The Lake House Read Online Free PDF Page A

laptop. A website with lakeside houses for sale appeared on her screen. On nights when insomnia left her awake, she spent hours on the Internet taking virtual tours of the homes on the site. From her Favorites folder she clicked on a picture of a blue Craftsman bungalow. The bungalow had come on the market almost two months ago. To lull herself to sleep she fantasized about owning it and having cookouts with friends, parties with dancing, sunny days on the beach.
    As a young child, Heather had lived in a rented lake house with her grandmother and mother. Heather tried to remember her grandmother’s face, but it was like catching a dream. She had glimpses of memories: the gold chain that hung from her glasses, gray and black hair that tickled Heather’s neck when they hugged, and sticking out blue tongues at each other when they sat in the blueberry bushes eating berries. Heather remembered sun-warmed towels after a dip in the lake.
    Their five-room house had shelves filled with knickknacks of blown glass animals and porcelain figurines. Pink crocheted cozies covered tissue boxes on end tables. In the living room her grandmother or mother would rock her to sleep to the sounds of a crackling fire and the women’s soft voices.
    What Heather remembered best were the sweet smells of homemade bread and ginger cookies. Her grandmother loved to bake. The scent of molasses permeated the brown paneled walls and green carpets. Almost every afternoon, her grandmother would take down the yellow Bisquick box and measure out the water and flour mix. She’d roll it out on the table with Heathersitting in a chair next to her. Then, with a juice glass, Heather cut out perfect circles for biscuits. She’d sneak little corners of the dough and she still recalled the slight metallic taste of baking soda and salt.
    When Heather was five, her grandmother passed away, and Heather’s mother tried to pay the rent on the lake house, but after two years she’d put herself so far into debt, they were forced to move.
    Heather closed the laptop and placed it on the coffee table. Charlie had paid for the apartment and their living expenses for the last six years; he opened her Visa and American Express statements before she saw them, and he allowed her a budget for luxury clothing as a business investment. She didn’t see her own paychecks; they were deposited directly into their joint account. He said all this was necessary because she spent so much time on the road and he felt she couldn’t be trusted with her own finances.
    She looked around the ten-by-ten living room. The brick wall held a sixty-inch flatscreen TV that overpowered her senses when it was on. Sports Illustrated magazines had been neatly piled on the glass coffee table. The leather couch squeaked as she stood. Nothing about this place felt like home to her.
    Charlie had threatened her career if she left. In everyone else’s eyes she had the perfect life, but . . .
    Before she could change her mind, she picked up her cell phone and dialed Information. “Littleton, Massachusetts,” she said. “RE/MAX Realty.” Whether or not she could buy the house, it was time to make a change.

CHAPTER 3

    V ictoria awoke to the smell of pancakes and the sound of hail hitting the roof. From under the pillow she grabbed a tissue and blew her nose. The delicate skin felt raw. Five rainy, icy days, along with the flu, had kept her in bed.
    Each day, lost in memories of her granddaughter, she stared at her sage bedroom walls in the room her parents once occupied and listened to the fire crackling in the fireplace. Seven years ago, Victoria had renovated the house in anticipation of Annabelle’s marriage to Tommy Woodward, a grandson of Nagog. She thought about all the plans she and Annabelle had dreamt up when they discussed the future: making ice cream on the porch, pushing baby strollers around the neighborhood, and, as Annabelle had put it, putting down roots secured in Massachusetts