Page 16 of The House Across the Lake

“I thought it would help you,” my mother says.

“How?”

“By making you finally confront what happened. Because until you do, you won’t be able to move on.”

“Here’s the thing, Mom,” I say. “I don’t want to move on.”

I slam the phone onto the receiver and yank the cord out of the jack in the wall. No more landline for her. After shoving the phone into the drawer of an unused sideboard, I catch a glimpse of myself in the gilt-edged mirror hanging above it.

My clothes are damp, my hair hangs in strings, and beads of water still stick to my face like warts. Seeing myself like this—a mess in every conceivable way—sends me back to the porch and the glass of bourbon waiting there. The ice has melted, leaving two inches of amber liquid swirling at the bottom of the glass.

I tip it back and swallow every drop.

By five thirty, I’m showered, dressed in dry clothes, and back on the porch watching the sun dip behind the distant mountains on the other side of the lake. Next to me is a fresh bourbon.

My fourth for the day.

Or fifth.

I take a sip and look out at the lake. Directly across from me, the Royce house is lit like a stage set, every room aglow. Inside, two figures move about, although I’m not able to see them clearly. The lake is about a quarter mile wide here. Close enough to get a gist of what’s going on inside, but too far away to glean any details.

Watching their blurry, distant activity, I wonder if Tom and Katherine feel as exposed as I did when I was inside that house. Maybe it doesn’t bother them. Being a former model, Katherine is probably used to being watched. One could argue that someone who buys a house that’s half glass knows being seen is part of the deal. It might even be the reason they bought it.

That’s bullshit, and I know it. The view afforded to residents of Lake Greene is one of the reasons the houses here are so expensive. The other is privacy. That’s likely the real reason Tom and Katherine Royce bought the house across the lake.

But when I see the binoculars sitting a few feet away, right where I’ddropped them earlier, I can’t help but pick them up. I tell myself it’s to clean them off. But I know it’ll only be a matter of time before I lift them to my eyes and peer at the opposite shore, too curious to resist a glimpse of the inner lives of a former supermodel and her tech titan husband.

The binoculars belonged to Len, who bought them during a short-lived bird-watching phase, spending a small fortune in the process. In his post-purchase speech justifying the expense, he talked about their insane magnification, wide field of vision, image stabilization, and top-of-the-line clarity.

“These binoculars rock,” he said. “They’re so good that if you look up at a full moon, you can see craters.”

“But this is for birds,” I replied. “Who wants to see birds that up close?”

When I inevitably do lift them to my eyes, I’m not impressed. The focus is off, and for a few jarring seconds, everything is skewed. Nothing but woozy views of the water and the tops of trees. I keep adjusting the binoculars until the image sharpens. The trees snap into focus. The lake’s surface smooths into clarity.

Now I understand why Len was so excited.

These binoculars do indeed rock.

The image isn’t super close. Definitely not an extreme close-up. But the detail at such a distance is startling. It feels like I’m standing on the other side of a street rather than the opposite shore of the lake. What was fuzzy to the naked eye is now crystal clear.

Including the inside of Tom and Katherine Royce’s glass house.

I take in the first floor, where details of the living room are visible through the massive windows. Off-white walls. Mid-century modern furniture in neutral tones. Splashes of color provided by massive abstract paintings. It’s an interior designer’s dream, and a far cry from my family’s rustic lake house. Here, the hardwood floor is scratched and the furniture threadbare. Adorning the walls are landscape paintings, crisscrossed snowshoes, and old advertisements for maple syrup. And the moose in the den, of course.

In the much more refined Royce living room, I spy Katherine recliningon a white sofa, flipping through a magazine. Now dry and fully dressed, she looks far more familiar than she did in the boat. Every inch the model she used to be. Her hair shines. Her skin glows. Even her clothes—a yellow silk blouse and dark capri pants—have a sheen to them.

I check her left hand. Her wedding band is back on, along with an engagement ring adorned with a diamond that looks ridiculously huge even through the binoculars. It makes my own ring finger do an involuntary flex. Both of my rings from Len are in a jewelry box in Manhattan. I stopped wearing them three days after his death. Keeping them on was too painful.

I tilt the binoculars to the second floor and the master bedroom. It’s dimmer than the rest of the house—lit only by a bedside lamp. But I can still make out a cavernous space with vaulted ceilings and décor that looks plucked from a high-end hotel suite. It puts my master bedroom, with its creaking bed frame and antique dresser of drawers that stick more often than not, to shame.

To the left of the bedroom is what appears to be an exercise room. I see a flat-screen TV on the wall, the handlebars of a Peloton bike in front of it, and the top of a rack holding free weights. After that is a room with bookshelves, a desk and lamp, and a printer. Likely a home office, inside of which is Tom Royce. He’s seated at the desk, frowning at the screen of a laptop open in front of him.

He closes the laptop and stands, finally giving me a full look at him. My first impression of Tom is that he looks like someone who’d marry a supermodel. It makes sense why Katherine was drawn to him. He’s handsome, of course. But it’s a lived-in handsomeness, reminding me of Harrison Ford just a year past his prime. About ten years older than Katherine, Tom exudes confidence, even when alone. He stands ramrod straight, dressed like he’s just stepped off the pages of a catalogue. Dark jeans and a gray T-shirt under a cream-colored cardigan, all of it impeccably fitted. His hair is dark brown and on the longish side. I can only imagine how much product it takes to get it to swoop back from his head like that.

Tom leaves the office and appears a few seconds later in the bedroom.A few seconds after that, he disappears through another door in the room. The master bath, from the looks of it. I get a glimpse of white wall, the edge of a mirror, the angelic glow of perfect bathroom lighting.

The door closes.

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