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E leans over on the dark, wooden railing, looking out at the water on the lake. Today, her children are set to come back to her for the summer— no, they’d already come back, hadn’t they? She’d missed their arrival because she had been out buying groceries. It’s a little ironic, isn’t it? She didn’t get to see them leave and she didn’t get to see them come home.
Maybe she was being a bit too possessive. They were only staying for the summer, after all. And after that… well, who knows when she’d see her kids again?
(She’s never had to experience VFD’s frankly ineffectual parent visitation system before. Both her parents had died in a fire when she was small. Nearly everyone she knows has died in a fire. Or started a fire. Or started a fire that they died in. Or started a fire and then died in a fire later. She’s thinking an awful lot about fire.
She wonders how she’ll die. If it will be in fire.)
As the weeks go by, she slips so easily back into the role of a mother that it’s like she never stopped. Jacques expresses interest in her work as an investigator (“Not a detective,” she had said, laughing) and so they spend an afternoon on the floor in the study as she recounts some of her sillier cases. She shows Kit her collection of antique typewriters, and she helps her fix up the peeling purple motorcycle in the garage. They take it for a spin after, zooming through the wooden trails with a whooping Kit clinging to her back. It’s easy and routine and almost perfect.
Except with her youngest.
A warm Thursday in late June, she wakes up a little earlier to go out and read on the lakeshore. There are two chairs set there and a tiny, round table, all assembled from blinding white wooden panels. She knows this because she set the chairs out herself. The book tucked under her arm is small and short, but of what she has read, it is full of sharp wit and insight.
Any plans to read it are immediately delayed by the spotting of Lemony, sitting in one of the chairs, sipping a glass of juice from a straw and watching the lake. He is entirely too small for his chair. He practically jumps when he sees her, and she’s a little surprised that he didn’t know she was there, couldn’t hear her footsteps as she approached. Oh, well. He’d learn in due time.
“Hello… uh, Mother,” he says in his little five-year-old voice, and she hates the way he hesitates. The last time she saw him, he was a year old and couldn’t even walk. He doesn’t know her, doesn’t remember the way she rocked him to sleep at night. She hates it. This is her child. This is her son and he doesn’t know her.
How did he learn who they were? She pictures a group of faceless figures handing him a photograph of his parents, saying See those two adults? Those two complete strangers? Those are your mom and dad! It’s absolutely hilarious. It’s not funny at all.
“Good morning, Lemony. Have you eaten breakfast yet?”
“I put some bread in the toaster. I’m waiting for it to be done.” He takes another sip of juice — apple juice, maybe, based on the color — and stares out at the shining water. She realizes that she doesn’t know him either. They’re two strangers playing at being mother and son.
“Okay.”
There’s a towering tree next to her; it smells like an oak, but it’s too tall for her to see its leaves. Slowly, an idea begins to form. They may remember nothing about each other (that’s not strictly true, she does remember reading with him lying on her lap, trying to grab the book, she does remember that day at the dairy farm, but she does not know the child Lemony has become) but they have a whole summer to make memories.
She takes a slow, deep breath, in and out. “Come. I want to show you something.”
“Can I bring my juice?”
“No,” she says. Upon seeing his scowl, she amends, “You’ll need your hands free. Finish it first, though; if you leave it here it may attract bugs.”
Lemony nearly inhales the rest of his juice before wiping his mouth with his sleeve and placing the empty glass on the chair. “Okay, I’m ready! What are you showing me?”
She walks over to the oak, feeling her fingers press against the ridges of the bark, breathing in the smell. This is something familiar, something easy. This is something she knows. “Tell me, Lemony. Have you ever climbed a tree before?”
He has not.
No matter. In a few minutes, they’re sitting on one of the branches, tired and smiling. They’re only a few feet from the ground (she’s not risking her child’s life for a bonding activity) but Lemony looks terrified nonetheless.
“We’re so high up…”
E pulls him close, as much as she can given their position. “Shhh, shhh. Don’t look down, Lemony.” She lifts up his chin in what she hopes is a maternal gesture. “Look forward.”
The fear on his face gives way to awe. “Woah. That’s… beautiful.” The view is beautiful. The lake shines in the early morning sun, and she can see the other side of the shore from here, covered in trees. In the distance, they can nearly spot the faint silhouette of the mountains nearby.
