Lazlo laughed. “Think this through, son. That land isn’t worth anything unless you sell it with Lost Lake. What do you want, some bonding time? We could do that. But Wes, this business. This isn’t a family reunion.”

“And I realized that just in time.”

Lazlo just shrugged. “The truth is, I don’t need your land. I’ll develop around you. When you change your mind, let me know. No hard feelings.” He opened his car door. “You’re overthinking this, you know. My father beat me, and look how well I turned out. Shit happens. You step over it and keep walking.”

Wes pressed the button to lower the garage door. “In case you didn’t notice,” Wes said, as the door closed between them, “that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

He stood in the darkness for several long moments before turning and walking upstairs.

Chapter 12

12

The town of Suley was a strange and independent one. Like most small towns, the older generations were the ones who kept the secrets, to such an extent that the newer generations were growing up with no idea why they were the way they were. Like the reason they craved briny bread and chokecherry jam. Because it was the food of the swamp. Or why they liked to run their hands over the surface of smooth dry boards of houses or fences, why it made them feel restful. Because their great-great-grandmothers had spent so much time keeping the swamp damp out of their houses that their dreams of dryness had become a fundamental part of them, something passed down like bumps on noses and crooked pinky toes.

They had no idea why the idea of someone they didn’t recognize made them leery. And they didn’t understand why, if they sat so long in one place that the day’s shadow passed over them, that they felt like they wanted to stay hidden in that shadow forever. It was because, generations ago, their ancestors had fled into the dark safety of Okefenokee. Deserters from the Civil War and Indians run off their land—they knew what it was like to hide. It was a hard safety and a lot of work, but they knew that it was still far, far better than what they had left behind.

Okefenokee was eventually cleared of settlers, and the swamp people went their separate ways. Suley was one of the places those settlers ended up, a hundred miles west but worlds away. Lost Lake was so named because it reminded those settlers of the swamp they had lost. Not many people knew that anymore. Most people these days thought it was called Lost Lake because the lake was so hard to locate. No one ever found the road to it on the first try.