Cabin by the Lake Read Free Page A

her how to hand-stitch neatly and evenly, giving her projects a professional look.
    When she got home that fall, she’d been full of creative fervor, and made colorful tie-dyed pillows for her bed with matching curtains. She was eager to have a more grown-up room, and she worked tirelessly, painting peace signs on picture frames and stringing beads to hang on the wall above her bed. She hot-glued scraps of fabric on the border of her bulletin board, and was so pleased with the results. She thought it might be the coolest bedroom ever.
    A month later they moved to a McMansion in a gated neighborhood—a step up, socially—and Katie hired a professional decorator to design the entire house, top to bottom. All of her creative work was discarded in favor of a tasteful white canopy bed with monochromatic shades of peach and heavy flowered drapery tied back around the cushioned window seat.
    She felt as if she were living in someone else’s room, someone who was boring and, quite possibly, already dead. That whole house seemed like a museum to her, and she was never allowed to insert her own personal touches that would make the room her own.
    But Vivian’s influence served her well now. She and Jessie had decorated their apartment with every thrift store and yard sale find that they could drag home. Her creative juices flowed. Everything in the apartment had been repainted, re-glued or reupholstered. The result was a cheerful environment that she knew was tacky—because her mother had said so during her one visit—but she was very comfortable there. It fit her personality and her budget. She felt extremely fulfilled when she resurrected something that had been thrown away and made it beautiful and useful again.
    She would like to do the same with her own life. If she could just paint over her past with a fresh coat of re-do, and embroider over hurtful words that should never have been said, she could escape the burden of the bad decisions that haunted her.
    But now Uncle Todd was dead. Dead was dead; final and over. She didn’t even get to say goodbye. It may have happened two years ago, but it was right now to her. She splashed water on her face and looked at herself in the spotted mirror. She didn’t like what she saw, but she didn’t know how to change it.
    She could hear the lunch-crowd noise picking up, and knew she had to get back to work. Barney was a patient man, but she was grounded in reality, and the tips she received made all the difference between paying her bills and going under. She pulled herself together and went back to waitressing, a smile on her face and a spring in her step. One didn’t get big tips for being a sour puss.
    Now she explained to Jessie that they had been very close at one time, but she hadn’t seen her aunt and uncle in ten years.
    “Are you going to the funeral?”
    “No, you’re not going to believe this, but he died two years ago. My mother just got around to telling me this morning.”
    She slipped out of her shoes and propped her feet on the coffee table. It felt so good to be off her feet, she didn’t think she had the energy to get up again.
    “This was your aunt and uncle who live on the lake, right?”
    “Yes, and I wish I could have been at the funeral.”
    Jessie shook her head. “Your mother is a real piece of work.”
    She rolled her shoulders, feeling the tension slowly leave her body. She couldn’t get her mind off of Vivian. She should call her. Or write a letter. Or send a card. But she couldn’t. Not after the way she’d behaved the last time she saw her. She didn’t think Vivian would want to hear how sorry she was that Uncle Todd died, especially now that two years had passed. She was sure Aunt Vi thought she didn’t care. She ached inside for the closeness they had once shared that she’d thrown away so recklessly.
    She could remember, when she was little, pretending that Vivian was her real mother. Life was slow and uncomplicated when she lived at the