Lake Girls

It wasn’t a wash-out, it was a burnout. Although burnout isn’t the right term either because I was still working. Remotely, or whatever. Well, technically I was working for myself because I had quit my job. Okay to be fair, I was laid off, and it was more of a manic episode but either way, I was on a bus and it was about three thousand degrees in this tit-melting level of Maine humidity. That was the thing about Los Angeles, it may have been hotter than hell but at least it was dry. Regardless, as a creative working on a dream I had run out of three things: money, time, and patience. 

Money for the two-thousand dollar apartment I was now subletting to an aspiring agent/manager/influencer/music producer, which essentially meant he was a bartender. However, he was also a clean freak - which my white couch appreciated - and he was also my cousin. So it’s not like I had much choice in the matter. I’d run out of time in my own mind, turning thirty was never a big deal to me - and still isn’t, for the record - but it did suddenly instill this overwhelming sense of needing to regroup and re-plan, something that’s easier said than done within the confines of a city where everyone talks and not many people follow through. They’d rather get matcha lattes and brainstorm while walking up Runyon Canyon - a dust path in the Hollywood Hills that they call “a hike” (I’ve thrown up twice because it gets so hot up there you can’t breathe). Lastly, patience, specifically for the laid back, cooler than cool, what can you do for me, Hollywood West Coast attitude I had grown unfortunately accustomed to - so it was time to take a brief reprieve back home where they made me.

And before you ask, NO, this is not some bullshit Hallmark love story movie or whatever, not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not this. There was a particular set of circumstances that led to my window seat position on the Augusta Concord Coach Lines bus next to a man listening to Led Zeppelin on his phone speaker, who was occasionally reminding me to smile. Most specifically being that my mother was preoccupied with my aunts and my grandmother touring nursing homes - excuse me, assisted living residences. Which meant that she was an hour from home, meaning that if I wanted a ride I would have to spend said extra hour on the bus to meet her in Augusta. To be fair, after an hour in the car in LA traffic, two hours in the airport, forty-five minutes on the tarmac so the baggage guy could secure a bolt, six hours turbulent flight time with a screaming three year old, another forty minutes waiting for the bus at Logan with every honking Masshole horn blaring, and two hours to Portland with Dale, what’s an extra hour? A sentiment I had immediate regret for once Dale finally properly introduced himself and offered to share his pocket Budweiser with me. No, I didn’t try it.

I know what you’re thinking, “Molly, you refused a drink? Are you feeling okay?” A, as lovely as Dale was, I didn't entirely trust that it was beer in his can or that I wouldn’t catch any number of unseemly diseases from sipping it. I say that knowing that I used to go to parties in a frat house basement that had a dirt floor and was lit solely by a flashing strobe. B, I had my own. Only mine wasn’t beer, it was vodka, but after the ordeal of getting here, I deserved it. Did I mention the flight was a red eye? I digress.

—

A little bit about me. I’m tall, smart, gorgeous - very humble. Kidding. I was never the cool kid or the cute kid so I have an absolute inferiority complex except in those moments where I know I am an absolute star (I’m a Leo, if you couldn’t tell). Also I have been to therapy where my lovely therapist Anne was able to deduce said inferiority as well as abandonment issues and a general OCD with anxious tendencies. That was all in one day because I cried in front of her and never went back. I felt like I had learned enough to then self diagnose on the internet for the rest of my life.

Anyway, welcome to Winthrop, Maine. Never heard of it? I’m shocked. It’s the center of the universe. If you don’t believe me, you’ll figure it out soon enough. But here I am, twelve minutes and thirty seven seconds from the bus stop, slightly buzzed reaching “need another drink or die” territory. 

Winthrop is one of those places you’ve probably never been to or through unless you’re from there, or on your way through there, or for some reason know a guy with a boat there. This is where my mother and the rest of my family were from. It was a cute, quaint little town. Or at least it used to be. A lot of things were run down and in need of some serious TLC…tender loving care, not the television network that spawned What Not to Wear for the majority of my childhood. This was a place where people knew their neighbors, all the neighbors, for better or worse. People here remembered anyone who ever lived there long enough to remember, and any place that had ever been there long enough to be vandalized by the local kids. My cousin had once been chased down by the fattest cop in the district, who used to harass all the skateboarders and other unseemly teenagers who made it their mission to terrorize him. 

