Page 22 of The Lake House (Southern Charm #2)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Rita stared at her cousin’s red face. Sometimes she wondered how they’d ended up here, both working at the Honeysuckle Café alongside one another. Then she realised that she had no one to blame but herself. She’d done this. And right now, she regretted the choice.

“You always want everything your way! You just won’t compromise, Rita! It’s not fair. I’m supposed to be helping you, but how can I if you won’t ever let me?”

“Cathy, we can’t paint the dining room green. We don’t have time to do that right now, and green doesn’t exactly go with the theme. I prefer to keep things a bit more neutral. Then we can add splashes of colour with the décor.”

“Green would be perfect in here. Don’t worry about timing—I’ll get them to paint overnight and take care of everything. You won’t have to worry about it.”

“It’ll stink to high heaven! The customers won’t want to eat the next day—they’ll be overcome by fumes.

We have to plan ahead if we’re going to do any kind of renovations like that.

We need to close down and get as many things done as possible so we’re not interrupting business too often.

We’ve done this once every few years for as long as I can remember. ”

“We’ll use the low-scent paint, I promise. It’ll be great.” Cathy clapped her hands together, eyes sparkling. “And I think we should update the menus and some of these knickknacks to reflect the new colour scheme.”

“All of that costs money, Cathy. Money we can’t afford right now.”

“It’ll pay for itself, I promise you.”

Rita sighed and threw her hands in the air. “Fine, you can do it. But if I hear customers complaining about the smell, or the overwhelming amount of green, I’m coming for you. Got it?”

Cathy grinned. “You won’t regret it.”

“I’m regretting it already,” Rita mumbled as she shuffled through the café to her office.

As she sat in her chair, she let out an exhale of relief.

Her eyes wilted shut, and she felt as though she could drift off to sleep in that position.

But she wouldn’t do that right now—she had things to do.

Afterwards, she could go home and nap. It’d become something of a habit lately.

The doctor had told her that she needed to take care of herself.

Her immune system was compromised, and sleep helped to keep her strong.

“How on earth is this going to work?” she muttered to herself.

She and Cathy couldn’t be more different if they tried.

Cathy was constantly getting on her nerves and making a nuisance of herself.

And Rita was trying her best to get along, but she’d been the boss for so long now, it was hard to loosen the reins.

If it made Cathy happy, though, it was a small price to pay to be surrounded by green. Green, of all things! It was her least favourite colour. She huffed.

As Rita reached for the first bill on the pile, she noticed the stack of letters next to it.

She’d been procrastinating a lot in recent years—she hated doing the orders and bill paying, the payroll and accounts.

The ledgers were the bane of her existence.

But this way, with the prospect of a letter to read when she was done for the day, it’d helped her get to it more efficiently, and she hadn’t achieved so much in a long time.

With a frown of determination, she got to work.

Before long, it was done, and she was able to open the next envelope.

She smiled in anticipation. The last letter she’d read had left her with more questions than answers.

She hoped this one written by her paternal grandmother would give her some kind of insight into her parents’ life that provided more clarity.

To dear Raymond,

I’m not sure how you’re making it through each day, but I wanted to write and encourage you.

I’m sure Sylvia and the girls are well. She’s with her parents in North Carolina and they love her and the girls, so I know they’re well taken care of.

But I heard the pain in your words when you wrote of how lonely it is for you, and how you long for them to come home.

And I completely understand. I don’t know if I could take it.

However, you must take it. This is your family, and you’ve got to do what it takes to fight for y’all to be together again.

Bill made a mistake. I’m sure you can understand that.

With so many long hours together working at the café, it was inevitable that he and Sylvia would be thrown together.

And that he developed feelings for her was natural.

However, the two of them having an affair right under your nose was a shock to me.

A horrible shock. I feel so much anger on your behalf.

I don’t want to take sides, but I can’t help it this time.

They are in the wrong, and there is no getting around that.

What will you do?…

Rita put the letter down on her desk. Uncle Bill had an affair with Mom? Surely not. Mom loved Dad. They were married for fifty-plus years before they died. They were a good match. Dad was a grouch, of course. And Mom was a flake. But they made it work.

She rested her elbows on the desk and let her head fall into her hands.

It all made sense now. The reason why Uncle Bill walked away from the café and left it all to her father.

The reason they never spoke, even at the end of their lives.

There was a family schism formed that was never healed.

And it’d carried on to herself and Cathy even now, so many years later.

After a while, Rita packed up her things and drove back to the lake house.

She got out of the truck and lumbered to the deck where her father’s boat had been docked for all those years.

The boat was still there, but it was out of the water, upside down and covered in a tarp.

She could barely remember the last time she’d used it, and she wasn’t physically capable of righting it now, or getting it back into the water. She felt so weak lately.

She sat on the bench beside the boat and stared out over the water, letting the memories wash over her like torrents of rain.

Dad fixing the boat. Mom with a fishing pole extended over the edge of the water as she recounted some tale to Dad, like the day Rita got caught in a thunderstorm and Mom had to dry her off before she trekked mud through the kitchen, or that time Helen brought home a boy from school who looked like he’d recently joined a street gang, almost giving their parents a heart attack.

Mom had greeted him with a colourless face, and Dad had immediately started cleaning his shotgun at the kitchen table.

Finally, the boy had stammered a goodbye and rushed out the door. They never saw him again, and Helen hadn’t spoken to any of them for two days. Rita smiled fondly over the memories as they came, one by one, like pictures she’d looked through so many times before.

These letters had opened up the past in a way she hadn’t expected and she wasn’t sure how to process it all.

There was no one to ask. No one who could answer her questions or clarify their contents.

She had to put the pieces together herself and she was struggling to come to terms with the results.

If only Helen were here. Helen would know what to do.

She’d have said something light hearted to make Rita laugh and held Rita’s hand as they talked it out.

But Helen wasn’t here and Rita had to face this all alone.