Andrea Ariel Vasquez, or Andie as she liked to be called, sat on the couch in her graduation gown. Her dad sat next to her as she flipped slowly through the photo album as they had done so many times before. Her mom had put it together for them, less than a year before she passed away, and that made it kind of an heirloom, kind of a relic, kind of a reminder of what had been. The pages documented the life and love of Martina Vasquez from her teenage years to just before her all too soon passing, a final gift to her family.
Bryan and Martina had fallen for each other young. Andie was the result of their backseat gymnastic marathons, and they were married right out of high school. Martina was a petite light skinned beauty of Cuban heritage; she had an easy elegance that just made people comfortable around her. She'd been fairly successful as a real estate agent, and Bryan had worked construction for a local contractor until he'd struck out on his own.
The diagnosis had come as a surprise in the middle of Andie's freshman year in high school. Her mom had passed out and fallen while showing a house. They'd taken her to the emergency room to get checked out. There were blood tests and biopsies, and a couple of weeks later a meeting with an Oncologist. Stage 3 ovarian cancer...spreading fast.
The treatments had been aggressive and harsh, and Martina had done her best to fight. It was the Summer after Andie's sophomore year when Martina had had to go to hospice. Almost a week to the day, and she was gone.
Andie cried for days after the funeral. Her dad had just seemed shell shocked and going through the motions. Filling out the paperwork, settling the medical bills and funeral expenses, had exhausted them both, physically, emotionally, and financially. Dealing with Mom's things had been something that neither of them could contemplate so they just left things as is.
Now, in just a few hours Andie would walk across the stage and get her high school diploma. It seemed almost surreal that her mom wasn't going to be there for this. Andie knew her dad felt exactly the same way. But it was a proud moment, nonetheless, for both of them.
Between the chemo, the radiation, surgeries, and palliative care. Bryan was going to be digging them out of a financial hole for the foreseeable future. Although it pained him to admit it, college was not going to be in the cards for Andie. At least not for a while, but he wanted to give her some kind of reward for all her hard work.
He was trying to figure something out when one of his clients, called mentioning that he had several camp cabins on a lake in Maine, and that one of them needed some serious renovation. Having been familiar with what the little family had gone through, he told them they could use the cabin while renovating it, and to take all Summer as there were no plans to rent it again until it was back up to snuff. It wasn't much of a graduation gift in Bryan's mind, but it was the best he could manage, and Andie seemed sincerely delighted by it.
Bryan gratefully took the job, and within a week they were driving his truck up to start work. Bryan looked over at Andie. Her mom had been 5 foot 2 on a good day, Andie was maybe a couple inches taller, and her skin tone was a couple shades darker, long black hair and chestnut eyes. She had inherited her mom's penchant for swimming and soccer, having been varsity for both. A little more full-figured than Martina, but there was more than a close resemblance between them.
Andie was excited. The prospect of having a Summer of sunning and swimming appealed to her athletic sensibilities, but the chance to spend time with her dad was oddly appealing, as well. Just a few months beyond her 18
th
birthday, she'd called it quits with her boyfriend Sam. He'd be off to college in the fall, and things had gotten rather boring with him, anyway.
Sam had popped her cherry, and they'd had sex several times afterwards, but to be honest, it wasn't what she was expecting. It was fine and all, but she felt like something was missing from the experience. She just didn't know with any specificity what that something was.
Andie stood thigh deep in the water, taking an elastic and gathering her long hair into a ponytail, she looked back at the cottage where her dad was on a stepladder working on some trim boards. Dressed in work boots, khaki shorts, and his tool belt. Andie watched him, the muscles of his tanned back and arms flexing as he prized the old half rotted board free with a hammer and prybar.
Andie grinned to herself. He was what... 37 years old, and had that construction worker's hard body. She could see why her mom had fallen for him. Even just working like that his movements had a precise economy to them that was easy on the eyes.
She dove into the cold lakewater and swam out to the float, hauling herself up the swim ladder and sitting down on the edge, her feet dangling in the water. She looked back at the small cluster of empty cottages listening to the birds chirping in the trees that surrounded the lake. It really was peaceful.
After she'd sunned for a while she dove back in and swam back to the shore. Needing more sunscreen she walked over to where Bryan was working and asked him to get her back.
"Hey! You'd better put some shoes on, there may be a few stray nails out here and I haven't run the magnet around yet." He admonished.
"Oh. Right. Sorry. I'll stay here. I just need you to get my back." She replied.
"Be right there, kitten." Bryan said.
There was something in the way he was with her. She noticed it in the way he spoke to her. Felt it in the care he took rubbing the sunscreen into her skin with his work hardened hands. Still so incredibly gentle that it sent little shivers through her just thinking about it.
"There you go, kiddo." He said, handing the sunscreen bottle back to her. "What's next on your agenda?"
"I'm going to get the beach blanket and set it up down there." She said, pointing to the lakeside beach.
Bryan nodded. He couldn't help but notice the sway of her firm breasts as she pointed out the spot she'd picked. He squinted a couple of times as if the sun was in his eyes, feeling a trickle of sweat run down his back. Man, she really was growing up. He made the sign of the cross as he turned to head back up the lawn to the ladder.