Winthrop was a place you cared about people. Where you would bring over a casserole in tough times, regardless of your neighbors political affiliations or sports fandoms - although everyone here were New England fans, and took it very seriously. But as long as you weren’t a Yankees fan, they would avoid egging your house. Unless they were really bored. And sure, sometimes they would be, what else was there to do? 

What else is there to know? It’s a small lake town where there are more deer than people. There are nice lake houses and ones that have been around for generations. There’s the sandwich shop that’s been there for ages and the local funeral director who knows everybody and their parents and most importantly he’s the only one everybody in town trusts. The grocery store is a Maine chain but it’s still one where you know Barbara will give you a hard time for getting a steak with no tag on it - but shouldn’t that be Barbara’s fault? She’s the one who works there, not me. I digress again. 

Winthrop was where my family had grown up. Four girls in a little lake house that were far enough apart in age they hardly shared the house all together. My grandparents had bought the house when they were in their early twenties, and had lived there since. Why move when you have a right of way to the big lake, and just enough space to keep a boat, four girls, two dogs, and a rabbit - until the rabbit got loose. And so did the dog. You do the math on that one. Needless to say it was basically four girls and two dogs. My mother’s still not over it, as evidenced by her bunny bracelet pendant and her need to see the bunny exhibit at the Fryeburg fair every year. It’s a wonder she doesn’t own a sanctuary.

Where was I? Oh yes. Winthrop. The lake was Cobbossee, and that’s where Grammie's ever decaying house still sat, off the County Road. It had seen better days for sure. Its old white shaker shingles were more brown than anything, if you could make out a color. If you went inside - which no one did - you would find peeling wallpaper, stacks of old garbage, and about four working lights and windows that hardly functioned. Gram didn’t mind, she’d lived there for a hundred years. But if you asked anyone else they would tell you the place should be slated for demolition. Yet here we were. After the Uber, driven by a man I was sure could hardly see over the steering wheel, dropped me off at the end of the long winding driveway off the camp road, I hauled my backpack, shoulder bag, and giant metal suitcase up the uneven, unkempt driveway avoiding as many potholes as I could. Not an easy feat. I wondered the last time anyone had worked on it, if ever. 

I was standing in the driveway looking out at the lake - mostly kicking the gravel while my mother and aunts argued with Alice - my grandmother - about…well who knows. None of them ever got along, least of all my grandmother with any of them. Somehow my grandfather had instilled in his daughters before he died the importance of taking care of their mother, who neither wanted the help nor appreciated it. And yet here they all were, trying their best. I tuned in just about the time they were about to hit fist to cuffs. Why? Because Alice had thrown a wrench past my head and narrowly missed realigning my brain cells. Molly, you’re so agile you dodged that wrench like it was nothing? I know, thank you thank you I am an athlete. But back to the wrench.

“You just want me to drop dead don’t you.” said Alice, directed to her own daughters.

“No one wants you dead, Jesus Christ mother.” responded my Aunt June, the second of four who lived the closest and therefore deserved to be the most fed up with Alice and her antics.

“Depends.” a snide remark from Aunt Stevie - Stephanie on her birth certificate but she’s gone by Stevie since she could talk. Stevie was the oldest, and she was not here at this moment by choice. As far as she was concerned, Alice made her own bed on alienating everyone in the family by being generally unpleasant.

Linda nudged her on the arm. Linda was the quiet but peaceful one who just wanted everyone to get along. She could be that way because she also lived in California, far away from the day to day that everyone else had to deal with. She came in for the summer, well, a month in the summer, and lived like one would visiting for vacation. All amusement park no responsibility. Like a dad with the kids on the weekend. But she was sweet and sensible. 

“If you want me to leave this house you’re going to have to pry me out by my cold dead hands.”

“You know that can be arranged if that’s what you really want, but I think you need to calm down.” said my mother, Amy, the youngest of four who genuinely cared but was never afraid to speak her mind - much to the chagrin of the sisters who never listened to her even though she was usually right.

