Chapter 30 The Familiar Stranger

When I get my first glimpse of the lake house in years, I don’t expect to be hit with memories I’ve made here. Happy ones with my mom, my brother Neil, and I’m sure there were some with Mike too. This was the one place my mom escaped to when she felt we needed to have… a childhood. My dad always made sure Neil and I were prepared, dressed for any and all occassions to be presented as his children. We were expected to be sharp, and overly polite, never as much as hovering a toe over the boundary of sophistication. My mom realised it affected us, in more ways than just losing the innocence and spontaneity that comes with being a child, and so she’d bring us here. And we’d spend most of our summers trekking the woods, splashing in the lake, playing seek.