Rewrite the Stars by Christina Consolino (classic fiction TXT) 📗

“Oh, we get so many visitors from Ohio. And my son lives there. Have you been here before?” Pickles’ blue eyes sparkled under the fluorescent lighting of the break room as she poured herself another cup of tea. The whir of the small refrigerator and the click of the radiator muffled her words, and I had to lean in to catch what she was saying.

“Actually, yes. We’ve been coming up here for quite a few years now, and I used to come when I was a child. That’s how we found this place originally.”

“It’s quite the place, isn’t it?” A smile danced across her lined face, and a fleeting image of her as a young lady crossed my mind. Had she always been this content?

“You can say that again. Do you live here year-round?” In all the time I’d been visiting Walloon Lake, I’d never seen Pickles Martin. My family was on great terms with the workers at the general store, and we knew the owners of the marina. Even some of the people in Petoskey, like the proprietors of the fudge shop, knew June meant our family planned to visit. I wondered then, if anyone had missed us that summer.

“I do now.” Pickles dabbed the corners of her upturned mouth with her napkin much like I would do to Lexie or Delia. “I am so pleased to meet you. It used to be Henry and I, that was my second husband, traveled here only during the summers. We then retired to our little bungalow on East Street and after he passed on, God bless his soul, I chose to stay. The place is in my blood now. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.” She smoothed the napkin across her knees against her blue cotton skirt and then nibbled a tiny bite of a cinnamon scone.

“I hear that from many people,” I said. “That they can’t imagine living anywhere else. What is it about this place that makes people want to stay?”

I knew why I’d like to stay. The idea of finding a sliver of happiness amongst a lifetime of confusion and angst. The gorgeous mirror of a lake, the splendid sand, the shade of the imperial pine trees. Mix into that the easy-going attitude that tagged along with summertime and even autumn, as I was finding out, and I’d move here in a heartbeat. That sort of mindset would be beneficial every moment of every day during every season.

“It’s a little bit magic, if you ask me. Or a lot of magic. Henry always said I believed in fairies, and yes, I do. But since I can’t prove otherwise, I’m sticking with that theory.” Pickles’ cheeks crinkled with a full-blown smile. Theo would have rolled his eyes at her statement, calling himself too much of a realist to even consider the idea of something that couldn’t be proven. But I couldn’t help grinning myself. To think I’d been annoyed by her initial intrusion into my space.

The older woman made a valid point, though. There had to be something, whether we possessed the ability to name it or prove it or not, that led people to Walloon Lake and then convinced them to stay there. With cooler summer temperatures and mountains of snow, the winter season often brought with it something else that lured people there. If it wasn’t magic that kept people in a place so cold, then what was it?

I put my hand to my heart and closed my eyes, taking a moment to pause, enjoy the silence, and hope the place lent even a little bit of its magic to me.

Pickles grabbed my attention again with the tap of her fingernails against the laminate of the table. “Many people tell me I’m nuts. But the lives I’ve seen over the years, the number of broken people who come up here to this idyllic place, who stay for merely a few days or several months and end up being repaired.” Pickles punctuated her words with a nod of her head and a bob of her gray-blond curls.

My dampened mood perked up at the words broken and repair. Our marriage, my life, my psyche. They had so much defective in them, and I considered whether anything could be reconditioned, much like the ancient and rusty mountain bike Theo had placed by the curb this past summer. The only facet of my life that seemed mostly unchanged over the last couple of years was my relationship with Charlie, Delia, and Lexie.

For the most part, I put forth an extreme effort to be a decent mother, and I thought the kids were having an adequate childhood. But the words decent and adequate didn’t seem enough to give to my wonderful and deserving children, and lately, my parenting might not have been up to snuff.

I didn’t want my children to feel the way I did about my mother at times: she was selfish and self-centered and so out of touch with reality that conversations with her inflicted pain on me. Dreams of the future often occupied my thoughts, a time when, as adults, the children still called because they wanted to, not because they felt obligated to do so. But to cultivate those dreams, I needed to be more. The kids should have a fantastic mother and spectacular childhood, one full of laughter and memories and traditions they’d want to pass on to their children, and only I could make it happen. If only I could figure out how to do that. If only I could figure out a lot of things. Tears simmered behind my eyelids.

Pickles regarded me with a sparkle in her eye as she leaned in close, the smell of the cinnamon scone coming with her. “You’re not telling me something, young lady.”

Her comment surprised me in many ways, but the tears had probably tipped Pickles off to my situation. One bite of strawberry