It was at this moment I remembered Alice’s outdoor cooler just on the other side of the porch that was usually full of beer, for some unknown reason, but it was. I began inching towards it. Listen, if I had to do family drama, I was at least going to have a beer.

“You can’t keep this place a total dump and expect that we’ll let you live that way.” said June.

“I mean how CAN you live this way.” said Amy.

Linda quipped sweetly, “Now well wait a minute, it’s nothing that can’t be tidied up.”

“Are you doing the tidying?” Stevie responded, sharply.

“You have to go mum.” June again.

“What, to that place, to die?”

“It’s assisted living, they play bingo on Tuesdays!” Amy tried to be encouraging.

“And there’s a funeral every Thursday.” said Alice. She was not having any of this. 

—

Alice McGuire was a lot of things, but the biggest thing was, for lack of a better word, bitchy. We literally called her mean grandma. Not to her face obviously, although not necessarily not to her face…and I’m pretty sure she knew it. She was about five foot eight, at least at some point in her life, but now nearly eighty-five it was possible she had shrunk to a lesser degree. She had cool gray hair she wore in a short bob that she had cut at the local beauty school, and regardless of activity she was never without her lipstick. She followed the dress code of every old lady I had ever met, strictly a matching single color scheme, with sensible slip on shoes for every occasion. Alice was stubborn, she never picked a fight she wouldn’t find a way to win by wit or by war. She trusted almost no one, she liked almost no one, and listened to her TV at full volume just so she didn’t have to use her hearing aids. She hated her hearing aids. 

Most of all, Alice hated to be told what to do. In fact, she was always more likely to do this exact opposite, even if what you had proposed was entirely sensible. Like say, moving to a fully outfitted assisted living facility just down the road. The one thing she had always cherished above all else was her independence. 

“There’s no money if that’s what you think. They kill me in that place and there won’t be a damn thing left except this house." She was adamant. She was also adamant for some reason that murder was on the minds of the genuinely friendly employees at Briar House, many of whom she had known for years. She had also known many of the residents, some might say her friends, who were very much still living and breathing. 

“Mum, no one cares about your money.” my aunt June made clear.

“What money?” replied Stevie.

The only thing my grandmother owned besides her beat up truck was that house, and I - a person who owned nothing - could understand her reluctance to leave it. Not that anyone wanted to hear what I was thinking.

My mother put a hand on her hip and tilted to the side, something she always did when she had a point to make that you were going to hear no matter how hard you tried to plug your ears. I decided to sit down for this one.

“Listen mum. We’re not trying to ruin your life. You’re eighty-four, you’re out here alone, and this place is a death trap. You can’t be here alone. And none of us can stay here with you. Now there’s no room with me or Stevie, June has a full house, and last I checked you had no interest in the state of California .”

“Or any other state for that matter.” Gram scoffed as she rolled her eyes and turned most of her body toward the lake.

Aunt Linda tried to soften the conversation that was quickly turning everyone toward the war option.

“Maybe we could consider one of those live in nurses or something -

“NO NURSES.” Gram was less concerned about the medical professional angle and more concerned about having a stranger in her house watching her all the time.

“You have to at least let us look around inside. Can we start there?” My mother compromised.

Silence at first, Alice was thinking. Stubbornly thinking, with a hand on her hip as well. 

“Fine.”

She stormed up the steps before anyone could say another word about it and threw open the screen door.

“Well come on then!”

—

It wasn’t exactly the hoarder house that had been described to me by my insistent elders, but the place had a layer of dust and decay that made everything feel sticky. Gram stood just inside the door and didn’t budge while her daughters took inventory of the place. Dust aside, there was some clutter here and there, china cabinets and shelves full of trinkets and family photos and souvenirs from somewhere, sometime. It was dim, even with some of the shades pulled. I flicked on a switch that created a low buzzing sound but no light.

“Broken.” Gram said without looking at me.

I looked around for the source and saw the electrical wires hanging from a chandelier with missing light bulbs. I took a few steps past Gram into the small living room as the wood floor creaked underneath me. Some of the boards had seen better days. By the door it was worn completely from years of water damage and dirt from heavy footsteps of several generations. The rug was brown and I was fairly certain that wasn’t its original color, and the couch was torn just as I remembered it - for better or worse. Made me wonder what was hiding in the cushions and I hoped I never had to find out. There was a crowded mantle over a small fireplace that was looking like it hadn’t been used in ages. A painting of the view of the lake from the front porch hung in a wood frame above it. The only thing new in the room, and I ventured to guess the whole house, was a reclining chair that moved automatically at the push of a button in case you didn’t have the strength to muscle yourself out of it.

