The Lake Season Read Online Free

dessert on the dessert table, let’s unwrap it.” Hastily, Iris removed the foil again. She could hear the kids thundering toward the table.
    â€œReally, you needn’t trouble yourself.” The brunette covered the cookies once more, with a flourish.
    â€œNo trouble at all,” Iris said flatly. She reached for the tray, this time whisking the foil right off the platter and crumpling it quickly into a tiny, silver ball, which she clenched triumphantly in her closed fist. “Ta-da!”
    The two women regarded her with a look of cool contempt, just as the players rose up around them like a uniformed tide.
    â€œChildren, children!” Ainsley Perry cried, trying to gain control. “Fruits and veggies, over here!”
    Obediently, the children lined up. Quickly the mothers went to work, doling out carrot sticks like Civil War nurses tending to battlefield soldiers.
    But Iris was not to be excluded. “Cookies! Who wants COOKIES?” Yes, she was sabotaging Ainsley’s order. But she could not help it.
    â€œCookies?”
    â€œCome and get them!” Iris was yelling now. But it felt great. The children surrounded her like a mob, and she whisked the cookies off the tray. Onto plates, into the hands of those with no plates. One right into a little boy’s mouth. She looked up, unable to contain her laughter. Now, where was Sadie?
    A small hand tugged her shirt.
    â€œJack! Want a cookie?”
    Jack’s brow furrowed. “Coach says no sweets at games.”
    And then reality hit. Beyond the crowd of cheering children, there was another. A stunned group. Parents with arms crossed. A coach blowing his whistle in an attempt to restore order. And one distressed face in particular: Sadie’s.
    Sadie was in the fruit-and-vegetable line. Not in Iris’s.
    â€œI made your favorite!” Iris sputtered, holding the tray overhead as she waded toward Sadie.
    When had it gotten so quiet?
    â€œWant one?”
    Sadie glared at the smashed crumbs scattering the platter. Then at her mother. “What are you doing ?”
    And before Iris could respond, she was gone.
    Paul appeared at Iris’s elbow. “What’s gotten into you?” At least he whispered it, relieving her of her tray, guiding her away from the table and the wondrous expressions of those surrounding it.
    Lily and Jack followed behind them, all the way to the car. Iris did not resist.
    It was only after Paul had closed her driver door, leaving her alone in the Rover, that Iris realized what a scene she’d made. “Meet you at home,” he’d mumbled, before stalking off.
    The kids had gone with their father, of course. The sensible one.
    Iris gripped the steering wheel and rested her head on its cool surface. What was happening to her?
    There was a gentle tap on the window. Lily . Chewing one of her forsaken cookies.
    Iris unrolled it.
    â€œDon’t worry, Mom. These are really good.”
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    The orange postcard came in the mail that morning. Iris hadn’t noticed it at first, tucked as it was amid the bills. She separated them from the newspaper, which she tossed directly into the recycling: there was enough sadness in her house at the moment—she hadn’t any room left for wars or failing economies. Iris was halfway through making the kids lunch when she saw the glimmer of orange from behind the electric bill on the counter. She plucked it out. Immediately she recognized the scene.
    Hampstead, New Hampshire. A red canoe tethered to a dock. It was one of the old lake postcards that Hawley’s Market used to sell when they were kids. She and Leah liked to collect them and hide them for each other under rocks or on the back porch, like secret messages. She hadn’t seen one like this in years. Where had Millie found it? Iris flipped the card over. But right away, she saw it was not Millie’s handwriting. The loose cursive