Page 102 of It Happened on the Lake

Mom had always left them with Swanson’s TV dinners and bottles of Nehi soda and said, “Be good,” before she and Dad rumbled out of the drive in the Oldsmobile. Those evenings, the two brothers would wait, Levi standing guard at the living room window until he saw the taillights of the Cutlass disappear while Chase hurried downstairs to the rec room. Using the tiny key hidden high on a shelf behind a dusty vase of fake roses, he’d open the liquor cabinet and return to the kitchen with the purloined bottle of booze. Judiciously they’d add the liquor to their drinks and lock the bottles back in the cabinet, leaving the key where they’d found it.

While Mom and Dad were out, they had sat side by side on the floor, backs propped against the couch, the coffee table filled with their foil trays of fried chicken, vegetables, and mashed potatoes with a glob of butter. Sipping their doctored bottles of grape soda, they watchedDaniel BooneandStar Trekon the TV console while getting a little buzzed until the folks came home.

Usually laughing and teasing, smelling of cigarettes and beer, neither Tom nor Cynthia seemed to notice that their sons weren’t completely sober.

The good times.

Along with the bad.

His jaw tightened at the thought of the worst night, one he would never forget.

One he’d lied about.

One that had haunted him for twenty years.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Levi walked to his brother’s bedroom.

It, too, was silent.

Lifeless.

A dusty shrine to another lifetime.

Chase’s double bed nearly filled the small space, and his hand-me-down dresser was covered with trophies. On the walls were several awards along with teen art from the sixties. Levi eyed a psychedelicSkeleton & Rosesposter for the Grateful Dead along with the poster Mom really hated for the movieOne Million Years B.C.in which a scantily clad Raquel Welch stood warrior-like in the foreground while ferocious dinosaurs battled cavemen in the background.

“Isn’t she the sexiest?” Chase had asked Levi as he’d taped the poster to the wall, then pressed tacks into the corners. “I mean, man, look at her! Those legs. That rack. And her hair. She’s the whole package.”

Levi hadn’t been able to argue the fact. Not then, and not now.

Mom had threatened to rip the “indecent” poster off the wall.

But she never had.

Ever.

Levi glanced at the array of trophies on the dresser and picked up the one that was a small statue of a football quarterback, leaning backward, arm aloft, football in hand, ready to throw a pass. Chase’s name and the date were inscribed on the block on which the player was mounted.

Levi ran a thumb over the inscription and remembered the night Chase had won the award that went with it.Best All Around Athlete, Chase Hunt, 1966.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he stared at the trophy and whispered, “What happened to you, brother?”

There were no answers in the silent bedroom, but his gaze moved to the window overlooking the front porch. That night, he’d heard the tapping from his own room and had walked in to investigate. Harper Reed, her expression concerned, had stood on the other side of the glass pane. His heart had beat wildly at the sight of her upturned face and the worry in her dark eyes. He’d wanted to take her into his arms, to tell her that everything would be all right, but he hadn’t. Because nothing about that night had been all right. In fact, it was the night that everything had gone wrong.

1968

Chapter 25

“You sneaking, ungrateful son of a bitch!” Tom Hunt roared, his anger seeming to palpitate through the house, though really it was echoing through the dusty floor vents. Any conversation that took place in the basement drifted up to Levi’s bedroom. So, lying on his bed, Levi heard every word.

And when Dad was like this, all hell broke out.

“Where in Christ’s name have you been? Out carousing? Drinking? Doing drugs? What’re you into now? Pot? Speed? Maybe acid? What the hell’s gotten into you?” Dad roared. “What in the world are you thinking? Flunking out of school? Throwing your life away!” A pause. No answer from Chase. “I’ve seen you sneaking around down the street, too. Don’t tell me you’re fucking one of those hippie sluts!”

“Thomas,” Cynthia interjected, her voice faint. “If you could just calm down and—”

“You want me to calm down?” Dad yelled. “While our son is out whoring and doing God only knows what?”

“I don’t think it’s any of your business what I do,” Chase challenged.

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