I could hear my mom and aunts moving through the house and hollering to each other. Gram pretended not to hear the questions they were asking like “how long has this toilet been broken” and “has this window always been stuck shut?” They were asking each other as much as they were asking her. They had their own memories of how this place had been over the years, many more and much clearer than mine. 

It was basically a big room with a few thin walls and arched openings. I proceeded through into the dining area on the opposite side of the room. The wood table was scratched and beaten up, it had been there for as long as I could remember. The chairs had seen much better days. One was missing since my uncle sat down on it years ago and the legs gave out, Gram never replaced it. The dining room led to the kitchen where the cabinets were still open from my mother’s inspection. There were dishes on the old yellow laminate countertop and filling the sink. The pantry had expired everything, as one could imagine given the state of the rest of the room. I didn’t dare to open the fridge.

The rest of the house followed the same blueprint: peeling wallpaper, jagged tile, malfunctioning plumbing and electricity, mismatched housewares, cobwebs and water stains and holes in the ceiling where you could see through to the roof. I had a vague recollection that there used to be carpet where I was standing, only to realize there still was, just so worn down it felt like hard floor. They were right to be concerned, to a degree. But they were also being a little extra. The place needed some help as far as I could see, but Gram could still make it up and down the stairs just fine. I made my way back downstairs to rejoin the Irish Catholics for the remainder of their crucifixion. 

“You happy now?” Alice certainly was not.

The musty smell was getting to my mother so she proceeded back outside.

“You can’t live in there alone,” she said.

“Like hell I can’t.”

“The whole house is about to fall over into the lake.” Stevie doubled down.

“Then I’ll fix it.” Alice stabbed back.

“Oh, fix it how? And frankly Mum, you’ve had all this time to fix it or ask for help and you’ve done neither.” 

I took the opportunity to sit down on the end of my suitcase. The beer was doing nothing but adding to my dehydration, which was adding to my growing headache. I needed this to be over.

“And even if you do manage to find the help to fix this mess,” June added, 

“You still shouldn’t be out here all by yourself at your age. What if you fall down the stairs?”

“What if I choke to death? What if I drown in the lake? What if I trip and fall on the gravel and impale myself on a pitch fork?” Alice threw back at them, half joking and half proving their point instead of her own.

“You’d all like that wouldn’t you?”

“No mum, we wouldn’t.” Linda said.

“That’s the whole point of this. Now unless you’ve got some bright miracle idea, or Mary Poppins umbrella that tips off a truck and into your driveway, you’re going to Briar.”

At the opportune moment, my suitcase wheels decided they had had enough of me and the gravel underneath. I felt the wheel crack and subsequently break, tipping it off balance and sending me flying to the ground. The face full of gravel did not help my headache either. I sat up, trying to gather myself and the next thing I heard was -

“She can stay.” Alice said, loudly.

“What’s that now?” I said, thinking I must have misheard her. In fact, everyone thought they misheard her.

“I’m not leaving. If you insist someone stay then Molly can stay. The rest of you can get the hell out.”

Without another word she stormed back inside, leaving me under the eyes of four very confused, bordering on contentious, sisters. I scrambled to my feet and hustled up the stairs in a panic before their collective gaze plummeted me deeper into the ground.

—

I found her on the other side of the wrap around porch scraping paint off the wood railing. Apparently she was ready to get started. 

“Gram, I can’t stay here.”

“Why not? Thought you were having a nervous breakdown, fresh air’s good for you.”

“Okay, ouch. I’m not having a nervous breakdown. I’m just staying with mum until I work some things out.”

“Got a room here, not some musty basement.”

She had a point. I loved my mom’s house but the guest room was currently occupied by my step brother, his over-friendly girlfriend, and his cat. That left me the dusty basement with the pull out sofa, mostly occupied by all my step-dad’s old furniture and random side of the road garbage he insisted he could repurpose.

