Read Online Up at Butternut Lake: A Novel by Mary McNear - Free Book Online

she lay very still, listening. Was it her imagination, or was it even quieter now in the apartment than it had been before Daisy called?

CHAPTER 7
    I wish you’d let me buy you a dishwasher,” Jeremy said to Jax, coming up behind her at the kitchen sink that night. He slid his arms around her waist—or what had, until recently, been her waist—and brushed his lips along the edge of her right ear.
    “I like doing dishes,” Jax said, her body responding instantaneously to Jeremy’s touch. Even after twelve years of marriage, she marveled, he still had that effect on her.
    “All right, I won’t buy you a dishwasher,” he said, tightening his arms around her. “But at least let me and the girls help you wash them.”
    “Maybe,” Jax mused. But she knew she wouldn’t. The truth was, she liked washing the dishes by herself. It was relaxing to her to be up to her elbows in warm, soapy water. And it allowed her time to think without being interrupted, something that was a precious commodity for a mother of three.
    Usually, she used the time to think about her daughters, and the things they’d said or done that day. She didn’t believe in chronicling every moment of their lives, the way so many of her friends did with their own children. She didn’t take videos, or keep scrapbooks, or write in baby journals. Instead, as she washed the dishes every night, while Jeremy said good night to the girls, she tried to commit their lives to memory. The big moments and the little moments. But mostly, the little moments.
    Tonight, though, her usually pleasurable dishwashing was tinged with sadness. It seemed wrong, somehow, to be happy when Allie and Wyatt were so sad. Her visit with them, only a few hours old, was still fresh in her mind. She’d told Jeremy about it before dinner.
    Now, cradling her in his arms at the sink, Jeremy asked, “Are you thinking about your friend and her son?”
    Jax nodded, somberly.
    “She was really special to you, wasn’t she?” Jeremy asked, gently.
    She nodded again. “That summer we were sixteen, we spent so much time together. I loved being with her family at their cabin. They were so, so . . .” She struggled for the right word. “So normal, ” she said, finally.
    “Jax, everyone’s family was normal compared to yours.”
    “That’s true,” she mused.
    “Honey, you know there’s nothing you can do about what happened to them, don’t you?” Jeremy asked, after a long silence.
    Jax nodded. But then, thinking of something, she brightened a little. “I can’t do anything about what happened to them, but I might be able to make things a little easier for them now. I mean, Wyatt doesn’t know any children here. And we have three of them. One of whom is practically the same age.”
    “Are you suggesting we adopt him?” Jeremy asked, nuzzling her neck. “Because his mother may not want to give him up that easily.”
    “I’m suggesting we include him in our lives,” Jax said, ignoring his teasing as she emptied the soapy water out of the sink and started to rinse the dishes. Jeremy reluctantly released her, picked up a dish towel, and started drying the dishes as she handed them to him. “I mean, I told the girls I’d take them blueberry picking next week,” Jax continued. “I’m going to ask Wyatt to come, too. And then, in July, we’re having our annual barbecue. Half the town will be there. We can have it be a ‘welcome to Butternut’ evening for the two of them.”
    “All right,” Jeremy said, drying another dish. “I’ll tell our social secretary to put them on the guest list.”
    “Very funny,” Jax said, but she stopped what she was doing and kissed him anyway. And when they were done with the dishes, Jeremy took her into his arms again and kissed her, with a sense of urgency that was unusual even for him. It’s like he’s knows there’s something wrong, Jax thought, uncomfortably. Something I’m not telling him about.
    And, as if on cue, he