Coming from an old family of dynamic Richmond southerners, he should have been. He had three older brothers—a lawyer, a television news anchor, and a horse breeder. He’d grown up overwhelmed by the noise of their booming voices. Sometimes, all Jack had wanted to do was cover his ears. He would slink around, looking for quiet corners. His parents had simply shaken their heads, figuring three confident sons were enough. Oh, he knew his parents had loved him fiercely, and even his brothers had had their share of bruises from defending him from kids who had made fun of him at school. But they hadn’t expected much of him. He hadn’t known what to expect of himself. He’d been an exceptional student, but when the time came for him to leave for college, he’d been paralyzed with indecision. He’d had no idea what to do with his life. He’d expressed this fear to his mother, who had kissed him on the cheek in his dorm room the first day of his freshman year and had said with a laugh, “Since you don’t like looking people in the eye, why not focus on their feet?”

So he became a podiatrist.

It was the honest truth, but he found that when he told people that story, most laughed. It was his go-to joke when he absolutely had to attend a party or function.

He first came to Lost Lake when an older doctor at his practice in Richmond asked him to join him and his wife on their summer vacation. He had obviously felt sorry for Jack, who had alienated the nurses and staff in those early years because he’d been so bad at personal interaction. He’d gotten better, but it had taken years. The old doctor soon retired and moved away, but every summer Jack kept coming back to Lost Lake. He liked the quiet here. He liked how removed it was. He liked that, after a while, the summer regulars got to know him and didn’t judge him for his shy nature and the way his eyes could never quite meet theirs. Most of all, he liked the quiet woman in the kitchen.

He had never known how silent a person could be. Lisette’s presence was a comfort, and he spent most of his time in the dining room, near the kitchen door, near her. Sometimes when she cooked, she would bring him out little samples of summer borscht or smoked salmon tea sandwiches. She would set the food on the table in front of him, smile, then go back to the kitchen. One time she even reached out and touched his hair, but that seemed to shock her, and she never did it again.