“Okay fair, but Gram I’m not a nurse.”  

“Don’t need one.”

“And I’m certainly not a carpenter, I think that’s part of the deal here, and this place is a mess.”

“Free place to stay on the lake for the summer, I won’t breathe down your neck. Take it or leave it.”

On that she dropped the scraper and retreated into the house, slamming the screen door. I stood there looking out at the lake. As tempting as laying out on the dock everyday sounded, I just wanted to go home. She did make a good point that while at home my family would serve as my own personal babysitters with someone always around, wondering if I was stable enough to keep it together. There was also something about being in your childhood home with your parents that made you revert to feeling like a kid. I was in my thirties but I knew I wouldn’t act like it. Going out with friends would feel like high school when I had a midnight curfew. God forbid I wanted to go on a date at any point…not that I ever did. Then there was the matter of the mice in the kitchen here and the fact that manual labor was never my strong suit.

Besides that, Gram and I weren’t that close. I came to see her any time I was home but for an afternoon or a holiday dinner, I hadn’t spent the night with her since I hit puberty. Seeing how she was with everyone who did interact with her regularly, I was pretty sure I wanted to remain outside the line of fire. I understood Alice not wanting to give in to a big change, not sure I’d want to be ripped out of my house after 50 years either. But maybe she did need this. Anyway, it wasn’t up to me.

—

Back out in the driveway the bickering continued, and did not slow upon my reentry. 

“Well it’s ridiculous,” my mother continued.

“Maybe it’s a good compromise?” Linda thought out loud.

“It’s not a good compromise, it’s a bad idea. Stevie, back me up on this,” said June.

“I don’t care who stays with her,” she fired back.

“Although I guess it’s not like she has any experience in either category…” Linda reversed her previous comment.

“I second that.” I butted in. 

“Oh hi honey. Listen -

“Hey, I get it. Not my favorite idea either.” I responded, which seemed to put the women at ease.

“Oh good then, you can go in there and tell her she’s going.” My aunt June replied, literally putting her foot down.

“Why do I have to do it?”

“Well clearly she’s not listening to us, maybe you’ll convince her.”

“I just tried talking to her, I don’t think it’s going to work.”

“Well it’s not like you can stay here and handle all this.” Something about my mother’s tone nipped at me in a way I’m sure she didn’t intend. 

“I mean of all the people to pick…it’s probably just because she knows who she can walk over.” June trailed off as she rolled her eyes. My mother cut in before that landed like the ton of bricks it was intended to be.

“Just go up there, and try and convince her. It really is for the best. Change is good for everyone.”

—

Feeling like Groundhog’s Day I made my way back up the porch steps and started inside, only to see Alice was sitting down on the back lawn in her Adirondack chair. I wondered how much of the conversation she could have heard. I walked down the back stairs and across the lawn. I sat in the open chair next to her. For a moment we both sat silent, staring out at the water. For the first time in months, maybe longer, I actually took a deep breath that felt real.

“You might like it there you know, if you went to look at it.”

“Nothing to look at.”

“They’ve got all kinds of activities and things. Better than being lonely and bored out here.”

“I got the birds.”

“There might be actual people you know, you might like them.”

She grunted what could have been mistaken for a growl at a distance. 

“You never thought about it before?”

She hesitated, I didn’t think she would say anything. The silence lingered almost long enough for me to break it, but then she did.

“Once. We were thinking about one of those places you can drive the golf carts around. That was years ago. No golf carts at Briar, and no Lois.”

Lois. That was all she had to say and somehow I instantly understood. Lois was my grandmother’s best friend. They met when they sat next to each other, typing in the legal department for the state. Since then they had lived down the road from each other, spending summers and weekends and holidays together as families, all their kids running around. After the kids had grown and gone, Lois and her husband Ralph bought the camp just around the bend from my grandparents. Their husbands both passed around the same time, and they were an inseparable Thelma and Louise duo everyday after, for damn near twenty-five years. I remembered Lois well from growing up, like she was a second grandmother or a great aunt. A tiny French firecracker, she was exceptionally tidy and always well dressed.

