Bobby grunted as he gripped me tighter and let out a guttural moan, spilling himself inside of me.
We leaned on each other, panting, twinkling with perspiration, until Bobby finally stood up.
“Lake and sleep?” he asked, putting up his hand for a high-five.
“Lake and sleep,” I smiled, slapping my palm against his, drunkenly. He clasped his fingers around mine and pulled me to my feet.
And that's what we did, falling asleep in a tangled mess on the old sofa. Clinging on to our last bittersweet night together at the lake house just as we had seven years before.
Seven Years Earlier
As soon as Julia closed the door, Bobby and I looked at each other differently than we just had moments before. The ferocity of our coupling was snuffed by her sober commands. It was as though the reality of the world came crashing down through her. She didn't scold, or scream, or even conspire in the shadows with us. She was the indifferent voice of the inevitability of our circumstances. Julia dismissed us so casually, like two children playing make-believe, that I realized that's exactly what this was. She sucked the oxygen out of our crazed and desperate plans, depriving the flames that burned through us.
Even imagining me trying to explain my plans to her made me realize how foolish we would have sounded. In the attic, alone, in the middle of the night, when the world slept, it all made sense between Bobby and me. But here, during the day, in the light, with eyes on us—it was child's play.
“I have to go,” I said, apologetically.
“I know,” Bobby lamented.
I looked at my face in the mirror and gasped. My lips were smudged, my hair a mess. I knelt down to the floor scrambling through the scattered makeup until I found what I needed. As Bobby stood there in silence, I erased the traces of his kisses from my face.
“Will she tell?” he asked.
“No. Didn't you hear her?”
“Yes.”
“She won't tell, okay? She's my sister. She'll cover for me.”
He mumbled something unintelligible to himself and paced back and forth, running his hands through his hair. “What have we done?” he asked.
“Bobby, I can't do this now.” Even at that moment, I noticed how quickly I had become frigid to get myself through what I was about to do.
I stood up, still in my slip, still wet in between my legs from having Bobby inside of me just minutes before.
I grabbed my lace dress off the hanger and slid it on. I tried zipping it on my own, but struggled.
“Let me,” Bobby said, coming to my aid. What a tragic ceremony, helping the love of his life put on the dress she would wear to marry his brother.
I stared at the sullen reflection in the mirror as I adjusted my tilted veil, the symbol of a bride. Of virtue, honesty, and commitment.
Finally, I was ready, at least on the exterior. I took a deep breath and spun to face Bobby. Despite how I tried to cut off my emotions, once our eyes met, I was filled with a sadness so deep, that it would haunt me, like a ghost, for the next seven years.
Bobby's eyes, the color of autumn leaves, turned down.
“It's too late for us,” I implored breathlessly.
Bobby nodded in defeat. I didn't remind him that I loved him, neither did he with me. I couldn't stir up the emotions that were already threatening to spill over. I had to fortify myself for walking down the aisle. Bobby and I would see each other again, and we would have to learn to live with our unspoken truth.
I stepped outside the door which Julia was guarding like a knight.
“Let's go,” she said. “Where's Bobby?”
“Listen, I just want you to understand . . . what you just saw—”
“I didn't see anything,” she snapped.
Although Julia was my sister, she actually felt like something closer to a detached mother. I didn't understand exactly what her purpose was in turning a blind eye other than to give me a chance to move forward. That underneath this coldness, there was a sense of sisterly duty to protect me.
“Where's Bobby?” she asked.
“He's—in the room. We thought that we shouldn't come together,” I whispered though no one was in the cabin.
“Didn't Rory send him here?”
“Yes.”
Julia opened the door. Bobby was leaning against the window frame, staring out in contemplation. He startled when she spoke. “Come on, Bobby. We should all be there early.”
“Oh . . . okay,” he answered, as if he were in some sort of fog.
“Oh geez,” Julia reprimanded as he approached the door. “Wait a minute.”
Julia returned from the restroom with a wet towel. “You have makeup all over your shirt,” she scolded.
It was surreal, the entire hour before my wedding. Declarations of love. Plans to escape. Sex. Being caught by my sister. Her bizarre reaction. It felt like that narrow space between an odd dream and a nightmare.
The three of us walked in silence down towards the lake. My heart stirred. In the solitude of the silent march, I regretted not telling Bobby how I felt one last time. That I wasn't choosing Rory out of love, but out of fear and obligation. That I understood why he didn't fight more after my sister burst into the room. Because he had the same reasons. It was too late for us. Nineteen and barely twenty-one, and it was already too late.
Summer 1957
The stagnant heat. The ticking of the clock. No more overalls. Instead, a pale blue dress. My hair was twisted up instead of down in careless waves. My lips covered in a pale rose instead of their natural hue.
We were back.
Bobby and I had spent the morning gathering goods for the cookout the next day. Rory said he would be returning at one, but it was already past two and he hadn't arrived.
Bobby and I sat across the kitchen table from one another, untouched glasses of my 50/50 lemonade and iced tea mix, sitting in front of us. This was harder than I ever imagined it could be. Two weeks was not enough time, yet too long. Now I had to pretend I didn't know how sweet life could taste. I had to adjust my palate back to accepting the stale bite of the everyday.
“Lil, now that we're back here, I was thinking maybe I should stay somewhere else. Get a room at a motel or something. It just doesn't feel right.”
“No, I don't want you to leave.”
Having Bobby around would at least make things tolerable. Without his everyday presence, my routine would go back to the time before he rang that doorbell weeks ago.
“I can't live in my brother's house. Be his guest knowing what we did.”
Did. The word was finite. Was it really done? We hadn't laid ground rules, but we kept alluding to the fact that somehow those two magical weeks needed to stay at the lake house. That we just wanted to allow ourselves the freedom that we had deprived ourselves of just so we could tolerate the rest of our existence. But of course, we lied to ourselves because there was no going back after what we did. There wasn't seven years ago, and there wasn't at that moment.
“Bobby—”
Just then the front door creaked open and we both stiffened in our seats as Rory finally arrived. He had a smile on his face as he huffed and puffed, his face sticky with sweat.
“I'm home!” he shouted playfully. It was strange how much happier he was to come home now that Bobby was back.
I stood up and smiled, doing my best to mask the frustration I felt towards Bobby's desire to move.