Page 114 of The Rebound
“Yeah.” He drums his fingers against the steering wheel before seeming to decide, starting the engine.
“Wait,” I say. “Don’t do the thing where you surprise me with the destination. This is not a movie and I might need to change my shoes and/or pee first.”
He laughs. “I was thinking the lake.”
The lake?
There are many lakes in this part of Ireland, but in Clonard only one was known asthelake. Lough Carra, a calm picturesque body of water northeast of the village. It isn’t as popular as others in the area, with their salmon fishing and kayaking. It’s more of a sit-and-contemplate kind of place, but with a forest on one side and marshy wetland on the other, there are plenty of places to disappear to.
Luke raises a brow. “Footwear acceptable?”
“Footwear acceptable,” I confirm, glancing down at my sneaker-clad feet.
“And they have public facilities.”
“Stop, you’re making me swoon.”
It’s a thirty-minute drive. On a sunny day like this, the place is busy, but I was right in thinking most people would head to the coast, and the lake is big enough that the farther we walk along the edge of the forest, the fewer people we see. For someone who grew up in the countryside, I have never been much of a nature person. Maybe it’s why I always gravitated toward big cities, more at home surrounded by orderly concrete and masses of people than fields and silence. Waking to birdsong is all well and good until they’re outside your window at five a.m. and won’t shut up.
But this? Yeah. I’m good with this.
The woods are different than the forest at Easter, when the ground had been wet mud beneath my feet, the world a muted gray and green. Now the air is warm and smelling of pine. The earth is soft and dry, with a slight crunch underfoot, and the lake shimmers between the trees, blue and placid. After about twenty minutes of walking, we find a small clearing by the water. A makeshift camping spot, there’s nothing but a circle of parched earth where two logs have been pulled together to form a seating area. It’s perfect.
I shrug off my cotton shirt, tying it around my waist as we settle on our separate logs, an appropriate space between us.
“This is nice,” I declare because I feel it needs to be said.
“It is.”
“Very romantic.”
“Very.” Luke smiles. “Not a bad place to spend my day off.”
His day off. My good mood slips a little when I remember how busy he is and I watch from the corner of my eye as he brushes a few sticks and leaves from the log, getting more comfortable.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.” He sounds like he means it.
“How’s your dad doing?”
“You mean in general or…” His confusion clears. “You heard about the accident.”
“Louise mentioned it. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He’s fine. Or as fine as he can be, I guess. His leg still gets a little stiff some days.”
“It sounded awful.”
“Yeah, pretty scary.”
I wait for him to continue. “And you came back for him,” I nudge gently.
He leans forward, resting his arms on his thighs as he realizes what I’m getting it. “I did. I was in Dublin working in marketing for this pharma company. It was real bottom-of-the-rung, taking-notes-at-meetings, and getting-people’s-lunches stuff. But I liked it just fine. I wasn’t too worried about the future. But then Dad’s crash happened and it became pretty clear that Mam couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t walk on his own for months, couldn’t get up the stairs. He needed help getting in and out of the bath, that kind of thing. So I quit my job and came home. Did the heavy lifting, ran errands… I thought it would only be for a few months and then I’d leave again, pick up where I left off.”
“But you stayed.”
“I used to bring Dad into his physio sessions,” he explains. “And then they had me joining in so I could help him at home. I fell in love with it.”