“Yeah. It’s beautiful.” She hums to herself. Something about the combination of the sun on her face and the warm, sharp smell of the tree and the clear, cool air and her child’s hand in hers is making E nostalgic.
“Tell me. Have I told you about the woods in Ontario?”
“No.” Lemony scrunches up his face in a confused frown. “You just showed me around the lake house and told me to help myself to anything in the kitchen.”
Lemony’s right. Of course she hasn’t told him about Ontario.
“Well, when I was around your age, I was recruited into VFD the same way you were. Do you remember being recruited?”
“No,” he says, glancing away. “But Jacques and Kit told me what it was like. How they got permission first and carried us into a black car and things like that. I didn’t know you were a volunteer too.”
Ah, yes. Permission. Yes, S and G had technically gotten her permission, but for goodness’ sake, when she said they could recruit the kids, she hadn’t meant right then . She’d meant… someday. Not when her youngest couldn’t even walk — what value was an infant supposed to have to the organization?
“I was. But this was before then, when they were still trying to keep me hidden. A wealthy orphan disappearing tends to attract attention, you know. One of the places me and my chaperone traveled was to a forest in Ontario. Do you know where Ontario is?”
He shakes his head.
“That’s okay. It’s in the same region as Winnipeg. Do you know Winnipeg?”
“I have a friend from Winnipeg!”
“Yes, that’s nice. I’d like to meet them someday.” Someday, someday. It feels like a promise she’ll never be able to keep. “In Ontario, we had a little cabin in the woods. Because I had to keep hidden, we had to stay in the woods the whole time, and the cabin was so incredibly boring . There were only around two books—“
“Two? ”
“Yes, it was horrible. I finished them both the first day we were there. There was absolutely nothing for me to do, but there were a large amount of trees. So my chaperone taught me to climb them.”
“Is that why you’re so good at climbing trees?”
“I suppose so, yes. We spent years in those woods before I was transferred to headquarters.” She leans against the trunk, smiling. “I think I spent nearly my whole childhood in those trees.”
They sit together, watching the view.
“It’s so quiet up here,” Lemony whispers suddenly, as though he doesn’t want to disturb the moment. “Not quiet, really, but… peaceful. Like in a library.”
“Like in a library.” She exhales a laugh. “You know, I’m going to miss you, Lemony.”
“Don’t be stupid. The summer’s barely started and you’re acting like we’re leaving tomorrow.” He looks reproachful, or at least as reproachful as a five year old can be. “Uh, sorry for calling you stupid.”
“It’s fine. I needed to hear that — the other part, not the bit about me being stupid.”
They share another easy silence, listening to the squawking of the birds and the wind through the trees, until it’s interrupted by a calling voice, and E doesn’t even have to hesitate to know who it’s coming from.
“E! Darling! Where are you?” her husband hollers. He spots her and shakes his head, smiling. She can almost hear him fondly murmur “Not this again…” to himself.
“Hello, Jacob!” she says, waving.
“Hello! There are some pieces of toast that haven’t been taken out of the toaster for a while and they’re very cold. Are they yours?”
She turns to her son. “Is that your toast?”
“I think so, yes.”
“It’s Lemony’s!” she shouts to Jacob. “Don’t worry, we’re coming down!”
“Okay!”
Lemony looks at her, worried. “Mother? Um… How do we get down?”
“No need to worry, Lemony.” She presses a kiss to his hair. “I’ll be there to help you.”
As they slowly make their way down, she takes another look around at the light, the water, the trees, the mountains. She commits the nearly perfect morning to memory. She’s never going to let it go.
(E Snicket is also never going to see her son again.)
(Six years later, a fire will burn down the rental lakehouse that she and her husband are staying at, taking their lives and putting their villa up for sale. The news will take another year to reach her children, by which time they will be already setting out on their apprenticeships.)
(Lemony is never going to forget that golden summer by the lake. He will hold onto it through treachery and loss and fire. The memories will grow fuzzy — a hike through the mountains, a view from a tree, the sun on the lake, a hand, reaching to help him up — but they will never leave.)
(He will have only a few true memories of his parents, but he is always going to know them.)