****
Across Lake Shore Drive from the beach, behind
the multi-million-dollar “cottages” atop the dunes – the ones with views all
the way to Chicago – the woods begin.
Old-growth oak and maple tower over the faux log
cabins that nestle into the understory – dogwood, sassafras, tulip poplar, and
the occasional pine. Most of the houses look vacant. School begins earlier than
it used to, and the families who spent their summer days frolicking in the
waves and riding bikes along the winding lanes have gone back to their workaday
lives on the other side of the lake. But here and there, windows are still open
to catch the warm, early September air. The cars in the driveways of most of
these homes sport Indiana or Michigan plates, but some belong to the summer
people for whom summer hasn’t quite yet ended.
Here’s one on a corner just a block from Lake Michigan.
There’s a gray station wagon with Illinois plates parked in the concrete
driveway, and a pickup truck with local plates angled in behind it. A couple of
guys in t-shirts and worn jeans are erecting a sign in the front yard – “Ames
Construction Co.” – while a man with thinning ginger hair signs something on a
clipboard.
We turn the corner onto Nokomis Trail and pass a
few more cottages, interspersed with vacant lots where wild grapevines twist
around neighboring saplings. In a manicured yard that would look at home in any
suburb, an elderly man pushes a lawn mower. On the street in front of his
house, a wooden mallard stands guard over his mailbox and two others, its
whirligig wings spinning lazily in the breeze.
Every now and then, the man pauses to wipe his
forehead with a carefully-folded red bandanna; as he pauses, he shakes his head
over the cottage across the way, nearly invisible behind a riot of unkempt
bushes and vines.
Next to this abandoned house is a vacant lot.
Next to that, at the very end of Nokomis Trail, is a tiny cottage that looks
like something out of a fairy story. Garden statuary – here a frog, there a
nymph on a log – nestle amidst gangly purple mums. A gnome guards the entrance
to the stepping-stone walk, and several wind chimes hang from the porch eaves.
The elderly man glances toward this cottage and
crosses himself surreptitiously. Then he goes back to work.
****
Inside the cottage at the end of the lane, a
plump, matronly woman with a cheerful face hums as she works a loom. The frame
takes up most of the living room, leaving only space enough for the fieldstone
fireplace, two easy chairs, and a tiny television.
The woman pauses in her work and whistles, long
and low. “Well,” she says to herself. “Isn’t that interesting.”
Just then, the back door bangs shut. The woman at
the loom looks toward the kitchen, where a tall, thin woman with a narrow face
has just come in. Out of habit, she ducks under the herbs hanging from the
rafters as she removes her gardening gloves.
“Mind your shoes, dear,” the plump woman says. “I
just swept.”
“I’m going back out,” the tall one says as she
gets herself a glass of water at the sink. As she waits for the glass to fill,
she says, “I saw another dragonfly. That makes seven, just this morning.”
“Was this one headed up the street, too? Toward
the Morton place?”
The tall woman nods, then downs half of the water
in one long drink. “Looks like things are about to change around here.”
“Yes,” the plump woman says, examining her
weaving. “I see that.” She turns back to the tall woman with a sunny smile. “At
last!”
****
At the same moment, thirty-five miles across the
lake as the crow flies, Julia Morton Michaud sits in her lawyer’s office.
Elaine’s firm is small, so their offices in Chicago’s Loop don’t command the
sweeping view of the city that a larger firm would have. But as the Haddon of
O’Leary and Haddon LLP, Elaine rates an office with a glimpse of the lake.
Julia attempts to maintain a professional
demeanor as Elaine goes through the checklist: life insurance, health
insurance, retirement accounts. The country club membership. The burial plots.
All of the knotted strands that will have to be untangled before her marriage
can be dissolved.
All of the legal knots, anyway. The emotional
bonds frayed away long since.
“Now, the checking accounts,” Elaine says.
“Equal split,” says Julia. “Same with the savings
and money market accounts. And the stocks.” She expects a fight over the stocks,
but intends to stand her ground. She needs those investments to live the life
she means to live. And she refuses to let Lance get away with everything.
“And the real estate?” the lawyer goes on. “I
assume he’s keeping the Gold Coast condo. But you’re going to keep the house in
Evanston, right?”
“No,” Julia says. “He can have that, too.”
Elaine looks at her over the top of her reading
glasses. “It’s worth several million dollars, isn’t it?” At Julia’s nod, the
lawyer goes on, “Well, we have some options. We can ask him to buy you out. Or
we can stipulate that the house be put on the market.”
“I don’t want the money,” Julia blurts. “I don’t
want any part of that house. He can have it.”
Elaine gives her a look of barely-concealed
disbelief. “As your attorney,” she says, “I would strongly advise that that
would be against your best interests. But as your friend….” She shakes her
head. “Julia, what are you thinking? You’re entitled to half the house, as well
as half the condo. And most of your wealth is tied up in your real estate
holdings, unless I miss my guess. What are you going to live on, if you give
everything to him? For that matter, where are you going to live?”
Julia tilts her chin up. “The house in Michiana.
I’m going to live there.”
“In that derelict cottage?” Elaine’s shock is
plain.
“It’s not derelict,” Julia says, defensive. “It
needs some work, that’s all. And it’s quiet. It’s the perfect place for me to
get my head together and do some serious writing.”
The attorney shakes her head. “So you’re really
going to lock yourself away in that moldy old place. I thought you were kidding
when you mentioned it at dinner last week.”
“Nope.” Julia pulls her chin up higher. “I’ve
been giving it a lot of thought. This is exactly what I want to do.”
The lawyer sighs. “Well, I’ll draw up the
agreement with that in place and send you a draft by tomorrow morning at the
latest. But I think you’re making a big mistake.”
Julia nods – in acknowledgement, not in
agreement. She looks past Elaine’s shoulder and out the window, beyond the end
of the concrete canyon, where a sliver of Lake Michigan is visible. The waves
glitter in the harsh light of midday. It feels like a promise. Or like a
release.
Silence draws her attention back to her friend.
Elaine is regarding her with a wistful expression. “We’ll miss you,” she says.
Julia waves away the sentiment. “It’s not like
I’m moving to the moon,” she says with a laugh. “I’ll only be sixty miles
away.”
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