Free The Lake House by Marci Nault

emergency. The Nagog residents stayed huddled in their homes as the snow blocked doors and drifted halfway up the windows.
    Victoria’s car sat unused in her garage. No one but Molly had invited her for coffee or dinner since she’d moved home. She hadn’t spoken to anyone except for her brief encounter with Sarah and Carl Dragone. Everyone had decided to hibernatethrough winter’s fury. When Victoria complained, Molly told her to be patient.
    “Things always brighten in the springtime,” Molly had said.
    She understood why people in California seemed happier—they had sunshine. She imagined her former home in Malibu, where she could dig her toes in the warm sand while the sunset turned the white-capped waves pink. But then her psychiatrist’s words returned: “The only way out is through. You need to return to Nagog and face what you lost, without an escape route.”
    Tired of being cooped up, Victoria grabbed the boots Molly had left in the breezeway and zipped up the blue Michelin Man jacket. She walked the quarter-of-a-mile street from one end to the other and back for the hundredth time. Winter made her feel old. The arthritis in her left hand ached and her muscles were stiff from lack of movement.
    Annabelle flashed through her thoughts. Her granddaughter’s energy always made Victoria feel years younger than her age: shopping for the latest fashions, traveling throughout Europe, laughing through the night as they talked about dreams and life. Victoria enjoyed watching her granddaughter fall in love and pursue her career. Melissa and Annabelle had been the two greatest gifts of her life.
    As she walked toward the beach, she pulled her hood over her head to protect her ears from the cold and tucked her gloved hands into her pockets. She burrowed into the coat like a turtle tucking its head into its shell and looked at her feet. What a sight I must be in this outfit. She could see the caption: “Victoria Rose, former actress, seen walking in a velvet jogging suit with big purple boots.”
    Almost out of habit now, she glanced at Joseph’s house. As kids, he’d follow her around and rescue her from the other boys’ pranks, bugs in her lap or frogs in her shoes. The girls had teased her that he was in love, and it had driven Victoria crazy. She’d told him more than once that she hated his guts. Her mother scolded her, saying that a proper lady never said things like that to a gentleman, but Victoria didn’t care—she hadn’t wanted his attention.
    But the year she turned fifteen, everything changed. The night had been hot and sticky, and the entire neighborhood had driven to Whalom Park in the next town. People drank malts with ice cream and rode the Ferris wheel to catch a breeze. Molly and Sarah felt tired in the heat and didn’t want to stand in line and wait for the Comet roller coaster, so Victoria went by herself. As she was buckling the seat restraint, Joseph leaped into the car.
    “I can’t allow a lady to ride alone,” he said.
    “If you’re going to sit with me, then you have to raise your hands in the air when we go over the hills,” she said.
    “I don’t think I’m that daring,” he said and winked at her.
    The car bounced around the wooden track until it clicked into the chain that carried the coaster up the hill. There was a moment, a second when the car reached the top and froze, and she could see the entire park: the band playing on center stage, boys throwing baseballs at milk containers, girls riding painted ponies on the carousel. Victoria raised her hands over her head, the car tilted, and just as her stomach jumped into her heart and the coaster began to shoot down, Joseph turned her head and kissed her full on the lips.
    The drop in her stomach didn’t go away when the ride ended. Victoria sat in her seat, unable to move. Joseph got out of the carand walked away, but before he left the platform, he looked back and winked. . . .
    Victoria hugged her arms around the puffy