Positively Mine Read Online Free Page B

the city where there is a convenience store on practically every corner. It used to take me a few days to shift gears and get readjusted to country living when I’d come visit. My grandparents didn’t even own a television. I used to pack tons of books and I’d read every last one because at night there was nothing else to do. But I still always looked forward to August when my dad would bring me up to spend the month.
    My stomach grumbles. Sure, I’ll make a great mother. Sorry, baby, I forgot to get us food.
    Leaning my bike against a tree, I take a deep breath and fumble for my key and approach the front porch slowly, cautiously. The thick cedar door is silvered with age, and the lock is an antique, but it manages to click after a couple tries. Old hinges creak as I push, breaking a deafening stillness inside. My legs feel frozen, so I just stand and look.
    The daylight filters through my grandmother’s old lace curtains in the living and dining rooms, bouncing off weathered wood floors while the dust dances through sunrays. Almost nothing has changed: the furniture in the living room, the tablecloth on the dining room table, the runner up the stairs.
    I walk back to the kitchen, flicking on lights. Thankfully, the power is still on at the realtor’s request. I fill my water bottle at the sink, gulping it down. It has a metallic taste, but I’m so thirsty I fill it again.
    Rummaging around the kitchen, the forks, knives and spoons, plates, bowls and napkins – all mismatched – are where we left them. Why wouldn’t they be? I sit in my old chair and imagine Gram is sitting across from me. After my mother died, she became like my second mom. She came with me to buy my first bra, helped me pick out an outfit for my first dance. She was the person I called when I needed an opinion.
    I wonder if I would have told her about this.
    I sigh. I would have. I know it. And after yelling at me for being so irresponsible, she would have settled in to help me. We would have talked it through for hours.
    Now it’s just an empty kitchen and an empty chair.
    My stomach is feeling queasy again thanks to all the water. I have a sudden urge for fresh air, so I unlock the back screen door and trot down the dirt path that winds to the lake.
    The sun has shifted in the sky, lower now. And like Kashong, Seneca Lake is alive with activity. A few small vessels are buoyed a couple hundred feet from shore, with fishermen drinking beer from tall cans, waiting for the trout to bite. I climb out on the small dock and sit on its rough planks, gazing at the water. The buzz of motor craft is a soothing backdrop to the blank, empty state of my mind.
    Try as I might, I am unable to connect the dots, unable to grasp for an answer. It’s like I’m watching a movie and this is happening to a girl on the screen. Only, she was mismatched for the part, and I can’t relate to her story. I lie back and allow my eyes to close in the warmth of the late summer sun and soon feel myself drifting to sleep.

Chapter Five
    “Laurel?” Someone is shaking my arm. “Laurel. What are you doing here?”
    I open my eyes to see the silhouette of a man crouching beside me, and I jerk my arm from his grasp and sit up with a jolt, completely disoriented.
    “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
    It takes my brain a minute to register who I’m looking at. “Uncle Jake?” My grandfather’s brother tilts his baseball cap at me and then, with what seems like a lot of effort, pulls himself up to stand.
    “What are you doing here?”
    “That’s what I asked you.”
    I stand, too, and brush myself off. “I go to Colman now.”
    He squints at me. “Is that right?” It’s like looking at a thinner version of my grandfather, with the same white beard and hair.
    “Don’t you live in California?”
    “Up in Oregon these days.”
    A chilly autumn breeze brushes across the lake, and I shiver. “What time is it?”
    “After five.”
    “Five?” My jaw drops. I slept