Lake Effect by Nicole Tone

Author:Nicole Tone [Tone, Nicole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Magnolia Press

15

Sophie stirred, rolling over under the unfamiliar sheets. They were softer than the ones she could afford to keep on her bed at home. Even the detergent was different, a stronger smell, not diluted by the laundromat's too-hot dryers. Opening her eyes, sun peeked in through the sides of the thick brown curtains. Squinting, she rolled away from the window, watching the rest of the room become bathed in morning light.

The room was small, more cramped even than her one back home. But instead of the room staying dark, light filtered in around the edges of the curtains, was turning the room gold despite the light blue paint. But it wasn’t the change in color that had woken her, but the smell of bacon and eggs: the smell of summer mornings with her dad.

Her father’s house, positioned on the edge of Port Townsend, Washington, sat right on Beckett Point Road, on the side of the street overlooking Discovery Bay. There was no formal living room, no comforts she associated with her mother’s house, with the house she grew up in. But she remembered running across these old wooden floors, the wide planks bleached from the sun, as she trailed sand from the front door to the upstairs bathroom.

Sophie was shocked at how fast those memories came back and how much like home her father’s house actually felt. In the week she had been here she had found parts of her and her brother tucked in quiet corners. In her room hung four paintings she had given to him for Christmas the last time she had spent the holidays here. They were a set of what she felt was an appropriate array of landscapes from around the Pacific Northwest: Evergreens, Mount Rainer, Snoqualmie Falls, the large rock formations of La Push Beach.

Her dad had matted the paintings in white with silver frames, which only brought out the gentle earth tones of the paintings. When she had made them for him, she hadn’t expected to see them hanging up in his house. She was used to seeing her work around her mom’s house but never pegged her dad to be the decorating type. The night she had arrived at his house he had seemed so proud of what she had been able to do with a paintbrush, proud to have Sophie Daniels originals hanging in his house. Proud that she was his daughter.

She wasn’t sure how proud he’d be to know the truth of what she’d done.

Getting up from the bed, white sheets thrown back, she pushed open the thick, dark curtains. Outside her window Discovery Bay spread out like a gentle blue hand, touching Diamond Point on the other side. The late summer morning was simple and peaceful, just like every other day she’d spent out on the Olympic Peninsula.

Grabbing a long-sleeved shirt out of the tall, white dresser that sat opposite her bed, Sophie pulled the sleeves down over her arms, covering her hands. The cuts across her arms and legs were still pink, bright, and fresh.

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