Page 4

The House On The Lake

Song : Whiskey & Rain - Michael Ray

T he Uber rolled up the long, winding drive, gravel crunching beneath the tires as we passed the quiet rows of stately waterfront homes.

I stared out the window, my fingers tapping an uneven rhythm on my thigh.

The lake shimmered under the late afternoon sun, and even in winter, the house looked like something pulled from a lifestyle magazine—clean lines, big windows, all red stone and pale wood.

Four bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a boat dock so pretty it had once been featured on the neighborhood’s real estate brochure.

My stepdad was still proud of that one. I took a breath as the car came to a soft stop at the front entrance.

This wasn’t just a house—it was the 'American Dream', carved out in drywall and teakwood. And in it lived my overachieving, brilliance-dripping parents. Trinidadian to the bone, loud with love, firm with judgment, and the kind of people who didn’t believe in mediocrity.

I stepped out of the car with a sigh and steeled myself for the next three days.

My mother was the first one to the door, of course. Always punctual, always poised. She wore her usual colorful maxi dress, but it was the sharpness in her eyes that stood out most. She hugged me tightly, the familiar scent of jasmine and ginger clinging to her skin.

“You late,” she said, half-scolding, half-smiling.

“Again.”

“Happy birthday to me,” I mumbled, hugging her back.

My stepdad appeared behind her, his salt-and-pepper beard freshly trimmed, arms wide open.

“Come now, girl! Give yuh old man a hug!” I laughed to myself, letting them pull me inside.

The house hadn’t changed. Same open floor plan, the same oversized sectional, same glass wall that gave a perfect view of the lake. It was the kind of place that begged for calm and reflection, but I always felt like a guest there. My things were never in the drawers. My name wasn’t in the mail.

“Put yuh bag down. You hungry?” my mother asked, already heading toward the kitchen.

“Starving. I’ve been eating airport snacks for a day and a half.”

She clicked her tongue. “God forbid you prepare for once in your life.”

I rolled my eyes and wandered toward the back patio, pulling open the back door.

The breeze off the lake was cool and salty.

I closed my eyes and let it wash over me for a second.

I hadn’t been back here since last summer, and even then, it was a short visit.

Too many memories. Too much expectation.

It always took me back to those first few years in the States—awkward, angry, resentful.

I was fourteen when we moved here, plucked away from the only home I’d ever known in Trinidad and thrown into suburban Houston like a fish dropped on hot asphalt.

My mother had tried to prepare me. She always tried.

She told me it was a new start, that America had more opportunity, that I’d be thanking her one day.

But all I saw was what I left behind—my best friends, my school, my rhythm.

Trinidad had been color and sound and freedom.

Houston was flat, bland, and unbearably fake.

And the girls at my new school? They didn’t know shit about struggle.

They wore too much lip gloss, cared more about homecoming dresses than homework, and never missed a chance to remind me that my accent made me different.

So I did what any angry teenager would do. I shut down. I rebelled. I dropped out.

“Lunch is ready!” my mother’s voice cut through the nostalgia.

I moved inside, pulled by the smell of callaloo and stewed chicken. Even after all these years, she still cooked like she had a family of ten to feed. The table was already set, and my stepdad was halfway through a bottle of Carib.

“You still drinkin’ this piss water?” I teased, grabbing a chair.

“Eh-eh, don’t insult the culture,” he said, raising it like a toast.

I laughed and sat down, grateful for the distraction.

We made small talk while we ate—how the neighbor’s son finally graduated from A&M, how the HOA was threatening to fine them over a cracked driveway, and how my mother was still teaching physics at the charter school across town.

I nodded and smiled through it all, but I could feel the questions hanging in the air like storm clouds.

“So what are you doing for work now?” my mother finally asked, piercing me with that look.

“Nothing new, still running my apartment locating business. Just traveling, exploring a few places. Looking at rentals in Chicago next.” She raised a perfectly arched brow.

“Chicago? In February?”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “I know. Cold as Eskimo’s balls.” My stepdad snorted. My mother didn’t laugh. She just shook her head and looked down at her plate.