Lois had passed away about three years ago, and it occurred to me that that was about the same time Alice stopped letting people into her house - stopped saying much of anything really. I suppose I got the “shut down when emotionally overwhelmed” gene from her. I realized then that it wasn’t about the nursing home, or the house, or the nurse, or the family at all. She was just holding on to what she had left and was too stubborn to explain that to anyone. I understood, I knew what it was like to feel like you had no one, even when it wasn’t true. I had spent the last five years living two-thousand miles away from my best friend. Ali knew all my secrets, struggles, quirks, and celebrations - all of everything there was to know. And she was the only one who did. I didn’t want to think about what life would be like if she wasn’t there anymore.

And furthermore, why didn’t my family think I was capable of handling this situation? I had stayed with Alice before, yes I was a kid, but I knew what she was like. I had thick skin from years of rejection and outright bullying and overall I was fairly unbothered. Maybe I wasn’t very handy or construction savvy, but I could figure out most things from a Youtube video. And what I couldn’t do myself I’m sure someone around this town had ideas. It was a factory town, and there were plenty of people around who used to do something that could prove helpful. Were they worried that we’d kill each other? Or that I’d be chaotic and neglectful and the whole place would burn to the ground? Why didn’t they trust me to at least try?

I was tired of everyone treating me like the family hot mess. They might not have said it, but that’s what they were thinking. I was the one out of all my cousins who had no partner, no kids, no stable career path. I probably drank too much, yelled too loud, and made some mistakes, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t handle something important. And as far as I could tell, they couldn’t handle it either. Maybe they were right that Alice figured I was the easiest target, maybe this was a terrible, terrible idea that I would regret the second the caravan pulled out of the driveway. Or maybe I was meant to spend the summer working on the novel I was avoiding in the exact place I had always wanted to write the damn thing. Besides, the woman wasn’t getting any younger, and maybe spending some time together was the plus side of all this. Not to mention she had a cat lurking around here somewhere. Frankly, I’d be doing everyone a favor.

“You sure about this?” I asked her, giving her one last chance to back out before we were both in it.

“Nope.”

“Fair enough.”

—

“Are you out of your mind?” My mother was genuinely aghast.

She pulled me to the side of the driveway as my aunts shook their heads in disbelief. I mustered the kind of hopeful optimism I hadn’t felt a trace of since I got my first writing job. That turned out to be a personal nightmare.

“Yes, I’m positive. And then I’m close enough if we want to do any shopping or hit the beach or whatever. Also the house will be back in order so we can actually use it.”

“Honey, I love you. And I mean this in the nicest way possible but, I don’t think you can do this.”

“Why not?”

“Molly -”

“Mum, I get it. I’m not the ideal candidate. But it’s either this or you guys drag her out by her hair and she probably drops dead just to spite you all.”

I could tell by her soft eye roll and deep cleansing breath that she knew I was right.

“Maybe this is a sign or something. I can figure things out without any distractions and keep an eye on her. I think it’s a win-win. Trust me.”

She looked me dead in my eyes with such steely gray determination that I thought I might turn to stone. She sighed again and turned to her sisters.

“Alright. I guess that’s what’s happening.”

“You’re serious?” June was still not convinced. 

“I hear the concerns, I appreciate it, but consider this. A summer where instead of you guys having to run up here whenever there’s a problem, I’ll take care of it.”

“Just for the summer, then we can all reevaluate if it seems like it’s working or not. Maybe by then we can convince her to hire someone real.” my mother finished.

I tried not to look offended by the use of the word “real” as if I was an unfortunate stand in. They all stood in shared silence, and collectively decided not to fight anymore.

“Fine,” June continued, “if you think you can manage, then fine.”

“Great,” said Stevie, happy to be one step closer to getting out of here.

“Maybe it’ll work out!” the ever positive Linda quipped, looking ready to catch her flight out of this problem.

“It’s settled then.”

And just like that, a few minutes later they all said their goodbyes.

“If anything goes wrong…” my mother continued.

“Everything will be fine mom. I promise.”

And just like that, they were gone. I made my way back down to Alice.

“So, what do you want for dinner?”

I wasn’t positive, but I was fairly certain I sensed a light smirk roll across her face before it just as quickly disappeared. 

“Can you cook?” she asked.

“If boxed mac and cheese counts.” 

Apparently it didn’t.