On Mystic Lake

Annie waits for Blake to call her and say that he made a mistake, but he never does. Her father insists that she go see the doctor because she does not look well. The doctor talks to her about depression, and she explains her situation and agrees to take medication for depression. She feels good when Dr. Burton wants to check on her again and asks her to make a follow-up appointment.

When Annie returns to her father, he tells her that Blake will change his mind but that she has to do something with her time. Hank does not think Annie knows who she is anymore. Hank recommends that she get her hair cut, and she thinks about how Blake always liked her hair long. When she gets to the salon, she asks Lurlene, the stylist, to cut her hair short. Lurlene tells Annie that she became friends with Kathy, an old best friend of Annie’s who married another friend named Nick. Both Kathy and Annie fell in love with Nick when they were teenagers. Annie learns that Kathy died eight months ago and that Nick’s six-year-old daughter, Izzy, is struggling psychologically and has been kicked out of school. Lurlene has been taking care of Izzy when she can because Nick is not doing well.

The narrative shifts to Nick’s perspective. He feels both anger and shame that his daughter, Izzy, was kicked out of school. Izzy has not spoken in many months, and she believes that parts of herself are disappearing. She wears a black glove to cover the arm that she believes is gone, and she only uses two fingers on her other hand because she believes the rest have vanished, too. Nick wants to drink when he thinks of how little he knows about helping Izzy. He calls home late as Lurlene watches Izzie, and she tells him that Annie is back in town. Kathy always waited for calls from Annie, but Annie never called her old friend. He thinks about how close they all used to be. Kathy had always wanted to be loved and was prone to depression, and Nick wanted stability. Years ago, when Annie asked Nick about leaving Mystic, he refused, and Annie realized that they wanted different things from life. She was on her way to Stanford, and she soon started to drift away from Nick and Kathy once they got engaged. Nick comes home to find Izzy there with her doll, Miss Jemmie. He thinks back to his youth. His mother was addicted to alcohol and started to hate her son. One day, when his mother never came to pick him up from school, he started to wander the streets, and a couple of days later the police came to tell him that his mother was stabbed to death. Nick knows that his mother was a sex worker. He wonders who will take care of Izzy now, because he has to work as a police officer, and he cannot inconvenience Lurlene all the time.

The narrative shifts back to Annie. She thinks about how Blake is the only person who has witnessed her adult life. Only Hank remembers what she was like before Blake. Annie goes into town to find some clothes that are more appropriate for rural life in Mystic. She thinks she now looks like a “small-town woman” (80) rather than like a lawyer's wife. She runs into Molly Block, her high school English teacher, who explains that Nick does his job but that he and his daughter are struggling and could benefit from a visit from Annie. She thinks it is a bad idea to go visit him because she is in such a bad place herself, but she goes anyway because they used to be best friends. She remembers when they were teenagers and he said he was going to own the large old home that he now owns. On the night he shared this dream with her, they shared their first and only kiss, and she began to cry. Now, Nick tells Annie that Kathy killed herself.

Nick explains that Kathy was diagnosed with “manic depression.” One day, she banged her head against the wall so hard that she drew blood, then calmy asked Nick if he wanted lunch. He thought that buying the home would make her happy, and things were good after Izzy was born and Kathy was on medication. However, she stopped taking her medication, and he came home one day to discover that she had shot herself with his gun. He is glad to talk about Kathy with Annie because no one else asks about it.

He relates that before Kathy’s death, she started to lose touch with reality and state that Izzy was not her daughter and that Nick was physically abusing her. He regrets not having her hospitalized because then at least she would be alive. On the night Kathy shot herself, Izzy hid under her bed, afraid of the loud noise. Luckily, she did not go into her mother’s room. Annie kisses Nick to comfort him, and they have sex. Annie thinks that he must now be negatively comparing her appearance to Kathy’s. Neither of them have ever had sex with anyone except their spouses. Annie offers to help out with Izzy because she needs something to do after her separation, and he agrees. When she leaves, he has to remind himself that Annie will not be around forever.

Annie starts to believe that Blake will not come back to her. One day, Nick gets a call about a domestic disturbance. He goes to the home of Sally and Chuck; he has been there for similar calls before. This time, he has to stop Chuck from hurting Sally further. Nick tries to convince Sally to file a complaint against Chuck because there is not much they can do if she will not. Sally does not file a complaint, and Nick believes he was like Sally when he was young, following his mother around.

The narrative shifts to Izzy’s perspective. Izzy was scared when she first discovered that she was disappearing, and she knows that Lurlene and her father were scared too. She talks to her mother sometimes and pretends that she is still alive. On the day she was kicked out of school, she was looking at a book when a scream grew inside her. Although she knew she was not allowed to scream at school, she could not help herself from both screaming and crying. She kept thinking about how she was disappearing. Suddenly, the scream stopped while she was in the principal’s office. When her father walked into the school, she wanted to run into his arms, but she found herself unable to move because he looked so sad, and another one of her fingers disappeared.

Annie does not have a professional background in psychology, but she does understand the pain of a young girl missing her mother, and she also knows about being afraid. When Annie and Izzy get to Izzy’s home, Annie asks Izzy if she would like to help save her mom’s garden.

Izzy is pretty sure that Annie will leave once she realizes what a disaster their home is. Izzy knows that her father will not suddenly return to the same person he used to be. Annie promises to clean the house and talks about an outdoor picnic, but Izzy assumes it will be another broken promise. Annie talks a lot and does not expect Izzy to talk back. Later, Annie goes into Izzy’s room to wake the girl from her nap and sees all the details in there that show how much Kathy loved Izzy. Annie wants to get Izzy on a schedule. Annie tells the girl that it is bath time and that she has bought her some things. When Izzy cannot move her hands, Annie talks about how frustrating it is when body parts disappear. After the bath, Annie dresses Izzy in some brand-new clothes, and when Izzy sees herself in the mirror, a tear falls from her eyes. Annie explains that sometimes people feel better when they share their pain.

Nick is at a bar named Zoe’s, drinking to ease his nerves, and as usual, he ends up drinking too much. He reflects on his decision to marry Kathy because she needed him and realizes that love has destroyed him. He starts to wonder what life would have been like had he chosen Annie instead. When he gets home, Annie tells him that she had a great time with Izzy. She offers to make Izzy and Nick dinner the next night. Nick reads to Izzy after she is asleep. It is the only time he reads her a bedtime story these days, but he hopes somehow she can soak up the love anyway. Nick thinks it was naive of him in his younger days to think he could save people, but he realizes he cannot save Sally, nor could he save Kathy. His idealism is gone.

When Izzy wakes up the next morning, she thinks she hears her mom. She goes on the porch, calls for her, and can picture her when she closes her eyes. Her mother is still there when she opens her eyes. Kathy is over the water. Her mom tells her that she will be okay. She goes inside to the breakfast table and wishes she could make her dad laugh again. He looks away from her so quickly at times that she wonders if she is disappearing. She tries to get herself to say something to her father, but she cannot. Annie keeps up the conversation, speaking the whole time, and Izzy likes how the house looks now that Annie has cleaned it up. She makes a quiet sound with her mouth. This surprises her because she thought her voice had disappeared with the other parts of her. Annie smiles at her.