“You know, it wouldn’t kill you to go back to school.” Here we go.

“I have my GED and a couple of degrees, Ma.”

“You smart. Too smart to be drifting around life like this.”

“I’m figuring it out.”

“You thirty-three. You shoulda figured it out already.” I pushed my fork across the plate.

“Thanks for the birthday pep talk. ”

After lunch, I escaped to the guest room upstairs, my lair, as I called it, the one with the view of the dock.

I dropped my bag on the bed and flopped backward, staring at the ceiling fan as it spun lazily above me.

They weren’t wrong. I was drifting. But not without reason.

After I left Mark, everything shifted. He was supposed to be the exception.

The man who took me out of the strip clubs and into something softer, safer.

For the first time, I thought I had real stability—a penthouse in downtown Dallas, designer bags, dinners with people in expensive suits.

He’d given me everything I thought I wanted.

Until I realized all I had was a glorified cage with a view.

He was a liar, a drunk, a serial cheater who collected dancers like trophies.

And me? I stayed too long. Eight years too long.

Until I was thirty-two, tired, jaded, and finally free.

Now I lived in a modest townhouse forty-five minutes outside the city, two cats, one tiny chihuahua, and a lot of silence.

I hadn’t been back to a strip club in almost a year.

But I hadn’t figured out the rest yet. I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

I just knew I didn’t want this. Not the past, not the heat, not the constant ghost of Mark lurking around every corner of Texas.

So I got on planes. Fifteen flights this year, and counting.

A new city every month. Looking for somewhere that felt right.Somewhere that felt like mine.

And then there was Jon. I pulled out my phone and stared at his number —Jonathan Idaho.

God, that man. He came out of nowhere like a summer storm.

One minute I was sulking over oysters in Raleigh, the next I was halfway in love with a man who told stories like gospel and had a smile that made you forget everything else.

He told me everything on that flight. He’d served fourteen years in the Navy but spent two of those on the ground in Iraq, embedded with an Army unit.

Said it was the hardest time of his life and the loneliest. He talked about the friends he lost and the scars he came home with—some physical, most not.

He had three kids. Two ex-wives. And a house in Idaho Falls he shared with his brother Blake, another ex-Navy guy and fellow single dad.

They bought the house together—a six-bedroom spread just outside town, with a view of the mountains and a basement that Jonathan claimed was his sanctuary.

Only now Blake had let some woman move into that basement—said she needed a place to stay—and Jon was pissed.

“I like my space,” he told me.

“That basement is the only place I feel halfway normal. With her down there, I feel like I’m back on deployment. No privacy. No control.” I got it. More than he realized.

And now here I was, lying on my parents’ guest bed, thinking about a man I barely knew but couldn’t stop thinking about. A man who, weirdly, made me feel… steady. Like maybe my instincts weren’t broken after all.

The next day passed in a blur of awkward family moments and backhanded compliments.

My birthday dinner was fancy, expensive, and exhausting.

My mother gave me a gold bracelet and a book on anxiety and depression in your 30s — like I needed anything more depressing in my life.

My stepdad gave me a card with cash inside and a wink that said, buy something stupid with it.

I loved them, but I couldn’t breathe in their house for long, even though I would be back after Chicago to say my final goodbye before I picked a permanent residence that wasn’t my townhouse in Fort Worth.

The morning after, I packed my bag again.

Flight #16 was calling. Chicago. Middle of February.

Probably the dumbest decision I’d made yet. But maybe also the smartest.

I gave my mother one last hug, promised I’d “think about school,” and climbed back into an Uber.

As the car pulled away from the house on the lake, I glanced over my shoulder.

The dock glittered under the rising sun, the boat swaying gently in its slip.

It was beautiful. Picture-perfect. But it wasn’t mine.

I leaned back against the seat, pulled out my phone, and stared at Jon’s number again.

I didn’t text him. Not yet. But maybe soon.

Right now, I have a plane to catch. A city to explore and more bad decisions to make.