Free Lake People by Abi Maxwell

heaving, out of breath, she picked up Sophie’s spilled belongings and placed them back inside the purse. All except those photos. These she handed over one by one. Sophie took them in her hand and looked up at the figure that hovered above her. The sun was bright and large behind Mrs. Randolph, and because of it her face wasn’t a face at all, but just a shadow of a being. Still, Sophie knew it was her neighbor. The two had never even shaken hands before. What had Sophie become? She gave Mrs. Randolph her empty hand, and though just moments ago Sophie had meant to flee Otto and Kettleborough and the entire life she had created, now she looked back toward her tall house.
    “We’re not all perfect, is we?” Mrs. Randolph said, and helped to pull Sophie to her feet.
    With the ice on the ground, Otto had driven down to the shop rather than walk, and now when he pulled in Mrs. Randolph was back on her porch, and Sophie and Malcolm were standing in front of their own house. Otto could see before he even pulled the car to a stop that Malcolm held a sleeping baby in his arms.
    “It’s not Karl’s,” Malcolm called as his father emerged from the car. His voice was loud, a fight against the harsh wind. Ottowalked to them, stood before them with his arms crossed at his chest. He looked at his wife and then let his eyes fall on his son. Malcolm clenched his teeth. His father had never hit him but he had a clear vision now of that firm hand coming across his face. Yet the hand did not, and with no one else speaking Malcolm continued. “This is Todd. June’s son. June who lives at the boathouse. I have offered to help her. She is alone. She said I could bring the baby up to meet Mother.”
    “June has a husband.”
    “He is gone out west,” Malcolm said, and handed the baby to Sophie. She took him willingly as she stood there in the life she knew she would never have the courage to leave. “He is not—” Malcolm began, but his father cut him off. What would he have said? He is not a replacement for our Karl’s child?
    “Hush,” Otto said. “That’s enough. We’ll be quiet now. That’s quite enough.”
    And it wasn’t enough, but in another way it was. They were quiet. People can live that way.

Free

1959
    TWO YEARS AFTER they married, Clara Thorton told her husband, Paul, that she wanted to drive as far east as they could get. He had finished a job and had a hunk of money and that was the way he preferred to live—build a house, take a break until the money ran out. Together they outfitted the van. They secured a crib to the backside of the driver’s seat. They put a bed where the backseats belonged and she sewed curtains and he even made little wooden cupboards for her things. There was a camp stove and rope and tarp to extend their living space, and they were in love then, and things would be good.
    Before they had adopted Alice, Clara had been different; ofcourse she had. She had liked to disappear at night, to go off alone and watch the stars if they were out, or the moon, and if neither was possible then to just look into the warm houses and imagine the lives inside. She never told him where she went at these times and he understood to not worry or ask. She liked to drink wine then, too, and often when he kissed her maroon lips they would be sweet and pruned. They hadn’t expected to keep the baby for good but they hadn’t worried over it, at least not together. He had said that it would be a fun project—those words exactly—and so she had agreed.
    Her worry took over when the papers were signed and the baby was theirs and the promise was made to not ever tell the child where it was she had come from. “Is she breathing?” Clara would ask. “Paul, Paul, wake up, she feels hot, is she dying?”
    “Ease up,” had become his constant refrain, and in protest to her nervousness he had become careless. He let the baby cry for longer than his heart would have allowed. He put a bite of squash into her