her head as if she was wondering where the years had gone.  “For me, it was bad choices, bad choices in men that kept me moving on.  When my parents died, they left me the house, so I came home.  I met Milton at the café in Camdenton and we found comfort in each other.  We’re as much good friends as anything else.”

I shake the past out of my head and walk over to the electrical panel and flip on the main breaker so I can turn on the lights and the heat.  I move through the small house turning on the wall heaters in each room.  We seldom came to the lake in the fall, but I remember that it gets cold at night.  I pause in our bedroom and have a warm thought about cuddling up with Sierra in the double bed tonight.  We shared a room when we were kids, twin beds side by side.  On cold, windy nights, Mom would let us sleep in one bed together to keep each other warm.  I guess we bonded.  Even though Sierra is two years younger, we have always been close.  Even now, when we’re away at two different colleges, we talk and text every day.  Well, particularly now that Mom and Dad are stuck in Taiwan, we’re all we have.

On the kitchen table are neatly stacked notes from Milton.  Much of what he does for us is covered in the modest monthly fee we pay him.  But there are other tasks that remind me I’m glad he and Abbie are watching the house for us.  He’s had to replace the hot water heater.  His note said he installed a bigger tank.  That is good news.  Even as teens, Sierra and I showered together so that one of us, or our parents didn’t have