Member-only story
Messages From Across The Lake
-1974-
“Bethany, what are you doing up there? The car is packed. Everyone is waiting.”
“Can’t I stay with Jennifer? Her parents said it was fine. The cabin is so boring.”
“We’ve been over this already. This is a family vacation, and the whole family is going. Now get down here.”
“I have to go, Jennifer. My loser parents are making me go,” Bethany said and hung up the phone. She stomped down the stairs to the front door where her mother was waiting.
“Your friends will be here when you get back. It’s only a week. Try to enjoy it,” her mother said.
“No phone, no TV, no friends. What’s there to enjoy?”
“Get in the car.”
Thus began the tragedy of going to the lake with her family — an unimaginable horror for a 14-year-old suburban girl named Bethany.
“About time.”
“Shut up, Bobby.”
“Both of you be quiet, and try to get along for a change,” their father said. “Someday, you will wish you had been nicer to each other.”
“Not today,” Bethany said under her breath.
It was a two-hour drive to Pike Lake. Carl and Donna Clark had worked hard and saved enough to buy a small cabin on the lake. They…
