That was then…
For the Hempsteads, summers were idyllic. Two sisters who
married two brothers and had three daughters each, the women would escape the
city the moment school was out to gather at the family house on Lake Waseka.
The lake was a magical place, a haven where they were happy and carefree. All
of their problems drifted away as the days passed in sun-dappled contentment.
Until the summer that changed everything.
This is now…
After an accidental drowning turned the lake house into a
site of tragedy and grief, it was closed up. For good. Torn apart, none of the
Hempstead women speak of what happened that summer, and relationships between
them are uneasy at best, hurtful at worst. But in the face of new challenges,
one woman is determined to draw her family together again, and the only way
that can happen is to return to the lake and face the truth.
Good story of family relationships, love, forgiveness, and
letting go. Two sisters, Louise and Jo, married two brothers, Carl and Roy.
Each couple had three daughters. The families were very close and spent each
summer at their lake house. Then the youngest daughter, Bunny, drowned, and in
the aftermath, the lake house was closed, and the previously close family
fractured. Louise and Jo stopped speaking to each other, and the girls grew
apart. Twenty-seven years later, one daughter decided it was time to bring the
family together again, and opening the lake house was the only way to do it. I
enjoyed each woman's story, the events, and feelings that made them who they
are today.
Louise - the oldest of the two sisters, married Carl, the
oldest brother. Louise is strong-willed and rules her roost with an iron hand.
After the death of her youngest child, she was lost in grief, neglecting her
other two daughters. She later became very bitter and hard to get along with.
Her relationship with her daughter Charley is especially contentious. She is
the one who decided to close the lake house. She was very much against
reopening the house.
Jo - married Carl, the younger brother. She is soft-spoken,
content to be in her sister's shadow, and seems to be something of a doormat.
Her life wasn't an easy one. Roy was charismatic, but lazy and always looking
for the easy way. He had trouble keeping a job and was frequently bailed out by
his brother Carl.
Charley - oldest of the daughters. She has deep-seated
resentment toward her mother, who failed her at the time she needed her the
most. Recently laid off from her job as a talk show host, she feels like she
has lost herself. To add to the stress, her long-time committed love is
suddenly talking marriage, which freaks her out. Also, her younger sister, Meg,
is battling Stage 4 breast cancer and wants to spend time at the lake house. With
unexpected free time, Charley takes on the responsibility of making it happen. She
does not expect to come face-to-face with her past while there.
Meg - hopeful that the latest treatment will be
successful, Meg wants the peace and tranquility of the lake house to recover
and regain her strength. She also has the ulterior motive of trying to bring
her family back together. She wrote to all of her cousins, inviting them to the
lake house for the summer, hoping that her invitation will be accepted. Of all
the daughters, she has weathered the storms the best. Her relationship with her
doctor husband is strong and loving, and she is the only one who has maintained
contact with her cousins.
Krista - her grief led to her getting involved with a bad
group of kids and progressed to further bad decisions. She landed in prison for
twenty-five years and was recently released. She showed up at the lake, unsure
of her welcome, and determined to make better decisions for her future. She is
both naïve and worldly, hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. She finds
acceptance and love in unexpected ways.
Hope - dealt with the loss and family upheaval by going
to live with her grandparents. Hope handled things she didn't like by ignoring
them and pretending that what she wants is real. This practice has developed to
the point where she has almost completely lost her grip on reality. Everything
comes out when there is a near tragedy, and the extent of her mental breakdown becomes
clear.
Beverly - the cousin who was with Bunny at the time of
the drowning, Beverly blocked everything out for a year. She ended up in foster
care, with foster parents who were able to help her, but she never returned to
her own family. She has maintained some contact.
Bunny - the youngest of the family and the one who
drowned.
I enjoyed the progression of the book, with parts from
each character's point of view, both past and present. Though the relationships
had been fractured, there were still solid foundations that enabled them to be
rebuilt. Each one had challenges to face, especially when it came to
reconciling their pasts. I loved seeing the changes that each one went through
as they finally looked at and talked about the events of that summer and how it
shaped the women they became. I liked some characters better than others, but
all of them had moments when they moved me.
I hurt for Charley, whose life was turned upside down by
the loss of her job, and the knowledge that she was probably going to lose her
only remaining sister. Her relationship with Michael was a good one. I liked Michael's
patience with Charley's fears. Charley's feud with her mother was
understandable as the events of that summer unfolded. I liked that Charley made
peace with the decisions she made. I was not surprised by the blast from her
past and enjoyed the mature way that she handled it.
I liked following the story of Jo and Louise and
everything that led up to their estrangement. That was an unexpected development
and added a bit of mystery to the book. I loved that it was Jo who made the
first move toward healing their rift. She turned out to be much stronger than I
expected from the early descriptions of her. Louise was pretty obnoxious
throughout most of the book and only began to redeem herself toward the end.
Hope frustrated me with her refusal to face the truth. I
especially disliked the way she treated her daughters, forcing them to go along
with her deception, and the way she cut her mother entirely out of her life. I
thought that her ex-husband was a really nice guy and didn't deserve the
trouble that she caused him. I hated the way that she treated Krista, which
reinforced my opinion of her as an entitled snob.
I liked Beverly's courage in coming to the lake house. She
still had large blank spots in her memory about the events of that summer and
the following year. I liked seeing her reconnect with her sisters and cousins,
and eventually insist on hearing the truth of what happened. I also liked how
it was her childhood relationship with Charley that helped her fill in many of
those blank spots.
My favorite character was Krista. She could have come out
of prison hardened and cynical, but instead, she was determined to make the
right decisions for her future. I ached for her fear that her family would
reject her, and cheered at her immediate acceptance by Charley and Meg. I loved
seeing her take those first steps toward her new life by applying for a job at
the resort. She was fortunate to encounter the manager, Jake, who saw something
special in her. His confidence in her went a long way to building her
self-esteem. I liked the development of the friendship between them and how
that friendship grew into something stronger. I thought she handled the
surprise revelation about his past very well, and her support of him was pretty
sweet.
The ending of the book was both happy and sad. I liked
seeing how Meg's efforts were successful in bringing her family back together.
This time, grief brought them all closer instead of driving them apart, and I closed
the book hopeful that they would remain so.
