Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 87536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“The truck?”
“Duh.”
“She’s red,” I say. “Clifford?”
“Too obvious.”
“Fireball?”
She gives me a side glare. “Isn’t that alcohol?”
“Ketchup?”
Benny grins. “Love it.”
We leave the city behind for a two-lane highway that curls like ribbon along hillsides. Every now and then the mist thins and we get a full hit of green and russet and gold so intense it’s like someone turned the saturation up on the world.
The complete opposite of the stark landscape we left behind in Arizona.
Benny presses her forehead to the window and says “Whoa” to the passing forest.
I let the quiet stretch. Whenever there’s quiet, my brain goes to the day she arrived. Hospital lights that buzzed; my hands so unsteady they wouldn’t let me cut the cord; a nurse talking in calm, even tones while the world rushed around me like water going down a drain.
Eve, Benny’s mom, never opened her eyes again after that, and it’s been . . .
Just me and Benny ever since.
People still ask if I’m dating. If I’ll get married. If I think Ben needs a woman in her life that isn’t her grandmas or the wives of my buddies.
I never know how to say, This life isn’t about me anymore. It’s about a girl who didn’t ask to be the only child—one without a mom.
So we keep our circle small and our curtains thick and our life private where it counts. She gets to be a kid. I get to be her dad. That’s the deal, end of the fucking story.
“Dad?” Benny says, soft.
“Yeah, Bean?”
“You’re making the face.”
“What face.”
“The one Grandma calls ‘storm cloud.’”
I exhale. “Just thinking.”
“About my mom?”
“Yeah.”
She nods. We’ve had this conversation a thousand times. “Do you think she’d let me eat a caramel apple the size of my head?”
“She would’ve brought carrots and made you eat a few of them first.”
Benny smiles sideways. “She sounds smart.”
“The smartest.”
I have no idea what kind of a mother Eve would have been; we’d been dating six months, were broken up when she found out she was pregnant. Two kids in college. I was playing for a Big Ten school and shortly after Benny was born, I’d gone through the draft.
Truth is, I hardly knew Eve. I can only imagine she would have been loving and patient, but . . .
Whatever.
Who knows.
Gripping the wheel tighter, I focus as the four-lane highway turns into two. The trees crowd closer, and eventually the world opens up; suddenly we’re driving along the shores of a giant lake.
My daughter breathes a loud, excited sigh.
“‘Welcome to Star Lake,’” I read out loud as we pass the giant sign. “‘Where everyone is your neighbor.’”
Hm.
Doubt it.
We pass another sign for the Fall Fest proclaiming Pies! Axes! Hay! The pumpkin on the poster is flexing tiny biceps, which, I have to admit, is pretty fucking cute.
More signs. One telling me to take the next right to The Star Lake Lodge.
“Whoa,” Benny breathes, palm splayed on the window. “It’s like a postcard.”
Her eyes are glued to the view—shoreline stitched with docks, boats parked at each one, twinkling lights everywhere like it’s a requirement.
Ketchup’s wipers squeak once and rest.
Benny points again, voice gone soft. “Dad, look at the leaves. They look like they’re on fire.”
“I rate the leaves a nine out of ten,” I say automatically. She loves the game where we rank things.
“Rude,” she says, delighted. “Ten out of ten, would look again.”
“Ach.” I tease. “You’re too generous with your points.”
A canoe noses between docks. Kayaks bob in the water. The driver of a small SUV coming the other way does the two-finger country salute off the steering wheel.
Too friendly.
Not my vibe.
“Dad.” Benny gives my arm a light smack. “You didn’t wave.”
My brows go up. “How many times are we going to have the stranger-danger talk?”
More eye-rolling from the passenger side. “This is not stranger danger. This is small-town stuff. You just lift two fingers and wiggle them like this.” She wiggles her fingers in a hello.
“I don’t say hello to strangers.” We just went over this!
“Well, you’re in Star Lake now, and I refuse to be the daughter of a man who won’t wave. It’s so embarrassing, seriously, Dad.” She taps the window as another truck approaches. “Incoming! Go! Wave!”
I sigh, lift two fingers from the wheel. The driver—older guy, cap, and red flannel from what I can tell—grins and lifts his whole palm in return.
“There.” Benny beams. “You’ve been assimilated.”
Assimilated? I glance at her. “How do you know what that word means?”
She stares back at me. “Are you being serious right now?” She huffs. “I won the spelling bee last year, remember?”
I laugh. “How could I forget when you’re always reminding me.”
“That’s called personal branding. I’m a triple threat—cute, smart, fabulous,” she says, digging in her backpack. “Speaking of which . . .”
She drags out a sparkly spiral notebook and flips it open. From where I’m sitting, I can see that she’s already written on the page in block letters: Star Lake To-Do List. Doodles border the margins: cute leaves with eyelashes, round pumpkins with vines around them, a steaming mug of what can only be assumed is hot chocolate with marshmallows bobbing on top.