7
Inside, Chase has placed astack of board games on the living room table. The living room, like most of the lake house, is a stunning display of wood craftsmanship. Chase sits on a throne-like chair sculpted to resemble a tree with dozens of spindly branches stretching out in a wide arc, up to the high ceiling and loft above. He and Ryan used to fight over it, crowns of leaves on their heads, while Emily, Kennedy, and I pelted them with marshmallows. I smile, remembering, but it turns into a painful lump in my throat.
“Peace offering,” he says. “We’re here to be together, so… let’s start togethering.”
“I’ll start togethering.” Mila climbs into his lap and wraps her arms around his neck, leaning in close to smooth down his dark, windswept hair. Chase blushes.
“As a group. For now.” He whispers something into her ear and she laughs.
“Keep it in your pants, Chase.” Kennedy tosses a throw pillow at them, and Chase successfully bats it away. She turns the dimmer up all the way, but it’s always a little dark in the lake house at night. She sets a couple of candles on the table, and with the pale yellow cast of the chandelier hanging above our heads and the two mock-deerskin lamps positioned at eitherside of the room, everything seems to flicker with an eerie hue, like watching a very old film. “What should we play?” she asks.
I settle into the carved wooden rocking chair in the corner, a perfect match for the old one, probably from one of those criminally overpriced hipster boutiques that make everything from dumpster scraps and then charge you as if it were sourced from a rainforest. “Monopoly,” I suggest half-heartedly.
Kennedy’s bright blue eyes light up.
“Uh-uh.” Chase gives a big thumbs-down. “You two are vicious at that game, and I don’t feel like having my head bitten off.”
Ryan selects a game. “I believe a round of Catan may be in order.”
“Noooo.” Mila slides off Chase’s lap and onto the floor. “That game goes on forever. I like something short and sweet. She lifts the lid off a box of Candy Land. “Oh.” Most of the cards and pieces are missing. “I assumed the games would be new this year.”
“Sorry the house isn’t stocked to your liking,” Kennedy says.
“Guys, please.” Chase selects a hot pink box with blue squiggles and yellow triangles all over it. “I like the look of this one.” He pulls it from the pile and sets it on the table. On the lid is a photo of two girls with high ponytails in perms and neon sweaters, one giggling and one looking exaggeratedly shocked. Over their heads the wordsTruth or Dare!are written in an ’80s font. “Yep,” Chase says. “We’re playing this.”
He lifts the lid and begins to shuffle and deal the stack of cards in the box.
“You don’t need cards to play Truth or Dare,” Mila says.
“And we’re not in fifth grade.” Kennedy reluctantly takes her share of the cards. “We had this one in the old house too. You never forced us to play it then.”
But we did play it. Emily, Kennedy, and me. Back in elementary school when our weekends at the lake house were new. The games, the lake, the whole world of the house. We were a little young for it then, but we’re far too old for it now.
“Well, bless your mom for hunting down another copy.” Chase ruffles her hair and Kennedy scowls at him, carefully combing it back into place with her fingers.
“It’s some special thing between her and my aunt.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence. Kennedy’s aunt also died young, though not in an accident. One night she simply went to sleep and didn’t wake up the next morning. The Hartfords almost never mention her, except for Kennedy, who sometimes talks about her almost as if she never died. One of the few Kennedy quirks she hasn’t quite curated to perfection.
“We won’t use the board,” Chase says. “Just the cards. It’s like Cards Against Humanity or Apples to Apples. Just a conversation starting point.”
“That’s not really what Cards Against Humanity is,” Kennedy says.
“Well, shut up, we’re playing,” Chase says pleasantly.
“Ugh, fine. I’ll go first.” Kennedy turns to me. “Truth or dare,” she reads in a halting, first-grader-learning-to-read voice.
“Dare.”
“Call a boy and tell him you have a crush on him.” She winks at me.
“Have the landlines been set up yet?”
She shakes her head.
I shrug. “No working phones.”
“You have to do truth, then,” Mila says, reading the rules printed on the back of the box.